Back catalogue: Industrial/Noise

Review: There's a delightfully celebratory feel about this debut volume of Cititrax Tracks, a new 12" series from Minimal Wave offshoot Cititrax. As beautifully presented as we've come to expect, Tracks Volume 1 boasts a quartet of dancefloor-ready smashers from a blend of new faces and label stalwarts. Amato (aka The Hacker) kicks things off with the glistening EBM funk of "Physique" - all restless synth refrains and pounding bottom end - before LIES affiliate Tsuzing go all dark, psychedelic and twisted on the thrillingly intense, acid-flecked "King of System". An-I go all DAF (with a touch of Front 242) on the fuzzy and dystopian stomper "Mutter", before Cititrax regulars Broken English Club delivers a storming chunk of industrial-tinged analogue funk ("Glass"). Bravo!

Review: Oliver Ho inaugurates his new imprint under the Broken English Club alias "where absurdist melodrama meets vile electronics." This new 7" inch features two raw and confronting tracks: on Side A we have the title track with its pounding and trance inducing tribal drums backing an onslaught of alien vocals, swimming in layers of noise and distortion; riveting stuff! On the flip "Our History In Bones" harks back to the chilling drone rock experiments as heard on his tremendous Suburban Hunting LP last year with his trademark nonchalant vocals in yet another brilliant display of modern post-punk interpretation.

Review: Oliver Ho's Broken English Club has been a revelation of sorts since his first release appeared on Jealous God back in 2014. What's particularly impressive about this artist is how he successfully managed to align himself with all the right labels; all the right labels for his particular form of techno, including Cititrax, a label we have much love for. The man returns to Regis' and Silent Servant's Jealous God for the label's sixteenth instalment, and "Accidents & Romance" kicks the EP off with a familiarly rolling bassline that hints at the emergence of 303 tones without ever unleashing a full blockade of acid. On the B-side, "Country Life" enters the realm of nightmares thanks to sharp, bruising bass stabs and an ominous swarm of voices, leaving the foreboding elements of "Private Death" to linger in their own pool of broken drum patters and percussion shots. This is a keeper, and probably one of the best JG missiles yet!

Review: Having made his name during the late '90s and early 2000s as a maker of particularly forthright techno, Oliver Ho has broadened his horizons in recent years. Nowhere is that more obvious on his Broken English Club project, which debuted last year with a pair of industrial and EBM minded releases for Jealous God and Minimal Wave offshoot Cititrax. Here he returns to the latter, laying down more fuzzy, straight-to-tape journeys into analogue, mid '80s dancefloor experimentalism. There's naturally much to enjoy, from the peak Cabaret Voltaire grittiness of "Drycutting", and the bleak EBM throb of "Ritual Killing", to the ghostly synthesizers, Jaydee bass and droning textures of "Channel 83".

Review: Founded last year by Regis, James Ruskin and Juan Mendez, Jealous God's initial 'issues' fell very much within the remit of the expertly sculpted techno that the now defunct Sandwell District pioneered. However the label's focus has seemingly become a lot more open ended and willing to exploring the trio's well documented love for DIY post punk and industrial sounds and it's something that continues here with the debut of Broken English Club. The latest project from UK techno producer Oliver Ho, Broken English Club seems to be his most confident expression of his post punk and industrial influences, which have previously manifested themselves to varying degrees in the Raudive guise and his work as The Eyes In The Heat. His five track Jealous God debut features the excellent "Plastic Bag" and is complemented by a dub heavy mix CD from Taylor Burch of DVA DAMAS.

Review: Since donning the Broken English Club alias in 2014, British techno veteran Oliver Ho has been rather prolific. White Rats, his third full-length under the pseudonym, appears almost a year to the day from the release of its predecessor. Like that set (The English Beach), the album sees Ho explore his industrial and EBM influences, serving up nine fuzzy, intoxicating and distorting cuts of refreshingly high quality. There are moody and percussive dancefloor workouts, of course - see "Funny Games", the acid-fired "Let's Play" and metallic "God Man Dog" - but also a high number of clandestine soundscapes that sit somewhere between Cabaret Voltaire's ambient excursions and some of Throbbing Gristle's more notable beat-free compositions.

Review: Broken English Club is the alias of techno veteran Oliver Ho and here he explores his signature industrial wave and post-punk sound with unflinching intensity as he lands on Dekmantel's UFO Series with Songs Of Love And Decay. It is a raw, brooding album dedicated to the late Juan Mendez aka Silent Servant with tracks like 'Crawling' and 'Death Cult' echoing his tribal techno roots. 'England Heretic' meanwhile channels eerie synthwave and Giallo vibes and 'Vessel Of Skin' delves into distortion-laced post-punk that contrasts with the stark futurism of 'Pacific Island Kill.' Ho blends cinematic textures with club energy throughout so makes for a dark, emotionally charged tribute that pushes beyond typical boundaries and is sure to resonate in the club.

Review: Almost two years after the second volume landed in record stores, Oliver Ho AKA Broken English Club has finally delivered the third and final instalment in his White Rats trilogy of albums. In keeping with its predecessors, the album sees Ho exploring a mixture of politically charged ambient compositions, post-apocalyptic electronic soundscapes, mind-altering industrial grooves and gnarled, post-punk influenced workouts. As you'd expect given Ho's track record, the album sounds authentically dystopian, updating the Cold War era paranoia of early industrial music for a new century. Highlights include the acid-flecked industrial-electro number 'Alone In The Hunt', the strobe-lit EBM heaviness of 'The Kill', the creepy ambience of 'The Burned The Villages' and the clandestine, slow-motion stylishness of 'Love Cuts Deeper'.

Review: British techno veteran Oliver Ho has released some fine material as Broken English Club since debuting the alias back in 2014. The English Beach, Ho's second BEC full-length and first for L.I.E.S, is the audio equivalent of a trip to a run-down North Sea coastal resort on a wet Wednesday in November. Full of end-of-days electronics, stripped-back industrial techno, moody minimal wave shufflers and bubbly EBM workouts, it's as authentic a tribute to early '80s electronic experimentalism as you're likely to hear all year. Highlights include the Nitzer Ebb style bounce of "Pylon", the foreboding, desolate electronica of "Rust Ballad", the angry electro moodiness of "Carrion" and the rolling, organ-laden autumnal bliss of "The English Beach".

Review: It's been a delight to see Oliver Ho's Broken English Club project develop artistically over recent times, with some fine records for Jealous God and Veronica Vasicka's Cititrax label along the way. Suburban Hunting sees Ho deliver his debut Broken English Club album, featuring some 11 tracks of primitive electronics and cinematic pseudo techno cuts. Tunes like "Vacant", "Derelict", or "Scum" all share a loose techno framework, but the real aesthetic is much vaster than that, verging on remnants of post-punk, industrial and all that goodness and hybrid class that came out of the late 1980's. It's another fine addition to the sublime Cititrax discography, and we recommended it just as much as the previous numbers.