We Have A Technical

The last commentary podcast of 2020 has the Senior Staff discussing the deep songwriting and production charms of Neuroticfish's Gelb. The emotional and psychological complexity of the 2005 record, not to mention its knack for working in just the right amount of contemporary synthpop sounds, didn't just make it a high point in Sascha Klein's discography, but also arguably the last great record of the futurepop wave of the early aughts.

With the Top 25 releases of the year written up and posted, Bruce and Alex are looking back at the year that was, not just in the form of those specific records, but also honorable mentions, stats regarding regular Year End contenders, and larger musical trends we noticed over the course of a year unlike any other.

It's a bittersweet and emotional episode of the podcast, as we are joined by Chris Peterson to talk about the life and work of Jeremy Inkel, specifically focusing on the recent posthumous release of Hijacker, curated and shepherded by Peterson in conjunction with Inkel's family. We're also preparing for next week's Year End coverage and discussing the news of :wumpscut:'s return in 2021.

This week's classic two-albums podcast format brings discussion of the sole record by the enigmatic industrial/black metal project The Bleeding Light and some late 90s envelope-pushing dark electro from Abscess, with Bruce and Alex by happenstance each picking records the other had never heard. They're quite different in terms of style and development, but both resulted in some extended discussion of genre markers and development. We've also got some (politely worded) ranting about the importance of metadata in digital downloads on this week's episode of the I Die: You Die podcast.

For genres with a lot of clearly recognizable visual markers, industrial and goth can live and die by how they finesse them. In a high-concept episode of We Have A Technical, Alex and Bruce are examining a plethora of themes and types of imagery common to Our Thing, and discussing how they can function successfully...and how they often don't. All that plus some discussion of a recent Quietus article on industrial metal and the beautiful new live Kite video.

It's a pretty left-field choice for this month's track-by-track commentary podcast, with the Senior Staff discussing the final record by German goth rock/gothic metal act Love Like Blood. Made up entirely of covers of goth classics, Chronology Of A Love-Affair offers the opportunity to discuss the place of plenty of bands in the goth canon, the distinctions between goth trends in Europe and in North America, and the connection (if any) between gothic metal and the broader goth rock tradition.

This classic two albums format episode of the podcast couldn't more clearly convey the range of sounds we like to talk about on We Have A Technical if we'd planned it that way. The field testing of powernoise's various forms on Asche's Distorted Disco and the dreamy, autumnal and ethereal goth of The Shroud's A Dark Moon Night represent the archetypal "stomp and swoon", industrial & goth dichotomy ID:UD was founded upon. We're talking about the ins and outs of both records, as well as gassing on about a stellar new Springsteen cover from Deine Lakaien.

The lasting impact and intensity of groundbreaking UK act Portion Control is discussed on this week's podcast, with a specific focus on their first and most recent LPs: 1982's I Staggered Mentally and 2020's Head Buried. From emerging out of the industrial primordial soup and laying the groundwork for '80s electro-industrial to maintaining a bitter yet highly developed EBM style into the present day, we have lots to say about one of Our Things most enduring yet still underrated acts. All that plus some hot takes on the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame inductions of Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode on the latest installment of We Have A Technical.

Recorded in ages past, in the Before Times preceding the election (ie, last Monday), the latest episode of We Have A Technical finds the Senior Staff discussing two very different records which fall under the post-punk aegis but also connect to very different extraneous sounds and traditions: Red Lorry Yellow Lorry's 1985 debut LP Talk About The Weather, and Agent Side Grinder's 2012 record Hardware. The lines between goth rock and machine rock, and what happens when rock instrumentation is transposed over to synths, and plenty of other questions of genre and style are taken up in this week's edition of the IDieYouDie.com podcast.

It's a Halloween like no other for which the Senior Staff are gearing up, or, more accurately gearing down. In anticipation of a more laid back Halloween, Bruce and Alex are each picking five cuts for a hypothetical Halloween mixtape. Which bands or tracks are far too obvious and risk goth cred? How can you maintain an atmosphere that's both spooky and engaging? And how goth are certain Canadian folksingers? We're covering all of those things, plus an unexpected glut of new releases, in this week's episode of We Have A Technical.

As selected by our Patreon backers, this month the Senior Staff is running a track by track commentary on the third LP from Jack Dangers' genre-hopping, sample-mad Meat Beat Manifesto project. We're talking about how hip-hop, funk, and electro all come together on a record that pointed the way towards the electronic takeover of 90s radio, and the thorny question of Meat Beat's proximity to or distance from industrial music at large.

We're talking about The Mighty Killing Joke on this week's podcast, specifically the 2013 documentary The Death And Resurrection Show which is just getting some recent wider distribution. It's a lengthy and rollicking look at the egos, personalities, and possible literal magick which has guided one of the most beloved alternative bands of all time, and the Senior Staff are chiming in with their reactions to the film and thoughts on the mysteries and happenstance lying beneath. We're also rolling through recent news regarding The Damned and Front Line Assembly, plus a solid article introducing the uninitiated to Coil's discography.

It's a wintry and atmospheric Swedish two'fer on this week's episode of We Have A Technical. As the air chills and nights grow longer, the Senior Staff take up and discuss In Slaughter Natives' Enter Now The World and V▲LH▲LL's Leaning On Shadows. While both have some heavy sounds and philosophical themes, we're also discussing how each of these records fuse genres and speak to complex post-industrial histories.

We're cracking open the venerable ID:UD mailbag this week, answering questions fired our way via Patreon and Twitter. How can or should we parse genre? Is nostalgia anathemic to a theoretically future-obsessed genre? And whose at home COIVD era cuisine reigns supreme? You have questions, we have answers...or at least five minute meanders and hobbyhorse rides.

It's an odd couple pair of records being discussed on this week's episode of We Have A Technical, with the proto-goth, proto-industrial, proto-Ministry work of Blackouts sitting next to the thoughtful hybridization of dark electro and aggrotech sounds of Distorted Memory's sophomore LP. All that plus discussion of recent mainstream articles dealing with Ministry and Nine Inch Nails for better and worse, and the recent passing of Kurt Grünewald.

For this month's commentary podcast we're honored to be joined by Tom Shear of Assemblage 23, who takes us on a track by track overview of his new record, Mourn. It's a deeply personal record, as Tom discusses, but also one which conjures up some of Shear's early synthpop influences. We hope you'll join us as we talk with Tom about changes in process and location, and how he's continued to try to explore emotional states through Assemblage 23.

We have records from the peak of late 90s electronica mania and the new(ish) wave of goth-punk on the docket this week in the form of Pitchshifter's www.pitchshifter.com and Belgrado's self-titled debut. How does a Godflesh-indebted industrial metal act end up selling tens of thousands of copies on a major label? How are today's grim realities being filtered into grimier, less-frilly expressions of goth? We take up those questions plus some discussion of Nine Inch Nails reissues and the return of Salem on this week's episode of the podcast.

Ain't no one getting younger right now, and that certainly includes the Senior Staff. With both Alex and Bruce hurtling though middle age, we thought we'd address the thorny questions that come with ageing in subculture, adapting one's listening protocols, and wrestling with the bugbear that is nostalgia. We also have some thoughts on Debby Friday's recent short film Bare Bones and the "TOS2020" charity single.

A pair of recent surprising releases from long-standing acts make up this week's episode of the podcast. An unexpected return to early darkwave glory from The Birthday Massacre charms the Senior Staff, and Sascha's choice to take KMFDM into a pure dub direction earns head-scratches but also begrudging respect.

It's a slightly goofier iteration of We Have A Commentary which we bring you this month, as the 25th anniversary of the Mortal Kombat movie and its accompanying soundtrack seems as good a time as any to discuss the strange mid '90s intersection of metal, electronics, and industrial. From the midwest industrial rock of Gravity Kills to the euphoric perfection of Orbital to prime era KMFDM to...some much less fondly remembered tracks, the Mortal Kombat soundtrack bundled together plenty of markers from the decade of the "extreme", and served as an able gateway record for a generation of kids high on digital fatalities. The Senior Staff are here to discuss the dizzying highs and the abysmal lows of this soundtrack on this month's Patreon supported commentary podcast.