A quartet of intricately crafted mostly playful yet manic IDM and though it expresses a range of emotion, the overtones on Niuskiul, tend to the positive. Opening track, “I’m Sad” starts slow, almost melancholic, as the track progresses, manic energy comprised of frenetic breaks and a cacophony of rapid electro chatter, take over. The following, “folded verge” is playfully zany from the start where squelching robo-melody course through hyper breaks that at first fidget and then burst into a full-on fit. Counter melodies on “folded verge” then interplay to beats and the listener is jammed into a crowded sardine can of elaborate beats, bass ‘n bleepin’ melody. 90’s era Nintendo game blips ‘n bloops open “I’m Glad” in a kind of warbly robo-strut before swaggering melody materializes to filtered vocals in a kind of electro-IDM-break Franken-track. Gem “Applied Sciences” concludes with processed field recordings while a distant melody draws closer to then wash-over with a beautifully crafted piece Autechre would be proud of, had they kept to a melodic musical direction. Midway through it seems the melody reached conclusion as it briefly pauses to then return with a balancing act of melodies, field recordings and a kaleidoscope of beats and rhythms that play off one another. Luke Peril is alias to Toronto, Canada’s Erik Lacroix, an accomplished IDM electronic music maker who brings us his danceable takes—where others capture your imagination, Luke Peril appeals to both body and soul.

Croak Elixir is Toronto, Canada based Erik Lacroix who delivers his four track mini-album, Velvet Rope; a foray into often playful IDM with varied stylistic accents, married to a 4/4 dance beat. Title track, “Velvet Rope” seems a homage to artist, Aphex Twin for its recognizable tone fragments taken from the latters’ albums but set to a dance beat with electro accents. The dance beat continues on “Wilhelm (red velvet mix)” but set to unfurling warbly synth tones more evocative of Detroit Technno’s Derrick May. “Wilhelm...” is a balancing act of dance beats, frenetic breaks, manic synth warbling set against a canvas of Detroit-style catchy keyboard melody and perhaps evokes 90’s era electronica wholesomeness. Concluding track, “Ham Sandwich” seems a stylistic nod to IDM-ster Bochum Welt for its melodies and counter-melodies that play off one another set to more restrained beats and a catchy bassline for an emotional paradox of melancholy and joy. Croak Elixir is an artist who draws from other artists like a musical palette to create stylings his own, one foot in homage the other into the future.

Annonced quite some time this awesome collaboration was announced with the release of "Stop / Begin Again" and an accompanying Meat Beat Manifesto Remix shortly after. To be honest I hoped for a little more than a two track release to follow, but well.

The history of both is most likely well known, reaching quite far back in time. Up until 1984 Eric Random regularly went on tour and guested with Cabaret Voltaire, Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder produced / guested on his releases as well.

Eric Random, who disappeared years from music making but started again pure electronically in 2014 provides all of the music; midtempo electro tracks with enough space left for Mal's voice to take advantage. The singer here sounds like the mid-80's Cabaret Voltaire singer, cool but distant. Sadly his vocals supplement the tracks a little too much instead of adding some contrasts. A little more advantage and dynamics would not have hurted in my opion and the cheekily titled "One Way No Replay" sounds a little ironic after repeated listening.

Hopefully this is only a test for more to come, perhaps with some more risks taken in the mix.

15 years after a first review on a Stahlschlag release (Acousticophobie / Hypervoxx Records – 2007) on our site, here we go again and Sebastian Sünkler's project has meanwhile become a constant and reliable supplier of energetic and straight produced rhythmically Industrial/Powernoise music. There's without doubt a buzz behind this project and Sebastian has become one of the artists to follow, even if his chapter of being a signed artist to Crunch Pod didn't end up well. Nowadays back and producing again single-handedly, Sebastian's new album “A Zone of Silence” is finally out.

What you'll get can't be called silence at all. Meticulously Sebastian installs layered, rusty walls of drones and Ambient-like sound experiments to combine them with a straight, variable, almost 4-on-the-floor rhythm- and percussion set. Also not to forget: bring on the Noise! Synth-textures and percussion works in Sebastian's sound expression are often genre-typical distorted, mangled and overdriven, just with the right mood to follow-up some idols like Xotox, Synapscape and/or artists more based into the danceable TBM-genre like S.A.M. or Noisuf-X.

But generally, “A Zone of Silence” has asides the usual Noise-driven action some remarkable elements to offer, which are drifting away from the expected noisy course. First audio sign before the release of this album was a collaboration track with the young German female Industrial-/Noise-artist Ultra. The track “Doomed” with the hypnotically vocal performance of Lena Heiler (Ultra) reminds a bit on some PAL works (“Gelöbnis”) and Lena in this hypnotic, monotonous vocal style qoutes on phrases of Robert Falles, but the difference is, that her voice content wasn't sampled. “Doomed” has been released via Bandcamp in July 2022 and thanks to Lena's input and help into this fruitful cooperation also a video clip can be found on YouTube.

A further vocal collaboration can be discovered already with the opening track “Dawn of Man” by The Netherlands-based artist Mikrometrik. That's a relative slow stalking, rather more driven by the scratchy metallic sound layers tune. Whoever said, that Rhythic Powernoise has to be minimal and limited produced? By discovering the wide-spreading sound the best under good pair pair of headphones it can be noticed, that Stahlschlag's music is rather the opposite.

Outstanding tune to me is “Crushed March” with a drastically vocal performance by the Hamburg-based Dark Electro project Morbid Echo. That one with its rather moderate 110 bpm should set fire under dancefloors. Generally these guest appearances for providing some vocal parts bring in a lot of diversity to break with the one-dimensional sound expression path, but nevertheless also Sebastian himself allows it to add in more genre-expanding elements into his arrangements. “Sign” for example impresses with its Tribal-driven, forward-marching rhythm section, but especially the carefully installed synth-textures add a nice variation and rather melodic input to the satisfaction of the listener.

Stahlschlag in the year 2022 sounds still motivated and has successfully expanded its own sound plethora and Sebastian has integrated it successfully into his compositions. Release date of this new album is set to tomorrow, 27th of August 2022 (yes, unbelievable – I am right in time).

A limited edition of a CD copy of this album (only 50 pc) should be also available but it seems necessary to get in contact with Sebastian directly if this physical item is still available. Also to point out the good bliss around Sebastian's work, please be informed, that he has decided to donate the profits out of the Bandcamp download sales to a relief organization called Equiwent, www.equiwent.org . Since this album will be available there for a “pay-what-you-want” procedure, you should think about this unique and exemplary action with your next purchase.

Jeff Danos and his pretty much under the radar flying Testube-project has always had the ability to come out with a blast with well received reactions and reputation by press media, fans and supporters – and to vanish unfortunately soon afterwards into obscurity. It happens often that music-projects seem to be misunderstood or get at least ignored because they tend to express their musically style too ambitious for the listener. Testube has never been the same-sounding band project like your beloved daily burger for a dinner, as diversity and style-breaking changes of Jeff's musically outfit have always been occurred. To mix it all up out of multiple Electronic music styles like Ambient, Trance, Industrial, Synthpop, Glitch, IDM and/or EBM, Jeff is a manic-possessed explorer of new and undiscovered sound ideas and Testube has always been a hodgepodge providing a surplus of unpredictable and innovative ideas on the hunt for stylistic reinvention.

Already established in 1994, Testube has had its most recognized output with the 12-tracker release“Bioplaza”, a highly successful album out in 1999 and the addition to the DSBP Records roster to the end of the same year. “Bioplaza” was kind of Jeff's career buzzer which consequently continued with the release of the full-length remix album entitled “Reconstructive Surgery” in 2000, which featured several diverse remix contributions by among others Pain Station, Biopsy, Thine Eyes, Oneiroid Psychosis or Austria's Trylok. The buzz around this project was vital, as “Reconstructive Surgery” received clubs and radio stations across the globe and remained in the CMJ national RPM top-20 charts for six weeks, peaking at the No. 4 chart position in September 2000 side by side with such global players like Juno Reactor or A Guy Called Gerald. Also a further limited edition of the “Bioplaza” album (“Bioplaza Revisited”) out in late 2000 with additional remix works and previously unreleased tracks got released.

Three years later Jeff returned with his all new follow-up studio album “Corporation”, which couldn't follow the same successful course which “Bioplaza” pursued before. “Corporation” wasn't at all a weak album – actually with Jeff's well-known meticulously programming skills and a controversial idea to reflect an inside look at the dysfunctional clockwork of the "American Dream" and its dependence on corporate anti-justice, brought him a lot of well-balanced reviews while the club-goers almost went their ears and faces off regarding Jeff's ongoing attempt to hunt for innovation and to push Testube towards to lesser accessible areas of sound-design and programming skills.

It took some years with relocations, soundtrack works, and a few remixes until Jeff returned in 2008 with the establishing of his own label Glim Records and a handful of releases like Type001's last album “Finished Business”, a few Lowhero.dll releases (featuring Jeff's Glim Records co-label founder Jonathan Chalker) and his very own Testube-project with the “Covert” EP and later on in 2010 with the full-length album “Off Purpose”. Accompanied by a remix-album soon afterwards (“Unintentional”), Jeff decided to take a radical break and to live his life in a simpler environment. He constructed his own off-grid cabin the Ozark mountains, where he experimented without running water and electricity. During this time, Testube's output was limited due to the difficult conditions but Jeff continued to write new music. A handful of these new tracks appeared on the “Atavistic” EP in 2015.

At least in 2019 and the hit of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jeff decided that he had gained enough perspective from his simpler living and returned. With a filled storage of many raw tracks conducted during his abstinence from electricity, he has chosen 17 of them to release them under this new “Backwater” album. Alex Stilts, known for his involvement musically in Rekt / also label co-founder of Point Source Electronic Arts, of Orbit Room Audio has provided the mastering process in all brilliance.

Be assured that Testube in the year 2022 won't stop his hunt for diversity when it comes to get an overview on these 17 tracks of “Backwater”. The title track kicks the album relatively straight off with a breathtaking quality. “Backwater” impresses with it's Glitch-laden percussion elements and the overall futuristic, Industrial-like outfit with multiple usage of vocal samples and layered synth-textures. Jeff's vocal performance additionally avoids pseudo-aggressive outbreaks and comes out relatively laid-back. If one of the new tracks reminds at closest to the “Bioplaza” era, then this one would it be.

In a relative comparable style we have with “Backyard Burner” another favorite with it well-thought rhythmic straightness woven in a smooth and catchy, almost Synthpop-like melodic construction. The track “Themself” differs with its nightly bass guitar loop leading the musically spectrum and seems to be a kind of a tribute to the rather “organic” sounding era out of the Glim Records years. Deeply impressed I am personally also with the dark and ominous sounding, voice-sample driven Ambient-tunes like “Big White Lies (at Standing Rock)” or “Arkanstayed”.

All in all, Testube's latest album impresses once again with a widely installed diversity out of all thinkable Electronic music styles and the indispensable will to provide the listener music to expand ones horizon. Jeff's programming skills often result in multi-layered textures and unique sound experiences which can be hardly compared to any other artist. Even if a few of the tracks have been in the works for longer than 10 years under limited circumstances, there's no limitation noticeable when it belongs on the quality of Jeff music expression. This is purest art of sound design, futuristic and ground-breaking to the same time.

17 tracks are included plus a hidden, rather improvisational tune live recorded under the circumstances of the COVID lock-down. In addition to a digital release available at multiple streaming services, a limited edition cassette release can be ordered too (25 exemplars) via Jeff's Bandcamp account with handmade hydro-dipped cases. Surely soon this cassette release will be a collector's item.