Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: You might think that you could cop a copy of New Order's seminal hit 'Blue Monday' fairly easily and cheaply given its ubiquity over the years. But no, copies in good condition still fetch around 50 quid, so this remastered reissue is well worth a cop. The single's iconic bassline and twitchy synth modulations very much soundtrack a generation, if not an entire youth revolution, but still enliven any dance floor many years later. What's more, the de-humanised vocals will always provide real singalong joy. On the flip is a 'The Beach', which is drenched in echo and reverb and general sonic filth.

Review: British label Fire return with more retro antics. Virginias Wings perform a cover version of Suzanne Menzel's lost pop classic "It Starts Again" with Jane Weaver on vocals. Noveller Aka Brooklyn based Sarah Lipstate performs a rendition of John Carpenter's "The Thing" and Malmo based dream pop trio Death and Vanilla re-imagine Bert Janschs "Moonshine" on this first edition of the new Lost Library series: conceived by the label boss James Nicholls and designer Luke Drozd. Featuring new tracks from their acclaimed female fronted roster.

Review: In eleven years of deep digging, Dark Entries has uncovered many curiosities, lone exemplars of the scarsest breeds. They are lurking in Croatia, on the streets of New York, maybe in the back of your own dusty closet - these odd-ball Italo and synth-wave monsters are too rare to live, too divine to die. Once-lost creatures now have a home with Dark Entries' new Endangered Species series. The inaugural edition features five specimens previously deemed extinct, only mentioned passingly in lore and speculation, but now safely preserved on vinyl.

Review: Aussie larrikin DJ WHPRSNPR is back on his very own Nerang Recordings with a motley crew of upstarts on this one. Fittingly titled Freaky Friends 2, it features DJ Swagger with some off-kilter UK bass on 'Hotice Water' and Low Tape with the NSFW booty bass of 'So Delicious' on the A side, followed over on the flip by Ole Mic Odd's sci-fi electro funk jam 'In The House' and Berlin's Nasty King Krule doing his best Dopplereffekt impression on 'Stop Talkin Boy' among others.

Review: A fascinating new slice of neue Deutsche welle from the artist Eine Welt. The track romanticizes the traditional Middle Eastern dish, Knafeh, through the lens of post-punkish electronics, German rawism, and myriad layering and production. The fact that an artist would go to such great pains to record, master, press and distribute a song with such a niche subject matter truly shows the power of Turkish cuisine. Clearly, even in back the '80s, there was mutual cultural appreciation between the Germans and the Turkish.

Review: Alongside fellow Belgians Front 242, The Neon Judgement are widely regarded as pioneers of electronic body music (EBM), a synthesised slice of underground noise that incorporates elements of electro and industrial to often disorienting and intense effects. Led by Dirk Timmermans and Frank Vloeberghs, the pair combined synth pop and post punk with more abrasive tones, unusually, for EBM, bringing guitar work to the fore. Marking 40th years of the Play It Again Sam (PIAS) imprint, a veritable institution in its own right that has itself influenced many bands and scenes, some of TNJ's most triumphant efforts and attempts at pushing the boundaries of genre and style forward are collected here. A selection of tracks that showcases exactly what they were about very well indeed, and why their legacy is so significant, albeit subtle.

Review: Golden Lion Sounds is the label attached to the legendary pub in Todmorden that has hosted everyone from Andrew Weatherall and ALFOS to synth wizard Richard Norris. It is he who is behind this latest 7" alongside Rude Audio. 'This Song's For You' (feat Findlay Brown) is fusion of indie, cold wave and synth with dreamy vocals drifting over typically lush chords and silky drums from Norris. It's a perfect soundtrack to a lazy afternoon in the sun. On the flip, Rude Audio's 'The Grinning' has a more psychedelic sound with loopy synth arps spiraling up to the stars and back again in colourful fashion.

Review: Narco Marco returns to Pace In Stereo for more adventures through yesterday's tomorrow. As ever, the production is incredible, offering two tracks that pack a timeless sound informed by Italo, early electro-pop, cold and synth wave, a twin delight that somehow serves as the ideal home or headphone listen, yet is also dance floor ready and primed for proper parties. Starting on the slowest, tempo wise, 'Bald Tag' doesn't exactly owe a debt to Kraftwerk but certainly offers a place for sounds could have evolved in the back catalogue of the German pioneers. It's a weird and warbling, stepping, highly musical ride. 'Ice Tea', meanwhile, opts to get more of a stomp on, glittering harmonies painting stars in the sky above, vocals swapped out for more melodic depth.

Review: Curses is Berlin-based DJ and producer Luca Venezia, who has proven himself to be a reliable authority on all manner of deviant dancefloor sounds from the recent and distant past. On this compilation for Eskimo he takes up the challenge of spanning four decades of darkwave sounds by bringing seminal classics in line with exclusive new material for an epic 38-track compilation, which gets a thoroughly useful sampler edition for the vinyl DJs out there. The tracks on offer include Nuovo Testament, who get a punchy remix treatment from Curses himself before we can feast on the seductive minimal wave of Mary Moor. Curses also revamps JWB Hits The Beat with a strong Euro slant to the production, while the 12" mix of Sheffield pioneers Cabaret Voltaire's 'Blue Heat' rounds the set off in legendary fashion.

Review: Following on from their widely acclaimed album Afraid To Leave, Berlin's beautiful maudlin post-punk outfit Bleib Modern presents a compilation of remixes and reworks by esteemed artists from across darkwave, post-punk, and EBM. From IV Horsemen's club-worthy rendition of 'Bitter Smile' to M!R!M's dreamy synthpop take on 'Into The Night' via Dune Messiah's crooning 'Loony Voices, 2 Afraid 2 Leave: Remixed Reimaged Reloaded Part 2 offers truly diverse interpretations. With contributions from luminaries like The KVB and Blind Delon, it provides a fresh perspective on Bleib Modern's sound and serves as an exciting interlude that showcases the band's versatility and paves the way for future creations

Review: Formerly known as Non-Human Persons, NNHMN (or Non-Human) are a duo from Berlin who sound every bit like stereotypes of synth-twiddling tag teams from the German capital. Which is no disrespect, more to celebrate how long the city has been known for embracing noises plucked straight from the future, and then combining those with mechanical hyper-emotion. Androids or not, on Deception Island Part 1 NNHMN show off deft skills at creating strangely sensual and sexual soundscapes from plugged-in things, offering up five stand out tunes that straddle club scenes and twisted romances, or obsessions, each perfectly poised to move bodies while also enveloping us in mysterious atmospheres thick enough to drown in. It's dark, (predominantly) driving, epic and alluring - the art of sinister seduction, to put all that another way.

Review: "NINE INCH NAILS' GROUNDBREAKING DEBUT ALBUM
REMASTERED AND RE-RELEASED

Fans can now revisit the conception of Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor's Null Corporation has teamed with UMe/The Bicycle Music Company to release Pretty Hate Machine: 2010 Remaster on November 22, 2010. After completing the score for David Fincher's The Social Network, Reznor oversaw the digital remastering of Pretty Hate Machine from the newly unearthed original tapes with engineer Tom Baker (whose NIN credits include The Downward Spiral, Broken, The Fragile, With Teeth and Ghosts). This remastered version includes an eleventh track, a cover of Queen's ''Get Down Make Love,'' originally the B-side to the ''Sin'' single and produced by Al Jourgensen. Rob Sheridan, NIN's longtime art director, has also re-imagined the packaging of Pretty Hate Machine under Reznor's supervision.

As a young musician in Cleveland, Ohio, Reznor took a job at a local recording studio and employed unused studio time to develop his own material. The nascent album was later recorded with his favorite producers including Flood/Mark Ellis (U2, Depeche Mode, PJ Harvey), John Fryer (Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil), Adrian Sherwood (Ministry, Cabaret Voltaire) and Keith LeBlanc (Tackhead). The result was the first Nine Inch Nails album, 1989's Pretty Hate Machine. All songs were written, arranged, programmed and performed by Reznor. The album featured the breakthrough singles ''Sin,'' ''Down In It'' and ''Head Like A Hole,'' and ultimately sold over 3 million copies, reaching Triple Platinum sales status. In the wake of the album's initial underground success, NIN soon developed a reputation as one of the best live acts in rock and joined the inaugural Lollapalooza tour in 1991. NIN have since sold more than 18 million albums, collected Grammy® Awards and headlined arenas, amphitheaters and festivals worldwide.

The Bicycle Music Company acquired the rights to Pretty Hate Machine from a division of Prudential Securities in the spring of 2010. It was Bicycle's intention from the onset to enable Reznor to regain some control of this lost piece of NIN's legacy, resulting in this artist approved 2010 reissue of one of music's most groundbreaking and influential albums.

Reznor is currently working on new music as a member of the group How To Destroy Angels, continuing his Nine Inch Nails efforts and composing for future film score projects.

TRACK LISTING:
1. Head Like A Hole
2. Terrible Lie
3. Down In It
4. Sanctified
5. Something I Can Never Have
6. Kinda I Want To
7. Sin
8. That's What I Get
9. The Only Time
10. Ringfinger
11. Get Down Make Love"

Review: In the summer of 2017, New Order returned to Granada Studios in Manchester - the site of their first TV appearance - to perform a special concert. With the accompaniment of a "12-piece synthesizer orchestra" and a stunning, ever-changing stage set designed by Liam Gillick, the legendary Manchester band delivered an extended set featuring radically reworked versions of tracks from their back catalogue. This evocative live album presents the recording of the concert in its entirety, with Bernard Sumner and company mixing bona fide hits ("Shellshock", "Bizarre Love Triangle") with album tracks, lesser-celebrated songs and the odd stunning soundscape (a particularly beautiful version of "Elegia"). As you'd expect, it's superb and a cut above most live albums.

Review: This double LP release of Marcello Michelotti's Italian New Wave live performances of the groups 1980 double single 'Information of Death' and 2008 album 'Oscillator' come 3 years after their last EP. Whilst 'Information of Death' utilises analogue synths and live drum recordings to create its metallic, cold soundscape, 'Oscillator' - a live performance from the 1979 Banana Moon Club - is almost entirely those alien synths, with interspersed vocal passages. These two legendary New Wave projects are bundled together for the first time, the first vinyl press of 'Oscillator' and the first press of 'Information of Death' in 7 years. The abrasive, experimental production on tracks like 'Neon 0832' and 'Neon 1102' are revolutionary to a modern ear. To say Michelotti et al were ahead of their time is an understatement.

Review: One of many names in the pantheons of Tokyo's electronic music triumphs, despite their acclaim, reverence among boffins, and the sprinkling of high profile UK remixers that helped spread their output further (copies of reworkings by The Black Dog, Autechre and Global Communication fetch a fair song on the resale market) most will never have heard about Nav Katze. Their loss, and one we'd like to put right if possible.

Formed in 1984 as a trio - Naoko Iimura (guitar), Miwako Yamaguchi (vocals and bass), and Shino Furutachi (drums) - the band would put out two well received record on SWITCH before migrating to the far more prominent label Victor Music Industries for 1991's Kanki, at which point three became two with Furutachi stepping down. This package showcases not only why their original material was so sought after, with trance notes, IDM and ambient and pop meeting in beautiful soundscapes - but also what can happen when new parties get involved, with remixes from Aphex Twin, Sun Electric and Disjecta included.

Review: On Strange Disciple, Brooklyn-based cold synth pop trio Nation of Language explore their relationship with a very distinct set of emotions: hopeless devotion, temptation, guilt. Like a religious zealot gone rogue - perhaps an image evoked by the cloaked figure on its front cover - the album seems to sonically bastardise its various new wave, post-punk and shoegaze influences, all while channelling the increased energy that has slowly found its way into the music. It mirrors the band's picking-up-of-the-pace as their fanbase has grown and touring schedule has filled up over the years.