We Have A Technical

The two album format draws up records of vastly different style and intensity as the final LP from German electro act The Dust Of Basement and a definitive live statement from Dive are on the docket. We're also discussing a recent live set from Vancouver's percussive industrial group Norillag.

The debut album from Rosetta Stone and one of the landmark achievements in the second wave of goth rock is the subject of this month's commentary episode. The ways in which An Eye For The Main Chance bends Rosetta Stone's influences to suit their own stormy and driving read on anthemic goth rock, the style and quality of Porl King's songwriting, and so much more are all delved into.

Your latest hotly anticipated, or at least blithely accepted pick five formatted episode of We Have A Technical is here. We're zeroing in on our recurring fascination with the role of soundtracks in forming our tastes in Our Thing by each selecting tracks which stand out for good or bad in various film soundtracks. Are there a number of chalk choices by well-established bands? Sure, but that's with an eye to digging into the lesser known moments and aspects of those giants' discographies, we promise. There's also some New Order ephemeral trivia off the top!

After a lengthy hiatus, Austin cautionary tales Street Sects are back. They're turning their combination of noise, post-hardcore, and sample-driven industrial to investigate some extremely painful territory related to addiction and recovery with their new Dry Drunk record, but also have something quite different on the go in their more electro-pop influenced Street Sex incarnation and its Full Color Eclipse debut. Given their similarities and differences, we thought a full episode dedicated to the discussion of these records and their thematics was warranted.

The second of our interviews stemming from Terminus is here, with rising synthpop/EBM act Sleek Teeth joining us. The band's use of harmonies, threading of the needle between pop and aggression, and flair for the uncanny and occluded have made them one of the new bands we're most impressed by these days, and they were happy to speak with us about all that and more. We're also offering some thoughts on the Vancouver stop of the ongoing Nine Inch Nails tour.

Fresh off her performance at Terminus Festival, we're happy to present our interview with Mari Kattman on this week's episode of We Have A Technical. Her new record Year Of The Katt is a statement of arrival of Kattman as a solo artist and producer after having heard her in collaborative capacities for years, and she talks with us extensively about her own creative process and aims with the record. We're also introducing the ID:UD co-presented stage at this year's Purple City Festival in Edmonton!

Our favourite time of the year's come and gone with Terminus: Modulation in the books. Four days, thirty-one acts, and a goodly amount of beer later, we're here to break down all of the festivities which took place this past weekend in Calgary. Pleasant surprises, hot prospects, and the odd swing and a miss, you'll get the blow by blow details on this episode of We Have A Technical.

On the occasion influential 1999 debut "Viral Extinction" being remastered, we're happy to welcome back Flesh Field's Ian Ross to the podcast to discuss the record in its entirety with us. We're touching on how the record reflected Ian's influences but also pointed towards a new vision for dark electro, how limitations in gear both hindered and helped the creation of the record, and so much more.

It's a "Born To Runner Up" themed episode this week, as we're each picking five of our second favourite records by specific artists. From underrated comebacks to idiosyncratic personal faves, we had a lot of fun making cases for each of these. We're also chiming in on the new NIN track from the forthcoming Tron: Ares soundtrack.

This week's two albums format has us discussing two records separated by a number of years but both abutting upon dark electro even as both artists work to define their own separate aesthetic: Moral Cleansing, the first full-length from TBM producer SARIN, and Contempt, the debut of Tom Shear's Assemblage 23. We're also talking the Pixel Grip/Travis Scott debacle, a forthcoming Coil tome, and some rumblings in The Tear Garden.

As is our custom when there's a new record from industrial legends Laibach, we're taking to the podcast to discuss it rather than simply knocking out a review. A deeply collaborative record between Slovenian and Iranian musicians, Alamut is a record steeped in history and which draws together diverse strands of Laibach's own musical past and future as well as contemporary art music composition from around the world.

In a wide-ranging open topic conversation, we discuss our thoughts about the purpose, value, and reception of negative music reviews in Our Thing. What's the line between constructive criticism and a hatchet job? Why write them or, conversely, avoid writing them? All that and plenty of questions in between await on the latest episode of We Have A Technical.

For this month's Patreon-supported bonus podcast, we're talking about the second LP from Wes Eisold's post-punk/synthpop act Cold Cave. A record that has taken on more emotional resonance as it (and we!) have aged, so there's gonna be a lot of talk about feelings, not to mention Cold Cave's unique place in the transition from the landfill post-punk boom into the contemporary darkwave era.  

We have a classic two albums episode for you this week folks, including the last decidedly industrial-related work from German act The Galan Pixs, plus the experimentation of latter-era Portion Control with their SEEDEP3. We're also looking ahead at some records set to be released in the back half of 2025.

We're catching up with a whole slew of news and live show business off the top of this episode as your regularly scheduled ID:UD programming resumes, and we're returning to the ever-popular Pick Five format. From powernoise to goth rock we're each picking some especially long tracks and talking about how that length has shaped our impressions of them.

The passing of legendary Nitzer Ebb frontman Douglas J. McCarthy is the only thing we could talk about on this week's podcast. Forgive us if this episode is a bit more scattered than usual; news of McCarthy's passing came out less than an hour before our recording, but we wanted to at least get some of our thoughts about his work and legacy out, as well as personal remembrances. 

On this week's episode of We Have a Technical, Alex is joined by Chris Hewitt of Terminus Festival to discuss the history of our favourite annual gathering of bands and fans of Our Thing, as well as the logistics of putting on a big event, the finer points of arranging a line-up, and what acts we're most excited for in this year's fest! It's a great convo with a long time friend of the site, and one that has us excited to pack our bags for Calgary seven weeks out! 

This month's We Have a Commentary takes on a special form as Alex welcomes Jason Pettigrew to the podcast, where the longtime Ministry chronicler fills us in on his new 33 1/3 on Ministry's immortal industrial classic The Land of Rape and Honey. Join us as the former Alt. Press Editor in Chief and alternative music writer extraordinaire outlines how the book came together, who he spoke to (and he didn't) and his personal feelings on the legacy of one of Al Jourgensen and Paul Barker's most enduring contributions to our shared musical history. 

On this week's episode of the official I Die: You Die podcast, we welcome Barrett and Panther from Bootblacks, who gave us the skinny on their excellent forthcoming LP Paradise on a windy but very scenic day in Vancouver a few weeks back. Details on their recent lineup changes, the genesis of the record and their goals in making it, as well as their philosophy on performance and what they want to get across on stage and on record are all touched on during what we think was an insightful and entertaining chat. Also, Alex gives his scorching hot review of the Ministry show he attended this week (it was good).

On this week's episode, we're taking some time to talk with Canadian synthpop legend Darrin Huss of Psyche, in an interview recorded a few hours before his set at Veboden festival here in Vancouver just a few short weeks ago. It's a wide-ranging discussion of the band's origins, legacy, Darrin's own relationship with his catalogue, Psyche's fans, and how he approaches addressing the different generations that come to see them in how he performs live.