WASPFAC017 - Tarantella Serpentine - Exploring Corporate Strategy EP
Tarantella's debut album, 'Class One Laser Product' has been doing the business on dancefloors since it's release in September and the reviews are still coming in… the follow-up, 'Exploring Corporate Strategy' is due out in the Summer, and if the intensity of the recent live shows is anything to go by, it's going to sound like the bastard offspring of Kid606, Alec Empire and Kraftwerk.
Releases to date: -
WASPFAC001 -The Chaos Engine "Obstinate" CDLP
Industrial
Rock with everything included the kitchen sync thrown into the melting
pot, and an ear for a good tune notably lacking in the genre. A classic
release that has seen the band become one of the UK's most in demand acts
at both Industrial and Goth events.
WASPFAC002 - Skinflowers "Data in a Hurry" CDLP
Understated
alternative/indie from the brothers Skin. Bittersweet lyrical compositions,
guitar / bass interplay that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand
up and an Atari ST out back all add up to leave you wondering what happened
to the days when Albums were Albums, rather than a couple of singles and
a lot of filler.
WASPFAC003 - The Chaos Engine "More Songs About Sex & Angels" CDEP
An
EP it may be, but at over 70 minutes long there's more effort here than
in many albums proper. A new version of "Angel of Ruin" from the Obstinate
LP, kicks off the first EP segment, followed by 5 new tracks showing the
range of the band, from the white hot rage of "Parasitic Love Song" with
its Public Enemy meets Penelope Pitstop backing track, Huw's searing guitars
and Lee's acid - tongued polemic, through "Photocopied Love Song" where
The Chemical Brothers meet NiN vibe culminates in a barbershop quartet
delivery of the tracks central Haiku to the rabble rousing collaboration
with Skinflowers "Bitter Taste". The second segment of the EP contains
6 remixes from such luminaries as Sneaky Bat Machine, Inkubus Sukkubus
as Solomon Kane (of heavyweights Discharge) of tracks from Obstinate.
The EP concludes with live favourites, covers of Kids in America, Barbie
Girl and Ace of Spades.
WASPFAC004 - Various Artists "Working With Children & Animals" CDLP
A
snapshot of the UK industrial and alternative underground, featuring Wasp
Factory Artists, Family and Friends. Leech Woman, Hydra, Squid, The Chaos
Engine, Goteki (formerly Sneaky Bat Machine), Arkam Asylum, Skinflowers
and Tarantella Serpentine. The bands have each contributed two tracks,
many of which are exclusive, and the whole album is mixed with reverse
ID'd bridges from Dark Electro mavericks Freudstein.
WASPFAC005 - D.U.S.T. - "From the Sublime to The Obscene"
Straight
out of nowhere to being one of the most hotly tipped underground acts
in the UK, it's no wonder we've snapped them up. The nearest thing to
traditional goth shapes on the label, but the band are much more on an
amphetamine fuelled, sleep deprived sleazerock god tip than they are interested
in lurking in graveyards drinking cheap red wine. With the looks, presence
and music to do it, we're not going to interfere with this mission
WASPFAC006 - The Chaos Engine - "Escape Ferocity"
3rd
album proper from the Chaos brigade, an unholy cross between
VNV Nation, Atari Teenage Riot and Britney Spears. There's not much more
you can add to that really, is there? Music for broken children to tear up dancefloors to.
WASPFAC007 - Freudstein - "Mondo Freudo"
Debut
album from the Brighton based mavericks of all things electronic, funky
and nasty, a shitkicking appreciation of rock dynamics applied to the
techno / breakbeat milieu, a string of guest vocalists and an approach
to production verging on the anal, means that this release is something
very special indeed
WASPFAC008 - Arkam Asylum - "Learn To Love Your Cancer"
The
first album from the 3-piece CyberPunk shock-troopers is a tour-de-force of weapons-strength breakbeats, kevlar-piercing
guitar riffs and diamond-tipped prophecies of a distopian future that's
closer than we dare admit. Kerrang! magazine decried it as 'Just noise. At least ATR have tunes.' We like that.......
WASPFAC009 - Tarantella Serpentine - "Class One Laser Product"
A
very rare beast indeed - marrying digital hardcore, drum & bass, nightmarish
soundscapes and break-beat poetry is not something to be attempted lightly,
but Mr Serpentine does so on his debut with a sinister boa-wrapped panache.
Dark, disturbed and disturbing
WASPFAC010 - Swarf - "Swarf Fall EP"
The
excitement that has categorised this band's early performances has led
us to break the mould and release a maxi-CD of their first studio outing
on the strengh of pressure from their fans. Stunning female vocals and
lush arrangements provide music for the dancefloor as well as having enough
depth to draw you into their world in the privacy of your own home.
[order]
WASPFAC012 - Goteki - "Fight The Saucermen EP"
The
band formerly known as Sneaky Bat Machine shed some of their toyshop humour
in favour of finely-honed darkwave floor-fillers as the band re-invent
themselves for the 21st Century.
[order]
WASPFAC014 - Psychophile - Transition
A big welcome to the mighty Psychophile.
For those who've not been fortunate enough to catch the band live,
allow us to explain our excitement; Vocalist Lucy is equal parts Liz Cocteau
and Diamanda Galas, switching from one to the other in the blink of a
psychotic eye, with Mat & Smogo providing the kind of sonic guitar anarchy not
seen since the days of Pop Will Eat Itself and Zodiac Mindwarp. Add to
this thunderous beats, squelchy slinky PVC-clad synth lines and a lorryload
of pop suss and you can understand why they've been so quickly scooped
up by the Wasp Factory A&R team. On this, their debut album for the label, 13 slabs of classic new wave guitar pop compete for attention with swathes of electronica and dirty chunky breakbeats, overlaid with Lucy's unique voice.
WASPFAC015 - Various Artists - Working With Children & Animals Vol 2
We've
done it before and we've done it again - only this one's bigger
better, louder and even more confusing! Our second
'Children & Animals' compilation features new tracks from
Wasp Factory artists, exclusive material, and the finest cuts from our
friends in this magic non-genre called industriodarkwavepunkcyberebm…
or goth, as NME prefers to call it. . .
This one features new tracks from Swarf, D.U.S.T., Psychophile, Freudstein,
Seventh Harmonic, Interlock, Katscan and Spray, all stitched together
by Tarantella Serpentine. What's more, this little baby comes with
a whole new batch of our collectable 'Waspemon' cards, penned by the ever-lovely
Dr A ! Brace yourselves!
WASPFAC019 - D.U.S.T. - Lords Of Madness EP
Taking
the D.U.S.T. blueprint by the balls and dragging it lovingly into the
21st century, this band's new EP maintains the love of the big-ass hands-in-the-air
stadium-sized songs and knocks them into shape with a tungsten-edged dance
sensibility. Think T-Rex remixed by Icon Of Coil and you'll have an idea
of which pigeonholes the band are currently failing to fit into...
WASPFAC018 - ARKAM ASYLUM - Running with Scissors
The second album from seminal Cyberpunk mavericks Arkam Asylum is all you'd expect - a head-on collision betwen deathrock, psychobilly and twisted gabba. On paper an unlikely fusion, but stick on the disc and it becomes obvious that this is the ultimate in sleazoid rock. Balls-out polemic, beats and riffery hung together with gaffa tape and the sort of genuine headrush that only pioneers of a distinctly new sound can give. The true sound of "cyber"."punk". Here's 3 breakbeats, now go and make a dystopian future.
WASPFAC020 - GOTEKI - Goteki O/S
The world's first Japanese boyband to consist entirely of caucasians from the West Country release their debut album "Goteki O/S". It`s a stunning 17 track slab of Futurepop, EBM, Electroclash, whatever we think it should be called *this* week, featuring guest appearances from Jared Louche (Pigface / Chemlab), Seb (Icon of Coil), and Richard Bjørklund (of Spektralized, the newest band on Apoptygma Berzerk's HARD:DRIVE label) amongst others.
WASPFAC021 - DeathBoy - Music to Crash Cars To
As the industrial scene frantically tries to salvage some underground dance credibility back from the electronica world it arguably helped create, Deathboy stands out as the anomaly. An original drum'n'bass / hardcore kid, whose online albums to date chart his descent from nasty slabs of instrumental funk, through a vodka fuelled haze of self-loathing, hatred and anger into today's minimalist breakbeat industrial. Oh it's dirty, angry stuff. Trent Reznor without the bloated prog rock, Alec Empire with a production job by the Chemical Brothers.
WASPFAC024 - Earth Loop Recall - Compulsion
In the band's own words, "Think 'The Holy Bible' By Manic Street Preachers. Add 'The Process' by Skinny Puppy, 'Aenima' by Tool, 'Mezzanine' by Massive Attack, 'Never Mind The Bollocks' by The Sex Pistols and 'In Utero' By Nirvana. And maybe 'Grace' by Jeff Buckley. Then you'll be midway there."
Keep a very close eye on this lot. We're predicting very big things for them.
Earth Loop Recall plough a very nice line in My Bloody Valentine/Sonic Youth style post-punk/alternative rock that doesn't run scared of moments of towering feedback colliding head on with NIN-style electronic trickery, and moments of exquisite beauty lurking in the calm at the eye of the storm.
WASPFAC026 - Goteki - Goteki O/S: Corrupted Files
Excursion on the version from the J-Electro stormtroopers. You'll find your packed dancefloors on here. Chrome-plated electro and filtered house a mile wide. Floorfillers? You want 'em, you got 'em. With names like Icon of Coil and Echo Image on the case, you know it's going to do the job. But remixing isn`t just about the club is it? Where would the fun be in that, when the remixer's job allows them to pull something apart and reassemble it in their own image, as destroyed, as reborn and as wierdly divergent from the original as their whim takes them?
WASPFAC028 - Leech Woman - Uncertainty Device #26573
A remix album that eschews the generic dancefloor filler that seems mandatory for these releases, and embraces the more destructive and wilfully caustic side of the form as embodied on albums like Nine Inch Nails' 'Fixed', and Scorn's 'Ellipsis'. We see no reason to file this one anywhere but with these greats.
The UK's finest hardcore/industrial crossover band bar none. Reduced to a raging ghost in the machine. White hot anger dropped from a great height and reassembled by a broken machine with delusions of sentience. Shards of dark ambient, electro, noise and drill & bass, stitched together by masters of the genres. Fuck your cartoon college punk bands, this is what happens when a band true to the punk ethos embraces the digital age.
WASPFAC031 - Faetal - [sic]
Subtle, gorgeous and heartbreaking, this is very much a throwback to when albums were albums rather than a collection of dancefloor fillers - exquisitely crafted numbers that give an instant hit, but repay subsequent listens by revealing new depths. A true masterpiece of electronic rock, blurring the lines so completely that it's often impossible to isolate guitars from synths.
An album to throw caution to the wind and dive headlong into.
Epic alternative electronic crossover album. Throw The Cure, Mesh, Suede, Pink Floyd and Nine Inch Nails into a blender and if you've got the right proportions you might come out with something like this.
For
further details on Wasp Factory, enquiries about distribution or licensing
etc. contact us on
enquiries@wasp-factory.com
or call +44 (0)1242 521713.