HOTEL LUX tells a tale of barbarity, sorrow, and vengeance. It is an attempt to step into the British realist tradition of portraying the most vulgar and distorted aspects of the communities they (we) live in:

7″ single will be released on Big Score Records in June. Listen and preorder!

You can listen to more songs of them here. Anyway Hotel Lux was the abode of exiled or escaped foreigner communist cadres in Moscow between 1921-54. They lived in fear there because nobody knew who would be labeled as a terrorist, traitor, conspirator or heretic next day.

at the darkest hole of Budapest

– Hi! Are you Xeno or Oaklander?

– I’m Xeno.

– What are your favourite Hungarian music?

– Korda.

And after a short discussion with Oaklander she said:

– Új Látásmód Fúzió, Alpár, Koyanisquatzi, Hungarian Dracula*, but last year we made a live radio show with our favorite Hungarian music for the London based radio station NTS. It contains Katalin Karády, Új Látásmód Fúzió, Csermanek Lakótelep, Alpár, Trabant and Pal I, Prince Esterhazy of Galántha, Palatine of the Kingdom of Hungary, who also was a composer and wrote numerous cantatas:

*Very strange. I did not hear the name of Koyanisquatzi in the past 15 years. It was a great ritual rock band in Szeged in the late 80s and early 90s. And for the first time I got news about the darkwave band Hungarian Dracula from same place and same period like Koyanisquatzi.

Anyway, XENO & OAKLANDER are a cold minimal synth pop duo from Brooklyn. They are on European tour now.

I think Black Metal got to dead end. The bands want to be more and more radical but just become more and more ridiculous. But there is a fistful of bands like the Swiss Bölzer, the American Liturgy (which is denied by the black metal community) or the Norwegian URARV who are able to bring new shades in the black.

For example the music of URARV is scattered with psychedelic moments and folk tunes. Often it reminds me of the Japanese noise rock band Zeni Geva. The band is headed by Björn Aldrahn Dencker (Dødheimsgard, The Deathtrip, Thorns). He said: The ideas and visions for Urarv started actually back in 2003 during a stay that I had at the local mental institution where I live. (…) We want to tap into uncharted territories to see what lies hidden under the rocks and dead horses and beneath the cold vastness of uncertainty (…) We’re travelling to remote regions of metal music and mental space with this music. Although our message is one of emotional putrefaction, we want to help listeners find a way through the black hole.

And this is the Sannhet i.e. the Truth:

from the new mini album ARGENTUM. It was recorded same time when the debut LP AURUM last year.

Unfortunately it is very rare that bands from my fav Canadian label Telephone Explosion Records play in BUDAPEST. So rare that this is the first case. But maybe the most bizarre among the label’s bands the NEW FRIES are going to play at AURORA on 19 May.

No Wave made the biggest influence on them but I think the best if I use their own words about their music:

• – We don’t have etiquette or technique or anything. I’ve tried my best to destroy technique in this band. We’re very deconstructed, very incomplete.
• – It’s a bag of garbage. Fun garbage. Tumultuous, terrible garbage.
• – Yeah, there are more than enough people doing this shit well!
• – It’s a non-stop shot in the dark. Like, for sure we want a heavy rhythm section. We want really sexy drums and sexy bass and a chaos for sure, but we definitely want people to dance.

You can do it in BUDAPEST at AURORA on 19 MAY

Our favourite psych garage rock band from Bordeaux JC SATÁN recently released their 5th album CENTAUR DESIRE on BORN BAD RECORDS. Strange that this is their first release which was recorded all together. On the past albums, Arthur (guitar) and Dorian (keyboards) used to handle all instruments.

The title Centaur Desire tells everything about the record. Traditionally the centaurs were the offspring of Ixion, king of a Greek tribe and Nephele the cloud nymph. They lived in the mountains of Thessaly and Arcadia. The centaurs were often represented drawing the chariot of the wine god Dionysus or bound and ridden by Eros, the god of love, in allusion to their drunken and amorous habits. Their general character was that of wild, lawless, and inhospitable beings, the slaves of their animal passions. These passions were channeled into this album with French jauntiness and Italian fervour.

If you feel this powerful passion then need to buy the legendary first release of RNR666 RECORDS, a beautiful limited edition JC SATAN / PIRESIAN BEACH split 7″ vinyl EP directly from RNR666 or at Musicland and Wave record shops in Budapest.

Sex Judas brought David Holmes to my mind. There was a summertime open-air party in Budapest, and he was late because of police problems. Hours went after hours. When he finally arrived at dawn I was drunk and smoked so much that I was not able to speak normally. And after he started to play I was just shouting and wallowing on the grass. Same feeling.

Norwegian producer Tore Gjedrem of Ost & Kjex channels his love of comix, bohemia and fascination with human vice, the unspoken, the Red Light districts, the alleys of the mind into his alter ego Sex Judas. He is no bad character but certainly says what it’s author cannot.

“I wanted to create a world where any musical idea is possible, wound together by the world and word of Judas, the ultimate sinner, reborn as a child of Venus.”

The album GO DOWN JUDAS was made with contributions by his friends in the Oslo scene as hometown legend Dj Pål Strangefruit Nyhus, composer Ole-Henrik Moe, jazzpianist Bugge Wesseltoft, Sidiki Camara from Mali playing that beautiful Ngoni, and multi instrumentalist Ivar Snuten Winther. Music inspiration ranges from Africa to 80’s NYC, from Bohannon to Quasimoto, from Norwegian New Wave to Acid House. It touches anything from blues, funk, disco and post-punk to IDM, acid house and electronic explorer music. And it’s a fuckin funny album:

The album comes as a 2 x LP and Digital release on OPTIMO MUSIC on May 25th. Distributed by Kompakt.

Sex Judas on Spotify

I love if a band can make me some laugh with their music like
DOG CHOCOLATE from London.
By their own words, they perhaps play sloppy, messy, silly and jerky punk music:

Jono plays a couple of drums, Matthew plays a guitar and a load of pedals, Rob plays another guitar and sings some songs and Andrew sings most the songs and plays another guitar and sings some songs and Andrew sings most the songs and plays percussive keyboard when he’s not. They write songs without thinking too much about things that make them feel a lot, as it sez in the song „It’s About Giving A Shit” but at the same time not giving a shit!! It says more too, but dont worry about that now.

New album MOODY BALLOON BABY on UPSET THE RHYTHM RECORDS (UK)

FOR EPICUREAN SOULS

V/A  RARE FINNISH SYNTH – POP & DISCO 1979 – 92

Title song by EMILIA

She is internationally maybe the most sought-after Finnish disco 7”. Released in 1981, it was the debut single of the singer Anne Luoto under this moniker. Her experiments in cosmic Italo disco didn’t find any positive feedback from the Finnish rock critics, but luckily it didn’t stop her from making a highly collectible album also. Even though the eponymous album (1982) includes many quality tracks – and also her debut single Satan In Love – the standout track in her repertoire is this strange love song with devilish lyrics. The original track was released by Italian disco project La Bellini in 1978 and this Finnish version from three years later uses the same backing track. Anne Luoto had a very interesting day job – she was a calligrapher.

If you want to know more and you are curious about the Finnish lyrical version of this song by Fredi you need to buy this double LP. It comes with an essay about early Finnish electronic music by Mikko Mattlar: DJ, journalist and historian on Finnish music.

The enigmatically beautiful Katalin Kirby
has made an album from tunes of a lost world as

The Cartaker.

Nothing problem if you don’t know about that world too much because you can feel what they felt between two world wars in Hungary:

1. Summer Brought Me To Your Grey Plains pt I 0:00
2. Moments Of Gravity Undefined 4:02
3. Javor’s Delay 7:12
4. An Empty Bliss Beyond Old Budapest 10:44
5. A Great Beautiful Nothing Out Of Sight 14:29
6. I’m So Into You, Mr Javor 16:19
7. The Senorita Departs In A Flying Saucepan 21:16
8. The Universe Hurts So Bad 23:30
9. Wasted In A Little Bit Of Love 25:20
10. A Fashionable Hat Has Become Your Destiny 28:12
11. Summer Brought Me To Your Grey Plains pt II

The story of INSECURE MEN has started in Paris when Fat White Family’s main songwriter Saul Adamczewski was asked to leave the band temporarily after refusing to vacate the Paris venue the band was playing on the night of the Bataclan attack because he’d arranged to meet a heroin dealer there later on.

He said about: “I fell into a downward spiral, living on a friend’s floor just smoking crack and heroin and doing nothing else. After four months I snapped out of it and realised I needed to get clean. When I came out of rehab I had nothing left other than these songs – I was like a ship without a sail – so it started to look like Insecure Men was something I should definitely pursue as my main project.”

He teamed up with his school friend Ben Romans-Hopcraft (from the band Childhood) and recorded those songs, blend together exotica, easy listening, lounge and timeless pop music.

INSECURE MEN debut album released on FAT POSSUM RECORDS (US)

Subject:

Band: Reverend Beat-Man and the New Wave
Album Title: Blues Trash
Label: Voodoo Rhythm Records

DEAR PEOPLE from the Living Underground,

It’s an album I always wanted to make and it almost took me 10 years after the last release.. I’m sorry.. Way too long.. but I think it’s a good album and I love it.. and I hope you too.. It’s a bit different to the others and to the music today… but who cares 😉
I selected the NEW WAVE from musicians I love the most as the moment:

NICOLE IZOBEL GARCIA is from Los Angeles with Mexian Roots. She plays an unorthodox organ and plays part of drums and percussion.
MARIO BATKOVIC is a Bosina born and since childhood living in Bern. He is a classical and kraut avantgarde accordionist. He creates film and game music and has a one man band himself. He’s a total Genius. (Prodused by Geoff Barrow of Portishead.)
JULIAN SARTORIUS another Bern original. He’s probably one of Europeans or Worlds most extraordinary drummer these days.
RESLI BURRI is a legendary Bern musician who has a jam-band together with Mario and Beat-Man. He is a multi instrumentalist play in the Dead Brothers, Padent Ochsner, is a film and circus music writer.

Stay Wild Wilder and please turn more Surreal and Obscure

Yours

Reverend Beat-Man
master of surreal blues trash