Avant! Records

Over the past few years an increasing number of bands hailing from the former USSR have been appearing on the screens and the phones of the so-called Western world's underground music enthusiasts. With most of them being pretty obscure and only a very few ones having established a worldwide following (Motorama, Molčat Doma) the Sovietwave tag has worked usefully enough as a tool to identify a wide range of bands each one with a different sound and yet something in common.

Whether it be the harsh weather or just the distance creating an exotic effect, there is some icy-cold touch with these bands that immediately makes you know they're from Russia, regardless of the language they perform. This goes for Blind Seagull too.

The trio from Kaliningrad, a small russian enclave on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania, has been around since quite a few years now, releasing tapes and limited edition vinyls on labels like Detriti, Sierpen and Pine Hill.

Finally taking up the challenge of writing a longer full-length (previous albums were seven or eight track long at best), the trio led by Denis Zarubin has created twelve new songs that shine a light on the impressive skills of this young combo to deliver very classic and yet extremely fresh and modern cold post-punk gems.

Keeping it short and sweet, their twothree minutes long compositions cut right to the chase of the darkwave soul: stomping drum machines, frozen guitar arpeggios, tense bass riffs. The formula is occasionally rocked by the intervention of laser synths, noise raids and gothic chorale, while the industrial pièce of the title-track and the IDM-tinged collaboration with experimental giants Xiu Xiu 'Fear' will show how this band stands out and how their upcoming, new album is the best proof of this.

RIYL: Clan Of Xymox, Bauhaus, The Danse Society, She Past Away, Soviet Soviet.

Tracklisting:
Side A
1. In The Open Field
2. Carpenter
3. Passing By
4. Asphyxia
5. Nothing To Feel
6. How We Communicate

Side B
7. Body
8. Inanity
9. Stray
10. Fear (feat. Xiu Xiu)
11. Stars Tonight
12. Personal Decay (A A U U)

Two years after his previous Bodies LP, French synth solo project Hørd is back with a new full-length.

Started in 2014, producer Sebastien Carl has proven himself to be able to gather a cult fan-base around his creation, collaborating with artists as Hante, Winter Severity Index and Radical G, remixing goth legends Clan Of Xymox and performing live in most European countries.

Debuted by Giallo Disco in 2016, two records on Avant! have followed until this upcoming fourth album. While the music keeps on flirting with darkwave aesthetic in a forward- thinking way, the sound is now clearer than ever. Elements of EBM, shoegaze and techno are reflected through arctic synth pads, ghostly reverbs and urban spleen-filled lyrics to create haunting soundscapes, but Sciences also features beat-driven lead singles that twirl space synths and rounded kicks all over the place like never before.

Enhanced by the great mixing and mastering job done by scene-guiding light producer Maurizio Baggio, you’ll find balearic arpeggios and clangorous trance crescendo on Arrows, italo suggestions over groovy acid house beats on Ice, while mid-tempo synthwave marches menacingly on Turn and vibrates deeply on Fires.

Typical nebulous atmospheres are now less blurry and more on point without losing a single bit of enchantingness, marking a major step-up in Hørd discography.

Tracklisting:
Side A
1. Arrows
2. Ice
3. Blood
4. Turn

Side B
5. Challenger One
6. London
7. Fires
8. Bridges

The Australian master of the dark synth arts is back and - boy - he is out for blood. We've been missing Marc Dwyer solo project Buzz Kull since his latest single Last In The Club from late 2019 and since back then we knew he was up to something.

At first glimpse, the minimal wave days of We Were Lovers seem far away now that Marc has gone full Club Body Music with his upcoming new album, but there is a thread that binds Buzz Kull hits from the past such as Into The Void, Avoiding The Light and New Kind Of Cross with these ten new cuts: a thread of darkness proper to the most handsome man in the game and that’s here to stay.

Echoes of 90’s era Front 242 and Front Line Assembly will resonate from tracks like Fascination and Dead Inside; elements of early body music flirting with the dark side of British synthpop will rave from the grooves of Dancing with Machines and Man on the Beat, while late 80’s Belgian new beat cellar-like vibes rise from Do You See and Burn it to the Ground.

But Buzz Kull's third full-length is not just about music subgenres we all know and love, it’s about a feeling that comes alive only with the dark and drives you through the small hours just to leave you drained and filled at once.

The creature of the night is on the loose, the sticky dancefloor its natural habitat, its lust for the upside-down world of the club can't be cured.

Tracklisting:
Side A
1. Rise From Your Grave
2. Do You See
3. Last In The Club
4. Man On The Beat

Side B
5. Beyond The Ceiling
6. Fascination
7. Dead Inside
8. Dancing With Machines
9. Burn It To The Ground
10. Heaven Will Find Me

A Requiem For Father Murphy is the latest and final offering from the iconic Italian occult duo, Father Murphy. Composed in the classical Requiem format, Rising follows the "Trilogy of the Cross", a series of records that recounts the journey of the fictional character Father Murphy, and subsequently the band itself.

The album was mixed and mastered by long-time collaborator Gregory Saunier (Deerhoof), who is instrumental in helping craft Father Murphy's sonic descent over the years.

With Rising, the legend of Father Murphy reaches its culmination. Having gone from religious fanatic, to heretic priest, and ultimately concealing to his final fate on the cross, Rising is the moment Father Murphy finally meets his death. Taking the form of a requiem, Rising will be the final album from Father Murphy.

It brings an end to a journey into faith; one longing for salvation and embracing failure. Across the Italian occult duo's 2015 Trilogy of the Cross'(the Calvary cassingle, Croce LP, and Lamentations EP) Father Murphy's sound reached down into grave new depths, more inspired than ever by music from their Catholic heritage. They've long been integrating a wider variety of field recordings, empty space, drones, and sonic processes alongside their core elements of pounding percussion, ecclesiastical organs, gnarled guitars, and ritualistic chanting.

Again working with longtime mixer/masterer Greg Saunier (Deerhoof), Rising takes the group's music into new territory. The format of a requiem mass for the dead'in this case for the late Father Murphy himself'brings with it all manner of traditional structural codes, musical reprises, and lyrical rhyming schemes.

Certain moments see the music adhere far more closely to requia traditions, including the grander sounds of timpani or trombone, and following the metres and rhyme schemes borrowed from traditional texts.

The words themselves have all been rewritten for Father Murphy's requiem however, disengaging from their standardized religious message. The lyrics across Rising are far longer and more complex than the shorter chants and verse that made up previous albums, while the variety and sheer detail of sounds used by the duo has never before been wider or more daring.

With Rising: A Requiem for Father Murphy, the project reaches its zenith.

Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Introit
2. Kyrie Eleison
3. Gradual

Side B:
4. Tract
5. Sequence

Side C:
6. Offertory
7. Sanctus
8. Agnus Dei
9. Communion
10. Pie Jesu

Side D:
11. In Paradisum
12 . Libera Me

Semiotics Department Of Heteronyms is on black vinyl LP limited to 250. SDH (Semiotics Department of Heteronyms) is the new project of two key figures of the synth-wave/industrial scene of Barcelona. Andrea P. Latorre and Sergi Algiz, founders of the Cønjuntø Vacíø label and also in the post-punk band Wind Atlas, unveil a new act more oriented towards pop music.

SDH is change, alteration, distortion, metamorphosis. Their synth-pop songs, sprinkled with EBM and techno, are mysterious, obtuse and suggestive. After their debut digital EP Tell Them from last March, here comes the self-titled first full-length album.

Eight tracks driven by sinuous synth lines, steady beats and Andrea'sensual, nocturnal vocals at times reminding of the late Dolores O'Riordan, give the record one overall lush, velvety feeling. Like a dive at the heart of the Spanish night, but nowhere near any movida. Instead an isolated, sombre yet erotic one, like two long-time lovers walking home in the early morning hours.

Artwork by Camila Dunster.

Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Your Right Hand
2. The Scent
3. Tell Them
4. I Mean

Side B:
5. Guilty And Gifted
6. She Uncovers Before Me
7. What Did I Come For?
8. Static Moment

Release Date: 20/07/2018

Deep, somber vocals filled with sorrow and anger cap it all. 45 rpm 12" vinyl + insert. A press of 500.

Contrepoison is the brand new solo project by Pierre-Marc Tremblay, young Canadian musician who’s been also involved in other extreme bands in the last years.

First step has been the self-released demo tape …Until Next Morning followed by the double-cassette compilation Around the Dragon's Broken Neck Hangs the Medal of St. Lazarus on Hospital Productions, both sold out damn soon.

So now it is time for a proper vinyl release and here we go: the 45 rpm 12” press of …Until Next Morning.

As you may already know Contrepoison is the French meaning of the word "antidote" and Contrepoison can be seen as an antidote for love.

This 4-track EP shows the darkest and most anguished side of the human feeling, where drum machines sound like heartbeats and synthesizers are as liquid as tears.

Tracklisting:
Side A:
1. Until Next Morning
2. The Snake has Bitten Its Tail

Side B:
3. Heartbeat
4. To Never, Forever