There’s for sure no need to introduce this act nearer to all readers and fans of Industrial music. Originally hailing from Germany, KMFDM are veterans, a band which is already active since 1984. In Germany they are still a misunderstood independent act, far away from satisfying reactions of the poor listeners. The lack of recognition let them left this country to settle down to the USA in 1988. From the early members only Sascha Konietzko is still active to keep this fire burning. The German title "Hau Ruck" can be translated into "Heave-Ho" and it is meant to describe the current strong activity around and from this band. With no sign of getting older this band currently gets ready for a new world tour. Musically there isn’t maybe a too big change in direction, KMFDM still plays with classic guitar-driven Industrial elements which most of their followers and copycats would describe as outstanding. No album for electronic purists of course, Metal fans could be more attracted by this. I have nevertheless picked out some nice done pieces here like "Professional Killer" which is driven by a groovy Electro bass line and a clear vocal performance by the female member Lucia Cifarelli. The title track and "Auf Wiederseh’n" feature both German lyric and present the remarkable side, while a track like "Feed our Fame" simply lets me use the "Skip" button on my discman, because this piece is definitively too near along the Metal mainstream. KMFDM do a solid work here as usual, but there is no space for some surprises. Their fans will suck up their new stuff without any hesitation, but I am not sure, if KMFDM will get a wider attention lately out of Germany. This is still questionable, but maybe the upcoming gigs will help?

It is strange how eighties had so many good bands around the globe that had been unknown outside their country. France in the eighties had Kas Product (their two albums have been reissued the last summer) that were a sort of French version of Pink Industry and they had also Candidate. Candidate were a electronic duo, just like the two bands I mentioned. I know that Pink Industry were three people in their latest days but their core was formed by Jayne Casey (also formerly of Big in Japan) and bassist/keyboardist Ambrose Reynolds. Anyway... Candidate were active in the mid eighties / early nineties with their mixture of electronic seductive music before passing to experimental forms of music and theatrical productions. VOTE DON'T VOTE isn't exactly a reissue of their releases, because the CD contains sixteen unreleased tunes coming from their 1987 ÷ 1990 late studio recordings. Their style made me remember a lot bands and no one precisely. The opening track "Up and down" remember me a little early Eurithmics while the other tracks are more new wave oriented less pop a little bit more experimental giving also a little space to guitar rock riffs. Cécil voice is able to catch immediately the listener's attention with its great personality (no heavenly vocalizations) while Bidou build a solid melodic structure based on TR 707 rhythms, guitar riffs and simple bass lines. A great version of Iggy Pop's "Nightclubbing" with a sharped razor guitar will prove you that with few sounds is possible to create a good ambience. There are no weak moments and on some tracks also Bidou duet with Cécile, creating a good balance. VOTE DON'T VOTE is their fifth release and now I wish I could be able to listen their old stuff. What about you?

Right after the spiral downward of Karate ended with them calling it quit, Geoff Farina is back and with a good record. Honestly after every new Karate record I couldn't identify them anymore with the band I loved during its early days, the impression of many was Karate were getting deeper into jazz rock and fusion but the result was not that good as one may have expected. On "New salt" together with Farina we have a couple of guys one of whom is from Ida, I know the equation just appeared in your mind: "Karate + Ida = emo" but don't take it for granted, infact this cd is influenced by many things but is far from the traditional "emo-sound". Farina's definitely fond of jazz but the specter is full of different colors this time. Minimal and classy drum incursions break in while Farina's guitar returns to be blessed by good taste, the guitars and the harmonium of Dan Littleton paint a psychedelic geometry that pays tribute to Velvet Underground. Extemporary structures probably accomplished through long jams, if Thela (one of the early projects in which Dean Robert was involved) would have ever been much more into jazz-rock probably the result would have been something like that. The echoes of jazz and traditional rock can be reconnected to Farina's style, but if you're into well done impros and you can try to go beyond any logical prejudice you could be surprised.

I received this for review in the same package as Kammerheit "The Starwheel." They share similar elements. Both are nice drone, dark ambient music, but overall this seems a lot darker and heavier than Kammerheit I don’t really know how to describe it, but this is some pretty heavy stuff. Not too noisy, but definitely dark, oppressive, and a lot more complex that Kammerheit.

This is not music that soothes the listener. Rather, it demands that the listener pay close attention and never deviate from listening. If your mind wanders, there will be some musical element in the piece that will jar you back. On some tracks, such as "Passage" the music becomes a bit noisier. This is not pleasant drone music. Rather, this seems meant to put the listener on edge. "Lapsing" sounds as if it were specifically written for a suspenseful part of a movie soundtrack. You know something bad is about to happen and there is nothing that you can do to stop it.

What makes this disc interesting is everything that seems to lie just below the surface of the music. Elements surge in and out of the music to make themselves recognized and then fade back into the mix. Overall, if you like your dark ambient music to be really, really dark, this is definitely a must to pick up.

I had never heard of this project before. The note attached to the disc identifies it as the artist’s first "ambient – deep electronica album." When I put it in, I was expecting something more along the lines of Orb, based on the cover art. think of ambient, this is not really what I think of. This disc is pretty hard to classify. It has some decent ambient tracks, but also has some standard four on the floor drum machine driven tracks, and then there are those tracks that are more noisy and experimental.

Overall, this disc relies heavily on repetition - too much so. I would have preferred a lot more subtlety. In fact, most of what is interesting about this disc lies beneath the heavy use of analogue bass synth lines and samples. Under what amounts to musical clutter, lies some nice atmospheres. Even without the fat bass lines and samples, there are times where there are nice atmospheres but then the atmosphere is wrecked by bleeps and bloops that sound as if they were generated by an old analogue synth or sampled from 1980’s Erasure albums. While Erasure can pull off the analogue bleeps, in Floating Mind, they just seem forced in to make the tracks more interesting. Unfortunately, the tracks were already good and, like badly airbrushing the Smurfs on a restored 64 Impala, sometimes an improvement is not an improvement. Some examples of this are "Voices" and "Transformer." However, all is not lost on this album. "Stellar" is a nice bit of floating ambience which moves into the more spacey track "The Saturnday."

Overall, it seems that Floating Mind just kept adding things to the track to the point where it was overdone. For the next attempt, I would recommend a more stripped down approach if he wants to take it more into the ambient realm, or if he is trying more for the electronica / techno approach to lighten up on the repetition. He has a good start. Now it needs some refining.