Asylum Party was a little-known cult French new wave band that was only active for about two years. Their first vinyl release was Picture One, which came out in 1988. Borderline was released a year later and contains the original vinyl, as well as the Picture One vinyl as bonus tracks at the end. On the Borderline CD, the song “Sweetness…of Pain” from Picture One is one song, but on the original vinyl release, it is actually split into two seperate songs. Asylum Party released their last 7″ single in 1990. All of Asylum Party’s material, except for Picture One, was released on the Lively Art label, which also released stuff by Numb, Data Bank A, Sky Cries Mary, and more. I do not know how popular they were back in the day, and I actually had a nice comment from a fellow on here, but it accidentally got deleted. That’s sad, because he had some interesting information. If you’re reading this, sir, post it again. In 2006, a French label called Intrastition released The Grey Years, a 2 disc, 2 volume retrospective of the full spectrum of Asylum Party’s recorded output. The very last track on volume 2 is from Phil Planchon’s more recent project called Irrelevent, which released the album Black Sheep in 2004. Beyond that, I’m not sure what the else members of the band have done because they don’t have much information on the Internet. There is a small profile on at french-new-wave.com, and the Myspace page is actually a fan-run profile. I do think that the retrospective compilation needs a wider release because if you actually want to buy both volumes, you better be prepared to bend over and get ready to take it, because it costs about 40 euros (or a little over 50 dollars). Perhaps it’s available elsewhere, and that’s something I will look for another time. Anyway, since I’m not not generally as much a fan of this type of cold post-punk / new wave, I don’t have a point of reference of who Asylum Party might be compared to, but that’s what audio samples are for.

Tracklisting:
1 Play Alone (6:26)
2 The Sabbath (3:26)
3 La Tourmente (6:37)
4 First Days Of Winter (3:26)
5 La Nuit (4:50)
6 Better Days Ahead (4:37)
7 Winter (4:57)
8 Pictures (6:56)
9 Old Dreams Are Not Innocent (4:47)
10 Julia (4:08)
11 Sweetness… Of Pain (6:34)
12 Before The Smile (4:23)
13 White Light (5:03)
14 Together In The Fall (5:45)

Asylum Party – The Sabbath

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Asylum Party – Julia

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Asylum Party – Together in the Fall

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Andrew Lagowski has a new album out called Redesine. It is available as a download only release, into 320 kbps mp3 or audiophile/nerd mode. I went for that and downloaded the FLAC album. It gives you the option to name your price but the minimum is 8 dollars. I was pretty excited so I paid the 8 dollars and the whole interface to order and pay and get the download was pretty smooth. The download speed was great and it had a simple progress box which didn’t exactly tell the ETA, but showed it was downloading.  Honestly, this is the perfect example of an impulse purchase. I was just lucky to be his ‘friend’ on Myspace so that I could see the news. After that, it was a simple matter of thinking “Yes it will be good”. And it was good. See below.

Something more than the industrial or EBM genres that the group was commonly associated with, Click Click’s style of dark electronic music still continues to fascinate 20 years after their classic material was released. Unfortunately, all of their material has been out of print for ages, and will most likely remain so for the foreseeable future. The band has negotiated with German label Dependent to issue remastered digital downloads of older material. The first one was Party Hate Revisited, an update of their first LP from 1986 which was never available on CD. Following that, Lung Function -The Singles is a collection of 12″ remasters and two unreleased tracks from 1985 – 1987; Sweet Stuff (1985), Skripglow (1986), and I Rage, I Melt (1987). It would have been nice had 1988′s Yakutska could have been included, since it contains only 2 songs and the title track is such a great song. Its inclusion would have rounded the collection out perfectly as a document of Click Click’s early 12″ releases, but I think there was probably licensing issues and therefore didn’t make it. The remasters that were presented here sound great; Adrian’s vocals are dark and intense, and old classics such as “Sweet Stuff” and “I Rage, I Melt” are just as great in 2009 as they were in 1989. It’s great that a label finally was able to step forward and make these classic songs available once more, and make them sound so good! Perhaps one of the best and most unique bands to operate within the mid-80s industrial underground, Click Click are currently involved in a series of live performances, including January’s Vintage Electronics Festival with Vomito Negro and No More. I hope that this renewed activity will lead to the eventual re-release (even in digital format) of the full length Click Click albums. While Lung Function – The Singles, not to be confused with Lung Function (a rare CD-R compilation of unreleased material), might be available at other download locations, I had good luck downloading it directly from Amazon and it was done downloading less than 10 minutes after I made the payment. Highly recommended.

Tracklisting:
01. Sweet Stuff (4:40)
02. Stay Out Of The Water (4:03)
03. Clang (Remix) (3:05)
04. Hands Fall Backwards (3:32)
05. Skripglow (8:48)
06. Rotor Babe (3:17)
07. The Sack (5:54)
08. I Rage, I Melt (5:56)
09. Red (4:34)
10. Sudden (8:19)
11. Whiteout (9:05)
12. Sudden (Demo Version) (5:13)

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Talk about a really difficult album to find! I was originally interested in the music of this artist due to the inclusion of the track “Slavedance” on the first Dream Injection compilation. I believe that originally, Leviathan released a self-titled album on Pyramyd Records in 1994 that was licensed to another label called Music & Sound. I am assuming that for some odd reason, someone then decided to use the rather cheesy name “Trancemission – The Voyage of the Whales”. However, it is still the same music, so this is just a rather minor point. It is rather difficult to confirm this information because there is none that I can find on the Internet. Also, the artist seems to share the same name as a popular American actor, which renders a Google search useless. Non-American readers, don’t worry about it. You’re not missing anything, trust me.

I really had just about given up hope on finding the damn CD, but my persistence finally paid off. I thought I had at least found it on some generic mp3 portal site, but that was a lot of crap. Instead, I got a membership to 3 different porn sites. Believe me, I don’t need to pay for porn if I don’t want to. Which is to say that I know where to download it for free, if i need to. Anyway, the porn is irrelevant. After that, I thought I actually did find the CD from an Amazon seller in the UK, but it turns out that this woman did not bother to check herself and instead sent me a really fucking cheesy new age CD also called The Voyage of the Whales, which is comprised of the sounds of whale songs and flutes. Lame. Naturally, the website that distributes the CD, Global Journey, is frustrating me and I can’t find that CD. I don’t know why I’m EVEN promoting them by providing a link, but it’s just to demonstrate how, to use an earlier phrase, “really fucking cheesy” it is.

Now, yes, this album does include the sounds of whale songs. It is true. But they are incorporated tastefully into the mix and server to compliment the music, rather than be the focal point. Three of the tracks clock in at about 13 minutes each, representing more than half of the whole album’s total length. There are several more uptempo tracks as well, including my favorite, “Paralyzed”. There’s not much else I can really write about this CD. I think I am just rambling to over-compensate for the lack of information (and lack of sleep). Fans of well-produced mid-90s ambient techno will definitely enjoy it.

Tracklisting:
1 Lost Paradise II (12:30)
2 Lost Paradise I (13:20)
3 Paralyzed (4:41)
4 Dance-A-Holic (4:18)
5 Pyramidial (4:43)
6 Orbital Race (5:35)
7 Trancemission (6:10)
8 Element -O- (13:22)
9 Unlimited (4:04)
10 Liquid (5:38)

Trancemission – Lost Paradise I

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Trancemission – Paralyzed

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Advanced Art was an industrial / synthpop group from Finland that was active for exactly 10 years. Their first two releases were 7″ splits with the fellow Finnish goth band Two Witches, released in 1988 by a small label called Darkland Records. Advanced Art’s first actual release came 3 years later, the Scar 12″ for Finland’s Poko Records. The band then went on to release a CD single and two CD albums for Poko. Product was their first full-length album and was actually released in 1993. It contains several songs from past releases, and a couple of their most well-known songs (if you could call them that). A video was made for the song “Your Product”, which I will post on Youtube as soon as I get a chance. Other than that, there’s not much else for me to say. There is a proper biography, written by vocalist Jana, as well as an official Myspace page. I’m not really aware of how many other goth / industrial groups came out of Finland; the only other one that comes to my mind is [Active] Media Disease, which I may write about some day as well.

Tracklisting:
1 No Future (5:02)
2 Twisted (3:48)
3 ‘Til I Beg For Mercy (4:47)
4 Wake Up (3:20)
5 Scene One (4:20)
6 From Nothing To Nothing (3:06)
7 Some Time (4:49)
8 Your Product (4:13)
9 Whatch You Bleed (4:50)
10 No Answers No Solutions (4:27)

Advanced Art – Your Product

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Advanced Art – No Answers No Solutions

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Endurance is the debut release by the French ambient artist Irezumi. Released in early 2008, it is coincidentally also the first release for a deep ambient label based in Paris called Snowblood. In addition to this, Irezumi has recorded several EPs of deep house (Discogs only lists two, at the moment) under his real name Manuel M, which can be found at Beatport.

Endurance is inspired by the tale of Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, an Irish explorer who died tragically on his final expedition to the Antarctic. The full story about Shackelton can be read on Wikipedia. On the album, Irezumi crafts a deep and moving soundscape that reminds of a less-minimal Biosphere and would fit perfectly well among many other titles on the famed German FAX label. The music is wholly instrumental, except for some spoken snippets on “Untitled 4″, which can be quite startling if you are listening to it on headphones while laying down, because it’s much louder in the mix than expected. The first time I listened to it, I was pretty relaxed and it sort of threw off my mood. Once I recovered, however, it was smooth sailing after that.

Irezumi was supposed to contribute a remix to the new Kibuka album, Dystopia, and would have joined the ranks of the Lustmord and Paul Browse remixes. However, this did not get to happen and hopefully the remix will get released at some point, maybe on a follow-up Kibuka EP or something. Hard to say.

Audio samples from the album as well as a few non-album tracks are available for preview from his Myspace page, as well as a link to order a copy of the CD, which is limited to 1000 copies.

Recently, Manuel had been plagued by unrestrained file-sharing of his CD on various networks and has decided to step away from his ambient music production for the time being. It is his intention to clear his head and concentrate on his electronic dance music, which has always been his main focus in the first place.

A talented young producer in the house / techno and ambient realms, we will be seeing more of Manuel’s productions in the future. Visit him on Myspace and help support him.

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Telekinetic was the sole album release by the Canadian band Sect, which was comprised of Bruce Young, Jason McEvoy, and Michael Victory. It was released in 1994 on the popular british label Third Mind Records, which also released In The Nursery, Front Line Assembly, Solar Enemy, and many others. Third Mind also released two promo 12″ singles called Telepresence, which contained 4 tracks from the album, but these were not official releases. Future Front Line Assembly and Delerium member Chris Peterson is credited with engineering and mixing all but two tracks on the album. After its release, Sect was represented on three compilations from Dossier Records, called Organism 01, 02, and 03. None of these tracks were made available elsewhere. A review of the album on mindphaser.com describes Sect’s music as “industrial trance”, but I prefer to just call it traditional electronic music. It doesn’t really fit into either genre, and even though Discogs lists its primary genre as EBM, it is certainly not EBM either. In any case, it isn’t totally clear what became of Young or McEvoy after the release of Telekinetic, but according to Discogs, Michael Victory released a series of deep house recordings under his own name, including the album Deep Architecture in 2000, and two 12″ singles in 2002. Originally, I had purchased this CD used at Wax Trax! Records in Denver, but unfortunately, I forced to sell it a few years later. This rip comes from the CD copy that I used to have.

Tracklisting:
1 Telepresence (5:59)
2 Andromeda Storm (5:12)
3 Phoenix (6:38)
4 Dream Circuit (6:37)
5 Immortal (5:01)
6 Neuronautics (4:35)
7 Flux (4:59)
8 M K Ultra (6:28)
9 Retrofit (5:00)
10 Missing In Orbit (5:39)

Sect – Dream Circuit

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Sect – Neuronautics

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Mick Chillage returns with his third EP release, Departure, released for Nice & Nasty Records (a Dublin, Ireland-based techno label). Eagle-eyed readers will remember that I made a mention of Mick’s previous EP release, Eye On The City. Departure was released in January 2009, and contains four more tracks of laid-back chillage music that is sure to not disappoint. Departure is available from a variety of download platforms, including beatdigital.com, Beatport, and junodownload.com in 192 mp3, 320 mp3 and WAV files. Mick is also having a series of other artists do remixes, of which one will be released each month. All of this is gearing up to the release of Mr. Chillage’s debut full-length album Tales From The Igloo, due to be released sometime this summer by Psychonavigation Records. Definitely something cool to look forward to for good summer listening. Mick recently did an hour-long mix of forthcoming material and it can be found here. It’s rather difficult to find, and I hope a download is made available soon. You need to click the 2player button at the top of the page, and in the pop-up, find “110109 Psychonavigation pres. Mick Chillage” (number 25 in the list at the time of this writing). Lots of good stuff coming up from Mick in the next couple of months, so be sure to check out his Myspace page for more information and songs to listen to.

Tracklisting:
1 Departure (3:24)
2 Sub Harmony (5:50)
3 Pure Blue (Sax) (4:02)
4 Final Storm (4:13)

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The North Pole By Submarine is the first solo album by Norwegian artist Geir Jenssen, better known in ambient circles as Biosphere. Jenssen was a member of the group Bel Canto, which he left in 1990. Birds of Passage was the last Bel Canto album that he was involved with, on which he was responsible for keyboards and drum programming. As Bleep, Jenssen released a handful of 12″ singles, in addition to the album, all of which were released by the Belgian label SSR Records in 1989 and 1990. In 1991, Jenssen assumed the Biosphere name, releasing his first album Microgravity, a classic of early ambient techno which has only recently been re-released along with several other albums by Beatservice Records. He has become known for his increasingly minimal ambient albums over the years, and in addition to his work as Biosphere, several collaborations with Higher Intelligence Agency and Pete Namlook (The Fires of Ork). The most recent Biosphere release was 2006′s Dropsonde, and there hasn’t been much news to speak of since then. Any news that might emerge would be found either on his official website or on Myspace. Unfortunately, The North Pole By Submarine has been out of print for a long time, since its release nearly 20 years ago (!) and still has yet to be re-released. I am sure that eventually it will be; we will just have to wait and see. Until then, the only copies available would be extremely high-priced used copies.

Tracklisting:
1 A Byte Of AMC (4:17)
2 The Operator (6:09)
3 Mr. Barth In The Sahara (6:18)
4 A Fading Dream (5:05)
5 The Conway Saddle (6:17)
6 The Snake (4:49)
7 Cycle 92 (5:33)
8 In Your System (4:57)
9 Sure Be Glad When You’re Dead (4:37)
10 A Byte Of AMC (The Wrong Floppy Mix) (4:17)

Bleep – A Fading Dream

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Bleep – Cycle 92

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