Paul and a few others recently asked me when I was going to write about the upcoming Festival Kinetik, and I am happy to oblige. For those of you who haven’t heard about Festival Kinetik, it’s a new electro/industrial/noise festival that is replacing the C.O.M.A. Festival which ran from 2004 until 2007. It will take place in Montreal, Canada from May 15th to the 17th and will feature dozens of bands and DJs from North America and across Europe, including 5 from Germany. They are Funker Vogt, Kiew, Noisuf-X, Feindflug, and Xotox. Also worth noting, this will be the first North American appearance by the latter 2 bands.

Tickets and other info for attendees
Tickets to the festival are available in the Kinetik Store at various prices depending on what the package includes. The festival website also has lots of information for anyone who might be travelling from a distance about hotels, places to eat, and lots of other stuff about the city of Montreal.

Listen to the bands of Festival Kinetik
ArtOfFact has a 2CD compilation that has music by most of the bands that will be performing at the festival (plus a few extras) called Festival Kinetik Volume 1. While this is a great mix for fans to pick up, it’s also a terrific sampler for anyone who wants to learn more about the festival’s bands before making the decision whether to go or not. You can actually listen to every song from the compilation right there on the website. Just click on a track name and then look to the left side of the screen and click the play button. If you like it, the 2CD compilation is just 12.99 CAD to purchase.

Are you going?
Is anyone planning to go to Festival Kinetik? Leave a comment if you plan on attending, or if you just have something to say about one of the bands.

New Atrocity video and stadium appearance
We’re getting a double dose of news from Atrocity today. First of all, they recently filmed a new music video for the song “The Sun Always Shines On TV” from their current album Werk 80 II. The song is a metal interpretation of the Norwegian synthpop band a-ha’s 1985 single. Personally, I don’t think either the song or the video are that great so I’m not going to post it here, but you can still watch it on Youtube if you want.

Second, Atrocity will appear at the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium on May 17th for the VfB Stuttgart vs. Arminia Bielefeld final soccer match. The game is sold out which means they will be playing in front of 56,000 people, quite an experience I can imagine.

Wumpscut’s Schädling out in America today
Just a quick reminder to all Wumpscut fans in the USA and Canada: Schädling was just released here today on Metropolis Records. We have been keeping up pretty well with the news about this latest release from Rudy Ratzinger, so check out my post with the tracklisting and other details or Valtteri’s review of the Schädlingsbox if you haven’t been there already.

4lyn is heading to China
Yesterday, 4lyn announced on their website that they will be travelling to the Chongqing region of China to participate in a the German Cultural Weeks during May. They also plan to return to Chongqing, which is one of the most populated areas in China, for next year’s events. These cultural programs are being planned by the Goethe Institut to promote cultural exchange between the countries.

Piscide is now available on iTunes
The German electro-industrial band Piscide just released their second album Elekktroshokk a few weeks ago on March 14th, but it was only available as a physical CD. Now you can find Piscide’s music on iTunes if you prefer to download MP3s instead.

KMFDM is re-releasing even more old music
Last month, we heard about KMFDM’s new set of releases called 24/7 where the are re-releasing one old single from the band’s back catalogue on a 7″ vinyl every month for the next 24 months. Now they are bombarding collectors with yet another group of re-releases called the Extra series. Extra is a trilogy of compilations that will contain all the rare non-album tracks KMFDM has recorded over the years. Volume 1 of the series will be a 2CD release with over 2 hours of music, although the exact tracklisting and release date have not been revealed yet.

Also, the “Don’t Blow Your Top” single from 24/7 has already sold out in the first few days of April. “More and Faster” is next and will appear in the KMFDM Store on May 1st.

ASP’s Horror Vacui book
Horror Vacui was the name of ASP’s best-of compilation that was released in February, and now there’s a Horror Vacui book to match. Inside, you will find 224 pages filled with the lyrics of ASP’s songs from 1999 to 2007 by singer and songwriter Alexander Spreng, along with short stories about their origins and inspirations. Available since March 14th, you can find the Horror Vacui book in ASP’s webshop or on Infrarot.de for the price of €19.80.

44 new items added to the release dates list
I was busy last night updating the release dates list. In total, I’ve added 44 new releases to the list, most of which are in April and May. We will definitely have a lot to talk about in the coming months!

Newsbites is a new format we’re trying for smaller topics that don’t really need a full article by itself. Let us know what you think about this by leaving a comment.

Last friday I picked up a large parcel from my local post office. Guess what it contained?

click for larger image

Yep, the limited box edition of the electro-industrial legend :Wumpscut:’s record for 2008. It was one of those “well, why the hell not”, spur-of-the-moment impulse buys, the first :W: box I’ve bought. What wonders could await inside?

Find out just what, a review of the album and more behind the link!
(more…)

Sorry for posting this one at the last minute, but Accessory has just arrived in the United States to begin a short tour in support of their new album More Than Machinery. This is something I haven’t talked about yet, so bear with me and we will get both done here…

Accessory’s new album More Than Machinery
The album was released a few weeks ago on March 14th on Out Of Line in Germany. It has 2 discs, the first of which is the actual 11-track album of new electro club-oriented music. The second disc contains 3 more new songs, 2 remixes, and 4 bonus tracks that were created back when the band was still very young. But don’t be fooled by the marketers and shops who tell you this is a limited edition, I have yet to see a version of this album with only 1 disc. It looks to me like the 2 CD version is the normal version.

Infrarot.de has 45-second samples of all 20 songs on More Than Machinery for you to listen to, and they also have it for the best price I’ve seen in Europe, at €15.99. In North America, Isotank.com has it for $26.99, and while this is slightly higher than Infrarot after the exchange, you’ll surely pay far less for shipping from Isotank so it still makes sense for Americans to get it there.

Accessory - More Than Machinery tracklisting:
CD 1:
01. Humanity
02. If this isn’t a dream
03. Acsy Girl
04. The Hole
05. Numbers and Bits
06. Heartattack
07. Take the Chance
08. Tanzflaechenmann
09. Big and Easy
10. Under Control
11. Gegen den Strom

CD 2:
01. The Shape
02. Fuck the Terrorism
03. At the End
04. Tanzflaechenmann (remixed by Ashbury Heights)
05. Gegen den Strom (remixed by Acylum)
06. Die Rebellion (1998)
07. Revolution (1998)
08. Notice from Addict (1998)
09. Despair (1998)

Accessory’s US Tour
OK, now for the more urgent part: Accessory’s US tour begins tonight! It was just a few weeks ago that the band was still planning this tour and changing dates around. It seems like everything was finalized in a hurry and the short length of the tour shows this. The band will only be playing 7 concerts spread out across the country. Nonetheless, they are a great electro-industrial band and I recommend that you check out one of their shows if you can.

Accessory US tourdates:
March 26 - Philadelphia, PA - Shampoo
March 27 - Washington DC - Chief Ikes
March 29 - Newark, NJ - QXTs
March 30 - Tampa, FL - The Orpheum
April 02 - Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade
April 03 - Chicago, IL - The Kinetic Playground
April 04 - Phoenix, AZ - Jug Heads

It has been a while since I talked about the Swiss-based band Fanoe, and it’s time to mention them again now that their long-awaited second album Down To Heaven has finally been released. It has actually been available since the beginning of February, but only from a limited number of sources so far and promotion has largely been underground and by word-of-mouth. This electronic rock album has 10 songs and comes in a very nice digipack featuring stunning artwork that was designed by the band’s singer himself. It’s almost as good as the music.

Mini-review / Listen to Down To Heaven
Down To Heaven is a fantastic album and a very fitting followup to Fanoe’s first album Empire Dirt, which has been one of my favorites lately. It’s grungier and the electronics seem to be more thinly scattered than their debut, but the music is still well within the bounds of industrial rock and sounds great. I think “Lover Undercover” is my favorite so far. While German music purists may not like the fact that the lyrics are in English, they are still performed very well and certainly don’t detract from the musical style. I urge you to listen to some of the very generous 2-minute MP3 samples of every song on the album from CD Baby’s Down To Heaven page. You can listen to each track individually or click the “Play All Songs” button to hear them all in order. I also posted the music video for “I Am” below for you.

Where to find the album
In Europe, Down To Heaven is available from Cede.ch. In the USA, CD Baby and CD Connection both have the album in stock. Naturally, you can download the album on iTunes as well. And finally, if you really like the band and want to order a shirt or a special art print from the band, you should visit Fanoe’s webshop. Just choose your preferred currency at the left to enter and see all the items.

Fanoe - Down To Heaven tracklisting
01. Down to Heaven
02. I Am
03. Sweet Nothing
04. Skin & Bones
05. Passion
06. Medicine Man
07. Burn in Hell
08. Lover Undercover
09. One More Day
10. Innocent

Fanoe - “I Am” video

From: youtube.com/watch?v=09-XzyfwIMA. Be sure to check out Fanoe’s YouTube page for more videos from the band, too.

Rudy Ratzinger is at it again. Wumpscut has a new album called Schädling which has just been released today (March 21st) in Germany. The Americans will see the album in just a few weeks on April 8th via Metropolis Records, Wumpscut’s typical US-distributor. So far so good, but now this is where it gets a little confusing. There are 4 different versions of the album:

• The first edition of Schädling is a limited run and all copies are autographed by Rudy. This version contains 1 CD with the 12-song album and a special booklet with parchment paper. It is packaged in an oversized SACD case and is available only in Germany, although some other stores may decide to import it.
• The second edition of Schädling is the same 1 CD with 12 songs in the SACD, but it is not limited and does not have the autographed parchment paper booklet. This is what you would call the most standard version of the album. It will be the version that’s available worldwide, although I don’t know if the US version from Metropolis will also have the SACD packaging or not.
• The Schädlingsbox is the box set version which is limited to 1,515 units. It contains the limited first edition of the album (see above) plus a 2nd CD containing a remix album. Also included is a polo shirt in sizes Medium or X-Large, a flag, fridge magnet, postcard, calendar, sticker, and a poster.
• The Vinylschädling version is obviously the version of the album on 12″ vinyl LPs. This is limited to just 300 units.

Also note that the Wumpscut shop offers a special package containing the Schädlingsbox, the limited first edition of the album, the vinyl version, plus the DJ Dwarf Eight single (limited to 500 units) and Dwarf Craving v2. This is not really a version of the album, but rather a combination of items that are available.

Listen to Wumpscut and Schädling
You can listen to reasonably long MP3 samples from Schädling in Wumpscut’s shop. Just go to one of the items like the second edition here to download these samples. Wumpscut’s MySpace page also has a sampling from the album.

Where to buy Schädling

• In Europe - The official Wumpscut shop has all the different versions of the album, plus all kinds of older Wumpscut music and other merchandise.
• In the USA and Canada - Metropolis Records has the US version available for pre-order, as well as the first edition German version as an import. They have the lowest prices for these items that I have seen in US-based shops.

Wumpscut - Schädling tracklist
01. Rusty Nails From Hell
02. Schäbiger Lump
03. Oh How It Feels
04. Foretold
05. Break The Seal
06. Rifki
07. Enemy
08. Hard To Bear
09. Spuuk (Now Is Over)
10. Moloch
11. Voodoo Void
12. Nest

Schädling remix CD tracklist (only in the Schädlingsbox)
01. Schäbiger Lump (Ranthony Other remix)
02. Rifki (Cerebral Apoplexy remix)
03. Rusty Nails From Hell (12 inch remix)
04. Schäbiger Lump (Der Blutharsch remix)
05. Rifki (Mechanimal Canicals remix)
06. Schäbiger Lump (Recently Deceased club mix)
07. Schäbiger Lump (Midnight Commodore remix)
08. Rifki (K-U-T-T Remix)
09. Schäbiger Lump (Recently Deceased Floating remix)
10. Schäbiger Lump (Reznick remix)
11. Schäbiger Lump (Yendri Goosepimple remix)
12. Rifki (Advent Resilience remix)
13. Schäbiger Lump (Erektor remix)
14. Schäbiger Lump (Piscide remix)
15. Schäbiger Lump (Naked Beat remix)
16. Schäbiger Lump (ASL remix)

Piscide has released their new album Elekktroshokk recently… either this past Friday the 14th or today, depending on where you look. This is the second full length release by this band from Thuringia, and it is being supported by Biohazzard Records, the new(ish) sublabel of Bruno Kramm’s Danse Macabre.

Elekktroshokk is in a harsh electro-industrial / EBM style, judging by the 3-minute medley of songs from the album on Biohazzard’s MySpace page. Strangely, you won’t find any music player on the band’s own MySpace page, and they don’t even have a true website either. Actually, for music sampling purposes, you would probably do better listening to the samples on an online store like AlphaMusic.de. They have the CD for 11.99 Euros which is the best price I’ve found online. Both Infrarot.de and Abella.de have it for 13.99 if you prefer to use a different retailer.

Piscide - Elekktroshokk tracklist:
01. ElekktroShokk
02. Kranke Gehirne
03. Drei
04. Schaedlinge
05. Murdoc
06. Schwarzmaler
07. Mein Sarg
08. Cybergoth
09. Wenn der Mond
10. Ein dunkles Lied
11. Das letzte Blatt

February 29th was KMFDM’s 24th anniversary, and to celebrate, the band has announced 24/7, a series of 24 singles on 7″ vinyl records. One remastered single from the band’s extensive catalog will be released on the first day of every month for the next 2 years, ending in February 2010 with a brand new single. Each month’s release will be strictly limited to 250 units each and they will surely sell fast. The first single, “Kickin’ Ass” which was made available in the KMFDM Store on March 1st has already sold out.

The singles are being released in order, so the next one for April should be “Don’t Blow Your Top”. If you’re a big fan of KMFDM, be sure to head over to their store on April 1st so you can get it before it’s sold out. And if you missed the release of “Kickin’ Ass” you can now hear it on KMFDM’s MySpace page.

We have been experiencing a major influx of German bands touring over here in North America in recent months. So far in 2008, we have seen The Jeans Team, De/Vision, and And One all successfully complete their tours, but the fun has just begun! 4 more German bands have recently confirmed that they will also be touring America. They are: Seabound, Doro, Accessory, and Destroid. In addition to these confirmed bands, Unheilig fans also know that there have been rumors of an American tour later in the year for that band. And as an extra boost to all of this excitement, the Finnish cello rock band Apocalyptica (which has a lot of connections with German bands) will also be going on an extensive 30-concert tour across the continent. 2008 has just gotten a lot better!

I will certainly post the full tourdates for all of the bands listed above in the coming weeks, but the next band to arrive is Seabound so I need to tell you about them first…

Seabound is the next German band to tour America
Seabound is a synthpop duo which has produced 4 studio albums to date. With a rapidly expanding fanbase worldwide thanks to the support of Metropolis Records, they are now preparing to embark on their first tour overseas. The “Alliance Tour 2008″ will take Seabound across the United States for 14 concerts. Shortly after the tour concludes, the band will release their first live album Come Forward - Live In Berlin on April 8th. The electro group Iris will be opening for Seabound throughout the entire tour, except the Connecticut show because that’s a larger festival with lots of bands.

You can listen to some of Seabound’s music on their MySpace page. Seabound.de also has lots of info about the band, from photos and lyrics to album reviews and additional MP3 samples. Take some time to check this band out, and head to one of their concerts if you like their music. I’ve heard they put on really great shows.

Seabound “Alliance Tour 2008″ dates:
Click the link on the venue for ticket info

Mar 12 - Shampoo - Philadelphia, PA
Mar 13 - Rock and Roll Hotel - Washington D.C.
Mar 14 - Blacksun Festival - New Haven, CT
Mar 15 - The Madison - New York City, NY
Mar 16 - Water Street - Rochester, NY
Mar 18 - Pegasus - Pittsburgh, PA
Mar 19 - Luna - Detroit, MI
Mar 20 - Darkroom - Chicago, IL
Mar 22 - Elysium - Austin, TX
Mar 24 - Club Dada - Dallas, TX
Mar 26 - El Corazon - Seattle, WA
Mar 27 - Mt. Tabor - Portland, OR
Mar 29 - DNA Lounge - San Francisco, CA
Mar 30 - Safari Sam’s - Los Angeles, CA