Black Marble - A Different Arrangement (Hardly Art, 2012)

Here's a group that's been winter therapy for me lately. Black Marble is a 'minimal wave' revival act from Brooklyn. They play post-punk style synth meets early Human League experiments. For the Brits: Tiny Mixtapes described it as "looking out at Manchester from your bedroom in Sheffield". Melancholy vibes with a French coldwave delivery sans suicide. There's a lot of positivity here if you sift through the Roland fog.

This is a fun record. Classic drum beats. Driving punchy bass lines. Fast tempos. Dance alone reading J.G. Ballard with a spot of Earl Grey. 1982. Minimal mascara.

German Army - Burushaski (Belaten, 2013, CS)

Besides the fact that its incredibly good, I'm having trouble describing this cassette. LA act, German Army makes noisey coldwave synth pop? No, that's not enough, it also feels like ritual music from a space tribe. Maybe those supposed aliens that purportedly visited earth thousands of years ago? Of course, this sounds like you're watching the music on vhs. A retro-futuristic cyber dub? Maybe the aliens' ship crash landed at a resort in the South Pacific? Now, they're stuck for eternity, drinking on the beach like the Corona commercials, only their analog synthesizer brain implants allow them to record tape loops while inebriated. Yeah, that's it, and then, twenty years ago, David Lynch and Phillip K. Dick remix it and put it in a time capsule, only they don't bury it because all of this is happening simultaneously...in Manchester...in 1978...when Cabaret Voltaire smoked meth with Ray Bradbury while watching Donnie Darko on laserdisc. Bumbaclot.

Profligate - Come Follow Me (More, 2012)

This should have been on my 2012 list. Dammit. Ordinarily I'd be embarrassed that one of the best albums of the year passed me by unnoticed, but this year was bizarre in that many of artists released killer material after October. This one came out November 1, which is highly unusual in the marketing game. Is this a new trend? I guess that's a subject for a different article.  In fact, the only reason I know about this at all is because of my friend Justin Farrar's year end list. Thanks to him for enlightening me.

Profligate makes a particular brand of easily accessible post-industrial synth pop. There are catchy hooks buried in the dark, which is reminiscent of some old school Wax Trax / Nettwerk vibes. This aesthetic is met by Basic Channel era dub techno beats, shrouded in fuzz and scuzz. Given all of these elements, its most fascinating that the end result still feels like a pretty pop record. This is really amazing stuff. Give it a go.



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