dreDDup - El Conquistadors

Artist: dreDDup
Album: El Conquistadors
Label: Insurrection Records
Year: 2009







Tracklist:
01. Clockwork
02. First Blood
03. With No Teeth
04. Opening
05. Space Error
06. Invisible Tears
07. Mind Games
08. Last One
09. The New Pain
10. El Conquistadors
11. Futurism (MrBd Mix)
12. Oregon
13. Return of the TV
14. One of Us
15. Amputated Soul

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Music of dreDDup is a mixture of dark noisy sounds with rough industrial rhythm followed by metallic vocals. They are mostly influenced by post industrial music scene of the late 80's and the mid 90's. After experimenting with weird noises and rough drum beats they embraced commercial segments in their sound, making it more popular for some wider range of listeners. Today, they sound like a crossover of every genre they get in touch with.

dreDDup was formed 4th of June 1997 in the small city of Novi Sad Located in Serbia (Europe). In the beginning the whole band were two punk guys who began to experiment with electronic music. They DIY produced their first demo 'BDTP' in late 1997. and their first demo album 'Abnormal Waltz' in late 1998. During the late 1990s dreDDup were part of what was known as the post- industrial / noise influenced band but their sound changed rapidly - finally gathering it all under the label of industrial / crossover. Many DIY cassette EP's and demo soundscapes were recorded in that period but were never officially released. Live performances took place and members changed.

Exploring the dark sides of the human mind and the distorted production of truthful industrial crossover music, they've released their first official album 6 years later. 'Mr Bordnead's Feast' (2004) saw the addition of violins, keyboards, female back vocals and live instruments. It sounded more mainstream and commercial but band did it with a purpose to get the attention from the Serbian media. More innovative than old demos , yet retaining all the key elements of the early era, 'Mr Borndead's Feast' was slightly darker, although a long way off the intense darkness of the first two demos. This album talked about the past and the bloody feast of the close minded. 2004's showed a band continuing to expand and redefine their sound and purpose. A substantial increase in live performances - once an unheard of rarity - has lead to much greater recognition by a new generation of fans.

In 2005, Holland music label MoocSound Records , released their 'Mr Borndead's Feast' album in digipack format. Band than produced several videoclips and entirely dislocated their sound from the other surrounding bands. dreDDup's next release came in august 16th. 2007, when they released their second album - 'Future Porn Machine'. Following the footsteps of 'Mr.Borndeads Feast' this new album sounded more darker and more industrial rock than the previous one leaving the production rough. The main concept of this album was the pornographic future, where art = pornography = art where machines are replaced by humans. "Insurrection Records" from Belgrade recognized this band's music and agreed to release this album. dreDDup than finally abandoned that mainstream sound and went back to the basics of their music leaving the old work behind. After this move, they finally got the recognition by the wider audience. It continued by making the official remixes for Nine Inch Nails and re-relase of their old demo album 'Abnormal Waltz' on CD for 9 foreign labels.

In 2008, the band was included in much of the foreign music compilations. Third album 'El Conquistadors' was than finished in late 2008. This album was meant to be totally different from their previous ones. The new dreDDup sound followed more post- industrial sound and less melodies, including some very dark vocals and music that brought new dark energy in their live performances. It's concept was to bring the old sound from the 80's back to life. All 15 tracks are for the "chosen ones" only and band decided to release a bonus DVD with it. DVD contains "Industrial Renaissance" 40 min documentary about the band and 50 min live video of the dreDDup show "Live in 219". This album was the last one in time trilogy and is talking about the present tense and human inner boundaries. Album was officially released for Insurrection Records on March the 6th 2009.

Although primarily a musical group, dreDDup has sometimes worked in other media. In their early years, they've produced several works of video art., film soundtracks and theatre music. Collaboration with many underground acts and artists also took place in their career.

They are currently on tour and working on their new fourth coming album which is about to be released in the beginning of 2011. This will also be the last dreDDup album.

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Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV (Halo 26)

Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Album: Ghosts I-IV (Halo 26)
Label: The Null Production - Halo 26
Year: 2008







Tracklist
Ghosts I
01. 1
02. 2
03. 3
04. 4
05. 5
06. 6
07. 7
08. 8
09. 9

Ghosts II
01. 10
02. 11
03. 12
04. 13
05. 14
06. 15
07. 16
08. 17
09. 18

Ghosts III
01. 19
02. 20
03. 21
04. 22
05. 23
06. 24
07. 25
08. 26
09. 27

Ghosts IV
01. 28
02. 29
03. 30
04. 31
05. 32
06. 33
07. 34
08. 35
09. 36


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pass: lateralnoise.blogspot.com


Don’t deny it-Trent Reznor loves controversy and attention. He’s tried to act like a seedy recluse with a bad chip on his shoulder throughout his career, but somehow, the public eye has stayed consistently focused on him. When Pretty Hate Machine broke into the mainstream and all that mess with TVT was publicly displayed, guess what? Reznor was practically begging for all the public attention he could muster. When The Fragile hit and he openly spoke out about how he was unhappy with the final product, he caught plenty of attention. When Marilyn Manson and Trent Reznor butted heads, he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Only Trent Reznor would go off on a tangent about how “the record executives are ripping the fans off. So you know what that means? Steal, steal, steal my music. Go steal it, and steal some more!” Things like this seem to always turn the public eye keen to Trent Reznor and often get him in hot water.
And throughout all the controversy over Year Zero, the Nine Inch Nails mastermind has stayed fairly quiet, going into hiding, yet again. However, this time, the infamous recluse didn’t stay quiet for nearly four years like before; he waited about half a year. All the while, Trent Reznor was secretly wasting away at the keyboards and synthesizers as the Nine Inch Nails fans prepared to settle in for another four to five year absence, messages on the Nine Inch Nails website blog began reading "We’ve been doing secret things. We’ll begin to tell you about them soon." On March 2nd, a simple message on the blog read "2 hours." Wasting no time, in two hours, a new website design was up with a download link. Despite the online server meltdown, Trent kept to his word and offered the album online in a variety of downloadable ways (one offering the first Ghosts edition for free), and one offering a $10 double-disk digipak shipped on April 8th. The album's release was so well planned and it's tactic of catching people off-guard may very well be the best planned album release in near history.
The best part is that this is a 36-track instrumental album that nobody expected. Maybe its too early, or the shock factor is still there, but Ghosts is truly amazing. Trent has compiled a wide variety of unorthodox instruments, electronic tools, distorted guitars, lush soundscapes, and eerie sounds into this collection of Explosions in the Sky influenced Nine Inch Nails. On the online booklet, a picture is shown of one of the guys, during recording, rubbing aluminum foil on strings. That is what you can expect from the album-unorthodox sounds coming from unorthodox instruments and playing styles. You can still distinctly hear the Nails sound throughout the album, but the wide variety of instruments, the soundscapes, and the unusual guitar riffs make a strange post-rock influenced ambience.
The initial response when I realized that Ghosts was a massive 36-track instrumental package was immediate excitement, but it then faded away. I imagined a boring album with 36 low-key instrumental tracks. But when I actually got Ghosts the feelings of being let-down left my body. The melancholic opening piano track sets such a dull, depressing feeling inside of you, and the same goes for the second track. But just as you begin to think this isn’t quite Nine Inch Nails, this is more Sigur Ros than NIN, you quickly discover you’re wrong. Very, very wrong. Because when you think you've figured out this is a piano-led album, songs like 3 (which is a lot like The Becoming) show up, or track 19 which wouldn't be out of place on a Skinny Puppy album, with all of it's heavy industrial beats. Basically, if you expected Ghosts to lull you with pianos, almost something in the vein of Still, you are quite wrong. Some of the stuff is heavy, loud, and aggressive, if not some of the loudest Nails music; 31 is like Hyperpower!’s aborted brother. Newcomer Brian Vigilone lays down a cymbal-heavy drum pattern and distorted guitars overpower the mix into a headbanger. And just as it gets loud, it ends abruptly.
The album has no issue with flow, either. Despite being 36 tracks that span a wide variety of genres and phases in NIN’s career, the songs seep into one another, and the four Ghosts editions have four distinctive feels. Ghosts I has a melancholic edge, seemingly painting the picture for a cold, rainy day. Ghosts II has an upbeat, foreign edge that reminds me a lot of The Fragile, and Ghosts III comes off as an industrial powerhouse. Ghosts IV is electronic, funky, and danceable. The tracks are all distinctive, original, and grandly epic. You can’t confuse a track with another, they all stand-out. Some of the tracks are clear throwbacks to various areas in Nine Inch Nails’ career, while some offer new sounds and vibrations. However, Ghosts IV definitely the stand-out. It’s like a more fun, less repetitive, and danceable Year Zero. So it’s not like the album is droningly monotone with no separate areas and sounds, each Ghosts volume presents a new sound and aura to the mix. But what’s the best, most surprising about the album is how atmospheric it is. Every track creates a new sound, a new feeling you get lost in. The tracks won’t lull you to sleep, but they send you to another place, another place Trent Reznor and co. have perfectly handcrafted. But what else stands out on the album is the fact that Trent doesn't seem to be catering to the teenagers and what's popular anymore. The last two NIN albums seemed to be what the public wanted, not what Reznor wanted. At age 42, it was time for Trent to stop catering to what the public wants and to start making what he wants to make; no more overused angst, screaming, and profanity. This is proof that Trent Reznor has finally grown out of the teenage angst.
But it wasn’t pure shock factor and surprise that runs this album. The originality, inventiveness, variety, and the emotional soundscapes could have carried this album without the marketing scheme. It’s so dreamy, and atmospheric that you can’t not enjoy it, no matter what type of music you listen to. It doesn’t bore at all, it keeps you interested and going, for two hours straight. As I sat outside in the cold, pelting freezing rain this morning, the sky was bleak and dull, I had Ghosts playing in my ears, and thought to myself "this is how Trent Reznor meant this album to be listened to." Complete creativity and inventiveness at its core, Ghosts I-IV proves that Trent Reznor is one of the most vital artists in music today.(-by Porter W. Richards, sputnikmusic.com)


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Asbestoscape - Asbestoscape

Artist: Asbestoscape
Album: Asbestoscape
Label: Self released
Year: 2007








Tracklist
01. Arctic
02. Return
03. Mono
04. And So The Story Goes...
05. Like Shit Attracting Flies
06. Ashen
07. Thursday

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pass: lateralnoise.blogspot.com

A much debated topic in the underground music community is the overuse of strings of adjectives. 'Post-Emo-Metalcore', 'Neo-Folk-tronica', 'New-Wave-Psychedelic-Electro-Ethnic-Industrial', it goes on. It would make sense to assume that the reason for this is to try to convey a vague sense of what the album sound like, so that other people who may not be familiar with the genre have an idea of what to expect before listening. While this can sometimes work in a very amorphous way, it will never get to the true feeling behind the music itself.

In the case of Asbestoscape, this could never be more true. Part post-rock, part electronic, part drone, part metal... I could go on, but despite the proven theory that too many elements can sometimes be chaotic and detrimental, this works and it works quite well. This self-titled debut has a charm to it that grows with every listen, not too quickly and not without restraint, but it definitely does. The start of the album begins with a simple Isis-esque repeated guitar riff, but it slowly morphs into the next phases of the song. This pattern repeats itself through each piece, and through the boundaries between them relatively seamlessly, affecting blended theme changes.

After a few tracks, a distant reverb-soaked piano starts in "And So the Story Goes..." which slightly judders the well-calculated flow which has so far been established. This is resolved shortly afterwards, however, by some well-placed synthesizers and the introduction of the ominous sounding rhythm section.

While this is definitely a competent collection of tracks, and nicely formed into a cohesive album, it is not without its faults. "Faults" seems a very strong word here, but when several small niggling features present themselves together and are exacerbated by the repetitive nature inherent in this type of music, they become more noticeable. Because the first half of the album is so brooding, making room to slowly build and develop to imply tension and coming change, it becomes slightly disappointing when it doesn’t reach its expected peak. Asbestoscape actually remove some of the more climactic elements. The electronic drums, for example, give a sense of rushed melody against the tense deliberate guitar and pounce upon the listener after a minute or so of tuned feedback and rumbling bass. It is these rarely exploited juxtapositions that give the droning pieces their intrigue, and it seems a strange choice to leave out.

Miscalculation on the artists part is never a reason to dislike an album, but it does detract from the experience somewhat. Then again, after listening to the vast majority of the album, you tend to forget its failings. The challenge here is always going to be keeping the listeners attention while retaining the feeling associated with more lethargic metal. Asbestoscape manage to do this without much effort for the most part, and with only minor shortcomings in the rest. Indescribable, but definitely not nondescript. -Barry Smethurst (thesilentballet.com)

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