This April Motor will release their fourth studio album, Man Made Machine on CLRX. This album sees Motor shifting gears from their familiar distorted techno sound to a more song-oriented style featuring guest vocals from major stars such as  Martin L. Gore of Depeche Mode, Douglas McCarthy of Nitzer Ebb, and Gary Numan. We caught up with Bryan Black  in New York ahead of Motor’s gig at the Mayday Festival in Germany to speak about his experiences performing on the world stage and how he stays ahead of the game.

photographer : Daniel Martinez
art director & stylist : Ariana Paoletti
interview by : Ariana Paoletti

I saw recently that you worked on a track with Julien K, “We’re here with you”, did you write the track together?
Bryan Black : I did the drums and the synths and the bassline, I sent it to them and they did the vocals and the rest… they arranged it. So it was a collaboration.

Do you see yourself becoming a shadowy producer behind other acts in the future?
BB : Yes, there’s lots of projects coming my way and I do things once in a while, but I don’t do enough because I’m so busy focusing on my projects… I don’t get to collaborate too much at this point. But I love doing it, it’s fun doing different projects outside of the genre I’m in.

read the full interview in the April/May 2012 Issue

by Curt K.

It’s been eight years since you’ve released an album, Blue in 2004, now eight years later you’ve got Wonky coming out, welcome back and I loved it… but why such a long hiatus between releases?
Phil Hartnoll : Well thank you, very much! Well we said we thought that that was the end it was the end of us, it was a culmination of things, with a lot of things going on, personally, creatively. We thought we came up against a brick wall. And we started questioning everything. I think if you took the last two Orbital albums of that period, that you’d get one good one out of it, you know what I mean. And it was like I wasn’t comfortable releasing stuff that I wasn’t into. I mean you’re forever changing in your music, nothing ever finished, but when you have to commit it to a record, we just weren’t feeling it, we kinda lost our mojo. We sort of lost our connection with each other. We could of continued and done it cus of our position, but it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t right and when we said we were splitting up we kinda meant it. And we thought that was it, and we’re never going to go back to that again, because you never wanna visit a dark cloud as dark as that again. And that was it we were gonna do a few farewell gigs and that was it, that was the end of it.

I went off and did some DJ gigs and got back into DJing and thought right I’ve got to get my mojo back, get my feedback and what a better thing to do than to really feel and search for the music and it was really the best thing for me. I did a lil project in Brighton called Long-range, and that was really enjoyable. Working with some fantastic musicians. And Paul always had this ambition with working with an orchestra and string arrangements, and he could only do that on his own. So he went of and did that, we went and did our own things, so it was like five years of things on our own separate. But the Big Chill approached us to do a reunion gig. Enough time had been spent away, and I had gotten my mojo back, in our own ways and had no master plan of getting back together or  putting together and album or anything like that. I was very skeptical about that, we have no new music and do people really want that. But let’s try, we felt nothing ventured nothing gained, and the warmth and welcome we got back from the audience blew my mind to be honest, and was really encouraging. That one reunion gig turned into two years of touring festivals, and after one year and half we came to a point and we can’t just be doing just this anymore, we need some new music, or we stop it and that’s it and we really mean it. Or we need to inject some new music into the live set and create some new tracks to put into the live set cus that what it all about. What gaps do we need to fill in. We started to write again and we started to write again live, all the enjoyment of working together live, moved us into writing live and back into the studio and thought about, let’s write some new material. Cus we’re in a different time period now. It was fun again being back with my brother again. It was like when we first started. There was no record company restraints on you anymore cus there weren’t any new albums. We were more focused on the live set, we love playing live, and we wanna perpetuate that and we need to write some new material. And maybe the way of doing that was the old fashioned way of getting out an old LP and get it out there and then play those tracks live and what we did and it was really positive and really good.

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Designer JL Schnabel’s long-lived relationship with the supernatural combined with a strong fascination and a personal touch create the foundation for what lies  behind the jewelry of Philadelphia based Blood Milk.

interview by : Vanity Kills
photographer : Christina Brown
fashion stylist : JL Schnabel and Paul Romano
model : Tina Nguyen

Do you dream of unique adornments from beyond this realm, capable of effortlessly lending a supernatural air to your flowy, black tunics? Time to open your third eye and join the legions of sea witches, mediums, and other devout followers of Philadelphia’s esoteric jewelry house Blood Milk. Tap into your unconscious self with the guidance of a hand carved rune bracelet, find your way home (on whatever plane of existence it may lay) with a sparrow skull ring, or reach out to loved ones who shed their mortal sheaths by the way of a spirit board-inspired planchette necklace. Alas, these surrealist charms really ought to come with a caveat; you never know when you might just find yourself whisked away to the other side of reality. Which makes these occult ornaments even more enticing.

Other than the release of Blood Milk’s lookbook The Conjurer, did any noteworthy or surreal events take place in your life on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year? Can you give Auxiliary Magazine readers further insight as to why you chose November 11th for the grand unveiling of The Conjurer?
JL Schnabel : I’m interested in Jung’s ideas on synchronicity. I read somewhere that people tend to look at the clock at 11:11 more than any other time and I like to think that there are cosmic forces at play, but who knows for sure? I like the mystery of not knowing.

Do you foresee a modern day large-scale resurgence of mourning jewelry spearheaded by either the forlorn economy, the ever growing quasi-mainstream popularity of the nu-goth movement, or perhaps something different altogether?
JLS : I started becoming attracted to the idea of mourning jewelry around the time I lost someone important to me. I think in that sense, anyone who has become acquainted with death seeks out the comfort of mourning talismans whether they realize it or not. These types of jewels become a kind of psychic armor.

read the full interview in the February/March 2012 Issue

interview by Mike Kieffer

Recently releasing mind.in.a.box’s fifth full length album, Revelations on Metropolis Records in the US, and starting their own brand new label Dreamweb Music in Europe, we take the seven deadly questions to the man who has entranced us for the past eight years, Stefan Poiss, the master behind the music and vocals of the Austrian electronic music band mind.in.a.box.

Envy – You have the ability to examine the past “Crossroads” of your life and see where they would have lead you, would you want to know?
Stefan Poiss : No. I like the way how it is going and I wouldn’t want to change something and I wouldn’t want to know how it could be. I think I’m a lucky guy to live in Vienna, one of the best cities in the world, with maybe the best water in the world that you can drink from the tap, only two minutes to the supermarket, the electricity is working, the internet is fast, our waste disposal has it’s own Facebook page, I have my own studio at home and can also work at Adam’s rehearsal space (Adam is my live guitar player). And with my motor scooter it’s fast to get everywhere. So it feels good like it is. Only too much dog mess on the sidewalks here.

Greed – Do you feel the ever evolving internet world and the hording of digital friends will leave individuals feeling “Lost Alone” in the end?
SP : Yes, maybe more than ever. It is something different to have a conversation on the internet than to talk in real life. We all have a body and we are built to use it. We can’t separate the brain, the mind from us. Our mind and the body is a whole and if you only use one part too long you will start to miss something in the world… and then you are starting to be lost alone.

read the full interview in the February/March 2012 Issue

Unafraid of herself and her personal struggles with mental illness, Emilie Autumn has accepted the reality of herself and through music reaches out to women (and men) suffering with their own internal conflicts. Currently in the midst of a North American tour, Emilie Autumn will soon release her upcoming album, Fight Like a Girl, and has grand plans in the works to turn her beautifully crafted, Victorian inspired world into a Broadway musical.

photographer : Jake Garn
interview by : Gia C. Manalio-Bonaventura

Emilie, we want to thank you for taking the Time (intentionally capped) out of your schedule, especially since you are currently on your “Fight Like a Girl” Tour. I have been a Plague Rat for years so I’m grateful to have this opportunity and am going to try not to overwhelm you with questions. I would like to ask you things that have not been asked, but as you said on The Opheliac Companion, everything has been said or sung. So hopefully I can express the questions in some different ways.

I’m going to try to start from the beginning. In the song “Swallow” you say, “I’m not a faerie but I need more than this life so I became this creature representing more to you than just another girl. And if I had a chance to change my mind, I wouldn’t for the world.” Tell me about the birth of Emilie Autumn as we know her and the Asylum. And what is it about the Victorian age that draws you in so?
Emilie Autumn : Thanks for having this little teatime chat with me! The Victorian era is absolutely fascinating on so many levels. Amongst many other terrifying developments, the 19th century saw the birth of medicine and psychiatry as we recognize it today. It was also the era of the industrial revolution, the gradual shattering of the class system largely due to this revolution, an era of glorified mourning and elaborate death obsession, and so much more. The primary fascination however is what this era has in common with our present day, and how, in a lot of unfortunate cases, nothing much has changed.

Your songs are what initially drew me to you with the melodic (and sometimes intentionally not) harmonies and lyrics, some call them “Victorianindustrial”. When I first heard them, I felt like I connected to them so much I did some research on what was behind it all, especially The Opheliac album. What I discovered was how brutally honest and open you are about your own bipolar condition, medications, and suicidal thoughts. I admire this because it is often such a dirty little secret and any of us who have had the experience have almost perfected the art of faking being okay, which you actually discuss on “The Art of Suicide” track on The Opheliac Companion. There you talk about what happens when you can’t fake it, which I think actually hearing, as personal as that is, is comforting to people. In fact, when I asked a couple of teen girl fans I know what they would want to ask you, they both alluded to these feelings. I understand that writing and performing the songs is something you do for yourself as a catharsis, but how do you feel knowing that you are also reaching girls who are suffering and letting them know that they are not alone in that?
EA : That’s very nice to hear, and it is in fact my most important goal, to help both boys/girls, men/women to realize and truly believe that they are NOT alone. They’re really not. It’s become such a passion for me because I was very much alone in my less than pleasant life situations, and I want to be to others what I myself did not have. It’s a bit like my Asylum For Wayward Victorian Girls book… I wanted to write the book I wish I’d had growing up with these issues, to have someone tell me that just because you’re crazy doesn’t mean you’re crazy. But what you mention regarding the honesty in songs and such is equally meaningful in that it comes from a very real place, a place that I find can only be accessed when you have nothing left to lose. A marvelous freedom comes when you have nothing to shelter, hide, protect… when all your dirty little (or large) secrets are out, when judgment is inevitable, and when you don’t even care about this anymore. What has been such an interesting phenomena for me has been that, the moment I stopped caring what other people thought about me is the same moment that others started caring what I thought. That’s how I learned how interesting honesty can be.

read the full interview in the February/March 2012 Issue

additional photos from our exclusive photoshoot…

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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.

read the full interview in the December/January 2011/2012 Issue

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.

read the full interview in the December/January 2011/2012 Issue

Starting out as a model borrowing his styling cues from Marilyn Manson, Manzin developed into a unique homme fatale. Manzin is now loose in New York City, not afraid to break the rules, and taking gender ambiguity to a personalized new level.

photographer : Ron Douglas
makeup & model : Manzin
location : Beauty Bar New york
interview by : Arden Leigh

You recently relocated to New York City. What have you been up to there and how has the new environment affected your personal style?
Manzin : Mostly I’ve been getting lost in the city and abandoning myself to whatever interests me. Once the tricky business of finding a job was out of the way, I could indulge a bit more in the restaurants, bars, clubs, and shops and I’m really enjoying the variety. It’s making me a bit more polished than I was before, I like to think I’ve come a long way from haunting thrift shops, now my key pieces are by quality designers and I have more access to better materials to play with. Plus spending time pounding the pavement has exposed me to a lot of different people and I’m constantly inspired and to some extent influenced by who and what I see on the streets.

view the full feature in the October/November 2011 Issue

Ronan Harris of VNV Nation reveals how he sins.

interview by Mike Kieffer & Vanity Kills

Perhaps the most well known modern EBM/futurepop group of today, Ronan Harris and Mark Jackson of VNV Nation continue on their vigilant quest to spread their music to any willing ear. Automatic is their newest weapon, which is powerful enough to please their fans and pull many more onto the VNV bandwagon.

Wrath – VNV Nation is entered in a fight to the death battle of the bands, who would you want to square off against and what weapon would you choose?
Ronan Harris : Not being a fan of violence or displays of testosteronal inspired violence, this is hard to imagine but if this was a scene in some far-fetched, postapocalypse, low-budget sci-fi movie with Christopher Lambert or JCVD as the cyborg leader whose very word means life or death through the medium of bad acting and interpretational dance, and including some obligatory cliché punk looking folk driving around in chopped up Pintos, firing shots into the air, while inexplicable gas explosions shoot up into the sky around an abandoned factory… etc. (see 1980s for more on this)… I guess I’d go up against Belinda Carlise, if nothing for the sheer bizarreness of it all. Was she a band, even if she was a solo act? Who cares. It’s my answer. VNV vs Belinda Carlisle. Weapon of choice; I think grenades or an MP5K should do it. It’d be quick. The after-party would be awesome.

Envy – If you could put one item on your tour rider that you would always get regardless of price what would it be?
RH : When we started out we used to put “One shaved Golden Condor” and some other necessary items on the rider that you really do need on tour but people didn’t seem to have the sense of humor we expected. Hell, it was for our amusement, no one else’s. If I could put an item on the rider now that I could actually have, it would be one of two things… One, a fabric-lined, wooden box containing a bottle of an ultra rare single-malt scotch that I happen to like, and a collection of handrolled Dominican Republic cigars. After load-out, when everyone’s gone home, the whole crew would all sit around and act like kings of the road, enjoying some fine scotch and discussing the day because our crew’s conversations are hilarious and it would be the high point of the day. Two, an inflatable bouncy castle to be erected in the corner of the hall. You can never go wrong with a bouncy castle. It’s the ultimate icebreaker at cocktail parties and promotes fine conversation covering a wide range of topics. That or people would take their shoes off, get on the thing and re-join the 8 year old mosh pit club, remembering what it was like to smash their nose while flying around on one, though without a parent to run to after.

read the full interview in the October/November 2011 Issue

Femme and Fatalité : the art of Lori Earley

by Rena Finkel

Lori Earley’s haunting portraiture has been a staple of the alternative and art scenes since she first began exhibiting her works in 2004. The beautiful women in her world are ethereal creatures; fantastic mannerist figures full of secrets. Their large eyes and elongated limbs are immediately recognizable, but it is the elegant-but-fierce melancholy mood that pervades her work that has given Earley such distinction. We were fortunate enough to be able to talk to the New York City artist about her work and her recent diagnosis with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.

Tell us about how you developed your style.
Lori Earley : I honestly don’t know, it’s something that just came to me naturally. However, I think I might have finally found the reason and source of the distortion which I will explain later on. In high school art class, I was assigned to draw a self-portrait for the first time. When I drew mine, I found that I had a really difficult time making the eyes look real and in proportion to the rest of the facial features. I always inherently drew them much larger than they were. I tried several times after that to make my drawing look realistic but after several attempts, I had to give up because I just couldn’t do it. Whenever I was asked this question, I would say it was something I couldn’t explain. The best way I could put it into words was that the distortion of my figures was a visual manifestation of how I felt inside. The really interesting thing now though is that I was recently diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. It’s an extremely rare, genetic syndrome in which the physical features of someone with it tend to have large eyes, a slender build and stretchy, elongated hyper-mobile limbs, as I do. The reason for this is because Ehlers-Danlos syndrome affects the collagen in your body which is essentially the “glue” that holds your ligaments, bones, tendons, etc. together so it makes you very hyper-mobile and you tend to feel very stretched and elongated. The interesting thing about having this condition is that you can contort your body into unusual positions (many contortionists have the syndrome), but otherwise, depending on which type you have, the pain can be mild to excruciating, and I think the pain has lent itself well to emotions of the figures in my painting. When I found out I had it, it was like an epiphany! I finally had an answer as to where the natural distortion from my figures came from, and a lot of my fans made the connection as well. It was a very interesting discovery! Because I have Ehlers-Danlos though, it can be very difficult to keep up with my painting along with the business aspect of it (amongst other things), so I need assistance and found an amazing assistant who helps me tremendously with my business. She has been working with me for five years now and has become my best friend as well. I feel she deserves to be mentioned because without her, I wouldn’t be able to paint because I wouldn’t be able to keep up with everything because of my condition. So thank you, Sarah Smith!

read the full article in the October/November 2011 Issue