This is the best record I've heard on Gigolo in years. It harkens back to the hard minimal electro sounds of 98-00. Cold, precise, clinical, but still deeply moving. It also sounds eerily similar to the production of Gerald Donald (Japanese Telecom, Arpanet, Dopplereffekt, Drexciya, etc). If it is not produced by him, there is someone out there doing an excellent job aping his style. Highly recommended for all fans of serious electro.

This album is nothing short of a masterpiece. Le Syndicat Electronique has put out many fine releases, but the production here is his richest and deepest. Tracks like "Ewigkeit" and "Transmission 001" are some of the finest neo-noir electro tracks out there, and no fan of hard electro and EBM should be without "Sacrifice". This sonic vision contained in this album is unerringly consistent - cold, paranoid, but also triumphant, heroic. The raw, analog sounds perfectly reinforce this vision.
It also was the last *pure* electro-oriented record released on IP. After this point, the label shifted gears towards a more Neue Deutsche Welle/Minimal Synth direction.

It took me more than a few listens to really appreciate this album. Upon first listen, it seemed a very hastily put together, poorly thought-out, sub-par DAF spin-off. The production is not as immediately deep or engrossing as most of Conny Plank's contemporaneous material, and it seems like a failed pop-crossover attempt.
After letting it marinate for several months, I took the record out again, and quickly grew to enjoy it - it's almost like DAF trying to cover Kid Creole songs. Grating sine-waves, synthesized steel drums, furious funk basslines, and joyous horn outbursts collide in some weird tropical cyber-utopia. There are some duds, and some failed experiments, but the record is certainly underrated.

Cavage is one of the strangest record labels I have encountered. Not only is their musical output utterly baffling - ranging from fractured electronics, to deliriously druggy hip-hop, to breakcore, to demented pop music, and beyond - but the label's aesthetic and rhetoric is totally out-there. They organise parties in catacombs, and, from what i recall, in one interview, label founder(s) UHT/Saoulaterre claims they do so in order to incite the rats to rise up out of the sewers and take over the streets. Nihilistic, lysergic humor is present in everything they do, and it's a blessing in the often dour and stern world of extreme electronics.

The artist(s) responsible for the excellent French label Cavage. Their output is wildly varied, ranging from mid-tempo hard, druggy acid and Spiral Tribe-styled hardtek, to frantic gabber and speedcore, to dense ambient and sonic pranks. But usually it falls between, or outside those simpler classifications. There is an endearing, child-like innocence and joy to their music, no matter how dark/aggressive/warped it may. I lost track of their output around 01, but they will remain to me to be some of the most interesting, and totally, totally bizarre producers of our times.

This was (somehow) my introduction to Thomas Heckmann's work, when it came out a few years ago. I'm saddened by the fact that I hadn't been introduced to him earlier!
This release is driving, militant ebm-techno, sort of similar to Terence Fixmer or David Caretta's rougher output. "Teufelswerk" is a particularly effective dancefloor filler - towards the end of the track, there is an amazing segment w/ heavy, crunchy DSP effects. Great for those "oops, I had 15 shots of tequila, now watch me dance like an idiot and fall down on the ground a lot" nights.

For fans of hard techno, acid, and EBM, Heckmann is highly, highly recommended.

This is actually produced by UHT/Saoulaterre.

One of the more straightfoward records released by these...errr...eclectic French producers. While much of their output is utterly unclassifiable and largely unmixable, all four (extremely varied) tracks here are geared towards the dancefloor. Albeit, a dancefloor consisting of, as the title suggests, mutated monsters, but a dancefloor nonetheless.
(Actually, when put like that, the record seems kinda like "The Monster Mash" for the post-rave generation.)
The tracks range from 130-190 bpm, so they can fit into a wide variety of sets. My favorite track here is "C.H.U.D." - a perky, chipper, operatic ragga-polka gabber/hip hop tune. Really, it's even weirder than it sounds. I can only assume this is the kind of stuff Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers like to dance to.

This is one of Scud's strongest releases. It's a shame it is so poorly mastered.

The "I got a question for ya?? Are you down with the underground?" bit on this record is lifted from UR's 'Revolution for Change' album. It is from Mad Mike's spoken introduction to 'The Punisher', when it was performed live in Utrecht (in 91? maybe 92?).
The "volkstanz" sample is from 'Volkstanz', on D.A.F's "Die Kleinen und die Bösen'.

A great introduction to the praxis/ambush sound, with 8 exclusive tracks from the labels' heavy-hitters (and a few lesser known acts). Also, it possesses some of the most notoriously bad cover art of all time.
Track highlights include Scud's "Come With It", a particularly abrasive and energetic raggacore number, and Scud & Fringelli's "Something Violent", which is sort of a megamix of some "hits" from Scud and Fringelli's back catalogs.
Hecate's track samples Goblin's theme to the Dario Argento film "Suspiria".

This is a bit of a disappointing release, in my opinion, particularly considering the pedigree of both involved artists.
While Nitzer Ebb was never a band lauded for their lyrical output ("fast beat the feat/fast fall the hands"...eh?), Douglas McCarthy's lyrics here are worse than my high school poetry. "Free fall through the holes in my mind/Role call for the freaks of nature"?? Yeah, that's pretty bad. But bits like "..and the sun drips down like oozing pus from a hot black sore....and all at once, a hideous bell tolls!....an endless exorcism of grief and pain, whimpering, salivating with despair!" are just unforgivable. The production, while not bad, isn't quite up to Fixmer's standards. Something doesn't seem quite as booming and imposing about the sonics, here.
There are a few tracks worthy of note, to be sure. 'Freefall' is a solid rockin', wave-your-hands-in-the-air technopop smash. 'You Want It' is classic, stompy, Fixmer ebm-core. 'Come Inside' is a sort of an industrial-schaffel hybrid. So it's not all bad, but not nearly as crucial as it could have been. Only really recommended for die-hard fans of Nitzer Ebb or Terence Fixmer. Here's to looking forward to future, better collaborations between the artists.