THX 1971 is Thomas Meier-Goldau, from Aalborg, Denmark, who began making music in 2006 after a friend of his gave him a simple music program called Rebirth 338. After a long period of experimentation and other projects like "Drawer One" he has reached the point to start the very serious project "THX 1971" in 2014. The first release was 'Computer' with a special disco-influenced song called "Alone". He found a professional label called Dirty Lane Studios (also from Augsburg) in 2016. In 2020 he started his own Label called Elektro Palast Records and released 3 Vinyl LPs and 10 albums for digital download on Bandcamp.

So THX 1971 (the name being a combination of his birth year and homage to George Lucas' entry into the sci-fi movie genre with "THX 1138") uses only a simple Yamaha- Keyboard and the Fruity Loops music software program and no more than 10 tracks. He then exports it all to Music Maker software, where all songs are arranged the sounds are further refined. The intended result is a sort of minimal electro sort of synthpop, and that it is.

'Minimal ist meine Wahl' is 8 tracks (4 tracks per side, all under four minutes length. My first listen to the album on vinyl was a rather bizarre one. I just opened the record, popped it on the turntable and sat back to listen. The vocals seem to be all sampled spoken word, and it seemed as though the voice was pitch-shifted, sounding a bit unnatural. Then, after looking again at the cover, it said 45rpm. DOH! I was playing at 33rpm and wondering why such a short album was taking so long! (At 33 it does sound kind of weird and a little boring.) Correcting the speed issue it became a much more pleasant experience.

The little melodies are all pleasant and unabashedly simple. After speed correction it was obvious the voice was female, und sprach Deutsche, exclusively. I do not have a great working knowledge of the German language, so some of this was lost on me, but the oft repeated phrases aren't difficult to dissect (if you really what to), and could easily be fed into a simple language translation program if you really need to extract their full meaning. The singular exception to the female voice is on the last track, "Palast Der Republik" where I think the voice is that of Thomas Meier-Goldau. While most of the other tracks sound like they could have been played manually (but weren't) this one definitely has obvious sequencing. (Playing in a synthpop band back in the '80s taught me a thing or three...) It's a refreshing change of pace.

Although the sounds employed are rather synth-basic, the melodies are catchy, with a good beat you can dance to. The rhythm track is all entry-level drum machine, as it should be for a minimal synth EP as this. Not as serious as Kraftwerk, and not as silly as SNL's 'Sprockets', 'Minimal ist meine Wahl' has a charm all its own. A delight for minimal synth enthusiasts with its sunny disposition and cool commercial appeal, it should spawn dozens of Instagram and Tik Tok video snippets. That it was released on vinyl (limited edition of 300) is a big plus.

Here's a rather ironic review situation: I am soon to release recently restored and remastered tapes from my 1980's New Wave synthpop band, Chemistry Set, wondering if anyone will care for vintage electronic music made on vintage synthesizers. And then this comes along. 386 DX is the performing name of Moscow, RU resident Alexie Shulgin, owing to the fact that that he uses an old PC running Windows 3.1, and it recreates songs as 8-bit chip music (a vintage sound card loaded with MIDI files of drums, guitars and synth sounds), with the vocals recorded via a text-to-speech program. 'Biggest Smash Hits' contains covers of 12 songs, almost all of which are established-beyond-all-doubt classics (“Light My Fire,” “Purple Haze,” “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” “I Shot the Sheriff”), plus some that are almost as well-known and lesser known.

Shulgin originally released a 15-track version of this with Staalplaat on CD titled 'The Best of 386 DX' back in 2001 that includes 9 of the 12 tracks on this album but also with some others. Haven't heard that one so I can't comment on what's not on this album. One thing I can say, after listening to the whole album on vinyl is that if the track doesn't make you laugh out loud, then for Shulgin, it probably wasn't a Biggest Smash Hit. Right off the bat I probably shouldn't have been sipping a soda when “Light My Fire” came on, because that was absolutely the wrong kind of coke snorted up and out of my nose. There's that iconic Doors' keyboard intro sounding like an '80s mall music store semi-auto Casio demo machine. With a Kraftwerkian electronic voice singing the lyrics no less! Following up with Led Zep's "Rock 'N' Roll" was nearly as good. Things flagged a bit with "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and although the Sex Pistol's "Anarchy in the U.K." may have had too florid an arrangement it was still an ignoble effort. The synthetic voice is the star on "Black Dog" but really, one Led Zeppelin song was plenty for this comp. The same is true for the Stones, with what I could only call a limp version of "Satisfaction". Perhaps if Devo didn't already do their wonderfully off-kilter version of it...which got me to wondering, why didn't Devo do an album like this?

The same is true with Nirvana. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a hoot but "Rape Me" was kind of unnecessary and not amusing. "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" was great. Metallica's "Enter Sandman" was not. I was on the fence with Hendrix's "Purple Haze"; I like the music but not the vocal. I wasn't familiar with Soviet blues-rocker Mike Naumenko’s “ " but it sort of sounds like Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" gone punk. Well, something Russian had to go on this record. The album closes with Clapton's “I Shot the Sheriff," nearly as hilarious as the opener. On any given compilation of songs, some are going to like some tracks more than others, and perhaps these were street-tested by Shulgin when he toured Europe in 1998 with his vintage computer as "the world's first cyberpunk band." I could think of dozens of songs 386 DX could cover for 'Biggest Smash Hits Vol. 2' but in the meantime, you really need to hear this album. As of the time of this review, Staalplaat still has 72 copies left out of the original Limited Edition of 300. I don't think they'll last much longer.

It's not only the first compilation release for Rexx Arkana's newly established label Haus Arkana, it's also kind of a heart-melting project which at least has some historically meaningful content to offer. There's a sentimental storyboard behind this 4CD-set. Let's turn back an imaginary wheel of time into the years 1994 -1996. The Milwaukee-based radio-DJ and writer for the legendary Industrial Nation-magazine, Ric Laciak, has founded his own label RAS DVA out of the Leaether Strip US-fan base GAWMUS. First releases have been such notable outputs of Benestrophe (a Mentallo & The Fixer-side project), “Sensory Deprivation”, or the well recognized Kevorkian Death Cycle debut “Collection For Injection”.

Since I was personally involved as being a writer for the German glossy print-magazine Vertigo to that time, I still remember our days of pride, to have had contact with this fine, eloquent person and the inspiring conversations with him just from the beginning and for the most time without e-mail – fax messages or written letters did the job. It resulted in a license deal of a Kevorkian Death Cycle-track to be switched on one of our Vertigo-compilations accompanying the print-magazine (“Faithless (Club Edit)” - Vertigo Compilation 03/1996). However, the biggest impact this small label has left for the posterity was without doubt the legendary 4-CD / quadruple compilation “There Is No Time” with its innovative cardboard slipcase packaging. This opulent compilation still stands for being one of the few groundbreaking, must-have-items in anyone's collection. It has presented the state-of-art of underground Industrial music and included dozens of music projects licensed from various labels world-wide.

Again, and just check out the terrific track list via Discogs with well-known artists side by side with promising newcomer acts, this hallmark of a compilation can't be missed at all. The activities around the label RAS DVA then ended in 1998, shortly after the release of Jihad's “A Prayer In The Night” debut album. In 2006 the label made some online activities with future music plans but finally it hasn't worked out. Founder Ric Laciak unfortunately passed away in November 2014 from complications with cancer.

To conclude this and the tragic loss of Ric, here finally comes a fact I had to learn out of this history. It was Rexx Arkana being pretty much involved, doing promotion works for RAS DVA and collaborated with Ric in those days. It was all about to share their love and dedication for Industrial and, unfortunately but necessary, a history of cancer. Both have seemingly had their ideas for a second edition of the “quadruple monster” before Ric passed away. So this is all about it, “Passing Strangers” is the quadruple release, that kind of dedication to RAS DVA and to Ric Laciak – maybe that imaginary second edition already considered. Actually I feel myself pretty much thrown into a similar feeling of curiosity to listen CD after CD and to discover the pearls which also “Passing Strangers” has to offer. Just check the track list below and with respect to the meaning behind this compilation, it is almost impossible to give out a track-by-track review. I rather like to pick out a few of the most valuable contributions.

Disc One impresses with the highest amount of popular global-players compared to the all other discs on this quadruple set and with Orange Sector, Kevorkian Death Cycle, Lights Of Euphoria or Leaether Strip (here available as guest vocalist for Blind Vision), there are a few participants which have been already guests on “There Is No Time”, 27 years before. On the other hand, since there are so many familiar names on Disc One here, the amount of exclusive tracks only available on “Passing Strangers” here is reduced to zero. Nevertheless I like the float on it thanks to cleverly chosen apposition, this whole CD1 impresses on almost all tracks. Worth to point out are a few of the lesser discovered projects so far. Texas-based Curse Mackey, founding member of Evil Mothers and collaborator for My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, offers us with “Lacerations” a solid, stomping Industrial-tune with subtle, accompanying guitar riffs. The icy, deep and dense synth-layer- programmings of Daniel Myer (haujobb.), here active under his pseudonym DSTR, are definitely ear-catching resulting into another fine tune. “Man Made” by Kevorkian Death Cycle can be found originally on their 1996-debut “Collection For Injection”, but lately the band around Roger Jarvis and Ryan Gribbin made a few re-recordings from a few tracks out of this phase and this is one of them.

Disc Two kicks off with a stomping Suicide Commando-track (also a contributor to “There Is No Time”) and presents with Point5 a new project by Ole Anders Olsen (alias Andy LaPlegua –> Combichrist, Icon Of Coil, Scandy, Panzer AG, and, and, and...) until Rexx Arkana himself participates under his famous FGFC820 with a new, unreleased remix of “Crush”, a track originally taken from their album “Homeland Insecurity” (2012). After some closer to guitar-driven Industrial sounds by UK's Inertia or Stoneburner, the tone of this disc changes more and more into TBM / EDM styles (Stoppenberg, ESA, Cenotype). Pretty Retro-EBM-like bass lines and a straight drum pattern programming – so sounds the contribution of the UK-based talent Discipline & Control, while the dramatic, out-of-range-like vocal performance is somewhat of getting used to it. Venal Flesh and their unreleased track “Calcination” could be a well-working addition in the row of some Dark Electro-projects with a modern twist in vain of VAC for example, while the rhythmic Powernoise-specialist Endif unites with Retcon to present us an unreleased re-recording of the Endif-track “Ashes”, originally released on the debut “Meta” (2006 – Crunch Pod).

The third disc pushes further the already discovered hard-edged TBM / EDM sound with Soman or the second appearance of ESA, while mastermind Jamie Blacker this times joins the ranks of Mika Groedrijk's rhythmic Powernoise-project This Morn' Omina. Although signed to the German ProNoize label, Neuroklast is a newcomer to me, founded by the both German producers Kay SchÄfer (ex-Chainreactor) and Markus Horschig (former ReAdjust). A bit more compositorial creativity can be discovered by the UK-based musician and DJ, Matt Hart, who isn't afraid to reanimate some classic Coldwave-like guitar-driven structures on his exclusive remix of “To The Core”. Civil War on the other hand would musically fit well to the row of prominent old-school EBM veterans like Orange Sector or Pouppée Fabrikk – but they are a promising newcomer out of Argentina. Back to Europe to Manchester, UK, with another newcomer, Red-Meat providing us “angry queer body music and sex positive energy”. Also worth a mention and relatively comparable to the both predecessors is the Denver-based electronic musician Fernando Altonaga and his EBM-outfit eHpH. More and more the music turns into Dark Synthpop with classic New Wave-undertones with the contributions of Coldkill (a mutual project by Rexx Arkana with Eric Eldredge of the NYC-based Futurepop-project Interface) with their interpretation of Minitry's “We Believe”, and Dead Lights.

Disc Four starts with the Munich-based Rue Oberkampf and their 80s-inspired minimal Synthpop outfit, while the Italian-based Unconscious aka Andrea Riberti impresses with a hammering, classic EBM-inspired tune entitled “You Belong To Me Now (Re-Edit)” - another one of the previously unreleased tracks. Florida's Aeon Rings, recording for Negative Gain Productions, offer a quite different sounding tune turning towards into Synth- / Electropop-regions with natural sounding male vocals. A pretty much Dive-/The Klinik-inspired tune with its typically distorted rhythm- and percussion work can be discovered by E.L.I., a project by Mike Smith, who is a modular producer and DJ from Scotland.

To conclude this review it should be mentioned, that Rexx Arkana did an amazing job to collect as much as possible diversity in Electronic music styles for this quadruple release. Additionally I tend to say that the times, evolution and development of this music has continued into stylistically wider and more complex forms and in uncountable variations, than it has been during the days when”There Is No Time” came out.

Finally – maybe the most important reason to purchase this fine compiled quadruple set - $5 from the direct sale of each CD compilation will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, https://www.stjude.org/

Also: no download available – you have to purchase the physical product.

Track list:

CD 1:
1. A Split – Second – Rigor Mortis 2.Covenant – Judge Of My Domain 3.Absolute Body Control – So Obvious (Live At E-Only Festival) 4.Curse Mackey – Lacerations 5.DSTR – Disappear (1st Draft) 6.Blind Vision ft. Leaether Strip – DDF 2 (Album Version) 7.Lights Of Euphoria –Access Denied 8.Armageddon Dildos – Colder 9.Orange Sector – Blood Brothers 10.Pouppée Fabrikk – Burn Forever 11.Noisuf-X – Finish Him! 12.Fusspils 11 – Fleischfresser (PS Edit) 13.Kevorkian Death Cycle – Man Made 14.Fektion Fekler – Let's Jump (Yes You Will Mix) 15.Rohn - Lederman ft. Jean-Luc De Meyer – Where The Wild Roses Grow

CD 2:
1. Suicide Commando –Kill All Humanity (Short & Painless) 2. Point5 – The Kid Is A G 3.FGFC820 – Crush (Letting Go - Mix) 4.Inertia ft. Steve White (KMFDM) – Scowl 5.Stoneburner –Excrementorium 6.Stoppenberg –Soldat 7.Electronic Substance Abuse – BBWO (Expel Mix 2022) 8.Cenotype – Hour 10 (Live Action) 9.Discipline & Control – Burning Up 10.Reichsfeind – Wish There Was A Drug (Exclusive Mix) 11.Marred – The Fragrance Of Blood 12.The Gothsicles – INFL8-R (Resurexxion Mix) 13.Venal Flesh – Calcination 14.Endif Vs. Retcon – Ashes 15.Kounter Mezhure – Golden God

CD 3:
1. Soman – Divine (2022 Short Remix) 2.Moris Blak – Umbra 3.ESA vs. This Morn' Omina –Consumption (Compounded) 4.Neuroklast – Scavengers 5.Her Noise Is Violence – Djinn (Original Mix) 6.Matt Hart – To The Core (Further Down Mix) 7.Civil Hate – Honor & Dignidad 8.Red-Meat – Vore (Gordon Young Mix) 9.eHpH – Rust 10.INVA//ID – The Sinner 11.Spankthenun – Crushing Blow (Mirland Remix) 12.Coldkill – We Believe 13.Dead Lights –Ice Queen (Club Mix) 14.Lola Kumtus – Wasted Years 15.Hem Netjer – Connect

CD 4:
1.Rue Oberkampf – Never Stop To Dance 2.Unconscious – You Belong To Me Now (Re-edit) 3.Visitor – What World Is This 4.Hammershøi – Hélas (Remix By Coldkill) 5.One Flesh.Infektion.–Martial Doom 6.XTR Human–City Hai 7.Aeon Rings –Lover 8.Dry_feel – Repellent Machine 9.Soj – Pensamientos Impuros 10.Black Light Odyssey – Under Your Spell (Hexmaschine Vs. Blo Edit) 11.Sanderson & Esterhaus – Composition 080621 12.E.L.I. – The Antagonist 13.Crying Skies – Around The Walls Of Horror 14.Sigsaly – L'avenir 15.L – Discipline

This is without doubt the most unusual release of the label joint venture Nadanna so far, as the new project of Thomas Martiné stands for the first output which drifts away from their self-proclaimed label program to “blur the lines between Minimal Synth, Italo Disco, and Electropop”. Martiné differs and deals rather with a well-balanced mixture between common Futurepop-elements up to the lighter side of Dark Electro- / Industrial music. This been said, it's surely a nice and appreciated form to vary and extend the label program and its roster.

After a long-year lasting career as being an electronic musician, Thomas Martiné has finally decided to release simply under his surname instead to hide behind pseudonyms, although his career has a lot of stations to offer. Thomas was back in the days a member of the German Dark Electro duo Silent Invasion, which had its heydays in between 1988 to 1992 with remarkable tape releases („The Picturesque Decay“) and a self-released CD album in 1991 („The Dead Born Content“) under a distribution support of the Danse Macabre label.

After a longer time-out, Thomas returned in 2007 under the playingGOD moniker, a rather Powernoise-oriented project, and he founded Mr. Hilter. Under this controversial discussed project-name he has self-released 10 full-length albums in between 2011 to 2020 stylistically ranging between Industrial, Ambient up to raw Electro- / Harsh-EBM-styles. I have to admit that this project flew at least pretty much under my personal radar. But now Thomas is simply Martiné and he unites the spirit of some mid-90s, lighter Dark Electro artists like Evils Toy, Paracont or Abscess with a Synth- and Futurepop-oriented sound design which here and there reminds on projects like Wave In Head or Minerve. This is of course a free and personally oriented comparison, you may tend to view it differently, but I've completely concentrated on German band projects for this, because Martiné sounds pretty much along the European form of danceable Synth-Electronica and not only because of the usage of the German language on almost half of the 16 tracks.

While the anthracite-colored cover art could lead one to really dark and schizophrenic album, the music outfit of Thomas is lighter than expected. The opener “Wer Ich Bin” is calm and smooth Synthpop tune which gives lyrically some insight on Thomas' personal condition with hints into self-doubts, uselessness, but also the uprising against oppression. “Deus Exodus” turns into a darker mood with its richly and detailed arranged synthesizer pads and an attractive sounding drum-/percussion programming. “Where's your false God now” dashes it loudly out of the loudspeaker system, “Dies Area, Mortem” - I guess, you'll get the message behind this one. It's without doubt one of the highlighting tracks with it's perfect blend between Thomas natural, well-sounding vocal performance to the darker minded Electronica soundscapes, very well done.

People may tend to rate the pure Futurepop-tune “Sturzflug” with a bpm value far beyond 145 bpm as being the ideal dancefloor booster track, while I find it a bit too repetitive. “Dying Of The Light” is another outstanding tune on this album with a more angry and slightly fx-manipulated vocal performance and its stomping kick-drum work. While “Atmosfear” follows a bit too offensive one rhythmic pattern sequence after another in a straight 135+ bpm speed, I am pretty much impressed with the haunting, evolving textures filled with mysterious sounding whispering voice samples of “Innocence Dies”. This is cleverly arranged track with its eerie introduction and the depressive-sounding on-going song progression.

Three of the further tracks, “Original Sin” (available in two different versions produced by Thomas plus a remix contribution by Synaptic Defect), “Cutting Edge” and “The Inevitable Lie” have at least survived Thomas' activity under the Mr. Hilter moniker and have found their place well fitting into this album. It generally has to be said that the track listing works fine on the whole album, as it mixes well between slower and moody tunes to faster, more danceable oriented ones.

To point on a weaker part in Thomas' production process and to come up with a point of criticism, I at first can assure that Thomas' vocal performance is excellent in all terms and mostly all singers / front men of this music genre would be proud to be capable to “sing” and to sound naturally in a comparable style, but... It does not help a track to make it more catchy or easier to recognize again, if chorus phrases get to often repeated in an almost unvaried style There's a fine line between a pleasant accentuation of a chorus line with great vocals before it starts to fall into unnecessary repetitions and Thomas here and there tends to exaggerate it (“Original Sin” or “Leave Me Nothing” for example...).

To sum it up, this is a very nice arranged and diverse sounding Electronica album which balances well between the mentioned music styles. Moreover it brings a sort of a fresh breath into some dusty, one-dimensional Dark Electro music structures and especially friends of the lighter kind with hints to the above mentioned comparisons can't do anything wrong with this album.

Steve Baltes and Lucian ZÄyn are truly an international duo, Baltes hailing from Germany near Cologne, and ZÄyn from Manila in the Philippines, their mutual love anime, science fiction and horror drew them together and inspired this concept album based on "Neon Genesis:Evangelion," "Lovecraft Country" and Kaiju (giant Japanese monsters, like Godzilla) vs. Frankenstein (the monster, not the doctor, I'm guessing). This may all seem a little hinky-dinky, but somehow they manage to pull it off...sort of. I'm guessing that ZÄyn is the vocalist and Baltes handles all the instrumental stuff excepting the guest instrumentalists (of which there are quite a few) and as long as you enjoy Lucian's vocals, you will probably really like this album. I had mixed feelings on his voice; I found the vibrato a little off-putting but he sings in a clear melodic manner, although the accent is definitely of someone who has English as a second language and sounds more 'Eurovision pop' than the Tech Noir Electro tag given them by Echozone. Not that the music isn't techno-electro synthpop inspired, it certainly is. Of course, this is a "concept album" and as such, requires story-telling, but unless you're a particularly gifted songwriter, the wordiness can be off-putting to song accessibility, even with strong melodic content. These are certainly factors that weigh heavily on 'Blue Sunset.'

Some songs like the first two- "Godshatter" and "Apocalyptech" (both of which have done very well in the Deuteche Alternative Charts) stand very well on their own, but others such as "Back! Back! Kaiju Attack!," "Orithya Blue Shines Along the Diamond Frontier," "Wonder Woman Dee" and “Christina and Her Eternity of Firsts" prioritize serving the story and concept rather than the listener. It tends to get very wordy over the atmospherics. Such is the problem with concept albums. Granted, this is an appealing modern concept we have here and it is not entirely unsuccessful with some really good songs like my favorite - "The Colour Out of Space," (with very cool use of theremin) but "The Lights of Castle Frankenstein" was just a bit too ludicrous for my taste. I'm not writing this debut off as there is a lot to like about it, but there are caveats.