Tag Archives: Alternative

The Sounds of Slovenia


 

Since almost four years I have been living now in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. For a small country with a population of 2 million people the music scene is quite vivid. When I moved here I was surprised by the amount of concerts and venues.

Maybe the most known musical export from Slovenia is the legendary group Laibach. With their provocative style they have gained international reputation and influenced many other bands, most notably Rammstein. Another known act from Slovenia is Borghesia, pathbreaking for EBM. I won’t write now about Laibach and Borghesia, maybe later, in some other article. Here I want to focus on bands, you might not know yet: Melodrom, Silence, Torul and New Wave Syria. Read More →

Grave Jibes

Did you ever hear about Grave Jibes Fanzine? It is a Russian magazine with high-quality content about post-punk/new wave music. The magazine can be downloaded for free (either in English or in Russian) at the address: www.gravejibes.com. Unfortunately, the magazine was discontinued in 2012. To find out why I contacted the mastermind behind the project, Pall Nattsol. In the following interview he talks about his experiences and contacts during his journalistic work, about his plans and reveals, why Grave Jibes doesn’t exist any more. Read More →

The Overheard Songs

overheard-thumbYoung Mick Jagger once said he would rather die before still playing ‘Satisfaction’ live when being 60. Many bands had a real hit in their history, by which they are measured ever after. This can be very annoying for a musician. Also new wave spawned a couple of stereotypical songs. But these bands’ hits are most likely to shade their other oeuvre and one or the other gem has been just ‘over-heard’. Read More →

What happened to… Venus in Furs?

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By chance I found an old vinyl a few years ago at a flea-market. I never heard of the band before. Nonetheless, the cover was appealing to me and so I bought it. For quite some time the LP was laying around in my room, I forgot about it, until one Sunday evening I played for the first time, what soon after and till today would become one of my favourite bands.

There was always something mysterious about Venus in Furs, as there is hardly any information available. On the music portal LastFM the entry of Venus in Furs is mostly occupied by a fictional band of the same name as appeared on the soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine. Read More →

afmusic · Germany’s Most Innovative Label

As my musical review of the year 2012, the top 10 songs and albums, got quite some attention, I wanted to write about the label, which produced most of the mentioned musicians. It is called afmusic and is situated in Germany. On their homepage we can see that it exists since 2008. Since then it had a kickstart and got quite some reputation, which makes it “germany’s most innovative label for dark wave, independent and gothic and within germany unique in this field.” Read More →

Dressed in Black · On Dark Culture

darkculture

The term ‘subculture’ is in sociology, anthropology and cultural studies defined as a group of people within a culture, which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong (Samovar 1998: 50). In other definitions the term ‘co-culture’ is preferred, “because it calls attention to the idea of dual membership” (Martin 2010: 9); “Co-cultures may share many of the characteristics of the dominant culture, but their members also exhibit distinct and unique patterns of communication” (Martin 2010: 9). Read More →

(Re)Constructing Human Beings in Steampunk

Elgin_thumbThe Steampunk culture focuses strongly on technical attributes. In a D.I.Y. manner many people, dedicated to the Steampunk aesthetic, try to create diverse gadgets as eye-candy on their outfits or even to re-build modern life tools mechanically or with steam-power. When talking about this topic, we must not forget that “Steampunks seek less to recreate specific technologies of this time [the Victorian era] than to re-access what they see as the affective value of the material world of the nineteenth century” (Onion 2008: 138f). It is the fascination by the Victorian technological creations per se, which turns Steampunk sympathisers into actual engineers. Read More →

Comic · Confusions

The appearance of devotees to a subculture can lead to several confusions among outsiders.

Confusions

Click on the picture to enlarge. (c) by Lisica.