BLACK OPS : BLUE STAHLI RETURNS WITH FACE-MELTING NEW SINGLE 'OBSIDIAN'

Seemingly gone AWOL from his home label of several years (Fixtmusic),

Blue Stahli's Bret Autry delivers a super-dense slab of Electronic Krunk Rock.

Obsidian is the title of the third album in the deadchannel_Trilogy

( see link below )*

BUY BLUE STAHLI HERE

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LIKE THAT? TRY THESE

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This week's video blog episode from Blue Stahli

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*EDITOR'S NOTE:

Not to be confused with the separate musical project 'Obsydians'

by Future-Rocker regular, Thomas 'Drop' Betrisey,

see our Top Ten Posts, below

COMING THIS WEEK: NEW ALBUM FROM THE ANIX: 'GRAPHITE'

PRE-ORDER/BUY IT HERE FROM JUNE 26TH

CYBERPUNK 2077 - Official Game Trailer ft. Keanu Reeves

REWINDING 1987's MODERN VAMPIRE WESTERN 'NEAR DARK'

Kathryn Bigelow's cult movie never gets old

Below: Vampire gangleaders ( played by Lance Henrikson and Jenette Goldstein ).

''PRAY FOR DAYLIGHT''

It's typical of Hollywood's unfortunate gender bias that a clearly gifted director such as Kathryn Bigelow had to sit on the sidelines for most of the 80s, a full six years having elapsed between her low budget debut feature, The Loveless ( starring Willem Defoe ) to her stylish and assured follow-up, Near Dark.

Through its stark, dusty visuals, and featuring the blue-lit backwaters of night-time America, Near Dark's conception was rooted in the idea that Bigelow, alongside co-writer Eric Red, had originally wanted to do a movie reviving and updating the western genre. Finding difficulty obtaining the backing to do so, they decided to combine western elements with the more popular horror genre to successfully create a 'vampire western' whose critical and fan longevity has far outlasted its more successful mainstream rivals. 

Cont'd...

Below: Jesse and Mae, played by Adrian Pasdar and Jenny Wright.

A synthesis of late-80s genre ideas, Near Dark was also a great visualisation of Cyberpunk, a hot contemporary science fiction movement spearheaded by Canadian author William Gibson. The film's retro-future outlaw vibe, plus the pulsating electronic score by Tangerine Dream, heavily suggests that the writers were aware of what was going on in the realm of speculative fiction, and added a dash of that to the mix, too. The result is that Near Dark serves as a high-water mark in an era of great cult cinema. 

In terms of box office, Bigelow's film compared unfavourably with hit MTV-friendly vampire movie The Lost Boys, of that same year. Directed by Joel Schumacher, The Lost Boys had the advantage of a summer release preceding Near Dark by three months. That, plus an easy-on-the-eye teen cast whose audience had already been primed with numerous 'Brat Pack' ensemble movies featuring their favourite teen heart-throbs, ( such as movie lead Keifer Sutherland ) meant that Near Dark's marketing department had its work cut out to get the movie across. Bigelow's film, while featuring many fan-pleasing moments and great effects, was perhaps too dark and intense when compared to its lighter contemporaries. In fact, 1987 was a year positively stuffed with high-performing movies of varying budgets and genres ( Hellraiser, Predator, Witches of Eastwick, Lethal Weapon, etc. ) so it is possible that Near Dark simply failed to make itself heard above the noise.

Interestingly, the movie featured a prominent portion of the Aliens cast from the preceding year: Jenette Goldstein, Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton all played members of Near Dark's band of undead drifters living off the margins of society. As the film's leads, unknown actors Adrian Pasdar played farmhand Caleb, and the luminous Jenny Wright put in a star turn as Mae, the vampire ingenue who wants to induct Caleb into their group.
( Aliens director James Cameron even has a cameo in the film. He and Bigelow were dating at the time, and later married ). 

Perhaps due to the film's lack of box office impact, it took a while for Pasdar to surface again ( most notably in 2006's hit TV show Heroes ), while Wright dropped off the radar entirely, maintaining zero internet presence throughout the nineties and beyond. Apart from a rare guest character spot on NYPD Blue and a couple of other minor TV roles, it's readily apparent that she must have decided to leave screen acting behind. Luckily, in recent years Wright has come out of seclusion to attend fan conventions, acknowledging the film's growing stature among cinephiles. 

Below: Mae, played by Jenny Wright.

Of the Cameron regulars, both Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton went on to have long careers in movie and TV, although Paxton sadly died unexpectedly of complications during a routine operation in 2017. You can read his Sight & Sound obituary here, but keep scrolling for a great interview by Dean Delray on Soundcloud.

Below: In the ensemble cast, Bill Paxton played the anarchic Severin.

Director Kathryn Bigelow's story does have a neat ending, however: She and Cameron separated and he then went on to cement his reputation as Hollywood's premiere director, with blockbusters such as Terminator 2, True Lies, and record breakers Titanic and Avatar. However, in 2010 she staged the mother of all comebacks with The Hurt Locker beating her ex-husband's Avatar at the 2010 Oscars, winning six awards to Avatar's three. She then went on to direct acclaimed movies Zero Dark Thirty ( 2012 ), and Detroit ( 2017 ).

There was talk around 2006 of a Near Dark remake, but Bigelow was not attached and luckily the idea was shelved because apparently it bore a resemblance to schmaltzy  noughties franchise Twilight.

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Dean Delray interviews Bill Paxton

You can hear this fantastic chat with Near Dark / Aliens / Apollo 13 actor Bill Paxton just a few weeks before his untimely death, on comedian Dean Delray's podcast series Let There Be Talk:

Follow Dean's interviews with luminaries from the music, movie and comedy worlds on iTunes and elsewhere via his website.

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TANGERINE DREAM: NEAR DARK SOUNDTRACK

'Bus Terminal / Mae's Theme'

Many thanks to Dean Delray. Podcast link used with permission.

BENJAMIN NOMINET - THE VOICE OF SYBREED - RETURNS!

Finally the awesome pipes of Benjamin Nominet can be heard again, now in SHADOW DOMAIN! Alongside noted metalcore guitarist Kris Norris ( Darkest Hour ), and Static-X drummer Nick Oshiro, it's clear that the band has an impeccable pedigree. We at FUTURE-ROCKER can't wait to hear the new album, entitled DIGITAL DIVIDE out on December 21st, 2018.

BRAND NEW VIDEO FROM OBSYDIANS - 'ASCENSION' ( feat. Steve Fari )

A more downtempo and contemplative - but still heavy - track from cyber-metal mastermind Thomas 'Drop' Betrisey. It showcases Steve Fari, the third and final of his three vocalists for the studio-only project known as OBSYDIANS.

Click here to check out our interview with Thomas from earlier this year.

NEW OBSYDIANS! - AXIOM FALLACY ( feat. Guillaume Bideau )

The latest single definitely has echoes of the classic SYBREED album Antares. Check it out!

OBSYDIANS DEBUT SINGLE FINALLY ARRIVES - MUSIC AND INTERVIEW

SYBREED'S THOMAS 'DROP' BETRISEY RETURNS WITH HIS NEW PROJECT!

Above: Obsydians art by Erik Kirchner

Since Future-Rocker discovered Sybreed, we've been a fan of everything former bandleader Thomas 'Drop' Betrisey puts his hand to. Whether it's his production side-projects, or his crushing Celldweller remixes, or appearing onstage with veteran cyber-black metallers Samael, everything he touches is notable for its mark of quality.

This week finally saw the release of the first song from Thomas's oft-talked about new project, OBSYDIANS. As he mentioned in Future-Rocker last year, where we revealed the three vocalists that will be featured on the project ( click on this link ), the Obsydians sound will be closer in spirit to Sybreed's great masterpiece 'Antares', and is therefore ideal for easing his die-hard fans through this transition period. However, Obsydians must currently defer to the main priority in Thomas' life, namely his job as bassist for veteran Swiss band Samael.

Luckily, Drop made time in his busy schedule to chat with Future-Rocker about how this all fits together, so let's start with Samael...

Future-Rocker: Hegemony was your first album with Samael. A while back you told Future-Rocker that they were a big influence on you as a young metal-head. Describe entering the studio with the band for the first time.

Thomas: Yeah, Samael has been a huge influence for me in my teenage years, and I still think there is no other band out there that sound similar to them. In the case of "Hegemony" the album was already recorded when I joined the band, so I just basically learned the songs for the live shows.

The album reminds me of Samael from the late 90s, only heavier. Do you know if this evolved spontaneously in the studio, and as a fan, what’s your opinion of what came out of the recording sessions?

I know they wanted a more "live" approach of the songs, with a bit of experimenting too. I think almost all the songs on the album are shaped for live shows, we are already playing three new songs, and they work perfectly.

How do they craft the songs? Does Vorph ( Samael's vocalist and leader ) do all the song-writing, or do the other members contribute too?

It's Xy, Vorph's brother who takes care of all the music, Vorph writes the lyrics. As I said before, the album was already recorded when I came in, so I didn't add anything. I do play bass during the live shows with some of my grooves, but I don't think this changes much for the listener, hehe.

Is there a difference between how Samael records an album, and how you would approach the process with your own band?

Actually not that much. Xy is writing all the music so he basically records the demos using DI's that he can reamp afterwards during the mixing process. DI means "direct injection" - you record it in parallel of your amp signal, but it’s only the sound of the instrument coming straight from it. With it you just route this clean signal into the amp, as if the dude was in the studio. It’s easier to work through the internet like this.

I know he records some of the music during the last step before the mix, but I also know that he uses a lot of these demo DI's. Samael has a drum machine so all the fills and stuff don't change much.

For my projects, for example, I record demos with a drum-machine, and after the demo is finished, Kevin ( Obsydians’ drummer ) records it with his own style. So I can't re-use my demos, I need to record again following his new fills and grooves. Nevertheless, I do reamp the DI's of the "lead" guitars, and all the melodies behind, etc, which are often coming from the demos.

It looks like Samael will shortly be busy doing the summer festival circuit.

Yeah, the album was released in October, and got a pretty good response. We are touring for it at the moment, only shows here and there. We also have this project called W.A.R. in which Samael’s members plays the first two albums, and Xy is back on drums for this. It’s very old school, very true, hahaha.

So where will Obsydians fit in?

Obsydians is a studio project that is not making any live appearances for the moment. I want to focus on single songs at first. Everything sounds very promising. 

We've just seen the lyric video for Obsydians' debut single False Light Constructs...it's  very much like classic Sybreed, but with something new added. Have you completed working with all three vocalists now, or just Jon Howard so far?

All of the three songs are fully recorded, the vocals are done, and I just need to make some more arrangements and mix and send these to ( much sought-after metal producer ) Jens Bogren for the mastering.

So they'll be released as three singles over time, or will there be a completed EP or album when all the tracks are finished?

We’ll release them one after another with a lyric video, as well as on our Bandcamp page. The other streaming platform such as Spotify, Apple, Deezer etc will come shortly after the lyric video. There is absolutely no album, nor EP planned. We are currently working on a 4th song with a cool guest..!

I would think Klayton's label, ( electronic rock label FIXT ), would be a good home for these songs. Or maybe something more traditional, like Nuclear Blast? Have you got a label yet? 

We’d like to stay on our own, social media, streaming platform, Bandcamp. We don’t want to be affiliated to a label for now.

Seeing as how good the new Obsydians track is, we can’t wait to hear the others!

Thanks ! Glad you like it :)

//// BUY IT FROM BANDCAMP - CLICK HERE! ////

BLADERUNNER BLACK OUT 2022 - NEW ANIME SHORT

Image: Sony Pictures Japan

It goes without saying that beloved science fiction films have a history of cross-pollinating each other across the decades. Elements from Metropolis ( 1926 ) may be visible in Bladerunner ( 1982 ) and Akira ( 1989 ), for instance. 

Here, we have the final of the three short films commissioned to coincide with Denis Villeneuve's imminent Bladerunner sequel. The director, Shinichiro Watanabe ( most famous for Cowboy Bebop ), purportedly commented that Bladerunner was the film that had the most influence on him, and that it was important to pay respect but not be an imitation. It was inevitable perhaps, that the stunningly-realised futuristic milieu of the original film, imprinted itself on dozens of live-action cinematic releases over the years, as well as on the colourful, animated world of manga. 

Advance word on Villeneuve's film is already resoundingly positive, and may even be a new classic. He will have pulled off an astonishing feat if that indeed is the case. We only have a few more days to find out for ourselves, but until then, here Villeneuve presents a new short to as the final hors d'oeuvres to the main course:

OOPS! IT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN TAKEN DOWN BY WARNERS. 
OKAY, HERE'S THE TEASER CLIP, COURTESY OF TOKYO POP TV!

 

BLADERUNNER 2049 TRAILER IS HERE!

NEW VIDEO! SIRUS: NEON DOMINION

Atmospheric cyberpunk / synthwave track by Melbourne band SIRUS.

Directed by Josh Rombout.

CODE ELEKTRO: CALL OF THE WIRED

'I have always wanted to score a movie. But not just any movie – it will have to fit into the Code Elektro universe.'

Here we present an assortment of tracks from synthwave maestro CODE ELEKTRO's epic recent album, WOLF, as well as from his previous opus, SUPERSTRINGS. PLUS! Scroll down for the exclusive new interview, and merchandise links.

Future-Rocker: First of all, there seems a definite transition in the themes as well as the music. Tell us about this 'WOLF' concept. Are you hiker, or a conservationist? Or do you just like Scandinavia?!

‘Wolf’ is a concept album. The album is about how a wolf can be dangerous - but also free. Furthermore, there’s a theme of travel throughout the album. Starting in the wolf den and the initiation ritual - and then moving though the landscape, the night and the city. And the album ends with a transition to something new. I wanted the sounds to have a more human or ”organic” feel. Not as clean as my previous album, ”Superstrings”. And I play around a little more with the dynamics.

I am sensing an actual storyline that plays in your head. Would you like to write movies too, or just score them?

It would be great to work with some kind of story and combining it with my music. I have always wanted to score a movie. But not just any movie – it will have to fit into the Code Elektro universe.

On the new album, you have the customary atmospherics that are underscored by your trademark pulsing synths, but I am detecting a bit of a rock vibe developing, with some crunching riffs, and very tasteful 80s-style guitar shredding to add to the dynamics, as well as loud drums. Would you be happy if the 'Classic Rock', AOR, or Prog guys started following you?

I love rock music and I started out playing bass in rock bands as a young kid. So yes!

Is the rock aspect something you'd like to develop? Maybe do a more '80s Transformers'-style sonic assault? ( I emphasize 80s not current Transformers, because the soundtrack album to the animated movie kicked ass! )

Maybe…it can be difficult to plan these things for me. Often they just happen. But from my perspective ‘Wolf’ is a little closer to my current vision of Code Elektro. A third album would probably be different too.

I can hear hints of human voices occasionally in the mix...would you ever add a vocalist? Maybe for an album's finale?

Vocals would be great! Maybe later… [ cont'd... ]

[ Photo by Mads Dam ]

Tell us about being a sound designer. Are you the guy who has to invent sounds for movies or adverts?

Yes. That’s pretty much what I have been doing for the last 10 years. It’s very different from creating music as an artist…but both are fun experiences.

Describe teaching at the Conservatory. Are you inspired by your students? ( I say that because I get very fired-up when i mentor art students ).

That’s the same for me. I love teaching. I learn at least as much as the students…and I like to contribute to the audio community. Back when I started out I almost had to invent everything myself.

If you were asked to join a band, would you? Name some bands you'd love to work with. 

Tough question. There’s a lot of great bands out there. But at some point in the future I would like to co-write with other people. I’m planning something – but I can’t talk so much about it yet.

 What do you think of the 'SynthWave' movement? It seems like every day there's a new outfit popping up on Twitter, with a chrome logo, some pink neon, and some palm trees!

It’s great to see the rise of the Synthwave scene – and there’s a lot of talented artists out there. A lot of them are great at inventing something new and not just repeating the past…which I think is important.

Recommend some albums by other artists ( any genre ) that you've been listening to, lately.

The Daft Punk TRON soundtrack has a revival with me at the moment. And for some reason I’ve been listening a lot to Black Sabbath the last week or so.

You can't beat listening to Birmingham's finest - thanks for talking to Future-Rocker!

And as we promised, here's a Code Elektro's sampler to try. Enjoy!

You want the CODE ELEKTRO LIMITED EDITION CASSETTE, or the super-cool vinyls? Click here!

And finally, a few words from the Maestro...

MONA LISA OVERHAUL - NEW EDITIONS OF THE CYBERPUNK CLASSICS

William Gibson's groundbreaking early novels finally get a UK make-over.

Book cover art by Daniel Brown / Design by Sinem Erkas

Here at Future-Rocker's headquarters we have long bemoaned the appalling state of many sci-fi book covers. Luckily, some progressive-minded art directors realise that a strong font or an enigmatic cover can provoke the imagination, rather than give the viewer everything on a plate.

Daniel Brown's cover art perfectly captures the feel of 'The Sprawl' ( the vast megacity of Gibson's novels ), yet also reminds us that there are places on earth right now that already look like this.

Sci-fi fans are a conservative lot, so it's always been a risky business not having some lovingly-airbrushed interplanetary vista or 'cool'-looking reject from an 80s rock video adorning the cover. Sadly, the 80s rock analogy held sway over Gibson's oeuvre here in the UK for what seemed like decades.

We haven't read the novels since the old days, but were discussing round the office if it's worth digging the classics out to see if they hold up. The new editions give us a reason not to have to crawl around in our dusty old vaults looking for them. We can just order these brand-new editions from Amazon and enjoy the Inception-like cover vibe and collectability, thus saving ourselves the hassle. With the first of them, Neuromancer, being released this December, it's just in time for Christmas. Hell, we'll even pay extra for a drone to fly it down the chimney.

Neuromancer was published in mass market paperback 8th December 2016, Burning Chrome, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive will be published in mass market paperback, 9th February 2017.

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THE FUTURE AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE...

Hey, don't get us wrong, we actually love these classic 80s covers...

It's the goddawful 90s Gibsons we have a problem with...ugh!

CIRCLE OF DUST, RECOMMISSIONED

Hugely prolific Detroit-based electronic musician Klayton ( also known as Celldweller ) has released a new video for his resurrected 90s industrial project CIRCLE OF DUST.

CoD was originally put on ice due to complicated legal disputes with a former label, in response to which, Klayton went on to form CELLDWELLER and grow his thriving label FIXTMUSIC to produce and market his own music ( as well as that of other acts such as Blue Stahli, The Qemists and The Algorithm ).

Recalling surrealist pioneer Louis Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou, and Shinya Tsukamoto's horrifying 90s cyberpunk body-horror movie TETSUO, the video perfectly captures the aesthetics of 90s industrial music, as performed by bands like Die Krupps, KMFDM, and Schnitt Acht.

Circle of Dust has remastered and re-released it's entire back catalogue, culminating in a brand-new 2016 album, Machines of Our Disgrace. This track is taken from that album.* 

*There will be a comprehensive overview of FIXT's recent output on this blog soon.

BILLY IDOL'S SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM (1993) inspired by TETSUO: THE IRON MAN (1989)

TOTALLY RECALLING BRITISH ROCKER BILLY IDOL'S CYBERPUNK PHASE

Directed by cult sci-fi / horror director Brett Leonard ( The Lawnmower Man / Virtuosity ), the Billy Idol promo is both a synchronous mix of real-world events and an anticipation of a tech-based dystopia that predicts the anarchic Los Angeles of the 2020s. 

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The opening scene of SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM promo video (from the 1993 album Cyberpunk) is an obvious reference to the brutal beating of Los Angeles citizen Rodney King by the LA police. The incident had been caught on camera, and resulted in world-wide condemnation of the LAPD's tactics and abysmal community relations (King was African American and the incident brought the LAPD's institutional racism under intense scrutiny). In a highly-publicised court case, the officers involved were acquitted, sparking six days of violent unrest, causing over two-thousand injuries and 63 deaths. Scenes of shotgun-toting Koreans guarding their storefronts, and truck drivers being dragged from their cabs, were broadcast all around the world as the neighbourhoods burned.

Above: Japanese album cover for CYBERPUNK. An example of early Photoshop glitch art. 

While it may seem obvious now that breakthroughs in compact tech such as hand-held movie cameras would revolutionize daily life and transform regular people into vérité filmmakers and citizen reporters, at the time this was still somewhat of a novelty - and perhaps, to authoritarian regimes around the world - not a beneficial one (Kathryn Bigelow's 1995 future-noir Strange Days is a good depiction of when tech goes horribly wrong).

With voyeurism, extortion, narcissism and violence now part of our daily media consumption in the Twenty-First Century, early cynics might have been proved right. 

As well as the real-world events, the promo echoes the contemporaneous Cyberpunk literary movement, and was seen against a backdrop of big studio films such as Paul Verhoeven's Robocop (1987) and Total Recall (1990), as well as the more 'body horror' output of cult director David Cronenberg's Videodrome (1983). 

Despite all these cross-pollinating influences, what seems to have been forgotten (or deliberately ignored) is that Shock To The System owes its entire central idea - that of the protagonist transforming into a chaotic cybernetic lifeform - to the notorious live action Japanese movie Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989).

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TETSUO: THE IRON MAN - TRAILER

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Tetsuo - in the eyes of Western audiences - benefitted from being adjacent to the blockbuster Japanese anime, Akira (1988), which preceded it. Though unrelated, both coincidentally feature a character named Tetsuo who undergoes a hideous series of mutations. 

Directed by innovative and transgressive filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and its sequels Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992), and Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2010), both repelled and enthralled VHS collectors and arthouse movie-goers alike, with its highly kinetic mix of vertiginous photography, stop-motion animation, visceral violence and pounding industrial music.

British punk rocker Billy Idol, then living in LA, was voraciously absorbing Cyberpunk culture, and would definitely have been aware of Tsukamoto's film and been influenced by it.

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TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER - TRAILER

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Ultimately Billy Idol's entry into the Brave New Nineties didn't exactly pan out as planned.  The Cyberpunk album, which had been assembled on producer Trevor Rabin's Macintosh-based home studio using an early iteration of Pro-Tools, failed to chart in America, but faired more decently in Europe. Although attempting to look and sound futuristic, edgy and confrontational, Billy became yet another Eighties rocker whose career was put on hold by the advent of corporate Grunge Rock. Plus, a serious motorbike accident didn't exactly help, either.

Above: Sleeve art for Billy Idol's Shock To The System 7'' UK single.

In terms of themes and content, perhaps if they were aware of these disparate influences, a sensitive resident of the Twenty-First Century may be offended by the referencing of the Rodney King incident, or of Shinya Tsukamoto's violent and controversial imagery.

Luckily in the Nineties, the vast majority of the audience were still able to accept speculative and 'what-if' concepts in good faith, and not look to score social points by dishonestly taking wild and antisocial portrayals of fictional characters and superimposing those onto the character of the creators. 

Above: SHOCKUMENTARY VHS cover art. 

Ultimately, despite the album's poor reception, Cyberpunk is notable in its use of electronic media in marketing, as Billy Idol was an early adopter of email as a way to facilitate a more direct contact with fans, and the hard copy of the CD also included bonus multimedia content written onto the disk. Both of these anticipated trends that would become common in music sales well into the Noughties.

It would take several years and the invention of new technology like Youtube to bring Billy to the attention of a whole new generation of fans. They probably won't see the divide between Billy's 'classic' sound, and the more 'experimental' sound of Cyberpunk, they'll enjoy both on their own terms. Perhaps they'll also research the influences and events that made the album happen, and discover that Shinya Tsukamoto's disturbing filmmaking was once something you might see at the local multiplex on 'art cinema night.'

Creators have benefited from a technology becoming ever more sophisticated and affordable, ultimately bringing us closer to the realities depicted in William Gibson's dystopian novels Neuromancer and Count Zero, prophetic books that established 'Cyberpunk' as an endlessly imitated subgenre for years to come.

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TETSUO II: BODY HAMMER - TRAILER

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TETSUO III: THE BULLET MAN - TRAILER

MORE CYBERPUNK? WE GOT IT

ASH THORP - GEISHA SPECIFIC

WILLIAM GIBSON COVER ART

RICHARD STANLEY'S HARDWARE (1990)

GHOST IN THE SHELL TRAILER

ANTHONY SCOTT BURNS' 'TRON' FAN MOVIE

SCANDROID TEASES FORTHCOMING TEARS FOR FEARS COVER!

A hit on the global electronic charts within days of its release, SCANDROID's debut album proves there is an insatiable demand for eighties-influenced music. A thrilling blend of rock and new wave, the sound of multi-instrumentalist Klayton's current project perfectly captures the need for a cyberpunk soundtrack in these increasingly dystopian times.

We at Future-Rocker are confidently predicting that SCANDROID could be even bigger than his main band, the highly acclaimed CELLDWELLER.

Here's a teaser clip of the new promo, a cover of Tears For Fears 1985 hit, 'Shout'. The full video will be released next week.

SYNTH YOU'VE BEEN GONE: ANTHONY SCOTT BURNS - PILOTPRIEST

Anthony is a movie director ( see his work with TENDRIL, in the recent MONOBLOG, and our BONUS FEATURE, below ), as well as an accomplished musician, and as you may have gathered, since childhood he has been immersed in the polished-chrome ambience of 1980's films and soundtracks.

His beautiful debut album PILOTPRIEST - ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK is available to buy now, and is due out on vinyl shortly. You can hear the whole album on FUTURE-ROCKER right here, while we chat with Anthony:

- How long have you been playing? Has the synth always been your instrument?

I’ve been playing for 20 years. I play drums, bass, guitar,and keys. I started with synth. 

I’ve always been into this sound ever since I was 5. I loved the way it was so odd, yet popular. I have been writing this style since I started... I’m lucky it came back into style.

- Explain the titles - you wrote all the music, so they're not cover versions. Did you watch the films first, then write the music?

I just titled the tracks based on the film from my childhood that the song made me feel the most. ( Cont'd ).

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PILOTPRIEST - TOP THREES

ALBUMS 

3. Lou Reed – Transformer

2. Jeff Wayne – War Of The Worlds

1. Michael Jackson – Thriller

SOUNDTRACKS

3. Repo Man – Various

2. The Thing – Ennio Morricone

1. Bladerunner – Vangelis

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- Any scoops on the collaboration with artist / designer Ash Thorp?

We are developing numerous films right now... All different types of genre stories. We are really trying to bring back the realism of character, that was in stories put to film before the studios got scared of new untested ideas.

- Apart from that, what's next from you?

I’m always working on new music, and I’m trying to develop the next album as an oculus rift experience [ - meaning a head-mounted, high-field-of-view virtual reality device ].

I'm mostly focusing on directing... This month I’m directing an episode of a new horror anthology series.

Pilotpriest - Bodydouble (Phace Remix) / Neodigital 001