It’s just post-Verboden as this post drops, and as with every year, we’ll be doing a rundown of what we saw at Vancouver’s dark alternative festival on the podcast this week. As we’ve actually not seen night three yet as of the time of this writing (a somewhat hungover Sunday afternoon), we can’t give too many hints on what the standouts were, but you can expect us to sing the praises of several acts we already know we enjoy live, and several we got to see for the first time as well. That’ll all be on We Have a Technical on Thursday, but you can always enjoy this week’s Tracks post while you wait.
Puerta Negra
Puerta Negra, “Complejo de Victima”
Hell fuckin’ yeah, new Puerta Negra! The mighty Portland EBM duo return with the same hard as nails approach to the genre that won us over on their first two EPs, but with some distinct changes in the production style, which feels especially lean and powerful, and brings out the interplay between María Aguirre and Mark Arciaga’s vocals. We’ve been waiting a minute for something new from them and god damn, this was worth the wait. The new EP Metafísica drops June 12th, and it can’t come fast enough, god damn.
Choke Chain, “Decomposition”
Hot holy hell, Choke Chain is back, what a week! We’ve been longtime fans of the Milwaukee based industrial project, and especially invested in how sole member Mark Trueman has upped his production, compositional and performance chops with each release, all without losing the DIY grit that has defined his work. If you’ve seen Choke Chain live, you know exactly how intense Trueman is as a performer, and “Decomposition” gets that across ably via his pained shouts, but an underrated aspect of his work has always been the complex emotional underpinnings of his material. Those feelings of fear, anxiety and self-excoriating anger match the dark electro sounds he’s working with here, a new angle in his approach, and one that we’re very into.
Cruel Blue, “White Noise”
New-to-us UK duo Cruel Blue jump right out of the speakers with their new single which keeps a tight and chewy EBM bassline right at the centre for the entirety of its runtime, yet also shuffles in a range of classic cyber and techno drifts and allusions. The result’s a number easy to flag for club play but with plenty of texture and complexity. The vocal control and confidence on display shouldn’t be ignored either. There are a handful of preceding singles dating back to 2020 – we have some homework cut out for ourselves.
Syrian, “Void Pulse”
So, last we checked in with Italian synthpop maestros Syrian, they had reverted from their italo-inspired material (seriously, if you’ve never listened to their excellent LP Death of a Sun in that vein, do yourself a favour!) back to their futurepop roots. New single “Void Pulse” is that down the pipe, and cleaves closer to the throwback trance sounds that have been on the rise in broader electronic dance music circles than ever before. That’s not a bad thing at all, it’s a genre of music that lends itself well to Our Thing via its emphasis on size and scope, and Syrian have more than enough skill to bring out its most appealing aspects.
Small Breed, “Rack It”
Like we said above, a full rundown of Verboden’s coming on this week’s podcast, but for now we’ll plug the new single from Calgary’s Small Breed, the first act to play on the Vancouver stage this year. There’s a clever and fun read on both classic EBM and modern darkwave in Small Breed’s style which is reflected nicely in this lo-fi cut which borders upon whimsy but never prioritizes cleverness over beats or fun.
Görl, “So wie Du bist”
If our Discogs skills do not deceive us, Dark Silver Moon Light is the first record of new material under the name of Robert Görl, one half of eternal legends DAF, in roughly twenty years. While Görl certainly hasn’t been inactive in that time with a slew of archival solo material, DAF material, and of course DAF touring, it’s bracing and refreshing to hear him working with a clean slate, albeit one shaped both by his genre defining EBM sound as well as his own solo assays into purer synthpop. Veteran DJ and producer Sylvie Marks, who helped Görl with the completion of posthumous 2021 DAF LP Nur Noch Einer, is also lending work to the LP.
