We’ll no doubt be making some mention of it on the podcast this week, but we’d like to mention here that we had a great time seeing a few local friends perform this past weekend here in Vancouver at a private show. Covert Forces, Doom Ritual Bastard and Bare Life all took the stage in a makeshift setup in a secret location and threw down hard, resulting in one of the best showcases of local dark alternative music in recent memory. These are the kinds of nights that remind us how cool this city can be, and how its the efforts of local artists, promoters and attendees are what keeps it going, not templated corporate DJ events. Making a point of supporting your local bands and clubs is a reward in itself.
Pyrroline in the sand
2Heartz, “Sorrow”
A collaborative project between Daniel Myer and Jean-Luc De Meyer isn’t an outlandish prospect on the face of it; the pair worked on Haujobb’s growling and mechanical 2014 single “We Must Wait”. But the first result of a formal project between these two legends of post-industrial music skies out in a most unexpected direction, with elegiac string sections and ethereal pads swelling up beneath a world-weary De Meyer spilling out his heart and pain. Whether further work from the pair stays in this sphere or brings in some of the more beat-focused material you’d expect, we’ll be listening.
Pyrroline, “Eventually”
Something new from dark electro loyalists Pyrolline, an act who have held steady with their particular take on the classic sound for well over a decade now. The sample tracks from the forthcoming Ambiguity do show that there’s versatility in the band’s chosen lane; “Relentless (feat. TC75)” is on the lusher, chiller side of the electro-industrial vibe, where “Day 45” emphasizes melodics and tightly programmed sequences. That said, if you want some of the dark electro good home cooking, you could do far worse than to hit play on the embed of “Eventually” below, you might find it scratches a very particular itch.
Portion Control, “Refugee (Rhys Fulber Rebuild)”
The latter era tear Portion Control have been on for nearly twenty years now has kept the electropunk-cum-EBM legends in rotation in clubs and onstage at festivals, but the opportunity to look back at their mid-80s work, much of which has remained out of print for decades, is a welcome one. That’s what’s on offer on the just revealed 1983-86 – Hit The Pulse to Purge… box set, with the first teaser being a Rhys Fulber remix of “Refugee” from 1984’s …Step Forward, taking the electro-funk PorCon had begun to work into their sound by that point into a trippy 90s break-beat direction.
Midnight Zone, “Natural Selection”
Midnight Zone is a new project from Los Angeles comprised of Ian Hicks and Mimi Chakravorty, with a forthcoming self-titled EP on X-IMG. As two residents of LA’s long-running industrial club event Das Bunker, the music on “Natural Selection” naturally has some crunch and grit, but doesn’t skimp on the danceable rhythms, fitting nicely into modern body music and industrial techno without dipping into the generic end of those styles. Heavy, weird and dark is the order of the day here, and we’re into it.
Frozen Plasma, “Warmongers (2026)”
Frozen Plasma’s biggest hit on this side of the Atlantic (and possibly everywhere, we aren’t sure) was certainly “Warmongers”, a post-futurepop anthem with a strong anti-war message. It’s fuckin’ depressing that the song is as or more lyrically relevant today as it was on release 20 years ago, no doubt. We are feeling this anniversary remix though, especially with the chanted vocals on the chorus, which brings home the song’s point regarding the indoctrination of soldiers for the benefit of the military industrial complex. Cold comfort perhaps, but still a banger.
Schrödinger, “The Void”
You’ve likely heard dozens of cuts this year alone which have the same component parts as the outset of the first single from Mexican duo Schrödinger’s forthcoming second LP: strident midtempo rhythms and downward turning darkwave riffs. But when “The Void”‘s chorus actually kicks in, the very easy to make comparisons are replaced by an appreciation for the nimble linking of classically spooky and lithe darkwave poise with 80s AM rock instincts, perhaps in a manner not so different from how the likes of Terminal Gods and Ulterior did so a generation earlier.
