Legendary French industrial pioneers Vox Populi! arrive on Dark Entries with a reissue of Sucre De Pastèque. Vox Populi! was founded in Paris in 1981 by Axel Kyrou, a multi-instrumentalist of Greek, French, and Palestinian roots. He soon recruited his future partner, Mitra, and her brother Arash Khalatbari, who were born in Iran and came to Paris in their teens, as well as bassist Fr6 Man (Francis Manne).
Their sound was motley, combining elements of musique concrete and early industrial with horns, flutes, and traditional Persian instrumentation. Improbably prolific and ceaselessly divergent, Vox Populi! found their way onto dozens of cassette compilations during the heyday of the 1980s DIY tape music scene, including releases…
Tag Archive: Dark Entries
Two naked, moustachioed beefcakes sit back to back, eyes averted, linked by wires, resistors, and switches, as if plugged into the same circuit board. Connection, sex, loneliness, and electricity all smashed together — has there ever been a better pictorial representation of Patrick Cowley‘s music? I’m referring here to the sleeve of Cowley’s not-new new album Hard Ware, the latest in a series of releases by California record label Dark Entries that has turned up all manner of wonders from the archive of the pioneering disco producer, who died in 1982 of AIDS.
Cowley lifers will know by now, more or less, what to expect from Hard Ware. Glistening synthesizers and squelchy basslines do battle over drum machines, while vocalists pop up here…
For a young (or at least inexperienced) Western gay man, few places hold the combination of loaded history, excitement, and terror like the bathhouse. These hallowed public sex spaces have survived decades of on-and-off-again state targeting, and are often associated with a previous generation of gay men but always fetishized by an underdog contingent of the next. They’re places where people explicitly go to have sex while coyly pretending that’s not why they’re there — maybe they sit on gym equipment covered in cobwebs, or halfheartedly take a shower even though they did all their preparation beforehand. The lines of consent can become blurred, so you might have one of the best hookups of your life, or maybe get chased around and cornered by…