We Have A Technical

This month's We Have A Commentary podcast features the Senior Staff's discussion of In The Nursery's landmark 1990 LP L'Esprit. Questions of acoustic versus synthesized symphonics, military metaphysics, and the virtues of bombast are all taken up in an episode which features a bit more disagreement than your average WHaC. 

Both Boy Harsher’s new film The Runner and its accompanying soundtrack have been released, offering us the chance to talk about how both works draw upon and move beyond the group’s aesthetic and thematics. We’re also talking about an uptick in italo-related releases, as well as the winding down of the Dub Ditch Picnic label.

In the wake of the passing of Mike Wells, we're discussing his legacy both as one half of the legendary Gridlock and as a mastering engineer. We're thankful to Alex Reed, Daniel Graves, David Dutton, Sharon Kyronfive, and Eric Oehler for sharing their thoughts and memories of Mike and Gridlock. We're also getting caught up to speed on the latest festival news in North America.

Inspired by last week's discussion of legacy acts, we have a very specific iteration of our two albums format for this week's episode of We Have A Technical. It's a 'masters of dark electro' themed ep, with discussion of the abrupt reunion and return to form from The Klinik's classic line-up on Eat Your Heart Out, and Claus Larsen's return to deep exploration of the notion of symphonic dark electro on Serenade For The Dead II. What new terrain and ideas were these progenitors able to strike upon decades into their storied careers? Listen and find out.

The role of legacy acts (and their definition) in the broader industrial and goth diasporas is the subject of our first podcast of the year. How are festivals and club nights shaped by them, and how does the particular nature of Our Thing foster them? 

We're tying up some Year End odds and sods on this week's podcast, with a quick rundown of our Top 25, and then some discussion of a whopping twenty releases we're putting forth as honourable mentions. Finally, what are the larger trends which marked the year that was? How many self-released records made our list? What can we make of the artists appearing on the list for the first time? And most importantly, what the hell was up with all the italo disco?

It's a bit of an odd catch-up episode of the podcast this week, friends, as we're discussing three recent albums released too late to be given regular review coverage. Records by Deine Lakaien, The Necromancers Union, and HAEX are taking us through darkwave, goth rock, and industrial territory respectively. All that plus the skinny on the just announced 2022 iteration of Vancouver's own Verboden Festival on the latest episode of We Have A Technical.

We're talking records by Mesh and Mlada Fronta on this week's podcast, as synthpop/alt rock and rhythmic noise/IDM combos are considered. Also, talk about the first major concert the Senior Staff have been able to attend since everything went down!

As selected by our Patreon backers, an album which needs no introduction whatsoever is the subject of this month's We Have A Commentary podcast. We're discussing 20 Jazz Funk Greats' recurring theme of manipulation, the ways in which it presaged the various post-TG projects each member of the band would pursue, and its eternal position at a strange intersection of pop, noise, experimentalism, and emerging dance styles.

We're talking about the changing roles served by vocals in industrial and post-industrial music in this week's episode of the podcast. Whether tilting towards pop conventions or serving to explode the control machines, how has the human voice been deployed in music ranging from Throbbing Gristle to futurepop? Lock your eyes on your navels and prepare for a deep dive with the Senior Staff.

Was 1998 a peak year for darkwave? You decide after listening to this episode of We Have A Technical, which discusses the broad-reaching electro-acoustic laments of Deathwatch Beetle Repairman's Hollow Fishes and the foray into chill breaks which was Love Spirals Downwards' Flux. All that plus a run-down of the lineup for the upcoming Terminus: Fragment fest in Calgary!

From an uncertain electroclash hangover to an experiment in pure drone, this week's two albums formatted episode covers a lot of ground. First up it's a discussion of Mount Sims' 2004 Wild Light LP, and then a dive into 2, the 1996 LP by Justin Broadrick's solo project Final. We also touch upon a recent interview with Steve Albini in which the infamous engineer and songwriter reckons with his own 'shitty edgelord' past, and some hopeful intimations from the folks behind Terminus Festival.

This month's commentary podcast conveniently coincides with news of a new Boy Harsher LP and tour as we discuss the duo's 2017 EP, Country Girl. Though short in run-time, the EP's sound and mood served as a flashpoint for the explosion of interest in Boy Harsher's approach to classic darkwave and electronic sounds, catapulting them to their current position as one of the most preeminent and influential dark electronic bands of the moment.

This week we are picking five "easy records". What does that mean? Who knows, listen and find out! 

It's a down the pipe two albums episode of the podcast this week, with Bruce picking a record by semi-notable German goth rock band and Alex picking a record by a distinctly obscure German industrial act. The blatant Sisters-isms of The Merry Thoughts and the Eurodance/prog EBM of Fortification 55 are discussed, with more than a few charms being ferreted out from each.

The thematic complexity, musical variety, and labyrinthine discography of Current 93 is the subject of this week's We Have A Technical. David Tibet's work has had a profound impact on both of us and the genres we cover here at I Die: You Die, and so without intending to be at all authoritative or all-encompassing, we wanted to have a conversation which would take up a host of questions and issues extending out of one of the most singular bodies of experimental music from the past century. Buckle up, shit's gonna get gnostic.