Code Industry - Strucutre (Dark Entries)

 

Title: Structure

Artist: Code Industry

Label: Dark Entries 

Cat Number: DE303

Genre: EBM

1: Behind The Mirror (Image Mix)

2: Behind The Mirror (Release Of Anguish Mix)

3: Fury

4: Dead City

5: Crimes Against The People

6: Ail

Code Industry was a rare thing; “black artists working in the idiom of EBM and industrial” and tackling “issues of racism, the media and the hypocrisy of patriotism”. Drawing on the likes of Chelmsford’s finest (Nitzer Ebb) and Front 242, this release, originally unleashed on Antler-Subway, doesn’t sound dated at all. ‘Fury’ definitely has the stamp of Nitzer Ebb, with the shouting and the stridency. It’s a powerful, jet-propelled piece of work and is, thankfully, the longest track on this release. It could be twice as long and I wouldn’t be sick of it. That’s what you get when the synths are posture sprung I suppose. There is an awful lot of shouting on this record innit. The cries of “Burn It Up”, “Shoot It Up”, etc, on ‘Dead City’ are interspersed with what sounds like tonally different spoken word samples, dropped for dramatic effect from lost radio broadcasts. There’s a live feel to ‘Crimes Against The People’, drums and guitar clashing with ascending and descending deadpan keys. Omnipresent within the primal dirge is more spoken word, and whispered vocals not a million miles away in tone from Steven Mallinder’s. The vocals on ‘Ail’ also bring tom mind discofied Cabaret Voltaire, as does its rhythmic jerkiness. The two mixes of ‘Behind The Mirror’ are different enough in tone and length so as to come across as two completely unrelated tracks. The ‘Image Mix’ being a very uptempo, vocally led tune (I’ve already alluded to vocal style), and the ‘Release Of Anguish Mix’ a slower, ominous foil built around spoken word and a sense of gradual decay. This is a fabulous, and very timely (re) release and I’m going to be playing it and annoying the neighbours with it every chance I get.