CURRENT / FEATURED INTERVIEWS

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark have made a demo of a new track, “Sister Marie Says,” available as a free download from their website. It’s taken from their forthcoming  new album, “The History Of Modern.” While the 90’s OMD lineup featured Andy McCluskey as the only original member, in 2007 Paul Humphreys returned to the fold (along with other former band members Mal Holmes and Martin Cooper.) The group recently did a series of concerts with Simple Minds.

While a posting on the official Delerium website said the upcoming album will be a return to the old-school Delerium sound (”think ‘Stone Tower’ with vocals”), the new single, “Dust In Gravity, ” is far from that. Featuring Kreesha Turner on vocals,the song is VERY commercial sounding, very much in the vein of recent efforts by Delerium and member Rhys Fulber’s “Conjune One” side project. For those unfamiliar with the band, Delerium was initially one of many side projects from Front Line Assembly members Bill Leeb and Rhys Fulber. Early efforts, released on Dossier, were very dark, atmospheric soundtrack-style recordings. 1990’s “Syrophenikan” is my personal favorite from that era. Moving to Nettwerk in 1994, the Delerium project gradually shifted to a more vocal-driven, commercial sound. Guest vocalists have included Leigh Nash (Sixpence None the Richer), Julee Cruise, Matthew Sweet and Sarah McLachlan. It’s a far cry from the heavy industrial/electronic sound of Front Line Assembly, and long time fans will find little resemblance between current Delerium music and the early work of Leeb and Fulber. Still, “Dust In Gravity” is slick and catchy, and should not disappoint fans of recent Delerium/Conjune One fans. It will be interesting to see if any of the upcoming album IS reminiscent of Stone Tower (which was one of the darker ambient releases) and if so, how it might meld elements of old and new Delerium.

The “Dust In Gravity” single is available through online music stores such as itunes and emusic. If you’re not currently a member of emusic, you get a free 25 download trial and help support Chaos Control in the process! (downloads are yours to keep even if you cancel). To preview the song, check out the audio player below.

Delerium – Dust In Gravity by nettwerkmusicgroup

Rasputina have a new limited edition 3 song CD available on their website. Titled “Ancient Cross-Dressing Songs,” the disc contains “3 ancient folksongs about female-to-male crossdressers. PLUS a personal message from Melora.” Made specially for sale at Rasputina’s Knitting Factory show in September, remaining copies can be found on the “Melora’s Handicraft Shoppe” page of rasputina.com.

With his various projects over the years, former Bronski Beat / Communards vocalist Jimmy Somerville has done some great cover versions (The Communards “”Don’t Leave Me This Way” is a personal favorite of mine.) So the fact that Somerville would eventually do a covers-only release comes as no surprise. But what is unexpected is that the resulting collection, “SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER,” was done acoustically  and does not lean towards just disco hits. According to an interview on German fan site jimmysomerville.net, the album came together spontaneously while Somerville was performing a series of acoustic shows in Australia. With a studio and musicians at his disposal for 6 days, he picked out a bunch of songs from his iTunes library and ended up with the album.

The tracklisting is as follows:

“Suddenly Last Summer” is available exclusively as a download (from most major only music stores.) Below is the video for “People Are Strange.” Be sure to also check out our  1999 interview with Jimmy .

On Sunday, September 27, Book Of Love did a special performance in New York to celebrate the re-release of their catalog. Despite encountering some technical glitches, the band put on an amazing show that focused primarily on their first, self-titled album.

Below is a video that we shot of them performing “Pretty Boys and Pretty Girls.”