Auxiliary’s top 20 best album picks for 2010.

Android Lust Human Animal If it’s not the best Android Lust album, then it’s at least the most mature.  Moody and organic, cold and sterile, all at once.  Android Lust is back after a four-year break, and it was well worth the wait!

Ascii.Disko Stay Gold Forever Gold Great hard driving beats that progress and weave throughout the album, this will transcend you to the next level.

The Birthday Massacre Pins & Needles Chibi and crew return with a powerhouse of a synthrock album.  Each song on this album deserves its own single.

Edge of Dawn Anything That Gets You Through The Night The highly anticipated album delivered.  With the right mix of poetic lyrics and intelligent beats, it pushes the bar for futurepop albums.

Goldfrapp Head First Taking the band’s fascination with disco and 80s synthpop another step couldn’t have worked out better.  Alison’s incredible voice and the fantastic song writing make this some really addictive pop music.

Groove Armada Black Light Cues from indie rock, synthpop, electro house, and downtempo with a taste of new wave 80s.  This is club and pop music friendly but easily the best Groove Armada album and one of the best retro-electro releases of the year.

iVardensphere Bloodwater A mix of rhythmic noise and tribal industrial, the hardness mixes very well with the worldly and raw tribal drumming and chanting vocal samples.  A cool direction for industrial music to be going in.

LCD Sound System This is Happening Indie-disco-punk explosion featuring the whole party from start to finish, from dancing on tables to the hangover and pangs of regret.

Liars Sisterworld Noise-punk revivalists put out their strongest, most consistent album to date.

Matthew Dear Black City Ghostly International label head puts out the best Low/Heroes era Bowie album you never heard.

Nitzer Ebb Industrial Complex The first new material from the band in years finds them older, wiser, and focused on writing both kick ass and more mature music.  Their time apart has grown their ability and this has allowed them to show it off.

Niveau Zero In_Sect We’ve been excited all over again with this fresh face to dubstep.  Excellent beats and hard bass mixed with cool sampling and talented MCs make this a great listen over and over.

Shiv-r Hold My Hand This is a solid dark EBM dance album.  Shiv-r will make you dance the hardest in your darkest of blacks with a big gleaming white smile.

Swans My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky The return of Michael Gira’s noise machine resurrected after a decade of silence with a new album that easily ranks in with the best of their old material.

Underworld Barking The return of Underworld finds them excited, invigorated, and in love with life on this mostly happy and upbeat album that features collaborations with musicians across the electronic dance spectrum.

These New Puritans Hidden Borderline prog-rock, math-rock, and post-punk but none of the above. Strikingly original and ambitious in a Public Image Limited kind of way.

Veil Veil Vanish Change in the Neon Light There is no denying The Cure connection, yet this album is simply a post-punker’s wet dream.  This quintet puts out an amazing wall of sound that is filled with solid bass lines, crunchy guitars, and haunting vocals.

We Love We Love If The Knife went more techno you would get We Love.  The album brings a dark and eerie mood.  You can not resist this album.

Xiu Xiu Dear God I Hate Myself Neurotic indie rock for the depressed and masochistic set with everything but the kitchen sink thrown into the mix to get their point across.

Yeasayer Odd Blood The Brooklyn based experimental pop group continues to build their eclectic psychedelic dance empire with their most pop inspired album to date.

* listed in alphabetical order

Android Lust is the singular vision of Bangladeshi born and New York City resident Shikhee, and draws elements from a variety of musical and artistic influences to create a sophisticated industrial rock sound. Experiencing mainstream success with international airplay of the video for “Stained” from 2003’s The Dividing and with the inclusion of “Hole Solution” from 2006’s Devour, Rise, and Take Flight on CBS’ NCIS soundtrack, Android Lust is back after a four year break. Stronger than ever, the new album The Human Animal sees Shikhee recording and writing for the first time with a full band, and together they kick off their US tour August 12th.

photographer : Ron Douglas
interview : Mike Kieffer and Jennifer Link

It’s been four years since your last studio album Devour, Rise, and Take Flight, why the long break?

Shikhee : I was really burnt out for a while. During the latter part of writing for Devour, I was having problems with my label and I was also juggling a day job and music. While mixing Devour it got particularly bad. I was coming home from my job around 9 or 10, and then mixing til 2 or 3, only to get back up and get to work at 9 again. This went on for a couple of months. I was barely sleeping and losing weight like mad. It was a very trying period and one that really tainted Android Lust for a while. It took until late 2007 to get back to writing. I never want to let it get that bad again.

Your new album, The Human Animal, has a more organic and complex feel than previous albums such as The Dividing which seemed more simple yet epic. What influenced the move in this direction?

S : I suppose playing with a full live band for a couple of years, and also going back to my rock n roll roots. I was also tired of working alone in the studio all the time. It wasn’t exciting anymore. I wasn’t going to grow as a writer if I kept doing what I already knew and was comfortable with. I was playing with these incredible musicians and I wanted to bring that in. So I started writing parts that I could never play, and also producing with an ear for sounds that was outside of what was familiar. Also, I tried to sonically bring my world in my music. Not just in themes and lyrics, but the sounds I hear everyday around the city. I got a portable recorder and just collected sounds, whatever appealed to me. A lot of that made it to the record as rhythmic or melodic elements.

read the full interview in the August/September 2010 Issue

The August/September issue is the eleventh issue of Auxiliary, a magazine dedicated to alternative fashion, music, and lifestyle.  This issue is packed with interviews, including Android Lust, Nina Flowers of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Michael Swaim of Cracked.com, and Andy Deane of Bella Morte.  The issue also contains a military inspired fashion editorial, a beauty editorial that will teach you to get smart, a style editorial guide to wearing harnesses, a mod inspired style feature, and editorials from two notable writers, Clint Catalyst and Grumpy Owl.  It also features DJ picks from Volvox, a beauty feature on how to achieve the look of a 2026 starlet, and fashion by Steam Trunk, Cyberoptix TieLab, Dace, S&G, Skingraft, Fluevog, Audra Jean, Garbage Dress, EC Star, Steady, and much much more.

You can download it HERE for free.   Print copies are available online HERE and in stores HERE.  Enjoy!

One of my favorite shows is NCIS on CBS, and now I can like the show even more because they are releasing a soundtrack that has some of my favorite artists; Android Lust, Nitzer Ebb, KMFDV vs. Skold, and Ministry. The two disc compilation is slotted to be released on February, 10 2009.

- Mike