Run Level Zero
Pneuma EP
self-released
The reactivation and now fairly steady release schedule of longstanding Swedish EBM/electro-industrial act Run Level Zero has hardly been an exercise in nostalgia. From 2019 comeback LP Swaerm‘s embrace of ambient and electropop elements, to A Strange New Pain‘s at times claustrophobic and morose read on the same, to a string of EPs released in short order, RLZ mainman Hans Åkerman seems bent on pushing the envelope, and new EP Pneuma is the most outre example of that yet for the project. While beats and programming elements rooted in contemporary electro can be found throughout, Åkerman’s roaming yet recalcitrant vocals and a pervading sense of haunting disquiet are the guiding and lasting principles of these four rather lengthy pieces. The focus on the tics and scrapes between the lope of opener “The Ship”, as well as the intimacy of Åkerman’s cryptic vocals, eschews any club ambitions for the sake of enigmatic exploration, while the long, spacey dirge of “All Chores Done”, in which liquid chimes mournfully drift through weather-worn downtempo beats, brings Dead When I Found Her’s recasting of Puppy’s more melancholy moments on All The Way Down. The pure choral ambiance of “Breathspace”, and the hypnotic looping kicks and overdriven synths of ten minute closer “A Circle Cut In Two” are vastly different in their component elements, but both place their focus on incremental shifts in tonal and timbral colour over lengthy periods of time. The experimental and unpredictable nature of Run Level Zero right now means that little about its future feels certain, but Pneuma works as a sustained and moody exercise in atmosphere.
Belgrado
El Encuentro
La Vida Es Un Mus
Belgrado’s 2023 LP Intra Apogeum marked a major shift for the Spanish act. Effectively all of Siglo XXI‘s speedy deathrock and Obraz‘s fractured coldwave and post-punk were blasted away, with smooth new wave and synthpop edifices erected atop the band’s ur-post-punk roots. New EP El Encuentro indicates that this was no passing dalliance for Belgrado, as the perky synth chirps, house piano, and breathy vocals of opener “Bezsenność” reveal. Squint and you can see some changes a few years on from Intra Apogeum, with the pastel haze of the band’s dreamy guitar lines and Patrycja Proniewska’s vocals being placed in sharper contrast to the synth toms and straightforward disco pulse of “Moje Myśli” than on the LP’s integrated new wave sound; if Intra Apogeum connoted Altered Images indulging in squelchy synthpop, El Encuentro feels more like Factory act The Wake getting into Balearic beat, a perhaps academic distinction which only feels more trivial in light of the quantum leap which preceded those minor adjustments. Still, here and there in the corners of El Encuentro some connective tissue with the band’s darker and moodier past can be heard: closer “Spotkanie” carries a mournful, reflective cast in spite of its giddy-up bassline, and as Proniewska glides atop it the revelry of a long night at the disco fades into a more solitary journey home.
