At Auxiliary Magazine we are all very excited about the upcoming mind.in.a.box release, Revelations, released today in Europe and on January 24th in the US. Mind.in.a.box has a new record label and a new online webstore and available on it is this fantastic throw pillow. Avoid the boring, typical merch and opt for something more unique, a handmade pillow! How appropriate that this pillow is for their Dreamweb album. With this pillow you can now curl up and cuddle mind.in.a.box and your love of their music. Or on a bit more practical note, t-shirts, long desired by miab fans for years (when they played Kinetik Festival 2011 you could make a merch vendor very ornery very fast by asking if they had miab t-shirts) as well as their new album are available on their new webstore.
The mind.in.a.box pillow is available online for €22 at www.mindinabox.com.
Daniel Graves of Aesthetic Perfection reveals how he sins.
interview by Mike Kieffer
Daniel Graves is the founder and sole creative member of the electro-industrial band Aesthetic Perfection. This past November All Beauty Destroyed was released, the bands third album and first to be released by Metropolis Records. With this release, Graves has carved out a highly addictive album full of witty lyrics, powerful vocals, and smashing beats.
Lust – People magazine puts you on their cover, shortly thereafter young teenage girls deem you aesthetic perfection and therefore the new heartthrob. Explain your reaction and future actions.
Daniel Graves : I think I’d just be really confused and frightened. Teenage girls are insane, I’d probably have to be a hermit and never leave the house at that point.
Sloth – Three separate friends ask you to help them move for the next three weekends, do you help out or come up with excuses? If you do indeed decide to help out, what excuses would you have used?
DG : If all three were really good friends, I’d begrudgingly help them. I’d complain a lot, but I’d help. If we weren’t tight I think I wouldn’t even bother making up excuses. I imagine I’d just tell them that carrying a couch up a flight of stairs for a casual acquaintance is not how I picture a perfect weekend.
I love Santigold’s (aka Santogold) self titled debut release from 2009. It has a great indie dance mixed with hip hop sound. This spring she will be releasing a new album, Master of My Make Believe. The first single “Big Mouth”, with a music video, premiered today. The video is rather fun animated video with a retro look and some humor, it at least kept my attention the whole way through, though the styling is nothing special. I think her outfit in the video sums it up nicely… a pvc dress that doesn’t look top quality but not too standard, leopard print creepers that sorta match and don’t match at the same time, simple Egyptian-esq cat eyes, and a fresh hip haircut… it’s her own style and it’s not too serious, kinda what she was feeling that day, with an I-don’t-really-care-what-you think punk attitude. As far as the song goes, after a couple listens I don’t dislike it but I don’t love it straight away, but I am still very excited to hear the upcoming album.
If you are new to Aesthetic Perfection, you have to overlook the initial perception of cheesiness to understand it’s crucial to the music and the artistic vision behind it. And similarly in this music video for “Inhuman” from Aesthetic Perfection’s latest album, All Beauty Destroyed, you have to do the same. I thought I could have done without the imagery in the first half of the video, as I find the black and white painted body imagery in the second half much more interesting, but the honesty and personal nature of Daniel Grave’s music make it is a key aspect.
Daniel Myer and Dejan Samardzic are back with a new Haujobb album, New World March, eight years after their last full length. Not focusing on club hits, but still aiming to return to the popularity they’ve had in the past, New World March is distinctly Haujobb. With this brand new material, Myer and Samardzic prove they still have it.
interview by Aaron Andrews
In 1993 Daniel Myer, Dejan Samardzic, and Björn Jünemann founded Haujobb releasing two industrial albums before Jünemann’s departure. The duo of Myer and Samardzic have continued on since and ushered Haujobb through a musical evolution away from their initial sound and explored the realm of electronic music trying sounds including drum & bass, IDM, ambient, techno, trance, and electronica. In 2003 they issued their last full album of new material, Vertical Theory, and became slowly quiet until 2009 when they remixed their reissued Homes & Gardens single with the promise of more on the way. This year Myer took a break from his other recent projects (Architect and Covenant) to focus on reuniting with Dejan as Haujobb on their all new full length release, New World March. We got the chance to interview the creative team of Daniel and Dejan to ask about Haujobb, working together and the brand new album.
It’s been eight years since Vertical Theory came out and for the most part Haujobb has been quiet. Why such a long hiatus?
Daniel Myer : It’s very simple actually. I moved away from Bielefeld and it was kind of tough, working apart. We were still working on music together but it took forever to get things done. When Dejan also moved to Leipzig the whole thing became new dynamics. We focused on the album, started to focus.
Was there any difficulty in working on this album so that the Haujobb sound was identifiable and current?
DM : No. We knew what we wanted and like I said before, we were focused on the sound.
Dejan Samardzic : Current? We don’t care about such things.
“Bulbform” is the second single from the up and coming electronic music duo Trust. Formed by Robert Alfons and Maya Postepski (Austra) in 2009 in Toronto and having performed with DFA1979, Crystal Castles, Balam Acab, Glass Candy, and Hercules and Love Affair, Trust release their debut album TRST on February 28 on Arts & Crafts.
Not my favorite song from Shiv-r’s latest and second full length album This World Erase and not as good as Shiv-r’s first music video “The End”. But praise must be given to an industrial artist that still makes music videos and works hard to create a distinctive visual aesthetic for themselves.
After Motor opened for Depeche Mode on many dates for DM’s Tour of the Universe tour, the two bands take their connection even further with a collaboration for the new Motor single, “Man Made Machine”, from their upcoming album, Man Made Machine on CLR Recordings. The single with vocals by Martin L. Gore is a great teaser for the techno duo’s new album which promises to be a song-based vocal album. Check out Mr. Gore in the just released music video. The video has a retro techno feel with a hip polish, and is in-your-face sexual (quite literally at the end, and I don’t know how that sits with me yet) but also restrained. Looking forward to the new album!
After truly enjoying Access to Arasaka’s releases Oppidan (’09) and void() (’10) we were excited for the upcoming release Geosynchron (12/13/11), but now after watching this video for “Lysithea” we are hyperexcited. The video is dark and creepy and will make you look twice at that ball of yarn sitting in your grandmothers basket.
With the end of 2011 ever so close it is time to reveal Auxiliary Magazine’s Top 20 Albums of 2011. This list isn’t ranked because it is a group of favorites from all our contributors. Please check out all the albums (minus Displacer and IAMX for now) in one convenient spot, our Spotify Top 20 Albums Playlist.
ApparatDevil’s Walk
Emotionally rich, intimate, and personal, this quiet journey reflects its Berlin and Mexican settings making the bleak sound sunny. Minimal instrumentation from a variety of instruments ground the quiet and engaging words.
CovenantModern Ruin
Covenant returned with a new member and a killer single, “Lightbringer”, to lead off a powerful album. Finding new depth to their musical style they have a new and improved level of sound that should sustain them through another decade.
Crystal StiltsIn Love with Oblivion
Dark neo-psychedelic music that sounds like Joy Division in an argument with Phil Spector.
DisplacerNight Gallery
The enjoyment of this album is its ability to entrance the listener and let their imagination go wild.
Ghost & WriterShipwrecks
Each song here is a well told story captivating the listener every time, plus the music is top notch synthpop.
God ModuleSéance
A perfect blend of creepy electro-industrial and pop elements, these songs get stuck in your head for days.
HaujobbNew World March
With the end of the world coming in 2012, we’ll be playing this album as it all goes down.
IAMXVolitile Times
This album was like a fine wine, the longer it sat around our music players the better it got. Who knows a few more years and this could be the album of the decade.
John Maus We Just Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
Sounds like a long-lost cassette recording of an obscure, extremely lo-fi synthpop band from 1983.
Krystal SystemNuclear
This heavy electro industrial album coming from the French underground emits enough powerful energy to fuel millions of people.
M83Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming
Exploring both sides of M83 with its mixture of dreamy ambient songs and powerful dream pop, the epic double album is appropriately an exploration of dreams in both their essence and emotion.
Necro FacilityWintermute
Industrial with a dose of pop worked wonders on this album. Necro Facility went from a follower to a leader with this album.
Nicolas JarrSpace is Only Noise
Experimental electronic that defies categories, each song creating its own strange living space.
ohGrunDeveloped
Nivek Ogre and Mark Walk made a highly addictive album, arguably some of the best music either have been associated with.
SelebritiesDelusions
A perfect example of how to pull influences from 70s postpunk, 80s synthpop, and new wave yet still sound current and fresh.
Skinny PuppyhanDover
Listen deep and this album comes to life. The originality and attention to details makes this puppy amazing!
Slug GutsHowlin Gang
Angst-ridden, old school, badass goth/postpunk with basement vocals a la The Birthday Party.
SONOIORed
No stranger to the music world, Alessandro Cortini’s solo project SONOIO’s latest album, Red, is an excellent modern alternative rock/electronic-industrial album.
Sons & DaughtersMirror Mirror
What if The White Stripes and The Kills had been more influenced by The Cure and Gang of 4?
Tim HeckerRavedeath 1972 Hypnotic ambient electronic that weaves noise and beauty into one seamless whole.
