Having released several highly success albums in Scandinavia and Germany, Colony 5 made their way to the shores of America with their highly charged album Fixed in 2005. That album, as well as its remix company Re-Fixed, was released by Storming the Base with great success, and these two releases helps launch Colony 5 in America as one of the most original and interesting synth bands. 2006 and 2007 saw the band touring in every corner of Europe, and a single, Knives, was released in December 2007 on Artoffact Records.

After being founded as a simple hobby in 1999, Colony 5 has surely come a long way. The band has seen several line-up changes, but the current incarnation of Magnus Kalnins and P-O Svensson is the strongest ever. Their latest album–their best album–Buried Again, will be released on Artoffact Records on March 4th, 2008.

Colony 5 on Myspace

Comprising two electronic music pioneers, Bernd Madl and Mathias Knopp, Individual Totem began making music in the early 90s and released their home-made album, Aspects Of Theories And Reality in 1994. Following this, the band was signed to Off Beat in Europe and Pendragon in the United States and released two now-classic CDs: S.E.T.I. in 1996 and Mind Sculptures Flesh in 1997. Following a long hiatus and a comeback that never materialized, Individual Totem eventually released the WWW EP digitally on Artoffact Records in late 2007.

We are happy to bring the first Individual Totem studio album in 10 years to industrial purists and electronic music fans across the globe. We are able to make available a limited number of WWW EPs with the first orders of Mothfly. These are highly limited, so if you want one, order fast!

Individual Totem website

Run Level Zero is a band creating electronic music in the same vein as the European and Canadian ebm/industrial masters. The band hails from Stockholm, Sweden. The current line-up is Hans Åkerman (vocals), Ville Hising (keyboards) and Ola Sundell (live drums).

Since their debut Run Level Zero has been an active band on the electronic music scene, appearing on a number of compilations and remixing artists such as Pzychobitch, Punto Omega, Clan of Xymox and Psyche. The band has toured Europe twice (supported VNV Nation in 2001 and Assemblage 23 in 2005) and toured the United States in 2006.

Arctic Noise (forthcoming) is their first CD release for Artoffact. We are also issuing their digital EP, Shattered Silence in 2007.

Run Level Zero website

On Run With The People And Hunt With The Hare MISSOURI finally freed themselves. Call it whatever you like - electro-soul, deep-down-and-dirty R&B or casio-funk & blues - but there is nothing you could compare it with. And definitely not many have as much style and grace. “What goes up must come down” Red sings in “Up And Down” to a beat that is pushing softly and a funky guitar lick. The coolness in the songs comes from the coolness within. The loser at the bar starts lingering to the dancefloor, the drink still in his hands, without looking back. It`s Michael Caine as Marvin Gaye. It`s discomusic for existentialists. It pushes forward and goes deep inside. What the writer wanted to say is: the new MISSOURI Album is the hottest shit.

Red – Vocals, Keyboards
Frank Mollena – Guitars, Beats
Christian “Wuschi” Ebert – Keyboards, Backing Vocals
Carter Cain – Pedal Steel and other Guitars, Beats, Backing Vocals
+ Patrick Göbel – Live Drums

Proceed to the Missouri website

Beautiful Leopard lands somewhere in the realm of traditional post rock and slow country, a place which reminds us of Mercury Rev, Guided By Voices, even at times of Johnny Cash singing for Do Make Say Think. There’s a bit of Pavement in there, a bit of Stars, too. Psychedelic organ contrasts with a lonely, melancholic voice, only to be patiently put to bed with a crying guitar. Guest appearances of cello, trombone and accordion contribute to a fully rounded album that never disappoints.

Dust-dry desert country and good times!

Beautiful Leopard website

With cocky female vocals, slamming drums, stomping electronic basslines and a strap-on keyboard, Alice in Videoland has gained a reputation for a live show that rocks your socks off! Their unique blend of EBM, Punk, Synth and 80’s Rock generated quite a fuss on European clubs and festivals throughout 2003..2004..2005..2006 … and now 2007.

Featuring Toril Lindqvist on Vocals, Anders Alexander on Drums, Johan Dahlbom on Bass, and Dominique on Syntheziser, Alice in Videoland take the influences of DAF, The Clash, Rob Hubbarb, and Nina Haagen and combine them with a unique combination of styles all their own. They mix electro, 80’s rock, dance and pop with a style and vocals that call to Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett and Gwen Stefani!

Despite their obscure name, the Hamburg band Das Weeth Experience have their solid band history on their credit.

Travellers of thousands of miles, this is to be heard from „The Accentric Sounds of Das Weeth Experience“, hundreds of gigs and quite a respectable amount of demolished guitar amplifiers. But nevertheless, it did not become „the“ (if you just let me use this horrendous non-word) official album.

Through their fourth album, Das Weeth Experience blow a stoic wind, of which it is impossible to say, whether it blows from the desert or from the coast. Only one thing is for certain: its home is not with music TV, ring tones or target group research. With their classic instrumentation bass-drums-guitar/vocals and with an analogue attitude, they achieve what other bands spend years for in studios: songs with space, time and atmosphere. Sometimes, less is still more. Titles like „Blue“ or „Munich Kitchen Rocket“ soak the mind in scratched melancholy, in a serious way and without any hysteria. „Rusty Stars“ shows that to be heartily pissed off about present situations doesn’t necessarily mean to end in bitterness and that even a cosmic cargo spaceship, tipping over an enourmous load of earth scrap on saturn may be something somehow graceful… if it is reborn as a guitar solo. And even Pink Floyd would probably sell Syd Barrett for an instrumental song like „ElvisHeroinJazz“ (OK, they aleady have, but it didn’t really come to much). Due to the processing of Tobias Levin, the whole of it sounds so continuously pressing and sophisticated, that even „Stereoplay“ wouldn’t fault it.

Can records actually be out of time and simultaneously rooted with both legs here and now? And do they have legs nowadays? And watches? Who is to decide all this???? But, to put it with an old telly spot: You can’t beat the Feeling…

This ought to be a better world, but it is still going to take some time. At least, from time to time, there is some great earful of music to listen to. „The Accentric Sounds of Das Weeth Experience“ belongs to that. And if it wasn’t for promoting the album, we could almost believe what they try to whisper between the lines: art is not commercial.

Kobold was started in early 2002 by Cody Cast (Index) and Mike Heighway. Over the next few years the promotional EP, A Taste of Copper, was carved. The promo caught the eyes and ears of Artoffact Records, who signed the band in the first months of 2006 - shortly after Cody’s elected departure to pursue his solo project Trapped in Amber. During the summer of 2006, Swante J., of BiaXial Creep, was welcomed into the fold.

Kobold’s first full-length album, The Taste of Copper was released on November 7th, 2006 and has been met with positive reviews. “The music is downright dark; the content is haunting, spine-tingling, exactly what industrial music and gothic culture purport themselves to be. Kobold’s vision is balanced by a sense of seriousness - and a sense of ironic immediacy - which is overpowering.” The album is considered to be “an addictive and marvelous release” of “modern and controlled glitch mixed with old-school industrial vocals and samples.” Kobold offer “unheard experimental electronic tunes […and] fantastic programming abilities.”

Into the future….

The Canadian, Montreal based duo Headscan fuses futuristic dancefloor oriented music with dark cinematographic soundscapes. The band combines the best elements of trance and electro industrial resulting in a sound that is fresh and exciting, while holding true to its predecessors in electronic music.

Claude Charnier (electronic flow control) & Christian Pomerleau (human frequencies) have been active in Montreal’s local alternative music scene for some years now, particularly within the techno industrial outfit Insurgent, playing a hard and intense mix of electronic and acoustic music. Co-founder of that band, Claude did the music for two cds, “System Structure Security” and “Supercollider”, before leaving the group in 1999 to focus on a mainly electronic music project. Christian came to be the singer of Insurgent later in that bands history before creating Headscan with Claude , bringing also his talents in motion graphics and web design.

Signed to Artoffact Records in 2001 they’ve released their first album entitled Shaper and Mechanist to great reviews worldwide. Dark moods, electronic voices, bubbling basses and relentless beats create a futuristic soundscape for the new dark ages inspired in parts by the writings of science-fiction author Bruce Sterling.

Observing the impact of new technologies on society and its influence on the transmission of ideas, the band evokes the public domain as being a vast field of human memory. Their second album, Pattern Recognition, was released in 2005 on Artoffact Records (worldwide) and Alfa Matrix (Europe).

As the continuous onslaught of modern technology breaks down the barriers of culture and geography, the public domain becomes embedded in our collective mind; where the spirit meets the mechanical.

As clear-cut electronic soundscapes blend with distorted aggression, a new machine is born. Throbbing with intensity and aggression, it constitutes the merging point of ancient insights, a disillusioned present and the unfolding veils of tomorrow. It is a foundry for intelligence and instincts, for reason and lust, for the stark reality and that which lies beyond man’s comprehension. It is an essence of progress. It is Interlace.

Interlace is also a virtual laboratory, a realm of enlightenment. All academic fields are represented here, and art is the room that encapsulates them all. In cautious hands, knowledge is molded into sonic and visual expressions that will shake the foundations of a society taught to settle for less.

Interlace was blue-printed nearly a decade ago and has gradually developed since. Other artistical engagements delayed the realization of the project until the fall of 2001. At this time, the members agreed to enter into a collaboration with swedish alternative label Memento Materia. Subsequently, the debut album Innuendo was written and produced during an intense three-month period.

Interlace do not simply make albums; they create works of art. The Swedish trio lives in a collective in which each member has specialized duties commensurate with his preferences and abilities. Great care is taken to ensure that everything is correlated in order to leave behind a homogenous impression. As the album artwork is clearly a key part of this, it is only fitting that the cover to their second album, Imago, be designed by world-renowned British artist Dave McKean (known for his work with Tori Amos, Alice Cooper, Frontline Assembly, Skinny Puppy, just to name a few). The interaction between the musical, visual, and thematic components serve to create a unique product showcasing a potential that other bands only dream of. Interlace have conceived Imago as a one hour journey of progress and evolution that reflects both inner struggle of man and the harsh reality in which we live. But this trip is anything but pleasurable: Imago is darker, more menacing, and more complex than its predecessor, while retaining that album’s strengths: powerful vocals, intelligent lyrics, and integrated conceptualization and presentation.

Massiv in Mensch are one of the new breed of electronic artists seamlessly blending techno, industrial, and punk with their hard-hitting assaults on the dance floors! Based in German, the heart of the dark electronic music world, the duo comprised of Daniel Logemann (vocals) and Mirco Osterthun (programming) create electronic body music with heavy doses of techno and trance. Their vision of human revolution pits mankind against himself, and their music seeks to find hope and courage on a technological battlefield.

Ranked as one of the top new artists when their debut was released in 2000, the German-based group have been growing steadily ever since and have built up a large fan-following. With four full-length albums released by Artoffact Records, Massiv in Mensch show no signs of slowing down. Their latest, Clubber Lang, continues to push the band’s vision and has been hailed as their most innovative record to date.

Monster Movie are Christian Savill {Sagittarius} and Sean Hewson {masculine}. Monster Movie were formed in 1989 with a different name and with different people. There have been other names since then. One member of Monster Movie was in a band called Slowdive. One of them wasn’t. Monster Movie were formed again in January 2000 under the name Monster Movie.

Listen, Monster Movie featured on a split single with ‘dreamend’, it was released on the 6th October 2002 by Graveface Records. Some people liked it, other people chose to sleep their sad lives away in ignorance. Since then Monster Movie have completed their second album offering, To the Moon, this was released by Clairecords. To the Moon was a consolidation and elevation of Monster Movie’s ‘gifts’. Monster Movie unleashed transistor a 7 track mini album for Graveface Records in December 2004. With this release Monster Movie reached out and touched everyone, whether they wanted to be touched or not.

Monster Movie completed their third album All Lost in November 2005. Recorded in weston-super-mare and released by Graveface Records and Artoffact Records in 2006. The new 12 track album again features Rachel Staggs of Experiemtal Aircraft & Eau Claire on vocals. Thrillingly, their ability to ‘heal and grow’ is still present and still unequalled by other men.

Finally and ridiculously, Monster Movie have also invented a cosmic dice on which they are the only people to have ever thrown a six. Their wish is your command.

Come to boyland.

Urceus Exit was originally conceived in 1992 as a solo project for Richard Duggan. Having produced seven independent releases by 1996, Richard began performances in 1997 with various hired live musicians as well as a video artist. In 1998, Richard relocated to Vancouver and acquired a permanent multimedia guru, Joel Sellen. The duo has since produced five additional albums and has embarked on tours of the west coast in 1999, 2000, and 2003. Offering an alternative in the realm of electronic art, Urceus Exit prefers to challenge the perspective of our continually changing environment, and, most importantly, our journey through it.

Urceus Exit has released the full-length album Contra on Artoffact Records, as well as the single Metro, and three digital-only releases available on iTunes, Napster, Emusic, and other fine music retailers.

Founded in 1990 in Oldenburg, Germany, it didn’t take Steril very long to get signed to Off Beat, to record international club hits such as Egoist and Deep, to get licensed to American and British record labels, and to tour with some of the most important industrial artists of the 90s. After the collapse of Off Beat and an extended pause, Steril re-surfaced in the new millennium with a new album and single on the rock-synth label Strange Ways. Many shows and festival appearances followed, after which Steril recorded their fifth studio album, Realist, for Artoffact records in 2006.

Steril’s music is an amalgam of styles. Always hard, edgy, and bombastic, it penetrates and creates memorable moments of bliss and adrenaline.

In an era when new artists are formed, signed, and forgotten in under a year, cabaret, hailing from Poland, have been making music as a duo since 1997. In this time, they have been honing their art and drawing on musical and cultural references as diverse as porcupine tree, Leonard Cohen, and Depeche Mode. Comprised of Jaroslaw Pawlik and Michal Bieniek, with guests, Cabaret composes auditory poetry about the human experience, alienation, totemism and taboo. Their music is raw and earthy, warm and sincere; a refreshing alternative that will rekindle your soul and add a new dimension to the electronic music market. The single ‘electric chair song’ and album Homophobia were released Artoffact Records in 2005.

Located in Dortmund, Germany, the synthpop duo Psyche has been making music for 20 years. Featuring Darrin Huss on vocals and Remi Szyszka on synths, Psyche simply makes marvelous synthetic pop music. Ranging in themes from the meaning of art to the state of the internet, and drawing heavily on their history as well as history in general, the music is thought-provoking and engaging. The result is a fantastic array of material, from pumping floor-fillers to ambient piano pieces to funky radio pop.

Psyche has released two studio albums, one remix album, a best of, and an EP on Artoffact Records and has been involved in over 100 remixes and compilation appearances during their long career. When they are not in the studio, the duo is constantly touring, playing for fans in dozens of countries every year.

Based in Germany, the trio known as Netz is a non-political music and multimedia art project which saw its creation in 1992. Focusing on dry, cold sound patterns, Felix Baumgartner, Angelo Ferroni, and Thomas Leeb first released the now out-of-print Auf Ewig EP and followed that up with the seminal “werk01” on Flatline Records. Shortly thereafter, they joined Artoffact Records and have since released three albums.

Stylistically, Netz describe their music as electronic power pop. Their avant-garde approach to pop music is at once revolutionary and enigmatic. The art project has held several multimedia performances in both Germany and Canada and have been featured on several multi-national compilations.

Composed of the maze on vocals and der mate on keyboards, BLANK is italy’s latest export to the industrial dance realm. Drawing inspiration from early italian acts such as Pankow and Templebeat, as well as modern dance legends Paul Oakenfold and Tiesto, Blank caught the attention of the electro underground with their self-produced demos released in 2000 and 2001.

Their first promo, “424C414E4B”, was released in july 2000 and made available completely free to download via their website. With about 600 downloads in just a few weeks, the promo gained a lot of attention in the scene, received enthusiastic reviews almost everywhere and was played in clubs all over the world.

The year later, the band released their second promo, “Brain Trigger”, which was even more successful than the first, again with hundreds of downloads, extremely positive reviews and hundreds of club plays.

Their music is for the dancefloor and for the heart, combining thought-provoking lyrics with an overdose of energy to create new, fresh, and exciting dance music.