Music fans don’t stop talking about Parade Ground. For most people, Jean-Marc and Pierre Pauly are just two musicians that had (in fact have) a connection with Daniel B. and Patrick Codenys of Front 242. Of course Parade Ground is much more than that! Perhaps no one manages to describe the definite sound of Parade Ground. Is it minimal synth pop? Perhaps, albeit with a very destructive side. The original records by Parade Ground are…

  Music has a lot to do with luck. Every day dozens of records are released and there’s no human ear that can hear it all, let alone handle it. By sheer coincidence we received the debut album of the Dutch Non-Alignment Pact, and what a record it is! Eight delightful post-punk tracks that are dominated by rousing guitars, tight rhythms, energetic songs and the necessary portion of melancholy. From opener End? you hear that…

One of the nicest elements of music is its diversity. Nothing is more distressing than music fans who, for whatever reason, are narrow minded. Geert Vandekerkhof is not that kind of guy. Of course, you know him as the frontman of the new wave band Der Klinke or the founder of the minimal electro project Story Off, but he also makes alternative ambient music with Hidden In Treetops. The music of Hidden In Treetops is…

  Last year, the debut album of the French duo Mad Masks was released on the British label Peripheral Minimal. The record features eleven instrumental tracks, and they all have something in common: they suggest fear. This is the kind of music that will make you shiver as you might think someone touches your shoulder, even if there is no one behind you. It’s hard to stick a label on this album. One considers it…

  A new release from this alternative treat from Istanbul, Turkey named “Sonic Rabbit Hole” is a five track EP released on April the 5th 2016. It was surely interesting enough to listen to and write a few lines about. Even though I don’t really know much about the band itself and this is the first thing I hear from them, the EP caught my attention. They draw their inspiration from alternative and garage rock,…

  Coming from Lille, France, another French band is on my menu. Their debut album “40” was released very recently, in December 2015, and I was wondering what was cooking in the French scene pot. The band label themselves as electro dark wave, I would not go much further than that description and there is a clear influence of the post punk and new wave here. The first track “Lake of Love” is indeed a…

  So, what’s new in UK? A fresh new project which started in 2014 but did not take long for the debut album released in November 2015. So what can we expect from this productive solo artist? In its core this project is a pure gothic rock with an extensive use of the synths that really combines well with the guitar riffs and all that gothic rock is characterised by. It is dark, it is…

  It is not easy to write a few words even about what I consider the best 2015. release. It was a great year for the music industry indeed, but between other great “mainstream” releases, this one should absolutely be named as a winner. They have been described as a psychedelic rock, and they label themselves funnily as epiphany pop, and epiphany it really is, at least as their last album is concerned. Even though…

  After missing from the public ear for some years now (originally a CD compilation released on Big Blue Records in 2007), this collection of uptempo numbers again sees the light of day in the form of a vinyl release. For many familiar with Venus Fly Trap, this is a representative selection of their past and present work – with panoramic quality to the songs, at times psychedelic and pastoral, and at times darkly energetic….

Mitra Mitra – “Mitra Mitra” (LP/cassette/digital, 2016) Theoretically, “mitra mitra” is Latin for sea slug. Musically, it is storming the sea, a brave experiment echoing sharply into the distance, its electronic signal reaching far beyond the sea horizon. A joint effort between New Zealand-born Violet Candide and UK-born Mahk Rumbae, Mitra Mitra recently delivered their very first proper, conceptually strong studio LP. Although the duo formed approximately a year ago, and a mere few live appearances and…