all record reviews published in the latest issue from autumn 2008
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Martial Industrial is a small sub-section in and development from industrial music. It is a particular form of industrial focused on a mythisized “heroic” past. As a scene it is related to the Neo-folk and neo-classical as well as the power-industrial scene, by itself it is relatively tiny.
In the summer of 2007 a book titled “Battlenoise! – The Blows of Martial Industrial” was published by the Polish label War Office Propaganda in conjunction with the Hungarian MozgaloM. It was a translation from the Hungarian, the author preferred to be referred to only as “PHJ”.
The book caused a bit of an uproar in the concerned circles and after Albin Julius of Der Blutharsch threatened to sue for copyright violation, the book was supposedly withdrawn from circulation.
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The demise of vinyl has been predicted many times, particularly in the 80’s when the record industry moved from the ubiquitous 12” LP format to the Compact Disc that was ultimately much cheaper and easier to manufacture and lighter to transport.
The introduction of the CD with a lot of propagandistic exaggeration (this included ludricrous claims that you could eat fried eggs from it and it would still play as well as before) in the 80’s has pushed vinyl aside in the mainstream area, but it found a strong niche in the dance music scene. As this scene has fragmented, vinyl sales have apparently been shrinking in the last few years, but it is unclear if this is in overall numbers or because there are so many more different productions. It also remains a popular format in some sub-sections of the punk and metal scenes, and remains a sought-after collectors item with the nimbus of being an original artefact, something the CD has somewhat lost since it’s possible to copy, and something downloads will never acquire, because there is no such thing as downloading an original: The process consists in copying the commodity from a server.
Some consumer’s desire to hold an “original” item in their hands, and the fact that many don’t buy into the concept of paying for a digital copy anyway (especially since it’s easy enough to get the same throw-away commodity for free on the internet), is contributing to a certain resurgence of vinyl even in the mainstream, although it is still outsold by CD’s by a huge margin, and overall sales of music is dwindling.
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Corollary to “In Skatebored We Noize” by dj Balli (+ Bel.04)

For decades now Situationism has been subsumed by the historification assembly line, emptied of any subversive potential. It is a corpse, an object of interest offrom Academy’s forensic scientists in search of pret-a-portér radicalisms. However, some of its “practical-theoretical” organs have been transplanted. For example, the alternative use of urban space performed in such an explicit way by psychogeographical dérives stands as a founding element of skateboarding.
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With the expression “Audio-Philosophical Dwellings” you refer to every symbolic support of Sonic Belligerency, whatever its nature and importance. For example: a turntable with modified pitch, a record covered with bits of sellotape to indicate concrete sounds to be scratched, a particularly creative gunk and, more generally, every site in which Extraordinary Sonic Happenings (E.S.H.) favor the suspension of dominant behaviour codes. You can distinguish “permanent” audio-philosophical dwellings in which the E.S.H. is endless, and “temporary” audio-philosophical dwellings in which the E.S.H. strikes and runs away.
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