"Empty Editions present the debut 12" from mysterious electronic outfit Taibach. Conceptualized by ABCs, Taibach has emerged from the shadows as a blunted East-Asian historical consciousness failing to return home after becoming a stranger to itself. With a nom de guerre which references both the infamous Slovenian proto-industrial group Laibach and their mythologized homeland of Taiwan, Taibach restages the classic thematics and aesthetic strategies of industrial music for a contemporary moment in which shifting balances of power between east and west herald new hegemonies and exhume old grievances. Their martial approach to electronics follows in a brood of decidedly cryptic underground music: drawing on the sound of classic industrial bands, early '90s techno, and more recent developments at the intersection of noise and rhythmic music. Taibach embraces futile Taiwan-based nationalism by celebrating the seldom-criticized reactionary tendencies of the region as a document of its history and its current political impasses. Taibach's debut LP contains a rawness and intensity that excels in club contexts, spilling over into more varied strands of experimental and underground music. While the music itself is primed for big room sound systems, the omnivorous use of guitar, effects pedals, and sampling techniques alongside stalwart drum programming also allow for more intimate listening -- soundtracking both club depravity and solitary walks in equal measure. The kosmische proto-electro bite of "Spicy Test" furnishes a terse blueprint for Taibach's aural vocabulary: skeletal drums brought deliberately into the red provide a burnt, metallic underpinning to the record's five tracks. Across the LP, rhythm is complemented by asymmetric washes of tape hiss, feedback, and filtered voices which ride alongside the drum patterns. Tracks "You Are Shit!" and "Enemy Inside" carve out wide expanses for filtered chords and sequenced synths to reflect against uncoiling rhythms. The LP culminates in "Rocket (Live)," an opus of live sound system music that carries with it the hot heat of a subterranean, neon-lit industrial catacomb filled with vampiric club-goers. As guitar noise billows out over a militant rhythm that recalls everything from darkwave to Container (or early Suicide records) the track builds into an assailing polyrhythm that showcases a dancefloor severity at the height of their transportive powers. Includes photocopied insert of a watercolor painting depicting an anonymous man hanging from a streetlamp." - Empty Editions .
After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.
This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).
Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.
Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.
Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).
So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
