sprocket i/o

Leftovers of the Roswell Mill.

Lately, I’ve been blending my usual listening habits of Scandinavian Metal (primarily Ensiferum, lately) with a little bit more Industrial Music. I was a huge fan of Industrial music in the earlier part of this decade, but it seemed as if the scene just stopped producing quality music anymore. If they did, it just never made it my way, since moving from North Carolina I don’t interact with any other industrial music fans.

Every once in a while, I would visit last.fm, and tell it to play music similar to ChemLab, one of my favorite acts that I had thought had long since disbanded. Other than Cynotic, it seemed to only play music I was already familiar with. Bored, I was searching around The Pirate Bay bit, and saw that ChemLab released a new album while I wasn’t paying attention: Oxidizer, downoladed it, and I loved it. After 6 months, Oxidizer is still the most played Industrial album in my playlist.

Ironically, ChemLab is playing at The Masquerade tonight. If I had not of downloaded that album, I don’t think I would be attending their show tonight. If anyone else wants to go, just holler.

Today, I hit last.fm up again, and did the same thing: visited the ChemLab: Similar Artists playlist on last.fm. One of the coolest things about the Last.FM application is that it displays bio’s about the artist you are currently listening to. I heard this crazy track by Penal Colony, and decided to read up on the bio. It had this choice quote:

As a result, I had all but given up on the idea of making another Penal Colony record. It wasn’t until I heard the Cyberage radio show, and some of the other industrial radio shows on the web, that I got excited about it again.

I had never heard of Cyberage Radio before, but I decided to tune in for a while and liked what I heard. In particular, I heard this great Skinny Puppy track: Goneja. I had for the most part forgotten about Skinny Puppy, not having played any of my old CD’s for years. I didn’t even realize they were still putting out music. I headed directly to the Amazon MP3 Downloads service to get a DRM-free version of the album, and I couldn’t be happier. It was my first time using Amazon MP3, and everything worked flawlessly.

In short, Industrial Music is still active, just a little more underground than it was ten years ago. I look forward to the ChemLab show tonight.