OMM Anniversary & Updates

Obscure Media Monday celebrated its anniversary somewhere in the haze of November. There were around 32 entries of content in that year, slightly better than an every-other week average. To kick off year two, here are some updates on previously featured artists:


Abney Park has a new album, Aether Shanties, coming out Dec. 1^st. Captain Robert has posted a two of the tracks for download.


Tapping the Vein's second album, Another Day Down, is available from Amazon.com and is as solid as their first.

Die Warzau's excellent, Convenience, is currently available from Pulseback Records.

Nouvelle Vague's third album, Nouvelle Vague 3, was released in June in Europe and is now available in the States via Amazon.com.

Finally, if you missed it during its short theater run, The Hurt Locker will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray on Jan. 2^nd. OMM will cover another Kathryn Bigelow movie, Strange Days, in the near future.

Sister Machine Gun

Sister Machine Gun might be the best industrial jazz band to have ever existed. Indeed, they might also have had the title of "only" industrial jazz band if not for Die Warzau's occasional dabbling. The two bands are closely linked. Van Christie and Jim Marcus of Die Warsau were instrumental in Chris Randall's first Sister Machine Gun demos for Wax Trax! Records in ~1990.

The band's first two albums, Sins of the Flesh and The Torture Technique, are primarily industrial efforts, but with more melodious qualities than is common to the genre.



The Torture Technique is a perfect product of the CD format; each track flows one to the next to create an entire experience that could not have been attained in the era of A-side/B-side records and cassettes, and is undervalued in today's playlist culture. Much of Sister Machine Gun's music is better enjoyed in album form, and perhaps it was this lack of "singles" that contributed to the band's eventual departure from Wax Trax! in 1997.

Albums subsequent to The Torture Technique contained more jazz influences. Sax solos crept into Burn (1995) and Randall's natural jazz vocals were highlighted in such tracks as "Temptation" off of Metropolis (1997) and "Closer to Me" from 1999's [R]evolution.



[R]evolution marked the band's first album on Positron! Records, a label founded by Chris Randall and his wife Lisa. In 1999, internet opportunities for independent musicians were in their infancy, but Positron! Records was willing to take chances, offering full sample mp3s, non-DRM albums for purchase, and Creative Commons licensing. Sister Machine Gun released two more full length albums as well as several interstitial EPs before disbanding in 2007. Randall has since released an album of straight-forward jazz/blues.

Sister Machine Gun's albums are available through Positron! Records, Amazon.com, or other online retailers.

Covered in Black

Cover songs have the ability to truly let obscure music artists shine. There's nothing like a familiar song done in a different way to catch a listener's ear. Nonetheless, it's often difficult to find a really good album of covers. The music of the original artist might be too far ranging to lead to a cohesive album when the styles of the cover artists involved also vary. One of the best cover albums I've heard involves an artist with a solid style, AC/DC, and group of artists working in a complementary genre, industrial music.

In 1996, Cleopatra Records (notable purveyors of goth and industrial music) released Covered In Black: An Industrial Tribute To The Kings Of High Voltage, AC/DC. As with any album, not every song is great, but most of the industrial artists do a good job of adding a new dimension to the songs while staying true to the spirit of the original. (The exception being Pigface Vs. Sheep On Drugs' befuddling rendition of titular "Back in Black.") An example of a well done cover can be found in The Electric Hellfire Club's version of "Highway to Hell":



Also outstanding are "Squealer" covered by the particularly obscure female industrial group Genitorturers, and "TNT" covered by Sister Machine Gun. In all, Covered in Black is a worthwhile listen for an industrial music fan. It is current available as a digital download from Amazon.com.

The Second Coming of Die Warzau

A good number of industrial bands that began in the 1980s still exist in some form or another. Very few of these bands do so on the strength of four full albums, the most recent of which was released ten years after the previous album. Such is Die Warzau. Originally founded in 1987 by Jim Marcus and Van Christie, the duo put out three albums, culminating in the critically acclaimed Engine (1995). Unlike many "obscure" bands, the ten years that lapsed between Engine and 2005's Convenience was not due to label woes. The two main artists simply decided to take a hiatus from Die Warzau to work on other projects. Convenience was worth the wait. While Die Warzau never shied away from its industrial roots, it also has never hesitated to deviate from the usual non-melodic noise. This constant melding and reworking of electronic, dance, funk, jazz, industrial and Jim Marcus's expressive vocals come to fruition on Convenience.

"Glare" off of Convenience and Vinyl 88 (2008):



Part EP and part best-of, Vinyl 88 was released in 2008, perhaps in an effort to combat Convenience's rapidly occurring out-of-print status. Vinyl 88 includes six new tracks and 10 others from the previous four albums. Songs from Convenience remain pretty much unchanged while tracks from the first three albums have been tweaked and remixed to bring forward Marcus's vocals and to create a cohesive album. Considering that only Engine and Vinyl 88 are easily available from Amazon.com, the compilation is a good choice if Convenience isn't available. (As of 1/12/09, a Google shopping search reaped Convenience available through Walmart!)

Ruby

There are a couple of similarities between Ruby and Garbage. Both are headed by Scottish female vocalists with US backing and production. Both released their debut albums in 1995. Both pushed genre boundaries: Garbage with their lush, heavy sound and Ruby with their esoteric mixture of electronic, trip-hop, industrial and even jazz.¹ The inability to comfortably box Ruby into a single genre might be part of the reason that they have remained less popular. Ruby consists of vocalist Lesley Rankine and producer Mark Walk. Unlike Garbage, aside from the vocals, Ruby's music is entirely synthetic, made of samples and loops. It is Rankine's voice that anchors the potential chaos.

Their first album, Salt Peter reaped their biggest US release, "Tiny Meat":



While the duo began work on a second album in 1996, very poor luck with music labels postponed it's release to 2001. Short Staffed at the Gene Pool is a slightly more mellow effort relying more on the down-tempo dance and jazz qualities of the first album. Both albums, as well as two remix efforts for Short Staffed, are available from Amazon.com. Short Staffed is also available on CD.

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_(band)

Machines of Loving Grace

Perhaps the most underrated band of 90s, Machines of Loving Grace released three albums and the single "Golgotha Tenement Blues" from The Crow soundtrack. While MTV Music doesn't have videos by many larger bands, they do have a few for Machines of Loving Grace. Below is "Butterfly Wings" off the 1993 album Concentration.

Machines of Loving Grace |MTV Music

While I could not find Concentration available for easy purchase, Amazon.com has Machines of Loving Grace and Gilt available for DRM-free MP3 download for a modest price.