We almost forgot(h)

Last year too, "Dark Corner"-worthy releases were plentiful: here are ten that almost slipped under our radar.

Clone Culture – “Innocence”

(Released in March 2020 by Cold Transmission Music, new wave, indie-rock)

The second album from this outfit from Brianza, whose roots lie in the Lombard punk and diy scene, but whose sound reveals a genuine passion for 80's new wave and the most visceral strain of gothic-rock.

At times this new work also reveals the influence of new romantic (Duran Duran above all), filtered through a sensibility typical of the murkiest and most emotional 90's, the fruit of the background mentioned above (the members have played and still play in many other bands: The Nerd Follia, La Crisi, For I Am Blind, A Faded Glory...).

A powerful sound characterizes a cohesive, personal comeback, the result of the work of a well-oiled team; released right at the start of the first lockdown, and inevitably hurt by the lack of live promotion, “Innocence” is definitely worth rediscovering.

Filippo Diana – Musica Per Commenti Sonori

(Released in May 2020 by Slow Motion Records, electronic, soundtrack)

Horror soundtracks are the main source of inspiration for Filippo Diana, also known under the moniker Joe Drive (when he devotes himself to electro and house sounds).

With this project, though, he combines soundtrack music (Frizzi and Carpenter above all) with library music, italo-disco with kosmische sounds, arriving, in its more animated passages, at the edges of old-school Ebm.

A sure-fire “mix” for a sound that looks to the past while also looking to the present: much like the entire catalogue of Slow Motion Records, the Abruzzo-based label active since the mid-2000s in the field of “Italian dance music”, which releases this fascinating output by a decidedly mysterious artist.

Alberto Almas – “Era Miseria”

(Released in June 2020 by Slimer Records, lo-fi post-punk, synth-wave)

A concept album about the falsehoods plaguing our times (fake news, “double” lives on social media...) lies at the heart of “Era Miseria”, the second chapter in the work of Alberto Almas, the alias behind which hides another mysterious musician, this time from Veneto, in all likelihood already active in numerous other projects.

His is a post-punk with at times “experimental” overtones, marked by electronic sounds, an apocalyptic industrial dance that lends itself well to the fil rouge described above, which finds its points of reference as much in the fiction of Huxley and Orwell as in the works of the silver screen (“Blade Runner“, “2001: A Space Odissey“).

Sounds at times icy, at times granite-like, build a gothic synth-wave, with Almas's vocals in Italian bringing to mind echoes of Cccp and Battiato, somewhere between italo-wave and old-school Ebm.

House Of Harm – “Vicious Pastimes”

(Released September 2020 by Avant! Records, coldwave, synth-pop)

House Of Harm hail from Boston, one of the homelands of American hardcore punk, but their music is something else entirely. The band was picked up by Bologna's Avant! Records after releasing two cassette EPs.

The formula behind "Vicious Pastimes" rests on a sound steeped in eighties echoes, enriched by enveloping synths: a highly atmospheric post-punk, ethereal in places, following in the footsteps of forerunners such as pop-leaning Cure, Cocteau Twins and, more broadly, the dreamiest strands of new wave.

The first pressing of 300 copies sold out within a few weeks, but at the end of January the record was reissued on green vinyl, again limited to 300 copies.

Autumns – "You Always Taught Me Better"

(Released September 2020 by Detriti Records, electronic, post-punk)

The Italian-Berlin label Detriti Records is truly unstoppable, having put out twenty-six releases in 2020 alone, between cassettes and vinyl. A selection is therefore inevitable, so we point you to the label's Bandcamp page to discover the other dark acts (in more than one sense) released over the past year.

The first Detriti-made release featured in this special is Autumns, the one-man band of Northern Irishman Christian Donaghey, based in Derry (home of power-pop masters Undertones).

Autumns has a considerable back catalogue (the previous years were no less prolific in releases, and 2021 is proving no exception), put out by cult underground labels such as Britain's Opal Tapes. That volume of output doesn't seem to have dented the average quality of Donaghey's work, given that this "You Always Taught Me Better", a 12", contains eight killer tracks built on a synthetic yet highly atmospheric wave sound, an electronic post-punk reminiscent of DAF and Front 242.

Initiates – Esoteric Pop

(Released September 2020 by Punk Slime Recordings, post-punk, shoegaze)

Sweden's Andreas Lagerström, frontman of Holograms, teams up with three other musicians for this project, in which his distinctive voice (at times recalling a new Robert Smith) is put to the service of a sound heavily influenced by the Nineties.

There's plenty of shoegaze here, but also a strong "alternative" streak running through this debut's sound; the post-punk and darkwave atmospheres of Lagerström's main band still peek through, across a scant half hour populated by seven tracks steeped in a pleasant melancholy.

Balanced between epic, roaring guitars and measured moments of introspection, Initiates display that innate gift for dark pop so typical of Northern Europeans; while we wait for the Holograms' comeback, this is a genuinely noteworthy debut.

Staring Problem – "Eclipse"

(Released in September 2020 by Modern Tapes, punk, darkwave)

Chicago's Staring Problem sit on the borderline between punk and darkwave, and in 2020 they released "Eclipse", marking their first decade of activity.

Lauren Owen's vocals brought to mind bands like Belgrado and Arctic Flowers, but also Vivian Girls; they're topped by guitar textures that look as much to Joy Division as to the Cure, of whom they also deliver an excellent cover of "M", from "Seventeen Seconds".

The catchy "Eclipse" is the first of seven energetic tracks that shape up into a little gem for fans of the genre; the record is released by Modern Tapes, a label now based in Brooklyn but originally from Chicago, which had in fact debuted by releasing Staring Problem's own debut, a self-titled tape put out back in December 2010.

Unconscious – “Slaves Of System”

(Released in September 2020 by Detriti Records, electronic, EBM)

The second Detriti Records release featured in this article is "Slaves Of System" by Unconscious, aka Andrea Riberti, a Milan-based artist active since the Nineties in the techno and rave scenes.

A 12" that's fully in line with the label's more electronic side, drawing on numerous areas: EBM, italodisco and, indeed, techno, including its more "acid" strands.

Unconscious's music, at times measured, at times more "driving", sketches out an electro-industrial soundscape that, punctuated by sampled spoken word, morphs into a cyber-gothic dancefloor sound.

A crossover capable of grabbing the attention of old school fans as much as those more drawn to the harsh sounds that developed in the following decades.

Soft Kill – "Dead Kids, R.I.P. City"

(Released in November 2020 by Cercle Social Records, post-punk, darkwave)

It's not easy to navigate Soft Kill's discography, between cassettes, demo compilations, in-studio live recordings… with the help of Discogs and Bandcamp, it's possible to say, with reasonable certainty, that this is the sixth full-length by Tobias Grave's band.

Over the years the band has embraced a range of "sunnier" sounds (the quotation marks are still necessary, given we're talking about darkwave), opening up to dream-pop shades. Tobias's voice has also partly shed the baritone tones that had defined it since the days of Blessure Grave, his previous project blending gothic rock and neofolk. A process that began with "Choke" in 2016 and continued with "Savior" (2018), two records that introduced shoegaze textures into the Soft Kill sound formula.

"Dead Kids, R.I.P. City" features two guests, proof of the band's openness to new sounds: Adam Klopp (Choir Boy) lends his backing vocals to the third track, "Matty Rue", while the following "Floodgate" features the voice of Tamaryn Brown.

Top-notch production and mastering, handled respectively by David Trumfio, who has previously worked with Built To Spill, Wilco and OK Go, and Howie Weinberg (Cure, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana).

Selfishadows – Again

(Released in December 2020 by Manic Depression Records, darkwave, post-punk)

Selfishadows is the project of Daniele Giustra, a musician from Calabria who, with the help of Adriano Modica (guitars, bass, synth and drum machine), Alessandro Boscarino and Marco Ragno, recorded this "Again" using exclusively analog equipment.

Giustra's music is rich in nuance: its starting point is darkwave, but there's no attempt to retrace the steps of historic acts in the genre; rather, the intent is to pair post-punk with ambient "carpets" of sound, built with the help of synths.

The result is an atmospheric sound, the fruit of accomplished songwriting, that brings to mind the more ethereal Clan Of Xymox and the Factory Records-era Section 25, while still displaying a distinctive personality of its own. Rounding everything off is a baritone voice, likewise free of imitation or pastiche: a successful return for a project active since 2007, and one well worth discovering.

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