Here at Piccadilly we've long since suspected the presence of some sort of undisclosed additive in the Melbourne water, how else do you explain the volume of breathtaking dance releases we've heard from our antipodean cousins of late. Thing is, Kirkis appears to be drinking/swimming/pissing in an entirely different stream; a strange sonic world where Numan, James White and/or Chance, Liquid Liquid, Sisters Of Mercy, The Cure and Bowie (Berlin period obvs) play to sold out crowds of mutant cheerleaders and speed-freak cyber punks. For every bit of gnarly post punk skronk ("Dark Rom"), there's a bedsit love song ("Forever") waiting in the wings. "Dead Nightclub" trips us out with some utterly spangled sound design and proper 80s pop chops, while "Vicky Can't Fly" transitions from the cinematic synth sound much beloved of our own Barry to a super sincere and slightly psychedelic Bowie-style anthem. Self-released, limited and better than 99% of other music, I'd advise you buy one.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: To quote my dear friend, and former colleague Michael, "this has fucked me up". If I were on WhatsApp right now I'd be communicating only in fire emojis. Melbourne's Kirkis condenses everything brilliant about the early 80s (new wave, post punk, goth) into the strongest alternative pop release I've heard for a long time. Essential listening for fans of Ariel Pink I reckon.

For those who shine darkly......

During the transitional period in which Coil’s primary leadership, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and John Balance, reorganized their creative direction by taking on new membership in the group through their inclusion of Drew McDowall, Coil took a drastic turn towards the metaphysical unknown.Employing the subtle handiwork of Coil’s“real life”members, as well as the cleverlyguised aliases and spiritual collaborators, the band chose to filter their identity through a the nome de guerre, Black Light District,setting the precedent of Coil’s future exploration of other worldy influence.

Recorded during the Winter of 1995/96, Black Light District reflects more on their formal avant-garde pursuits and academic interests rather than their industrial pedigree resume. Starting off with an obvious nod to John Cage with their introductory “Unprepared Piano”, the tone is prepared in exactly the same way... unpredictable. Conceptually abstract, Black Light District shows Coil’s old guard disregarding the pop rhythms found on previous albums, such as Love Secret Domain,and fully embracing their experimental electronic trajectory. Subtle patterns of looping melancholy and malaise are placed delicately underneath ghostly electronic timbre. Approaching their creative method as something from the beyond, another realm in which sounds blur and performers seemingly appear from the ether.

Dais Records announces the official reissue of "Coil presents Black Light District -A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room". Remastered by engineer Josh Bonati and supervised by Coil's Drew McDowall, the double LP vinyl release is packaged in a beautiful matte 24pt stock gatefold jacket Also available on digipack CD with booklet and digital.

FORMAT INFORMATION

2xColoured LP Info: Limited edition of 500 on TRANSLUCENT YELLOW.

2xLtd LP Info: Limited edition of 500 on BLACK VINYL.

2xLtd LP includes MP3 Download Code.

As co-founder of Fuck Buttons, the highly-influential noise-electronic duo, Andrew Hung has toured extensively with headline shows at the Kentish Town Forum, Glastonbury and Greenman Festivals, been featured on the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony and all three albums have featured as Best New Music on Pitchfork Media. His production work has included Zun Zun Egui's "Shackles Gift" and co-writing/co-producing the critically acclaimed "Kidsticks" by Beth Orton. In 2016 he soundtracked the multiple-award winning film "The Greasy Strangler ", and was nominated for Best Soundtrack at the Empire Awards. His debut solo album, Realisationship was released via Lex records in October 2017.

An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn is the soundtrack to Jim Hosking's directorial follow up to The Greasy Strangler and stars Aubrey Plaza, Jemaine Clement, Emile Hirsch, Craig Robinson and Matt Berry . The film will be released in cinemas on the 18th October 2018. With AN EVENINGWITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN, Hosking makes a triumphant return, bringing his innate talent for outrageous absurdity to this hilariously offbeat romantic comedy.

NEON EROS is the distributed follow up to the amazing Library Vol​.​1 Espaces Urbains compilation courtesy of ERR REC, an independent label dedicated to electronic and experimental music based out of Paris.

Heavily inspired by early 80’s electronic music, fans of Herbie Hancock, electro funk and library music will likely find something pleasing here to fulfil their dystopian disco in Escape from New York-like fantasies.

Maayan Nidam's "Sea of Thee" is described as an underwater realm of 'tech blues noir'. It's an interesting an accurate description of these tracks that draw you in through their moody electronic soundbeds, manipulated vox and mechanized rhythms.

There's a thick, overhanging darkness surrounding the album that clings to the air like burnt plastic. Punishing piston drums occasionally attacking senses as well - it's both claustrophobic and terrifyingly isolated in equal measure.

Being as it is, on Perlon, it seems easily suited to both club environments and deep home listening, a facet of the label that's kept it relevant for so long across dance music and electronic music worlds. 

By 1981, after four years of DIY electronics, it was time for a change. For Philip Sanderson that change came in the form of film. At first, requests came from friends for soundtrack work, and by the end of the decade he was making short experimental 16mm films himself. "On One of These Bends" is a collection of unreleased songs, soundtrack work and obscure cassette only pieces from the 80’s which reflect Sanderson’s shift in focus. It was a departure from the industrial music he had been making with his group Storm Bugs, having more in common with Nino Rota and Henry Mancini, albeit as seen through a DIY lens, and with a reel- To-reel orchestra comprised of an EMS VCS3, vibraphone, DX7, Roland SH- 101, Roland TR-606, tape delay, acoustic guitar, fretless bass and Yamaha FB-01.
On two numbers, Philip jokingly asked an American chanteuse to “sing it like a cross between Streisand and The Shangri-Las”, and to his surprise she did, the results sounding like a loungey AC Marias, or a lost early Crépuscule recording by Anna Domino. Counterpointing this are tracks such as "E For Echo" made with just an acoustic guitar, and the very first piece Bright Waves which combines the choral vocal talents of Nancy Slessenger with a Revox tape delay system, originally released on his own label Snatch Tapes, under the pseudonymous duo Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey.
This album is presented with the ‘picture turned down’ so to speak, and as such the music acts as a kind of memento mori for the absent moving images, and maybe even for the decade itself. Remastered from the original reels, DMM pressing.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Canadian digger and esoteric auteur Brandon Edward Horcura invites us into his Seance Centre once again, this time to enjoy the spectral sounds of Philip Sanderson. Moody acoustic guitar compositions blur into hazy ambience and fractal electronics as Sanderson embarks on a journey to a new musical plane.

Remember that straightforward mix of EBM and synth-punk that came out on Antinote last year, wrapped in a suggestive black and gold sleeve? The lyrics were far from ambiguous and the music produced by Panoptique and Paula was joyfully aggressive.
Broken glass, dogs barking & cats roaring: Succhiamo is back and gives us news from the scrapyard.
The thing is, it seems that Succhiamo’s scrapyard has been animated by Bill Plympton : in place of dogs and cats, it’s a lewd Pink Panther chasing a spaced-out Scooby-Doo on Dolore Dentro or Stai Male. Happily championing bad taste, the two musicians even venture into the illegitimate territories of italo-pop missed hits, shaped for lipsync performances on Rai Uno with the nagging Que Pena.
As we’re getting close to the middle of the record, the music gets openly punkier, climaxing with the explicitly named "Desiderio Di Violenza", brushing past 200 BPM. While the inevitable silence following the last notes of "Que
Pena" temporarily puts an end to the pleasant nightmare that is "Mani In Fuoco", the figures – somehow similar to those inhabiting the world of Fritz the Cat – that Succhiamo insidiously inserts into the listener’s head don’t fade
away: they patiently wait for the duo’s pulsing drum machines and the saturated synths to wake up again and set them in motion for another ride.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: After last year's sleazy exercise in electroclash revivalism, Succhiamo return to Antinote with their bedut longplayer "Mani In Fuoco", a scuzzy synth-punk journey through brash EBM, bruised electronics and S&M techno. Fans of Liaisions Dangereuse need to check out "Vecchia".

Their songs are a journey to fantasia, with that mix of imagination and ingenuity, unpredictability and craziness, with just the right amount of irreverence and a certain punk spirit. Something like a Spanish Young Marble Giants. Folk, pop, bedroom techno-pop, psychedelia, and punk. Yeah, you guessed it. They are unclassifiable. 

FORMAT INFORMATION

Coloured LP Info: LP on orange vinyl, plus 16 page comic (16 pages, 30 x 30 cm). Plus download.

I love me some weird shit, and by the sounds of this killer label compendium, Dublin's Wah Wah Wino are leading the way leftfield right now! The mutual brainchild of Omid Geadizadeh, OD & Morgan Buckley (who you might remember from that unstoppable and uncatorizable OD/MB 12" a couple of years ago) Wah Wah Wino have three highly limited white label 12"s to their name so far, each offering its own totally off the wall take on good old dancing music. Well, sticking to that highly lysergic ethos, the label offer their first "Various Artists" compilation, air quotes because I suspect the label bosses contribute every track here. A-grade weirdshit - best enjoyed snorted through rolled up blotter paper...

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Described by our own Silvestre as a 'difficult vinyl', this dope double pack is the most experimental thing you're ever gonna enjoy dancing to. It may be madder than a wet hen, but it will make you move!

Platform 23 launches with the reissue of the seminal Alternative Funk compilation series, presenting a selection of music across 2 volumes.

Known for the highly heralded "Folie Distinguee" album in 1985, what is often over looked is the fact there accompanied 2 further 'Alternative Funk' cassette compilations that same year. Coming within the Audiologie series on Vox Man Records, these V/A selections were indicative of labels that sprung up in the early 80s around the DIY post-punk scene.

As founders of Vox Populi!, Axel Kyrou and Francis Man, working with close associate Pierre Jolivet's (aka Pacific 231) VP 231 label, released a number of cassettes, 7" and LPs between 1982 and 1988, as much to self-release their own music as to push new or contemporary artists.

Here then is a snapshot of the Alt Funk albums, selecting songs that avoid recent or upcoming reissues, to dive deep in the series from industrial to cold wave, proto-dub percussion to avant spoken word pieces. Featuring the likes of Son Of Sam, Philippe Laurent, Fist Of Facts - with a long lost first ever recording - and Human Backs, stepping out from semi-cult name dropping to sit alongside unknowns and never heard from again in Scoop!, Kosa, Zoohtee and the wonderful Randall Kennedy.

What is apparent is an idiosyncratic nature to the selections. In the same way many independent labels of the time - such as Auxilio De Cientos' Terra Incognita volumes or Final Image's Nightlands - created a label snapshot by pulling together far and wide contributions but retaining an overall 'sound'.

The Volume 1 and 2 reissue achieve that, mixing experimental with electro, post punk with noise, to offer more than the sum of their parts - an Alternative Funk.