Pudeur
Magie Noir
Area Z
Pudeur is the project of Blind Delon’s Mathis Kolkoz and hardcore and metal vocalist Paul Brousse. They classify the music on their debut cassette Magie Noir as “black body music”, a nod to its roots in both EBM and black metal and a far cry from most previous efforts to combine those sounds. The tape’s four original compositions are all rough-hewn blasts of electronic percussion and bass, growled vocals and speedy guitar, all recorded in a rough and ready DIY sound. The results are quite bracing indeed, with the roughness of composition and production producing a tough sound commensurate with the very metallic subject matter; “I Turned the Cross” finds Brousse’s reverb soaked growls and groans invoking the devil while Kolkoz’ guitar rides along a track of thudding kick-snare patterns and a simple three note bassline. In spite of its very electronic backbeat “My Mortal Cold” brings classic extreme metal act Venom to mind, the theatrics of the vocals and the high pitched guitar squeal ornamented by some clanging sample work. You can hear some of Kolkoz’ penchant for dancefloor moves in some of the programming but to be clear the hybrid sound is tilted towards the metal side of the equation; it’s only on the b-side’s four remixes by Undertaker’s Tapes, Chrome Corpse, Imperial Black Unit and Mind / Matter that the band sounds geared for dancing.
MVQX
Social Disaster
Buraco
Hailing from Brazil, MVQX brings an anxious yet pleasantly lively take on EBM to bear on his new four-tune tape for the brand new Buraco label. Things are kept rolling with solid kick programming and a fluid mix of bass, klaxons, and plenty of corner-filling noise that never wears out its welcome. Featuring an impassive and weighty vocal from Ravetop (whose own material we’ve also just been turned onto), “High, Drunk And Helpless” is reminiscent of the layered and varied percussive tracks we’ve come to love and expect from Fractions, albeit with less of the Czech act’s high-gloss and crossover ambition. The combination of woozy undertow and forthright kicks on “Natural Disaster” sounds like the Tannhäuser Gate/Imperial Black Unit team-up we didn’t know we wanted until now. Slowing things down a pace on the closing title track, a percussive frame which sounds not unlike the blasted remains of “Dig It” is filigreed with feedback that could be parsed either as rave throwback or contemporary apocalypse. Some good mean fun here.
