Year: 2024
Label: Steinklang Industries

There’s an old saying that all good things come in threes. I guess Steinklang took that to heart with this most recent batch of tapes. Three tapes, three good ones. We’re only on the second tape here, but let me spoil this a bit for you: even the third tape is good.

French Vologne’s debut tape is, as the project themselves proclaim, a tribute to all kinds of weird, dysfunctional and unusual minds. A fitting thematic for industrial noise, but does it resound in the music?

It’s a cop out, but: I guess it depends. On the listener, I mean. This kind of instrumental industrial could just as well be about peeling potatoes. Speech samples do anchor the noise compositions in the thematic framework, but on the other hand, they are so buried in the mix that half the time it’s hard to make anything out of them.

Musically, Vologne leans a bit toward old school. The sound is somewhere between power electronics and death industrial, with token nods towards harsher noise. For the most part, Total Purge For The Living focuses on more subtle and controlled industrial noise rather than blasting cacophony. Blasting noise is used sparsely, to good effect. The second track, Dysfunctional Mind, and the last track The Valley even feature some harmonious synth layers in the background. Some of the tracks also feature very prominent and powerful percussion (The Valley, again), which is not all that usual in this type of music.

I suppose one could say this is the kind of industrial noise that fits Steinklang to a tee. We’ve reviewed virtually all of the label’s releases during the most recent years, and more often than not, when they release industrial noise, the same descriptors as apply to Vologne can be used: old school, balanced, not just noise, etc.

Which is not a derisive remark towards either Steinklang or Vologne. Quite the contrary, it is nice that there is consistency and a sort of predilection in the label’s output. They have a style. And best of all, it’s a style I like. And as for Vologne… well, the above said, why would I be derisive?

Total Purge For the Living is an atmospheric and abrasive release. Not necessarily a violent one. I’d say it’s more disconcerting than actually violent. In combining harsher tones of industrial noise with calmer, more harmonious elements, it creates a contrast that works.

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