'The touch of the unexpected' ' this phrase taken out of the label info-sheet features some valuable content, when it comes to describe the long years of Tim Kniep's and Philipp Münch's career under the well-known Synapscape moniker. Synapscape in the year 2K11 are sounding still refreshing and offer still their own signature, where other, comparable promising Industrial-projects have failed meanwhile. 'Traits' gives us again some detailed insight into their musically varied sound-design, which features again diverse rhythm patterns between noisy to smooth installed, intelligent produced synth-drones and ' quite important ' Tim Kniep's vocal performance. They can look back now on more than 16 years of musically activity, but be assured, that they do not offer (Abnutzungserscheinungen). This album is filled with stuff worth to mention: 'Host' opens this album and gives a harsh, Powernoise-driven rhythm-massacre. But the float of the album afterwards turns more to offer progression in their rhythm-textures, 'First Came the Floods' rather more reminds on more subtle produced Electro-Clash-structures than the Noise-formula. 'Downfall' can be pointed out as being one of the highlights here, rather reminds with its rhythm-arrangements as an obvious homage to Dive/Sonar. Deep-drowning Dark Ambient scenarios you'll get additionally presented through tracks like 'condition Sine Qua Non' and 'Hiller', until the album ends after 14 tracks with the wild pounding 'Rise', one out of five tracks featuring Tim Kniep's vocals. 'Traits' stands once again for a highlight in the release-catalogue of the German cult-label Ant-Zen and this productive duo has at least found the ideal path to unite the raw, noisy structures with subtle elements. 16 years of activity under Synapscape and no sign of getting bored by the things they do ' let's keep the fingers crossed to have them much longer in front of this music genre.

Even if Minusheart are not newcomers, The Big Idea could be considered a sort of debut album due to the big changes of the line up and those listeners who already heard some of their past releases, in particular their most famous one id est their real debut (on Echozone as well), Disease - including their most known song "Don't Feed The Cats" -, will easily recognize stylistical mutation of this German band: even if it's not a chocolate snack cake, the recipe which has been added in the filler has been sugared by Vary, the new guitarist of the band led by Diver and his coarse riffs, so that Minusheart's sound seems to tack towards industrial rock in spite of its terse and schematic EBM mainstay, being such a thinness a defect together with a certain monochromatism of Diver's voice according to some listener, ignoring that redundance is not proper to the genre. Such a revolution in the line-up brought many good ideas in the oven (I particularly appreciated more melodious songs such as "Morphine Waltz", one of the best song of this album, and some interesting rollers such as "Ride On Your Colours" and the initial "Inglorious Bang"), even if most of the songs cannot be acclaimed as masterpieces, and the lyrical aspect appears renewed and more interesting as well even when Minusheart's most ironic vein pulses stronger such as in Drawback and Don't Call It Love, where Diver enumerates some notorious pornstars' names, but there're also some moles in the tracklist due to their foreseeable structure such as Solitaire, Book Of Love or Peak Of Pleasure. I may be wrong, but The Big Idea looks like the typical transitional work before an attempt of diving in the mainstream. We'll see or better we'll listen.

The newborn Milan-based Italian label Beat.Machine makes its first appearance in the overcrowded music scene with a musical brotherhood with the provoking alternative punk rock Italian band The NUV, acronym for New Ultraviolet Vanish, an expression which can summarize their ruffled plunging down a sonic slope influenced by recent evolutions of punkey bands, rewording New Ultra Violence (their previous baptismal name as well), a term used by their main conceptual source of inspiration, Anthony Burgess, author of the notorious "A Clockwork Orange" to describe brutal violent acts committed just for entertainment. Their release on Block Starz Music could strike some ears for the way they contaminate punk rock with glamour sonic hooks, lending itself to further treatment and it's what Beat.Machine made, a way to introduce some slices of its roster. To be honest, most of them look like they stick to some standards, in particular remixes by I Am Orkid and Boylerz sound quite influenced by some electro-industrial bands (Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy, FLA) as well as the so-called nu disco proposed by Brioski in the attempt of refurbishing the track "Ultraviolence" sounds not so "nu". On the other side other remixers are far more interesting in flirtation/filtration of some NUV's songs such as M.E.S.P. who proposes a bizarre intertwining of dubstep and electro-rock shreds (both "Jennifer" and "Nobel" remixes are really nice), AC Prodz' versatility in reinterpreting "Lucha Libre" and "The Virgin" in a plain electronic way and The Honor's toytronic remix of "Nobel". Maybe it's better to wait some individual releases in order to have a clearer idea on the real stylistical range and quality of musical proposals by this new label, but this debut sounds tasty enough to sketch a rough idea on them.

Neurobit is an improvisation project by Bas Welling. He already released stuff on Retinascan, R.O.N.F. Records and Enfant Terrible. The sound is based on minimal suites made using 8bit sounds. Sounding at times a bit experimental or ambient, Neurobit will release on February for Enfant Terrible a tape titled THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. Originally, "The War of the Worlds" was an episode of the American radio drama anthology series, Mercury Theatre on the Air, broadcasted on the October 30, 1938 and directed and narrated by Orson Welles. The effect that this broadcast had on people is history, because it caused panic on the audience. On the 6th of April 2003 Bas Welling (then called himself Dj Rioteer) recorded his version of this radio drama on a local Dutch pirate radio. Some tapes were produced and distributed but it was a sort of memory of a performance. Enfant Terrible decided it was time to make it available again, so the next month you'll be able to purchase one of the 100 copies (11 have a Space Invader art object). Musically, you'll find the original recordings of the 1938 broadcast with a sort of experimental improvised soundtrack performed by Neurobit. Analog noises, tiny melodies, bleeps and low-fi electronic effects are the sounds added and even if they aren't catchy per se, the whole project is interesting.

After having heard one of his latest tracks ('Skullwatch') on the 4-CD-compilation-beast 'Old-School Electrology Volume One', Geert de Wilde returns now with his 5th album of his long-going career under his moniker IC 434. Again signed to the German Infacted Recordings label, Geert presents us a new and crafty produced example, how to combine the ideals of a veteran act with new and updated composition skills. His music is as usual for the most part based and programmed on his beloved Korg M1 workstation synthesizer, but his tunes can not completely sort into the 'old-school' drawer. Even if one may thinks to have heard the one or another sound before, since the Korg M1 is an old, late 80s built machine, Geert's tasteful arrangements are still sounding fresh and can easily stand with the state-of-art. What has to be pointed out, is Geert's handmade-like bass-line sequencing, which follows in its technical kind some ideals like early Image Transmission ('Deportation') for instance. Together with his raspy vocal performance, which reminds a bit on a more EBM-related version of P. Spilles (Project Pitchfork) meets Denis Ostermann (In Strict Confidence), here shines through the typical old-school factor. But besides all of that 'we-journalists-need-permanently-search-for-comparisons' rambling, Geert impresses with his well-balanced album, which offers the one or another track worth to mention specially. 'Rats' with its dark and creepy synthesizer pad-programming is a haunting and moody tune, which dramatic slows down the tempo. The rather more danceable tunes like 'An Ideal World', the fast arranged 'Deportation', or 'Sangre De Toro' offer solid club food, while I personally still prefer the brilliant 'Skullwatch'. With 'The Waiting' and the last tune 'Barnard 33', Geert gives us some instrumental insight into one of his biggest hobbies, Astronomy. It finally doesn't wonder too much, that also the band moniker IC 434 is named after a galactic fog. 'Anhedonia' reaches finally hits a target, which can be seldom discovered: it balances well the ideals of the old school und unites tradition with the technical skills of our current days. Thumbs up for this album!