This new showcase of the Swedish Plutonium label is more than a simple label compilation, it represents the rich and active content of several acts of the Three-Crowns country. And so several guest appearances can be discovered here and all featured acts here do their best to give a convincing listening as well as a rich amount of diversity in styles. Things start well with the opener PROJECT-X and a special remix done by COBALT 60 on their track "Stay Awake" - not that expected straight EBM piece but still decent done. MORTICIANS, Plutonium’s very own recording act, comes next here and give us already a new piece from their upcoming next release. AUTO-AUTO are one of these uncountable Synthpop acts somewhere comparable with the known ELEGANT MACHINERY and several reminiscences taken of the Pop/Wave influences of the Eighties. One of the highlights of this whole comp follows then with the one-man act CRYO, recently signed to Progress Productions. Their track "The Pain" combines old school EBM structures with well sounding male vocals and mysterious sounding synth layers - marvelous played, definitively a track which makes me eagerly awaiting their debut CD. CJ Parker comes next and built a smile on my face regarding their Diva-like vocals and its content. WHITECHAPEL is one of the upcoming acts on Plutonium, a female leaded act combining almost Dark Electro with some harder rhythms - maybe the Swedish answer on acts like PSYCHOBITCH. DIN STALKER comes next with an instrumental piece and presents a convincing synth play, while the effort of PSILODUMP can’t grab attention. We are in the middle of the running time of this comp and some more or less average stuff takes part here. NORTHERN ELECTRIC is also one of the upcoming acts recording for Plutonium and they present here an old school influenced EBM piece with German lyrics. Next act is SADAKO’S FURY and they mix Electro elements with Rock’n Roll - uuhm, here we get good male vocals mixed with distorted percussion efforts - stuff which needs some habit. INSTANS is the lesser distorted Electro/Industrial side-project by SEVERE ILLUSION. Lesser distorted means here that this effort by both Ulf Lundblad and Fredrik Djurfeldt is more straight and linear. Distortion and destroying elements are still present of course, but for INSTANS it sounds more programmed and lesser influenced by chance. Also the vocals and its effect penetration differs from SEVERE ILLUSION, although I must say, that they could be better placed in the floating mix of this track. The north Swedish duo MICROBODY comes next with a hard old school EBM piece called "Consumer’s Decay". It is a hard and fast paced track which awakes some Punk reminiscences. ETERNITY RANGE is a side-project by a MORTICIANS member and they play a dark and slow form of Synthpop - a very beautiful piece. AKEUM SON is a French/Swedish connection and they also definitively explore the harder and darker side of Electro/Industrial. Comes then SEVERE ILLUSION with a new track which moves into a new and different direction than their latest releases. Minimal synth play, chaos and destroying elements are reduced to almost zero, surprise, surprise! Unexpected stuff and it definitively bound me at the headphones for some more rotations to get conformity in it. The duo of TWZ is also back here with an amazing new piece "Terror Cell" and their development in vocals and music is nice to see/hear. Follows then THE PAIN MACHINERY with a hard, fast and chaotic noisy track which differs a lot from the latest release "Hostile" - maybe this piece is a bit older here? Finally this comp ends with another instrumental piece of a project TRASHCANDOGCHOIR.
Also this compilation lives a lot from its exclusive content and the unexplored talents which seem to be so damned rich present in Sweden. Definitively a good initiative and I hope for some continuations.

Tracklist:

01 Project-X - Stay Awake (Insomnia remix by Cobalt 60)
02 Morticians - Overlords
03 Auto-auto - Dog
04 Cryo - The Pain
05 CJ Parker - Beutiful Boys
06 Whitechapel - Dead Channelz
07 Din Stalker - Ohne Zuschlag
08 Psilodump - Vuoksa
09 Northern Electric - Normal (neu)
10 Sadako's Fury - Once upon a time
11 Instans - Break the Glass
12 Microbody - Consumers Decay
13 Eternity Range - Goodnight
14 Akeum Son - The Infinite Power
15 Severe Illusion - In your hostile little face
16 TWZ - Terror Cell
17 The Pain Machinery - Empathy
18 Trashcandogchoir - Our Engines

From the same cdr label of Hawaii8 here come nother good demo-ep. Drink To Me differently from their label mates are a rock combo with that 4/4 beats that makes the day of a lot of young teenagers chained in front of Mtv. Rough but good recording from which you won't miss the english post-punk influence of the band and if Mtv made you think "easy listening" that's not the case. I can't say that's music without a melodic edge but unfortunately for all of us its new waveish crepuscular taste may be disorienting for the average pop kid. Do you remember Pitchblende? If it helps their later line up at one point became Turing Machine, anyhow, this post-punk U.s. quartet put some really interesting and inspired records during the early nineties and the labels were Matador, Cargo, Jade Tree if that means a thing (and it does). Just the fact Drink To Me recall such an underrated but undeniably great band like Pitchblende, to me it's a result itself. Add to this all they have some avant-rock-noise reminescences a la Brainiac in a new wave salsa and that's how it sounds. Probably there's much more to be done but it's an ok release and better of half of the post-punk-punk-fuck-post-garage-post-whatever wonnabies trying to make it on Mtv.

Listening to About debut album, BONGO, it seems impossible that the brain of only one guy created all this. Coming from Amsterdam, Rutger Hoedemaekers did a great album. It is pop as hell and incredibly it sounds like an electronic freak. Try to imagine Devo, Simon & Garfunkel and Sid Barret all blended and played by a broken CD player. The opening "Think Niles drink" seems a grunge track made out of broken CDs. Have you ever listened how a broken CD sounds? Well, it is amazing how well the stops and go of a guitar that seems repeating itself 'til death fit a pop song. Each track sound different from the previous one, so you'll find different kind of pop songs but all sounding played by a dee jay that was used to play breakbeat techno. The melodies created by Rutger recalled me the English indipendent pop bands of the 80s: Talulah Gosh, Altered Images, etc. My wife asked me if I was listening to a defective CD. Well, it could sound like that but it has a lot of good melodies and ideas. You'll find one minutes tunes like "She knows everything about all who ever drank coffee without her" and you'll ask yourself how a simple song can stick in your head. Watch out, pop is infective!

In A Sense is the new project of John Sepulveda (do you remember his previous one called Matrix?) and Steve Ferraro. The fifteen tracks of their debut album SECLUSION ideally continue the musical approach of the early Matrix stuff keeping the synthpop elements and adding to them a certain European e.b.m. flavour. Each track contains something valuable that with a better production (I don't know why, but the sound it isn't explosive even if if it is pumping out of my speakers) could find a wider audience. On the album there are also the three tracks of the demo that I reviewed a couple of years ago ("Passion In Your Eyes", "Beautiful Girl" and "Will You Be There Sometimes") which are in my opinion their best ones because they gather good melodies, a driving rhythm and simple but catchy melodies. Unfortunately the sound production sometimes make sound Steve's vocals similar on each track and this is a pity because the band has a good sense of melody and the songs could be good dancefloors hits. The CD contains also four remixes: "Why - Tragic mix by Matrix" (similar to the original version but without the rhythmic section), "Passion is your eyes - Virtual Vamp remix by Chinese Theatre" (they changed a slightly the sound giving to the song a robotic sound), "Ultimate sacrifice - GASR remix" (now it sound more e.b.m. than the original version) and "Passion in your eyes - Wave in the head remix" (the remix sound more dreamy and eb.m.).

Man, talking about freakiness, extravaganza or "music out of ordinary" the Kodi and Pausa project is a good example, nothing more and nothing less. I think the fact this cd can be good or bad is a detail, but I dare the average critic to label this cd as "the same ol' shit". Probably what I'm going to say has to do with the fact I've listened to Boredom's "Pop tatari" a couple of days ago, but I guess if ever pop music would have followed the path of these japanese kamikaze, this could have been the euro-pop answer to the demented genius of Yamatsuka Eye and friends. An improvisational cut and lot's of instruments to play may imply influences and ideas can move in this or in that direction, but it can also bring to a delirium where everything flows randomly leaving reminiscences of what lied buried in the subconscious coming out in the open with the consequent result you'll see fragments of subconscious scattered all over the place. Is Kodi and Pausa pure essence of chaos? Absolutely not, but here you've electronic music, free jazzy guitar incursions, shapeless cut ups/pastiches (Boswachter) as well as old electronic mixed with modern hi-frequencies computer sounds, this recording features also minimal keyboard experiments (that reminded me of the early and greatest Pram). What should I say about a defiant cartoon tune like "Flashy toilet"!?...this couple of musician probably has had problems during their childhood. Sometimes it's hard to judge the quality of a cd and when it's "In one week and new toys to play", the idea is that the "subject" is really beyond the boundaries of musical judgment...life is a nonsense.