Dream Into Dust is a New York City based band headed by Derek Rush (vocals, synths, guitars, bass, drum programming, etc.), and also features Bryin Dall (noise guitar, synths), Scott Reiter (synths and other electronics), and Mario Padron (bass). DID has been around since 1997 or so, had a few CD releases and also a couple of 7's, and appeared on a number of compilations. 'So Beautiful and So Dangerous' is their first album in nearly a decade. Having never heard them before I have no basis of comparison and it's difficult to categorize too. There are elements of a lot of different genres here- darkwave, industrial, electronica, shoegaze, etc., but what really makes DID stand out from the pack is Derek's melodic vocals. You don't hear a male voice like this too often in this type of music. His voice is very emotive without being pretentious. Make no mistake though, this is no pop band (or even synth-pop); it is often hard and heavy stuff with an experimental industrial edge. Yep, it's gonna get noisy at times, but that's a good thing!

The electronic elements are solid and inventive, the songwriting expressive and compelling, and the production, in a word ' great. Yes, it's dark and gloomy, but not in the way might you'd expect There is a depth here that is often found lacking in some of the giants in the electro-industrial genre. A lot of this is due to Rush's songwriting skills and vocals. He brings the drama, he brings the melody, and wraps it in a very dark soundscape. This is the kind of album Muse or Radiohead might make if they took a deep plunge into the industrial world, but you know they never will. Pop music pays the bills.

No doubt that Dream Into Dust is going to draw comparisons to other artists ' Nine Inch Nails comes to mind, especially in the opener, 'Counterfeit'. I'm hearing some Collide in their arrangements, but maybe that's just because I think Collide is an exceptional outfit. Most of the album isn't geared to the dancefloor, although 'Counterfeit,' 'Suspended in Fear,' and 'Perfect Vision' are beat-worthy enough to deserve club play. But that's not what this album is really about. It's Rush's personal dystopian concept album expressed in pain, sorrow and angst. It's uncompromising, as it really should be.

In order to get this album manufactured, Dream Into Dust had to solicit backers on Kickstarter. (Hey, getting CDs made is expensive; been there done that.) Any time you put out product without a major label bankrolling you, it's a risk, especially in the age of the DIY digital download. This time though, I think it's paid off. 'So Beautiful and So Dangerous' is a worthy album, one deserving of a lot more attention than I could possibly give it.

The very first beats of "Conflict Dub", the first track of this interesting release by Ravi Binning's Though Broadcast, recalled to my mind a group of fuddled chemist while grinding fictitious molecules with a peddle conducted by the suspicious gaze of a dour hunchbacked accounted, but beyond any kind of fuzzy associations of broadcasted thoughts such a music could inspire one of the most interesting aspect of this strange creature is its bizarre aesthetics. Even if there are some tracks such the claustrophobic pitting of "Breaking Test" or the sooty and dirt minimal dub of "Portrait Heads", which looks like recorded with a toy keyboard powered by almost dead batteries, whose recording is so well-done that listeners cannot easily recognize they've been extracted from a cassette, the painstaking and excellent work of recording and mastering at Dubplates and Mastering in Berlin from a pair of cassettes doesn't removed the whoosh of tape, so that "Emergency Stairway" could be associated to some forgotten or unpublished tape by some leading figure of the most bizarre and esoteric branch of industrial music, such as Suicide, Throbbing Gristle (many moments of Ravi's work recalled their recent "The Third Mind Movements") or some insane experiments by Wolf Eyes (particularly the ones on "Dead Hills") or The Residents, but - that's one of the most bizarre aesthetical aspect! - seemingly performed by a stiff and paranoid mad dubster. It could sound grim or wicked, but I recommend a listening, particularly if you appreciate the above-mentioned historical industrial activists.

Norwegian band Shining (not to be confused with the Swedish metal band by the same name) is a jazz-metal band with a cult following in Scandinavia. My Norwegian friend, label-mate and Chain D.L.K. contributor Eirik Havnes first told me about them and I had the pleasure to check them out live at SXSW in Austin this year. Their concert was phenomenal and in order to attend I walked out of an admittedly quite amazing show by Bruce Springsteen that I had won tickets to and was happening at the same time across town.
Their latest release is a CD + DVD entitled "Live Black Jazz", which follows their last full length album "Black Jazz". It is a recording of a recent live performance in Oslo which looks and sounds even better than the show I saw in Austin. This multi-camera shoot has great sound and video quality and you can choose to watch it or just listen to it, since it's a double release.
These guys take metal and add in acoustic and electric saxophone, keyboards, distortions, triggered drum sounds and they play intricate tunes with unusual time signatures and fast-paced changes. Did I mention they do so with maniacal precision and absolute mastery of their instruments? When you hear somebody switching around with such fury and precision, it's hard for me not to draw a comparison with John Zorn's Naked City, who pretty much were the first to mix saxophone with metal and to experiment with lighting fast changes, odd tempi and juxtaposition of such distant genres such as metal and jazz. Although it the case of the Shining, the link with jazz is pretty much only to be found in the way they can play and in the instruments, they do keep the link with experimental (and in a way prog) music alive with their use of keyboards, which besides layering sounds, usually plays lead lines or perfectly doubles the lead played by the guitar, the sax or the Akai EWI electronic wind instrument. For the headbangers out there, don't be put off by what I am writing and embrace the future because this band is looking ahead! There's still plenty of rocking out to do with the Shining and the distorted guitars and metal riffs are in extra large abundance.
I'm hooked.

Honestly I have totally lost count of how many albums Daniele has released so far. He's one of the artists I've known about and have been following on and off for probably two decades now and who he relentlessly continues to release new material on his label Bosco records.
Based in Turin, Italy, Daniele was one of the pioneers of industrial music, and specifically of a sub-genre of industrial music that he probably unwillingly created, where authorship and songwriting seamlessly blend with noises and melodies to create a new style that he is proficient at and almost nobody else seems to play or take part in, most certainly not on his hometurf (read, country!). It's hard to describe but I guess you could try thinking about Einsturzende Neubauten's most melodic releases and replace the German singing with Italian singing. Industrial folk is probably what I'd come up with if I had to put it in two words, but that's always limiting.
The language used probably has a lot to do with the identifiability of his style, granted, but it also has a lot to do with where his style comes from, musically and historically. Italy's tradition of songwriting has roots that go back decades if not centuries, and although in the last '40 years Italian music is often (but not always) synonymous with second grade garbage pop, Daniele willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously draws upon that tradition and, most importantly, develops upon it, taking it further, with sonic vignettes, found sound patterns and rhythms, experimental sounds and more along those most creative lines. Although guitar was very prominently used in the past, this new direction of his hands the lead off to a more avantgarde percussive aesthetic with a lot of samples, house objects and very minimal melodies.
The CD comes in a handmade cardboard sleeve with three semi-transparent sheets that feature titles and lyrics.
If you have never checked him out you owe it to himself, and him, because he's been at it for longer than most of you might have been into this genre, and in that sense, he has a lot to teach and a lot to give. Quite possibly, if you don't speak Italian it might not be as interesting as if you did, but nevertheless his music is a trip. One that you should embark on!

Canadian D-Trash records released one of my own records in 2009 and so when in the mail came the D-Trash release from the label's mastermind Schizoid himself, I could not send it off to my amazing contributors and had to take the time out of my crazy busy days to review it myself.
Thirteen years after his speed core debut "Enough is Enough" and after a long compositional hiatus, Schizoid returns with his 3rd full length album "The Next Extreme", which is basically digital hardcore taken to its most extreme limits of speed and brutality. Verging on black/grind metal and breakcore, "The Next Extreme" is basically about as far you can take the digital hardcore genre and still call it that.
Schizoid throws 16 abrasive, fast, violent and harsh tracks at you with the same delicacy that a charging rhino would panzer-speed through a china shop, the china shop being your life of course. His lyrics (d)evolved from political criticism to misanthropism, with most songs covering the hardship of life, the disdain for the blatantly ignorant bystanders of our civilization and death that is all around us and hovering above us.
The album features a ton of guest appearances by long time D-Trash friends such as Babylon Disco, The First Seed, The Named, Phallus Uber Alles, Angel Enemy, Alex B from Leech Woman, No Brigade, Jul!e D:stroy, DK Dance, Dirty Fingers Licked, Luna Seaux, Junkie Kut, Robot(a), Hansel, Drugzilla, Celebrity Dead; and I believe Schizoid when he explains that these cameos are not for marketing purposes but to highlight the camaraderie that exists in this scene and around this label.
Certainly not for everyone but if you need to be shaken awake or you are looking for the next extreme, look no further!