I discovered She Wants Revenge through a mailing list, though it had been mentioned by some colleagues before (whose musical taste is questionable enough, making me automatically discard it). I finally got my hands on their debut album, She Wants Revenge, and must say I have not been this hooked for a long while.

For the reader who does not know this author, I am a 33-year-old old school guy who has had his fair share of lipstick, gloss and shades, and I am certainly no newbie to dark themed music. However, after my 20s I got more and…

I never really thought I would reach a play count this high, especially since a lot of the music I hear does not get scrobbled at all. last.fm has really helped me a lot in finding good music, exchanging ideas with a lot of awesome songwriters and particularly in defining my personality in terms of my musical style.

Kudos to last.fm, and let's keep it rolling for another 60K plays.

I always claimed to be an electic music listener, but last.fm finally provided me the numbers to back up my claims. The first weird thing I found out is that the band I listened the most, Neuroticfish, accounts for only 446 of my 19,500+ entries – that means it represents just about 2.3% of all music I heard after joining last.fm. Even weirdier, if I add all entries for my top 10 bands, I get 3,028 entries – which represents only 15.5% of all logged songs.

Add to that the fact that some of these bands (like #1 position,…

It sucks when last.fm decides for whatever reason that a band you really enjoy has a name which collides with something else that has a lot more fans, and your favorite tracks' stats get all mixed with songs from a different artist. Vigilante is one of these bands – I love the harsh-electro band, but it collides with a *gasp* J-Pop band.

Well, tough luck. At least I don't have to listen to J-Pop.

Just came across Uphonic (found through mp3db.ru). Sweet electro beats, minimalistic style and nice (male) vocals. Very nice, indeed.

It's been a long time since I listened to any music from the demo scene – my last approach being the Mindcandy DVD from MAZ Sound. A few days ago I completed my move to a new apartment, and my copy of No. 1 Instruments emerged from my pile of long-considered-lost sample CDs. Then it struck me – what would Maelcum of KFMF, theHacker of KFMF, Vivid of KFMF, B00MER of KFMF and many other old-school Kosmic Free Music Foundation sound like today?

It turns out that their music ages pretty well. I am writing this while…

You made me feel needed
You could see my soul
I gave you my loyalty
You choose to make me fall

You know that feeling when a song reaches you in so many different levels that it gives you shivers just to hear the initial chords? You know all the lyrics, you scream at the chorus like you were 16 once again and feel like a dumbass for closing your eyes and allowing it to hit you full impact while at the same time trying not to look like a over-sensitive weird teenager to your fellow coworkers when it plays…

Nebula-H is quite possibly one of the best new bands I came across in 2005. Danceable, aggressive and the oh-so-awesome synth sweeps, distortions, snare rolls and trace-like elements I love so much. There's not much else I would add, except perhaps for more noticeable vocal lines (something like Icon of Coil or Ayria, but then again I don't know how vocals could stand out inside such intricate synth lines).

I must also mention Mind.in.a.Box, another awesome act I stumbled upon through last.fm last year. A totally different kind of beast – quieter, warmer and sometimes almost depressive –…

For far too long I have been trapped in the old school mantra, thinking that bands that mix trance, drum'n'bass, nice female vocals and such, could never be called true EBM/industrial/darkwave/(insert your favourite tag here). However, for listeners of what I like to classify as "technological music", where instruments evolve as fast as technology allows (can anyone remember Walter Carlos and his majestic interpretations for "A Clockwork Orange", mostly done on monophonic synthesizers?), isn't it somewhat counterintuitive to think that the way musicians use their machines in order to build the tracks we listen should change along with the gear?…

It's the never-ending argument – traditional music listeners and their prejudice against "soul-less, cold, harsh and meaningless electronic music". I've been listening to extremely passionate, furious, soothing and chilling electronic music for so long now I believe synthesizer bleeps and sweeps tell me so much more than a guitar solo. And yet people will always argue that there is no value in instruments with "presets", in music that cannot be played live. Fact is, most people do not care to take the time to learn to like stuff like they did when younger. I will easily listen to an album…