Even voorstellen – Nonexister – Demons

Industrial band NONEXISTER komt uit het Zwitserse Zürich met als drijvende kracht het duo Marco Neeser (elektronica, songwriting, producer) die met succesvolle projecten als Swandive en Division Kent al de nodige meters heeft gemaakt, en Nik Leuthold (zang, songwriter, producer). Het vijftal, dat verder bestaat uit Reto "Fu" Gaffuri (bas), Siro Müller (drums) en Silvan Gerhard (gitaar) gedijt op het samenspel van betoverende elektronische energie en het opwekken van zware zuiverende emoties.
Release 15 maart 24

Even voorstellen - Dark Minimal Project, a French Electro Synthwave duo

Dark Minimal Project, a French Electro Synthwave duo, signed under the German label Infacted Recordings, managed by Torben Schmidt

Our first album of 2022 (Cold Black Room) was followed by 22 concerts. The second album "Ghost of Modern Times" was released in 2023 and we are starting the "Modern Times Tour" with already 30 dates (Paris, Brussels, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hanover...)

Our music is a mix of Depeche Mode - Boy Harsher - Fad Gadget - Rue Oberkampf... and we are releasing an album of remixes with the work of Dominatrix, Ruined Conflicts and FRONT 242... among others, the Everything, co-produced by Peter Rainman (People Theatre)

Bandcamp: https://darkminimalproject.bandcamp.com/album/ghost-of-modern-times
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DarkMinimalProject
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX-PsWLAF6FxK9Hq2bhIxHg

Xmal Deutschland – album 'Early Singles 1981-1982' + Anja Huwe - debut solo album 'Codes'

XMAL DEUTSCHLAND
  album 'Early Singles 1981-1982'
- ANJA HUWE
  debut solo album 'Codes'
- Both out March 8th on Sacred Bones

JAN 24
- Xmal Deutschland's "Allein" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LU6Egw6R6Y
- Anja Huwe's “Rabenschwarz” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIM6K0XU3oQ

FEBR 24
anja huwe “pariah” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXfEQ8LvQzU
xmal deutschland “incubus suscubus” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xcLlDpLM-8

MARCH 24

Anja Huwe “rabenschwarz” march 24 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfSXJdXp7w4

Sacred Bones are excited to announce two parallel releases – a reissue of Xmal Deutschland’s 'Early Singles' (including two bonus tracks), as well as the debut solo album from Xmal Deutschland’s inimitable frontwoman Anja Huwe, 'Codes'. Both records are set for release side-by-side on March 8th, 2024.

Xmal Deutschland are now marked as forerunners of the post-punk movement and ‘Early Singles (1981-1982)’ is a map of their foundational movements, just seconds before takeoff. The band’s pursuit of something greater is palpable with this release, a reflection of a time that introduced accessibility to new means of making music following the onset of punk. This reissue includes two bonus tracks; “Kaelbermarsch” (originally from the compilation “Lieber Zuviel Als Zuwenig”) and a gritty live version of “Allein” (originally from the compilation “Nosferatu Festival”), which is shared online today along with a video montage of footage from this era of the band’s career.

Watch the video for “Allein” here: https://youtu.be/6LU6Egw6R6Y
FEBR 24
xmal deutschland “incubus suscubus” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xcLlDpLM-8

Alongside the reissue comes the debut solo release from Xmal Deutschland’s incomparable frontwoman, Anja Huwe. Invited by her long-time friend Mona Mur, Huwe reconsidered her decades-long hiatus from music and decided to join Mur in her studio in Berlin. Together, they worked for a year and a half, composing, performing and producing the tracks from scratch which eventually became the album 'Codes'.

Integral to the overall sound experience was the input of Manuela Rickers who added her famed signature guitar style. The collaboration was relentless:  “Mona and I have a similar artistic background since the 1980s. We hung out together, and we sport a similar attitude towards life and art. We don’t have to explain ourselves to one another,” says Huwe. Mur adds: “Anja’s voice is like a spear, her appearance a torch in the darkness."

Initially inspired by the diary entries of Moshe Shnitzki, who, at the age of 17, left his home in 1942 to live in the cavernous White Russian forests as a partisan, ‘Codes’ is about the human experience and what extremes can do to an individual. “The result is a poetic, musical cosmos that encompasses the following themes: forest, fear, pain, loss, violence, and loneliness but also beauty, longing, hope and the will to survive,” Huwe explains.

Along with the announcement today, she shares “Rabenschwarz”, a frenzied song, which, with Rickers' hypnotic apocalyptic guitars, Mur's agitated and distinctive electronic sounds and beats, forged together with Huwe’s unmistakably energetic and expressive vocals, hits you in the face. A captivating combination.

JAN 24 “Rabenschwarz” on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kIM6K0XU3oQ
FEBR 24
anja huwe “pariah” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXfEQ8LvQzU

More about Xmal Deutschland and Anja Huwe:
“Gothics”—a time before the word goth had even taken shape—believed in the do-it-yourself punk ethos that anyone could pick up an instrument. This, alongside the bric-a-brac fashion of Adam Ant and the long-winded atmospheric malaise of Bauhaus’ 1979 single, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” grey clouds were starting to form. And in the unlikely city of Hamburg, a brazen and haunting gang of five women formed Xmal Deutschland.
As any true punk would, Xmal Deutschland’s members Caro May, Rita Simon, Manuela Rickers, Fiona Sangster and Anja Huwe, started the band despite not having had any previous musical experience. When they bought studio time to record their first single, “Schwarze Welt,” Simon was originally slated to be the lead vocalist but failed to show on the day of recording. Huwe—who originally played bass—was thrust into the front-woman position, and begrudgingly agreed: “The only condition from my side [was that] I will never perform onstage… Two months later, they made me without ever telling me upfront. I had no choice.”

The “Schwarze Welt” seven-inch was released on the local punk label, ZickZack, in 1981 and introduced the band as an unsettling swarm of intensity. There’s an urgency in its repetitive dirge, a swirling mania that persists on the b-side with “Die Wolken” and “Großstadtindianer” whose crude synthesiser noises escalate in tension. Most of all, Huwe’s uniquely venomous German vocals quickly became embedded in the unbridled and burgeoning scene of glamorous gloom.

Punk’s independence from the stiff grip of tradition allowed the band to find solace in anti-establishment art and music, far from the conventions of the past. “We as girls, especially being creative in many ways, ignored facts like: be nice, be polite, take good care about your looks. Of course, we wanted to look good but in a different and unconventional way. We were enough for ourselves." However, some tropes were harder to overcome. The association of Xmal Deutschland as a girl band (later with the addition of Wolfgang Ellerbrock who, jokingly, became the token man of the group) gained traction within the media circuit because of their looks: “We were like paradise birds,” says Huwe in retaliation to the tired misogynistic tale. The band’s keyboardist, Fiona Sangster, adds: “To be an ‘all-girl band’ happened accidentally. To us, it was not the main reason to form a band.”

With their peacocked hair and thick kohl-lined eyes, Xmal Deutschland’s music retained both a restlessness and delicacy, transcending any confines of the “Neue Deutsche Welle” movement (much like their colleagues and friends DAF and Einstürzende Neubauten) with the release of the “Incubus Succubus” single in 1982. It instantly became a post-punk classic. That same year, the band performed in London as support for the Cocteau Twins; it was the platform they needed to ricochet into the arms of the ripped fishnet masses. After Xmal Deutschland’s success with four albums on cult labels such as 4AD, Huwe abandoned music to pursue her visual art career. But leaving her legacy in the past was not so easy: “Since the split in the early 1990s, I have been haunted by the ‘Legend of Xmal Deutschland’ and never-ending requests from all over the world, all of which I always turned down,” she says.

Invited by her long-time friend Mona Mur, Huwe reconsidered her decades-long hiatus from music and decided to join Mur in her studio in Berlin. Together, they worked for a year and a half, composing, performing and producing the tracks from scratch which eventually became the album 'Codes'. Integral to the overall sound experience was the input of Manuela Rickers who added her famed signature guitar style and sound.

Initially inspired by the diary entries of Moshe Shnitzki, who, at the age of 17, left his home in 1942 to live in the cavernous White Russian forests as a partisan, ‘Codes’ is about the human experience and what extremes can do to an individual. The thematic extremities cause an erraticism to ‘Codes’—a passing thunderstorm, a cyclonic burst of nature’s force—but one that exudes anticipation amidst the chill. With elegant production by Mur and Huwe and mixing and mastering by Jon Caffery (Joy Division, Gary Numan, Einstürzende Neubauten) epic builds crash and disseminate, the sleek synthesised drones of sound even feel claustrophobic at times.

Xmal Deutschland, now marked as forerunners of the post-punk movement, were never complacent but consistently ravenous in their attack throughout the 1980s. Huwe’s return is no different. Unexpected but long overdue, ‘Codes’ is that missing page from post-punk’s history books, the freshly splayed paint across the decades-old canvas—it is the product of the tireless will to survive on her own terms.

Xmal Deutschland - 'Early Singles 1981-1982':
1. Schwarze Welt

2. Die Wolken
3. Großstadtindianer
4. Kälbermarsch
5. Incubus Succubus
6. Zu Jung Zu Alt
7. Blut Ist Liebe
8. Allein
   
   Anja Huwe - 'Codes':
   1. Skuggornas
9. Rabenschwarz
10. Pariah
11. Exit
12. O Wald
13. Zwischenwelt
14. Sleep With One Eye Open
15. Living In The Forest
16. Hideaway
    
    Links: https://anjahuwe.com/
    https://sacredbones.com/

Pias news – Cigarettes after seks announce ne album ‘X’s’
CIGARETTES AFTER SEKS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM "X's"
OUT JULY 12, 2024 VIA PARTISAN RECORDS
29.10.2024 — FOREST NATIONAL, BRUSSELS

Cigarettes After Sex announce their new LP, titled X's (set for release on July 12 via Partisan Records), alongside their upcoming world tour.
Filled with raw, imagistic, sometimes smutty vignettes set to entrancing, slowburn pop songs, bandleader Greg Gonzalez captures every emotion a romantic arc inspires. But where previous albums have drawn from an amalgam of relationships, for the most part, X's centralizes on just one relationship that spanned four years.
"The record feels brutal," admits Gonzalez. "I could sit and talk about this loss to someone, but that wouldn't scratch the surface. I have to really write about it, sing about it, have the music, and then I can start to analyze and learn from it. Or just relive it — in a good way. I don't have that Eternal Sunshine-thing of wanting to forget."
While continuing to observe classic pop song structures, Gonzalez has moved away from the prior sonic touchstones of the '50s and '60s, finding himself now drawn to a '70s/'80s slow dance. While (in typical Cigarettes style) these changes may be subtle, the overall resulting energy is akin to disco ball-refracted tears on the dance floor.

NEW SINGLE
Tejano Blue - Cigarettes After Sex (youtube.com)
Also marks the release of the record's first single, Tejano Blue, a nod to the music of bandleader Greg Gonzalez's Texas childhood, resulting in the most instantly memorable version (and liveliest tempo) yet of the band's signature sensual, timeless, love songs.
Gonzalez explains: "I grew up in El Paso & Tejano music is huge there. You could go to a lot of the bars in the city & hear artists like Selena, Los Ángeles Azules & La Mafia playing over the speakers. It was in the atmosphere around me back then, but I always rejected it & gravitated towards anything else I was attracted to really.
"Years later when I was living in New York City I finally started listening to Selena's 'Como La Flor' at the same time that I was also listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins. I had the idea then to try to combine both of their sounds somehow, which felt a bit strange, but also felt like it was coming from a genuine place of rediscovering & finally connecting with the music that I heard around me in my youth."