Sacred Bones Us レコード& CD

Review: German-Brazilian artist Gloria de Olivera and David Lynch associate Dean Hugely come together for an album that cerebrates the joy and escapism of dream pop. It is an album on Sacred Bones awash with eerie synth strings that are offset by De Olivera's German vocals. Drums echo the sounds of the early Cocteau Twins and the shimmering synths take you higher. It is a low key work with plenty of lo-fi aesthetics but one that makes a grand emotional impact. 'Hanging Gardens' is a real favourite with its moody backdrop of wooly synths.

Review: Molchat Doma are one of the global music phenomenons of our time. The Belarusian trio first started causing a small stir among the kind of circles that actively hunt out Belarusian synth bands. That grew into widespread rumblings throughout the underground, driven by online shares as much as play on independent radio stations. Skip forward again, and the outfit can claim true viral sensation status, having conquered tastemakers and social networks across the world. Monument is their third album, and was largely written during Covid-19 quarantine in their hometown, Minsk. Again, it's an evolutionary thing. Post-punk vies for your attention next to synth pop, cold wave, New Wave and romantic electronica. Calling to mind, at various points, The Cure, Depeche Mode and Joy Division, among others, nevertheless those comparisons don't feel fair - the work here is fresher feeling and, ultimately, removed from the North Atlantic hegemony, so it should be analysed in that context.

Review: Margaret Chardiet's semi-regular album outings as Pharmakon are always worth a listen, if only to recoil at the intensity of her unsettling blends of buzzing industrial noise, paranoid vocal screams, throbbing aural textures, forthright mangled guitar riffs and rusty, razor-sharp power electronics. "Devour" is the artist's fourth album for Sacred Bones and her first new set for two years. It explores similar sonic territory to its predecessors, offering claustrophobic, mind-mangling soundscapes that are creepy, disturbed, awe-inspiring and sonically challenging in equal measures. In some ways, calling out individual tracks as highlights seems pointless: this is a singular, ever-changing work that sees Chardiet escort us on a nightmarish journey through experimental extremes.