Welcome, dear valued shareholders! Let's take a look at what's been happening in the world of industrial and industrial-adjacent music lately...

Turning 10 this week: Gazelle Twin - Unflesh


Easily one of the most disturbing releases of the 2010s, this album is where the Twin's skilled hand at primitive technoid electronics fully came into its own, providing a nightmarish backdrop to the Brighton producer's unveiling of the grimmest aspects of her inner world. It's astonishing to look back on 2015 now, when the music press has largely retreated to its comfort zone of dishwater indie rock and unlikeably "quirky" electro pop, as a moment in which music as uncompromisingly dark and intense as this could enjoy having its praises sung from the then still respectable pages of the broadsheets.

But perhaps it's less surprising when you consider the context in which Unflesh was released. This was, after all, the years in which a new wave of experimental techno had swept the country on the back of labels such as Perc Trax. Factory Floor had more or less become an official institution and whatever Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland were up to it was guaranteed to attract mainstream interest, if not record sales.

The stage was definitely primed for an album as weird, experimental, downright frightening and occasionally surprisingly tender and vulnerable as Unflesh, and Gazelle Twin's carefully honed imagery and stage presence supplemented the horrifying/mesmerising effect of the sounds. Of course, by the time the first COVID vaccines started rolling out 6-7 years later, the vaguely industrial techno of Gazelle Twin, Perc and Factory Floor had been seized by roving bands of mutant zoomers, genderfluid & juiced up on research chemicals, who cannibalised that sound along with many others such as hyperpop and gabber to create whatever you want to call the ear-splitting din of 100 Gecs or Deli Girls. Music that decidely ain't n0teeth's cup of methadone, but which we can certainly appreciate from a "young people making an antisocial electronic racket is what makes the world go round" sort of way.

We'll be sure to revisit Unflesh in another ten years, and see how it stacks up to the post-hyperpop industro-neuro-vapor-deathcore sounds of 2035. Assuming, of course, that the Earth still has an atmosphere capable of carrying soundwaves by then.

Fresh meat for the grinder: new releases

Flesh Eating Foundation - Before the Skeletal Dance of our Festering Jesters
In other "flesh" related news: the Fleshies are back with a nuclear payload of slamming metallic beats, fizzing sub bass and belligerent shouting. To my discredit I overlooked this Staffordshire mob back in the day, instantly judging them by their blood-spattered stage show that made me think of the daft horror film influenced tomfoolery of American shock-rock goth-dustrial like Bile or Genitorturers. However, a few minutes alone in the company of any of FEF's albums reveals a startlingly deft set of hands at the controls and some highly inventive (and more than a little unbalanced) minds behind them.

The crunching electro-industrial beats are layered with noisy synth and guitar manipulations that recall the pioneering work of your Gristles and your Gadgets. The accompanying PDF booklet is a manifesto of sorts, detailing the political impetus behind each track. I will admit that, until your man stopped his spoken word diatribe against the last government's flouting of its own COVID regulations and let the drums do the talking, I didn't enjoy Party On one little bit. But then I've never really dug poetry as a medium. It's just music with the best part (noises) pushed to the background and the worst part (the human voice) brought to the foreground innit? Safety First really brings out the singer's midlands in full force, rapped over a neck snapping backbeat that veers dangerously close to Sleaford Mods territory. But a more entertainingly unhinged Sleaford Mods at least; Satellite, meanwhile, is an oddly poignant bit of ambient sprawl in the vein of To Cure A Weakling Child.

By the penultimate track, This Is All I Hear Now, FEF still haven't run out of new ideas, welding electro dub bass wobble to crisp, crunchy beats and letting the singer resume his deranged ranting. Which, by this point, I'm not only used to but even starting to appreciate for what it is: the cathartic venting of our nation's declining collective mental health.What is Flesh Eating Foundation anyway? It could either be a non profit fraternity of zombies or the least popular makeup product ever invented. I'm gonna go with "a damn fine industrial band from Stafford". Note: n0teeth was very grateful to receive an advance copy of this lil nugget, which is due to be released on Cruel Nature in April.

Majestoluxe - Wretched Conditions

What the fuck, man. You can't just throw out the most refreshingly original take on EBM to come along in years as casually as most people rip a fart under the covers. Just a few of the hot, juicy nuggets on offer here: Mass Distraction officiates the seemingly contradictory wedding of EBM to IDM, where twinkling Warp Records bleeps conjoin with insistent 4/4 thunder to spawn a not-too-distant Underworld cousin. Raaka Voima ("Brute Force" or "Raw Power" depending on which side of the Gulf of Bothnia you hang your hat) stands out as an unrepentantly vicious industrial electro rattler that reminds me of Pan Sonic (RIP) or Syncom Data at their most upsettingly Finnish. Blood on the Ceiling is the kind of Nitzer-gone-Italo sleaze I haven't heard since Militant Cheerleaders were on the move. And yet in spite of all these reference points, Majestoluxe stubbornly remains its own unclassifiable beast. Word to the lads at I Die:You Die - this is "unpleasant electronics" at its finest and fiercest.

(In other Nordic industrial news, The Below have just released Immutable Behaviour, a combination of last year's two EPs.)

Nova Materia - Current Mutations

The relentlessly inventive Franco-Chilean duo bring their dizzyingly diverse array of electro beats and synth modulations in this EP which at four tracks is just short enough to keep the listener craving more. Another album by this lot would go down a treat, but for now, we shall have to make do with listening to Current Mutations on repeat. Luckily, this is not an exercise n0teeth thinks we will get bored of any time soon.

Dissecting Table - In The Chaos Of Distraction

Every bit as grisly a new release as you'd hope to hear from the Japanese noisemonger. All gurgling and whistling and squealing like a demonically possessed piglet in a copper kettle - and, for those of you with better headphones and longer attention spans than us, some of the tracks are "binaural" recordings, whatever that means.

Agony & The Middle Class - Pig Cheese

The official biog for this offshoot of n0teeth darlings null split tells you everything you need to know about them without telling you anything at all:

Lady Gaga - Mayhem

The industry has been blowing up our inbox demanding to know if ol' Gadge's new album is really as "industrial" as has been inferred from vaguely industrial-adjacent producer Gesaffelstein making an appearance. The n0teeth verdict: it isn't, really, but it's an enjoyable listen either way. Gesaffelstein's co-production Killah is an enjoyably country-tinged romp that sounds a bit like KMFDM meets the Scissor Sisters in the middle, but it's far from the album highlight. There's more fuzz-saw fun to be had in bouncy cuts like Perfect Celebrity or the nastier moments of Abracadabra and a stunningly well-integrated Yazoo sample in the soaring, affecting How Bad Do U Want Me. And the rest, as they say, is disco.

Other bitesized bits
Recent bangers include Memory Audit, Somatic Responses' latest platter of corrosive acid frequencies flying left right and centre - gloriously wobbly from start to finish. UCNX delivered an impeccable selection of covers in the form of Replicator II, reminding us once again that they truly are the rivet head's rivet heads. There's been some shameless Skuppy worship from new name Port Authority on Sessions: Volume 1, while over on the NRG's Warehouse Justice! (The Chill-out Room) the greatest fictional rave saga never told continues to unfold. Marie Davidson, meanwhile, has returned with City of Clowns - boy do do we love a good mock-corporate-message-as-album-opener here at n0teeth towers. "All I want is your data" - MD is subtly but surely turning into an evil genius. And didn't Dean Selby promise us more Insular when we interviewed him? Well, here it is folks: a new collection of icy synth landscapes under the name moj produkt!

Other sounds currently rattling the windows at n0teeth HQ

  • Redzone: where has this fascinating industrial-experimental-dub-breaks trio been all my life? I've been enjoying their first three albums on Spotify and will no doubt end up pillaging Bandcamp for the rest when I'm done.
  • NTRSN: old favourites, and with good reason. Few other EBM bands have hit the spot in such a technically precise yet infectiously groovy way before or since.
  • Vex'd: because that first album still absolutey crushes.