23 Tage is the first result of the collaboration between Mona Mur, known for the collaboration with artists such as Einsturzende Neubauten and En Esch ,formerly of KMFDM. They want to create a blend of chanson, indie rock, and avantgarde-darkwave, so this album features several Berthold Brecht / Kurt Weill classics. Practically, it's a rock album in his structure: the voice of Mona Mur is able to lead the tracks and the En Esch's production is solid.
The album start with "Candy Cane" a mix beteween dance beats and rock guitars, then starts the album and this album id full of it. "Die Ballade vom Ertrunkenen Madchen", "120 Tage", "Snake", "Surabaya Johnny" on one side try to create the intended blend of style that, honestly, has some memorable moments. The other tracks, instead, flirts with the dance floor because are into the field followed by KMFDM, just listen to "The Thin Red Line", "Visions and Lies" and "Eintagsfliegen". It seems, in a certain way, more a split than a collaboration: the Mona Mur side (ballad oriented) and the En Esch side (EBM oriented).
However, due to the crafts of the artist involved, this album is a good listening: if only the blend became true, this collaboration could bring a truly great work. This one is just a nice listening, even if above the standard.
p.s.: the advance included also three remix, djs will be happy :-)

After five of silence from his second EP released on Orson Records, Andy Shaw is back with a new EP on Mullet Records. The Artificial Arm (Andy decided for this name because this reflects his personal situation), on RE-ARM is presenting four great electro funk tracks. "Welcome To Planet Funk" and "Go Back In Time" are here in a different edit compared to the old versions contained on the old EPs while "Press Start To Dance" and "You've Been Messing With My Mind" are two new songs which sound just great. Andy has a good ability into mixing and alternating analog synth sounds and it isn't impossible to stay still while listening synth glides calling for a new arpeggio. Bleeps and vocoder prepare the ground for warm pads which make you cry for more. The Artificial Arm is the ideal place where Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder meet and if you love electro funk you won't miss this release for sure. Available from tomorrow at the major download stores.

Rapido De Noir are a band coming from France who just released their first MCD titled BROKEN. The four tracks of the EP amazed me for the ability of the band to mix genres and melodies. The opening track, "Broken", sounds like Gang Of Four covered by The Cure helped out by LCD Soundsystem. The way they used choruses and melodic changes is great and is just sad they are without a label supporting them as their mix of new wave and post punk is up to date and within bass guitars effected with flanger and dissonant guitars you'll find synth melodic lines which enrich the whole sound and gives a bit of dance atmospheres. Check them and support them. They deserve it!

Brilliants are a duo coming from Forli', Italy. They born in late 2006 and we already were able to check them on the third chapter of "Some tunes" compilation. Their new EP bring to the attention of electro punk wave fanatics, five tunes (four are new as the main title was into the compilation) where upbeat rhythms, bass line distortions (they use bass guitar as well as a synth for this) and loud vocals are the core of the sound. They sound like a 60s garage punk band that time travelled to years 00 making a stop in the 80s to pee. During that break someone stole them their gear so they picked out synths, a drum machine and a new bass guitar and decided to get acquainted with those times to check some bands. Gang Of Four and Joy Division impressed them but also Bananarama seemed to have few hits they dug. Landing on the 00s, they discovered Daft Punk, Mr Oizo and realized that 80s influenced a lot of bands, also famous ones like Muse. Well, they thought, it's time to plug in our instruments and make some noise...

Releases like this have the indisputable quality to help people like me to reconcile with soft electronic music that usually is filed under idm. This Italian musician has assembled a soft track-list that walks on the tight rope suspended between quasi-ambient and post-classic/soundtrack music, I'm sure you'll get it after a few tracks. Eighties Warp alike sounding synths, soft pianos, string sounding sections, bleeps, electronic devices field-recordings and other kind of instruments cross the aural scene and enrich every single track of a series of arrangements that soften the journey during the listening. Track after track I've been positively surprised seeing what emphasis he has put on melody and on the song structure in spite of getting lost in the useless search of some fake avant-gardist coolness. What I've just said doesn't imply Obsil is sounding like a zillion of other electronic acts, infact I think he managed to put a personal touch in the recipe, but after having experienced "Distances" I think you will agree his primary interest was not exactly working on the experimental side of song-writing. Obsil songs sometimes have been developed in a quite uniform way, sometimes present many unexpected variations, but in most of the cases it could remind a strange hybrid of Lusine with Plone and Plaid elements cut with some neo-classical Murcof alike solutions. In its apparent simplicity "Distances" offers the example of a good and well pondered release where the aesthetic profile is submitted to writing soft, easy-listening, emotionally charged electronic tracks non based on rhythms. Nice work.