We Have A Technical

Alex rejoins the podcast in a lead-up episode before our 400th one. By way of catch up, we're talking about recent records from melodic Swedish post-punk act Principe Valiente, and Devours side-project The Golden Age Of Wrestling, alongside some chatter about new activity from the Bauhaus camp.

We're joined on the podcast this week by guest host Sharon Kyronfive. In addition to having written some great 199X columns for ID:UD, Sharon's tenures at 21st Circuitry and Industrialnation make her the ideal person to discuss some mid-90s envelope-pushing records on Zoth-Ommog, specficially Cleen's "Designed Memories" and X Marks The Pedwalk's "Drawback".

With Alex still tending to family matters, we're once again tagging in a friend of the site to co-host. This week, musician, scholar, and all around authority concerning industrial and goth music Alex Reed of Seeming joins Bruce to talk about records by Dive and Cranes, as well as some touring news.

With Alex dealing with a family emergency, we've asked long-time friend of the site and frequent guest Matt Fanale to co-host this episode of We Have A Technical. There's lots of news to catch up with, from the impressive lineup of Cold Waves Chicago to the Absolution Fest in Tampa to the sale of Bandcamp. At Matt's behest, we're also talking about Nitzer Ebb's 1991 crossover bid "Ebbhead".

Hi folks, Due to a family emergency we're unable to record and offer an episode this week. Thanks for your understanding, and we hope to be back as soon as possible.

It’s EBM Day and everyone’s celebrating. Well, at least we are. The not so terminal state of EBM is the subject of the day, as we move through our initial conceptions of and experiences with the genre towards an overview of recent developments and sub-genres ranging from Los Angeles to Berlin to Bogotá.

This month's commentary podcast is one of the rare ones in which we invite an artist to walk through their new record, track by track. It's a great time to catch up with long-time friend of the site Scott Fox of iVardensphere, as his new LP Ragemaker isn't just the first new work from the long-running rhythmic industrial act in a number of years, but also signals several shifts in how iVardensphere operates as a project and what its aims are. We had a great conversation with Scott about the record's mythology, its eschewing of traditional club sounds, and its cinematic ambitions. 

We don’t necessarily intend for our two albums format episodes to end up mapping the reach of genres we discuss on We Have A Technical, but they often end up that way. This week is no exception as we take up a new(ish) stay the course record from Die Form in their dark and slinky industrial/minimal synth style, and the post-goth grandeur and honesty of Weep. We’re also running through the just-announced lineup of Seattle’s Mechanismus festival.

After a far too long absence, it's the return of our popular Pick Five format! Slower club tunes are the subject of the day, with Alex and Bruce each selecting five lower-BPM tracks they like to play out to cool the floor out while still keeping it packed. We're also talking about the recently announced NIN tour dates, and the wave of hype pertaining to their gig with Ministry and Nitzer Ebb.

This month's We Have A Commentary podcast features the Senior Staff's discussion of In The Nursery's landmark 1990 LP L'Esprit. Questions of acoustic versus synthesized symphonics, military metaphysics, and the virtues of bombast are all taken up in an episode which features a bit more disagreement than your average WHaC. 

Both Boy Harsher’s new film The Runner and its accompanying soundtrack have been released, offering us the chance to talk about how both works draw upon and move beyond the group’s aesthetic and thematics. We’re also talking about an uptick in italo-related releases, as well as the winding down of the Dub Ditch Picnic label.

In the wake of the passing of Mike Wells, we're discussing his legacy both as one half of the legendary Gridlock and as a mastering engineer. We're thankful to Alex Reed, Daniel Graves, David Dutton, Sharon Kyronfive, and Eric Oehler for sharing their thoughts and memories of Mike and Gridlock. We're also getting caught up to speed on the latest festival news in North America.

Inspired by last week's discussion of legacy acts, we have a very specific iteration of our two albums format for this week's episode of We Have A Technical. It's a 'masters of dark electro' themed ep, with discussion of the abrupt reunion and return to form from The Klinik's classic line-up on Eat Your Heart Out, and Claus Larsen's return to deep exploration of the notion of symphonic dark electro on Serenade For The Dead II. What new terrain and ideas were these progenitors able to strike upon decades into their storied careers? Listen and find out.

The role of legacy acts (and their definition) in the broader industrial and goth diasporas is the subject of our first podcast of the year. How are festivals and club nights shaped by them, and how does the particular nature of Our Thing foster them? 

We're tying up some Year End odds and sods on this week's podcast, with a quick rundown of our Top 25, and then some discussion of a whopping twenty releases we're putting forth as honourable mentions. Finally, what are the larger trends which marked the year that was? How many self-released records made our list? What can we make of the artists appearing on the list for the first time? And most importantly, what the hell was up with all the italo disco?

It's a bit of an odd catch-up episode of the podcast this week, friends, as we're discussing three recent albums released too late to be given regular review coverage. Records by Deine Lakaien, The Necromancers Union, and HAEX are taking us through darkwave, goth rock, and industrial territory respectively. All that plus the skinny on the just announced 2022 iteration of Vancouver's own Verboden Festival on the latest episode of We Have A Technical.