We’re always excited to head off to Calgary at the end of July for Terminus, our favourite music festival of the year, but this year’s line-up has us particularly geeked up. It’s a line-up stacked with industrial and EBM legends and pioneers appreciated by deep scholars and heads of the genres and traditions involved, and has the varied and up and coming undercard we’ve come to expect from the fine folks at Dickens who put the line-up together. We’ll have a full breakdown of the fest’s roster on the podcast this week!
I imagine this is an every day kind of thing for XTR Human.
XTR Human, “Rave God”
Are you checking XTR Human? If not, why not? Johannes Stabel’s EBM project has become real staple music for us in the last couple years, and every new release shows just why; latest single “Rave God” has the same mix of classic body music, but given a very modern, sly makeover. Just check out this incredibly fun video (complete with cameos from a real who’s who of cutting edge modern dark club music), where Stabel hits the highway, the streets and the beach, all backed by an absolutely slamming track that should satisfy both picky EBM-heads and fans of crossover sounds alike. Don’t bet against XTR Human and don’t skip hitting play on this rager.
Madeline Goldstein, “One Star, One Body”
We’re quite keen to hear the debut LP from Los Angeles’ Madeline Goldstein; the lead up to Speaking to the Body has been marked with excellent new wave touched synth tracks with Goldstein’s smokey vocal charisma as a centrepoint. The sound of the latest taster “One Star, One Body” is low-key but powerful, the rich production of Inhalt’s Matia Simovich taking the song from minimal to widescreen, and a bravura vocal that floats gracefully over the instrumental with unearthly presence. Wait for the late song switch-up and see if it doesn’t grab you just as much as it did us.
Cyanotic, “Nothing Changes”
We’ve always respected Chicago’s Cyanotic for their resolute and independent read on industrial rock. There’s never any trend-chasing to be found in Sean Payne & co.’s existing work, and there definitely isn’t any in the death-metal inspired rhythmic chug of this new single, with enough detuned, low-frequency bass swarms to keep it decidedly industrial. The appending of a Justin Broadrick mix to this thrasher makes a lot of sense; slow it down a pace and you’d be very close to Godflesh territory.
Devision Redux, “Your Hands on My Skin”
Okay so for the record; Devision Redux is a side-project of long-running synthpop act De/Vision (found in 1988), where vocalist Steffen Keth teams up with Daniel Myer to do new versions of a variety of classic De/Vision songs. Got it? Good. One of those songs, “Synchronize”, was one of our fave club cuts of 2025, and the reveal of the tracklist for the full length has us excited. We’re fans of classics like “Rage”, “Dinner Without Grace” and “Time to Be Alive” amongst many others, and hearing Myer add his magic to them is a genuine pleasure – take for example the new version of 1994’s “Your Hands on my Skin”, an all timer in its original form, now remade as a torch song of utterly titanic proportions.
Pink Stiletto, “Bananaza”
San Francisco-based one-woman act Pink Stiletto’s extant work has cleaved to a very traditional read on guitar-driven new wave, eschewing modern production and sounds. Things read a little bit more contemporary with this bouncy synthpop number which hits like a heavily spiked citrus soda cocktail, but plenty of hints of original classics by Kas Product, Berlin, and SSQ can be found in all of the ornamentation which flits above the core groove.
Converter, “Domination (Refix by Architecht)”
Serving as a chaser to the still surprising return of Converter via the The Four Last Things EP, here’s a remix which extends that record’s collaboration between Converter’s Scott Sturgis and Daniel Myer. The precise attack and echo on the beats added to this version are classic Myer, while the distorted, static-like granularity of the original remains. Who knows if there’s any more to come out of this unexpected but well-suited tandem, but the results thus far have hit hard.
