Feyleux
Phases
Swiss Dark Nights
Feyleux’s 2024 debut Midnight Hearts was a favorite of ours that year; the North Carolina duo’s capacity for tracks that expertly blended modern club-ready darkwave with proper trad-goth songwriting. Their new 3 track EP Phases doubles down on that formula, honing their already very well developed sound into an even sharper point. Opener “Frailty” goes places over the course of its runtime, starting with spidery guitar and pleasingly thick rhythm programming, building up to its chorus through the spooky minor key verses, making expert use of layering and variation in each repetition of a given section to keep it moving and evolving. That kind of songcraft and programming acumen is very much Feyleux’s strong suit, as evidenced by how the dreamy lope of “Mercury” hints at shoegaze’s deep well of feelings and “Shoreless” brings out notes of hope via its bright chorus in contrast to its cloudy verses. The latter song is amongst the best tracks the band have released to date, with an ever ascending vocal melody that seems to peak, before somehow becoming even more powerful and yearning, emotional and anthemic without being overly dramatic or maudlin. This is some of the best modern goth going anywhere, and a perfect jumping on point for the unfamiliar needing an easy introduction to Feyleux’s bewitching charms. Recommended.
Body System
World Of Lies
Oraculo Records
Still hankering for some new muscle and hate a few days after EBM Day? You could do a lot worse than the first release by Body System, a project which was instantiated some 30 years ago by Italian producers Federico Di Bonaventura and Enrico Colombo (whose CVs in italo and techno run very deep) yet was mothballed until the occasion of the recent Electronic Body Movie doc. From the cold jetstream of opener “In Your Mind”, a piece of pure DAF worship if ever there was one, you’ll know you’re in good hands, but as the programming pinches and phases you into tighter corners while keeping the beat rock solid, it becomes apparent that there’s a lot more under the hood. The infectious swing which runs through all of the originals on display here feels much broader than pure EBM, hearkening back to classic electro as well as tapping more recent trends, and that’s really Body System’s secret sauce; the pair take just enough of the tips and tricks of broader techno and electronic production to ratchet their compositions up while still sticking to the minimalism essential to EBM. The way the programming of “No Solution” tightens its already tense muscle at the midway point is a great example, as is the sprinkling of italo and acid flourishes across the core beat of “Insane”, yielding a result which reads as half KLOQ, half Fractions. There’s a slew of club viability here, perhaps most tantalizingly in terms of being able to bring the most stodgy of old school rivetheads and the more wary casual clubgoer together on the floor. Recommended.
