We Have a Technical

This week we're discussing a pair of darkwave records which both show off the range of the genre and also sit quite far away from especially trendy versions of the style which have perhaps worn out their welcome. Fist up is the classic Gala from Argentinian legends Euroshima, which helped establish the standard for the genre for generations of South American acts to come. Next, the moody but force...

The very website you're reading this on right now turned fifteen years old on Tuesday, and so we're using this week's episode as an opportunity to look back and the hows and whys of one and a half decades of our work here. We're also talking about our friend Rexx Arkana, and next year's Shadowlands festival in the UK. 

We're flashing back to 2005 for a discussion of Ladytron's Witching Hour , the record that saw the British quartet fully break out of the electro-pop terrain (and electro-clash pigeonholing) of their early work with a record that was inescapable in goth clubs far beyond. From indie and shoegaze ambitions to the oddly prevalent Suicide-styled electro grooves which ride through it, we're looking at...

A classic two album format episode of the podcast has us revisiting a couple of eras in which "darkwave" meant something profoundly different from what it does today. First up is Bay Area act The Razor Skyline's rough and tumble and broad reaching 1996 debut, "Journal Of Trauma", followed by the slick NDH-leaning ambitions of In Strict Confidence's 2010 LP "La Parade Monstrueuse".

We're each picking five needledrops on this week's episode of We Have A Technical. A little bit different from discussion of soundtrack originals, we're talking about the use of existing songs in film and television, often for the purposes of a particular effect (and hopefully more than just the cheap recognition pop of "Hey, I know and like that song!").

Two bands each linked closely to their own time and place are the subject of this week's podcast, but that's where the similarities between Fiendflug and Tearist end. The debate and controversy surrounding the former's tapping of Nazi history and aesthetics invariably overshadowed their music, though we make an effort to discuss both aspects of Fiendflug's 1996 self-titled LP, while Tearist's 2010...

The tenth instalment of Vancouver's own Verboden festival is in the books, and as we've done for years we're here to break the whole affair down and talk about the live sets we caught from a slew of acts across a wide spread of dark genres, originating both from the fest's home in the Pacific Northwest and abroad.

This month's commentary podcast makes a detour into the cryptic world of minimal synth with the 1982 debut of Die Form. A far cry from the lush and dramatic club darkwave the French act would go on to be known for throughout the 1990s, Die Puppe is instead an exercise in atmosphere and an at times infuriating absence of formal composition. We discuss the nascent themes of perversion and transgress...

Scene producer extraordinaire and Inhalt mastermind Matia Simovich joins us for a lengthy discussion of the role of the producer, his philosophies of record production, and of a couple of specific landmark scene records he's helped bring to fruition.

Inspired by this past weekend's site anniversary DJ set, we're delving into the somewhat arbitrary dichotomy between jams and vibes as it pertains to nightclubs in Our Thing. Are people seeking a particular mood or expecting specific tracks when they head out to goth night? How do the different genres bundled into the goth-industrial format vary in terms of prioritizing atmosphere versus hooks? It...

It's a punk-flavoured side-project twofer on this week's episode of the podcast, as we discuss industrial-punk supergroup Lard's The Last Temptation Of Reid as well as the only record from Spetsnaz side project Turnbull A.C.'s. We're also talking about the long, long, LONG awaited announcement of a Tear Garden tour, and a fantastic Cabaret Voltaire show.

The latest album from Slovenian old gods Laibach is an abrupt shift from the sterner and harsher work they've been releasing for the past half decade or so, and turns to the recent history of pop music to comment on, well, pop music.  Musick bears many of the hallmarks of Laibach's satirizing of popular culture and its intersection with politics and the world at large, but what precisely are they...

A week later than usual we're back with the latest iteration of our Patreon supported We Have A Commentary series, this time looking at Minuit Machine's second LP, 2015's "Violent Rains". We're talking about the record's connections to preceding and future generations' visions of darkwave, what has and hasn't changed about Minuit Machine over the past decade-plus, and the emotional tenor of Amandi...

It's a hopefully affable and easy-listening Pick Five formatted episode we have for you this week folks, as we each choose some second LPs we enjoy. From records which consolidate a band's aesthetic to those which point to career-long versatility, we're kicking across a pretty wide range of all the sub-genres we cover on the site if we do say so ourselves.

The new collaborative record from Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize is all anyone in the larger industrial ecosystem is talking about this week and so we're adding our two cents regarding the track selection, emotional import, and club appeal of Nine Inch Noize. We're also talking about some exciting Forma Tadre reissue news and offering a preview of new music from Spike Hellis!

The two records up for discussion in this week's podcast are both from 2006 and have at least some connection to broader post-industrial traditions, but those might be the only links between Dioxyde's aggrotech-inflected Social Phobia and the Lovecraftian ambience of Flint Glass' Nyarlathotep . It's also a news heavy week with discussion of Joy Division and New Order's inductions into the Rock and...

HEALTH's star continues to rise both in North America and abroad, and as their weeb-friendly blend of thudding industrial rock and vulnerable fatalism came through Vancouver we were able to speak with bassist and programmer John Famiglietti. We touch upon HEALTH's appeal in the age of the terminally online, the band's free flowing philosophy of collaboration, the odd parallels between the band's e...

On this week's podcast we're firstly talking about the wide roaming genre mix up of Belgian legends The Neon Judgment's Mafu Cage , before taking a look at the spacious ethereality and vocal power of Scotland's Witch Of The Vale. We're also discussing Brendan Perry's ill-considered comments regarding AI generated album art. 

Presented with their choice of the first four albums by The Cure, a sizable majority of our Patreon backers selected 1982's "Pornography" as the subject for this month's commentary podcast, and so here we are, tackling the densest, darkest, and most monolithic statement in the band's legendary discography. We work to tease out the poetic and emotional particulars of Robert Smith's expressions of g...

We're back to the beloved Pick Five format this week, folks! This time we're each picking notable guest appearances...or is it guest vocals? Or both? Listen to find out as we discuss duets, reunions, styles clashes, and more. 

It's a two albums episode of the podcast, with records by A Projection and Rikk Agnew linked by the very thinnest of (post) punk threads, though the anthemic synthpop of the former's In A Different Light and the latter's clarification of the influence he'd have on hardcore and deathrock in All By Myself are profoundly different records. We're also talking about the rivethead-focused lineup of this...

For our 600th episode we're happy to be joined by Raws of Plack Blague and DJ Starr Noir. Intersections between queer culture and industrial culture go back to the very beginning of the latter, and Raws and Starr share their personal experiences and historical observations about those intersections as performers, DJs, and promoters within the scene.

We always like to allude to the "related genres" which abut the core four we work with on We Have A Technical and that's very much the case with the pair of records up for discussion on this week's podcast. First up is the vaguely industrial metal of 90's shock rockers Genitorturers' 1993 debut, followed up by a record from dungeon synth act Frailord which cannily lifts from darkwave, synthpop, an...

On this week's podcast we're looking at a pair of records which blend a number of goth-related subgenres and styles. First up is Australian veterans Ikon, with their excellent 1998 LP This Quiet Earth . Next, US synth act Fiction 8's Chaotical from 2000.