A German Industrial-project with a long tradition and founded in 1995, Thorofon can look back on a rich discography filled with full-length albums on CD, vinyl and cassette format released on such cult labels like Steinklang for instance. There has been silence throughout the last years around them, until this project has celebrated a triumphant return in 2010, which mostly got recognized through their performance at Maschinenfest 2011. As being long-years members of the German Umb-Kollektiv, Ant-Zen now releases in collaboration the album 'Exkarnation', which features all new compositions of the current line-up members David Hormann, Sebastian Schwarz and Isabelle Wörner. All tracks got composed with the intention to renovate the traditional old-school Industrial vibe provided in the early years through names like Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Portion Control, and SPK. SPK have seemingly had their special impact on the band members, the track 'Flesh And Steel' is a cover version in a raw, Minimal-/EBM-oriented style direction. 'Controlled Chaos' opens this album and stands more for the haunting, rather Ambient-driven kind, which joins the scenario again on some other tracks ('Embalmed'). Of course, the old traditional recordings of the above named cult projects can not completely transformed into the rushing current days, but Thorofon manage hard to impress with depth in their often Avantgarde-like compositions. What impresses the most is their installing of bizarre, Drone-like analogue-sound fragments. Completed with a strong dedication to rhythmic Powernoise structures and Minimal-like elements they offer a crafty and interesting sounding full-length album, which drifts far away from the usual, club-driving 'distort-your-techno-kick-drum-set' attitude, which still gets too often hyped. Good and useful stuff to those missing the heydays, when Industrial has had its rawest, but often proclaimed best moments.

A spectral buzz from an old electric generator, a march sounding as sketched on a broken snare introducing an easy-to-hum American patriotic tune, which looks like performed by a plastered bugler echoed by a collapsing ex-serviceman with a passion for country whose decadent performing looks like nebulized by the hypnotical whistle of a rudimental DIY theremin built with an amplifier and a simple radio antenna, is the shining sonic medal this fuzzy dada-futurist orchestra, born as a personal project of Pete Petrisko in 2008, forged to award the listener, whose hunger for new psychedelic listening experience led to their release, in the initial track "Decoration". In the salad bowl, Petrisko and his occasional collaborators carefully put slices of proto-industrial weaponry such as long lasting delayed percussions, electric hums, cacophonic filters, human chatters and field recordings, with interesting treatments of old American folk airs and sonic slices of old engines, mechanical stridors, cow bells, rusty machines' screeching, puffs of vapour locomotives and even bird chirp (its presence looks like being inevitable in some contemporary stuff!), so that each track looks like a report from some time travel in an undefined period between American Revolutionary Wars and Great Depression, a black-and-white set of archaic images coloured by RPM Orchestra's sonic palettes in a so visionary way that some of their recordings seems to have grabbed by some acidolous revealing rave by David Lynch, full of interesting and somewhat dismal musical memorabilia (my favorite is the live recorded on 16th January of some year between 2009 and 2011 - it's not specified on my notes -, titled Persistence of Vision), which became part of some live performances, whose connection with contemporary grey days could be closer than what it appears. The release is available for free on archive.org at the following link: http://www.archive.org/details/LivewireActs Have a listen!

Even if this new effort by the Portuguese duo Sturqen made up of Cesar Rodrigues and David Arantes hasn't been titled with the name of some disease (such as Colera and Peste, being this last one the record which gave them some notoriety for the important award of two nominations of the renowned French contest Qwerz Electronic Music as Best Artist and Discovery categories ), Praga - on second thoughts, the Czech capital has a certain je ne sais quoi distinctively morbid but fascinating at the same time - preserves that viral and visceral attitude as well as its acid crumbing already shown in their past releases. The feast of saturated noises, distorsions, disturbances, martial movements and the perpetual ridding with ear-splitting shots combined with funny games on filter's knobs sometimes concocted with bizarre sounds (such as a disquieting scary cheerping in "Orto", the irritating noise of an alarm clock in "Cumando", the scary transposition of a lively farmyard into a set of scary explosions in the final track "60 73" - you can imagine a featuring by some kamikaze little chicks letting them explode to fight the oppressive cock's authority! - and some occasional field recordings...and the ones in the above-mentioned "60 73" are so realistic that you could think some objects could have fallen from the shelves) let think to an imaginary stylistical pollination of industrial technoid grounds with psychedelic seeds. Many tracks (Redima, Orto, Pertal and even Suner, which seems to wink at extreme dancefloors) amidst this cacophonic nebula, whereas these noisy scamps manage to evoke other nice and partially forgotten acts of industrial noise such as Celluloid Mata, Synapscape, Klangstabile and other noiseshapers who shared other glorious stages such as Maschinenfest, but I cannot rule out the possibility some listeners could think these oddities sound too tedious particularly when they excessively stiffen on plug-generated noises in the second part of the release by persuading them to mistrust the rewards Sturqen received for their work. Available both on Cd and as digital download, I reccomend to prefer the first format for the elegant package the appreciated Ukranian label Kvitnu made for Praga.

As you probably already know Grey History is Gianluca Becuzzi and Fabio Orsi together they've a plethora of releases under their belt, this project alone has arrived at its third chapter. After two records the sound is still the same, is it a mistake? A problem? No way! With Grey Anatomy the two italian artists intentionally follow the same power noise, industrial in your face trajectory. The project is quite clear also if you look at the 7" shaped cover and if you read the song titles: it's always bad taste and ignorance diluted with a great dose of irony and those who can't get it should better leave it, honestly it's sad how a lot of people never got the irony of some industrial folks like Bennet or Whitehouse themselves, sure they're are/have been outrageous and provocative but with a good dose of irony. The sound profile is always top class as you know it happens with two good musicians, also the tracks have the usual good structure, so soft parts, ironic parts and power blasts have been alternated to make you feel like you're jumping up and down on a roller coster with no fasten belt. The song titles are funny as always, you just have just to decide if you prefer a title like "Queers of god" or something like "the diameter of papal rectum".

Dark ambient/industrial project Hoarfrost is from Silesia, an industrial region of Poland. Hoarfrost began in 2006 with the first release in 2007, and have had a handful of releases since then. 'Last Message'¦' is a single 21 minute piece excerpted from a live concert in Enniskillen Oaks Studio. Much like its cover, the sonics on this 3' minidisc present a bleak industrial environment. Not the industrial of production where there is any mechanical activity, but rather dead-industrial, where the remnants of industry now lie in a state of frozen decay. It is as if one is exploring the ruins of a factory wasteland where now only the ghosts of manufacturing now dwell. It is a grim reminder of the present state of such blighted cities as Detroit; surely these places are prevalent all over the world now. There is even a documentary feel to this desolate ambience, as Hoarfrost manages to capture with sound what the stark imagery of photography or film cannot- namely the emotional quality of such a place. A sad indictment of the entropy of industrialized society, which raises the question- where do we go from here? Release limited to 200 copies.