We Have A Technical

As selected by our Patreon backers, this month's We Have A Commentary finds the Senior Staff discussing the sophomore (but certainly not sophomoric) LP by Coil, "Horse Rotorvator". The record's blending of the death and sex drives, the musical ambition of Coil slowly expanding, and the spectre of the AIDS crisis are all discussed in one of the most fast moving and jam-packed We Have A Commentarys to date!

Chris Peterson and Craig Huxtable of Ohmelectronic sit down withe the Senior Staff to discuss their second album of deep Vancouver electro-industrial. From the murky origins of Chris and Craig's first meetings to the stages of Wave Gothic Treffen, we're happy to be talking shop with a jam-up pair of Van City true-schoolers.

Like many folks in Vancouver and around the world, we were shocked and saddened to learn of the passing of Phil Western last weekend. This week's episode of We Have A Technical is meant to be a celebration and examination of his genre-bending electronic forays.

An off the cuff conversation with none other than Daniel Myer is featured on this week's episode of We Have A Technical. Myer was passing through Vancouver to play a DJ set at a techno party, so we wanted to take the opportunity to discuss how his recent work in a myriad of projects relates to the ever broadening world of dark techno. Additionally, we have some discussion of ohGr's PledgeMusic woes, changes in the Ashbury Heights camp, and the passing of Spatsz of Kas Product.

How - if at all - does the craft of DJing fit into Our Thing in 2019? In a loose (read: boozy) revisitation of an older topic from a more personal perspective. Get ready for hot takes, side eye, and plenty of polemical ranting in the first episode of We Have A Technical recorded in the new HQ!

Whether it's a matter of strangers getting on the same elevator, twins separated at birth, or just two great tastes which taste great together, Our Thing has plenty of collaborations across its history and styles worthy of consideration and discussion...including the ol' Pick Five treatment. From power noise to drone, the Senior Staff have a clutch of collaborative projects and releases to discuss, along with Peter Murphy and David J's recent Vancouver stop celebrating 40 years of Bauhaus. It's We Have A Technical, babies!

For the first Patreon-supported commentary podcast of 2019, we're listening to American industrial rock classic Burnout at the Hydrogen Bar by Chemlab. How did the record both presage what was to come while speaking to the history of the North American sound? Has it aged well? Is Jared Louche an amazing frontman? Listen and find out! 

We're acting like a pair of old fashioned Germaniacs on the latest episode of We Have A Technical. Records by Lacrimosa and Steril are on the docket, alongside discussion of some new comments from Blixa Bargeld regarding industrial music, and the news of Ant-Zen withdrawing from the physical media business. Life may not be easy in Germany, but listening to the latest episode of the IDieYouDie.com podcast sure is!

It's the 242nd episode of WHaT, and you'd better believe the Senior Staff are making the most of it. They're welcoming an all-star cast of friends of the podcast to celebrate and discuss the music and legacy of Front 242. From their famous live shows to the radical changes made across their discography, folks from across Our Thing are dropping by to speak about what it is that makes them such an enduring and beloved presence. Stand up you electronic insects!

I Die: You Die kick the new year off with an extended discussion of Laibach's new record: a representation of tunes from "The Sound Of Music" for their tour of North Korea. All of the bugbears and thorns which come with Slovenia's most stoic cultural product are in the mix, along with consideration of socialist realism, Anschluss, and Rogers & Hammerstein schmaltz. Get 2019 started with the latest episode of We Have A Technical!

Hey folks, it's the last We Have a Technical of the year and the Senior Staff recorded it half in the bag and completely burned out from writing Year End coverage. You know what that means: it's the annual off-topic podcast! To be frank we scarcely remember what we talked about on this episode last week, but rest assured there's probably something about wrestling, video games, and maybe even a little politics in there for y'all. Thrill to the rambling anecdotes that go nowhere and chill with your friends Bruce and Alex! See you next in 2019! 

It's the Year End episode of We Have a Technical, and we're talking lists, honourable mentions and the broad trends of 2018 in Our Thing. If you ever wanted to hear two very tired people stumble their way through an animated but barely coherent series of observations about the year that was, this is the episode of WHaT for you! Seriously though, we were VERY tired. All on the official I Die: You Die podcast! 

Our last Patreon-supoorted commentary podcast of the year has us listening to the sophomore (?) record from Ontario's The Birthday Massacre. The record's combination of darkwave and broader rock and pop sounds made it a huge hit in 2004: how does it hold up? How were the band's enduring sounds and themes cemented here? Can we talk about a band like TBM without using ugly words like "branding"? And what do they have in common with bands as far ranging as The Cure, Blink 182, and Deadsy? Find out as we close out the year's album commentaries in spooky fashion!

As Year End coverage waits in the wings, your favourite post-industrial palookas are taking a look back at the year that was. Yes, it's a Pick Five episode with the dead simple theme of tracks from 2018. Yep, tunes which represented this year's broader trends as well as plain old earworms are being picked up and discussed, alongside recent live sets from SRSQ and HIDE on We Have A Technical! (And as for the stinger, it was Greta Van Fleet.)

It's a very English and very apocalyptic episode of We Have A Technical as recent records by Gazelle Twin and Current 93. Be it political, personal, or religious, endings and great changes are taken up in fraught and anxious ways on "Pastoral" and "The Light Is Leaving Us All". Bruce and Alex also take a look at the just announced Mechanisms Fest and the website's impending year end coverage on this week's IDieYouDie.com podcast!

Legendary producer John Fryer has had a hand in just about all of the genres of music we discuss on We Have A Technical, and we're chatting with him this week about his legacy behind the decks and his open-ended musical project Black Needle Noise featuring a revolving cast of guest vocalists. All that plus some talk about And One taking touring drama to YouTube, and the latest in a long line of Coil bootlegs on the latest podcast from I Die: You Die!

This month's We Have A Commentary podcast takes a tour through the diabolical world of Everything Goes Cold. "Vs General Failure," the first LP of Eric Gottesman's coldwave project brings all of the manic suppervillainy that we've come to expect from EGC, but also has a surprisingly human and vulnerable core. Alex and Bruce discuss the history of coldwave, the horrors of the American health care system, and the shadowy conspiracy at the heart of the second law of thermodynamics on the latest installment of IDieYouDie.com's Patreon supported podcast series!

Helium Vola and Solvent's connections to Our Thing may take the form of winding paths demanding historical context, but that's exactly why your old pals Alex and Bruce are here. From the sacred music root of Enrst Horn's extravagance to the strange intersections of electroclash, synthpop, and analog whimsy Jason Amm taps into, we're here to guide you. All that plus some discussion of The Quietus' new political writing on this week's episode of We Have A Technical!

The new album from Dead Can Dance, replete with high concept and worldly instrumentation, is the subject of this week's We Have A Technical. How does it fit (or not) with the storied dynamic betwixt Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard? Are its Nietzschean ambitions vindicated? And since when has Dionysus been a psychologist? All these questions, plus discussion of recent shows by Odonis Odonis and Clan Of Xymox on the latest episode of the IDieYouDie.com podcast!

You'd be hard pressed to find records as different from each other within Our Thing as Hypnoskull's "Electronic Music Means War To Us" and Solemn Novena's "Kiss The Girls". But that's not gonna stop Alex and Bruce from discussing them and hell, even finding some commonalities between raw power noise and second wave goth rock revisited. All that plus talk on the Numb news and current Clan of Xymox tour on this week's episode of We Have A Technical!