Xmal Deutschland's "The Complete Peel Sessions" & Anja Huwe US Tour: Aug 28 - Sept 5

Discussing their inception with legendary British host label 4AD, Xmal Deutschland formed in Hamburg in 1980, “a tough city,” says singer Anja Huwe, which was a significantly grittier place in the early 1980s than the artier musical enclaves of neighboring Cologne or Dusseldorf. 4AD describe the band as thriving in their canal-side rehearsal studio, at that point comprising keyboardist Fiona Sangster, guitarist Manuela Rickers, drummer Manuela Zwingmann, bassist Wolfgang Ellerbrock, and Huwe on vocals and co-songwriting. The band's toughness and resolution was also reflected in their decision of not being channeled into the Neue Deutsche Welle pop movement and scene at the time. “If we’d stayed in Hamburg and gone down that path, our career would have been over in a year,” explains Huwe. "Because it was a very short-lived movement.” After finding compatriots at the Hamburg label ZickZack, home to Palais Schaumburg, Abwärts, Einstürzende Neubauten, F.S.K. and Die Tödliche Doris, a roster of similarly groundbreaking, edgy and raw post-punk outfits in the German scene, they released their first two singles with the label. An anthology of which has been assembled and packaged together by Sacred Bones as, "Early Singles 1981-1982". In the years that followed, they continued their search for a home that could match their questing, independent energy. “We recorded a tape in the rehearsal room and we took it to 4AD,” recalls Sangster. “We didn’t go anywhere else." In a familiar pattern, like with a number of acts on the label, a United Kingdom tour opening for Cocteau Twins resulted in a deal with the label, and their singles "Qual", "Incubus Succubus II", and debut full length album, "Fetisch" in 1983. Discussing their first UK tour with The Guardian in interview, "German Goth Pioneers Xmal Deutschland: ‘To British People I was Like an Alien’", they describe their introduction to the British post-punk and gothic rock scene, and the realities of Thatcher's England, "I wanted to be part of a band but not really the front person," remembers Huwe. "When we had our first gig with the Cocteau Twins, that was when I really realized: this could be something for me."

The Guardian suggests that the London audience may have been doing some mental gymnastics as well. Xmal Deutschland were not the ethereal Cocteau Twins; their songs were dark, aggressive, fast and sung in German. "They were just looking at us, and didn’t know what to say, really," Huwe recalls. "To them I was like an alien. We just didn’t want to give them the obvious sort of thing, and we always kept our distance from everyone,"  says Huwe. "We were like a group on our own. We never went to a place like the Batcave - and they always invited us. Everyone wanted us to join, but we never went there because we were not interested. We went to exhibitions, we wrote books, saw films - you know, enjoyed our own company.". Manuela Zwingmann left the band after one year, being replaced by drummer, Peter Bellendir. This new arrangement; Huwe, Rickers, Sangster, Ellerbrock and Bellendir ended up being the longest lasting and most productive of their lineups, with the single "Reigen" and the album "Tocsin" released in 1984, followed by a world tour in 1985. Just this last year saw the complete work for the 4AD label reassembled, including related singles together in a smartly redesigned package by Timothy O'Donnell as, "Gift: The 4AD Years 1983-1984". In the midst of their activity on the fringes of the early-1980s British scene, the band were invited to participate in the notable counter-cultural tastemaker John Peel's show for BBC Radio 1, and his influential reach with the recorded live-in-the-studio Peel Sessions. Their contribution from these sessions were recorded over four events spanning November 1982, to May 1985, and are collected chronologically in this month's 4AD release of "The Complete Peel Sessions". In the ensuing decades since this era, Huwe has focused her efforts on visual art and painting, remaining mostly quiet on the musical front, which she details in her interview “Living in the Forest: An Interview with Anja Huwe”. Only recently coming forward with new music, coinciding with the release of the earliest Xmal Deutschland recordings on Sacred Bones, the label has also released her newest solo offering, "Codes". The album and forthcoming tour features contributions from original Xmal Deutschland guitarist Manuella Rickers, Olaf Boqwist of Blue Kremlin, and Einstürzende Neubauten collaborator, Mona Mur.

Nothing, Full Body 2, Cryogeyser and Violent Magic Orchestra US Tour: Feb 27 - Apr 4 | Machine Girl's "PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X" and US Tour with Sextile: Feb 28 - Apr 9

The sound of Nothing, produced by the Philadelphia noiserock, metal, shoegaze, hybrid band at the forefront of the mass assimilation of genres into metal seen in the mid-2010s was heard on the boldly confident debut full length, "Guilty Of Everything". Over the course of the following four albums on Relapse Records and their live tours of bewildering volumes and intensity, "Nothing Establish that they are Here to Knock You Over", arriving at this year's "A Short History Of Decay" for the label Run for Cover. Yet it is their collaboration with grindcore labelmates Full Of Hell on the collaborative album "When No Birds Sang" that most fully epitomizes this mangling of genre distinctions into hypermodern forms. Touring this spring with fellow Philadelphia-based shoegaze bliss-noise outfit Full Body 2, Nothing are ideally positioned for a night at Seattle's The Crocodile in the converging spaces between their melodic noise, the dream pop of Cryogeyser, and the bewildering assault of the "Death Rave" from Violent Magic Orchestra. The groundwork for VMO's endeavor in total annihilation of genre distinctions was established by Yellow Swans artist Pete Swanson, and his unhinged explorations in deconstructed club music and hard techno, heard on albums like "Punk Authority". Swanson acts as a sonic ringleader and producer for the Osaka gabber-metal-techno four piece, drawing members from Vampillia and light engineer Kezzardrix into what the band describes as, "It's an art project of incomplete harmony of techno, black metal, industrial, noise, and emitting light".

Concurrently on tour across the United States, a very different set of genre hybrids can be heard in the starkly minimal, angular, punkish electronic dance pop showcased by The Guardian in, "‘The Body was the Drums, the Brain was the Synthesiser’: Darkwave, the Gothic Genre Lighting up Pop". Sextile move closely around these same affinities, with assertively electro-punk variables of their own, detailed by Louder Than War in their interview, "Sextile: Yes, Please". These variables share an additional razor-sharp electronic and rhythmic edge with Sacred Bones labelmates The Soft Moon and Blanck Mass, the electro-pop of Pixel Grip, and the defiant electro-industrial noise of fellow Los Angeles duo, Youth Code. Their tour brings them together with the "PsychoWarrior: MG Ultra X" hyperactive neon-lit cyberpunk sounds of Machine Girl. Discussing their latest, which has been referred to as "obsessive, paranoid anthems for the end of world", the duo spoke which Revolver, "Machine Girl on Spitting Blood, Mashing Genres and Transcending Self", in which they discuss the confluence of influences that meet in their sound, where Lightning Bolt, Boredoms, Dillinger Escape Plan and references to the significant contribution of late 1990s British electronic music, Warp Records and Aphex Twin, all play a significant role. Together the two acts will make for a night of electro-punk and frenetic mutations of breakcore, techno, post-hardcore and drum and bass at Seattle's Showbox Sodo.

Sextile's "Push" and "Yes, Please" & US Tour: Sept 11 - Oct 11 | "Industrial Worship" Tour with Youth Code, Street Sects & King Yosef: Aug 16 - Sept 12

Returning after an extensive tour earlier this year, in which they opened for Sacred Bones labelmates Molchat Doma, Los Angeles duo Sextile are back on tour to headline a bill at Seattle's The Crocodile. Like much of this current electro and wave-inspired scene, theirs is a style looking back to a bandwidth of music within the goth, synthwave, electro-industrial and early EBM sounds of the 1980s and 1990s. Where Sextile distinguish themselves is in their bridge both the original electro-industrial and EBM sound of that era, along with that of modern raved-up breakcore and jungle rhythms, and the new synth and darkwave revivals that are occurring concurrently. On the two recent albums "Push", and this year's "Yes, Please", their specific amalgamation of these genres is then held together with the adhesive qualities of punk attitude, and matched with an anthemic, lyrical defiance. Yet there is a shared affinity with this new set of darkwave acts which most clearly define their genre and cultural alignment. Inspired by the original wave and post-punk bands of the 1980s, and the balancing act of their particular brand of starkly minimal, angular, existential electronic dance pop of alienation and heartbreak, a new generation of producers have come to the fore. These have been presented in an ideal introduction by The Guardian in their, “‘The Body was the Drums, the Brain was the Synthesiser’: Darkwave, the Gothic Genre Lighting up Pop”.

A cross-section of artists within this subgenre, Molchat Doma, The KVB, Xeno & Oaklander, Twin Tribes, She Past Away, Lebanon Hanover, and Boy Harsher, express a spectrum of variations on an aesthetic of darkly romantic, sexually fetishistic, and imperially fatalistic thematic concerns. In describing Boy Harsher's sound as a "moving choker-collar muscle-mash" which "contains a dark power, an atavistic pull", the music press has rightly depicted the central components from which the variables pivot and deviate around. Sextile move closely within these same affinities, with variables of their own, sharing an additional razor-sharp electronic and rhythmic edge with labelmates The Soft Moon and Blanck Mass, as well as such acts as Machine Girl, Pixel Grip, and the defiant electro-industrial noise mania of fellow Los Angeles duo, Youth Code. This month, the latter will be in the midst of a Ballardian collision of the Industrial Worship tour, mangling with the brutalist post-punk sounds of Street Sects and that of the harcore noise of King Yosef, with dates in Seattle at Madam Lou's, Brick & Mortar in San Francisco, and the tour concluding in Portland the second weekend in September. These final dates intersecting with the community of musicians and artists around King Yosef's label, Bleakhouse, and the two-night lineup of the annual Bleakfest.

Molchat Doma's "Belaya Polosa" & North American Tour with Sextile: Jan 25 - Mar 7

Inspired by the goth and early electro-industrial sounds of the 1980s and 1990s, a new generation of darkwave and synthwave producers have found novel variations and generated a music of 21st century nuance to its particulars. The balancing act of its particular brand of starkly minimal, angular, existential electronic dance pop of alienation and heartbreak is presented by The Guardian in, “‘The Body was the Drums, the Brain was the Synthesiser’: Darkwave, the Gothic Genre Lighting up Pop”. A cross-section of artists within this subgenre, Molchat Doma, The KVB, She Wants Revenge, Xeno & Oaklander, The Soft Moon, Twin Tribes, She Past Away, Drab Majesty, TR/ST, Kite, and Boy Harsher, express a spectrum of variations on an aesthetic of darkly romantic, sexually fetishistic, and imperially fatalistic thematic concerns. In describing Boy Harsher's sound as a "moving choker-collar muscle-mash" which "contains a dark power, an atavistic pull", the music press has rightly depicted the central components from which the variables pivot and deviate around. An overview of these concurrent, interrelated, and offshoot genres, and their contemporary revival was mapped by Vice in their, "A Brief History of Musical Waves from New to Next". Compilations like the now-classic, “The Minimal Wave Tapes: Volume One” focused on the coldwave and minimal wave strains, while the recent “No Songs Tomorrow: Darkwave, Ethereal Rock, and Coldwave 1981-1990”, present an all-inclusive cornucopia of variables within the subgenre.

Taken together, these compilations offer an overarching map of a sound that was born of the settling dust of the tumult of post-punk's upending of the topography of rock and noise music. Expressed through a more uneasy, existential, often edgier and sexually charged sound than their more commercial compatriots, darkwave retained its post-punk values while utilizing the same technology, and dancier, more upbeat tempos of new wave. Few contemporary artists embody this intersection of new wave and harder-edged sonic aesthetics than Belarusian artists, Molchat Doma. Their sound is a concoction of the recognizable components of synth-driven new wave, staccato drum machine, angular guitar and plodding bass of post-punk, with the additional reflection of a hauntological looking back to the monumental ruins of the Soviet era. In more senses than one, "Molchat Doma: Is Caught in the Crosshairs". Social media, relocating from Belarus to the United States, and signing to Sacred Bones the domestic haven of all things neo-goth, have contributed significantly to their rise in prominence within this scene. In doing so, they have also made new compatriots of labelmates like Sextile, and their electro-industrial sound as heard on "Push". On tour beginning this month in support of last year's "Belaya Polosa", Molchat Doma and Sextile will be channeling post-Soviet melancholia and fetishistically energized Los Angeles electro when they intersect for a night at The Showbox, Seattle.

TR/ST's "Performance" & US Tour with Provoker: Oct 31 - Nov 23 | Modernwav Festival at Music Box San Diego: Nov 22 - 23

While a relatively narrow aspect of the bandwidth of music within the goth and early electro-industrial sounds of the 1980s and 1990s, darkwave and synthwave express novel variations and nuance to its particulars. An overview of these concurrent, interrelated, and offshoot genres, and their contemporary revival was mapped by Vice in their, "A Brief History of Musical Waves from New to Next". Compilations like the now-classic, “The Minimal Wave Tapes: Volume One” focused on the coldwave and minimal wave strains, while the recent “No Songs Tomorrow: Darkwave, Ethereal Rock, and Coldwave 1981-1990”, present an all-inclusive cornucopia of variables within the subgenre. Taken together, these compilations offer an overarching map of a sound that was born of the settling dust of the tumult of post-punk's upending of the topography of rock and noise music. Utilizing technology which would become a central component of the concurrent new wave movement, these artists applied the rhythmic dance structures and synthesizer-focused songwriting to a knowingly distant, colder aesthetic. While much of the transitional state of post-punk toward new wave began to be focused around commercially-minded outsider pop, a darker undercurrent did survive. Expressed through a more uneasy, existential, often edgier and sexually charged sound than their more commercial compatriots, darkwave retained its post-punk values while utilizing the same technology, and dancier, more upbeat tempos of new wave.

Inspired by this era, and the balancing act of its particular brand of starkly minimal, angular, existential electronic dance pop of alienation and heartbreak, a new generation of producers have come to the fore, presented by The Guardian in, “‘The Body was the Drums, the Brain was the Synthesiser’: Darkwave, the Gothic Genre Lighting up Pop”. A cross-section of artists within this subgenre, Molchat Doma, The KVB, She Wants Revenge, Xeno & Oaklander, The Soft Moon, Twin Tribes, She Past Away, Drab Majesty, TR/ST, Kite, and Boy Harsher, express a spectrum of variations on an aesthetic of darkly romantic, sexually fetishistic, and imperially fatalistic thematic concerns. In describing Boy Harsher's sound as a "moving choker-collar muscle-mash" which "contains a dark power, an atavistic pull", the music press has rightly depicted the central components from which the variables pivot and deviate around. One of the more distinct deviations of the sound can be found in the fiery synthwave of Robert Alfons' TR/ST. Initially working as a duo with Maya Postepski of Austra on a series of albums for Arts & Crafts, Alfons' project is now largely a solo enterprise. This series of changes he explored with Interview Magazine, and in conversation with the San Francisco Chronicle, "TR/ST Pushes Past Fear to Create New Atmospheric Soundscapes". Now with his new home of shared compatriots on the Dais label, “Performance” brings the sound Pitchfork described as, "the sonic equivalent of a fashion show put on by depressive pill abusers; malevolent, but mightily sexy" on tour across the country with the Bay Area's Provoker. Following a date in Seattle, the tour's final destination will be at Modernwav the "Two-Day Industrial Darkwave Event in San Diego", an all-inclusive showcase of darkwave, synthwave, dark gothic and post-punk electronic club music.

Boris "Amplifier Worship Service" US Tour: Sept 25 - Oct Nov 23 | "Boris: Noise is Japanese Blues" | The Quietus

The Japanese noise-rock trio Boris continue to show no signs of a sedentary codification of their sound, or a deceleration of their recording or live schedule as they return to Seattle on the current "Amplifier Worship Service" tour. Just this last year, finding that they were not satisfied with two albums titled "Heavy Rocks", they created a third album sharing this title for Relapse Records, and this fall, for the 25th anniversary of their influential “Amplifier Worship” a new edition will be reissued through Third Man Records. Quite simply, "For Boris, Heavy is a State of Being". This is all following on the abundance born of the sessions for the 2017 album "Dear" for the Sargent House label, which generated nearly three albums of new material. Then, in rapid succession they delivered, "LφVE & EVφL" as well as a set of domestic LP reissues for Third Man Records in 2019. In the five years since, they released the stellar "NO" on their own label, a collaboration with post punk band, Uniform, and the dub-inspired release, "W" both for Sacred Bones. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, they spoke on the subjects of the, "Making of NO, Pandemic Existence, and the Uncertain Future of Touring", and generated a new work that might be considered an exercise in, "Extreme Healing: 'W' By Boris". Prior to this period, the March 2016 issue of The Wire recaps the trio's decades-long recording and touring process, which brings them back into contact with legendary noise extremist Merzbow on the 150 minutes of music appearing on the interchangeable double LP set, "Gensho". Its depths sounded by Masami Akita in his interview for The Quietus, "Razor Blades in the Dark: An Interview with Merzbow", which acts as a preface of sorts for their second studio album collaboration "2R0I2P0", released in 2020 on Relapse. In doing so, "Boris and Merzbow Made a Joint Album. With Options.".

The most recent tour marks a decade of semiannual domestic visits to North America in which they have manifested an ever-mutating mix of doom metal, heavy psych, warped J-pop, willfully dysfunctional indie rock, and even their own thrilling take on dreampop and shoegaze. The latter we first glimpsed on their "Japanese Heavy Rock Hits" 7" series, which was then refined on "Attention Please", from which they then pivoted to the guttural psyche assault of the second "Heavy Rocks". This prolific inundation culminating in the tri-album recording release of late 2011, topped by their upbeat pop-assault of the generically titled, "New Album". Following this deluge was the more atmospheric Metal-oriented tour album "Präparat" and the mainstream riffs of 2014's "Noise", with its pronounced college-rock sensibilities. The band themselves perceive this stylistic shift as just another stage in their assimilation of influences towards an all-inclusive Boris sound, in an interview for The Quietus the feedback-worshiping trio state, "Noise is Japanese Blues': An Interview with Boris". The sonic realm which they have created for themselves was first carved out with 2005's "Pink", and the brand of lyrical guitar squall of collaborator Michio Kurihara heard on the companion album "Rainbow". Typical of the abundant recording sessions which have produced each album, the recent domestic reissue of "Pink" features a previously unreleased companion album of "Forbidden Songs". Comprising overflow from this era that ended up on the cutting room floor, their interview for Invisible Oranges delves into this phase of high production and new inspirations.

Boris and Melvins “Twins of Evil” US Tour: Aug 24 - Oct 14

Showing no signs of a sedentary codification of their sound, or a deceleration of their recording or touring schedule, Boris sessions for the 2017 album "Dear" for the Sargent House label generated nearly three albums of new material. Following on this prolific period, in rapid succession they then delivered, "LφVE & EVφL" as well as a set of domestic LP reissues for Jack White's Third Man Records in 2019. In the trio of years since, they released the stellar "NO" on their own label, a collaboration with post punk band, Uniform, and the dub-inspired release, "W" both for Sacred Bones. Not satisfied with two albums titled "Heavy Rocks", they then created a third this year for Relapse Records, and this fall, "Boris Announce Tour with Melvins" spanning late August to mid-October. Indeed, from this evidence it's clear that, "For Boris, Heavy is a State of Being". The most recent tour marks a decade of semiannual domestic visits to North America in which they have manifested an ever-mutating mix of doom metal, heavy psych, warped J-pop, willfully dysfunctional indie rock, and even their own thrilling take on dreampop and shoegaze. The latter we first glimpsed on their "Japanese Heavy Rock Hits" 7" series, which was then refined on "Attention Please", from which they then pivoted to the guttural psyche assault of the second "Heavy Rocks". This prolific inundation culminating in the tri-album recording release of late 2011, topped by their upbeat pop-assault of the generically titled, "New Album". Following this deluge was the more atmospheric Metal-oriented tour album "Präparat" and the mainstream riffs of 2014's "Noise", with its pronounced college-rock sensibilities. The band themselves perceive this stylistic shift as just another stage in their assimilation of influences towards an all-inclusive Boris sound, in an interview for The Quietus the feedback-worshiping trio state, "Noise is Japanese Blues': An Interview with Boris". The sonic realm which they have created for themselves was first carved out with 2005's "Pink", and the brand of lyrical guitar squall of collaborator Michio Kurihara heard on the companion album "Rainbow". Typical of the abundant recording sessions which have produced each album, the recent domestic reissue of "Pink" features a previously unreleased companion album of "Forbidden Songs". Comprising overflow from this era that ended up on the cutting room floor, their interview for Invisible Oranges delves into this phase of high production and new inspirations. The March 2016 issue of The Wire recaps the trio's decades-long recording and touring process, which brings them back into contact with legendary noise extremist Merzbow on the 150 minutes of new music appearing on the interchangeable double LP set, "Gensho". Its depths sounded by Masami Akita in his interview for The Quietus, "Razor Blades in the Dark: An Interview with Merzbow", which acts as a preface of sorts for their second studio album collaboration "2R0I2P0", released in 2020 on Relapse.

Boy Harsher's "Careful" & Mechanismus: Resistance at The Highline and Mercury at Machinewerks: Jun 11 - 14

Seattle goth and industrial music culture has had a number of locus points over the decades of its existence as an urban-centralized subculture in the city. Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, at the apogee of the genre's ascension, clubs like Re-Bar, The Monastery, The Vogue, The Catwalk and Fenix Underground had regular nights dedicated to the bondage, fetish, leather and BDSM scenes that offered alternative lifestyles to the crass commercialism of the Reagan and later Bush eras. These were booked concurrently alongside nights specifically dedicated to post-punk, gothic rock, and industrial music and the interweaving of these two subcultures, and offered physical spaces for these like-minded communities to convene. Foremost among them was the speakeasy known as Machinewerks, which traversed the city in a series of changing locations to avoid detection by various local authorities. Seeking a stable location, the speakeasy then became incorporated as a legitimate, licensed, private club. Now decades later, there are only a few remaining goth and industrial nights in Seattle. Those that remain are at Kremwerk, The Rendezvous, Clockout Lounge, and the long-lived home for this culture, at Machinewerks, which continues on in its newest iteration as Mercury at Machinewerks. Along with these daily and weekly DJ and dance nights, there are also monthly and seasonal bookings of live music by Musicwerks and Mechanismus at the two venues of El Corazon and The Highline respectively. Mechanismus also plays host to an annual festival, largely culled specifically from the domestic United States electro-industrial and EBM styles, and what the international press is now calling darkwave, as covered in recent features in the pages of The Guardian.

These subgenres, which came after the initial European and United Kingdom scenes of the earliest part of the decade, instead began to manifest with the technological developments of the mid-to-late 1980s. Following in the wake of techno in Detroit, the American continent saw its own electro-industrial variation on the form, harnessed largely by label's like Nettwerk and Chicago's Wax Trax! Records. Their legacy, beyond just releasing a body of music that bred the more commercially successful acts of the 1990s, like Nine Inch Nails and Prodigy, is that Wax Trax! were defined by a then-radical business model. Acting as more than just the setting of a retail record store, and label with an atypical contract process, the environment its founders created was a cultural locus of related aesthetics, sounds, values and lifestyles. This year's Mechanismus festival, titled Resistance, features a three day lineup of DJs and established names at The Highline and Mercury at Machinewerks, encompassing both of these electro-industrial and Darkwave sounds. In Resistance’s three nights of showcases, the lineup of live acts include; Clan of Xymox, Boy Harsher, Funker Vogt, Stabbing Westward, Velvet Acid Christ, and a as-yet-announced secret headliner on the second night. In the case of the foremost two acts, theirs is a relationship of early European progenitors from the 1980s, and a new American contemporary 21st century neo-gothic variation. Initially signed to the influential 4AD label four decades ago, Clan of Xymox have returned in recent years with new albums to find audiences at gothic culture events like Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival in their current home of Leipzig, Germany. This has been alongside the new generation of darkwave artists like Molchat Doma, The KVB, TR/ST, Kite, Twin Tribes, She Past Away, and Boy Harsher. The latter releasing their "Careful" album last year on their own Nude Club Records, a sound once described as a "Moving Choker-Collar Muscle Mash", which NME's review suggests; "contains a dark power, an atavistic pull" ...and that listeners should simply, "Give in to their bad romance".

SUNN O))) new album "Pyroclasts" & West Coast Tour with Papa M: Sept 1 - 15 | Boris new album "LφVE & EVφL" & US Tour with Uniform: Aug 19 - Sept 29

At the forefront of a then new strain of Metal simply coined Doom, bands like Earth, outings by Boris, and the Northwest trio of SUNN O))) were fashioning a gargantuan and glacial sound in the late 90s to early 2000s. These bands themselves inspired by the earliest manifestations of the sound from the late 80s to early 1990s, its developmental phase heard in the music of Pentagram, Saint Vitus, The Obsessed, and Trouble. While bearing cultural associations with the recent Post-Black Metal explosion, as detailed in Brad Sanders' "Untrue And International: Living in a Post-Black Metal World", for The Quietus, the offshoot of Doom in the 1990s remains it's own cloistered musical corner of that world. Touching on Doom within the larger context, Sanders' article acts as an opening unto the dark passageways of contemporary Metal's multitude of stylistic representations. These sounds further showcased in the past half-decade of The Quietus' Columnus Metallicus showcase of excellent curation, dominantly issued through all things Metal-and-beyond labels like, Hydrahead, Ipecac, Deathwish, Sargent House, Profound Lore, Season of Mist, Roadburn, Flenser, Neurot and Relapse. Seven years have elapsed since Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson's SUNN O))) performed here in Seattle, they return to The Showbox this month on a series of west coast dates in support of their most recent tectonic slab of sound, "Life Metal", and forthcoming companion album, "Pryoclasts". While their presence on the west coast as a live, touring band has been scarce in recent years, they have entered into one of the most prolific collaborative phases the band has seen to date. Not only releasing the "Terrestrials" with legendary experimental Norwegian band, Ulver, they produced an album with the late 20th century singularity known as Scott Walker on "Soused". The timing of the latter particularly fortuitous, as just this year, the life of this brilliant maverick came to an end, “Pop's Great Adventurer: How Scott Walker Reached the Heart of Darkness”. In the midst of this all, somehow finding time and resources to contributing to Jóhann Jóhannsson's pounding, sensory-fraying work with Randall Dunn, on "Cosmatos’s Mock-1980s Oddball Nerd Fantasy Yarn", score for "Mandy" in 2018. This seemingly boundless well of musical and thematic inspiration plumbed in their interview with The Quietus, "Inspiration From Above and Below: The Strange World Of... SUNN O)))", and to even greater depths, for The Wire's April 2009 issue. Complete transcripts of the associated interviews with both Stephen O'Malley and Greg Anderson are further enhanced by SUNN O)))'s regular contributing members; Mayhem's vocal leviathan Attila Csihar, Seattle electric violin virtuoso Eyvind Kang, electronic and experimental vocalist Jessika Kenney, and Australia's all around sonic renaissance man, Oren Ambarchi.

Returning to the Northwest with much greater frequency, Sacred Bones label artist Uniform will be here for the second occasion this year following their winter tour with experimental Metal band, The Body. Hot on the heels of last year's "The Long Walk", a new collaborative album, "Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back" arrives this month. The furious soundscape of their third album (and this newest in a set of collaborations with The Body), runs the gamut of a dissonant molasses crawl, passages of substantial lurching weight, and bludgeoning epileptic hysteria. Fitting then that The Quietus' "Killing It In America: An Interview With Uniform", touches on the American genre author, and that this spastic, guttural album is inspired by a dystopic, authoritarian short story by Stephen King. In the way of their collaborators, there are few acts that fully embody the term Experimental Metal, quite to the extent of The Body. Through a small abundance of solo and collaborative albums both with Uniform, a set of blistering noise-thrash intersections with Full of Hell, and their recent "Ascending A Mountain Of Heavy Light", The Body have carved out a corpus of sounds at the vanguard of the genre's evolution. The Quietus' "Prepare For The Worst: Facing The Apocalypse With The Body" describes the doom-full trajectory that has led to this year's, "I Have Fought Against It, But I Can’t Any Longer". With Uniform for a night at Neumos, Japanese heavy rockers, Boris make their semi-annual return to the west with a string of Us tour dates. Showing no signs of a sedentary codification of their sound, or a deceleration of their recording or touring schedule, "For Boris, Heavy is a State of Being". Rumored at the time to be their swansong, after almost 25 years of recording and endless activity, 2017's "Dear" for Sargent House instead generated nearly three albums of vital new material. Born from this precipice, they return this fall with a new album, "LφVE & EVφL" as well as a set of domestic LP reissues for Jack White's Third Man Records in October.

Though not likely to ascend to the heights of 2013's world tour wherein they played the totality of their magisterial opus "Flood", alongside a second night of "All-Time Classics", the "LφVE & EVφL" tour still promises an evening of the heart-of-the-sun intensity Boris are known to deliver live. The most recent in a decade of semiannual live events which has seen them manifest an ever-mutating mix of Doom Metal, Heavy Psych, warped J-Pop, willfully dysfunctional Indie Rock, and even their own thrilling take on Dream Pop and Shoegaze. The latter we first glimpsed on their "Japanese Heavy Rock Hits" 7" series, which was then refined on "Attention Please", from which they then pivoted to the guttural Psyche assault of "Heavy Rocks". This prolific inundation culminating in the tri-album recording release of late 2011, topped by their upbeat pop-assault of the generically titled, "New Album". Following this deluge was the more atmospheric Metal-oriented tour album "Präparat" and the mainstream riffs of 2014's "Noise", with it's pronounced college-rock sensibilities. The band themselves perceive this stylistic shift as just another stage in their assimilation of influences towards an all-inclusive Boris sound, in interview for The Quietus the feedback-worshiping trio state, "Noise is Japanese Blues': An Interview with Boris". This summer's tour in anticipation of the new album for Third Man Records, marks a return to the territory the band carved out with 2005's "Pink", and the brand of lyrical guitar squall of collaborator Michio Kurihara heard on the companion album "Rainbow". Typical of the abundant recording sessions which have produced each album, the recent domestic reissue of "Pink" features a previously unreleased companion album of "Forbidden Songs". Comprising overflow from this era that ended up on the cutting room floor, their interview for Invisible Oranges delves into this phase of high production and new inspirations. The March 2016 issue of The Wire recaps the trio's decades-long recording and touring process, which brings them back into contact with legendary noise extremist Merzbow on the 150 minutes of new music appearing on the interchangeable double LP set, "Gensho". Its depths sounded by Masami Akita in his interview for The Quietus, "Razor Blades In The Dark: An Interview With Merzbow".

TR/ST "Destroyer" & US Tour with Lydia Ainsworth: May 1 - Jun 8

In a sound that Pitchfork described as, "the sonic equivalent of a fashion show put on by depressive pill abusers; malevolent, but mightily sexy", one of the more distinctive deviations within the current vogue of synthwave can be found in Robert Alfons' TR/ST. Initially working as a duo with Maya Postepski of Austra on a series of albums for Arts & Crafts, Alfons' project is now largely a solo enterprise. This series of changes he explored with Interview Magazine, and in conversation with the San Francisco Chronicle, "TR/ST Pushes Past Fear to Create New Atmospheric Soundscapes". Like much of this current scene, Alfon's music was born of looking back to a bandwidth of music within the goth and early electro-industrial sounds of the 1980s and 1990s. An overview of these original darkwave and synthwave subgenres from that decade, and their contemporary revival was mapped by Vice in their, "A Brief History of Musical Waves from New to Next". Inspired by this original era, and the balancing act of its particular brand of starkly minimal, angular, existential electronic dance pop of alienation and heartbreak, a new generation of producers have come to the fore. A cross-section of artists within this subgenre, Molchat Doma, The KVB, Xeno & Oaklander, Twin Tribes, She Past Away, Kite, and Boy Harsher, express a spectrum of variations on an aesthetic of darkly romantic, sexually fetishistic, and imperially fatalistic thematic concerns. In describing Boy Harsher's sound as a "moving choker-collar muscle-mash" which "contains a dark power, an atavistic pull", the music press has rightly depicted the central components from which the variables of this sound pivot and deviate around. Alfons' own expression of this form on "Destroyer", will be heard in dates across North America this month, including a night at Seattle's Neumos alongside composer Lydia Ainsworth.