Explicitly dedicated to Juan Mendez, whose influence runs deep in this seductively sinister corner of underground, independent electronic music, Dekmantel UFO Series continues its resurgent form with a new album of bruising, industrial wave and techno from Broken English Club, Songs of Love and Decay.
A Shallow Lake, Prisoner, and Night Fall singles are out today giving a preview of the album out March 21st. Pre-order the album and listen to the tracks HERE.
UK techno mainstay Oliver Ho debuted his dark and brooding alias more than 10 years ago with a release on Jealous God under the guidance of the late, great Juan Mendez (Silent Servant). Those familiar with Ho’s fearsome and often brutal futurist early EPs on Blueprint, Drumcode, Surface and Meta will be aware of his ability to inject a dark narrative into functional electronics. With Broken English Club, he delivers monotone vocals and shards of live instrumentation over slamming beats and bleak synths. The blank-stared, pin-point-focused electronics and layers of noise display post-punk influences, dragging together industrial experimentation and pitch-black club techno. His debut on Jealous God was followed by several releases on Veronica Vasicka’s Cititrax (one split with Silent Servant). Following these first defining musical statements there came a string of 4 albums on Ron Morelli’s Lies records, exploring metallic, warehouse techno and synth-wave noise, the most prominent of which was the White Rats trilogy. This three-album saga explores ideas of violence and the dark aspects of human behaviour, both personal and political.
Broken English Club is not only a production alias for Oliver but also a dynamic live show, that encompasses live vocals and electronic drum percussion, performing all over the world in clubs, live venues and art galleries. Recent highlights include Berlin Atonal, Fabric, Tresor, and Dekmantel Festival. Oliver continues to develop the project with a vision that sets a tone of both atmospheric cinematic suspense and electric-charged raw techno.
Within the overarching aesthetic of the Broken English Club sound, Ho finds the freedom to deliver a full spectrum album as diverse as it is consistent. You can sense the shadow of his roots in 90s tribal techno punching through on Crawling and Death Cult, while England Heretic leans on thick swathes of analogue synthesis indebted to Giallo soundtracks and the ever-compelling lure of 80s synthwave. In its grinding layers of distortion and dubbed out vocals Vessel Of Skin speaks more to the post-punk influences which have set Broken English Club apart since the outset. This isn’t a purely retro-fetishist expedition, though — Pacific Island Kill and Lost Gods exude stark modernism in their sharply-angled sequences and dramatic sound design, moving beyond the functional demands of 4/4 dance music to reach to more cinematic zones.
These are but some of the approaches Ho burrows into as he shapes out the depth and breadth of his muse on Songs Of Love And Decay. It’s marked by the undeniable impact of his production, perfected over a decades-deep career at the bleeding edge of machine music. At times the album celebrates the addictive thrust of the dancefloor, while elsewhere it relishes the tension of suspended animation. Throughout, the gritty veneer binds together this accomplished, uncompromising body of work as both a fierce artistic statement and a loving tribute to Mendez — an artist who equally embodied the darker side of the dance.
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Songs of Love and Decay Tracklisting –
01. A Shallow Lake
02. Crawling
03. England Heretic
04. Love And Decay
05. Death Cult
06. Vessel Of Skin
07. Night Fall
08. Pacific Island Kill
09. Lost Gods
10. Prisoner
11. Sacred Sacrifice
12. Ghost
13. Non Place
14. The Occult Body
Dekmantel | Website | Bandcamp
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