We Have A Technical

As we head out the door for Terminus, the schedule of written content on the site is going on a break but the podcast keeps rolling. This week we're looking at mid-90s records by Machines of Loving Grace and Placebo Effect and discussing the effects of the major label pursuit of alternative hits and the evolution of dark electro, respectively.

As selected by our patrons, this month's commentary podcast takes us back to the heyday of the minimal wave revival, with the self-titled debut of Linea Aspera. As we discuss, even more so than being representative of its time, it's a record which points the way forward for both Alison Lewis' work across a range of projects, but also the next decade-plus of club-focused darkwave.

On this week's episode of the podcast, the very amorphous topic of non-musical points of attraction to Our Thing is taken up. Half cod-anthropology, half therapy sesh, half wanton conjecture, this is about as loose as our general topic episodes are likely to get. 

We're talking about an of its era European electro record by Chrom and some off the beaten path video game soundtracking by Daniel Myer on this week's podcast, plus some talk about general shifts in DJing from both a personal and demographic perspective.

In a "wishful beginning" themed episode, we're each picking five projects which have effectively started and ended in the time that we've been running the website. We've seen them come, we've seen them go; bands who we had flagged for great things but maybe passed the torch on to other acts down the line.

We're joined by Matt Green and Athan Maroulis on this month's commentary podcast to discuss their memories of and reflections upon Spahn Ranch's 1995 sophomore LP The Coiled One, on the occasion of its recent remaster and reissue. Matt and Athan speak with us about the membranes between industrial, goth, and general 90s alternative culture, the role of clean vocals, and plenty more. 

We're navigating some illness on the Senior Staff's part to bring you discussion of records we missed last year by Container 90 and Vacious Cuerpos. We're also talking about Ted Phelps, Substance, and forthcoming Haujobb and Encephalon records.

Prompted by catching an absolutely electric show from all around cross-genre rock legends The Damned this past weekend, we're dedicating this week's episode to discussing their history, their strengths, and the ways they've drifted in and out of proximity to and influence on goth while maintaining their own utterly groovy sense of cool. We're also discussing some coverage of recent darkwave in The Guardian.

It's a very specially formatted episode of the podcast this week, as we're joined by three of our Patreon backers to discuss records by Steril, Black Light District/Coil, and GusGus. These episodes are always a treat as they prompt us to listen to records we might not have otherwise considered for the podcast, or listen to old favourites from new perspectives. Thanks very much to Dave, Jeremy, and Adam for joining us!

We're happy to present an interview with Mark Burgess of legendary UK act Chameleons on this week's podcast. The band was in town on the first leg of their Strange Times album tour, but are also hot on the heels of their first new material in over two decades, so there was a lot Mark was enthused to discuss with us. In addition to offering our own thoughts about the Chameleons show, we're also throwing in our two cents about the Praga Khan/Lords of Acid tour which made its was through Van.

We have a Pick Five episode of the podacst for you folks this week, as we're trekking twenty years back to look at some representative records from 2004, spinning out of a conversation about that era on our recent [:SITD:] commentary. Also some talk about the New Beat Blind test and the Purple City fest in Edmonton.

Fifteen years on from its release, we're looking back at Rot, the high watermark for Germany's [:SITD:], on this month's commentary podcast. It's a record which stood out at the time in terms of structure and sound design compared to a relatively creatively inert club industrial scene, and we're getting into the minutiae of why that is. 

The odd pairing of Gitane Demone and Mark Ickx for the Demonix project, as well as some of David Thrussell’s earliest dark ambient experimentation as Black Lung make up the body of this classically formatted, accidentally 1994-focused two albums episode of We Have A Technical. We’re also discussing Spencer Sunshine’s delivery of receipts concerning Boyd Rice’s participation in neo-nazism. 

Despite our post-fest blues and exhaustion, we're back to bring you a plus-sized version of the podcast breaking down each and every act we caught this past weekend at Verboden Festival here in our own Vancouver backyard. Relive the memories if you were on the trip with us, and flag a couple of live acts to keep an eye out for if you weren't. 

In this week’s episode of We Have A Technical, we’re jumping off from a discussion Bruce had last week with our friends at Cemetery Confessions in order to examine the idea of the goth-industrial club format. A marriage of necessity? One which yielded productive hybridization? Is it of use or salience today? Was it ever? We’re touching upon all of this, as well as the death of legendary engineer Steve Albini and some Sisters touring news.

Classic two albums format of the podcast for you this week folks, with a pair of fairly obscure records from a couple of decades back under the microscope. First up, the fanatic devotion to and imitation of Front 242 shown by Mastertune on their second LP prompts some discussion of the je ne sais quois possessed by the Belgian masters which makes that sort of homage so rare and awkward. Next, the synthpunk/deathrock car wreck of the Bay Area's Subtonix getsd us talking about what we are and aren't interested in in those genres.

A 2001 record which was rather out of step with industrial club styles of the time, Stromkern's Armageddon proved to cast a long thematic shadow as well as stand the test of time musically. We're discussing Ned Kirby's electro-acoustic arrangements, the eerie political polyvalence of its addressing of fanaticism, and how the album left a mark on the midwest industrial scene in this month's Patreon-supported commentary podcast.

It's a Pick Five formatted episode this week, and we're each trying to find tunes which summarize or represent the larger catalogs and aesthetics of the artists involved; a surprisingly difficult task as we found it.

At long last, we're proud to present the 500th episode of We Have A Technical. We're joined by Joakim Montelius and Eskil Simonsson of the legendary Covenant to discuss the entire history and discography of the innovative electronic project. From industrial to techno to EBM and from teenage friendships to major label deals to fractures within the band, Joakim and Eskil spent nearly three hours with us laying down what we hope stands as the definitive interview with this storied and beloved act.

As we often like to do when a new album by a landmark legacy band is released, we're setting this week's podcast aside for the discussion of Rampen - APM: Alien Pop Music, the brand new LP by industrial royalty Einstürzende Neubauten. We're making some attempts to situate the record in relation to the rest of the latter-era Neubauten catalog, but also spinning off into discussion of Blixa Bargeld's poetics, the exactitude of the band's not-so-noisy percussion, and the experience of listening to a new record by a band as storied as Neubauten.