Hey folks. The Senior Staff were on the decks here in Vancouver last weekend at the fabulous Red Room here in Vancouver, and as always it served as a reminder that while we track plenty of new music, there’s no telling what might hit with the audience that comes out to a goth-industrial format nightclub in 2026. There were certainly some surprising reactions to cuts new and old, and those kinds of revelations are part of what makes the game of DJing so fun for us with over 50 years combined experience in the field. All the more reason to keep digging up new songs, which is where Tracks comes in this week.
Years Of Denial
Years of Denial, “We Operate on Each Other”
We’re admirers of French/Czech duo Years of Denial for a lot of reasons, but primarily for the fluidity with which they switch up their style and still retain their identity. In the case of new cut “We Operate on Each Other” we have a pretty sweet upbeat, minimal synth touched electro flavour that feels both modern and classic. And like all their material, there’s a real clean, uncluttered production sensibility that keeps it bumping in headphones or on a big system.
Soft Vein, “Learning To Talk”
Speaking of clean and upbeat synths, the latest single from one-man California project Soft Vein leading to Justin Chamberlain’s third LP under the name continues the move towards a much brighter and melodic sound. Sure, there’s still plenty of “mood” in the mix, but like “All We’ve Known Of Heaven” before it this points to a real understanding of the songwriting sitting beneath any number of rich, classic synthpop tunes (optimistic or no), and a song about the joy and ease that comes as a relationship deepens is a legitimately sweet thing to encounter.
Stabbing Westward, “Crushing Me”
We’ve said it many times, and we’ll keep saying it: Stabbing Westward are underrated, and for dumb reasons. The main culprit is probably the crossover success of their major label debut Wither, Blister, Burn and Peel, which both got them tons of radio play, but also earned them the contempt of industrial snobs too cool to enjoy their super catchy, well produced industrial rock cuts. Since reactivating the band has been doing some of the best work of their career, and is bringing some of their current approach to their big record with Wither – ReWired, a fully rerecorded version of the album. How is it gonna sound? Have a listen to deep album cut Crushing Me, it should set you up right.
Blood Rave, “The Burning Field”
The Wie Ein Gott label serves as a base of operations for Johannes Stabel’s celebrated XTR Human project, but it’s also brought us enjoyable releases from the likes of Nero, Termination_800, and Baroque. The label’s new comp offers existing and unreleased work from Feudal, Static Ghost, Dildox, and the like, including this very tasty new slice from Blood Rave, which brings vintage Front Line together with more melodic contemporary dancefloor electro.
Ash Code, “Dancing to the Noise (Tobias Bernstrup remix)”
While Italian darkwavers Ash Code are generally pretty solid when it comes to putting out dancefloor friendly club cuts, this remix of their track by the always reliable Tobias Bernstrup brings a real different flavour. There’s a lot of Italo in that octave bass, and the stutter and delay on the vocals and orch hits really give it that old 12″ dub vibe.
I.M.P., “Rules Of Engagement”
The latest discovery of X-IMG records doesn’t exactly sidestep the TBM remit that the label of Sarin’s Emad Dabiri has had as its focus from the beginning, but certainly draws a line between current iterations of that style and a much more low-fi and scrappy vision of EBM associated with second generation German acts like Armageddon Dildos. Very little to go on with regards to I.M.P. as a project other than being Seattle based, but rangy and pissed-off fare like this is very easy to listen to.
