Since we had here a bigger coverage on the last official release of the legendary German Dark-Electro-cult-project Trial and their epic 30-years-anniversary-release "Für Zwei" (3CD + DVD), here: https://chaindlk.com/reviews/11676 , I guess it is almost unnecessary to delve deeper into any small detail out of this project's bio with respect to this new Trilogy release called "Forced Perspective". It's the long-awaited official full-length debut album by this duo from Germany as Trilogy is simply the project established out of the ashes of Trial after the sudden split of the musician Erick Miotke with the vocalist Torsten Schröder. Side by side with his new vocalist Jens Müller, Erick has never thought about to quit, no, he always worked hard to push forward the things around his and now their mutual music career under the new pseudonym Trilogy.

After spending some studio time to check out mutual interests, skills and to come to satisfying results for them both, they already started to release mostly smaller limited, self-produced EP's since 2013. Also several well-perceived live gigs at highly recognized events like the WGT Warm-up, Familientreffen, or the E-only- / NCN-festivals this duo has already performed with the expected euphoric reactions by their audience. It has always been a good idea to perform new interpretations of some Trial-classics like "Blut und Eisen" or "Is it Worth It?" combined with the new Trilogy compositions. Additionally they could hire the former Oomph!-drummer Christian "Leo" Leonhardt to add a massive punch- and pressure-impact to their live performances. Leo has to be seen as being the third official band-member of Trilogy.

As this is once again a quite typical release format from EAR (= Electro Aggression Records) also this Trilogy-release comes out as a jam-packed 2CD release filled on both CDs with almost 80 minutes of playing time each. CD1 - the "Forced Perspective"-side, features the main album which collects on one hand the already released EP-tracks back since 2013 with such club smasher-tracks like "Combat Surfer", "Entombed Love", "Seeking", or "Someone Inside", but also some newer and undiscovered tracks like the title track, "Tension", "Waves" or "Conclusion". Especially the rather older tracks are representing the leading scenario and general tone of this album. Trilogy are about to pick up a rather modern sounding path which reminds a bit that style which the often underrated second Trial-album "Secret Pain" (1994) has left for good.

It is lesser the mystic, deep-dark haunting mood of the early Trial-days at best performed on "Zero Feeling", "Forced Perspective" instead rather tends to speed the things up and especially the more club-friendly tracks offer a raw EBM-inspired impression to the general sound outfit. The organic pressure can be also pretty much recognized with the "live" drumming, even with respect to the fact, that Erick has programmed himself, looped and sampled from various real drum set resources - also this reminds stylistically on several tracks already discovered on "Secret Pain". This real-drumming-influence combined with the angry and raging vocal performance of Jens Müller stands for the charme and diversity of this album. Thanks to Jens and his impact these fast-paced, pretty much old-school-EBM-influenced tracks are sounding fresh, energetic and intense enough produced to leave out the often expected "darkness" in the term of a Dark Electro-band. If you're on the hunt for another highly Puppy-inspired follow-up album often perceived with the back-catalogue of the EAR-label, then Trilogy won't feed you well.

As for highlights presented on this album, "Combat Surfer" does pretty well with its militaristic attitude, well chosen voice-samples, and the well-perceived programming routine, although it's one of the oldest tracks produced by this duo. "Conclusion" with its highly remarkable programmed synthesizer-pads services you well if you're looking for a more layered and relaxed sound expression - to me this is the most outstanding tune on here.

Relatively compareable with that more layered sound-outfit we have the ominous sounding tracks like "Swamp" or "Waves", while that moody tune "Surface Scan" surprises with the guest vocal performance provided by the legendary German radio moderator Ecki Stieg (Grenzwellen). "Scherben" with its shattered-glass-samples then comes up with German lyrics. Also worth to mention is the brooding "Seeking" with its electric-guitar-inserts into the whole track.

The second CD called "Alternative Perspective" then offers the same track list again with the difference that Trilogy could make it possible to get remix-collaborations done by foreign band projects. Some well-sounding names out of the international EBM- / Dark Electro-/ Industrial-scene have been invited (for example Project Pitchfork, Mildreda, AD Key, Digital Factor, Second Disease, etc.) side by side with the expected protagonists of the EAR roster like R010R, Pyrroline, Serpents, or T.A.N.K.. They are all united here just to offer their best abilities to provide... well... alternative perspectives on the Trilogy-tracks.

Although to consume the pure mass of almost 80 minutes playing time on both CD's each can become challenging, I find myself quite often starting to compare if the original composition or the remix does fit better with me and my personal taste. The french project Brain Leisure earns a lot of agreeing nodding with their much darker, almost FLA-sounding remix on "Alienized". Terminal State had the one of the hardest jobs on here with the pretty well produced "Conclusion" - but what they've worked out of a fantastic hypnotic-, dark-space-sounding tune of thisclassy track leaves the listener deeply impressed.

R010R is another winner here and Michael Renfield gives us again that punchy and noisy vibe discovered on the last album "Total Disinformation Awareness" with the remix on "Masked". A rather softer interpretation with some calm and catchy underlaying piano drops comes from Project Pitchfork on "Waves" - and this one does really well here. "Waves" isn't for sure the hardest Trilogy-tune in its original - but this skilful produced remix is a real gem on here and slows down the mood. Mildreda are doing some nice things in the Dark Electro-field with their last releases signed to the German Dependent and offer a solid interpretation of the raw sounding "Tension", although this time without unexpected surprises. Finally Villaborghese - and here we have Erick Miotke's side-project with his partner Friedhelm Kranz (we had them on here with a few reviews...) - give us a pretty dense, sample-based filmic outro tune with "Turmoil Over".

It was indeed about time to collect the last years active under the Trilogy moniker and this professional pressed DCD set impresses in all categories regarding quality. The main album has enough food to offer for the club- and dancefloor-fetishists, while the listening connoisseur won't be left unimpressed too. The remix companion sums it up perfectly and has the one or another surprising sound-pearl to offer. Full force - full force ahead, go and get it.

Some bands sound as though they spent years perfecting a shared musical vocabulary. Hebbex D'expectatio Expectata sound as though they wandered into the same room carrying completely different dictionaries, spilled them onto the floor, and somehow emerged with a language that shouldn't exist but stubbornly insists on making sense. It is messy, witty, occasionally bewildering, and far more coherent than first impressions suggest.

"Kva er Vald" (meaning "What is violence"), the Stavanger trio's debut, arrives with enough eccentric credentials to make any publicist's job suspiciously easy. Kjetil Brandsdal, one of Norway's defining figures in experimental noise through projects such as Noxagt, Ultralyd and No Balls, joins forces with the relentlessly inventive drummer Thore Warland, whose résumé stretches across some of the country's most uncompromising ensembles. Completing the triangle is Helge Thornes, whose career reads less like a biography than an elaborate practical joke: psychobilly singer, proto-jungle producer, Jamaican sound system devotee, dancehall collaborator with Mr. Vegas, translator of Joe Orton, and novelist. Predicting what such a combination might produce would have been impossible. Predicting it would sound ordinary would have been absurd.

The trio evolved from the long-running partnership between Brandsdal and Warland, but Thornes fundamentally alters the chemistry. His voice refuses to function as a conventional frontman presence. Sometimes he declaims, sometimes narrates, sometimes appears to be delivering fragments recovered from an imaginary radio broadcast drifting between stations. The lyrics draw upon sources as disparate as Aubrey Beardsley's unfinished fiction, Roman tragedy and Norwegian journalism, yet they rarely announce those references explicitly. Instead, language becomes another unstable object inside the mix, carrying rhythm and texture as much as narrative.

Musically, "Kva er Vald" inhabits an equally difficult territory. Found sounds, looping turntables, electronic percussion, fractured grooves and spoken vocals continuously intersect without settling into any recognisable genre. There are echoes of industrial music's mechanical discipline, post-punk's nervous energy, dub's fascination with space, musique concrète's appetite for sonic debris and free improvisation's willingness to let accidents dictate direction. Yet none of these descriptions quite captures the album's peculiar personality.

Brandsdal's record players behave less like playback devices than excavation tools. Snatches of forgotten recordings surface only to disappear beneath layers of static, feedback and manipulated texture, suggesting memories that refuse to remain intact. Warland's electronic drums provide restless, asymmetrical frameworks rather than stable rhythms, constantly shifting emphasis without sacrificing momentum. His playing retains the physical urgency of an acoustic drummer despite the synthetic palette, avoiding the sterile precision that often plagues electronic percussion.

The album's greatest surprise, however, is its humour. Experimental music has occasionally developed the unfortunate habit of taking itself with cathedral-level seriousness. Hebbex D'expectatio Expectata seem blissfully uninterested in such solemnity. Titles like "Spa Day" and "Transatlantic Slap" hint at an absurdist sensibility that quietly permeates the record. This is not comedy in any conventional sense, but rather the recognition that the world's inherent strangeness requires neither exaggeration nor explanation. Sometimes a bizarre juxtaposition is simply the most accurate description available.

Yet beneath the playful surface lies genuine intellectual curiosity. "Kva er Vald" repeatedly explores how information fragments circulate through contemporary life. Literary quotations, historical echoes, journalistic language and discarded recordings become equal participants in an ongoing cultural collage. The album asks whether meaning survives when context dissolves, and whether identity itself might simply be another assemblage of borrowed voices. Cheerful thoughts for a Tuesday afternoon.

The production, handled by Gaute Granli and mastered by Audun Strype, wisely preserves the music's tactile roughness. Every scrape, mechanical click and imperfect transition contributes to the sense of musicians actively wrestling with unstable material rather than presenting finished artefacts. The screen-printed sleeve designed by Brandsdal himself further reinforces the project's handmade ethos, extending its aesthetic beyond sound alone.

Norwegian experimental music has long occupied a fascinating position, often balancing conceptual rigour with a distinctly irreverent streak. "Kva er Vald" belongs comfortably within that tradition while refusing to imitate its predecessors. Instead, it embraces contradiction: disciplined yet unruly, literary yet physical, carefully constructed yet delightfully unpredictable.

By the album's conclusion, one realises that its apparent chaos has been remarkably purposeful all along. Like overhearing several conversations through thin apartment walls, the fragments gradually align into an oddly compelling portrait of contemporary consciousness. If Kva er Vald asks "What is violence?", its answer is anything but literal. Violence becomes the restless friction between ideas, sounds and histories, where nothing settles comfortably for long. It is unsettling, occasionally absurd, and unexpectedly beautiful.

Some expressions refuse to travel neatly across languages. The Persian phrase that lends its name to ZÖJ's third album is one of them. "May the devil's ear be deaf" is at once a blessing, a superstition, and a quiet acknowledgment that beauty has always attracted unwanted attention. It is the verbal equivalent of knocking on wood after speaking of happiness, except it carries centuries of cultural memory behind it. Appropriately, ZÖJ transform this fragile wish into music that feels equally protective and exposed, as though every note were offered to the world while simultaneously hoping the wrong ears never hear it.

The Australian duo, formed by Iranian-born vocalist and kamancheh virtuoso Gelareh Pour alongside drummer and percussionist Brian O'Dwyer, has steadily established itself as one of the most compelling voices in contemporary intercultural music. Rather than treating different musical traditions as decorative ingredients to be mixed for cosmopolitan effect, ZÖJ pursue something considerably rarer: a genuine dialogue in which neither tradition dominates nor dilutes the other. Their work emerges from mutual listening rather than cultural arithmetic, and that distinction makes all the difference.

Recorded live at the Banff Centre in Canada without overdubs or studio polishing, "May The Devil's Ear Be Deaf" embraces risk as part of its expressive vocabulary. Every sound exists because it happened exactly once. There are no opportunities for correction, no digital safety nets waiting backstage. In an era where recordings are often edited until they resemble architectural blueprints more than performances, such commitment feels quietly radical. Perfection, it turns out, is sometimes the least interesting thing musicians can pursue.

Across four expansive pieces, the duo inhabits a landscape where Persian poetry, free improvisation, chamber music, contemporary classical sensibilities and exploratory jazz coexist without ever feeling artificially stitched together. Gelareh Pour's voice becomes more than a vehicle for language. It sighs, mourns, rises and fractures with extraordinary emotional precision, often dissolving into the sustained cries of the kamancheh until instrument and singer appear to share the same breath. O'Dwyer's percussion, meanwhile, avoids the temptation to anchor or decorate. His playing responds like weather: sometimes turbulent, sometimes barely perceptible, but always altering the emotional pressure of the surrounding space.

The opening "Termites", built around Mahmud Moshref Azad Tehrani's haunting poem, unfolds with remarkable restraint. Fear is not portrayed through violence but through delicate instability. The recurring image of paper, vulnerable to rain and insects alike, mirrors the music itself: every phrase seems almost too fragile to survive its own resonance. Yet it persists. There is quiet courage in that persistence.

Elsewhere, "Woe to the Ear" draws upon the mystical poetry of Hushang Ebtehaj, meditating on the eternal distance between hearing and understanding. The irony is delicious. Humans have spent millennia confusing the two with astonishing consistency. We attend concerts, consume podcasts, argue online and call it listening. ZÖJ gently expose the difference. Their music demands attention that extends beyond the ears, asking the listener to remain present even when meaning escapes immediate comprehension.

What distinguishes this album from many cross-cultural collaborations is its refusal to exoticise its own sources. Persian musical language is never presented as something mysterious for Western ears to marvel at, nor is contemporary improvisation treated as inherently more progressive than tradition. Instead, both become living practices capable of questioning one another. This reciprocity lends the performances remarkable dignity.

The production deserves equal praise. The live recording captures subtle interactions between voice, bow, drum and room without flattening their dynamic range. Silence becomes an active participant throughout the album, allowing resonance to linger naturally instead of being filled with unnecessary information. One frequently hears not only the instruments themselves but the air they disturb.

Beneath the album's considerable technical accomplishment lies something profoundly human. Its central concern is vulnerability: how to create beauty despite knowing that beauty itself can invite loss, envy or destruction. Rather than retreating into caution, ZÖJ respond with openness. Their music acknowledges fear without surrendering to it.

"May The Devil's Ear Be Deaf" ultimately feels less like a collection of compositions than a carefully guarded ritual, one in which memory, poetry and improvisation become different dialects of the same emotional language. It reminds us that tenderness is not the opposite of strength but one of its most demanding forms. And perhaps that old Persian blessing contains another hidden truth: sometimes the devil does not need to be defeated. Sometimes it is enough that, for forty minutes, it simply fails to hear.

hackedepicciotto is of course Alexander Hacke from Einsturzende Neubauten and Danielle de Picciotto (Space Cowboys, Love Parade, Crime & The City Solution) and 'Lichtung' is the pair's latest album on the Mute label in the U.S. Past hackedepicciotto albums that I've reviewed here have always been interesting so I expect nothing less from 'Lichtung.' A cursory listen to the album gave me the impression the album is less experimental and more personal in nature. The softness of the opener (title track) seems to bear this out; it's an elegant, mystical piece that draws you into another world. "Vogelfrei," the instrumental that follows dispels any notion of frailty. "Wiederbelebung" has some neoclassical influences filtered through a distortion pedal with Black Forest vocals and a distinctly Teutonic cadence. "Ertedank" is kind of spookily psychedelic with industrial percussion and harmonious vocals in unison by both Alexander and Danielle, happening with frequency on several of the tracks, and especially noteworthy in "Zeitenwende," although both have their solo moments. I'm not sure this kind of folksy vocal technique completely resonates with me but I'm willing to give it time. By now you should have guessed by the titles that all the vocals are in Deutsche, but there are English lyrics translations on their Bandcamp site. "Draussen" is an instrumental that had me vaguely thinking of Dead Can Dance, and I'm coming to realize that I like the music more than the vocals overall. So far, this track really makes the album. There's only two more to go with "Einig," the first song I watched the video for, and on this one I really enjoyed the vocals, as well as the animated fantastic beasts that strutted across the screen. Clever! Lastly, there is "Der Marschall," a stately, but somewhat ominous neoclassical instrumental with a heaping helping of melancholy. You could easily use this track for a steampunk funeral procession. Although I'm not as enthralled with 'Lichtung' as by previous hackedepicciotto albums, there is still plenty of merit on it.

This is the self-titled debut album by this LA-based trio consisting of Karolina Wallace: Vocals, Guitar; Adam Wallace: Guitar; and Jason Miller: Bass, Synth, Beats, Sequences. The album is seven tracks of minimal electro/synthpunk with Karolina often singing in her native Polish, but her voice is somewhat obscured and buried in the music so you might not notice that right away. First track, "Hi Vis" has a hypnotic quality about it as it tools along at a medium pace. Following that, "Struck" has defined but minimal guitar riffs with bass synth and a more obvious but minimal drum machine track. Karolina plays her voice against an echo effect and you are likely to recall early Xmal Deutschland and Suicide but perhaps with less energy and panache. I did, however, like the squiggly lead synth in it. Most of what Karolina does vocally is speak-singing with a hint of melody, which is fine for this type of music and it is fairly evident on "Oscillopsia," with its incessant bass sequence. There is a tension of this track that is likely better experienced live than on record, but I bet people probably said that about certain songs by the Doors when they were active nearly 60 years ago. "Floor It" is the barely intelligible psychodrama that haunts your nightmares. Every bit of the musical atmosphere is starkly fantastic and Karolina's mumbled and crooned vocals are the icing on this strange piece of cake. The curiously titled "Casket Casino" has a near Wall of Voodoo rhythm but coupled with Karolina's abstract vocalizing, it becomes something else entirely; something far more modern, menacing and relevant. "Old Mill" is one of those songs that undoubtedly work better live than on record as its monotonous repetition keeps you hoping for changes that never come. Yes, it has a bit of ritualistic attitude, but there is not much of a payoff. Finally, Chalk Teeth goes out with the spritely "Paskuda!" (not a very complimentary term in Polish for women) and here Karolina's vocals are quite different, sort of new wavy Dale Bozzio. I can't help but think of the obscure New York City No Wave project, Kongress, led by the enigmatic Otto Von Ruggins, and how they could have ended up sounding like Chalk Teeth if Marilyn and Robert Crash had stayed with the group. Unfortunately, Kongress never "stayed the course" in most things they ever did, although they did a lot of interesting stuff. As for Chalk Teeth< I wouldn't call this an extraordinary album but it has merit, especially for those who dig minimal synth electro. That the group chose to release the album on (limited edition) vinyl shows commitment, and I have a strong feeling that their next release will have more depth and gusto.