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Dark Entries flashes back to the grimy streets of New York City circa 1982 to bring us an unreleased album from cult outfit Ike Yard. Comprised of Stuart Argabright, Michael Diekmann, Kenneth Compton, and Fred Szymanski, Ike Yard sits between the sinewy proto-body music of the Neue Deutsche Welle and the shattered grooves of their No Wave peers in New York. The band’s initial run was short but blinding. They released an EP for Les Disques du Crépuscule in 1981, which was followed by their legendary self-titled LP for Factory in 1982. They disbanded within a year, frustrated by the slow pace at which the industry was able to release their increasingly challenging music. 1982 features 10 tracks which likely would have become the band’s second LP - only four of these songs have previously seen release on 2006’s 1980-82 Collected via Acute Records. Following the release of Ike Yard, they continued down their tortured path of hybrid electro-acoustic music with an arsenal of now-classic analog instruments, including the Korg MS-20 and the Roland TR-808. Skittering rhythms teeter on the verge of collapse while seasick synth warbles threaten to push us overboard. Electronic washes devolve into waves of feedback. Sneering basslines threaten dancers to move, but how can the body obey? This is dangerous music, gliding along the brink. The album features a live photo of the band by Makoto Iida and includes an insert with liner notes from Stuart Argabright. 1982 is essential for fans of post-punk and caustic electronics from Liaisons Dangereuses to Beau Wanzer.

Ike Yard remain a legendary band of early '80s New York City – at once immensely influential, yet obscured by a far-too-brief initial phase. Their debut EP, the dark and absorbing Night After Night, sounds almost like a different group, so rapidly would Ike Yard evolve towards the calmly menacing electro throb of their self-titled LP.

Originally released on Factory in 1982, the album put Ike Yard's indelible mark on the synth-driven experimental rock scene then emerging all over the planet. While historical analogues would be Cabaret Voltaire's Red Mecca or Front 242's Geography, opening track "M. Kurtz" makes starkly clear that Ike Yard is a far heavier proposition.

With a thick porridge of bass, ringing guitar and strangled/stunted layers of voice, these six pieces are densely packed and perversely danceable. "Loss" sounds like a minimal techno track that could have been made last week, while "Kino" combines Soviet-era imagery with sparse soundscapes à la African Head Charge's Environmental Studies.

Ike Yard somehow pull off the toughest trick in modern music: making repetition hypnotically compelling through subtle variation. The effect of Ike Yard's first LP can be heard in many genres – from industrial dance labels like Wax Trax to electro-punk bands and innumerable European groups (Lucrate Milk, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, etc.).

The fact that the cover artwork does not include any photos of the band, but rather features the original catalogue number (FACT A SECOND) only further illustrates the release's importance and Ike Yard's timeless mystique.

Ike Yard’s latest releases on Noiztank with the “Sacred Machine” (EP 2017), and “Rejoy” (LP 2018) are reworked by CUB (Regis and Mønic), Antechamber (new Codex Empire’s project), Grebenstein, Rebekah, Richard Fearless, Mønic, and Sedvs -a compilation of diverse remixes that expand the industrial electronics of the NYC-band to different sides and atmospheres of techno music.

It was like a bird of rarest-spun heaven metal or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now - Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange

After their LPs 'Ike Yard' (also known as 'A Fact A Second' Factory America, 1982) and Nord (Phisteria and Desire, 2010) Ike Yard delivers their last album 'Rejoy' on Noiztank, 2018 as the culmination of their recent years reinvented sound. As the perpetual flag bearers of the cutting-edge post-punk spirit, the NYC- based band shows muscle in a LP fully loaded with abrasive synth pads, scrap metal percussions, and whispered vocals. Following the previous criteria of 'Sacred Machine' 2017, it is worth to remark the inclusion of external vocals in the pieces 'Sister M' and 'Beyondersay', which feature Yuki Osaki and MAYa. The nine tracks move through different atmospheres, tensions and moods that would perfectly represent a new contemporary soundtrack of the S. Kubrick film 'A Clockwork Orange', a major influence and source of inspiration for the group this time around.

Ike Yard recombine their music looking across decades of post punk, electronic, soundtracks and come out with some of their best yet and enough to last the next 20-30 years (in Ike Yard´s very own words). Originally founded in 1979 New York City, members Michael Diekmann (keyboard, guitar, vocals), Kenneth Compton (programming drums, synths arrangements, bass, guitar, vocals) and Stuart Argabright (programming drums, synths arrangements, distortion bass, keyboards, metal perc) reformed the band once in 2007 and again in 2010. Each time different and with new ambitions. This time 'Sacred Machine' EP is defined by detailed drum layers supported by multiple basses and keyboards, some off-timing beat patterns that turn in a second of synchrony into a straight four on the floor kick and first time vocal collaborations.

Composition wise 'Sacred Machine' EP is recorded as a 'rehearsal'. As for Ike Yard songs would not be done so very many times in their existence, all threw in on each piece as they came into being. It sounds like a group that could have been doing records in Anthony Burgess and Stanley Kubrick´s 'A Clockwork Orange'. 'Night Klub' revisits Ike Yard´s original 'Night After Night' from 1981 EP. 'Sacred Machine' might be familiar to those who caught Ike Yard dates in Europe between 2007-2014 as one of the extended jams prepared for the dark ambient shows. 'Tear Drop' night airport music with sweet vocals by Camella Lobo of Tropic Of Cancer is followed by 'Spit' that explores Ike Yard NCR style with jittery beats, clomping, stomping cross cut beats. 'Slaves Of Janet' featuring Erica Belle brings to mind scenes in an S&M parlour with unused lyrics from the Factory America LP recordings.

Factory Benelux and New Order present Of Factory New York, a unique benefit album released to assist Michael Shamberg, who ran the NYC office of Factory Records during the celebrated label's Eighties heyday.

Please note this is not a new studio album but a compilation of previously released Regis productions and remixes for BEB, plus three previously unreleased cuts.

Renowned for his visceral work with HIGH-FUNCTIONING FLESH, Greg Vand dives deep into the experimental proto-industrial with his solo project NEWBOY, revealing a darker, looser, and more hypnotically unstable side of the music machines. “The Color of Everything” is a transmission compilation with cracked circuitry, lysergic funk, warped tape hiss, and urban hallucinations.Think Cabaret Voltaire jamming with Bourbonese Qualk, Ike Yard, and Esplendor Geométrico: a mutant rhythm ritual for abandoned clubs and alleyway rites. This is rhythm as both weapon and escape. A dystopian groove engine primed for fans of the avant-garde, the unstable, and the underground, all tuned into the fractured future of dance music.presented in ONE-OFF truly limited edition of 300 copies lacquered pressed on 180 gr. high quality solid BLACK vinyl.

repress !

Following acclaimed singles from Powell, Blood Music, Shit & Shine and Prostitutes, the next release from Diagonal is a landmark. It marks both the London label's first full-length album release, and the return of abrasive and furiously funky hip-hop deconstructionists Death Comet Crew, one of the most quietly influential underground acts to emerge from the creative melting pot of 1980s New York.

Ghost Among The Crew documents the group's return to studio operations for the first time since the 80s, as well as their first ever full-length studio album. It's a remarkable trip: a consolidation of their early feral disassemblies of hip-hop and electro, but also broader in scope, chewing up and spitting out fragments of soul, jazz fusion, punk and industrial music.
Death Comet Crew were founded in New York City in 1983 by Stuart Argabright, a founder member of post-punk/industrial mavericks Ike Yard and the mind behind Dominatrix and later Black Rain. Their sound, then as now, was a singular proposition: urban in mood, exploratory, often compellingly danceable, yet confrontational. It emerged from the interweaving talents of the group's varied members: guitarist Michael Diekmann (of Ike Yard), bassist Shinichi Shimokawa (later of Black Rain) and Nick Taylor aka DJ High Priest, frequently joined by the late, great hip hop artist and graffiti writer Rammellzee. Having recorded two studio EPs - 1985's At The Marble Bar (featuring Rammellzee) and its follow-up Mystic Eyes - the group disbanded barely a year after forming. They left behind a reputation for their incendiary live performances, several recordings from which were gathered on crucial 2004 compilation This Is Riphop.
The musical climate that first birthed Death Comet Crew was one of fertile cross-pollination of styles. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the seeds of modern day urban musics - hip hop, punk and post-punk, no wave - were taking root in the streets of recession-struck New York City. Argabright recalls dancing at the downtown Mudd Club around 1980 to a bold mixture of styles, with DJs cutting from synth-pop and post-punk to funk, soul and early hip-hop: Bowie and James Brown next to Run DMC, Ultravox and Gary Numan. Indeed, the names of his New York contemporaries operating around the same time - the likes of Liquid Liquid, Run DMC, Afrika Bambaataa, Arthur Russell, ESG, Swans, Sonic Youth, Bill Laswell and more - have since been inscribed in modern music history.
With previous projects Dominatrix and Ike Yard having recently become inactive, in 1984 Argabright formed Death Comet Crew as a means of exploring new sonic avenues. He'd been experimenting with tape, recording and procesing the sounds of his surrounding environment and dialogue from films and TV. Joined by Shimokawa, Diekmann and Taylor, and using drum machines, turntables, spidery guitar and bass, the group assembled a scrambled collage of rhythms and sampled voices. Their live performances were, in Argabright's words, "aurally violent, sharp-edged, downright lacerating", hacking gleefully away at hip hop and electro's rhythmic frameworks. Rammellzee joined the group to vocal 1985 debut EP At The Marble Bar; his MC turn on highlight 'Exterior Street' is all the more remarkable for having been entirely freestyled in the studio. When Death Comet Crew reformed in 2003 for a string of live shows, he continued as an active member of the group, touring and working with them during the recording of Ghost Among The Crew, until he sadly passed away in 2010.
After reforming, Death Comet Crew began writing and recording new material. Now, following on from their just-released Galacticoast 12" through Citinite, Ghost Among The Crew - its title a homage to Rammellzee - hones the group's abrasive early experimentations while tripping into bold and astrally minded new territory. Alongside the core quartet of Argabright, Diekmann, Shimokawa and Taylor are new voices, including Rapscallion (a friend of Rammellzee's), Jessica 6/Hercules & Love Affair singer Nomi Ruiz, and Carolyn 'Honeychild' Coleman. Its eight tracks are steeped in the impulsive spirit of electric Miles and the deep space romances of Sun Ra, and possessed of an enigmatic yet undeniable pop edge. But equally they're pricked with urban paranoia and dread, traits that have long been hallmarks of Argabright's musical projects.
'Me Czar Of The Magyars' opens the album in a twist of tension like the turning of a ratchet. Its taut electroid shudder is paired with machine gunned cymbal hits and a voice telling of "wormwood and opium dens" - the sound of being teleported from everyday city streets into the astral plane, where every sensory input is heightened and the promise of danger or pleasure lurks unseen around every corner. Later, Coleman's lyrics pay tribute to Rammellzee on the sci-fi funk of 'Deep Space Woman'. 'Let The Clubs Ring' melts lounge bar organs and frazzled guitar into freakishly unstable shapes, while 'Drag Racing' matches its title, rocketing along frantically atop clattering drums. 'Moons On Titan's Seas' is halfway interlude pause for rest, like an exotic cocktail in a bar orbiting some as-yet-undiscovered new world. These varied strands are somehow all summarised in album closer 'Ignition Spark', which sets Ruiz's vocals alongside Taylor's and Argabright's. The zone the trio inhabit in this final track exists in perpetual push-pull between contemplation, memory, intrigue and violence, a decisive opening of a new chapter in Death Comet Crew's history.

As with all Diagonal releases, the initial vinyl pressing will be packaged in unique, specially designed artwork.

Abstracke presents Cristov's debut LP. The Hamburg-based artist and designer Christoph Lohse delivers an amazing record inspired by technology and dystopia. German futuristic electronics, mechanical synths, primal rhythms ... a cold, sometimes industrial sound, balanced with the jazzy acoustic drums and percussions performed by Manuel Chittka.

Influenced by Ike yard, Craig Leon, Monoton, and the German kraut maestros renewed by people like Kreidler, Die Wilde Jagd, Tolouse Low trax...

Les Disques du Crepuscule presents Subway, a collection of singles by cult NYC duo Thick Pigeon, originally released on Crepuscule, Factory and Factory Benelux between 1981 and 1991.
Comprised of vocalist Stanton Miranda and instrumentalist Carter Burwell, Thick Pigeon emerged from the downtown New York artrock scene which also spawned Glenn Branca, Bush Tetras, DNA, Arthur Russell and Sonic Youth. Like their chosen name, the duo were typically atypical: Miranda was previously a dancer with the Marthe Graham ballet company, and Carter a film animator and Harvard fine arts/architecture graduate. Very much a studio project, the ‘group’ hardly ever performed live.
Poised and subtle debut single Subway appeared on Crepuscule in January 1981, a connection forged by Miranda’s partner Michael Shamberg. Dog followed a year later, along with wry Christmas single Jingle Bell Rock, before the duo switched to Factory Records, recording debut album Too Crazy Cowboys in Manchester with Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert of New Order producing. Released simultaneously on Factory and Factory US in 1984, the album was billed as “a walk through the civilisation of you soul”.
Having now embarked on a career scoring movies (becoming the Coen brothers’ composer of choice), Carter was absent from the next TP project, 1986 dance single Wheels Over Indian Trails, although Morris and Gilbert remained on board as guest musicians. However Miranda and Carter would reunite for a second (and final) leftfield pop album, Miranda Dali, issued by Crepuscule in 1991.
As well as singles Subway, Dog, Jingle Bell Rock, Jess + Bart and Wheels Over Indian Trails, TWI 351 also includes b-sides (Sudan, Tracy + Pansy), album highlights (Crime, Riding) and a second festive track, Blue Christmas, previously issued only on cassette as part of a Factory Christmas card in 1986.
Alongside Stephen Morris and Gillian Gilbert, the stellar cast of guests include Fred Szymanski (of Ike Yard), Ikue Mori (DNA), remixer John Robie, and even artist and event designer Jean-Paul Goude on backing vocals.
Limited to just 500 copies, Subway (Singles) is newly remastered and pressed on transparent violet vinyl, reflecting the original 1981 sleeve artwork by legendary Crepuscule designer Benoit Hennebert. The album includes a free digital copy (MP3).

On his third and album, Rainbow Doll, the New Jersey house mystic Joey Anderson speaks to us. Of course, like everything Anderson does, the message is encoded. On tracks like "Beside Me" and "Cindy," his voice rings out in dream incantations-on the latter, he repeats a Mark Hollis-like mantra over a perfect, minimalist house loop while the former sounds like the late, great Ron Hardy taking the razor-and-tape to Ike Yard.

It's his third record for the Berlin-based label Avenue 66, and graciously illuminates the dream logic introduced on his debut for the imprint, the 2013 leftfield classic "Above The Cherry Moon." While Rainbow Doll satisfies those outre impulses, the album's core comprises what are perhaps Anderson's most indelible dance tracks to date, like "Bounce With It," a jacking anthem which sees him at mission control, sending widescreen synth lines soaring through the atmosphere.

With the aforementioned vocals punctuating five of the eight tracks, Rainbow Doll is Anderson's most personal work to date. It's his first album in four years, but also his shortest, most concise full-length. Even with a more direct approach, the elusive, dreamlike quality which has made his work so intriguing remains intact. He speaks of dreams throughout the record, even as his uncanny methodology comes into focus. More than ever before, we understand the materials Anderson uses to construct his Escher-like tracks. We hear his fingers on the keys, the sturdy east coast house beats he learned to dance to. The dreams have become lucid. As he puts it deep in the album, they "seem so real."

Black Rain returns with Computer Soul: the final part of a sequence of Blackest Ever Black releases that began with 2011's Now I'm Just A Number: Soundtracks 1994-95, and a first glimpse of the project's richly imagined future. For this outing Stuart Argabright (Ike Yard, Dominatrix, Death Comet Crew) is joined by BR founder member Shinichi Shimokawa as well as more recent recruit Soren Roi and Zanias (vocalist on 2015's Dark Pool) - making for the most most group-oriented iteration of Black Rain since its earliest days. Sonically too, there is a sense of evolution but also of coming full circle: the cyberpunk techno of Argabright's celebrated William Gibson soundtracks (compiled on Now I'm Just A Number) and extrapolations of Dark Pool's neuromantic yearning cut with glimpses of the thrash and industrial rock energies that animated Black Rain's incendiary live shows - and sought-after tapes for Kombinat and TPOS - in the early 90s. More than ever, Black Rain is propelled by a powerful science fiction impulse, whether responding to the themes and characters of Gibson's Sprawl or the Blade Runner universe (particularly K.W. Jeter's spin-off/continuation novels which extended its mythology, and timeline, further). It's not news that many of these works' most powerful predictions and prophesies have come to pass - the replicants are already living among us - so Computer Soul projects further into several possible unforeseen futures, its events 'set' in the second half of the current century, fifty or so years after those of Dark Pool. The hyperpopulated metropolises of Dark Pool are no more; the apartments are empty, haunted by ghosts of AC current, devices and machines running lonely without their owners...a melancholy internet of things. Where has everyone got to Gone but perhaps not gone. Oblivion beckons - always does - but on the other side of that, something else... another time, another place, a river....and a new way of living.

This 12" heralds Desire's vinyl reissue of Ike Yard's self-titled album in Autumn. Originally released on Factory America in 1982, Ike Yard was a product of the New York no wave scene, but also stood very much apart from it, then as now. Propulsive, paranoid, aggressive electro minimalism, with as much attention paid to the mixing board and effects processors as to vocals, guitar and synth. At once starker and more fully-formed than virtually all other contemporaneous post-punk music. Desire's 2012 edition represents the first ever vinyl reissue of this classic, prophetic album.