Anika channels her frustration, anger, and confusion with the world into her third album, 'Abyss'. Recorded live to tape at Berlin’s legendary Hansa Studios, the album captures raw energy with minimal overdubs, resulting in a visceral and urgent 10-track journey fueled by intense emotions. The recording process, done in just a few days with a live band, emphasises immediacy, offering a sound that’s both physical and direct.

'Abyss' reflects Anika’s desire to create a space where people can unite and feel free to express themselves amidst the chaos of the world. With influences ranging from 90s grunge and Courtney Love to Patti Smith and Genesis P-Orridge, the album is driven by a rebellious spirit. Tracks like 'One Way Ticket' critique the rise of fascism, while 'Hearsay' takes on the divisiveness of fake news, revealing Anika’s determination to confront the complexities of our current moment. The album’s raw, emotional power is matched by its physicality. Anika’s goal is to take listeners out of their heads and back into their bodies, offering a release through the music and live performances. This is a space to reclaim the connection between mind and body—something she feels is increasingly lost in world. Her desire to create that energy on stage is reflected in 'Abyss’ dense, pounding rhythms, which build on the energy of 90s alt-rock.

'Abyss' also delves into the intense tensions between the left and right in contemporary society, exploring the complexities of human imperfection and healthy debate. From the thrashing intensity of 'Oxygen' to the melancholic 'Buttercups', the album refuses to shy away from uncomfortable truths. Anika boldly con-fronts her own raw emotions, as exemplified in the candid lyrics of 'Walk Away', where she reflects on discontent with herself and the world.

With 'Abyss', Anika invites listeners into a space for release, rebellion, and honesty, creating an album that speaks to the turmoil of our times while offering an emotional outlet. As she puts it, “This is a space for you.”

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Swimming in the sort of minimal, gnarly electronics we'd expect from Chris Carter or Throbbing Gristle and topped with vocals that are perfectly pitched but very relaxed in a performance sense. Grungy and intense, but with a sense of playfulness and melodic brightness.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hearsay
2. Honey
3. Abyss
4. Oxygen
5. Walk Away
6. Into The Fire
7. Out Of The Shadows
8. One Way Ticket
9. Last Song
10. Buttercups

For Malcolm Pardon, there’s beauty in our universal, inescapable demise. Like the romantic notion of the orchestra on board the Titanic playing their repertoire as the ship went down, on his second solo album Pardon looks past the bleak or macabre to observe death as a multi-layered, lifelong acquaintance.

“It’s not meant to be threatening or horrific in any way,” says Pardon of The Abyss. “There’s this constant dialogue we have with ourselves about how we’re going to die at some point. It’s like a constant companion, so you might as well get to know it, and befriend it.”

As one half of Roll The Dice, Pardon worked alongside fellow Stockholm resident Peder Mannerfelt on brooding fusions of electronica and classical composition. By contrast, his 2021 solo debut Hello Death saw him take a much more stripped-down approach, placing the emphasis on plaintive piano composition with only the subtlest of sonic treatments in the space around the notes. Without intentionally setting out to record a conceptual follow up, as he developed the sketches which would become The Abyss, Pardon found himself contemplating unknown futures and the artists’ quest into unexplored territory.

Pardon’s forthright approach to composition lands each concise piece with immediacy, but there’s exquisite detail etched into every inch of The Abyss which reveals itself patiently over repeat listens.

“Hello Death was more intimate sound-wise and the piano was always kept in the foreground,” explains Pardon. “It was meant to be clear that all the synths and sounds were there to accompany the piano. On The Abyss I tried to make the piano blend in more with everything else, to give more room for the surrounding ambience. If Hello Death was a solo artist, The Abyss is a band. I wanted to create a vast soundscape that’s not exactly comfortable, but has a stillness and acceptance.”

Additional production by Mannerfelt and Pär Grindvik (working as Aasthma), taking inspiration from the idea of being submerged under water.

Lead track ‘Enter The Void’ is accompanied by a cinematic and powerful video by Swedish directorOskar Wrangö

Photographer Chris Shonting’s striking cover image sums up the mood perfectly - the unnerving serenity of the setting about to bear witness to disruption, the darkness lurking at the edge of the frame, the figure bound for the water with no intention of halting his descent

FFO: Roll The Dice, Hania Rani, Angelo Badalamenti, Harold Budd, Murcof, Caterina Barbieri, Raime, Laurel Halo, Penelope Trappes

TRACK LISTING

Deliverance
Pockets Of Air
Side Effects
The End
Patchwork
Enter The Void
Separate Ways
Vanmakt
Within Reach
Seven Bells
Aftermath

Composed, produced and arranged by Evangelia VS, the artist behind Abyss X, ‘Freedom Doll’ is the culmination of a year of emotional unloading through songwriting, offering an introspective journey into the ocean of her mind. Produced andorded between an artist residency near the Mayan jungle in Mexico and her Berlin home, the album chronicles transformations the performer tackled mentally during the writing process, tracing the rollercoaster of falling in love during the pandemic, as well as the pleasures and tribulations of womanhood.
‘Freedom Doll’ encapsulates the romantic escapade between her voice and the guitar. The amalgamation of seduction, sexual tension, vulnerability and assertiveness pulses throughout the entirety of the album, spiraling out of the cracks spawned from her vocal chords. From the twirling dance between her lush harmonies and the progressions of the acoustic guitar in tracks such as ‘Ascend’ and ‘From Hot to Cold’, to the explosive confrontation between the metallic and operatic qualities of her voice, the searing sound of the electric guitar in industrial rock / psychedelic anthems such as ‘Torture Grove’ and ‘Banyana’ and the cathartic momentum found in the gospel inclined chants in ‘A CHEW’ - ‘Freedom Doll’ untethers the dramatics and theatricality that defines Abyss X’s vocal performance and music production, while maintaining the sensual vibrations of her creative essence.

‘Freedom Doll’ is the encapsulation of the Minoan woman, the elusive harlequin tiptoeing her way through the circus of terror that is living and loving her way through womanhood. With this visual reference, Abyss X pays tribute to her ancestors and their groundbreaking ancient artistry. The back cover of the vinyl features a reiteration of depictions of bulls leaping found in Minoan frescoes; an inherently male cultural act that in the ancient Minoan times presumably gave expression to a tension that underlies man's somewhat tenuous mastery of nature. ‘Freedom Doll’’s artwork challenges this preconceived notion through an eco-feminist approach, bringing the Minoan woman slash Gaia in the seat of the bull leaper, taming the unhinged and predominantly male earth - threatening human force. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Matt says: Another week another alluring and mystic synth-pop masterpiece from the outlying AD93 label. Abyss X has a yearning, pop sensibility which in my ears at least, has a little bit of Christine & The Queens about it. Not all the way through though - sometimes she dives down the industrial synth wormhole with completely contrasting results.

TRACK LISTING

A1 - Ascend
A2 - A Chew
A3 - Torture Grove
A4 - Oceans Of Heat
A5 - Vacuum (feat. Juliana Huxtable)
B1 - From Hot To Cold
B2 - This Strange Asylum
B3 - Banyana
B4 - Feeling A Type Away
B5 - Never Apart (feat. Juliana Huxtable)

In the five years since Creep Show’s acclaimed ‘Mr Dynamite’ album was released it’s fair to say that we’ve all been through a fair bit. Sat here, in 2023, things don’t seem to be getting any better. There's the cost of living crisis and political meltdowns; we're in deep water with global warming and to top it all there’s a war on our doorstep.

Back in 2018 everything seemed less complicated. Sure, there was stuff to get riled about, but we knew nothing about what was to come. ‘Mr Dynamite’ was a fairground ride into the dark corners of a world that was on the brink of being blitzed in a blender. It was a record teetering on the edge. Five years down the line you’d expect the follow-up, ‘Yawning Abyss’, would double-down and bring the white-knuckled, teeth-gritted fury of the last five years to the boil. And yet…

A quick recap? No problem. Wrangler + John Grant = Creep Show. And Creep Show? “A band of musical misfits who have found a voice or two,” says Wrangler’s Ben “Benge” Edwards, whose Bond villain studio on the edge of a moorland is Creep Show Grand Central as well as home to an analogue synth arsenal that could sink ships.

Let’s talk about the new album. What is the ‘Yawning Abyss’? You might well ask. According to Mal, it’s “a cosmic event horizon that I can see from my attic window when stand on a chair”. Yeah. Thanks. “On this album,” offers Benge, feet firmly on the floor, “Wrangler wrangled some vintage synths, mostly Roland, Moog, and the ‘Crystal Machine’ - then John Grant joined in the fun at Memetune Studios where lots of musical experiments were carried out. Then Mal and John ran off to Iceland with the master tapes and recorded a load of madcap vocals. Back at Memetune, me and Phil were left to try and make sense of it all. Which wasn’t hard because what they did in Iceland was totally magnificent.”

Where ‘Mr Dynamite’ was menace, a melange of mangled voices, with Grant and Mallinder being heavily treated, pitched up or down, rendering their contributions largely indistinguishable, ‘Yawning Abyss’ takes a more direct approach. You hesitate to say feelgood, but there’s a skip in the step here for sure.

The title track plays John Grant’s vocal straight. Completely. It’s good, so very good. Like ‘Axel F’ covered by Vangelis. The delicious shimmering synths of ‘Bungalow’ also plays those Grant pipes with a straight bat. ‘Matinee’ delves into darker very funky territory. With Mal upfront it comes on like ‘The Crackdown’. Choice lyric: “You are starting to breakdown / And it’s so fun for me to see / You should have thought of that / You should have come prepared / You can see what’s happening and you look a little scared”.

So, you know, not all feelgood. But it does feel good. It’s probably best to draw your own conclusions. This is Creep Show after all.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: I've always been a big fan of John Grant, and the dream-team of Stephen Mallinder, Benge and Phill winter of Tunng couldn't be any more perfect a fit for Grant's hypnotic vocal syrup. It's an absolute slam-dunk of an album and ends up sounding a little more like Grant's Pale Green Ghost LP (to me, a pantheon of synthesiser worship) than the also-brilliant hefty haze of their debut. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Bellows
2. Moneyback
3. Yawning Abyss
4. Matinee
5. Wise
6. Yahtzee!
7. Bungalow
8. Steak Diane
9. The Bellows Reprise

BlackLab ‘the dark witch doom duo from Osaka, Japan’ are poised to return with their new long playing record ‘ABYSS’. BlackLab’s first lp emerged to reviews a plenty. “BlackLab’s relentlessly bleak, feedbackdrenched and fuzz-laden take on doom/noise is as dark and mysterious as a black hole, and every bit as absorbing” CLASSIC ROCK.

“Blacklab are awesome. Fall under their hex immediately” KERRANG

“Raw, noisy and groove laden, an extreme, arcane force” METAL HAMMER

The first album was a remixed collection of the band’s early tracks, a melting pot of influences as they set out to inhabit their own space. Now with ‘ABYSS’ the band are very much defining what that space is.

Once again, the album was produced by Jun Morino in Osaka, and mixed in London by Wayne Adams (Pet Brick, Green Lung, Cold In Berlin) and is an uncompromising beast of a record. Recorded under a full moon over 3 intense days, the album has the ‘off the leash’ abandon of ‘Fun House’ era ‘Stooges’ and is marked by a fat dose of doom meets slowed down hardcore punk; filled with loud, ultra distorted guitar, and yet, a surprising amount of melody as well. In fact, Yuko has said that the band’s name is a combination of Black Sabbath and Stereolab, well here on ‘Abyss’ is where that strange mix begins to make musical sense. The band haven’t lost their love of lo-fi or ‘Riot Grrrl’ attitude. The guitars are loud and heavily gnarled to the point of chaos.

Vocals go from shoegaze melodic to hardcore screams (in fact rarely has a vocalist in this genre screamed so musically as Yuko does) and underneath all this, Chia batters the skins, all rolling and tumbling thunder amidst the riffs. Yes there is a smattering of ‘Sabbathy Wizarding’ of course, but submerged within dark, deep fuzz and punk rock crank and grind. In truth the vibe is closer to both the arty heaviness of early Boris, and the sweet savagery of My Bloody Valentine, than any kind of ‘doom’ tropes. It’s a sound that is undoubtedly BlackLab’s own. So over 8 tracks, clocking in at around 42 mins, you get the current Blacklab world view. ‘Insanity’ creeps in with a sound familiar to doom lovers. Then over the course of eight minutes manages to motor into its own riff time continuum, fuelled by heavy fuzz, pounding drums, and vocals that run the gamut from surly, to sweet, to full on throat- shred.

‘Fade and Melt’ is quirky, odd even, but heavy too, marrying a sweet Japanese melody to a dense, rolling barrage of distortion. ‘Weed Dream’ is driven by chugging, barely under control guitar and grunge punk swagger, and it’s here that Yuko most obviously channels her inner Stereolab. ‘Amusement Park Of Terror’. The title sounds like some cheapo 60’s bug movie, or a grade B slasher flick from the 80’s. Well to be honest this short instrumental interlude would be the perfect soundtrack to either. Both ‘Forked Road’ and ‘Chained’ are cut from the same cloth, a mash up of ‘Stooges’ meets ‘Comets On Fire’ mayhem and loping Sleep - esque riffs. ‘Sleepless Night’ is all throbbing distortion and understated threat, albeit with a curiously catchy chorus and coda. Then you have ‘Sun’ an underscore to any number of nihilistic apocalypses. It crashes in with a guitar tone so huge it’ll threaten to demolish your speakers. Abyss is an album that is as raw and alive as it gets. It’s refreshingly free of artifice, and it doesn’t arse around. Say hello to the Osaka underground.

TRACK LISTING

1. Insanity
2. Fade And Melt
3. Weed Dream
4. Amusement Park Of Terror Side 
5. Forked Road
6. Chained
7. Sleepless Night
8. Sun