As discussed on the podcast last week, we’re very proud to be co-presenting one night of Edmonton’s mighty Purple City Festival, specifically the Sunday night showcase at the Y Afterhours. We’re naturally pretty big fans of the bands on that bill (Marie Davidson! Hallows! Devours!!!), but we would encourage folks to check out the entire festival – it’s an enormously fun experience with styles represented across numerous extremely cool venues, and with a community vibe that is palpably warm and welcoming. Hope to see you there!
Years Of Denial
Sacred Skin, “This Pressure”
Hot on the heels of their excellent performance at Terminus Festival, Sacred Skin has released the first taster for their third album, “This Pressure”. The track reflects some of the guitar squall we noted in that performance, a little bit of extra hair on top of the new wave heroics and sweet vocal hooks that are the band’s stock and trade.
Sarin, “Terminal Stage”
Emad Dabiri’s had his dance card more than full between recent work from General Dynamics and Human Performance Lab not to mention running X-IMG as a label, so much so that it’s been easy to ignore that apart from standalone tracks there hasn’t been a release of original from Dabiri’s main project Sarin since 2019’s Moral Cleansing. The Searching Hell LP’s set for release in about a month, and in addition to collecting those recent singles is also offering up thudding, acidic bits of wormy EBM/techno like this, just the sort of thing with which Dabiri carved his rep.
Years of Denial, “We Are the Party”
The ever unpredictable Years of Denial come through with an EP, Love Cuts to bridge 2023’s Suicide Disco Vol. 2 with their next LP Suicide Disco Vol. 3. Like all their stuff, “We Are the Party” is a hard to pin down mix of post-punk, darkwave and EBM sounds, with some slate of hand shifts between them that keep the track interesting throughout. Definitely one of the most consistent acts of the era in terms of overall quality.
Incendie, “Secular Dawn”
We recently discussed the mixed results of Arthur Budet’s recent hybridizing of modern TBM with classic rhythmic noise on Incendie’s Drowning LP, but there’s already something else in the works from that camp. This cut from the forthcoming Dawn Mist EP doesn’t try to bludgeon the listener with links between techno and EBM, and instead links the latter with some of the dreamier and more psychedelic experimentation with electro, EBM, and general arthouse noise which were in vogue a decade-plus back to good results.
Sleek Teeth, “Gone (SIIE Remix)”
We recently talked on the podcast about LA’s Sleek Teeth stealing the show at Terminus this year, and as we’ve already let slip we have an interview with the duo on this week’s episode delving into their thoughts about blending pop and EBM and plenty more. As if all that wasn’t enough there’s a just released EP of remixes of their track “Gone”, which features this mix (alongside other solid work by site faves XTR Human and Kris Baha) from German duo SIIE, taking Sleek Teeth back in time to the halcyon days of pinchy French electro a la The Hacker.
Lys Morke, “Smooth Operator”
Left of center alt pop act Lys Morke comes through with a pretty stunning take on Sade’s immortal “Smooth Operator”. It’s a challenging cover for a lot of reasons (not the least of which is Sade’s effortless coolness), so the Spanish act going the slower more minimal route recontextualizes the song in meaningful fashion, the sleek and minimal arrangement and dramatic vocal delivery giving it an entirely different feel without falling into “epic orchestral for movie trailers” territory.
