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From Hansa with Love: Strikkland Pay Tribute

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Strikkland return with an album dedicated to the music that inspired the Swedish body-pop act. Hommage explores the roots of EBM with nods to DAF, Nitzer Ebb, and Front 242. It is also an explicit commitment to the craft in a time of AI-assisted composing.

The album was recorded at Svenskagrammafonstudion in Göteborg and mixed at Hansa in Berlin. The band relied mainly on hardware synths and analogue drum machines to replicate the feel of making old school electronica.

Stacked high with danceable basslines and filled with hooks, it is another notable release for the Nordic duo.

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Fryer and Fraser Reunite for Muricidae Single

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The sound of This Mortal Coil came from John Fryer’s studio deftness, Ivo’s record collection, and a host of singers and players assembled by the duo to reinterpret the tracks through shrouds of reverb.

TMC eventually dissolved, but Fryer kept the pure spirit of the project alive through his collaboration with Louise Fraser as Muricidae. His touch with the reverb is unrivalled, and Fraser’s vocals are those of a modern Siren.

The act has returned with a single to support Fraser as she rebuilds after this year’s fires in Southern California. Fraser and her husband lost their home and most of their possessions to the flames.

Photo source: Louise Fraser’s Facebook page

As with previous Muricidae material, “Euphoria” soars and swoops in equal measure; mirroring the flow of waves. As Neubauten once noted, there is no beauty without danger. This single proves that the opposite is also true.

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Everything’s Going Green with Twice a Man

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The legendary Swedish group, Twice a Man, have dropped the first single from their forthcoming album, The Coloured Breeze Is a New Dimension.

“Birds Eye View” is an absolute corker that fuses the band’s passions for the ecology and bleeding-edge music. Laden with organic sounds and grounded rhythms, the track straddles the theatrical and the pop stages with ease.

The pain felt by the Earth comes through strongly on the new material. The wounds scraped onto its surface by capitalism cannot all be healed, but the scars can be softened. Twice a Man have created the soundtrack for its healing.

 

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Cosey Previews New Album, 2t2

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Cosey Fanni Tutti is an original. One of the organisers of Throbbing Gristle and a founder of Industrial Records, she contributed to the creation of a significant genre. By practising her art-as-life-as-art philosophy, she has spent half a century creating and performing in ways that shock, test, enquire – and entertain.

Tutti’s first solo album, Time to Tell (t2t), was released in 1983. She has now revealed plans for a new project, 2t2 (see what she did there?). It will come out on Conspiracy International on 13 June 2025 in several formats: vinyl, CD, and digitally (including Dolby Atmos / Spatial Audio).

The press release hints at the content:

Composed, performed and produced by Cosey Fanni Tutti, the 9-track album moves between propulsive beat constructions and expansive electronic explorations, continuing themes from 2019’s acclaimed album TUTTI. It is a personal reflection; a sonic realisation of her life, drawing on her powerful inner resolve and expressing it through music.

The album finds Cosey making sense of some very tough years, dealing with personal bereavements alongside swingeing world events that have impacted us all. Centring on her own strength and self will, the album’s two distinct sides – one rhythmic, one more meditative – are connected by an overwhelmingly positive mood.

She explains, “My overtone chanting on the track ‘Stound’ was part of that, tapping into the inner self, to the core of your being, emotionally, physically, allowing the sounds to permeate and soothe as well as create a sense of power, resistance and resilience to what we face.”

Even in the more melancholic moments, there’s a lightness that she explains is an “acknowledgement that it’s alright to be sad, that’s part of life, but there is so much joy too in our memories of people we lose and in the moments we share with each other. Joy is our resistance.”

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Wicked Scratches: the Return of Fragile Self

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Tap into your inner desires with the shadow work of Fragile Self. The London-based duo are back with a new song teased from the subconscious.

“Existence Against Existence” is a dark, throbbing track that bores into the temporal lobe. With bass guitar and modular synth parts dominating, it releases your inner Goth. The whispered tones of Anil Aykan’s voice flood the amygdala with clues to your condition. Jonathan Barnbrook’s oscillators modulate your perception.

The single comes with a suitably Lynchian video directed by Chris Turner. The band explain: “The lyrics are brought to life through dermatographia – a condition where light scratches create temporary raised marks on the skin, symbolising transience and intimacy.”

An album will follow. In the meantime, lay down thy cape and groove.

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Rohn-Lederman on Release

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The Rohn-Lederman publicity machine announces that there is a new album coming on 4 March 2025. Ahead of that, the duo offer a digital EP as a taster; mostly featuring remixes of “Steal the Light.”

Formed by Emileigh Rohn of Chiasm and the Belgian legend, Jean-Marc Lederman (The Weathermen, Fad Gadget, Kid Montana), Rohn-Lederman has had success marrying Rohn’s sensuous vocals to electronics with dark pop themes. The source material for the EP is quality, but it is taken to new levels at the hands of Stefan Netschio (Beborn Beton), Noemi Aurora (Helalyn Flowers), Aiboforcen, and Sarmen Almond (Man in Motion).

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Music in Frames: Marija Buljeta Announces London Show

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Cold War Night Life contributor, Marija Buljeta, has announced a London showcase of her concert photography.

Music in Frames, an exhibition of artists captured by Buljeta over a decade of work, features images of major popstars and alternative artists. It includes shots of dozens of artists, including:

Gary Numan
The Human League
GusGus
The Cure
Laibach
Dave Gahan
Howard Jones
Skinny Puppy
Simple Minds

The pictures are on display from 13 January – 7 February 2025 at Gallery 1885, The Camera Club, 16 Bowden Street, Kennington, London, SE11 4DS. An open view is scheduled for 16 January at 7 PM.

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Exclusive! Page Rumoured to Return to Studio

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Word reaches us that Sweden’s poptronica pioneers, Page, are heading back to the studio to record new songs.

The duo of Eddie Bengtsson and Marina Schiptjenko topped our year-end charts with the single, “Frusen,” which featured Rrussell Bell of Gary Numan’s touring band and Dramatis. Well-placed sources in Sweden indicate that they are planning a single for release in the New Year. An album is expected to follow, later in 2025.

 

 

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TG: The Final Throb

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Throbbing Gristle have released their final single and a unique box set as TG Berlin.

(Via Mute)

The new lavish Throbbing Gristle box set chronicling unreleased work recorded around a series of live events at the Berlin Volksbühne, TG BERLIN, is out today via Mute.

The Throbbing Gristle curated event saw the band perform a live set on New Year’s Eve and an improvised live soundtrack to a new 16mm print of Derek Jarman’s In The Shadow of the Sun (1981) on New Year’s Day, and, while the band were in Berlin, they recorded two final songs alongside a 48-minute piece of new music.

The box set – which comprises of 4 CDs, a Blu-ray, a 10” vinyl and a booklet featuring unseen photographs from the time by Paul Heartfield as well as new sleeve notes by the award winning Scottish visual artist Lucy McKenzie – collates both of these performances, alongside the TG Berlin Studio Session which is comprised of the final Throbbing Gristle single (two unreleased tracks, ‘Scabs & Saws’ and ‘Wotwududo’,) and an unreleased 48-minute piece titled ‘TG Berlin Studio Session 2005 – 2006’, recorded at Planet Roc studios during the time they were in the city.

TG Berlin will also include the “rehearsal” for In The Shadow of the Sun, recorded on New Year’s Day at the Volksbühne (“people’s theatre”). The performance of In The Shadow of the Sun was improvised, so the two documents offer a different perspective on the soundtrack to Jarman’s work.

The New Year’s Eve show previewed five songs from the band’s first album in 27 years, Part Two: The Endless Not, several years before its release, on a set list that included ‘Convincing People’, ‘Slug Bait’, and ‘Hamburger Lady’ (their first encore in 25/26 years, and what an encore!) – tracks that had lost none of their potency in the intervening years – plus the released track, ‘Splitting Sky’ and more. The performance is also included as a Blu-ray.

In 2004, Throbbing Gristle – Chris Carter, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (1950-2020) and Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson (1955-2010) – regrouped and the following six years became a period of renewed creativity for the band. Back in the studio after 20 years, they found group intuition when performing was intact, and their ability to break down barriers and forge connections with an audience was more powerful than ever.

This new box set, the latest release in an ongoing collaboration with Mute, is a compelling document of Throbbing Gristle performing and recording as a four-piece with a renewed vigour. From the opening beats and serrated electronics of one of their final tracks recorded together, ‘Scabs & Saws’, it’s clear that TG are not revisiting ground already tread, but bringing two decades of individual experience back into the studio to create a new exploration of sound. The vocals have a different depth, the groove is deeper, and the atmosphere has lost none of its potency.

TG BERLIN BOX SET

CD1 – TG Berlin
Live at the Volksbühne Berlin, New Year’s Eve 2005
Trumpet Herald
Convincing People
Splitting Sky
Slug Bait
Rabbit Snare
Almost A Kiss
Greasy Poo
Endless Not
Vow of Silence
PA Destroyer
Hamburger Lady

CD2 – In the Shadow of the Sun
Live at the Volksbühne Berlin, New Year’s Day, 2006
In the Shadow of the Sun Live – 49:29

CD3 – In the Shadow of the Sun
Rehearsal at the Volksbühne Berlin, New Year’s Day 2006
In the Shadow of the Sun Rehearsal – 49:12

CD4 – TG Berlin Studio Session (2005 – 2006)
TG Berlin – 48:22
Scabs & Saws 11:02
Wotwududo 7:07
Recorded late December 2005 to early January 2006 at Planet Roc (Funkhaus), Berlin

10” vinyl – The Final Throbbing Gristle single
Side A
Scabs & Saws 11:02

Side B
Wotwududo 7:07

Blu-ray
Throbbing Gristle Live at the Volksbühne Berlin, New Year’s Eve 2005
Trumpet Herald
Convincing People
Splitting Sky
Slug Bait
Rabbit Snare
Almost a Kiss
Greasy Poo
The Endless Not
Vow of Silence
PA Destroyer
Hamburger Lady

(Photos: Paul Heartfield)

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