As we’re quick to mention, at the end of the day I Die: You Die is just made up of two people with day jobs, and despite our best efforts to seek out and discuss as much of the music we feel is relevant to the site’s purview, sometimes releases slip through the cracks, especially towards the end of the year. Plenty of readers and listeners (thank you!) have already pointed us towards a few of their favourites from last year which we missed out on, but even accounting for those we’ve made note of several releases by bands we normally do our due diligence to cover which slipped past us. All of this is to say that, in addition to the slate of forthcoming releases we noted on the podcast, we’ll likely be peppering in the next month or so of posting with a handful of late 2017 releases we wanted to say at least something about. On with this week’s new tunes!

Glass Apple Bonzai photo courtesy of Jill Grant @Take it For Granted

Michael Idehall, “Six Six Sixties”
As we made brief mention of on last week’s podcast, there are several initiatives working to raise funds to aid Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s fight with cancer. One such endeavor is the pair of tribute releases assembled by Spanish label Unknown Pleasures (who should by now be familiar to fans of new and old coldwave and darkwave), with tracks spanning all of P-Orridge’s projects and featuring contributions by artists ranging from Black Egg to Peaches. Check in-house fave Michael Idehall’s take on “Six Six Sixties”, mastered by Nordvargr (not to go too off topic but that’s a duo we’d love to hear more collaboration from).

Glass Apple Bonzai, “A Million Foolish Hands (2008 Demo)”
Having been privy to some of the preamble to Glass Apple Bonzai’s debut, we got some sense of just how long Daniel Belasco had been working on the project, but the new Compendium release which unarchives dozens of demos and mixes from across GAB’s catalog is still gobsmacking. The solid songcraft which has always been the bedrock of the project is present throughout, but it’s fun to check out how Belasco workshopped specific synthpop shadings over the years.

11grams, “Give Me Death (Reincarnated mix by Dharmata 101 remix)”
US/Australia collaborative EBM project 11grams put out a solid debut project last year, one worthy of a chaser in the form of this compact remix single currenly available via Bandcamp. Featuring remixes by Am Tierpark and Dharmata 101 that take the project’s busy, beat-driven sound in distinct directions, the latter version especially which is very musical and groovy.

Klack, “Pump Up The Jam”
Giving Death in Rome a run for their money in the Technotronic tribute department, we’ve got Klack (that’s Eric Oehler of Null Device and Matt Fanale of Caustic so you know) with their take on this 90s eurodance classic. Given that Klack are explicitly an act who pay homage to the New Beat sound that laid some of the groundwork for classic eurodance, this one cover is extra appropriate. Can you guess who the super secret guest vocalist is?

Snog, “Corporate Slave (Seeming RMX)”
We snarked pretty hard on the idea of staunch capitalist critic David Thrussel reissuing his signature hit as a 25th anniversary remix single before we even knew it was gonna be a double, and were all set to let vol. 2 pass without comment. That said, we couldn’t resist hearing what Alex Reed of Seeming might do with the 90s club hit, and it turns out it’s very in line with some of the ideas he was playing with circa the Worldburners era. Who else but Reed would have translated the song’s instantly recognizable rhythm into a sixties soul-clap milieu, complete with twirling pianos, contemporary samples and choppy guitar accents?

Ari Mason, “Se Ignoras Te”
Lastly, something well out of our usual field, some early sacred music as recorded by Ari Mason. A sharp break from the club-friendly darkwave of Creatures, Mason’s new record Musica Lunae is wholly made up of the vocal sacred repertoire in which she was originally trained. We’re somewhat out of our element in evaluating sacred music, but the production and design touches Mason’s added somewhat remind us of Wendy Carlos’ pioneering Moogery. Also, it’s difficult to not enjoy Palestrina.