PDF version - Ground Under Productions

HORROR...CULT...EXPLOITATION
SNUFF
TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE
“This is one of those films that
“...one of the most important
you thought didn’t exist” - Fredrik
horror films of all time” - DVD
Nordstrom, SLASHERPOOL
MANIACS
TWO EVIL EYES
“Excitingly macabre”
- INPRESS
NEW YORK RIPPER
“New York Ripper is a dark treat.”
- FILMINK
CONTRABAND
“Crime saga unlike anything
you’ve ever seen”
- TERRORAUSTRALIA.NET
CONTAMINATION
A hyper-gory, trashy Italian cinema
rip-off of ALIEN. A must see for
horror fans!
CASTLE OF FU MANCHU
Christopher Lee classic directed
by exploitation master Jess Franco.
BLOOD OF FU MANCHU
“...full of jungle action, creative
murders, and violent sexual
sadism” - Robert Firsching, ALL
MOVIE GUIDE
CIRCUS OF FEAR
“Intriguing, Original And Chock
Full Of Twists!” - CLASSICHORROR.COM
GOD TOLD ME TO
“Extraordinary…one hell of a
scary movie!” - THE SOHO NEWS
UNCLE SAM
“A Unique Ride For Horror Fans!”
- ALL MOVIE GUIDE
1990: BRONX WARRIORS
“...the action keeps coming fast
and furious, - Robert Firsching,
ALL MOVIE GUIDE
DEATHDREAM
“A potent and compelling thriller!”
- Kevin Thomas, LOS ANGELES
TIMES
MANHATTAN BABY
“If you’re a long-time Fulci fan,
this is well worth seeing” - Mike
Bracken
FIGHT FOR YOUR LIFE
“It might be the only
whitesploitation film in existence.”
- FILMINK
KILL BABY KILL
“A creepy delight” - Almar
Haflidason
NOW AVAILABLE AT ALL GOOD DVD RETAILERS
DYLON Background copyright 2005 to RSJS www.charybdistarot.com
issue nineBnovBdecBjan
scorn – 12
angelspit – 14
depeche mode – 16
neil gaiman – 18
preaching to the perverted – 20
franz ferdinand – 22
terry gilliam – 24
funker vogt – 26
resurrection eve – 29
kate bush – 30
bret easton ellis – 33
psyche – 34
laibach – 36
angel theory – 39
converter – 40
snog – 42
Reviews: film, computer games, comics,
books, music reviews – 44
Column: canonical fodder – 63
Neil Gaiman photographed by Anjella Roessler
[email protected]
05_
C
Editor: Alexandra Nicholas
Holder of the Fort: Kama C. Way
Sub Editor:
Michelle Smith
Comics: JAn Napiorkowski
[[email protected]]
Computer Games: Peter Hakuli
[[email protected]]
editorial
So the archaeological treasure hunt of life continues. Maybe the
Stuff That Is Worth Fighting For culture-wise, we should every now
and then, you know, actually fight for. Fuck being spoon fed alternative culture by a mainstream media. Fuck the assumption that
The Muzak of Pain is just an iTunes click away. Fuck off-the-rackwithout-thought-nor-care.
The noisy and increasingly crotchety bastard brigade of yore might,
we fear, have a point. Maybe going back to the second-hand CD
sale bins, the op shops, and fabric stores does have something of
value after all, outside of past tense old school hand-on-it-ness.
Not that we are saying “Lynch Emily”—far from it. But maybe we
should take Emily out for a drive around the town for a few hours.
With guys with non-Sony mohawks and a bottle of hard liquor.
Then she’d definitely be one of us.
It’s not as some have claimed, that The Good Stuff Just Isn’t
There Anymore—it’s just that we have to search harder to find
it. Doesn’t that mean it’s a little more special, a little more
meaningful, and—damn it—a little more sexy?
Welcome to the new FIEND. Get ready to slip into something
slinky…
– The FIEND Team
Design:
Jasmin Tulk
[[email protected]]
Alex Hammond
[[email protected]]
Ron Whitfield
[[email protected]]
13am
[[email protected]]
For Ground Under Productions:
Jarod Collard and Kama C. Way
Contributors:
Jay Annabel, Alicia Campos, Brad Collins, Jo
Cramer, Tessa Drysdale, Brian Emo, Aowyne Davies, Lisa Davison, Brent Donaldson, Amber Hastings, Mark T. Hewitt, Ruth Kerr, Cerise Howard,
David Lawrence, Valentina Maxwell Tansley,
Christian McCrea, Ben Parker, Martyn Pedler,
Emily Potter, Tavis Potts, Sally Shears, Adrian
Stephens, Richard Stevenson, Justin Tall, Jarrod
Taylor, Eliza Tipping, Tom Wark, Nat Williams,
Michael Wolloghan, David Witteveen.
FIEND is staffed by dedicated volunteers.
Special Thanks to Sonia Collard
Advertising:
John Joseph – On Campus Promotions
www.oncampuspromotions.com.au
PO Box 1382 Collingwood VIC 3066
[email protected]
p: 03 94198044 m: 0414543634
f: 03 94198644
Web Design: Rachel Berry
[www.roshiweb.com]
Giveaways + Competitions:
Entry is open to residents of Australia and New Zealand only (except
volunteers and immediate families of FIEND Magazine and GUP). Only
entries that comply with these terms will be eligible. The judges decision is final and no correspondance will be entered into. Prizes must
be taken as offered and are not redeemable for cash. The promoters
is not responsible for lost or redirected mail. The promoter is Ground
Under Productions ABN: 80604940282
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FIEND magazine and its publisher Ground Under Productions. This
information will be used only as it pertains to your eligibility to
giveaways and other relevent promotions, and to gather information
_06
about FIEND readers for marketing purposes. Your specific
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FIEND Magazine is published by GROUND UNDER PRODUCTIONS (ABN:
80604940282). Copyright 2005 GROUND UNDER
PRODUCTIONS. All rights reserved by Ground Under Productions. All
images are copyrighted to their respective owners. No part of this
magazine or associated website may be reproduced, in whole or in
part, by any means, electronic or mechanical (including
photocopying), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. All product specifications are correct at th time of printing
but are subject to change at the discretion of the distributor.
FIEND Magazine and Ground Under Productions assume no responsibility for the content of websites or other external material referenced,
some of which may contain mature subject matter. FIEND are not
liable for any damages or injury resulting from: accessing, or the
inability to access these websites or material, or from any products of
services offered via these websites or material.
FIEND Magazine. ISSN: 1448-9295 ABN:
80604940282
PO Box 246, Northcote VIC 3070 Australia
www.fiend-magazine.com
[email protected]
International Music News
Local Music News
Fields of the Nephilim are back! Mourning Sun was released on 28 November
in Europe, and has washed up on Australian shores through Riot Distribution
and your local CD store.
Maybe we’ll be lucky—
the first 25 000 copies are a
limited edition packaging
with bonus track…
Local heathen Nick Cave has been busy this year, with his collaboration on Sydney
Dance Company’s Underland and touring his latest album Abbatoir Blues.
Always with a surprise under his dusty black
coat, Nick Cave has added screenwriting to
his list of writing achievements with The
Proposition, also composing the film’s
soundtrack with The Dirty Three’s Warren
Ellis. Keep an eye on the screen, there is a
whisper that he and the film’s director, John
Hillcoat, have another project brewing. Nick
Cave will be doing a solo tour of the UK in
2006…
EBM fans take a deep
breath, in a chat with
U.S. magazine SideLine, Douglas McCarthy
confirmed that Nitzer Ebb
will be reforming for
a 2006 tour. So far the
only confirmed show is
Germany’s Wave Gotik
Treffen in early June.
A new album? Douglas
McCarthy says “Not
yet”. Look out for a full
interview with Ban Harris
and McCarthy in the next
issue of Side-Line. No
new material yet…
If the creepy alt-country side of Nick Cave
appeals to you, check out this year’s Harvest
Festival in Red Hill, Victoria. In its fifth
Nick Cave
year and good for what ails yer, a short film
festival, and the likes of Conway Savage and
the Willard Grant Conspiracy are sure to put the ghost back in ghost town….
Returning from her seventh tour of the USA, Australia’s diva of magick, Wendy
Rule, is working on her fifth studio album, which will most likely be called
Wolf Sky. Drawing her love of ritual and theatre into her live shows, Wendy
Rule’s music is a stirring harmony of mythic themes and strongly-written folk/
darkwave…
Fields of the Nephilim
Germany seems the place
to be this year, Throbbing
Gristle is treating the Berliners to two live shows on 31 December ‘05 and New
Year’s Day ‘06. The New Year’s Day show will see the band playing live its
score to Derek Jarman’s 1980 experimental film In the Shadow of the Sun…
Those lovely Interpol lads have just released in the US a remix EP. Each band
member has had time behind the desk, and the project is available on CD and
limited edition 12” vinyl. You can also plug yourself into iTunes for a specially
recorded studio session, featuring ‘Evil’, ‘Length of Love’, ‘C’mere’, and
‘Public Pervert’…
Wendy Rule
07_
One of the grandest qualities of the
interweb is that you can use it to
conjure dark goodies from across the
seas, where variety and splendour
abound. While there is nothing wrong
with exchanging your dollars for dinars,
Australia has been brewing some tasty
poisons to add to your favourites.
GO BESERK
Beserk Clothing is exploding around the country with striking
militant designs in uniforms, skirts and mini-skirts, corset-tops, tshirts, men’s shirts, and there’s more to come! Beserk’s comfortable
fabrics and edgy dark industrial prints put the punk in spunk and
are already in stores in all capital cities. Check out the website at
www.beserkclothing.com and keep an eye on the FIEND website for
a full interview with the brains behind the Beserk.
MAME MIA
Stocking Lip Service, Demonia, Heavy
Red, Hot Topic and others, Mame
Clothing will kit you up in tights,
skirts, pants (for lads too), tops,
coats, corsets, jewellery, and gloves,
jam a copy of the latest FIEND in your
hand and shove you blinking onto the
street looking good and spooky before
you can say “Linda Blair”. To put the
icing on the creepy cake, Mame now
has tinted, cat-eye, and blood splatter
contact lenses to help spread the
heebie jeebies. The vixens at Mame
are very friendly, so feel free to ask for
pre-orders or advice with sizes. Bust
open the piggy bank and visit www.
mame.com.au
WILDILOCKS
Missing the giant crazy hair part
of the giant crazy hair and boots
combination? Wildilocks can give you
a different kind of wacky for every day
of the month. Custom making hair falls,
hair extensions, pony cuffs, pony mail,
and other clever accessories such as
striking anime fringes to lurk behind,
Wildilocks has the monopoly on hair
candy for the morbid and the hyper.
Check it out at www.wildilocks.com
_08
MARQUIS DE SADE
Another dark beauty that has just leapt to centre stage is Melbourne’s Marquis
de Sade, creator of fiendishly delectable period, fetish, and club fashions. If
you don’t have a wealthy benefactor, I suggest you find one, as your want
list is about to quadruple. Making beautiful and innovative corsetry, skirts,
pants, and tops, there is a generous range from the simply pretty right out the
other side of naughty. To get you started FIEND has five vouchers valued at
$50 each to give away. Take a strut through Marquis de Sade’s new and shiny
website at www.marquisdesade.com.au
WAKE UP! TIME TO DYE
Even without a ‘Dear FIEND’ column, there are some problems we can solve for you. When you find the perfect dress/shirt/
lederhosen that are not perfect due to their fetching shade of puce, FIEND will be flapping at your casement with a box of Dylon
Machine Dye. Basically if you can work up the motivation to jam clothes in the washing machine you can dye them. These dyes are
permanent and won’t have anyone else in the household coming after you with a hatchet (as novel as that might be), as they don’t
run or stain anything other than the puce, although we can’t guarantee that once you start dying things it will be easy to stop.
I hear it works particularly well on beige. Hands up who wants it? Thanks to the generous belles at Dylon, FIEND has twelve twin
packs of Machine Dye to give away, so be sure to let us know if you would like Black and Cherry Red, or Black and Deep Violet.
CURIOSITIES
Le Cabinet des Curiosities currently
stocks a huge range of Manic Panic
cosmetics, Alchemy Gothic products
including jewellery and home wares,
plus much more. You can also grab all
the goodies from Le Cabinet’s eBay
store!
1B Cambridge St, Enmore, Sydney, NSW.
www.curiosities.com.au
http://stores.
ebay.com.au/Le-Cabinet-des-Curiosities
PERVERTS
Ooh la la! The darlinks
at DV1 have trussed up
five copies of Preaching
to the Perverted for FIEND
readers. Find out what
all the hoo-ha is about.
Great family viewing for
post-Christmas dinner, or
those long afternoons at
summer camp.
Le Cabinet des Curiosities wants to
treat you to an extra spooky Chrissy
this year with some goth goodies
from the store in Sydney. From the
shop’s generous grave, FIEND has an
Alchemy Gothic “Undertaker Choker”,
a Manic Panic “Caskette Basket”—a
deluxe large coffin filled with cosmetic
depravity including Goth White Creme
powder, Raven lippy, and Black Magic
micro glitter pot—and two smaller
“Goth Kits” also with powder, lippy,
and glitter to have you dropping jaws
from midnight ‘til dawn.
09_
Cold Meat Industry
So most people think we’ve been kidding when we say that
legendary Swedish darkwave label Cold Meat Industry is having a live
Melbourne showcase. But its true! On Saturday 4th and Sunday
5th February next year at The Corner Hotel (57 Swan St, Richmond)
you can join the other Cold Meat freaks for this astounding live
experience. Live on stage are: raison d’être, Deutsch Nepal,
Brighter Death Now, Shinjuku Thief, Isomer, Manticle, Bocksholm,
Frozen Faces and Atomine Elektrine. More information: www.
coldmeatinoz.com
AFI
DISTORTED: Scorn (U.K.), Converter
(U.S.A.), Architect (Germany), Mono
No Aware (Germany), Enduser (U.S.A.),
Black Lung (Australia), E.P.A (Australia)
and more, for an earplug-worthy total
of 22 artists. December 10th 2005,
Brown Alley, Melbourne. Tix at good
alternative music stores.
BROLLY-WOOD?
Sometimes it seems to take a
while for the penny to roll all
the way down to Australia, but
Gallery Serpentine are the smarty
big-boots to have realised
that the southern summer and
southern spooky types are really
only compatible with a parasol in
between. Never fear the ‘sodden
kitty’ look; both the Empress and
Vixen styles come in waterproof
cotton for maximum dignity, and
are available in black, red, pink,
white or purple. Visit their online
store at www.galleryserpentine.
com.au or drop in to their store
at 123 Enmore Road, Newtown
N.S.W.
PSYCHE (GER): December 2nd 2005
– The Marquee, Sydney; December 3rd
– The Arena, Brisbane; December 16th,
Melbourne, Dream Nightclub. Tickets
from quality alternative stores or on
the door.
BIG DAY OUT: featuring of particular
interest to us more discerning types;
AFI, Iggy and the Stooges, The White
Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, Mudvayne, 2
Many DJs and Bit By Bats. For tickets
and info for particular cities, go to
www.bigdayout.com
COLD MEAT INDUSTRY (SWE): Raison
D’Etre, Duetsch Nepal, Brighter Death
Now, Shinjuku Thief, Isomer, Manticle,
and more… bring on the year Australia
discovers dark alternative music
festivals. Ticket, accommodation and
band info at www.coldmeatinoz.com
BIG DAY OUT
Anne Rice
SAINT ANNE
Some might say it was always
bound to happen. The Stevie
Nicks of Vampire Fiction, Anne
Rice, has found God. Now 64,
Rice – who has published 25
books in 25 years – has just
released Christ the Lord: Out
of Egypt, written in the first
person by a seven year old
Jesus. So maybe not so big on
the homoerotic bloodsucking as
we’ve come to expect from books
like Interview with a Vampire
and Queen of the Damned
perhaps, but as Rice states in
the afterword to the book, Jesus
is “the ultimate supernatural
hero ... the ultimate immortal of
them all.” www.annerice.com
_10
Every year the pickings for dark alternative seem to get just slightly
slimmer, but never fear – the 2006 BDO has some points of interest.
Tourettes will be playing the Sydney BDO, while Bit By Bats is playing
Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Franz Ferdinand will be striking their
usual pose, but of course the big international drawcards are Iggy Pop,
on stage with the original Stooges line up and everybodys favourite VNV
Nation t-shirt wearing emo band, AFI. Be sure to keep an eye out for the
FIEND staff getting shellacked to the sounds of 2 Many DJs, too! The Big
Day Out travels around Australia and New Zealand and dates for your closest
city can be found at www.bigdayout.com
OCEANIA GOTH FESTIVAL: March
2006, Warnambool, Victoria. With
some huge international and local
acts rising from a rumour to a strong
tenor, DJ’s, nightclubs and daytime
events, this two-day festival scheduled
for early March looks to blow a big
black hole in the peaceful seaside
town of Warnambool. Check out www.
oceaniagothfestival.com and watch that
space for escalating updates.
ANGELSPIT: January 7th 2006,
Melbourne – Venue TBA, January 14th,
Hobart – Coven Nightclub; January
28th, Perth – Sin Nightclub. Check
the schicky micky website at www.
angelspit.net
2 Many DJs
We need: Your NAME, ADDRESS and the NAME OF THE ITEM
you like to win, THEN:
BY MOBILE - SMS the above info to 0400 569 895 (within Australia).
or BY EMAIL to [email protected]
or BY MAIL Send a postcard to FIEND Giveaways PO Box 246, Northcote VIC 3070.
Entries close 28/02/06. Winners announced 07/03/06 at www.fiend-magazine.com. SMS/Text messages charged at your standard pre-arranged
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carrier. If you are unsure of your fee structure, FIEND require that you submit giveaway entries only via post or email. Privacy policy page 4.
)
e
r
u
t
l
u
(c
(schlock)
You know and I know that the recent
practice of Hollywood producers
converting Japanese horror for the
domestic US market (and then on
for global export—oh, the poignant
irony!) is both questionable and
doubtful.
Questionable because it feeds a
market of culture consumers who
are, in their common denominator,
ignorant, perhaps flat out stupid,
unable as they are to read the
subtitling and follow the action
at the same time. (This is to say
nothing of the way it potentially
could block the further export of
the original Japanese story.) And
doubtful because, literally, it is a
process riddled with doubt—the
process can go either way.
Consider Ring (which became “The”
Ring in the US market). The title of
the Japanese original was a reference
to the phone call the victims of the
video curse received, telling them
they had a week left to live. In
the US conversion? It is a hollow
reference to everyone seeing the ring
before they die—a reference to the
view up from the bottom of the well
in which the evil of the curse was
trapped, which was a disappointing
contrivance, a notion that seemed
designed only to inject the word
“Ring” into the title. Where the
Japanese story was frightening and
unsettling, the remake was arguably
just plain dumb—arguably, because
it did well enough at the target box
office.
It is a well understood fact of
Japanese cinema history that the
odds are high in any given horror
movie that the great evil will be
an innocent young girl, probably
dishevelled, maybe dragging a
heavy object or other device with
which to maul her victims. The evil
is close enough to human, twisted
as it is, to reflect a corruption of
innocence—a broken young girl. And
in The Ring? More like Linda Blair in
The Exorcist: unsubtle, overstated,
almost comically made up. Perhaps
this worked to translate the character
for the target audience, but perhaps
not—if it ain’t broke, and all that.
This is not to laud the Japanese
horror cinema tradition with
universal success. Ring 2 and 0 did
not match their predecessor in terms
of goosebumps (although each had
a few incredibly creepy moments),
and The Grudge was just plain cynical
in how it attempted to literally
capitalise in the wake of Ring,
despite the absence of a real plot.
When The Grudge was adapted for the
US, it was actually improved—this
producer saw the point of a script
editor, and hired one. It made sense.
And about $10,000,000 less than The
Ring at the US box office.
And since then, the Japanese
creators of Ring have had another of
their titles adapted for the western
market. Dark Water was recreated as a
film of the same name. The Japanese
original was arguably scarier than
any of the films mentioned here, and
here it is, its Western counterpart
has faded into box office obscurity.
Even if the latest wave of Western
fascination with J-Horror is on the
decline, don’t let that stop you from
hunting down Dark Water, at least in
its Japanese telling.
- The Brian Emo Collective
11_
_12
I
n anticipation of his appearance
at Australia’s Distorted festival in
December, Mick Harris (Scorn) talks to
FIEND about plans, origins, fishing, and
fire.
How far off do you think a new Scorn release will be?
It’s taken a bit of time, in so far as me getting
motivated. I wasn’t doing gigs for a while; I wasn’t
doing anything. I would turn the equipment on, I’d have
a little mess, and literally within fifteen minutes I would
say, “It’s shit, it’s not doing anything for me. I’m not
feeling it.” And you can’t push anything—if you’re not
feeling it, there just is no point.
A lot of people know that I enjoy fishing. Going to the
river has inspired me, and I’ve slowly gotten back into
it. The last couple of months I’ve just been slowly but
steadily been putting together “The Basics” as I call it:
the main bass parts, the main beat parts. I took my time
and made myself eleven pieces that I’m happy with. The
fun part now will be building everything up around them.
I’ve got a few gigs, and I’ll see Christmas through with
the family and try and get as much fishing done as I can
through the end of the year... and by the end of February,
have the album finished.
At some point there was the departure from Napalm
Death. What was the connection to electronic music
that led to this change in your musical approach?
[In] 1989, I bought my first sampler, my first four
track, my first effects unit. It was really a natural
progression from the drums to what I could achieve with
the sampler and the beat boxes. I’d really gotten into
sound as a whole, a bit of a bigger picture. It was tiring
for me towards the end in Napalm. I had ideas that I
wanted to bring in, but it was obvious that it was never
going to work.
I was at Justin’s [Broadrick, of Napalm Death and later Godflesh] one night. I told him that this is what I
wanted to do, and he that he’d seen Nick [Bullen] the
other day, and that he’d really like to work with me.
We got together and that’s it, Vae Solis came through.
Slowly the drums faded, I just didn’t feel the need to
be playing them. The beats that we were sampling and
using were beats that I couldn’t play! We got more
and more into the machines and it was tighter and a
bigger sound.
to do, to create this big sound, but with this space that
you can get inside of. The Swans offered that—it was
big, it was loud, it was repetitive, it was crushing, it
was driving— it was everything. And that’s what I’ve
always tried to achieve as a musician...the fire was there,
the passion was there. Like John Zorn always said to me,
“Mick, that’s why I always wanted to work with you: I
could hear the fire, I could feel it, and that’s what I look
for in a musician.”
You’ve mentioned John Zorn. Tell us about the Painkiller project and how that was for you?
I met Zorn in 1989 in Japan. After talking with Zorn in
Japan, he just said, “Look Mick, I am a real fan of your
drumming, and I’d like to work with you in future.” He
gave his number and address and said, “Right, keep in
touch.” And I did.
He said, “Look Mick, I’ve got a session, me, you and Bill
[Laswell].” Bill was finishing up producing somewhere.
So it was straight into setting everything up and making what was the first Painkiller. There were some killer
musicians there, a great engineer, a killer studio, it was
quite intimidating ... I said, “Just go for it.”
We were then on a tour—it would have been my last
Napalm tour—of America, from April till June 1991.
Godflesh were on that tour as well. Zorn said, “Let’s
get Justin (Broadrick) out again, Mick; we’ve got a
Painkiller show in New York with Sonic Youth.” Justin
let us all down at the last minute. We don’t know why, I
know it made Zorn extremely pissed off.
There were a lot of gigs, a lot of crazy jazz
festivals. I wasn’t able to continue, and Zorn certainly wanted to continue with Painkiller, so he
got Dave Lombardo (Slayer) on board. Excellent
drummer, excellent choice.
I have to ask, are we going to hear
a bit of ‘Boss’ at Distorted in
December?
(laughs) Yes, I’ve got that in
the live mix. I’ve got a
really good version of that
track in there—it gets
the thumbs up. www.
mickharris.net K
When you are approaching Scorn and the new material you are working on, what is it you are trying to
document?
(laughs)
Is this maybe a big question? “Why do you write music?”
It’s simple. I grew up with extreme music. I grew up with
punk music. I became a serious listener of the John Peel
show. John Peel did a hell of a lot for me; he had the
balls to play music that nobody else would give the time
of day. He opened up my mind musically.
It was making the big picture for me. That’s what I like
13_
L
aunching the primal Nurse Grenade EP has certainly blown a hole in the face of dark industrial rock for
Sydney band Angelspit. With a seamless battle plan, a firm creative hand, and some kranky multimedia
inspiration, the new album is off the operating table and ready to wreak the Angelspit blend of excess and
ethics on the world. FIEND puts DestroyX and Zoog under the knife.
If you see Anglespit you know something
is going on, it’s like when a hotrod goes by
and everyone looks. This is purpose-made,
carefully considered, and reeeal shiny. So
why all the effort? (D)It’s almost impossible
to encounter music without some form of
imagery, whether it is a CD artwork or a band
photo, so we reasoned that it would be logical
to pay close attention to the aesthetics of
the music and to put as much effort into the
visual side of the band as the musical side.
Personally we’re great fans of fashion, and its
ability to express and transform the wearer.
We believe that everyone, regardless of body
_14
shape and physical attributes, should have
the right to feel comfortable in their own
skin, and that society shouldn’t dictate what
beauty is. People need to understand that
they can use fashion to enhance and project
their personalities, instead of victimising
them. Visually, we’ve been very inspired
by artists such as James Gleeson, Aubrey
Beardsley, Bill Henson, J. P. Witkin and Helen
White. The horrific and grotesque yet graceful
Butoh movement influenced the visual style
and conception of Krankhaus, as we tried to
create a spectacle both alluring and terrifying
simultaneously. (Z) We’d like to think we are
a multimedia band who doesn’t only explore
and have an emphasis on sound but also other
mediums, such as print and performance. On
a general level, we’re trying to tell people
that they don’t have to follow fashion like
zombies, whether that is in mainstream or in
the “alternative” scene, which can be just as
strict despite its “non conformist” ethos. We
believe that diversity enriches any culture,
whereas conformity kills it, and we’re trying
to evoke in people the belief that they can
create and express themselves in their own
individual way. Having said this, we are also
trying to communicate how fashion
can manipulate a response. First visual
impressions count and we’re using our image
to illicit particular reactions. For example,
would FIEND readers be reading this article if
we wore tracksuit pants and uggboots?
A major visual theme for Angelspit is
images of medical industry: crosspatches,
stiff collars, Nurse Grenade and now the
upcoming album Krankhaus (German for
“hospital”) (D) I’m interested in the way
the medical world has been fetishised, as
the nurse symbol epitomises the dichotomy
between nurturing and caring with the
sinister side of the surgery. The body through
history has often been characterised as
a sanctified whole, with the meddling of
surgery and doctoring connoting a sense of
unease, The concept of the medical signifies
a range of issues dealt with in our music,
such as the contrast between the coldness of
industry and the natural and the effects of
mechanisation in our modern lives and the
frictions created by the imposed structures
that ensue. The symbol of the nurse also as a
typical fetishised fantasy is appropriated but
subverted
With a main-line dose of the ambiguous
raunch of post WWI Berlin, the new album
Krankhaus is warming its engines in the
wings (Z) We’re incredibly excited about
the new album and have spent a great deal
of time on its concept and visualisation.
The new album is called Krankhaus which
is German for hospital, and we were heavily
inspired by the historical events in Berlin
post WW1. We’ve taken fashions of the time
and amplified them, drug and entertainment
references and distorted and extrapolated
them into a timeless period of decadence
taken to a macabre extreme. It was a turbulent
period of change where self-indulgence and
depravity ruled, and this extreme is reflected
in the ambiguous imagery we’ve created.
Musically we decided to push vocal delivery a
lot further than we did with the EP and we’ve
taken modular synthesis to the extreme.
Again we’ve pulled in Graham from Grand
Fatal to mince the guitars so they sound
bigger and meaner than ever! We’ve also been
experimenting with different tempos and
grooves to explore how music can manipulate
the body in movement. (D) We were also
very much inspired by Butoh, the Japanese
avant garde performance style, which is also
known as “the dance of darkness”. What
is interesting about this discipline is the
blurring of boundaries between beauty and
horror, and the fascination people have with
that fine line. This album is about perverse
and morbid entertainment, with the human
body acting as canvas for such events.
Angelspit will tour Australia in January and in
the next two years NZ, Japan, the USA and
Germany with a well-armed tank of music and
multimedia. “Krank it up!” (Z)
www.angelspit.net K
15_
Depeche Mode
sweetest perfection
I
might be acting paranoid, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Depeche Mode has spitefully oriented the last
15 years of its career to disprove my drunken declaration to an unlistening, uncaring dancefloor in 1995 that
“I like their old stuff better than their new stuff.” But in my mind, that’s how it works—Depeche Mode is all
about me. Since ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ first poured through the analogue wiring of early ‘80s Countdown (in the
days when Erasure’s Vince Clarke was a member of the group), the band that most would argue is one of the most
influential—and certainly prolific—of all electro-pop bands has sung to the dark, secret side of a veritable army
of closeted (and maybe not so closeted) mopey poseurs. Emily Potter takes a ride with her best friends.
Martin Gore says the overarching Depeche Mode
sensibility is simple: “Anything that appeals
to really dysfunctional people.” He’s joked that
the latest album Playing the Angel—the band’s
eleventh—should have the subtitle ‘Pain and
Suffering in Various Tempos’. “Dave (Gahan) said
I’ve made a 25-year career out of one subject.
I disagree: it’s two!” But as lyrics such as “Oh
God, it’s raining / But I’m not complaining” and
_16
“Though the world may fall apart/ And the walls
come tumbling in / Though we may deserve it
/ It will be worth it” suggest, Gore insists that
there is an upbeat element to the sometimes bleak
Depeche Mode sensibility. “I never see our music
as over-dark. There’s always an element of hope.
And I hope that comes over in the music.”
In the Depeche Mode lexicon, “hope” is far more
than a greeting-card sentiment. Gahan’s public
battle with heroin abuse led to an overdose in the
mid-‘90s that rendered him clinically dead, only to
be brought back to life to face the consequences
of his action and huge publicity. “All I saw and
all I felt at first was complete darkness”, Gahan
told Q magazine of the experience. “I’ve never
been in a space that was blacker, and I remember
feeling that whatever it was I was doing, it was
really wrong. Then the next thing I remember
was seeing myself on the floor, on the steps outside
my hotel bathroom, and there was a lot of activity
going on around me. I tried to shout out ‘I’m up
here!’ from wherever it was I was floating but nobody
could hear me. In some ways it was very liberating.
Then I came to and a cop was handcuffing me. It
certainly wasn’t a place I’d like to visit again.”
What hasn’t killed the band members—
literally—appears to only have made them stronger.
With the departure of Alan Wilder in 1995 (whom
many fans still to this day claim was the backbone
of the band), a spate of lacklustre albums and
cash-register friendly ‘best-of’ compilations kept
the already plump bank balance brimming with
fiscal goodness. Despite the last album, Exciter,
selling over two million copies worldwide, it was
not until the band splintered to pursue solo projects
that the passion was rekindled. Gore released
his second solo EP, Counterfeit , Gahan released
his album Paper Monsters and Andrew Fletcher
worked on projects from behind the scenes such as
electroclash band Client. “It’s better being in
Depeche Mode now than it has been for 15 years”,
says Gahan. Of course, it may be that for Gahan
this is primarily to do with the creative power
shift that has worked in his favour. While the
public face has maintained––almost unceasingly
in recent years––a united front, Gore’s songwriting
dominance ultimately wavered after the success of
Gahan’s solo effort. So for the first time in Depeche
Mode history, three Gahan penned tracks (‘I Want
It All’, ‘Suffer Well’ and ‘Nothing’s Impossible’)
feature alongside tracks by Gore. “I really felt,
before we started this album, that there was
unfinished business”, says Gahan, and in the
pursuit of making “the best record we can”, the
band recruited producer Ben Hillier (Blur), whose
love of analogue technology sees a welcome return
to the Depeche Mode sound of yore. “You have to
work hard at reinventing yourself,” admits Gahan,
“so you have to choose new people who push you.”
He continues, “Ben Hillier has brought a whole new
dynamic to the group which is quite inspiring.”
But Depeche Mode is about Gore, about Gahan,
and yes––even about Fletch. And it’s about Alan
Wilder and Vince Clarke, about fans old and new,
about the dark and the light, pain, suffering,
and hope. “That we’ve achieved so much in
25 years, and survived so much...”, marvels
Gahan. “Of all the bands, this is the one I’d have
put money on not still being around!” he laughs.
“I see ourselves alongside U2 and R.E.M. more
than any of the bands we came up with, although
really we don’t fit in and we never have, and
I’ve come to embrace that—there’s no one like
Depeche Mode.”
www.depechemode.com K
17_
)neiL
GaiMan(
sPInNINg Tales
O
ld gods and childhood nightmares stalk
through the modern world in the mind
of English fantasy writer Neil Gaiman. David
Witteveen peeks inside. Photo by Anjella Roessler.
Gaiman first came to notice as the writer of the monthly comic
The Sandman. Mixing ancient myths, modern horror, and a perky
goth version of Death, it popularised the idea that comics could be
serious literature.
Sandman ended. Gaiman moved on to other projects. He wrote
Neverwhere, a BBC mini-series set in a fantasy version of the
London Underground. He wrote several children’s book with long
time collaborator, artist Dave McKean. And then came American
Gods, a sprawling roadtrip novel about an ex-crim caught up in the
machinations of old, forgotten gods.
His latest novel Anansi Boys is a comedy about Fat Charlie Nancy, a
London bookkeeper who finds out his recently-deceased father was
actually the mischievous African spider god Anansi. And Gaiman
is also branching out into film. With McKean, he has co-written
MirrorMask, a new fantasy film from the Jim Henson Company that
features McKean’s trademark lush and surreal artwork.
So—Anansi Boys. It’s set in the same universe as American Gods,
but it’s not a sequel, is that right?
Well, yes, I guess. Although technically the universe of American
Gods I think is probably this one, at least on the surface. But it
shares a character with American Gods. And he’s actually a character
I borrowed from Anansi Boys, which is Mister Nancy, Fat Charlie
Nancy’s dad.
What drew you to Anansi in the first place?
The point of Anansi that I love is that you have this small trickster
that gets to take on tigers and lions and snakes, and is smart, and not
necessarily ethical. And he seemed the perfect metaphor.
And also I loved the idea and was terrified by the idea of writing a book
in which most of the characters were by default West Indian.
I was going to ask you about that. I mean, black African myths and
you’re a white English guy?
And what’s worse is I’m a white English guy trapped in the body of an
extremely similar white English guy. Yeah, you get qualms.
Anansi Boys isn’t just a comedy, but it’s more of a comedy than
American Gods. Why write a comedy?
Because American Gods was a great big serious fucker of a novel, I was
suddenly perceived as this immensely serious writer. And the moment
that you’re perceived as serious writer, the unspoken understanding is
that that is obviously all you can do. So I thought, well, it feels like it’s
time to write a comic novel.
And there was a lost American writer named Thorne Smith, who wrote
in 1920s and early-‘30s, and killed himself, who I think is one of the
most fascinating writers of this time, and of comic writers. I thought
Anansi Boys in some ways felt like a Thorne Smith novel. And I thought
it might be interesting to write a Thorne Smith novel.
How did MirrorMask get started? What was the approach?
The impetus was very much Lisa [Henson] saying we want to make
something like Labyrinth or The Dark Crystal. We have four million dollars, and the upside is we will give you four million dollars to make
your movie and there will be no interference. The down side is you’ll
only have four million dollars. And we decided that it was a worthwhile
trade-off.
Or Dave decided. There’s a level on which, where MirrorMask is
concerned, I just feel sort of like Dave’s hands. It was his vision all
the way through.
What was it like to collaborate with him? You’ve been working with
him for almost 20 years now.
I have. And the bit where we were actually doing the film was the only
rough spot I think our working relationship has ever had. We’ve worked
together for seventeen years and we had no idea that our working
methods were completely incompatible, because we had been doing
them in different rooms.
The way that Dave likes to write involves sitting down and
meticulously planning everything out, until he’s got everything on little pieces of paper, and moves these file cards around and lays them
all out on the floor, and when it’s all perfect, then he starts writing.
And what I like is—okay, these are the characters, this is the story,
this is sort of where we’re going—and I will open to a blank page and
start to write.
You like to draw on myth and historical legends, whereas Dave
McKean seems to be very much a modernist. He has that great line,
“fairytales about fairies are pointless.”
I think Dave and I have one huge philosophical difference in fantasy,
which is I consider a story in itself to be a powerful thing. You don’t
have to treat the fantasy as a metaphor. But to Dave, it was hugely
important that the fantasy be somehow explicable and be a metaphor
for what was happening in the real world, which I was prepared to go
along with.
But I also like for example the story about the anti-Helena slowly taking over Helena’s life back in the real world. It was something that I
thought to be really important because I really didn’t want that absolute, one to one correlation on “this is the real world, this is the
dream.”
Was there a difference between writing for an all-ages audience
and writing for adults?
Well, the challenge with making a kids’ film is trying to make
something with enough action in it for adults whilst still being
intelligent enough for kids. Occasionally you read reviews of
MirrorMask by somebody and you go “you really weren’t paying
attention”. We were writing for bright kids who were paying
attention.
Also you’re writing now for a DVD generation. There’s quite genuinely
stuff in MirrorMask, plotwise, which you probably won’t get until the
second or third viewing.
www.neilgaiman.com K
19_
pthereaching
to
perverted
Director Stuart Urban encountered more than PVC hotpants when he set out
to shoot a contemporary fairy tale set in London’s fetish subculture. With DV1
unleashing Preaching to the Perverted on DVD, the stage is set for a revival of
interest in this ‘90s cult classic. Kama C. Way gets laced in.
“
I was working on a script idea for BBC Films about
sexual addiction and someone (i.e. the Peter
character from P2TP) infiltrating the self-help groups
for an exposé. But in meeting all the psychologists
and ‘sexperts’ I was led to check out other areas of
alternative sexuality. One visit to the fetish clubs and
I was blown away. When I found out they were being
prosecuted, and I attended one of the trials, I knew we
had a story—of our infiltrator gathering evidence for
a prosecution—and a movie.” “Peter”, in the employ
of the police, is trussed up in tight pants and stumbles
boyishly into the fetish club scene on a crusade to
prove that actual assault is being committed. As he
moves further into the daily lives of the people he
encounters, he becomes emotionally intimate with
Tanya, a high-profile member of the community. This
relationship and the conflicts it generates for both
Tanya and Peter are the headline dramas of the film,
played out mostly within the meticulously fashioned
homes and clubs of Tanya and her circle.
Stylistically, Urban was influenced by the 1960’s
Batman and early films from Spanish director Pedro
Almodóvar, renowned for his sensitive and complex
explorations of gender and male/female relationships.
P2TP is steeped in the art and fashion of the fetish
industry, and the scenes do bear a kind of Alice in
Wonderland shimmer, creating an environment where
the rules are different but the personalities are just
as sensitive. Peter is naturally baffled to be “down
the rabbit hole” and this works powerfully as an
analogy for the lack of understanding, and yet the
real experience, of people in both worlds. Urban did
have to tailor his vision somewhat to gain financial
support for P2TP, with the BBC keeping its hands
behind its back upon seeing the script, and the film’s
cinema distributor insisting on an 18+ rating before
giving any financial support. Don’t expect to see
any Sony camcorders either; the usual staple diet of
product placement had to be supplemented: “Despite
the fact that we had some known UK actors, pretty
well nobody would place their products in the film
unless they were perv products [smiles]. We would
joke amongst ourselves about getting Peugeot, or
whoever, to supply rival manufacturer’s cars in order
to get one over on them in the public eye.”
“For example, some
lesbian groups were of
mixed views early on
in the film’s life (many
did not ‘get’ the ending)
but now they seem to
all lap it up!
P2TP generated mixed responses among and within
subcultures and the media. Although many members
of the fetish community have been delighted with
the film’s honesty and humour, it has been met
with disdain in surprising areas. “The most receptive
were naturally the fetish and sexual minority groups,
though not necessarily universally so,” Urban says.
“For example, some lesbian groups were of mixed
views early on in the film’s life (many did not ‘get’
the ending) but now they seem to all lap it up! A
lot of females buy the DVD, many more than fifty
per cent of sales on our site. What surprised me was
how hostile the so-called liberal press was in UK and
US. The people who got behind the movie were more
youth, music, and style press. And then the internet
evolved from 1998 onwards and word of mouth built
up that way.”
Urban also notes that since the initial release of P2TP,
fetish culture has had a somewhat more public profile:
“though I hardly think the film was influential enough
to bear any crucial responsibility. Fetish/SM images
invaded music videos, catwalks, commercials, and so
on. And you have the phenomenon like School Disco
in the UK (do they have this Down Under?) where
the clubbers dress up in gymslips, school caps, or
whatever. Before that was only seen as one of the
outfits or themes for fetish clubs, and that spread
out wide soon after.” Certainly in Australia with more
mainstream adoption of fetish fashions such as the
current appeal of punk and rockabilly styles, and
successful films such as Secretary, it will be interesting
to see responses generated by the DVD re-release,
both artistic and critical. In the rain of acclaim and
criticism, making P2TP has not dampened Urban’s
thoughtful determination to interrogate social politics,
or subdued his sense of humour. “Trying to make any
film for cinema in the UK right now is very tough.
I just did a documentary on civil liberties for BBC’s
Panorama slot where I dramatised Tony and Cherie
Blair’s rival positions on the issue, and I have several
fact-based films and TV dramas that I am planning.
Believe it or not, various Australian fans of P2TP are
encouraging me to make a sequel and I would simply
love to come Down Under and make it. It would be
called Tortured in the Orchard.”
From the bad kids at DV1 FIEND has five copies of
P2TP to give away.
By Christian McCrea
T
he militaristic arrangement and deployment of ageless boys from anywhere north of London into achingly taut pop
groups continues unabated. The base of operation is the runaway juggernaut NME (New Musical Express)—once the
champion of off-kilter music journalism sent straight to the hearts of all those who lived and breathed the musical
life of experimentation, melodious relationships to the world, and the sheer recursive, atavistic indulgence of pop’s
impact on the grand musical project. For some time now, NME has reformed itself from collector, to connoisseur, and
finally to a fashionable, benevolent, and slightly bored dictator. According to NME’s wishes, any band with guitars
with tendencies towards pop rises and falls, and if a band lives to see a second album released internationally, it is
because NME allows it to be so.
F
ewer bands have benefited from the iron rule of the
NME’s critical weight as much as Franz Ferdinand: the
four Scottish quasi-fops whose calculated visual style
and careful hook-driven guitar pop liquified any hope
of Joy Division’s shadow leaving the planet any time
in the near future. The good news was that the band’s
breakout hit last year, ‘Take Me Out’, was probably the
most pleasant and heaven forefend, actually musical
songs that topped the charts during last year. The
numbing hammer-upon-anvil effect of radio play
and commercial prostitution had upon the song (and
its lyrical metronome, “I say, don’t you know!”) was
significantly less disastrous than most of the other
sonic caesarians that swarmed over the summer. At
least this time, they dressed well and talked the talk.
Dark suits, foppish haircuts, references to Oscar Wilde.
The inane collusive musical cliché in this case is that
Franz Ferdinand is Interpol meets The Monkees, where
the former go on to bury the latter in a shallow grave
before spending a couple of weeks on the run. However,
if you haven’t heard Franz Ferdinand’s music, then it is
likely you are equally unaware of Interpol’s moribund
earworks, or The Monkees’ attempt at resolving human
endeavour in an orgy of parodic self-examination,
stuck under a rock during the recent “pop culture”
phase as you must have been. This cliché, however,
is eminently workable. In an interview with VH1, Alex
Kapranos described the band’s early approach: “On
songs like ‘Come on Home’, we wanted to sound like
Donna Summer and Link Wray mixed together, but it
doesn’t sound like that at all! We thought we could
sound like Prince too, but what we were really trying
to do was take on the attitudes of different bands
and combine them in our own way.” Moved along by
effervescent pop beats but generally pushed forward
by angular post-punk guitars, the resultant music has
been perhaps best enjoyed with a mushroom jus in
mash-ups, remixes, and dancifications (incidentally, a
real word, bravely pioneered by Funkadelic). Kapranos
and fellow guitarist / vocalist Nicholas McCarthy make
members’ art school background manifested in several
infamously decadent parties in Glasgow during 2003
and 2004, which while hardly elevating the boys into
the counter-couture territory of transcendent wastrels
Genesis P. Orridge or Yoko Ono, did allow them to draw
upon the resources of a small befringed army to spread
the pinstriped joy.
“We thought we could
sound like Prince”
“At least this time, they
dressed well and talked the
talk. Dark suits, foppish
haircuts, references to
Oscar Wilde.”
up the bulk the Ferdinand sound, while Robert Hardy’s
bass and Paul Thompson’s drumming bring up the
rearguard.
While there is something ultimately satisfying about
groups such as Franz Ferdinand becoming mainstream
(the acceptance of scarf-obsessed boys, for example),
groups such as the onomatopoetic !!! and The Rapture
tend to cover the same energetic dance-punk sounds
with more gusto, leaving Franz Ferdinand distinctly
in pop territory that could easily lead them further
into the realms of Joy Division or New Order. The
The self-titled album which carried ‘Take Me Out’ was
a joyous affair, allowing some depth to creep into
the short song structure, but generally shying away
from anything longer than a three-minute dancefloor
marketing survey. With over three million albums sold,
they have kept it real for the fans. The new album You
Could Have it so Much Better… With Franz Ferdinand
has hit the internet earlier than the record company
would have liked. Yet the band is pleased that its
new album has leaked online, “People will know the
new songs when we play shows.” Ahem. Despite
such lapses in speaking-judgment, our illustrious
lead singer, Alex Kapranos, is currently serving a tour
of duty in the Battle of Interesting Band Members,
having collaborated with renegade lounge futurists
Handsome Boy Modeling School and allegedly working
on a project with less-renegady rapper Xzibit. Finally,
Alex has expanded his oeuvre to food criticism, taking
on the role of gonzo gourmand for the UK paper The
Guardian, where he will discuss his culinary adventures
while the band is on tour, also using the opportunity
to wax lyrical about Kapranos’ days working as a chef
alongside bassist Bob Hardy in a Glasgow restaurant.
www.franzferdinand.co.uk K
23_
CHASING WINDMILLS
TERRY GILLIAM
T
he best film Terry Gilliam never made is the one we all know the story of—the ex-Monty Python guy
with the Big Dreams that Hollywood Will Just Never Appreciate. Art films on blockbuster budgets would
seem to most, at the very least, a tad ambitious (not to mention fiscally unhinged), but for Gilliam’s metathemes of love, history, beauty, and an overwhelming disdain for both the office and the test tube, he has
time and time again shown that the two are not mutually exclusive. By Emily Potter
N
ow 65 years old, the young Gilliam grew up in Los
Angeles and despite studying physics and politics at
university, his passion remained with drawing, which he
had begun in his boyhood. After some time working in
advertising and bumming around Europe, the political
climate in the United States so disillusioned the young
Gilliam that he moved permanently to the United
Kingdom. Gilliam’s cartoons soon popped up on Do Not
Adjust Your TV Set with Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael
Palin, all of whom he soon joined on the now legendary
Monty Python’s Flying Circus series and consequent films.
It was with the comedy group that Gilliam’s directorial
pursuits began, assisting Terry Jones on Monty Python
and the Holy Grail (1975). He soon followed with
Jabberwocky (1977), Time Bandits (1981), The Crimson
Permanent Assurance (1983), and Brazil (1985). The
latter was plagued with notorious production and studio
problems, where Gilliam’s determination to follow his
vision frequently stood in direct contrast to the wishes
of the mainstream-friendly Hollywood machine. The black
humour and dark sensibility that Gilliam felt so integral
to the story of Brazil may have negatively influenced boxoffice takings, but the film’s status as a cult masterpiece
has remained constant.
His reputation suffered even further blows within the
industry with the spectacular flop of his following film,
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1989). While
ambitious and, some could argue, perhaps ahead of its
time, the budget for the film was so spectacularly blownout that even today it still marks a place in the history
of monumental film flops. The Fisher King (1991)—with
the combination of Gilliam’s sweetly dark humour and
Robin Williams’s token whimsical charm—repaired much
of the damage of Munchausen, setting the stage for
Gilliam to produce the gloriously scathing Twelve Monkeys
_24
(1995) and the film adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s
classic Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) (both
assisted in the credibility stakes via the star inclusion
of alleged mainstream hornbags Brad Pitt and Johnny
Depp). Recalling the Ghost of Financial Debacles Past,
his Don Quixote film project became the central focus
of the documentary Lost in La Mancha (2002), where
the ill-fate that danced around the edges of Brazil and
Baron Munchausen went the proverbial distance, the
project folding within less than a fortnight of shooting
beginning.
Considering his somewhat illustrious history with behind
the scenes conflict, it was little surprise when rumours of
tensions between Gilliam and Miramax heads Harvey and
Bob Weinstein began to circulate in the press in regards
to his recent film Brothers Grimm. “The important thing
is that they really like the film now,” Gilliam tells Phil
Stubbs. “A year ago we reached the point where there was
great disagreement about what the film was. And rather
than doing what you normally do: i.e. have a head butt
contest, and the biggest ego wins, and the film suffers,
I went away I went away and did Tideland (yet to have
Australian distribution) to let the air clear, go back to
our quarters. And come six months later, they asked me
to finish the film, so I’ve done it. And it’s good.” And
the response, box-office wise at least, has been positive.
While critics have been somewhat cool, the material is
far from Gilliam’s signature bleakness— the film stars
Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the beloved fairy
tale authors. Combining the brothers’ reality with their
imaginative work, Grimm is for many Gilliam’s equivalent
of Tim Burton’s Big Fish.
Perhaps ironically, the very public history of Gilliam’s
misfortune with the financial aspects of film making
has itself become an intrinsic aspect of the critical
reception to a “Gilliam Film”™. While Lou Lumenick of
the New York Post suggests that “this aimless epic about
a pair of charlatan brothers sinks under the weight of
a problematic script, questionable star casting, [and]
hamfisted editing,” the primary problems seem to stem
from “penny-pinching by Gilliam’s latest patrons, the
Brothers Weinstein.” The story of Brothers Grimm—just
like the story of the Don Quixote project, Brazil and Baron
Munchausen—will always be if not tainted, then at least
gently hued, by Gilliam’s history. So, Stubbs asks, does
that make dealing with the press more difficult? Gilliam is
his usual unrelenting self: “I’ll say that there is no sense
of history in America… That’s the great thing about
America: history has no meaning. So we might as well
forget history while I’m in America.”
inha
t
s anc
o
L aM
L
“
There’s got to be change.
I keep feeling like nineteenth century
academic painting. You’d see the
huge canvasses—they’re brilliant, the
technique is brilliant—horses, the
people, the battles. They’re fantastic,
but you don’t respond to them and along
came people like the Impressionists.
Which must have looked incredibly
bizarre and crude, but suddenly there
was stuff there that grabbed
the imagination again.
And I just keep feeling that it
has to happen in films.
”
25_
F
unker Vogt jumps to a military tattoo on its sixth and latest album Navigator, celebrating (to the sound of bloodshed and
bugles of course) ten years of infiltration and Weapons of Mass ear-Deterioration. In 1995, the EBM world hit a strange lull, and
required invigoration. The group was initially a side-project for Gerrit Thomas’s Ravenous, collaborating with singer Jens Kastel and
lyrcist Kai Schmidt (for trivia lovers, Kai studied Zoology at Sydney University many moons ago). Little did anyone suspect that Funker
Vogt (Funker translates to “radio operator” while Vogt was taken from a friend’s name) would rapidly rise to the top of the EBM scene
and lay the path for modern EBM. Jarod Collard taps out some top secret Morse code with Gerrit and Kai…
I
couldn’t resist but open up the interview with the
question, “War, what is it good for?” Unfortunately
Australian sarcasm does tend to get a little lost over Morse
code, and really, any EBM fan worth their cargo pants
knows, “For (us) and most civilians it’s good for nothing,
for politicians it keeps their economy alive!…for parts of
industry there is nothing better then a war to revive business,” which is why our western world is at continuous
war because our global economy thrives upon it!
So ten years, 20-something releases, Funker Vogt
unashamedly sticks heavily to the war motif. On
Navigator we are re-visited by the conceptual character of the “Tragic Hero” (originally found on the third
album Execution Tracks). “The revival of the hero can
only be seen as a synonym for ‘reviving’ the band after three years. But the band never was dead—we had
different releases in between the two albums. He is a
completely fictitious character from my fantasy and has
not much to do with real life. On the other hand, you can
transport the ideas behind the stories of the tragic hero
to your own reality, and draw conclusions from it for your
own life. Or you can be happy with the song and fantasy-
_26
tale narrated within.”
If you’re a bit of the synthesiser geek, then you’re
“So, now I have to say
‘Thanks for buying my
records’ instead of
‘Thanks for nothing!’”
bound to have picked up on the increasingly
complex layers and unique sounds littered throughout
a Funker Vogt album. Immersing yourself into these
albums quickly reveals new elements to satiate even
the harshest critic—and I couldn’t resist asking Gerrit
what he misses about his young and naïve approach
to music production: “Nothing! I’m happy about the
fact that I own a complete studio (now) and that I’m
able to use all this equipment. When I remember the
time we recorded the first album my face just gets a
little smile. So, now I have to say ‘Thanks for buying
my records’ instead of ‘Thanks for nothing!’” And does
Kai feel stigmatised constantly writing about war? “As
important as it is for me to write about wars, there are
lots of other things I consider worth writing about.
That is why we have more personal songs on the new
album like ‘House of Sorrows’ and ‘No Tomorrow’, or even
the songs written by the other band members like ‘Fuer
Dich’ [‘For You’] and ‘Vorwaerts’ [‘Forwards’].”
So are you tragic? Or a hero? I ask myself these
questions everyday, usually to a response of hideous
laughter coming from the walls—but you get that—so
what does this leave for the tragic heroes inside all
of us? “I hope that … Funker Vogt’s future is looking rather bright! Despite everything going on in our
world, we should never forget to live our life, and this
can sometimes be a hard task on its own. So, always
remember to have some fun as well. There is just one direction in your life: ‘Vorwaerts’!” www.funkervogt.de K
photos by Axel Jusseit
war. what is it good for?
FUNKER FACT 01: EBM
Okay, so where does EBM come from? Originally given the
brand by Front 242 to describe the group’s cutting edge
synthesisers, obtuse vocals, and strong dance rhythms in
1984, it stands for “Electronic Body Music” (alright—now
that you’ve stopped laughing—it’s music to throw your body
around to). EBM is traditionally a European phenomenon.
Here’s just a few EBM acts that FIEND readers might be
familiar with: Nitzer Ebb, The Klinik, Leæther Strip, :wumpscut:, Suicide Commando, Feindflug, and Grendel. Today
EBM is heavy, distorted, with angry vocals, vague song
structures, sometimes catchy melodies and synth lines, but
most importantly…always good for body smashing!
FUNKER FACT 02: Krieg [War]
For most EBM bands, and Funker Vogt more than others, war
is a major topic of conversation. But does this mean these
people advocate war? Very, very, very rarely. It is through
the awareness and acknowledgement of dastardly deeds that
we can personally, and socially, grow—and well, it’s a good
thing to be angry about and some of it is just damn cool,
okay?
FUNKER FACT 03: Discography
1996: Thanks for Nothing (CD)
One of four albums re-released recently in a smooth
digi-pack and with two bonus tracks ‘Thanks for
Nothing (Body Rapture)’ and ‘A New Beginning (In
Between)’. Certainly the group’s rawest album, it packs a
nasty kick that’s highly recommended. While it’s EBM and
relatively dancefloor oriented for the time of its release, you
would really struggle to notice it as such today!
1997: Words of Power (EP) Deleted
1997: Take Care (MCD) Deleted
1997: We Come to Kill (CD)
Who does the second re-release work for? Most fans would
call this Funker Vogt’s peak— hardcore and raw, yet starting
to define itself with massive dancefloor punch on ‘Take Care!’
and ‘Killing Fields’. The repackaged WCTK comes with the bonus tracks ‘Time of Dreams [Heart-Core]’ and ‘Take Care! (US)’.
1998: Killing Time Again (EP) Deleted
1998: Killing Time Again (2CD EP) US Release
1998: Execution Tracks (CD)
With number three, Funker Vogt’s trademark formula starts to
shine through. I asked a fellow DJ which song to play from
this release and he replied, “Pick a track at random; they all
kick your (army) boots into the air.” That said, ‘Tragic Hero’s’
signature trumpet hooks never fail. Execution Tracks comes
home with two bonuses ‘Civil War (Vogt Scope)’ and my all
time fave ‘Martian on the Moon’.
1998: Tragic Hero (MCD) Deleted
1998: Remix Wars: Funker Vogt vs. Velvet Acid Christ (EP)
1999: Live Execution (Video) Deleted
2000: Gunman (MCD) Deleted
2000: Maschine Zeit (CD)
Re-release number four really bolstered Funker Vogt’s popularity on Australian dancefloors, with the iconic single ‘Gunman’ (in some states this one even has dance moves!) and
the floor-smashing title track, as well as a splattering of other songs that DJs could never decide on. Bonus tracks: ‘Black
Market Dealers (Stop Mix)’ and ‘The Last (Survival Tour)’.
2000: t (DCD)
2001: Subspace (MCD)
2001: Code 7477 (EP)
2002: Date of Expiration (MCD) Deleted
2002: Survivor (CD)
2002: ‘Red Queen’ (CDS) Deleted
2003: Revivor (remixes) (CD)
2004: Always + Forever Vol. 1 (2CD)
Along with the album re-releases is this tops double CD (what
“we” in the industry call a “too-fah”) bringing back into the
light the very long deleted singles ‘Words of Power’, ‘Take
Care’, ‘Killing Time Again’, and a massive nine bonus tracks.
2005: ‘Fallen Hero’ (CDS)
2005: Navigator (CD)
FUNKER FACTS 04: Side projects
A true understanding of the subtleties of Funker Vogt
comes from knowing the side-projects…
Ravenous
Originally meant to be the “main” project, label and legal
issues put this more popular sounding synthpop project on
the backburner
1996: Mass Mental Cruelty (CD) Deleted
1998: No Retreat and No Surrender (CD) Deleted
1999: ‘Silverray’ (CDS) Deleted
2000: Phoenix
Fictional
A slightly more subdued synthpop project
2000: Fictitious (CD)
2003: Fiction (CD)
Fusspils 11
Whoever said Germans don’t have a sense of humour
obviously doesn’t know any Germans. The “gag-a-secondschlager” music side project means you can have great fun
filled evening with these CDs and a translation book!
2002: Gib Ihr Einen Namen (CD) (aka Give Her a Name)
2005: Elektro-Polizei (CD) (aka Electronic Police)
27_
: keeping the faith
resurrection eve
S
elf-confessed fanboy David Foreman of Melbourne band Tankt takes us
through his journey with fellow electro-superstars, Resurrection Eve.
I
t’s been a fascinating experience watching the growth
of Resurrection Eve. I first encountered the band back
in 1999 at the now-defunct Punters Club in Melbourne.
On that July evening the band performed to a crowd of
about 40 people, but it may as well have been 1000. I was
dragged along by a friend and was instantly captivated by
the group’s energy and sound. At that stage they were a
synth-tinged goth band and had something about them
which hinted of greatness to come. Resurrection Eve
hasn’t quite conquered the world yet, but there is every
chance that the stunning new CD Ascension will add fuel
to a growing fire.
Mark Railton and Jordan Robbins have endured enough to
kill off most other bands. They’ve split up; reformed; even
punched each other up—once, classically, in the front row
during an IKON gig. Somehow,
though, through all the dramas
that have tested the band’s
development, their unique
writing partnership has endured.
They have both mellowed too as
they’ve discovered how precious
this symbiosis is. “We now have
a mutual respect for each other’s
lifestyles and musical talents,
plus the fact that we have
dedicated a lot of time into
Resurrection Eve over the years,” Mark explains of the
group’s longevity. “Every band is going to have ups and
downs. I prefer to look on the good side, at the things
we have achieved and are going to achieve.” Jordan
elaborates: “I love the music Mark creates. It inspires and
moves me to express something from my heart. Sharing
that with someone tends to keep you together through
most anything.”
radical change in environment has had a hugely positive
impact. Both draw on the calming influence of the forest
for their creativity, and on the influence of the sounds
around them.
However, don’t expect Ascension to be a chill-out album,
as Mark still has half an ear on club culture. “An idea
might come from a sound I hear in a song, or in a cool
kick drum at a club. But I also do a lot of my writing just
playing with synths or with other people. I love writing
songs, and I especially enjoy the times we have in creating
songs from scratch to finish.” Jordan also benefited from
the freedom of working in the hills. I remember watching
him run through some relaxed vocal takes at his home
in the dead of the night, as we watched a chubby spider
slowly make his way across the floorboards towards us.
For Jordan, writing and
recording
have
become
intuitive processes in the last
few years. Indeed, the days of
smashing vending machines
during
frustrating
studio
sessions are long gone. “With
Ascension I tried to capture
first hand my response to
the music by pressing record
and singing to the music on
the first time I heard it. That
process allowed me to respond genuinely and without
any preconceived connotations.” The passion and energy
of Resurrection Eve is still very much evident, but the
means of expression has changed. Mind you, Mark still
has a good chuckle when I bring up the vending machine
incident. “How do you remember that?” he laughs.
“Every band is going to
have ups and downs. I
prefer to look on the
good side, at the things
we have achieved and
are going to achieve.”
Having experienced the European live circuit firsthand
in 2003, with rave reviews under their belt, Mark and
Jordan returned to Australia with new found confidence.
The batch of songs that subsequently grew out of this
period has now blossomed into Ascension. For the first
time, writing and recording became an enjoyable and
relatively quick experience. Mark and Jordan now live in
the hills east of Melbourne at the aptly named Ferntree
Gully and Ferny Creek, and choose to do their recording
and mixing there, as opposed to their usual studio
alongside Melbourne’s busy railway freight yards. This
Resurrection Eve represents a clash of contrasts,
of powerful, sometimes conflicting, emotions and
personalities. They represent a struggle that seems
to transcend just being in a band. It’s about making
great art out of something bigger than the individual.
Ascension is epic and intimate at the same time and it
forms a mature and cohesive piece of work. While their
sound leaves some people cold, for those who feel
them, and for Mark and Jordan themselves, that really
doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things—it’s being
part of the grand scheme of things itself that counts.
www.resurrectioneve.com K
RELEASES
Ascension
Nov 2005
Rapture
Jan 2005
Ancient Curse
June 2004
_30
“Art comes from a very inner part of the self, which is
usually quite distant from the everyday life, even when
speaking about real things as cities or places.”
ven in the heyday of her time in the public eye
Ein the 1980s, Kate Bush was always something
of an enigma. Considering she wrote a song
called ‘The Man With the Child in His Eyes’ in her
mid-teens and sang, clad in naught more than
suggestive, peacock-feathered warrior attire about
a stale marriage not too long after, time has never
factored into the Bush universe quite like it has
for us mere mortals. So while a twelve-year gap
between albums may seem a little exorbitant for
the majority of performers, for Kate Bush it seems
only natural. Days, weeks and years may tick by
for us, but Bush floats from ethereal moment to
ethereal moment.
Or does she? Perhaps the legend of the Anglo-Goddess-of-Floaty-Frocks is not so grounded in her
actual reality as we’ve led ourselves to believe. “I
suppose I do think I go out of my way to be a very
normal person and I just find it frustrating that
people think that I’m some kind of weirdo reclusive
that never comes out into the world,” she told Tom
Doyle with the release of her eighth album, Ariel.
“I mean, there were so many times I thought, ‘I’ll
have the album finished this year, definitely, we’ll
get it out this year.’ Then there were a couple of
years where I thought, ‘I’m never gonna do this’.
If I could make albums quicker, I’d be on a roll,
wouldn’t I? Everything just seems to take so much
time. I don’t know why. Time ...evaporates.” Now
47 years old, the decade-plus spent away from the
public eye was far from production-free for Bush,
who had her first child Albert (the inspiration for
the track ‘Bertie’ on the new album) and has raised
him nanny-free and far from the celebrity fiction
of motherhood as could be. “For the last 12 years,
I’ve felt really privileged to be living such a normal
life,” she continues. “It’s so a part of who I am. It’s
so important to me to do the washing, do the Hoovering. Friends of mine in the business don’t know
how dishwashers work. For me, that’s frightening.
I want to be in a position where I can function as
a human being: even more so now where you’ve
got this sort of truly silly preoccupation with celebrities. Just because somebody’s been in an ad
on TV, so what? Who gives a toss?”
It is precisely this hands-on approach that has
not only lead to a back catalogue of breathtaking technical mastery (Bush is renowned as being
almost obsessive-compulsive in her attention to
every miniscule detail of the production process
of her material), but has sparked a constant theme
in her work, which Doyle succinctly defines as “the
magic of the everyday”. It is the space between life
and art that Bush’s work occupies, refusing consistently to choose one over the other. “Art comes
from a very inner part of the self, which is usually
quite distant from the everyday life, even when
speaking about real things as cities or places,” she
told Gino Castaldo. “I don’t know if this is like a
dream, but a piece of music isn’t real life at all.”
One of Ariel’s highlight tracks ‘Mrs Bartolozzi’ may
take a mundane aspect of day-to-day life, but it is
Bush’s signature treatment— one with which frequent attempts to mimic have consistently failed
to register—that procures a sort of ancient magical force. “I liked the idea of it being a very small
subject. Clothes are such a strong part of who a
human being is. You know, skin cells, the smell.
Somebody thought that maybe there’d been this
murder going on, I thought that was great. I love
the ambiguity.”
“I’ve always included members of my family and
friends into my music. My creativity has a lot to
do with what I am,” she told Cataldo. The ballad ‘A Coral Room’ concerns the death of Bush’s
mother who died before her previous album, The
Red Shoes, but which Bush had been too sensitive to address at the time. “I think it’s a long
time before you can go anywhere near it because
it hurts too much,” she told Doyle. “I’ve read a
couple of things that I was sort of close to having
a nervous breakdown. But I don’t think I was. I
was very, very tired. It was a really difficult time.”
“Everything I write tells something about me,” she
continues to tell Cataldo. “‘A Coral Room’…is very,
very personal indeed…When I wrote it I was afraid
it was maybe too personal, but all the friends who
had a listen told me it is such a beautiful song,
so at last I decided to be brave and put it into
the album.”
Beauty, and magic, for Bush is very much where
you find it. “I think hip-hop is a bit like contemporary poetry, spoken words, someone trying to say
something,” she said to Doyle, but hastens to add
that her own experience with music has shifted.
“When I was a younger music had a huge impact
on me. I’m too old now to be able to judge its
importance on young people nowadays.”
– Amber Hastings
www.katebush.com K
31_
: spiritchaser
bret easton ellis
A
cross his six books Bret Easton Ellis has remained not only cutting-edge
(a loaded and frequently abused term in contemporary fiction), but
aggressively relevant. His notoriety peaked with the publication in the ‘90s of
American Psycho (and later, reinvigorated by the Mary Harron film adaptation
starring Christian Bale that spawned new fans, critics and Patrick Bateman
action figures). The latest effort Lunar Park traces the career of post-American
Psycho “Bret Easton Ellis”, but don’t for a moment mistake this as simple ‘this
is your life’ terrain. “I can’t call it an autobiographical novel,” he told Daniel
Robert Epstein, “but it is in the end it is because all novels are autobiographical
because they show the reader where that writer was during that period in his
life.” In Ellis’s world, no one is safe—not even Ellis himself.
By Alexandra Nicholas
N
ow in his early forties, LA-born Ellis rose violently
to cult-hero status with the publication of his first
novel Less Than Zero in the mid-‘80s. Followed shortly by
Rules of Attraction (adapted to film by Roger Avary who
is currently working on another Ellis film adaptation,
Glamorama), American Psycho shifted Ellis’s status
from upcoming talent to reigning king of controversy.
Seeing himself as a moralist, the gratuitous violence
and pathological detail to mindless consumerism in
his work has sparked accusations that claim the very
opposite. Lunar Park is
Ellis’s exploration of his
own status as public
property, a symbol of the
dual need for and rejection
of abject horror in Western
culture. “I don’t think I’m
anywhere near [as bad as]
the stuff Chuck Palahniuk
writes,” he tells Dave
Weich. “He writes some of
the most upsetting things
I’ve ever come across, and
yet he’s not nearly as reviled. Maybe it has something
to do with the persona of Bret Easton Ellis that was put
out there; that was bothersome to some people.”
I thought I could pull off the international espionage
thriller. So I spent the next eight years working on
Glamorama and during those eight years I kept up an
outline on Lunar Park. Then by the time I was finished
promoting Glamorama it was time to sit down to write
Lunar Park. I’m glad I waited.”
And so are we. The Ellis who wrote Lunar Park (as
opposed, of course, to the Ellis in Lunar Park) exhibits
all the confidence that a great writer should develop
with age and experience. “The impetus to write the
first four books came
from a satirical place;
the characters, from
Clay on to Victor Ward,
the kids in The Rules
of Attraction and even
Patrick
Bateman,
were summations of
everything I didn’t like
about whatever I was
satirizing at the time,
whether it was youth
culture, the college
experience, the eighties, the nineties,” he tells
Epstein. “Those books came from a place of anger
and frustration. I was disgusted with society and
I was going to share my disgust. That was not the
case with Lunar Park. It’s not a satirical novel. There’s
some light satire in there about living in the suburbs
and about modern parenting, but basically it was
going to be a ghost story.”www.breteastonellis.com
www.lunarpark.comK
“I was taken seriously. I was
a joke. I was avant-garde. I
was a traditionalist. I was
underrated. I was overrated.
I was innocent. I was partly
guilty.” – Lunar Park
Far from autobiography, the form that most relates to
Lunar Park is genre fiction. “In 1989, I wanted to write
two genre novels. I wanted to write a Stephen King
novel and a Robert Ludlum novel. I loved those genres
and those writers,” he tells Epstein. “For some reason I
didn’t think I could pull off the Stephen King book but
33_
roves
in Huss p s in a
r
r
a
D
h
it
es w
d year
ive minut
e to spen
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a
h
’t
n
o
d
in philoso
D
h
P
a
that you
a
e
ngel and
m or hav
a
iu
r
ic
o
t
t
e
a
v
rg
r
e
e
cons
Kama
f an en
e voice o
n Psyche.
a
h
t
m
e
u
v
h
a
e
h
h
to
for t
nsitivity
shrewd se
uch.
es the co
k
a
t
y
a
W
C.
F
_34
W
ith the release of the group’s eleventh album, The
Eleventh Hour, Psyche has decided to beat the
rest of Germany to Australia. Psyche has been writing
and performing irresistible synthpop since 1985, to
much acclaim in Europe and the U.S.A., recently
touring with Diary of Dreams. Over time Psyche has
supported and appeared with Alien Sex Fiend, Suicide
(one of the world’s first synthpop duos, with whom
Psyche performed one of its first ever shows to over
2000 electro fans in Paris), Die Form, Young Gods,
Clan of Xymox and others. Psyche’s stylish balance of
dancefloor anthems and deep danceable rhythms with
a sting of existential truth makes its music unique
and enduring, and a damn fine listen.
relevance, but it’s never been my main interest. I
like the ones that sound positive, but still seem to
retain a form of desperation or sorrow in them, such
as ‘No Ordinary Love’ by Sade, or ‘Here Comes the
Rain Again’ from Eurythmics. However songs that are
just complaints put me off even more than ecstatic
ones… Psyche often has songs with happy sounding
melodies, but then I screw it up with some critical
or angry lyrics like on ‘Land of Broken Promises’, or
‘Defenseless’ on the new album. A fan in Sweden
told me that’s what makes Psyche special— we make
sinister electropop. There’s always something lurking
in the lyrics, and I find this is the kind of song that
also appeals most to me as well.”
So is there such a thing as a good “happy song”?
“Hmm, maybe ‘Dreaming My World’ from our 1996
album Strange Romance is an acceptable one;
otherwise in the commercial world I can only think of
things like ‘Lucky Star’ or ‘Ray of Light’ from Madonna.”
Not denying the perks of travel and meeting people,
Huss is motivated by a thorough love of singing and
performing to an energetic audience, and a hope that
his music gives others insight and courage without
denying the difficulties of life “Some reprieve, maybe
even guidance? I hope I’m leaving an impression of
otherworldly sensation, introspective melancholia,
and of course existential satisfaction of some sort,”
he says with a wink.
“…That’s what makes
Psyche special—we make
sinister electropop. There’s
always something lurking
in the lyrics.”
- Darrin Huss
Starting with and now bound to the name Psyche,
synthpop prince Darrin Huss’s approach to his music
is cerebral and sensitive: “I chose it for its meaning.
I felt it was my duty to write lyrics that represented
the human spirit, intellectual capacity, and mentality.
It was my intention at the time of writing our first
album [Insomnia Theatre], and now it’s become
my cross to bear. Pure happiness songs have their
Internal landscapes aside, Psyche unfailingly delivers
infectious tracks with real character that clearly
reflect a love of singing and commitment to wellcrafted rhythm and melody. Enthusiastically citing
Nina Simone, Marianne Faithful, and Frank Tovey
of Fad Gadget as musicians to be admired, Huss
asserts, “A real good song has a sense of immediacy;
you want to join in the experience as soon as you
hear it. But a classic is when this experience can
always be revisited in the song, and you still relate
to its lyrical content or sonoric qualities… [music]
communicates and makes you feel less alone. Even if
it’s instrumental it creates a mood that envelops your
senses. And sometimes just a rhythm alone is enough
to cheer you up.”
With Psyche’s first Australian tour heading along the
east coast, Huss is keen to expand his performing
experience and has his curiosity piqued about
“Australia
for me is as
exotic and
far away as
Japan”
Australia and the music scene here. “I have had
many highlights, like the big show we had opening
for Suicide in Paris in 1986. We had just arrived to
meet our record company and I think we were on
stage only a few days later. I also liked both times we
played at the Wave Gotik Treffen festival in Leipzig.
In some cases, the bigger the audience the better I
am on stage. So I’m still going for collecting that
experience as much as possible. Of course it’s only
great when the audience is really into the songs. And
if it’s a smaller audience, if people are dancing and
singing along, it’s just as good. Of course I don’t
expect people to come to our concerts looking like
Crocodile Dundee, but other than some pictures of
Sydney’s Opera House and that usual tourist stuff,
I have no background on what kind of scene is
happening in the cities we’ll be playing, and that’s
what makes it even more exciting. I hope there
may be some people who know us from the ‘80s but
otherwise I’m just as happy performing mainly from
the last few albums. To be honest, Australia for me
is as exotic and far away as Japan, other than that
the people speak English. I really have no idea what
life is like ‘down under’ and I can’t wait to find out!”
www.psyche-hq.de K
Psyche will be playing this
December in Melbourne (16th) at
Dream nightclub, Sydney (2nd)
at the Marquee, and Brisbane
(3rd) at the Arena. For any poor
sods who don’t yet have one,
tickets are available online at
www.shop.gup.net.au or from the
best independent music stores.
RELEASES
2005
THE 11TH
HOUR
2004 (collection)
LEGACY
2003
BABYLON
DELUXE
2002 (remixes)
ENDANGERED
SPECIES
2001
THE HIDING
PLACE
2001
SANCTUARY EP
2000 (collection)
MISGUIDED
ANGELS
1998
LOVE AMONG
THE RUINED
1996
STRANGE
ROMANCE
1994
PRIVATE DESIRES
EP
1994
INTIMACY
1993 (collection)
69 MINUTES OF
HISTORY
1991
DAYDREAM
AVENUE
1990 (collection)
TALES FROM THE
DARKSIDE
1989
THE INFLUENCE
1988
MYSTERY HOTEL
1986
UNVEILING THE
SECRET
1985
INSOMNIA
THEATRE
35_
_36
The NSK [art collective] seems vital to the Laibach
manifesto. How closely do you work with and what
is your relationship to the other groups (such as
Irwin, New Collectivism, Department of Pure and
Applied Philosophy)?
Laibach was in fact vital for the establishment of NSK.
In the ‘80s we worked very closely with other NSK
groups. At its beginning in 1984, NSK was an
abbreviation of Neue Slowenische Kunst, and
was established by the members of the three
constitutional parties—Laibach Kunst, Irwin
and Sisters Scipion Nasica Theatre. NSK was
originally created as an informal sociopolitical
cultural organisation and aesthetic movement
whose aim was to build a lasting Utopia. Its
basic organisational principle was collectivism,
its method of work was retro principle and the
movement was called “retrogarda”. Since ‘92,
when NSK has been proclaimed and expanded
into a State, the constitutional groups expanded
their relations with all the NSK citizens and
are not interrelated only among themselves
anymore.
phenomenon of popular culture has already long ago
been philosophically defined through pop art, and
nowadays it is clear that corporate elements (of the
music industry or any other industry) are an important
part of the stylistic formation of contemporary
produced and distributed art and/or culture.
How do you feel about the label “avant–garde”?
Part of NSK—and of Laibach—seems to be a holistic
approach to “art” in general, incorporating theatre,
photography, music, etc. How do you balance the
more corporate elements of the music industry
with these ideas?
We incorporate them. Corporate elements of music
industry are based on exploitation of the masses,
on their necessity to correspond with and identify
themselves within so-called popular culture. The
“Anthems” is a great concept for a release, rather than
just “singles”—but most Laibach has an “anthemic”
edge. What was the process of choosing material for
the release (as well as the art and the photos)?
Anthems is a double CD Laibach compilation
record. The majority of tracks on CD 1 are
songs released previously as Laibach singles and
videos. The second CD is a collection of diverse
remixes of Laibach tracks, mixed by different
artists and collaborators during the past 20
years. On both records there are also previously
unreleased tracks, versions or mixes. We were
not interested in the concept of “The Best Of”
but in a compilation of songs which would
represent well Laibach’s anthemic character. The
same goes for the booklet.
Last November you played in Seattle as part
of the “State of the Art—The New Slovene
Avant Garde” festival. What is it like being
the “cultural ambassadors” of Slovenia?
With the electronic embassy, how far
has the NSK State stretched? I know of
“proclamations” in Berlin and Sarajevo, but
is it less of a geographical concept than an
ideology or are the two things inseparable?
NSK state owns no physical territory. It only
exists in time and has no physical limits.
The citizens of NSK State are constantly and
mysteriously multiplying and NSK embassies
are equally mysteriously growing all over the
world without any real master plan behind this
expansion. We ourselves are only citizens of the
NSK State like anybody else who identifies with
the NSK codex. We don’t have any control over
it anymore. NSK State is appearing everywhere,
as a kind of parasite, under different names and forms,
and it is slowly spreading its healing virus to victims in
all four directions. Today NSK State has more citizens
than Vatican State, so it should also have more sheep
than the Pope does. They might not necessarily be
aware of it yet but sooner or later they will all belong
to our herd.
the gradual destruction of man. The “death of art”,
towards which the last avant-garde movements tend,
means the “death of man”. As opposed to avant-garde,
Laibach belongs to retro-garde.
We are the cultural ambassadors of the NSK
State. In Slovenia we are only guests, artists in
residence.
What do you listen to yourself? From where
do you get your current musical inspiration?
We try to listen very diverse music, but there
is a lot of classical on, especially Bach and
Chopin. We get lots of musical inspiration from
non-musical sources, like paintings, politics,
industry, sport and religion.
Nowadays this label is a paradoxical term because
“avant–garde” belongs to the past. When we speak of
avant-garde, we believe that the most beautiful of all
were the performances of those “avant-gardists” who
performed between 1920 and 1940 in Rome once a year
and executed exceptionally skilled corporal drills. That is
what the schooled youths between the ages of thirteen
and eighteen were called. They moved their slender limbs
and bodies in a precise rhythm as a single body.
In the feudal period, the term “avant-garde” denoted
hound dogs in a hunt. Later, the trophy that was
hounded and ripped apart by the modern avantgarde became man himself. The history of the world
art avant-garde is a symptom of the agony of the
world, caught in the demonism of capital and matter.
The history of modern avant-garde is the history of
I read an old quote from Laibach once that said,
“We are fascists as much as Hitler was a painter”:
do you still get the fascism label attached to your
music? Do you think people “get” what you are
doing a lot more than they used to?
Probably a lot less. But we’ve got no problem with that.
In the Laibach universe every understanding is right,
even the wrong one.
Are you disappointed Laibach wasn’t included in
the Axis of Evil?
No, that would be too easy; we belong to the Axis of Good.
http://www.laibach.nsk.si/
37_
: getting closer
angel theory
F
or the uninitiated, it may seem as if Angel Theory has burst out of nowhere in
the past couple of years. But those who know Charles Fenech, the man behind
ANGELTHEORY, will understand that his devotion to music since childhood has
necessarily led him to produce a CV that includes some stellar references. Not only
has he played alongside such luminaries as Suicide Commando, VNV Nation, and
Assemblage 23, but he can also boast about having his music remixed by Haujobb’s
Daniel Myer, Covenant’s Joakim Montelius, and Lights of Euphoria’s Torben Schmidt.
David Foreman gets theoretical.
F
or many, this kind of shoulder rubbing with the stars
would produce an inflated ego and prima donna
behaviour. Not so with Fenech. Instead, he is constantly
striving for a connection between himself and his
audience and is thrilled when people approach him to
ask about his music. One notable impression he leaves on
those he meets is his passion for music and his burning
desire to succeed, whether it be for his own project, or
pushing the cause of fellow local bands: as he sees it,
success for one breeds success for all. However, Fenech
is keenly realistic in his expectations and acutely aware
of how difficult it is for Australian and New Zealand
bands to break into an ever expanding and competitive
international market place. After all, music continues to
be subject to market forces and
trends, especially with disposable
mp3 and internet culture. How is
a musician to survive? Follow the
ANGELTHEORY motto: “Surround
yourself with positive people,
stay focussed, believe in yourself
and never give up!”
case!” Yet it is also important to him that his listeners
can put themselves in his emotional shoes and make
their own decisions about what they are hearing: “I love
for people to interpret my stuff in their own way. That
way it becomes personal to them.” Fenech stresses that
thematic relevance is the key to successful music. “You
can go so far with music and music sounding great,” he
says, “but when you start singing about stuff people can’t
connect with, can’t understand, or can’t relate to, you’ve
lost a vantage point as far as I’m concerned.”
ANGELTHEORY’s lyrics are multilayered and Fenech
outlines the importance of this depth. “I go back to the
whole example of The Police track ‘Every Breath You Take’
and how people say it’s a love
song when it’s actually a song
about stalking someone. I love
that juxtaposition there, where
it can be either one extreme or
another and it’s the same lyric...
and that is exciting! I like that!”
It’s been a busy, rewarding, and
unsettling year for Fenech, but
his happiness and confidence
spill out during our conversation
and his hearty laughter becomes infectious.
“I love for people
to interpret my stuff
in their own way.
That way it becomes
personal to them.”
ANGELTHEORY is currently on the
verge of releasing a brand new CD
Re-Possession and is flying high on the back of the ‘Black
and Blue’ EP and a series of shows played in Australia,
USA, and Europe this year. A frantic schedule and a search
for fresh experiences meant much time living out of a
suitcase in both New Zealand and the States, as Fenech
tried to find a stable and creative place to finish the
album. Finally, in the second half of 2005, he returned to
Australia and isolated himself in a house by the beach at
Lakes Entrance, a fishing town in far-eastern Victoria, in
order to finish composing and mixing the new songs. The
choice proved to be an inspired one.
Writing songs was important therapy for Fenech and the
tracks on the new album continue along similar paths of
personal struggle that were travelled on his debut album,
Fatal Condition. As Fenech puts it, writing in a personal
vein helped to prevent him from “turning into a basket
Finally, we chat about the cinematic, visual aspect of
ANGELTHEORY. “The music itself has to have that feeling
that you are actually inside the music and feeling the
music, and being a part of it rather than just listening
to it,” Fenech says. It therefore comes as no surprise
then to learn that many of his musical heroes aren’t
rock and rollers but visionaries such as David Bowie,
Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, John Foxx,
and Kraftwerk. These creative influences are reflected
in his careful musical arrangements: “Nothing that
I put down as far as an arrangement is concerned is
something that I’m half-arsed about or not sure should
be there.” Fittingly, this encapsulates the Angel Theory
philosophy: Fenech knows what’s what and knows where
to put it. www.angeltheory.com K
RELEASES
re-possession
Jan 2006
black and blue ep
April 2005
fatal condition
Feb 2004
transmission ep
Dec 2003
Scott Sturgis (aka Converter)
may be the god of electronic grrr,
but Aowyne Davies finds him a
veritable pussycat…or unicorn…or
koala. Snuggle up....
_06
_40
Is Expansion Pack 2.0 the last thing we
can expect from Converter?
Like the last thing, period?
I don’t think so, though
I have to admit I’ve been
questioning the future of
the project lately. I think
that I have more Converter
material to write, but it
may take some time. I’ve
put the project on hiatus this year and may find next
year that more time is necessary in order to get back
into the groove and decide where to go from here.
You’re finally making your way Down
Under (mate) to play Distorted in
December. Are you going to buy a corked
hat and wear it onstage?
You know, I had to do a GIS on “corked hat” to even
know what the hell you were referring to. Heh... I
have no plans to wear a corked hat on stage, but if
the opportunity arises, who knows!
No really, what can we humble Southern
hemisphere folks expect from Converter’s
live performances?
Hopefully a high-energy set. If I can be coaxed out
of my shell, I’ll get a little crazy. I’ve been known to
show my tits upon request, so watch the hell out.
Just a warning to the faint-of-heart... it ain’t pretty.
Do you enjoy playing live, or do you
just wire together a Sturgis-Bot, hide
backstage and wait for someone to figure
it out?
Ha! No bots—I’m not that smart. I’ll say that I’m
currently evaluating my stance on playing live
shows. Obviously the music is generally well suited
for live gigs, but it takes a toll on me to an extent.
What are you listening to at the
moment? Any new releases you’d
recommend?
I’m listening to almost nothing new at all right
now: a lot of Black Sabbath, some Pentagram,
MC5... generally into “stoner rock”. I dig sludge. I
go back to Eyehategod— who are my favorite act
(recently got an EHG tatt) and have a new album
How many thousands of requests for
‘Domination’ did it take for you to
release this material?
Heh... well, I don’t think I’ve gotten as many
requests as maybe DJs or Ant-Zen have. I didn’t
know it was a popular or sought after song at all
until I saw the exp2 press release. As an aside,
many people don’t know that it was originally a Pain
Station track that was recorded in 1997 with vocals
as a sort of S&M sex track and meant to appear
on the Disjointed album. If it’s up to me—and it
is—that version will never see the light of day. It
just didn’t fit with the PS vibe, so I remixed it sans
vocals. It’s that track that basically marked the birth
of Converter, so it’s cool that, after all these years,
it’s still appreciated.
What else is happening music-wise in
the Sturgis camp these days?
Right now, not much. I’m preparing to work on a
single Converter track for a project involving several
other artists. Otherwise, nothing. I’m in one of my
downtimes at the moment. I’ll get back to work
eventually, maybe after the beginning of the new
year, on my new project, lowness.
out that I’ve yet to hear—High on Fire, Bongzilla,
still dig a lot of dub reggae, and recently discovered
Damian Marley’s latest CD. I have to admit I haven’t
listened to much in the industrial realm in quite a
bit. I go through phases. I think it’s good for my
overall musical outlook to go outside the genre, and
everything I listen to influences my own material in
one way or another.
What have been the highlights of your
career as Converter so far?
By far the travel. Music to me is the most important
thing, but travel is a very close second. I’ve learned
and experienced so much in the past several years
and I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I wish I
could do more of it. I truly want to see the entire
world. As for show experiences, it’s likely that
nothing will ever top my first Maschinenfest in
2000. It was so incredible. I could have quit music
altogether after that event and been satisfied.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been gigs and
experiences that have rivalled it, but the fact that
it was my first European gig kinda ranks it in a
category that can’t be matched.
Any last words before the koalas get to
eat you?
I’ve found that if you snap your fingers, koalas
listen. After that, you can get them to do anything
you want. I got one to touch me gently in my nono spot and it was... well, it was amazing! Also, I
fucking love unicorns.
www.ant-zen.com/converter K
41_
43_
RELEASES
Lies Inc. (1992)
Dear Valued
Customer (1994)
Buy Me...I’ll
Change Your Life
(1997)
Third Mall from
the Sun (1999)
Beyond the
Valley of the
Proles (2003)
Sixteen Easy
Tunes for the End
Times
(May 2006)
If you haven’t danced like a dickhead to a SNOG song in a club, then we just don’t believe you’ve been out for the last ten
years. Lead by anti-corporate superstar David Thrussell, SNOG dared to make disco mean something, and to celebrate the
continuing output of one of Australia’s most influential electro-industrial projects, FIEND chats to Thrussell himself about
the release of the best-of, Sixteen Easy Tunes for the End of Times.
FIEND: Let’s go right back... to the beginning...
David Thrussell: That’s a long time ago! Way back
when—art school, friends hanging out, dabbling with
something we thought was different, me being a
complete non-musician but a big fan of music. I wasn’t
hearing many songs about the stuff that my life seemed
filled with—going to the supermarket, going to the
bank, being hassled by the cops, watching people
working their lives away for some distant, abstract
“purpose”. A couple of years pass—our “homemade”
songs and “homemade” sound make some kind of
impression in Europe. Back in Oz some real nice people
who somehow snuck into Polygram when nobody was
looking sign us up because they “like our music”. Shock!
Horror! Stop the presses! Of course it couldn’t last...
F: What were your influences “back in the day” of
Lies Inc.- era SNOG? Are they still big special things
for you now?
DT: A trickier question than it first appears. I’ve
listed the obvious ones before Foetus, [Front] 242, etc.
but also things I somehow forgot like Dead Kennedys,
Depeche Mode. These things seem to go in cycles or
something. A few months back I was in a car with a
_42
few friends and a fairly obscure Dead Kennedys song
came on the radio and I was singing along and dancing
around and everybody was like, “How do you know this
song?” and I was like, “oh, I caned this record to death
when I was in high school”. But I had pretty much
forgotten it. Of course after that I found that musty old
record and played it again, loving it, and it definitely
inspired a song on the new album.
F: How do you feel like songs like ‘Corporate Slave’,
‘Born to be Mild’, and ‘Cliché’ now? How do you feel
about the earlier albums in general?
DT: Oh, I love them. At the time of course it never
occurred to us for a second that they would still
be in print 14 years later and that people would
still be listening. If I stop to think about that for a
second it is a real surprise. They were pretty
spontaneous and very much what we felt like doing/
hearing at the time. That said I would never go back.
I wouldn’t know how. Some bands do seem to stay in
the same place though. I wonder if it is a marketing
pressure or lack of imagination. I guess it is always
easier to sell something that is basically the same as
before—I call it the FLA syndrome (sorry guys)!
F: SNOG has had a few different labels—how’s that
wacky journey been?
DT: If there are universal laws, I’m sure one of them
is: All Musicians Shall Get Shafted. It’s probably
written on some stone tablet hidden atop the
Himalayas or carved into some asteroid orbiting far
past Pluto. We have certainly not been immune to
the myriad of “pitfalls” in the biz, and there are many
areas for bands and labels to fall out. “Shafting” is
an obvious one, but also either party losing interest,
changing fortunes, styles etc. That said we are fairly
happy dealing with the people that we deal with now,
they’re actually a decent bunch.
F: SNOG has also had myriad remixers involved across
the years. Any faves? Any not-so-faves?!
DT: So many SNOG remixers have been friends or
people we have something in common with it’s hard to
say objectively. Actually, I think we have done pretty
well in this area. I have genuine affection for our End,
Beefcake, Xingu Hill, Spacecat, Shaolin Wooden Men,
Byron Joel Scullin, Haujobb, and Ubin remixes. Only one
comes to mind that I really didn’t like and I’m not going
to name names because I admire the guy’s work, but I
THE BIRD PEOPLE IN CHINA RAZORBACK
SANGUE E BUDELLE
“Alright, Mum, are you sure you want to help me
with my FIEND review?” In her efforts to take an
active interest in my work she insists, “sure, put
it on. It’ll be fun. I’ve brought Maltesers.” I’m
about to subject my mother to a film by one of the
world’s most extreme and disturbing filmmakers,
Takeshi Miike. I can’t do it. I give her one last
chance to save herself. “Mum, it’s too late for
me, I’ve got to review this, but you still have a
chance, get out while you can.” Untroubled by my
warning and with absolute clam, she turns to face
me, her shoulders perfectly still: “I saw Chainsaw
Massacre at a midnight session in London— your
father went home scared. Just press play already,
you girl.” I press play. For the next two hours
not a word is said. Then as the credits begin to
scroll, my mother wryly announces, “I hope I’ll be
able to fall asleep tonight; that sure was scary.”
Giggling to herself she leaves the room, she takes
the remaining Maltesers with her. The moral of
the story: never judge a filmmaker by his previous
work. The madman who directed Audition and
Visitor Q is nowhere to be seen in this film; and
from beginning to end, the astonishing narrative
and array of gorgeous imagery throughout The Bird
People of China will leave your jaw on the ground,
in a way unfamiliar to Miike fans. If you think
you know Takeshi Miike’s work, get ready to be
pleasantly surprised. From Siren
– Mark T. Hewit
Two giants of Italian horror, Mario Bava and Lucio
Fulci, are starting to populate the shelves of
our local video store horror sections. Fulci’s The
Beyond (reviewed last issue) may be a zombie fan
favourite, but by no means reflects the scope of
the director’s output. The New York Ripper and
Manhattan Baby fall later in his career, and Stomp’s
recently released uncut widescreen versions of
the two classic titles clarify just what it was
about these films that caused such widespread
controversy upon their original release. Kill Baby
Kill is an earlier Mario Bava film (his second true
giallo) and the traditional gothic horror elements
don’t detract from the sheer gory splendour that is
a ghostly teenage girl and a constantly increasing
body count. Of the four releases, Bava’s Twitch
of the Death Nerve arguably is the jewel in the
visceral crown, however— many suggest this is the
film that truly sparked the slasher explosion of the
1970s (not, as is widely assumed, Texas Chainsaw
Massacre). Released also under the titles Bay of
Blood and simply as Carnage, there’s no uncertainty
as to what awaits. Grab these four, a bottle of
lambrusco and someone to hide behind and spend
some time getting a crash course in classic Italian
horror! From Stomp – Adrian Stephens
If you read online reviews about Razorback
(1984), it’s forgivable that they might have
missed the point. Frequently reading it as Mad
Max meets a monster movie, it could be worth
arguing that the problem with Razorback—outside
of its inherent dagginess, of course (but it’s an
‘80s film, so shut up)—is that the Australian
outback is tricky to translate as far as a symbol
of near ethereal malevolence is concerned. The
sheer scope of uninhabited Australia and how that
has psychologically affected the stories we tell
ourselves, particularly horror stories, is perhaps
not as automatic an assumption for audiences
in the US and Europe as it is for us. It’s not
Dostoyevsky—this is, after all, a film about a feral
pig going mental. But Razorback is much more
than that, and this release by Umbrella celebrates
it with an impressive 16:9 widescreen transfer and
a farmyard of other extras including a doco and
interviews. Few would argue that Melbourne-born
director Russell Mulcahy is one of Australia’s most
vital film exports (if only for Highlander (1986) and
the film clip to Duran Duran’s ‘The Wild Boys’), and
Razorback shows him at his most enthusiastic—if
somewhat dated—best.
– Adrian Stephens
DEAD MAN
It’s time to get excited about uber-cool director Jim Jarmusch with the re-release of his films as part
of a jazzed up Director’s Suite. The Suite includes Dead Man, ten years after it hit the cinemas and just
as fresh as one of Jarmusch’s best. Shot entirely in moody black and white, Dead Man is a western with
a kooky macabre twist. Yes, there are cowboys; yes, there are Indians; yes, there are sheriffs; but add
to the formula kooky mistaken identities, a dash of poetry, a killer guitar soundtrack, and plenty of
laidback dark humour. The story follows mild mannered Cleveland accountant William Blake (the delicious
Johnny Depp) who heads to the wild American western town of Machine in search of a job at the local
steelworks. Barely surviving his first fatal night, Blake finds himself on the run, wanted dead or alive by
the law and mercenaries alike. Blake wouldn’t last long without the help of the memorable “Nobody” (Gary
Farmer)—a marginalised Native American, with a love of poetry (including that by Blake’s namesake).
Blake’s existence becomes hazy, spiritual, violent (attracting an R rating), and unlike anything he could
have expected while trapped in his conservative trappings. Dead Man is unforgettable. Plus have loads of
fun spotting Iggy Pop and others in bizarre cameos.
From Madman
– Alicia Campos
_44
KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK
THE DEAD
A TALE OF TWO SISTERS
Spoiler: the reason for the title of this adaptation
of James Joyce’s short stories, The Dubliners, is
not revealed until the final scene. Because of
this, I couldn’t help but feel slightly suss about
all the warm-hearted, jovial Irish hospitality
goings on… A dinner party on a cold Irish night,
political debate, and uneasy glances exchanged
across the room… I was picking out the suspects
from the start. All is made clear when Gretta
(played by Angelica Huston) explains her uneasy
glance. The performance of a song returns her to
her first love, Michael Fury, who died at the age
of seventeen. The tragedy of the story and the
response of her husband are potent. Donal McCann
plays her husband, Gabriele Conroy, who offers
an earlier revelation to the significance of “the
dead” during his dinner speech, reminding this
close group of friends and family of those that
have passed but not revealing much other than
that their dinner is held by Gabriele’s spinster
sisters and is in honour of the “three graces of
the Dublin musical world”. The performances are
so comfortable in this film—you truly get a sense
of the warm-hearted, Irish hospitality in this turn
of a century gathering. Director John Huston
had a passionate interest in Joyce’s work, family
involvement in the production, and has directed
many other adaptations. Notables in his credit list
include: The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen and
Annie, but don’t let the latter put you off. This
“uncommon tale of love” is charmingly mysterious
in its early twentieth century, Irish setting and is
based on a fine piece of literature by James Joyce.
From MRA Entertainment
– Eliza Tipping
A Tale of Two Sisters is a scathing
deconstruction of the modern family. Through
its numerous contradictions of the family
nucleus, the viewer is left with a feeling of
loss and emptiness that is manifest in the
sisters’ undying love for one another. I’ll be
honest with you, I had no idea what was
going on in this movie. I looked at the cover,
saw two adolescent Korean girls, shrouded in
blood, posing with their parents for a family
portrait and said to myself “ah, another Asian
horror film, this’ll be easy.” It wasn’t. I spent
the entire 109 minutes of the film waiting for
that creepy, blue-faced, midget ghost from
The Grudge to jump out of a wardrobe, but
it never happened and I was left completely
dumbfounded about the movie I had just
seen. Take two: I watch the movie again and
love every minute of it. It’s almost as if the
film was designed to be seen twice: once
to throw you off the scent, and the second
time to reward you with what you’ve missed.
Conscious that its audience will make parrels
to films like The Grudge and Dark Water, A Tale
of Two Sisters has an eerie undercurrent from
the very first frame, but an odd beauty that
directly contrasts its horror counterparts, the
combining result is one of the most original
and well-made ghost stories you’re likely to
see. From The AV Channel
– Mark T. Hewitt
LA DOLCE VITA
HOOKED ON CLASSICS
Napoleon and Les Misérables
Both of these telemovies are extravagant retellings of famous stories produced by European-American
collaborations. At 361 mins (four episodes), Napoleon (2003) is the most expensive European TV movie
ever made, costing over $46 million. Les Misérables (2000) lasts 173 minutes as two episodes and cost
around $20 million. They are nothing short of spectacular to look at. Both were shot on location in and
around France, thus the sets are as authentic as can be, and no expense was spared on the costumes
(winning Napoleon an Emmy). Surprisingly, and despite the resounding “Frenchness” of the movies
which star big screen French actors Gérard Depardieu and Christian Clavier, both films are in English.
Heavy French accents clash with the American twang that John Malkovich does nothing to disguise
as he plays Javert and Talleyrand. To add to the confusion the audio on Les Mis is slightly mismatched
to the video. It is interesting to note that a longer French version of Les Mis was shot simultaneously
and released in France (the DVD is available) but the same was not made for Napoleon. The DVD sets
comprise two discs and include the usual extras (a deluxe three disc set of also Napoleon exists with
even more extras). Annoyingly, neither film is available in widescreen or 5.1 sound. Napoleon is based
on the book by Max Gallo, and while the film is long, it necessarily moves quickly between episodes in
the Emperor’s life because there is so much to tell. It focuses equally on his military escapades as it
does on his private life and attempts to illustrate him as a person as well as a statesman and a general.
Les Mis is a beautiful period piece, adhering closely to Victor Hugo’s novel. Despite the shortcomings
of the productions, the sheer scale and attention to detail of these movies cannot fail to impress. From
MRA Entertainment
– Jo Cramer
There’s not a bunch about Federico Fellini’s 1960
film La Dolce Vita that hasn’t been said already, but
I doubt this has been said in these precise words:
Marcello Mastrionni is a freaking hornbag. Romance
may now be reduced to a tacky bogan tragedy of lip
gloss and clichés, but when Mastrionni says; “You
are the first woman on the first day of creation”,
it still reduces me to a melty puddle. Fellini is a
cinematic giant with good reason, and La Dolce Vita
along with 8½ are enough to prove it. Technique
and heart collide in every frame, heralding not
only the ‘60s themselves but a whole new modern
aesthetic. Weary reporter Marcello Rubini’s aimless
wanderings are littered with frequent moments of
beauty and destruction, a theme that later writers
and film makers would recall time and time again.
Umbrella’s two-disc collectors’ edition includes
an 88-minute documentary on Fellini (featuring
interviews with Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, and
Donald Sutherland), interviews with Anita Ekberg
(she of the famous image, pictured) and a slab of
other Fellini treats. And lots of Marcello Mastrionni
(if you are into that sort of thing). – Alexandra
Nicholas
45_
BLOOD AND GUTS
Long live the onslaught(er) of B-grade horror! It’s a paracinematic
bonanza as the gore floodgates spew forth even more of the
best (worst) the genre has to offer. For smarty pant critics such
as Carol J. Clover, Slumber Party Massacre (1982, Umbrella) is
deemed to be one of the few consciously pro-chick early ‘80s
slasher films, based primarily on the fact that it was an anomaly
as a violent horror film both written, produced, and directed by
women. Any Holden Jones is credited for the last two tasks, but
is better known as a script writer, while mystery writer Rita Mae
Brown cops the writer credit, although her significance to the
final product is perhaps somewhat inflated as she only wrote
the first draft. But whether the slow pans down nekkid teens in
the shower are held to be politically okay because of the girls in
charge behind the camera or not doesn’t change the fact that
Slumber Party Massacre is actually a little bit boring outside of
its production curios. From Umbrella… On the other side of the
pond, British trash legend Antony Balch (aka The Abominable
Showman) is experiencing a minor renaissance, and the local
release of his later effort Horror Hospital (1973) combines his
love of gore with sheer dumb fun. The plot is shit enough to
make a Troma fan blush, with rock stars, mad doctors, and bikers
all thrown in for luck, but vital viewing especially if Balch is a
new discovery. From Umbrella… Released in the US as American
Cannibal, Snuff (1976) slam dunked the whole media virus concept
before the spotty cyber gits cottoned on all those years later
with the mother of all publicity stunts, one with massive popular
culture repercussions still today. The “snuff” sequence within
what admittedly is a pretty cheesy low budget effort otherwise
was claimed to be genuine; the producers even hired actors to
protest outside cinemas showing the film. While not verifiable,
many hold that this film started urban folk tales of snuff films.
Again with the bikers, Snuff was made by legendary US director
Michael Findlay (aka Robert Wuesterwurs, L.V. Ravine, and Oscar
Riva), known for equally superb trash efforts like Virgins in Heat
(1976) and The Closer to the Bone the Sweeter the Meat (1969),
Findlay’s career was cut short (so to speak) when he was killed in
a helicopter accident. From Stomp. – Alexandra Nicholas
SUICIDE GIRLS
The First Tour [Shock] DVD
The cover suggests that “One day you will be nostalgic for today”, but
not many people are nostalgic for those mildly diverting moments of their
lives. The Suicide Girls Burlesque Tour DVD follows a format almost bereft
of the same. Expect short chapters organised by girl, each featuring a
snippet of burlesque show footage (invariably shot poorly—handycams
only on this junket), inane conversation and pose pieces, and quick-cutshaky-action-cam photo shoot material that seems like an ad for the
static shots on the website. It idolises girls you do not know for no other
purpose than that they want to be remembered. Make your own.
– Sally Shears
47_
F.E.A.R
(PC DVD, Monolith, Sierra, VU Games)
This is the latest title to come out of the Monolith games studio, which is well known
for its earlier work on No One Lives Forever and the Alien versus Predator series. All
of these games were critically acclaimed, so Monolith had a large task on its hands to
keep up the same quality with F.E.A.R, which it has done, more so than expected.
The first thing you notice is just how good this game looks, and then you get scared;
and I mean really scared. Put it this way, the subject matter in this game poos on the
poo you pood while playing Doom 3. Yes, it is without a doubt the most unsettling
gaming experience I have ever had. It almost makes you want to play this game
clutching your favourite teddy bear for comfort.
You play an operative for an organisation called F.E.A.R, which happens to be an
acronym for “First Encounter Assault Recon”. Your mission is to investigate paranormal
activity and use any means necessary to neutralise it. As you get deeper into the game
the story unfolds of certain horrors unleashed from genetic experiments on a young
girl called Alma, who has the ability to rip your head off with nothing more than a
cold stare. F.E.A.R constantly creeps you out: you never know what is around the
next corner and at times I found myself reluctant to continue into certain dark areas
without my flash light on. Besides the Japanese horror style subject matter, F.E.A.R
uses a very advanced AI engine combined with an impressive physics engine. Enemy
soldiers can flank you, hide behind cover, and hang their gun around a corner and
shoot you. They can also communicate with each other and respond accordingly. For
example, when you have wasted all but one of the enemy in an area, the remaining
bad guy will call for back up, also if one soldier sees you he’ll call “There he is!”
and then every other soldier will turn, take cover and concentrate their fire at you.
They also respond to what you do in the game; if you try to flank them then they
will make sure every other soldier knows that you are trying to flank them and try
to stop you.
The cunning AI in the game can at times get rather overwhelming, so Monolith has
included a special ability for you to use where you can slow down time “bullet time”
style. When this ability is engaged you can see bullet trails whizzing past you as you
easily polish off a squadron of five soldiers before they get a chance to even blink.
If at the end of your whoop-ass bullet time session one guy is still standing, you
can nicely finish him off with a scissor kick to the head. Satisfaction guaranteed. A
fire fight in F.E.A.R is very messy. Yours and the enemy’s bullets will take chunks out
of walls and spray clouds of dust, also other objects your rounds connect with will
go flying through the air, which can make visibility quite hard at times; you have to
literally let the dust settle before continuing. F.E.A.R is, in essence, a first person
shooter— however the in-game experience is unique and will be a benchmark for all
future games. The combat is extremely fun and the horror is extremely scary, and the
ending definitely doesn’t suck. If your system can run it, get it now; if it can’t then
upgrade your system and get it now, but play it with the lights on during the day.
– Peter Hakuli 4.5/5
Minimum System Specs – Windows XP/2000 with latest service pack installed, DirectX
9.0c, Pentuim 4 1.7Ghz or equivalent processor, 512MB RAM, 64MB GeForce 4 Ti or
Radeon 9000 video card, 5GB free HDD space, 16bit DirectX 9.0 compliant Sound Card
with support for EAX 2.0, Broadband internet connection for multiplayer.
CIVILIZATION IV
(PC Firaxis)
If you’re like me and have nerded out 13084093573753 hours on each Civilization
game, you’ll know that each one just went from strength to strength with each new
addition. If you’ve never Civ-ed before then I just don’t want to hear your pathetic
excuses, okay? Civ IV has really hit pay-dirt! It vastly surpasses the last game, on
every single level: the diplomacy makes sense, combat is an advanced sensible system
that encourages you to take the holistic approach, city management can be supermicro and more complex than ever before or customisable to your laziest preference,
while the inclusion of the new religions ties in all the factors that you wouldn’t have
thought possible before, and the treatment of “civics” (as opposed to more simplistic
“governments”) includes infinite possibilities. Civ IV is tight, slick, and sexy… and
come on… Spock himself reciting “bleep… bleep… bleep… bleep” with the onset of
satellites is just priceless. – Jarod Collard 5/5
FAHRENHEIT
Fahrenheit (PS2, Xbox)
Not many games will introduce themselves with a tutorial delivered by a virtual
construct of the game’s own writer/director. But Fahrenheit is not most games.
A reinvention of the classic adventure game genre, Fahrenheit is as much a game
as it is an interactive story that can be bent out of shape depending on the
actions taken by the three main characters. And that story is dark, opening with
a dark murder scene and the subsequent invesigation, the player is able to play
both cop (Carla and Tyler) and reluctnant villain (Luca). As the darkness unfolds
in the plot, the character’s mental states can fluctuate, and wrong turns or poor
mental maintenance can see any one of them literally jumping out of the balcony,
or similar.
Action sequences takes place in small minigames which have the player mimicking
joystick patterns they see onscreen. This method temporarily breaks up the story
without distracting from it. It may not sit well with those that like their games
gameplay-heavy, but that is not the focus of Fahrenheit. This is a refreshing take
on the adventure game, and innovative as an open story – well worth checking
out. – Sally Shears
BURNOUT REVENGE
(PSP)
EA Games have done the Sony PSP a good turn with the release of Burnout Legends.
All your favourite slam driving arcade action from the successful PS2 and Xbox franchise has been packed into the size of a handheld, and the little speed you lose on
the big picture adrenal crash and race gameplay, you pick back up on the wireless
multiplayer and tracks collected from previous Burnouts (3 and earlier). And to be
able to take it on the road is marvellous. The interface is simple and lets you get
straight to the action, including the Road Rage events in which you attempt to
Takedown your opponent by running them off the road or into oncoming traffic, Race
events in which you hit the Boost all the way to the finish line, or Crash events which
encourage you to cause the largest wreck possible. It is as much arcade action as the
PSP has seen crammed onto its tiny screen to date – definitely worth checking out
the addictive formula’s conversion. – Sally Shears
49_
(you)
(wanna)
(know)
(what)
(i)(think)
THE AMAZING SCREW-ON HEAD
Mike Mignola
[Dark Horse Comics, May 2002]
What did Mike Mignola do when taking a break from Hellboy, occult investigator, and his signature creation? He does
something even better, that’s what. The Amazing Screw-On Head is a perfect one-shot comic that leaves you desperate
for more. There’s no excess information here. He’s a head with dozens of mechanical bodies; he’s the secret agent of
President Lincoln; his deadly arch-enemy is Emperor Zombie. What more do you need to know? In fact, strange men
appear to announce that they’d “…hoped to present the secret origin of Screw-On Head, but, as it turns out, the damn
thing’s a secret!” As with Hellboy, Mignola’s love of his the source material—strange science, pulp adventures, grotesque
monsters—radiates off the page. There’s plenty of comedy here, but never parody… only the best kind of adolescent
glee. It’s 32 pages long and you’ll never want it to end. Thank God there’s a Screw-On Head animated series in the works,
written by Bryan Fuller (Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls) and voiced by talent such as Sideway’s Paul Giamatti and Frasier’s
David Hyde Pierce. No doubt it’ll be so good it’ll be cancelled in less than five episodes, so enjoy the anticipation while
you can. God speed, Screw-On Head!
VOX POP
Mark Waid - writer of, amongst many
projects, Kingdom Come.
1) Best current comic.
Young Avengers
– Martyn Pedler
2) Best comic of all time.
Watchmen
THE DEAD EYES OPENED
Horror’s return to comics
DC Comics “Hellblazer”, issues 1-11
1988. Horror is irrelevant, dead since EC in the 50’s, so when HB #1 opens with a music magazine clipping that
demonises/eulogises John Constantine we pay attention and look past the nasty pre-digital colouring and raw art
to the meat of Delano’s writing: pure, strong and spiced just right.
Born in Moore’s Swamp Thing, it’s hard post-Buffy, -Charmed et al, to understand how transgressive a dodgy, blackmagic hustler was as a protagonist. Blonde-spiked JC (no accident that), dark suit, Michael Caine trenchcoat; a
wish-mirror for angsty comic intelligentsia, unloved by humans and... others. Self-aware and self-loathing but ever
ready with a smart quip and bird-flip
Very bad things happen in HB and some of them are John’s dead
friends: all too happy to taunt him with his part in their demise ten years ago in Newcastle. John knowing more
mates will be sacrificed in the fight against the evil among us, the evil that is us.
Thatcherism, Reaganomics, and greed dominate HB’s subtext: Demon yuppies, mutant skinheads, doomsday cult
pyramid schemes.Stunning pre-Sandman, pre-Hollywood Dave McKean covers suck us in, spit us out. Issue 11’s
black stare, Newcastle with a bloody crucifix t scratched across John’s close-up. After 10 issues build-up you almost don’t want Delano to take you there.
Almost.
- Mark Angeli
3) Most underrated comic.
Any Donald Duck or Uncle Scrooge
comic written by Don Rosa
4) Most overrated comic.
Kingdom Come
5) Best comic for non-comic readers.
Bone
VOICE FROM THE EDGE
By the Man in Black
Now that Invader Zim has wound up, Filler Bunny #3 is out, and there seems to be no hope in hell of a
new Johnny the Homicidal Maniac series ever coming to our comic stores, the question needs to be asked
“Just what is Jhonen Vasquez doing nowadays?” Good question. The long answer is “We don’t really
know, but perhaps we should ask?”, but the short answer is “He appears to be starting up some kind of
website-thingy!” It’s strange how sometimes the short answer can be longer than the long answer…Head
on over to www.questionsleep.com to check out the early stages of a website that could, in time, really
become anything at all! At very least we know it’s Jhonen, so it has to be worth waiting for…Speaking
of creators on Slave Labor Graphics, Roman Dirge has been so busy lately it’s hard to know what to
mention first…Lenore has had two issues out recently and the newest of these should be on your local
comic store shelf by the time you read this. He’s also doing the cover and contributing a story to an
upcoming SLG anthology series The Haunted Mansion. The Haunted Mansion contains stories from many
SLG creators about the Disneyland ride of the same name…While not strictly comics, the coolest thing
Dirge has done lately would have to be Halfsies. A twisted idea from a twisted mind, Halfsies is a set of
four small cute animals comprising of Puff the rabbit, Waddles the duck, Meemers the cat, and Ooka the
monkey. Each critter is designed to be pulled in half so that the tops and bottoms of the animals can
be swapped around to create new slightly more horrifying versions of them…As if that wasn’t enough
Samurai Sloth has gone from a three page joke in Lenore #6 to an upcoming three issue mini-series. We
can’t find a release date on it yet, but the cover can be seen at the internet home for all things Dirge:
www.spookyland.com
_50
VENUS IN FURS
SKINNY PUPPY
Greater Wrong of the Right
Live
[Synthetic
Symphony]
Directed by William Morrison during
the 2004 Toronto and Montreal shows,
the DVD runs the gauntlet of Puppy’s
extensive back catalogue. Skinny
Puppy’s legendary live performances
are a barrage of onscreen antigovernment propaganda, intense
lighting, bizarre costume changes,
blood, mud, flour, and toxic waste.
However, there is only so much Ogre
can do in a 5x5 foot space. Disc two
contains Morrison’s documentary
exploring the US government’s recent
conflicts, “Eurotrauma” from Puppy’s
1988 tour, the Pro-Test video, and
archival footage from other tours.
This ambitious DVD is essential for
the long time fan and the newcomer.
www.skinnypuppy.com
– Justin Tall 4/5
FRONT 242
Catch the Men Live [Metropolis]
Re:boot Live 1998 sounds pretty old by its
title, but the updated renditions of super
classic Front 242 songs still kick most
modern dancefloor songs out of the water.
And now the group presentd a long needed
live performance with quality production of
a show that obviously hasn’t changed much
in the last seven years, but, by lordy, it’s
the shit. Aside from the fact that the guys
are getting old and are starting to look a
little silly in shiny silver outfits dancing
like mad ravers in their prime—it is one
amazing show and worth giving body parts
to be involved in, can you imagine being a
part of the 17,000 strong Lokerse Feesten
(Belgium) festival giving it all you’ve got?
Well, at least we can lament and watch
a show like no other. www.front242.com
– Jarod Collard 5/5
THE PRODIGY
There Law [Remote Control]
OK, so if anyone ever knew how to do it properly it was The Prodigy.
Going from small time underground dance act to over the top
bogan rock, the whole time keeping the music almost always on
the same track, even if you hate them you’ve got to admit that The
Prodigy is the Prince of grotty Euro beats. This DVD is breathtakingly
constructed and combines the band’s videos (including the notorious
‘Smack My Bitch Up’) and live footage stemming a variety of shows
and eras. Not just for fans, this reminds those of us who thought
we’d grown out of it what it was that we got all excited about. www.
theprodigy.com
– Adrian Stephens 4/5
Folks yet to get a taste for the scattershot,
colossal, and admittedly “not-for-everyone”
cinema of the singular (but many-aliased)
Spanish filmmaker Jess Franco could do far
worse than to take that first tentative bite
with a viewing of his highly psychedelic 1968
opus Venus in Furs. It’s one of the lesserknown of a slew of European art/trash/erotic
flicks of that era to largely jettison linearity,
preferring instead to pit against consensus
reality the vagaries and vicissitudes of its
protagonists’ memories and desires, the
better to confound a simple reading by
rendering greatly ambiguous and multiply
interpretable a slippery Moebius narrative.
This strategy also serves to more thoroughly
evince characters’ interiors—their drives,
phantasies, and repressed material—than a
conventional “exterior” narrative typically
permits. (See also Franco’s Succubus (aka
Necronomicon), Alain Resnais’ Last Year at
Marienbad, Radley Metzger’s The Lickerish
Quartet, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up,
Alain Robbe-Grillet’s Eden and After, and Luis
Buñuel’s Belle de jour).
Venus’ premise, in short: a trumpet player
(James Darren) is haunted, firstly, by the
memory of a beautiful dead girl (Maria Rohm)
washing up on shore on a beach in Istanbul,
and secondly, by her seeming reincarnation
as a habitué of the decadent party set in Rio
de Janeiro, where he had fled to try to forget
her and regain his mojo. What you really need
to know: the film has a sensational jazz score
from Manfred Mann and Mike Hugg, is a-glut
with very dated ‘60s hipster dialogue, has
roles for Klaus Kinski, legendary chanteuse
Barbara McNair and Eurotrash refugee Dennis
Price, features, as ever with Franco, lashings
of S&M, and is, overall, quite a trip. Oh, and
lastly, while the film has certain resonances
with Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s famous
work of erotic fiction, with which it shares a
title, it is not an adaptation of it.
– Cerise Howard
DRESDEN DOLLS
Live In Paradise [Roadrunner]
That the Dresden Dolls debut self-titled album and live show
that enraptured audiences late last year were so carefully
presented and delivered with such new and fresh enthusiasm
and verve only makes the release of this, the DVD release of
the duo’s live show, even more daunting. Rushed, clumsy,
and poorly executed, one cannot help but suspect that an
eager executive wanting to cash in before the star falls is
more behind this release than the proud and boastfully “in
control” Amanda Plummer and Brian Viglione. A lazy interface
that verges on sloppy, Michael Pope’s live video work at times
pushes the artwank factor to a point where it just looks like
the DVD is fucking up—on top of which, it’s actually a little
bit boring. If you saw and loved the live show, hold those
memories tight until the Dresden Dolls hopefully return once
again to Australian shores. www.dresdendolls.com
– Emily Potter 2/5
SUBTOPIA
A.L. McCann [Vulgar Press]
There’s a big fat quote from Christos Tsiolkas on the back of fellow Melbourne
novelist A.L McCann’s Subtopia stating “There’s a lot going on in this novel and
we bloody need that.” And he’s right. Aside from location, Tsiolkas and McCann
jointly share the crown of being two of the only writers in Australia right now who
are really angry, and are revolting at the impotent self-congratulatory climate that
national literature seems to have devolved to the past few years. Like his debut
novel The White Body of Evening, Subtopia also begins in Melbourne, but a very
different one from the earlier work. Ultimately it is a book about the world “Out
There” and how it relates to the world “In Here”. Set in the late ‘70s in the western
suburbs, Subtopia tells of friendship and decay, of boredom and motivation, of
climates both political and meteorological. This book could easily be patronising,
but just isn’t: McCann fights cliché at every fucking turn and there is blood spilt
with every comma and full stop.
– Adrian Stephens
PHALLIC PANIC: FILM, HORROR, AND THE
PRIMAL UNCANNY
Barbara Creed [Melbourne University Press]
Even after the most casual reading of Creed’s most famous book, The MonstrousFeminine (1993), you were likely to see vagina dentata everywhere you looked. Her
most celebrated analysis was of Ridley’s Scott’s Alien, and here, in her new book,
she finally gets to do the same to Alien: Resurrection—a film you’d swear had to
be made by people who had read Creed’s earlier work and decided, hey, she’s right!
Let’s make that subtext as obvious as possible! Phallic Panic offers same kind of
Freud-heavy psychoanalytic take on horror, but now applied to the male monsters
of cinema. How do vampires, wolfmen, mad scientists and Freddy Kruegers threaten
good old patriarchal culture? At least, that’s what the book thinks it’s about. Some
of the most interesting sections are tangents (like ubiquitous ‘ghost child’ motif)
but it lurches between examples, using some needless repetition, and feels more
like an excuse to write a book than a real argument. While I’m all for returning to
your source material, the enormous wad of pages dedicated to Freud’s case study
of his patient known as the ‘Wolf-Man’ destroys any momentum the book manages
to build. There’s real potential for a kind of criticism that straddles both traditional
academia and smart, critical horror fans… but this isn’t it.
– David Lawrence
I HATE MYSELF AND WANT TO DIE: THE 52
MOST DEPRESSING SONGS YOU’VE EVER
HEARD
Shalamir the Clownal
Tom Reynolds [Random House]
Salman Rushdie [Random House]
This book would be better subtitled “the 52 most depressing songs I’ve ever
heard” since no two people are going to agree on a topic like this. Thus, the book
leaves you crying “But what about…?!” and wondering whether Tom Reynolds
has ever been to a goth club! I don’t think he has, but it is good to see that
NIN, The Cure, Joy Division, and even Evanescence are singled out. Other artists
include Phil Collins, Whitney Houston, The Doors, Ben Folds Five, Celine Dion,
and Bruce Springsteen. The introduction draws the distinction between “sad”
and “depressing” songs and then the list of songs is divided into chapters: “I’m
Trying to be Profound and Touching But Really Suck at It” and “I Mope Therefore
I Am”. A personal justification of each song follows. Selections are not based
on lyrics alone, the music is considered too: the choice of instruments, key, and
song structure. An oversight of the book is that familiarity with all the songs is
assumed. Reynolds’s age is apparent in the inclusion of several songs from the ‘60s
and ‘70s, some of which will be unfamiliar to most. Frustratingly then, only some
lyrics are quoted and none are printed in full, and there is no accompanying CD.
The other problem with the book is no Moz! The Smiths is mentioned in relation to
Joy Division, but not given its own entry. Such an oversight cannot be forgiven!
Still, for people who don’t know Morrissey, this book would make an amusing gift
or coffee table ornament.
– Jo Cramer
For most, Salman Rushdie will always be the guy who caused the mega brouhaha
with The Satanic Verses back in the 1980s, but some of us know better—he was
the guy whose eyes twinkled as he interviewed Terry Gilliam about the “Don
Quixote” debacle, he was the man who wrote so feverishly and so beautifully
about seeing The Wizard of Oz as a young boy in India, citing it as an early
non-Bollywood Bollywood film. Shalamir brings this Rushdie—the Rushdie of
Midnight’s Children—to the forefront. Following a variety of characters and
times, Rushdie has returned to a calm confidence in his own style that many have
suggested his recent work has lacked (one critic accusing him of being “a sort of
Bret Easton Ellis for the postcolonial crowd – only older and with considerably
less hair”). At a time when lessons are begging to be taught to religious and nonreligious folks of all types, Rushdie has claimed his place as teacher, admittedly
with less controversy, but admirably with more compassion.
_52
– Adrian Stephens
THE FLOODS: NEIGHBOURS
Colin Thompson [Random House]
The main characters are a weird family of witches and wizards called the
Floods. The seven strange children in the family were all born in a lab, and
each time the Dad, Nerlin (who claimed that he was called this because he
came after Merlin and “n” comes after “m” in the alphabet), loses a bit of his
power. Valla, the skeleton child, has blood from “a beautiful Australian singer
with a very famous bottom” which he drinks only one drop at a time on special
occasions. Instead of a normal alarm clock, the Floods have an “alarm snake”,
which bites them every morning
to wake them up. The family gets
annoyed at their noisy neighbours
and decides to get back at them.
First, they turn the neighbours’
son into a fridge, because Betty,
one of the Flood children, is
not very good at doing magic. I
thought it was funny that when
the police came to investigate
the disappearance of the boy,
Satanella, another of the Flood
children, who accidentally got
turned into a fox terrier, opens
the door and frightens them. The
Floods has some nice black and
white illustrations in the family
files at the back of the book,
and my favourite illustrations
are the headstones at the start
of each chapter that say “Here
lies chapter one” etc. I loved the
book, as it’s not very scary, but is
a fun, spooky story.
– Ehlana Hakuli (eight years old)
THE PENULTIMATE PERIL
Lemony Snicket [Harper Collins]
Photo by Ted Jurney
Evil
Rennie Sparks
As one half of gothic alt.Country duo The Handsome Family, Rennie Sparks
has a rare talent for penning dark, beautiful, story-like song lyrics. With the
publication of her first book, she presents thirteen disparate short stories
tied together by themes of apathy, grief, and a violent manifestation of
ennui. Including tales of adultery, poverty, domestic violence, murder and
incest, Evil reads as a series of snapshots; fragments of almost-reasonable
people past crisis point, continuing their unhinged lives in a fugue of
callousness and apathy. Set against the not-so-quiet background hum
of homogenous, Middle-American suburbia, this is very black humour
indeed. Sparks revels in presenting us with candid moments of extreme
pain – both physical and emotional. The most unsettling aspect of these
stories is also Evil’s central message – there are no “easy”, digestible
explanations provided for her characters’ sociopathic behaviours. A stale,
bleak environment is cause enough to bring out the horror of the human
condition. She shows us the crippling isolation and undirected loathing
that simmer just below the surface; she shows us how easy it is for humans
to commit acts of atrocity. Evil is a harsh book. It is hard to find beauty
among these gruesome tales, but the effort does not go unrewarded.
www.handsomefamily.com
- Tom Wark
Daniel Handler, the Grown Up “Real” Author behind the Lemony Snicket alias,
told FIEND last year that he’d planned to do no more than 13 books in the “A
Series Of Unfortunate Events” collection, and the latest pegs the literary body
count at one title away from the final book. The Baudelaire orphans—Violet,
Klaus, and Sunny—are familiar faces to film buffs if only through the Jim
Carrey film of the first three stories, but the series has left the cinematic world
far behind. The good news with this is that—yay!—there is still a reason to
keep reading. The bad news is if you haven’t read the titles in between, you
have a lot of catching up to do. The spirit of Edward Gorey, in its vast and
glorious macabre sweetness, is not only alive but kicking with great verve.
Bring on the final book, Mr Handler!
– Emily Potter
SHAKESPEARE: THE BIOGRAPHY
Peter Ackroyd [Random House]
Storming through a biographical frenzy in no less 91 chapters, Peter Ackroyd
is clearly not shirking the epic aspects of putting Shakespeare’s life to paper.
Ye Olde Academic Trainspotters have suggested a degree of hand-on-it-ness in
Ackroyd’s choice to use the original spelling Oxford University Press editions
of the texts to work with, but average plonkers will recognise this as the
hair-splitting that it is. Energies are thus rather better spent revelling in
this remarkable biography of Shakespeare by a visionary writer who, rather
than detracting or conflicting with past work, seamlessly unites it into one
masterful portrait.
– Amber Hastings
53_
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Head explody brilliant fantastico! qqqqq
ACUMEN NATION
ATRIUM CARCERI
What the F**k: Ten Years of Armed
Audio Warfare
Kapnobatai
[WTII] CD
With Atrium Carceri’s third album, Simon
Heath leads us from the darkened halls
of Cellblock and Seishinbyouin and
to another place entirely. Each track
takes us further into a subterranean
world of Lovecraftian dreams. Heath
uses everything from cavernous drones,
martial percussion, tortured voices, and
a virtual laboratory of insane machinery
to provide a masterfully produced album
of seething beauty and unease. Heath
is able to illustrate complex ideas and
themes through his music that are both
potent and exciting in the execution.
www.coldmeat.se – Justin Tall qqqq
Recent additions to the WTII label,
Acumen Nation’s What the F**k is
a retrospective spanning the music
of the band’s last ten years. Mainly
comprised of remixes and re-imaginings
of Acumen Nation’s best known titles,
the retrospective also contains two new
tracks featuring guests from KMFDM and
16 Volt. While the more popular tracks
such as ‘Gun Lover’ and ‘DJentrify’,
remastered for What the F**k, are
present, the remixes of some of other
tracks really shine through. The frenetic
pace of ‘Fuckyerbrainsout’ and the
stomping ‘Fuckface’ particularly stand
out, and the presence of new tracks and
lost remixes (and a live track) means
that anybody can pick up this album and
find something new.
– Nat Williams qqqq
APOPTYGMA BERZERK
You and Me Against the World
[Gun] CD
AYRIA
Flicker
[AlfaMatrix] CD
Jennifer Parkin, the gothic
pop princess, has returned
with her follow up album to
her debut, Debris. Despised
by some and loved by others,
Ayria tries hard to win
everybody over with Flicker.
She covers themes of lost love,
self hatred, and aggression all
wrapped up in a pop/EBM/
electroclash parcel. Allowing
her distinctively silky smooth
vocals to sit above all else,
but also pulling them back
in favour of dirty bass lines.
Most songs work well, while a
couple are just plain cringeworthy. It won’t change the
world but if you like a bit of
sugar in your diet this is an
enjoyable candy. www.ayria.
com
– Brent Donaldson qq1/2
We should have seen it coming. All that
time spent touring America has got to
be bad for you. And now that Apop has
discovered rock, it’s bad for us too. If you
like whiney Placebo vocals and Motley
Crüe guitar riffs assembled together
into formulaic rock songs then this is
an album for you. On the other hand,
if you liked the hard edged electro pop
Apop was good at, don’t even bother.
This album is a pretty obvious attempt
at commercialisation and I’m really not
interested. www.apoptygmaberzerk.de
– Valentina Maxwell Tansley NO KITTIES
[Cold Meat Industry] CD
BACKANDTOTHELEFT
Obsolete
[Metropolis] CD
Perhaps unfairly fated to always be
always considered a “friends of Tom”
band, the debut album from the spacebar-impaired backandtotheleft was
produced, mixed, and initially released
by Tom Shear of Assemblage 23. It now
sees a re-release on Metropolis Records,
and it’s easy to see the attraction for
both Shear and Metropolis. There’s a
persistent melodic sensibility that runs
through the band’s brand of industrial
dance, with an infectious distorted
kick drum underpinning much of it.
While there are standout tracks like the
opening ‘Misstep’, the overwhelming
impression is of a confident debut
album, where everything is in its place.
– Abby Helasdottir qqqq
BLACK ICE
Terrible Birds
ATARAXIA/AUTUNNE ET
SA ROSE
Odos Eis Ouranon
[Equilibrium] CD
After a special joint performance at the
Church of St. Michele in Rovigo Italy, both
projects agreed to release specifically
arranged songs for the occasion.
Ataraxia’s side of the performance has
strictly acoustic rearrangements of
tracks from their previous albums. The
warmer, more intimate sound serves to
highlight Francesca Nicoli’s unique and
passionate voice even further. Autunne
Et Sa Rose is a more sombre and avant
garde affair with soprano, cello, and
piano which I found to be a little too
discordant for its own good. www.odos.
equilibriummusic.com
– Justin Tall qqq1/2
[Hungry Eye] CD
From the label that brought us The
Vanishing and Sixteens now comes the
Black Ice album Terrible Birds. Hungry
Eye Records has issued this fulllength album as the follow up to the
clamouring Eve EP of 2003, the debut
for the trio from San Francisco. Black Ice
started out in 1999 as a Phantom Limbs
instrumental side-project until Kelly
Correll from Sister Mary Shoelace joined
as vocalist in 2001. Like a cross between
Voodoo Church before it sucked and
Bauhaus, Black Ice creates atmospheric
deathrock reminiscent of the earliest
material by The Shroud. Aside from
Correll’s virulent vocal style, musically
the title track wouldn’t be out of place
on an early Banshees’ album. The lively
‘Elixer’ is already turning up on setlists
around the globe, while ‘Stitched Up’ is a
sinister ethereal dirge. ‘My Eyes Hurt’ is a
brilliant creaking epic with spoken word
vocals that is reminiscent of Trance to
the Sun, ‘The Souse’ alternates between
shuffling pop and venomous cacophony,
while ‘Yellow Letters’ is pure batcave.
‘In Winter’ is sparse and relatively
gentle, and the album closes with the
energetic ‘Fingers’. Terrible Birds is full
of commotion and places Black Ice with
Quidam and Eat Your Make Up as one
of the most interesting and inventive
deathrock bands to arrive on the scene
since Cinema Strange. http://www.
mungaso.com/blackice/index.html
– James Lowry qqqqq
THE BREATH OF LIFE
Everlasting Souls
[Dark Wings] CD
2005 is the 20th anniversary of
Belgium’s The Breath of Life, and
the band has celebrated by releasing
Everlasting Souls. Since its inception The
Breath of Life has released a number of
albums and enjoyed success with tracks
like ‘Nasty Cloud’, ‘Shining’, ‘Nightfall’,
‘Worries’, and ‘Falling Drops’. The band
has been produced by Gilles Martin
(Tuxedomoon, Minimal Compact),
signed by labels Hall of Sermon, and
now Darkwings, and shared the stage
with bands as disparate as the Cocteau
Twins and Love Like Blood. Everlasting
Souls demonstrates why it is The Breath
of Life has endured—it has to be the
best European goth rock band to feature
a female vocalist. Isabelle Dekeyser
is really what separates The Breath
of Life from the others— her voice
is simultaneously light and strong.
The closest comparison is vintage
French act Collection d’Arnell Andrea.
Musically the band has developed
almost as Clan of Xymox has, merging
guitars with programming in a way that
allows them to write racing dancefloor
tracks or atmospheric epics that sound
like they belong on the same album.
Of the twelve new tracks ‘Mirror Eyes’
stands out as the obvious single, while
Everlasting Souls also includes live
versions of ‘Nasty Cloud’, ‘Impromptu’,
and ‘Noanima’. www.the-breath-of-life.
com – James Lowry qqqq
BRIGHTER DEATH NOW
Kamikaze Kabaret
[Cold Meat Industry] CD
Roger Karmanik returns with a new
BDN studio album of eight crunching,
churning tracks of death industrial
madness. Karmanik, who manages to
reinvent himself time and again while
still retaining the “power electronics”
moniker, now brings his punk ethic to
the fore with vocal pieces, rhythmic
feedback, and white noise that is almost
hypnotic. Being a master of composition,
Karmanik’s pure noise assaults are
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listenable and both diverse and perverse
on a very infectious level. Let the
pulsating rhythms of Kamikaze Kabaret
both caress and violate your speakers.
www.coldmeat.se – Justin Tall qqqq
COMBATIVE ALIGNMENT
and outside glows the red dawn
[Malignant] CD
With a name like Combative Alignment
I was initially expecting an album
along the neo-classical/ neo folk/ and/
or power electronics tangents—yet of
course such expectations were not to pan
out. Thus with further investigation, it
was discovered the project is of German
origin and that the album’s ritual infused
dark ambient style aligns with the general
sound and direction of Loki-Foundation
label, of whom incidentally released the
group’s previous LP. As for and outside
glows the red dawn, it is split into six
untitled parts that all flow together as a
single coherent piece of tensile evolving
atmospheres. From the opening piece a
foggy hallucinogenic ambience quickly
unfolds, which is complimented further
with sections of ritualistic drumming.
Likewise the fluidly of the sub-orchestral
sound layers gives off a subtle droning
quality, yet on numerous listens the
material is not half as calm as it initially
appears. The trick here is the depth
and breadth of the sound production is
such that it allows new sonic textures
and elements to be discovered on each
subsequent listen. As a debut full-length
for the group, this is an excellently
constructed and executed album and
having been issued on Malignant Records
is indication of a high calibre of release.
Although the label releases only a few
albums each year, of what slim pickings
that are available, they are consistently
of top notch quality in respect of both
sound and design packaging. Without
doubt Combative Alignment’s album is
worthy of investigation and yet another
feather in the cap for Malignant. www.
malignantrecords.com
– Richard Stevenson qqq1/2
CYSTO
Built for You
[Self Release] CD
Cysto, the brainchild of Voytek Iwasiuk,
melds chunky guitars and slightly edgy
vocals beautifully with instantly enticing
synths that make you want to turn up
the volume. From the opening track
‘Always’, the synths soar beautifully
above Iwasiuk’s voice in a way that
would make VNV Nation go green with
Access Virus envy. The only negative is
that Mr. Iwasiuk could do with a little
vocal training. With that and a little
more experience I’m sure that Cysto will
go on to bigger and brighter things.
www.cysto.net – Justin Tall qqq1/2
kitty classic
JOY DIVISION
Unknown Pleasures (1979)
There is little doubt that Unknown Pleasures is one of the great debut
albums of all time—catchy, riff driven, and densely produced, it is
the kind of experience that you can savour over and over again as
its complexity unfolds. Prior to the album, Joy Division’s songs were
raw, transient, and punk. However, once producer Martin Hannet was
onboard, he transformed this sound into the aural texture the band
became known for. It is as much his album as the band’s.
Beginning with its abstract soundscape recorded by Hannet in a lift,
‘Insight’ evolves as you listen to it. At first it is almost too soft to hear,
the echoing sounds machine as it introduces Bernard Sumner’s vaguely
urgent guitar riff. Two verses in a scattered electronic “guitar break”
erupt, pushing the song in a new direction. As usual Peter Hook’s cool
bassline and Stephen Morris’s metronome-like drums fill out the song.
‘New Dawn Fades’ features a brilliant interplay between its bass and
guitar lines, evoking a languid vitality. Listen closely to the building
guitar line, placed just under Ian Curtis’s vocals. The two grow in urgent
unison. “We’ll share a drink and step outside, / An angry voice and one
who cried, / We’ll give you everything and more, / The strain’s too much,
can’t take much more.” Curtis denied that the song’s lyrics (“A loaded
gun won’t set you free, / So you say”) had anything to do with his true
feelings. But his suicide in 1980 suggests differently.
“Confusion in her eyes that says it all, / She’s lost control. / And she’s
clinging to the nearest passer by, / She’s lost control.” Sumner’s catchy
guitar riff plays the central role in ‘She’s Lost Control’, guiding you
through a series of competing rhythms, flourishes, and tempos. Derived
from Curtis’s struggle with epilepsy, it’s a song of beautiful discord:
delayed tempo, staggered lyrics, and instruments seeming to propel
themselves forward at different rate to reach the end of the song.
Unknown Pleasures is a rare beast—an album of circumstance, glimpsed
in the half-light of Joy Division’s brief career and forever haunted by the
“what could have been” of Curtis’s death.
Next issue: Depeche Mode’s sublime synth-classic, Violator.
– Alex Hammond
kitty rates the noise
DEADWOOD
8 19
[Cold Spring] CD
With the sole member of Deadwood
having roots in the underground black
metal scene—a scene obsessed with
cold and harsh production values—it
was always going to be interesting
when such an individual tackled the
power electronics sound, given that
scenes penchant for obliterated sonic
terrorism. Thus with the convergence
of such influences, even the record
label saw fit to label the album with
the following statement: “Deadwood
is a relentless assault on the senses!
Approach with due caution!” This
certainly is an accurate way to describe
this debut album from Deadwood. With
six tracks and a play time of 60 minutes
this album definitely delivers a walloping
punch to the eardrum. Typically starting
with a low menacing death industrial
guise, the tracks are built on a loose
framework of loops to give a minimalist
structure, before ramping up the mood
with a roaring maelstrom of distortion.
As for evident hallmarks of the black
metal scene, this would relate to the
spoken/ screamed vocals, yet even
these have been processed beyond
recognition to be yet another sonic
layer within obliterated wall of sound
approach. Yet in appreciating such a
vicious album, its overall effect is not
necessarily a good thing for tinnitus
suffers—myself being one of them. As
such I don’t actually need an album
like this to achieve that incessant high
pitched shrill ringing tone within my
skull. But if you aren’t one of the “lucky”
ones like me, by all means seek this out
for such result. However your discretion
with respect of the label’s warning would
be well warranted! www.deadwood.se
– Richard Stevenson qq
DESIDERII MARGINIS
That which is Tragic and Timeless
[Cold Meat Industry] CD
Johan Levin’s project Desiderii Marginis
continues from where third album
Strife left off. Herein lays the problem:
it’s not that different from what has
gone before. It’s full of bleak ambient
soundscapes of a frozen hell that
are both beautiful and tragic on a
grand scale. It’s good but Levin’s been
around long enough that I would have
liked to have seen more of a progression.
http://desiderii.coldmeat.se/
– Justin Tall qqq1/2
DISKONNEKTED
Neon Night
[Alfa Matrix] CD
After a number of appearances on high
profile compilations like Septic 5 and
Advanced Electronics 4, Jan Dewulf’s
second album, Neon Night is well
crafted, dreamlike futurepop in the vein
of earlier Apoptygma Berzerk. Not even
the vocals of Johan Van Roy (Suicide
Commando) on one track can change
Diskonneckted’s saccharine sound. The
track ‘Meeting Falkor’ is so appalling
it defies words— I’ll never be able to
watch The NeverEnding Story again.
While this stands out from most in the
genre, hands up if, like me, you are sick
of synthpop. www.alfa-matrix.com
– Justin Tall qq1/2
DOPPELGANGER
Dancing
[Shadowplay] CD
Despite Doppelganger hailing from
Russia the band displays a warmth and
romanticism that belies that country’s
colder climes. It’s this warmth,
however, that makes Doppelganger
sound lightweight at times. I keep
expecting them to kick into high gear
but they never do. With a sound that
is reminiscent of classic ‘90s goth
rock with rich, deep male vocals and
powerful guitar riffs Doppelganger may
not be the most original band around,
but ultimately it’s good solid stuff
that’s low on the cheese factor. A good
addition to the Shadowplay roster.
www.doppelganger.ru – Justin Tall qqq
THE DREAMSIDE
Spin Moon Magic
[Dancing Ferret Discs] CD
I can’t say when I first listened to
Spin Moon Magic that I was terribly
impressed: the music and vocals were
fantastic but the style of music just
wasn’t me. The album is very “poppy”
and on first listen I was vaguely
reminded of something as terrible as
Evanescence (shock, horror!), but the
more I listened to the album the more
it grew on me. Spin Moon Magic is the
seventh in a long line of releases for
The Dreamside and the production of
the album shows this. The single track
‘Open Your Eyes’ features Rogue from
The Crüxshadows and the CD also comes
with a bonus video for this track. www.
dreamside.nl – Lisa Davison qqq
EARTH
Hex: Or Printing in the Infernal
Method [Southern Lord] CD
Earth is the recently resurrected cult
band project of one Dylan Carlson, who
released a number of distortion based
drone guitar epics on Sub-Pop during the
‘90s. Yet despite such albums, for years
Mr Carlson was more infamous for buying
his friend Kurt Cobain “that” shotgun.
Well it is now 2005, and nine years have
past since the last studio album, where
labels have changed, as have music
styles. Likewise current interest in the
music of Earth has peaked, thanks in
most part to the underground band
SUNN O))), who incidentally started
out as an Earth tribute act. And to
bring this loop full circle, the Southern
Lord label is actually run by a member
of SUNN O))). So now that we are all
up to speed with the historic context
of the group, with this reincarnated
Earth it is immediately evident that
the catatonically paced, sub-tectonic,
quasi-metal guitar distortion mussing
of yesteryear are gone. Whilst the
crawling speed remains, the load and
noisy aspects have been replaced with
a darkly introspective country/ western
and blues based sound. With Mr Carlson
having highlighted inspiration drawn
from Neil Young’s movie score to Jim
Jarmusch’s Dead Man (also reviewed
this issue) this is in fact a perfect
comparison to highlight the direction,
sound and aura of this album. With
slow paced cyclic melodies, augmented
only with sparse percussion, the music
perfectly reflects the mood of the
black ‘n’ white American frontier-era
photographs as depicted on the 20
page booklet. Beyond any preconceived
notions of what Earth has represented
and achieved in the past, Hex is a
phenomenal rebirth of the band’s
style, brought to stunning result in a
far subtler sonic guise. http://www.
subpop.com/bands/earth/earth.html
– Richard Stevenson qqqq
EDGE OF DAWN
The Flight (Lux)
[Dependent] CDEP
The biggest selling point for this new
album is singer Frank Spinath (of
Seabound) is taking the vocal role—and
while that’s certainly a great selling
point, it’s not to be neglected the
professional sound of Mario Schumacher
who has had Edge of Dawn in his back
pocket for since 1998. Seven years is
a long time to wait for a debut, but
it’s potentially one of the best debuts
for 2005! Frank’s lyrics and vocals
poignantly offset Mario’s precise gritty
dance rhythms and sublime synth
hooks. Even though ‘The Flight’ is “just”
an EP its remixes hold enough variety
and interest to make this as listenable
as some of your favourite albums and
you’re bound to come back to it every
couple of days realising that any number
of the songs have crept back into your
head! www.edgeofdawn.de
– Jarod Collard qqqqq
EVERY NEW DEAD GHOST
The Final Ascension 1988 - 1992
[Strobelight] CD
The posthumous popularity Every New
Dead Ghost is experiencing in Europe
has resulted in The Final Ascension, a
retrospective collection of material
released between 1988 and 1992.
Starting out as Desolation, a solo
project for Trevor Bamford (Midnight
Configuration, Brother Orchid, and
Nightbreed Records), ENDG has a longer
history than many realise. 1986 saw
the release of its first single ‘Visions’
(unfortunately not included here), while
the band shared the stage with late-‘80s
luminaries Lords of the New Church,
Creaming Jesus, Sins of the Flesh,
Children on Stun, Restoration, and
other acts heard of but rarely heard such
as Litany of Fear, His Last Parade, and
The Ancestry. The extensive liner notes
by Bamford elaborate on the history of
the band and the nature of the scene in
England at the time, while the disc itself
includes 15 tracks from the group’s back
catalogue and two video clips. For those
who haven’t heard ENDG, its sound
is grittier than contemporaries like
Salvation and Rosetta Stone, and the
distinctive vocals recall Wreckage, early
IKON, and older acts like Furyo, Ritual,
and In Excelsis. The better known
tracks ‘Miranda’, ‘Obvious’, and ‘Not in
a Lifetime’ are all included, making The
Final Ascension an almost definitive
collection that is certainly worth
buying, particularly as much of ENDG’s
back catalogue is presently unavailable.
www.strobelight-records.com
– James Lowry qqqq
THE FAIR SEX
Thin Walls Part 1 + 2
[Endless] CD
The Fair Sex is a fairly new find for me,
especially considering the band’s 20 plus
years of vital gothic/industrial history
in Germany, being a big inspiration,
musically and personally, to bands
such as Project Pitchfork and Das Ich.
Unfortunately for us TFS somehow got
missed in Australia. Anyway, Thin Walls
consists of part one “1990s” and part
two “1980s”. Both are great albums,
classic thick guitars, a heightened sense
of doomy electronics and the very strong
versatile vocals making some songs
(what should be) big goth anthems, but
then sometimes big industrial anthems
also. To start with, definitely nab part
one—the sound is more mature and part
two has dated in parts and is a bit rawer
(but none the less worthwhile, mind).
The Fair Sex oozes musical roots and
inspiration. www.thefairsex.de – Jarod
Collard P.1 qqqqq P.2 qqqq
FEINDFLUG
Volk und Armee...
[Black Rain] CD
Turn up your air raid sirens because
these two Krauts are back banging your
industrial head in with militant rhythms
and big attitude. The raw energy
IKON
Rome
[Équinoxe] CD Single
Taken from the brilliant Destroying the World to
Save It (which was recently named “album of the
month” by Germany’s Zillo), ‘Rome’ was initially
written on acoustic guitar after the band visited
the city in 2004. It’s a rocking anthem with
lyrical substance, the elegant fusion of which is
rare in contemporary goth music.
With one of the most engaging guitar hooks
I’ve heard in any genre of late, ‘Rome’ has fast
become one of my favourite tracks not only by
IKON, but of all-time. The single includes two
early demos for the album, ‘Time Against Time’
Feindflug displays on every release and
every song just makes me want to learn
the drums: you know, drumming on
my victims’ skulls with inch thick lead
pipes and screaming my most piercing
war melodies. Volk und Armee... owes a
subtle amount to Feindflug’s maturity as
one of the few instrumental bands where
not a moment is lost in the excitement
and in your face visions it portrays. It’s
potentially less dancefloor fodder than
previous works, but it really depends on
whether you require pounding 4/4 or
just damn great rhythm. www.feindflug.
info – Jarod Collard qqqq
FIELDS OF THE
NEPHILIM
Mourning Sun
[SPV] CD
When an Old Band™ decides to put
out some new material, we have that
peculiar blend of apprehension and
nostalgia where a smile frequently melts
into a cringe—kinda like watching the
“We are the Champions” climax of the
first Revenge of the Nerds film. And that
very fact alone is enough to make Carl
McCoy (yes, Fields of the Nephilim is
just him now) and the new release even
more of a wondrous, precious moment in
the history of goth rock. This is, simply,
genius. You most likely need an “in” to
the sound already to really appreciate
the solidity of this release, but if you
have that you won’t argue claims that
Mourning Sun features tracks that easily
sit next to ‘Moonchild’ and ‘Last Exit to
the Lost’. If only all comebacks were this
worthwhile. www.fields-of-the-nephilim.
com – Amber Hastings qqqq1/2
FRACTURED
Only Human Remains
(slower paced, with beautiful use of guitar
harmonics and synths) and ‘Understanding’
(upbeat rock with an insistent bass and a singalong chorus backed by a wash of guitars).
Add to the package a live performance of ‘God
Has Fallen from the Sky’ (fittingly recorded in
Rome in 2003), a remix of ‘Blue Murder’ by
Tankt, and a final remix of the single itself by
Adam Calaitzis, and I’m one happy camper.
www.ikondomain.com
– Michelle Smith qqqqq
www.funker-vogt.com
– Valentina Maxwell Tansley qqqq
[Dependent] CD
An extended monologue about how
rubbish society is, “You know those
things, those things you care about”,
layered with some gritty soundscapes
leading into irregular beats makes for
one of the more interesting intro tracks
I’ve heard for a long time. It paves the
way for the topics and sound of the
album. It’s dark, gritty and really good,
there’s something engrossing about
Fractured’s un-single songs, reminding
me of a totally forgotten Zoth Ommog
band Abcess, while the dancefloor synth
lines are begging for an Icon of Coil
vocal hook. They are also nice (errr...
I meant to say real nasty bastards)
enough go against the big trend of every
song being four on the floor. Definitely
recommended if you want something a
little less inane in modern EBM. www.
faithisfractured.com
– Jarod Collard qqqq
FUNKER VOGT
Navigator
[Metropolis] CD
This album is a revelation—I never
remember Funker Vogt being so
listenable. The tracks are all simply
constructed, effective in their skilled
use of contrasting sounds, dynamics and
rhythms. The recent single, ‘Fallen Hero’,
is instantly foot tapping and sure to be
a huge club hit. My favourite track on
the album, however, is ‘No Tomorrow’,
an upbeat tuneful track with a cheesy
‘80s synth line and a superb goth guitar
riff that would make Bauhaus proud. The
only downside is that some of the vocal
melodies become kind of monotonous
towards to end of the album. Buy it!
GOD MODULE
Viscera
[Metropolis] CD
God Module has cranked up the vocoder
and set the dial to “oh-so-evil”. This is
easily the group’s best album to date,
with stronger and harder songwriting
than on previous albums. God Module
has definitely improved, bringing its
distinctive industrial hard trance riffs
and harsh vocals to the forefront.
As a bonus, there is also a cover of
The Cure’s ‘A Night Like This’, which
has been distorted and mangled to
within an inch of its life. For those
who can’t get enough of bands like
Agonoise, Virtual><Embrace, and Suicide
Commando this is a must have; those
searching for something outside the
formula would be better suited looking
elsewhere. www.godmodule.org
– Brent Donaldson qqq
HENRIK NORDVAGR
BJORKK
Vitagen
[Essence] CD
When faced with this, the least
pseudonymous incarnation of the manyfaced Nordvargr, the inevitable question
arises: does the world need another
album from him? Barring Merzbow,
Henrik Nordvargr Bjorkk has to be the
most prolific noise and dark ambient
artist in the world, and I must confess
to not being able to tell the difference
between some of his noisier nomde-musiques. This album is different
though, and answers the question with
a cautious affirmative. Taking a more
considered and patient approach, it
blends expertly produced bass rumbles
and other, occasionally glitchy, dark
ambient textures on top. www.essencemusic.com – Abby Helasdottir qqq
HERR
The Winter of Constantinople
[Cold Spring] CD
Representing a revised reworking of
the original material on HERR’s limited
edition version of the debut album, this
has been re-released by Cold Spring
to much deserved acclaim. To bring
everyone up to speed, the group’s
central driving force consists of epic and
martially tinged neo-classical songs,
where its grasp of orchestral music’s
structure and progression easily matches
up to the lofty heights being sought.
Although primarily produced with
synthesisers, any shortfalls of an overly
synthetic sound are avoided by using
combinations of cello, acoustic guitar,
heavy martial percussion, layered vocals
(often in a verse/ chorus/ verse) format
and samples that range from chorals to
battlefield atmospheres. Thematically
the album focuses the 1453 Byzantine
siege of the city of Constantinople,
except for track two that diverts from
this central thesis in that it is a spoken
piece centring around an intellectual
analysis of soccer hooliganism in the
context of a pan-European revival.
(Personally I’m not sure if many soccer
hooligans would have given this topic
much thought themselves, but it is an
interesting conjecture nonetheless.) In
essence, The Winter of Constantinople is
extremely well executed and confident
album that surely will propel HERR to
the forefront of neo-classical scene.
http://herr.tegendemuur.nl/
– Richard Stevenson qqq1/2
K
K
K
K
K
KKKKK
kitty rates the noise
for this style of music being both clean
yet containing an adequately spacious
and echoed sound palate to convey a
forlorn and nostalgic atmosphere. Not
for the music to stand and be judged in
its own, the digi-pack sleeve with tenpage fold out colour poster is likewise a
perfect exercise in the presentation of
sacral/ political/ philosophical text and
imagery as to spark intrigue as to the
deeper inspiration imbedded within the
project. At only 38 minutes in length
this is an album slightly on the short
side, yet nevertheless is a powerfully
introductory declaration that is worthy
of investigation. http://coldspring.
co.uk/artists/kriegsfall-u.php
– Richard Stevenson qqq
THE LAST DANCE
Once Beautiful
HORRORPOPS
Bring It On
[Epitaph] CD
Not a whole lot can be said to convince anyone who
saw HorrorPops on the band’s recent Australian tour
that its studio work can ever outdo its gobsmacking
live show, but it’s true. Popabillies finest follow up the
debut Hell Yeah with an even saucier cover photo of
Patricia and nine of the punchiest tracks put to disc
in recent years to bridge the gap between psycho-
HUMAN DISEASE
Our Flesh Deception
[Strobelight] CD
Human Disease is the newest in a long
line of Italian deathrock bands to
conjure up the spirit of Rozz Williams,
but it is also the least blatant. Our
Flesh Deception is the band’s debut, out
on Strobelight Records. In the tradition
of punk, no instrument dominates the
sound, which is clear and lilting and
overlaid with panting, droning vocals.
‘Petals (Part One)’ is a stand out and the
drumming on ‘Gold Flames of Angels’ is
memorable, while ‘Mother Sodom’ and
‘Chimera’ are also interesting. Unlike
some of its contemporaries Human
Disease isn’t heavy-handed. The
band selectively blends the energy of
Chants of Maldoror with the distance
of Spiritual Bats to create structured
songs that are never allowed to become
overwrought. This is an approach taken
by Bloody Dead and Sexy, so Human
Disease might be expected to perform
just as well www.human-disease.com
– James Lowry qqq1/2
KILLING JOKE
XXV Gathering: Let Us Prey
[Cooking Vinyl] CD
Given the excitement that Killing Joke’s
25th Anniversary gigs generated, a
live album was inevitable. It manages
to capture the tribal energy and raw
passion of the band perfectly. The
billy, new wave, and mainstream pop. Joined this
time around by Geoff Kresge (ex-Tiger Army and AFI),
Patricia, Nekromantix’ Kim Nekroman and 009dermeir––with the help of producer Brett Gurwitz (Bad
Religion)––have tightened the enthusiasm from the
debut album into a finely tuned hook machine, with
tracks like ‘Freaks in Uniform’, ‘Walk Like a Zombie’ and
‘Caught in a Blond’ capturing precisely what it is that
has made the HorrorPops such a startling phenomena
of pop success. Play it loud! www.horrorpops.com
– Alexandra Nicholas qqqqq
recording may not be perfect, but it
adds to the animal nature of what it is
to see KJ live. This album takes songs
spanning the band’s entire career, from
‘Wardance’ (1980) to ‘Asteroid’ (2003),
and makes even the older material sound
fresh. I guess that’s what makes KJ
stand out from the crowd after so long.
www.killingjoke.com
– Justin Tall qqqq1/2
KREUZWEG OST
Edelrost
[Cold Spring] CD
With the promo sheet trumping that the
project contains members of black metal
project Summoning and death metal
band Pungent Stench, I was interested
to see what would result in their take
on a martial industrial/ neo-classical
sound. What in the end is achieved is
a slightly bizarre sounding concoction
of martial drumming, orchestral loops,
and multitudes of synthesiser generated
textures, with some aspects of eastern
music influences thrown in for good
measure. Additionally the music is
heavily laden with dialogue samples,
but as in the most part are either in
German or Austrian, I cannot decipher
such themes being presented. Yet after
fully absorbing the content of Edelrost, I
must admit that it does not really favour
my listening sensibilities. Firstly the
music production is far too synthetic,
whilst the written structure of the music
seems generic of the style and sound of
a synthesiser based black metal band,
which are not positive aspects to my
ear. Likewise with the heavy reliance on
dialogue samples, it had me visualising
the album as a soundtrack to some
obscure German B-grade flick—be it
horror movie or attempted war epic. The
album is not bad per se, but lacks that
certain innate characteristic that such a
style of music really requires, and as such
holds up poorly against the heavyweights
of the genre. http://www.coldspring.
co.uk/artists/kreuzweg-ost.php
– Richard Stevenson qq
KRIEGSFALL U
[Dancing Ferret] CD
Once Beautiful is the new album from
California goth band The Last Dance. If
you liked the previous disc, Whispers in
Rage, you’ll probably find lots to like
about this. To my ears, it’s quite similar,
but perhaps marginally better. There’s
the usual layers of keys/programming
and big flanged GothGuitars. But there’s
a real denseness to this record which I
don’t think I’ve heard from this band
before. While there’s no ‘Nightmares’
or ‘Do You Believe in Angels?’, it’s
quite consistent from start to finish:
there are no tracks to skip (well, okay,
maybe just one). There’s a great depth
of feeling in this music, especially on
tracks such as ‘World Down’ and ‘That
Never Was’, and the unmistakable
voice of Tina Root (previously from
Switchblade Symphony) is present on
‘Wish Me Closer’. And maybe it’s just me,
but there’s something about the start
of the title track that reminds me of
‘Fascination Street’. Actually, I’m sure
it’s just me. www.thelastdance.com
– Jay Annabel qqq1/2
M2 (SQUAREMETER)
The Frozen Spark
Kriegsfall U
[Ant-Zen] CD
[Cold Spring] CD
It’s hard to imagine a creepier
evening than a night home alone with
Squaremeter’s The Frozen Spark. Evoking
other worldly intelligences, chase
scenes, echoes of the past or distant
armies, the eight track CD takes the
listener on a spooky journey indeed.
It’s like that part of the soundtrack that
sneaks in just when something freaky
is about to happen in your ultimate
thriller—something really freaky. The
slick production made me crave surround
sound; those with it are in for a real
treat. – Alicia Campos qqq1/2
Full of esoteric inspiration, Kriegsfall
U is a solid new addition to the postindustrial scene, drawing from the linage
of seminal acts such as Les Joyaux
De La Princesse and Dusk and Dawn
Entwined. Via heavy pounding industrial
distortion,
militaristic
drumming,
orchestral horn/ string arrangements
and vitriolic speech samples, the evoked
atmosphere is rousing and steeped in
strident rhetoric. Each of the seven
track are generally built around a central
key percussive pattern and melody line
that are built up and layered over
its duration, with speech samples or
spoken lyrics added for completeness.
The sound production is likewise perfect
THE MACHINE IN THE
GARDEN
Shadow Puppets
[Middle Pillar] CD
One of the most interesting sounds to
be produced by the American darkwave
scene in the last ten years has to be
this electro-ethereal crossover. Shadow
Puppets, the fifth full-length album by
the duo of Bowman and Frace brings The
Machine in the Garden into the company
of Collide and the girls who kick-started
it all, Switchblade Symphony. Previously
TMITG charmed audiences with its
turbulent and shadowy Love is Colder
than Death meets Claire Voyant sound,
heard on tracks such as ‘Lost Inside’ and
‘Final Form’. Shadow Puppets is clear and
sparse by comparison, opening with the
immaculately produced ‘This Silence’,
and moving through dancefloorfriendly tracks ‘The Inside World’ and
‘Spider’s Bride’, the simple melancholy
of ‘Illusions in Rain’, ‘Winter Fell’, and
‘More Unto Dreamt Fire’, the barren
and hypnotic ‘Mother’, and a reworking
of ‘Suspend’. Frace brings fresh sounds
into each piece, merging the acoustic
and electric, the organic and synthetic,
creating a sophisticated soundtrack
for Bowman’s expert vocals. From ‘This
Silence’ to ‘Goodbye’, Shadow Puppets
is a dazzling album. www.tmitg.com
– James Lowry qqqq1/2
MELOTRON
Cliché
[Metropolis] CD
Cliché is Melotron’s latest rousing,
stylish and occasionally playful release.
The German synthpop trio sounds, not
surprisingly, like Depeche Mode. Whilst
this is entertaining and occasionally
impressive, it often treads ground
already covered by others. No doubt
thought and care went into this light
synthpop—‘Wenn Wir Wollten’ is a stand
out track. It’s a pleasant album, despite
its flaws. www.melotron.com
– Michael Wolloghan qqq
MONSTRUM SEPSIS
Movement
[WTII] CD
Following on from 2003’s Deep Sea
Creatures, Movement is the latest album
from the duo of Rob Wentz and Paul
Karlik. Devoid of vocals, Monstrum
Sepsis lets the beats and bass do the
talking with a sound that predominantly
mixes the complexity of IDM with the
distorted aesthetics of rhythmic noise.
Some tracks have a propulsive bassdriven feel to them, while others inhabit
a more staid down-tempo area, but all
are immersed in an impressively thick
heavy atmosphere. While not necessarily
an immediate attention grabber, the
album is a grower that rewards repeated
listening. – Abby Helasdottir qqq
NECRO STELLAR
Saturating Cemetary
[Shadowplay] CD
Necro Stellar, one of Moscow’s longest
running bands has finally released its
second album. The duo combines Yura
Zvezdniy’s keyboards, programming, and
instruments (including human bone and
scythe) with Anastasia Podnebesnaja’s
vocals. At times Necro Stellar sounds
“Russian”, with deep male semi-operatic
vocals. At other times it is ambient, akin
to the CMI roster, and then sometimes
electro-goth. Moving from dark occult
atmospheres to cartoonish electro
breaks is no mean feat, and at times it
falls flat. While it bites off more than
it can chew, this is a well conceived
album. http://shadowplay.ru
– Justin Tall qqq1/2
NEGATIVE FORMAT
Moving Past the Boundaries
[Metropolis] CD
Alex Matheu’s Negative Format is one of
several North American projects currently
mining a vein of dark trance-flavoured
EBM that still manages to distinguish
itself from the excesses of futurepop.
Moving Past the Boundaries builds on
the distinctive Negative Format sound
established on the preceding album
Cipher Method, reducing the amount of
vocoded vocals for a slightly harsher
variation, and adding greater depth
and intensity to the compositions.
In addition to the dancefloor tracks,
Matheu shows his diversity with
industrial ambient and downbeat pieces,
invariably assisted by the vocals of
Rashree Matson. A masterful album that
works equally in the club and at home.
– Abby Helasdottir.
O.V.N.I
Object Volant Non Identifié
[AlfaMatrix] CD
Apparently Object Volant Non Identifié means UFO in French and that’s
exactly what this album is. OVNI is not really sure what it wants to
be. There are the Prodigy breakbeats, Paul Oakenfold “epic” keyboards
with some faux teen angst thrown in for good measure. It’s unoriginal,
uninspired, and ends up being the equivalent of Muzak. When you
hear “What have I done?” and “What do you want from me?” sung in
a Covenant/Seabound intonation you’ll be asking yourself the same
questions. Give this to your older auntie who thinks she’s hip, she’ll
love it!
– Brent Donaldson q1/2
ORDO ROSARIUS
EQUILIBRIO AND
SPIRITUAL FRONT
PIG
Satyriasis
Pigmata is an interesting album. The
latest release from PIG (AKA Raymond
Watts), this album rose from the ashes
of the previous Pigmartyr release; due
to label woes, Pigmartyr suffered a tiny
print run and distribution. Through an
understated lead-in, Pigmata kicks off
with the guitar heavy ‘Suck Spit Shit’,
and maintains a very “industrial rock”
feel for the first four songs or so, with
the brilliant dance-floor track ‘Situation’.
After this beginning, Pigmata takes a
more familiar tone, with the electrosleaze of ‘Junky’, and jazzy ‘Take’ and
‘On the Slaughterfront’, both of which
remind me a lot of 1993’s The Swining.
With a more guitar-driven sound than
maybe some other PIG releases, while
still containing the style and sleaze of
Raymond Watts’s take on industrial, this
is a great album for those looking to
[Cold Meat Industry] CD
I have found over the span of the
group’s career, Ordo (Rosarius) Equilibrio
has been very touch and go. Moving
from dark ambient gothic atmospherics
through to a neo-folk sound, the group
has always experimented with its sound
and identity. This time, Ordo Rosario
Equilibrio has teamed with Spiritual
Front, which is self-described as “nihilist
suicide pop” (an oxymoron to me!). This
album almost has a cabaret feel to it with
a rolling, marching, accordion feel. It
has clear song structures with verse and
chorus, and is altogether an interesting
collaboration. The songs are cheeky yet
dark, a nice album to reflect upon on
a quiet night in. www.ordo-rosariusequilibrio.net www.spiritualfront.com
– Tavis Potts qqq
Pigmata
[Metropolis] CD
kitty rates the noise
start listening to PIG, or for those who
just want a great, yet varied, industrial
album. www.thesickcity.com
– Nat Williams. qqqq
REMAIN SILENT
Dislocation
[Axesscode] CD
Remain Silent doesn’t merely make
music, but crafts worlds. Dislocation
draws you into a sci-fi nightmare with
elements of techno, industrial noise, and
Bladerunner-esque ambience that ebbs
and flows with laser guided procision.
If FLA and Vangelis were commissioned
to do a soundtrack, on a good day they
might come close to Dislocation. The epic
scale with which Remain Silent tackles
its artistic ventures is nothing short of
amazing. Awesome in its diversity and
utterly stunning in its multilayered
programming, Dislocation sets the bar
for modern electronic music. Listen to
this, preferably with headphones, and
learn something. www.axesscode.com
– Justin Tall qqqq1/2
SIMPLE MINDS
Black And White 050505
[Sanctuary] CD
know ‘Tainted Love’ (covered by bloody
everyone, from Coil to Marilyn Manson)
and ‘Sex Dwarf’ (covered by bloody
everyone else, from Leather Strip to
Psyche). But Nine Inch Nails’ version of
‘Memorabilia’ and Uncle Trent’s homage
to Ball and Almond with the borrowed
title from Mr Self Destruct illustrate–as do the powerful live performances
of these and other essential Soft Cell
tracks on this vibrant double live CD—
just how influential Soft Cell was and
continues to be. www.softcell.com
– Emily Potter qqq1/2
STROMKERN
Light It Up
[Dependent] CD
Up until now I’ve never been a fan of
Stromkern, because I’ve found Ned Kirby’s
compositions rather anaemic and lacking
in power and conviction. However with
Light It Up, the songs are fleshed out
and the lyrics are political but mature. As
the album attempts to blend electro with
industrial and hip hop vocals, there is
enough variation to keep me interested.
Victoria Lloyd of Claire Voyant makes
an appearance, but no one notices.
‘Sentinel’ which features Frank Spinath of
Seabound has to be the highlight of the
album. www.stromkern.com
Don’t you forget about them? Still up
on the catwalk? New Old Dream? There’s
one hundred and one trashy clichés with
which to introduce the latest release for
‘80s superstars Simple Minds, but unlike
bands such as Duran Duran, this time
it seems a little more than a cynical
marketing ploy and features some
genuine musicality underlying the retro
gimmickry. Bringing key members Jim
Kerr (vocals) and Charlie Burchill (guitar)
back together, they are joined by Bob
Clearmountain who mixed the hugely
successful Once Upon a Time album
twenty years ago. Simple Minds were
always a UK band, Britpopping it with a
camp warmth before the Dandy Warhols
even knew what a feather boa looked
like, and tracks such as ‘Different World’
and ‘Stay Visible’ indicate that Simple
Minds still has a genuine donation to
make to the increasingly bland sound
pool. www.simpleminds.com
– Justin Tall qqq
– Emily Potter qqqq
TANNHAUSER
SYSTEM SYN
Postscript
[Projekt] CD
Dead Can Dance is known for its lush, emotive and intricately
orchestrated tracks. So, to try and re-create the atmosphere and aural
complexities of Dead Can Dance is a pretty big challenge. The bands
on this album, including stalwarts Faith and the Muse and black tape
for a blue girl, succeed in achieving the required sound stylistically.
However, there’s nothing inspirational here. None of the bands have
done anything radical in their interpretation, which leaves me a little
disappointed. Worth checking out if you’re a fan of the Projekt bands,
but probably not worth the investment if you’ve got the originals.
– Valentina Maxwell Tansley qqqq1/2
[Metropolis] CD
Clint Carney has certainly been around
the scene long enough now to know
what a good album should sound like.
Strange then that up until now he’s never
really hit the mark. Postscript is a step
in the right direction, however. Carney
seems to be steering away from trying
to make it big to concentrate on good
song writing and clever compositions.
Postscript ends up being a well produced
album full of heavenly electropop tunes
that give more than an acknowledging
nod to Depeche Mode and even The
Human League. Anger has given way
to cynicism, maturity over vitriol. www.
systemsyn.com – Justin Tall qqq1/2
A.New.Biostate
SOFT CELL
[Caustic Records] CD
Say Hello, Wave Goodbye: Live
Tannhauser mixes up elements of
techno, rhythm ‘n noise, and industrial
in an album of complex EBM styles.
Tannhauser stands out because the
group sings in English, German, and its
native Spanish. The clean vocals ensure
that Tannhauser’s brand of EBM avoids
being a Suicide Commando/Hocico
clone. Finally, the production of A.New.
Biostate is impeccable. This is a mature,
varied, and engaging release that
deserves serious attention. I can’t wait
to see what Tannhauser does next. www.
[Demon] CD
Synthpop was born—and many suggest,
died—with the legendary Brit duo Soft
Cell. Marc Almond and Dave Ball began
the project in Leeds in 1980, and
when they reunited in April this year
for a live show at Royal Festival Hall,
they confirmed once and for all their
near-unchallenged legacy to electronic
music and pop in general. Say Hello,
Wave Goodbye: Live serves at the very
least as a reminder of just how much
Soft Cell has offered; of course we all
VARIOUS
Summoning of the Muse. A Tribute to Dead Can Dance
causticrecords.com
– Justin Tall qqqq1/2
THINGS OUTSIDE THE
SKIN
You Knew it all Along
[Facility] CD
The latest offering from TOTS is melodic,
industrial music laced with hip hop.
Crazy, lovable weird shit is one way of
describing it. This band’s style tends to be
more on the side of traditional industrial,
but veers toward being more electric than
most, which is obvious in the first track
‘American Way’. Hip hop inspired drums
and bass tracks reveal themselves in songs
like ‘Town and Country’ and ‘The Most
Appealing’. The darker, more moody songs
came later on. – Tessa Drysdale qqq
VARIOUS
Under the Rays of the Night Sun
[Sol Ater] CD
I was not sure what to expect with
this compilation of Russian darkwave
on first inspection, as my mind had
not crystallised around the notion of
what Russian darkwave could be. The
compilation is split into ‘Dawn’ and ‘Dusk’
featuring a massive diversity of artists
from goth, neofolk, darkwave, ambient,
and industrial genres. With amazing
production and diversity, this album
really stands out as something different.
The quality of music is amazing, as upon
reflection, what one should expect from
a culture that produced Tchaikovsky! A
great mix of music, beautifully produced
and arranged, both the Dawn and Dusk
CDs take the listener on a journey of the
finest that Russia has to offer. A must!
– Tavis Potts qqqqq
VARIOUS
xC Labs
[AxC] CD
For the musical adventurer this is like
finding the lost city of AxessCode, and all
the fabulous treasure within. The Francebased label placed a competition on its
well-frequented forum for an upcoming
compilation. The only condition of
entry was that the entrants had to find
another artist to collaborate with. As a
result, there are almost 60 bands (some
well known and some unknown), and 30
songs spanning two CDs. The first is an
electroclash, industrial, IDM CD, while
the second is a dark ambient, ritual, IDM
based CD. All tracks are of a very high
standard making this a worthy treasure
for any collection. www.axesscode.com
– Brent Donaldson qqqq
TOP 10 SONGS
1. Apoptygma Berzerk - In this Together [Single / Gun]
2. Deine Lakaien - Over + Done [Single / Chrome]
3. Rotersand - Exterminate Annihilate Destroy [Single / Dependent]
4. God Module - Victims Amongst Friends [Single / Out of Line]
5. Colony 5 - Like Leaves [Fixed / Prototyp]
6. Suicide Commando - Face of Death [Single / Dependent]
7. Combichrist - This S*it Will Fcuk You Up [Everybody Hates You/Metropolis]
8. VNV Nation - Chrome [Matter + Form / Metropolis]
9. [:S.I.T.D:] - Richtfest [Single / Accession]
10. The Birthday Massacre - Happy Birthday [Violet / Repo]
ARSIS
GOJIRA
A Celebration of Guilt
From Mars to Sirius
[Earache] CD
[Listenable] CD
This is definitely one of the better metal
CDs released this year. Arsis is a twopiece (yes, that’s right—two piece)
metal act hailing from the States and the
duo is pretty damn amazing. The music
is technical and brutal and really kicks
you in the face without the “wankiness”
and “oh so hardcore” attitude that
a lot of metal bands seem to think is
their god given right these days. Arsis,
basically knows how to write a damn
fine tune and more importantly the band
knows how to deliver one as well. www.
worshipdepraved.com
French band Gojira is truly a
disappointment. Writing a review for
such an uninspiring album is proving to
be very difficult, as I can’t actually find
anything profound or thought provoking
to say about this album! Gojira claims
that it finds very little competition in
its brand of “more adventurous and
innovative” metal. Personally I just
thought the band sounds like every other
generic metal band that you can find in
any bargain bin in any commercial music
store. www.gojira-music.com
– Lisa Davison qqqq1/2
EWIGKEIT
Conspiritus
– Lisa Davison q
NEURAXIS
Truth Beyond / Imagery / Passage
[Earache] CD
TOP 10 ALBUMS
[Earahce] CD
1. Suicide Commando - Axis of Evil [Dependent]
2. Combichrist - Everybody Hates You [Metropolis]
3. Deine Lakaien - April Skies [Chrome]
4. Rotersand - Welcome to Goodbye [Dependent]
5. VNV Nation - Matter + Form [Metropolis]
6. Neuroticfish - Gelb [Dancing Ferret]
7. Hocico - Wrack + Ruin [Metropolis]
8. [:S.I.T.D:] - Coded Message:12 [Metropolis]
9. Icon of Coil - Machines Are Us [Metropolis]
10. The Crüxshadows - Frozen Embers [Dancing Ferret]
The one man band of James Fogarty
returns with a release that takes us
further away from his early black metal
beginnings and further into the realm of
Pink Floyd and Killing Joke. With electro
goth keys and industrial guitars, this
ambient rock album paints a portrait of
a world immersed in global conspiracies,
with an ever watching big brother
and secret agenda’s. Samples of news
broadcasts from different cultures, 911
interviews, and a speech by Mahatma
Gandhi throughout the album makes
for a chaotic and intriguing landscape.
Unfortunately, the music is quite
standard throughout which lets the
album down a little. However, fans of the
above mentioned bands should definitely
check it out. www.ewigkeit.co.uk
In anticipation of its upcoming release,
Earache has re-released Neuraxis’s entire
back catalogue in this double album
show-casing one of the most underrated
Canadian metal groups. With a style
firmly rooted in death metal, this fivepiece delivers a technical, extremely
brutal twin guitar attack locked up with
quick, constantly changing drums and a
variety of vocals ranging from growling
to high screams. From early, stock
standard beginnings on Imagery (1997)
to the growth in writing and dynamics
on Passage to the Forlorn (2001), it
comes as no surprise when Truth Beyond
(2002) relentlessly crushes its way
through, stopping only for Cryptopsy
style jazz interludes. Include ten live
videos and this is one hell of a package.
And true to form, it leaves you eagerly
awaiting the upcoming new album.
www.neuraxis.org
– Ben Parker qq
–Ben Parker qqqq
The Australasian Darkwave Charts [ADC] is based upon playlists of
DJs from radio and nightclubs all over Australasia (including New
Zealand and Southeast Asia). The ADC is an unbiased third party
chart that collects and reports the received data. ALL music played
in the sources are valid, mostly staying within the electronic gothic,
industrial and darkwave genres. This chart is collated purely for the
promotional purposes of the Darkwave scene(s) in Australasia. The
ADC is proudly sponsored by GROUND UNDER PRODUCTIONS www.gup.
net.au and FIEND Magazine www.fiend-magazine.com
FINAL BREATH
Let Me Be Your Tank
[Magick] CD
Let Me Be Your Tank is an inoffensive,
run of the mill metal recording. It’s not
a bad album at all; it just lacks a certain
degree of originality. I was reminded
of a heavy Sepultura as the first track
played, but it lost this similarity this
quite fast— although Final Breath
keeps to generic metal it does have a
little of its own sound. Not an album I’d
personally put on my “must have” list
but not a bad wee CD to have in your
collection and listen to occasionally.
www.finalbreath.de
– Lisa Davison qqq
THROES OF DAWN
Quicksilver Clouds
[Magick] CD
The latest offering from this Finnish
five-piece really fails to excite or
inspire. Throes of Dawn was obviously
going for a dark melodic atmosphere
yet the finished product comes across
as mediocre and somewhat generic and
unoriginal. The vocals are very harsh and
not in the good “metal harsh” way—they
are just, quite frankly, painful to listen
to. The lyrics actually made me giggle
at one point with their cheesiness, not
something that a “sinister black metal”
band should be able to do. On a positive
note, the CD does come with a bonus
video for the single ‘Vertigo’. www.
throesofdawn.com
– Lisa Davison q
canonical fodder1
the crow
W
e have had two instalments here in ‘Canonical
Fodder’ to unpick the currents of cinema, having
stopped in on Bowie’s codpiece in Labyrinth, and
the tight pants and cheese of Flash Gordon. Our third
stop will require some lavish face paint, some unlaced
booties, and righteous and justified anger—the
adaptation of J. O’Barr’s indie comic classic, The Crow
(1994).
Not The Crow’s sequels, mind you. These are cynical,
depraved—who thought these things could live up? Iggy
Pop’s salty performance in The Crow: City of Angels (1996)
was almost enough to resurrect that film, but the only
anger to sustain the beast was the audience’s own lust
for revenge at having seen such an otherwise terrible
film. The actual crow flying over exploding trees has more
in common with the famous napalm strafe in Apocalypse
Now (sans surfing) than anything James O’Barr had
concocted. And the old electric chair avenger of The
Crow: Salvation (2000) was a better fit for a Wes Craven
flick (Shocker, anyone?). And let us not forget that blight
of a television series, during which one episode saw the
avenger’s locus of rage focussing on—wait for it—some
guys that had ripped off some songs he had written in
life. This was hardly the tale of justified punishment of
the wicked with which the original Crow story and film
had built up such resonance.
and fuck up everyone’s shit. And the profanities! My God,
the profanities!
And the resonance was obvious and traceable. With the
release of the original feature film came the waves of
heavy face paint in nightclubs, of scarred and untied
army boots, tight PVC on the lads, and the crest of a
newly popularised underground aesthetic. The film did
not invent this—cooler kids in the know were doing it
after the comic first hit shelves—but this was the spike
in the chart. And here are some other things going for
this fine film:
- Simply put, it’s the finest performance of Brandon
Lee’s career. Sure, he didn’t kick people through banisters
like he did perhaps in Laser Mission, but he had other
moves with which to throw down on the bad guys. The
gunplay towards the end of the movie, all motion, sparks
and strobes, is not quickly forgotten.
- Angst, dammit, angst. The soundtrack had a preStarfuckers Trent Reznor singing a Joy Division song.
That is so angsty, the adjective needs two damn “A’s”
(read: Aangst).
- The baritone gravel voice of Michael Wincott. This
makes the movie truly special. From the day I saw this
performance, I was gripped by a vision of the only thing
that could be a superior badass experience. The vision
eludes me still, but I hold out all hope—for a film that
stars Michael Wincott, Lance Henrikson, and Christopher
Walken, playing a trio of anti-heroes who speak in
subsonic nastiness, touring the country- (and city-) side
- Poignancy. The beautiful terror! The unrequited love!
The tragedy! The tears! Even in belittling it now, all these
years later, one must confess they shed a tear! It can’t
rain all the time!
- Um, did he just call that dude a stupid asshair?
Write it up as dated; distance yourself from it to save
yourself embarrassment with your friends; denounce it as
merely “OK”. The fact is that somewhere, somehow this
movie plucked a little at your heart and gave you that
release, of a fair punishment delivered against Those That
Deserve It. It was a cornerstone in a cultural movement,
one of the steps of the modern dark alternative
encroaching into the modern mainstream.
- Brian Emo
63_
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65_
The Outrageous Cult Classic now available as fully Loaded
Special Edition DVD for the first time in Australia.
Immerse in the Perverse...
“ROCKY HORROR FOR THE CHEMICAL
GENERATION” - Melody Maker
“VISUALLY STUNNING. WICKEDLY AMUSING.
YES PLEASE!” - Diva
“BOLD, PROVOCATIVE... SURREAL” - Time Out
“CULT FAVOURITE” - Boston Phoenix
“A MESH OF GLAMOUR & HILARITY” - Independent on Sunday.
“A KIND OF HIGH-TECH, FAST-PACED MOULIN
ROUGE FOR THE FETISH WORLD...” - Curve Magazine
“HILARIOUS... GOES DOWN ON SUCH SINFUL
PLEASURES.” - Empire UK
“A THRILLING HELTER SKELTER JOURNEY THROUGH
THE SEEDY UNDERWORLD” - London Evening Standard.
“A SPANKING GOOD WATCH” - forum