Total Industrial Warfare mix and commentary

I recently published a new mix on my mixcloud account, certainly the heaviest and most intense yet. “Reign of Steel: Total IndustrialWarfare” is a nightmarish apocalyptic soundtrack to a world-ending war between humans and machines. It’s a mix I’ve been planning for a long time and I’m really happy with the result, especially the last few tracks. Here is a tracklist with some commentary.

1. Kristoffer Nystroms Orkester: biTer. This amazing track is from a staggeringly good EP released a few years ago on Malignant Records, brakeHEAD. The opening blasts of noise set the aggressive tone, then the thundering percussions, drones and samples add amazing layers and structure. I knew I wanted this for the opening track of the mix as soon as I heard it. Fun fact: this project is a side project of Megaptera, much like Negru Voda, who we’ll be hearing more from later in the mix.

2. Ex.Order: Generated Invasion. This band is the twisted, angry cousin of German ambient legends Inade. And what a track! It’s from a great release “War Within Breath” that Malignant did of various rare and old Ex.Order tracks, and fits the theme perfectly. War Within Breath rated highly on my list of best power electronics albums of all time.

3. Anenzephalia: Final Pulse. Everyone knows that this Anenzepahlia albums kicks arse (don’t bother with Nohaem); but the main reason I actually chose the track was the title and the samples. “No more running. We stop them here!”. The fact that this has some of the most aggro vocals in the history of anything doesn’t hurt either.

4. IRM: The Disease. A great track from an old and essential Cold Meat Industry classic, Oedipus Dethroned. Don’t forget to check out their other work though, it’s all awesome. The vocals and sounds make me think of clouds of toxic chemical weapons enveloping and killing hapless soldiers.

5. Navicon Torture Technologies: The Last Day. Picking one NTT track for this mix was hard enough, picking one from his album Scenes from theNext Millennium was just as hard, because you could pretty much just use this whole damn album. The first half of this track has vocals that are just too damn crazy to believe, and the second half has a wall of noise that is just too damn crazy to believe. NTT is still the king of power electronics.

6. Muskel: For Syftet Amnads. Muskel is one of the 17,000 side projects of MZ412 / Nordvargr etc, this one being a harsh noise act that only ever put out one release on Malignant Records, Seven Days of Pain. And holy crap it is noisy and intense! Definitely one of the heaviest releases I own, without resorting to boring Japanese noise tropes. An overlooked release worth checking out.

7. Steel Hook Prosthesis: Atrocitizer. This one is a new up and coming act on Malignant Records, that I’m impressed with and is going places, and managing to do interesting things in the noise / power electronics / death industrial areas. Their new album is high on my current shopping list.
8. Negru Voda: Turku. I love love LOVE this track, so damn much. One of my favourite tracks at the moment, and my favourite on this mix. I don’t quite know how to describe this sound or what I love about it, but everything about it rules. It’s the final track off the 3 CD collection on Malignant Records, Val de Luxe.

9. Xenonics K-30: G.M.A.S. Well, this is the track that originally inspired this mix, a few years ago. It pretty much sums up the whole idea perfectly, from beginning to end, and is a fitting finale to the incredibly awesome Xenonics K-30 album, “Automated”, that was a major influence for this mix and the whole Reign of Steel concept. “Threat level to facility integrity is past level seven, enacting disaster protocol”…

10. Imminent Starvation: Please. This is is one of those interesting tracks that by itself is just a cute quirky way to end one of the mostmonstrously powerful noise albums ever recorded, but in this context, takes on a whole new level. The idea I’m following here is that after the catastrophic battle in the last track, where the main human force gets wiped out, the survivors who escape into the wasteland receive this baffling message over the radio. But is this really someone they can trust?