Sickest EBM Vinyl of 2016: STATIQBLOOM – “Mask Visions Poison” Review + Stream

Do you like EBM? Do you like the finest hour of EBM? Look no further. You have just been united with a fucking MASTERPIECE EBM record, one that will be hard to top. Brooklyn’s Statiqbloom is the dark hallucinogenic brainchild of Fade Kainer, who is also the mastermind behind such bands/projects as Batillus, Theologian, Inswsarm and regular collaborator of Jarboe).

Drawing from the grittiness of early industrial and EBM like Skinny Puppy, Frontline Assembly, Cabaret Voltaire, and the entire golden age of the Wax Trax catalog,  Statiqbloom combines hard dance beats and haunting electronics with disorienting vocals to create a pulsing raw vision of music for today – a new world order in sonic form where human and machine, material and immaterial, digital and organic have been forced together in a monstrous eruption of beauty and deformity. Within this record you’ll be faced by otherworldly and mesmerizing sonic sculpture thrown against a distant storm of pulsing dark matter, chaotic rhythms, beautifully and masterfully crafted soundscapes, and haunting rhythms.

It doesn’t matter if you’re more into the more “dancey” or club-scene oriented perfectionism of artists like New Order, Burial, or Justice,  into the cerebral and more abstract IDM of bands like Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin or Amon Tobin, or into the breakneck intensity of Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Venetian Snares or KMFDM – Statiqbloom has it all and even goes beyond, into a realm of artificial musical intelligence that at times you will find hard to believe is so grand and beautifully absurd. While “Separate Worlds” might be the best upbeat EBM track I’ve heard since Skinny Puppy released “Rodent,” other tracks on this gem like “Vestige Lights”, “Shivering” and “Behind Galss” (this last track is as grand and evocative as “Warlock”) are pure perfection – pure body and mind collision that will make you become restless in your seat and make your mind wander off into unthinkable far away places. While Mask Visions Poison was independently self-released back in 2013, this incredible record is now available from the always amazing Vendetta Records on vinyl – get into it!