To people following my Enfant Terrible label and/or this blog it is no secret I love minimal electronics...not minimal synth but minimal electronics as in the perfect blending proto elektro and old school industrial... all of this done by (analogue) primitive equiment responsible for a raw and minimal sound. Although the trend (or continuing hype) is what most people refer to as minimal wave today (but I would rather like to call it soft synth) there are still some musicians around who come up with some excellent stuff in the field of my interests.
Here we are with not one but two new promising labels for example... Backwards and Kurzwellen. Backwards from Italy just released their first two vinyls. One by Fabio Orsi with experimental / drone / ambient music... very nice but not as smashing as the Control Unit they also released.
Control Unit is a duo armed with analogue synths, guitar, bass and voice. You get four long tracks on their debut LP that are sounding very much old school industrial. Could even be Throbbing Gristle recorded live during one of their performances. But at moments they also sound like a drugged out version of Milligram Retreat. The way the rhythms and pulses just go on is trance indulging and sounds primal. Guitar and voices are the topings on this psychedelic industrial trip.
One downer only... this could have been recorded late 1970's / early 1980's... so nothing new here... but still done in an excellent way...
The same could be said for Precision Surgery... only their old school industrial is less trippy and more rhythmic orientated with noisy sounds to finish it off. A bit like Doxa Sinistra at times but less freaky. More contemporary references are Le Syndicat Electronique in his last phase or even Haus Arafna but then less noisy. This project has now two split LP's out on the new Dutch Kurzwellen label. Both released are shared with the dark ambient project Necrosis (I)... which are maybe just the same people doing their ambient thing... Anyway... truly amazing stuff if you like your electronic music served dark, raw and minimal.
Still minimal but something else is Ekman. Behind Ekman is the same musician who is doing the minimal elektro pop of Bakeliet (see the 'Kamp Holland' compilation on Enfant Terrible). Out on Panzerkreuz (a Bunker sublabel) is his debut 12". Raw tekno and elektro tracks done in a minimal way. Sounding dark and nasty. This is stuff I would like to hear at some obscure and hidden party early in the morning. Still I can imagine this being played at the old Bunker parties with only a flashing strobelight in the dark... so maybe this is 1990's... but on the other hand to me this does not fell like retro music at all...
Here is a full track by Control Unit...
Here is a full track by Precision Surgery...
Here is a full track by Ekman...
The Control Unit and Precision Surgery records are for sale at the Enfant Terrible webshop... the Ekman is gone already... sorry but this one went fast and from what I hear it goes fast everywhere... so happy hunting for that one...
