Alternative thoughts about 2012 from Andrew

It is very common to release different "the best of the year" lists of albums, and Brutal Resonance couldn't stay behind as well. I saw our teammates bombing our blog section with their vision of how productive the year 2012 was. But I thought to myself that the scene is not assembled of EBM , dark electro and synthpop genres. It is much wider then this and that is a part of its beauty - experimentation and breaking boundaries. That's why I would like to bring the vision from my point of view of the albums that excited me and made my heart beat with a light speed during the past year.

I will not grade the cd in my list putting some kind of a tournament feeling. All the records that will be mentioned by me have a special place in my heart; they made me smile during this not easy year.

First of all I would like to start with power electronics and death industrial delights, because this scene had been very close to my everyday life for the past few years. Most of the significant acts came out of Malignant Records and L.White Records, though few other contributed too, like Freak Animal, Small Doses, Ant Zen and others.

Nyodene D (Nyodene D & Sektor 304) - 'Edenfall' (DCD) (Malignant Records)
Skin Area - 'Rothko Field' (Malignant Records)
Various Artists - 'United States Bestial Forces' (L.White Records)
Grunt - 'World Draped in a Camouflage' (Freak Animal Records)

Those four items definitely kicked my ass with many hours of constant play time.

Secondly, not less important genre for me is an ambient genre with all its subgenres. There are so many, so just name it: Dark ambient, drone ambient, ritual ambient, etc. Here I could mention a significant comeback of Cold Meat Industry with few releases supported by Tesco team. But all the old sharks were active as well; Malignant, Cyclic Law, Loki Found and others brought a lot of good material, though I would like to sign out few specific items.

Sphare Sechs - 'Tiefschlaf' (Malignant Records)
First Law - 'A Future So Bright' (Loki Foundation)
Dahilias Tear - 'Dreamsphere' (Cold Meat Industry)
Hall Of Mirrors - 'Altered Nights' (Malignant Records)
Troum - 'Grote Mandrenke' (Beta-Lactam Ring Records)

An EBM and synth (electro) scene was very disappointing for me during 2012. So many copycats, so many "look a likes" around that make it really hard to navigate through all the wave of averagism and lack of taste around. My impression is that most of the material was a "cut/paste" kind of stuff, without any passion or experimentation. But there were few items that brought a light of hope to this dark corner of my musical taste and here they are:

Dead When I Found Here - 'Rag Doll Blues' (Artoffact Records)
Mind.in.a.Box - 'Revelations' (Dependent Records)
Thyx - 'The Way Home' (THYX Records)
Trakktor - 'Halo of Lies' (Katyusha)

It's a pity, but there was not much activity in the corner of folk and neofolk music. But still even during this dry year, I could find few very interesting items and they are :

Sieben - 'No Less Then All' (Redroom Records)

The biggest surprise for me in folk genre was a band from Russia which could have got lost during the better days of neofolk scene, but it definitely stands out nowadays

Sunset Wings - 'Farewell' (The Eastern Front)

The biggest discovery of 2012 was a Moscow based label Radiodrone that is concentrated on drone ambient and field recordings production of mainly Eastern European scene. The label released a bunch of strong material, and I will cover it through my reviews during the upcoming weeks.

If we already talk about labels, I would like to mention the labels and people behind them that made for me this year colorful and bright and they are :
Jason and Malignant Records
Rene and Loki Foundation
Peter and L.White Records
Dmitriy and Radiodrone Records
Igor & Tanya and The Eastern Front Records

I hope that upcoming year will be as productive as 2012 with a lot of artists and creations to set the imagination on fire.