Electronic band Borghesia was formed by members of an alternative theater group in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia (today Slovenia) in 1982. In the early times their music was influenced by new wave, electro-pop, disco and EBM. Then they took a more EBM direction. Their records were released by influential, then industrial and EBM specialist Play It Again Sam Records. Borghesia stop its activities around 1995 and came back in 2009. As a theatrical multi-media project, and also musically they show some similarities with Laibach. And vice versa.

marketing, media, hr, politology, any ism
We Don’t Believe You

from the album „And Man Created God „on Metropolis Records

Barbara Lehnhoff didn’t want to become a musician – like so many other individuals, but her debut album under moniker of Camilla Sparksss is better than the new Laibach. You can find danceable technoid rhythms and electro-industrial punk tunes on it.

Barbara grew up in Canada amongst Indian reserves with a little brown bear. She is master of tracking and trapping, and knows the smoke signals.  Then she went among alpine natives of Swiss-Italian borderland to learn economic, graphic design and film making.

„I started playing bass in 2004 when I was studying video in Lugano, Switzerland. I needed a soundtrack for a short film I was working on and so I met up with Aris and we started recording.” And art punk band Peter Kernel was born from this co-operation. They were invited by Spencer Krug from the Canadian band Wolf Parade to open for their European tour in 2010.

How does Camilla Sparksss started?

Camilla Sparksss started while I was unloading my 8×10 Ampeg bass cabinet for the 15th time while we were touring Peter Kernel. I looked at Aris and said “we need to start a lighter project”. (…and of course we’ve always wanted to start something electronic).

(An 8×10 Ampeg bass cabinet’s dimensions: 120 x 66 x 40, around 65-75 kg. – editor’s note)

CS is absolutely another musical world than P. Kernel. What are the main musical influences of CS?

I think CS is a different style from PK, but if you listen carefully both projects are very similar. They’re both minimal, instinctive and raw. The main difference lies in the production and instruments used. At the begging we wanted to transform PK into electro, but as we started writing the songs we became nostalgic of the “acoustic” punch of a live band. So we decided to give Peter Kernel a little sister called Camilla Sparksss. But both projects are influenced by what we’re experiencing in our everyday lives and how we feel in the moment. Musically we listen to very different kinds of music, at the moment my favourite band is Moonface. It’s the solo project of  Spencer Krug.

Are there any non-musical projects?

I love making clothing, especially hand made T-shirts. You can check them on my Bandcamp page. And of course videos. Oh, and I love cooking, but I’m not very good at it.

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On her shows there are two dancers. Anahì Traversi, a Swiss-Argentinian theater actress, and Miriam Vile, a Swiss-Italian „Gangsta” jewellery designer.  Next shows: 07 Jun > Luzern, Südpol (Switzerland), 19 Jun > Lyon, Sonic, (France), 21 Jun > Vesoul (France), 07 Jul > Lugano, Elettrolake Fest, Piazza Manzoni (Switzerland).

Armand Margejka was born an Albanian small town Tropoia, located on the highland near the border of Kosovo. Tropoia district has had a long reputation as one of the wildest and most conservative regions in Albania, virtually out of control of every government in Tirana. The family arsenal often takes up a whole room and typically includes anti-tank mines, hand grenades, and rocket launchers besides rifles, revolvers, machine guns, stilettos, swords, baseball bats and all sorts of old guns which goes from father to son. Instead of insurance brokers insurgence agents go about the countryside. Albania was the most isolated and most poorest among the Eastern-European communist states. The Stalinism was the most persistent here. Moreover there are the tribal differences and the beautiful tradition of vendetta.

Margejka’s musical influences were Western cinema, MTV Europe, and fortuitous cassette tape of American pop/rock legends Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley taught Margjeka the fundamentals of rock and roll, and subsequently the English language. The country is however friendly and secure, he has changed Albania for Alabama. He plays indie folk rock with sure hands.

„Hummingbird” LP, CD on Communicating Vessels (USA)

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Ghetto Ghouls are (a handyman, a geography assistant, a sound guy, and a student) like their predecessor Texan punks,  Bobby Soxx, Dicks, Stick Man With Rayguns or Scratch Acid. This 7” couples a pair of songs from the S/T LP sessions

Infantile clip for primitive garage rock in good style
DRAGSTER – Lou L’enfer Chasseur de Dragons

from Ganja War cassette EP on Six Tonnes de Chair

Frankly, I’m fed up with garage rock. And Straight Arrows are also a garage rock band, but luckily in Australia. I can tell lots of fashionable phrase about their music: fuzzy, psychedelic, garage rock, punk attitude etc. But all the same, it’s wonderful.

„Rising” LP, CD, digital album on Rice Is Nice (AUS), Agitated (UK) and Hozac Records (USA) on next week

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Koiran Nakoinen Nainen (= Dog Looking Woman). Nice melodic Finnish lo-fi punk from Manchester of the North, aka Tampere.

Kesämuistoja (= Summer Memories) 7″ EP on Blast of Silence with fabulous cover art

„All I can remember is rolling in the dirt”

Acid, ee’s, weed, speed, fuck off, but gimme a cigarette

from the upcoming second album
‘Not Art Until Someone Hates It’ (Gravity, Planet of the Apes)
of Budapest based international minimal hip-hop band
HOMELESS MILLIONAIRES

Surprising that HSY started as a one woman band in Canada. Post-punk with sludge metal

7″ on Buzz (Can) and Too Pure Records (UK)

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There was a special local taste of punk in Germany, but Küken could be in any garage of the world. Because of the harbour, maybe.

debut 7″ coming soon on Bachelor Records (Austria)

American musician Bobby Bare, Jr. got a hard smack, and wrote his best album about it.   

Bobby is son of Grammy awarded country musician Bobby Bare, Sr. He was raised in strongly musical environment in Memphis. So much so that he was nominated for a Grammy at his age of 6 for a duet with his father “Daddy What If”. It was written by the family’s friend, Shel Silverstein. He made a huge impression on Bobby, Jr.’s song writing technique. Wrote with and had all his songs critiqued by him, till Silverstein passed on in 1999. “To take an idea and push it as far as you can and then push it a whole lot further” – was his ars poetica. Shel Silverstein was a poet, writer, singer/songwriter and cartoonist. For example he has written “25 Minutes to Go”, “A Boy Named Sue” and “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan”. The first two have become popular by Johnny Cash, the third was written for Dr. Hook, but also was recorded by Lee Hazelwood and Marianne Faithful. (Anyway he wrote the lyrics and music for most of the Dr. Hook songs.)

Thanks for these circumstances, his talent and the fate, “Undefeated” is the best album of Bobby Bare jr. so far. Thanks for The Fate above all. But “thanks” is maybe not the best phrase in this case. The fulfilled love, joy and happiness are never so stimulating to create master pieces* like desire, sadness, broken heart and trials. In his own words, this is a “pretty confessional”, “getting dumped” album about end of his relationship with the mother of his youngest child, or “My Baby Took My Baby Away”

And his ex-baby didn’t want to hear anything about his emotions. So it seemed the only way to tell her his feelings if he writes those to songs. Diverse moods and situations have inspired these various explicit songs. Almost all have a different kind of style. There’re danceable, almost new wave and old Americana tunes, a bit of ragtime, alternative country and rock. One of those is just like a Butthole Surfers song on this true adult oriented really alternative rock album. Unfortunately I can’t put it completely here.

Bobby Bare Jr.’s Young Criminals’ Starvation League – “Undefeated” LP, CD, digital on Bloodshot Records (USA). Young Criminals’ Starvation League is his ever-changing group of musicians, including members of Lambchop, My Morning Jacket and many more.

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* But the exception proves the rule. One of the best albums of all time, Histoire de Melody Nelson (1971) by Serge Gainsbourg is fruit of a fulfilled love.

The Shakespearian rapper
Signor Benedick The Moore – I H8 Everybody

from El Negro CD by experimental/electronic/noise label
Deathbomb Arc Records (USA)

The new Godflesh EP – hard stuff for brain cleaning

Limited edition LP, CD + digital on Avalanches Records (UK)

Godflesh is one of the most influential industrial/drone metal bands. It was founded by Justin K. Broadrick (who was the guitarist of Napalm Death in 1985-86. His other electronic/ experimental/ post noise projects: Techno Animal, Jesu, Final, Pale Sketcher) and G.C. Green in 1988. The band dissolved in 2002, and reformed in 2009.

The Anomalys. Pirmitive Dutch hard rock’n roll trio

7″ on Slovenly Recordings (USA/Europe)

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Are you unwell? Don’t worry!  Doctor Nod raises a smile on your face with his easy slop pop cure

Cassette and digital single on Resurrection Records (USA)

mysterious noisy lo-fi garage pop punk project in New Zealand
inspired by teen romance, suburban boredom and Buddy Holly

PERFECT HAIR FOREVER – SAD & BLUE

from Zero EP by Crystal Magic Records.

Critical Hits! Free download V/A album
is full of various high standard lo-fi synth punk by Crystal Magic.