George Dzodzuashvili created Post Industrial Boys some time ago but at the beginning of the 90s he created Mjava Message, his first project. This was the first effort that brought him to join other people and to form the group Goslab. The Post Industrial Boys moniker born two years ago with the release of the first self named album. Now, two years later, with the help of different people on lyrics and vocals, George release TRAUMA. Containing 20 delicate acoustic electronic songs The album also contain "Benzilina", a track originally from the Mjava Message period. Since the first listening it is clear how much the collective from Tblisi / Georgia worked on this release: it has so many moods (if "Stay mute" and "Afternoon" are a sort of acoustic electronic version of Belle And Sebastian, the following "Iced sea" or the opening "Two in one" are dark intimate electronic songs) that sometimes it seems to listening to a compilation of a band. The songs are now jazzy with light electronic orchestrations and then minimal and melancholic. Sometimes it seems to listening to an updated version of Orange Juice. Very creative indeed...

Housemeister is the project of a young fella coming from Berlin. He already released some stuff for BPitch Control but since he felt that his new tracks weren’t fitting that much the style of Allien’s label he decided to submit them to his friends at Boysnoize even if now he run his own label called Berlin Kraft. The first thing that got my attention was Housemeister attitude toward music and graphics as he seems to joke with every aspect of his creation. If the cover sees him flying between the city buildings the tracks are fresh techno tunes. While listening to the CD I picture him jumping around his gear with a playful joy while he decide to title his debut album ENLARGE YOUR DOSE. If the first tracks "Hello" and "Hello again" prepare the audience to the feast (the second track has a certain dark atmosphere with brass samples that seem to introduce a game at the Colosseum), "Forget your name" is finest dark techno with a minimal bass line and with no drum if not for a hit hat sound. Many tracks have a synthetic like female voice that make them sound particular and retro (like on the main track where on the simple minimal electro melody the voice suggest to enlarge the dose). "We need the retro" as well as the following "We need the kick" change the atmosphere and make you enter the dancehall with minimal distorted tunes. What sounds interesting about Housemeister’s music is the absolute sense of freedom that made his pass from semi experimental use of arrangements on the shortest tracks (like the closing "Das Rhodes und wir" where he uses a Rhodes distorted sound) to the kick asses crow shaking tunes passing through the ones with analogue bleeping sound ("Grand final" is one of them). The album closes with the sentence "The music is over, please restart your disc". I did it three times in a couple of days and I enjoyed it!

Philadelphia based The Fate mixed rock with electronic elements. Male and female vocals taking turns on some of the tracks, but the female seems to sing more than the male. The Fate debut cd is laced with bittersweet and wrenching heart pain. A warm touch to find a way to escape the complexity of life that fills with bitterness, hate, sorrow, and despair. Some of the tracks are mellow that gives a sadness feel. A nice piece of work the band developed and well produced. Choice cuts off the cd are "Everyone Loves Suicide", "Louisiana", "Prince Charming", "Stranger Than Fiction", "Astroplane", "Numbers" and "Dragon Tears/A Good Day To Die". This album is perfect for those who's a loner and having a tough time in their life. Life is what it it, but you have to make the best of it. The Fate is bringing a positive message to the table for people who are messed up and disturbed. Worth checking out.

On late 70s / early 80s Italy was living an economical recession and also the social climax was tense. Red brigades, workers’ strikes and political changes were the common headlines of the newspapers (things seem didn’t change that much, huh?). Music was also changing radically with the born of punk and the death of big rock bands. Also dance music was affected by a wave of fresh air and styles were fading one into the other. If you check bands like The Giants, Rockets (with their major hits "Electric delight" or "Galactica") or "Dinasty" by Kiss you’ll realize that also rock music was fascinated by dance music of the likes of Diana Ross (is it a case if she had been Gene Simmons’ girlfriend for a while?), Barry White or Earth Wind & Fire. Dance halls where places where people were consuming their Saturday rite and Baia Degli Angeli in Rimini was Italy’s famous place. After its closing (due for drug reasons) DJ Daniele Baldelli decided to propose the same innovative sounds founding a new club: Cosmic. Here new genres born. Italodisco, Cosmic or Afrofunky were few of them and mixing Krautrock, Industrial or Funk wasn’t a problem at all. Nowadays DJ Mooner (member of Zombie Nation, Hart Of Noise, Zombocombo and owner of the Erkrankung label) decided to revive the genre by compiling an album of those records that defined the Cosmic way of spinning records. Tracks that had 80-105 BPM rhythms (for this reason the compilation is titled "Slow motion disco") and that blended synth spacey tunes, funky rhythms and rock melodies. The eleven tracks included have been released through the 1978/1984 period and along with well known 80’s bands such as Chris & Cosey (here included with "This is me" from their "Heartbeat" album) and Heaven 17 (you can find their "I’m you money" coming from their 12" released just before "Penthouse & Pavement") you can find The Rah Band (with their particular afro funky instrumental "Electric fling"), Clive Stevens & Brainchild ("Mistery mix – remix" is their track. This is really 80’s space rock also because searching with Google about Clive Stevens I read that he was fond on ufology), Love International ("Dance on the groove – and do the funk" is their funky hymn), Doctor’s Cat (here included a DJ Mooner edit of their "Crash", a tune sounding like a Chinese electro pop tune. Taken from their album "Gee Wiz", released by Discotto on 1984), Logic System (Hideki Matsutake, collaborator with Yellow Magic Orchestra, produced different albums with this moniker and "Clash – Chinjyu if sun" is his tribute to robotic space electronica), Memory Control One (M. Noe mix of their track "Basic", Beppe Loda created the track with Francesco Boscolo and he describe their style as Italo Synth), Peru (an electro instrumental electro easy listening tune titled "Oriental"), Eloy ("Horizons" is the track picked up for this German band of dancey progressive rock with female choruses like vocals) close the compilation a track by Chocolate Star titled "The pop", a sort of experimental funky tune with a bass and bottles as percussions. Even if I am an Italian guy, this compilation is a great discover and I suggest you to check out these great and sometimes particular tunes!

Before I received the new full-length album of one of Germany’s Synth-/Futurepop-based leaders I could already read some first comments complaining that the new SEABOUND stuff wouldn’t be catchy and danceable enough in comparison to previous works of this act. Now, after listening several times to this new album, I must say, that the overall concept behind this album may doesn’t allow to sing about "sunshine-and-cutie-chicks" and to produce stuff which melodic content can grab attention. Professor of psychology, Frank M. Spinath here dissects lyrically in several parts his vision of betrayal and deception of the human mind – for me obviously, that all the "fun" is left out. Like on almost all works I’ve discovered so far from him, I really think, that his knowledge or wisdom he extracts with his music goes deeper, than what he may can read or has learned from his textbooks. If it depends on a simple autumn depression ("October Song", damned – an extendet version of this fine tune is required!!!) or up to breeding hate ("Traitor") doesn’t play a role – his efforts here seem to be a cure for him, also from personal experiences. Therefore it fits that the music produced by Martin Vorbrodt mostly doesn’t follow already known paths, I would qualify this new output being a subtle mixture between Synth-/Futurepop with Dark Electro, while not sliding into crude EBM attitudes. The arrangements are – as usual – fine and detailed worked out, some pieces really offer a spacey feeling thanks to rich included layer sounds ("Sapphire"). I agree with the included info sheet that with this release the acceptance and the success of SEABOUND internationally will grow - also the fact that Eskil Simonsson of the Swedish act COVENANT has produced two tracks is another proof of this. This is one of the fine Dependent releases, which made this label that sought-after - not too commercial-oriented and with the right sense for quality and rich art. Go out, and try hard to get the limited DCD edition featuring extra remix works by COVENANT, ROTERSAND and O. Wollschläger.