Xeno & Oaklander have just released some new music, the synth pop/minimal electronic duo of Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride (of Martial Canterel), “known for their mastery of clever song craft, dynamic sound design, and expansive world building” so it says here and well why not on a sunny day like today.  “They are staples of Brooklyn, NY’s analog synth community, helping drive the revival of dark dance and synth wave in the US”. Is there a revival? Did it go away then? It was only this morning that the artist known as Lust In Peace was going on about Kontravoid being at the Monarch (or whatever the place that was the Barfly is called now) on Saturday)

“Magic of the Manifold, their first new music since 2021’s album Vi/deo is moody, driving dance pop – a duet that feels equally at home in the caverns of cyberspace or an underground night club. Speaking on the single, they offer: “In Magic of the Manifold, we created hard hitting drums set against romantic vocals & analog synth harmonies: we muse over the enchantment of a fictitious Mercury cavern where fumes and steam alter the mind and spark the imagination”

And as Lust in Peace was saying – do we call her Lust? She does have a real name – as Ms Lust was saying, Kontravoid has a relatively new album, Detachement, it came out back at the start of March, he can be caught live in the UK this week, including a show at the Camden Assembly (previously The Monarch/Barfly back in Camden’s better days) on Saturday 11th May (all his dates are on his Bandcamp page)

Detachment is a sharp-edged collection of pieces, Kontravoid, Canadian-born, LA-based Cameron Findlay, has made a rather strong album, he’s kind of emerged from behind that walls of synthesizers with a rather infectious new album that you could almost call pop music, pop music in the sense of sin walking darkwave EBM, if it is pop music then we’re talking techno-infected Industrial pop music that would have your average pop kid in retreat. Detachment has a rich sound, a lush sound, alive, eloquent, crafted, almost effortless (no doubt it wasn’t). Music for foggy, strobe-lit purple clubs where you are left with little choice but to dance. hard yet soft, sharp yet warm, a strong sense of musical identity, an identity even though he like to hide behind a featureless mask, there’s nothing featureless here. Amongst other things, the album also features a collaboration with Chelsey Crowley of Nuovo Testamento. The album sounds different, it is still very much Kontravoid, richly so, electronically so, frontline EBM for those who love that purity… (sw)

Bandcamp

Lust in Peace will feature in Mixtape No.7…

Here’s a track/video from the new PIG album Red Room, the album is out on May 17th, find the details on Bandcamp, this first taste tells us they’re sound as on form and in your face as ever…

Meanwhile, while we’re here, back in the day, old Organ history… The final Coptic Rain album The Last World, a rather delicious Industrial flavoured dark wave album from a band from Ljubljana, Slovenia, that we released back at the turn of the century in the days of ORG Records (if you want one just ask)