With the ongoing protests and widespread incidences of police violence in the US, Canada and around the world still ongoing at the time of this writing, we would like to take this space to encourage you to donate money to various organizations who are providing bail and resources to protesters. There’s a good round-up here and a Google Doc of bail funds here if you are unsure where to send funds. Material support in the form of cash donations is needed, but you can also simply use whatever platform you have at your disposal to speak out. Black Lives Matter. Be safe out there.

Hello Moth

Hello Moth. Photo by Kenneth Locke.

IV Horsemen, “Human Crash (feat. Zanias)”
Via the good folks at The Brvtalist, new body act IV Horsemen has released a single and video to promote their forthcoming EP Human Crash on Fleisch. Less a straight ahead dancefloor cut and more deeply textured techno-industrial track, it mixes harsh singing with guest vocal from label-boss Zanias (who you may recall has released some killer EPs of her own this year). Excellent stuff that has us interested to see what the rest of the release sounds like when it drops in August.

Fractions, “Do You Believe”
Like we’ve said numerous times on this website and on the podcast, one of the benefits of the shift towards EPs is that some of our favourite artists never feel at a distance. Shortly after their sophomore Scars Of Love EP, the Czech duo have another short form release due out at the end of this month. This first sample has the high-gloss production we’ve come to expect, but the tempos cranked up a fair bit, carrying this one almost into ESA-like rhythmic noise territory.

Hello Moth, “Times Like This”
An absolutely lovely streaming set from Calgary’s Hello Moth was a breath of fresh air during this painful past weekend. Hello Moth’s style has always been a bit distant from our usual beat, with a quirky yet vulnerable style that draws from synthpop, but also multiform pop history from the early 90s to the present, but we can’t help but be drawn in. This track from the project’s new double-sided single cinches everything that we love about Hello Moth: it’s unique, human, and not afraid to be honest.

Blank, “Apophenia”
Italian club scene act Blank have been around for a long time – we first heard their Artoffact releases back at the beginning of the Millenium but haven’t kept close tabs on them. After a period of apparent inactivity, Davide Mazza Riccardo Mattioli return with new album Drifting Slowly, which features a distinctly chilled-out vibe from the tracks we previewed. One of them features Elena Alice Fossi of Kirlian Camera, which of course immediately piqued our interest. Nice thick production and slow evolving grooves match up with Elena’s voice in a pleasing way, well worth a listen if you’re catching up with Blank as we are.

Flesh x PEAKi, “Beyond Fear”
New stuff from German witchouse producer Flesh is always worth our attention, and this time they’ve released a split LP with kindred spirit PEAKi. Comprised of solo and collaborative joints, Double Helix points to how new icy darkness is still being mined from the initial witchouse boom. This track absolutely oozes atmosphere and dread, but has a calming crispness to the production that we’ve always enjoyed in Flesh’s work.

Syrian, “Return to Forever”
We’ve been idly speculating about a futurepop revival for a while now, and although that seems no closer to getting off the ground we’d love it if it took cues from the new single from Syrian. The Italian act’s “Return to Forever” has the trance markers that defined turn of the millenium club music in Our Thing, but digs deeper, invoking the classic euro dance nrg and italo sounds that were also woven into futurepop’s DNA.