illusioncity.net

New build of M88 available

Hi guys, a little update on the PC88 emulation front. Thanks to the effort of the dedicated Anna Wu, now the latest unofficial build (dated 23 February 2018) is now available in English. You can get it in the PC88 page.

Music of the Week – Die Krupps – Odyssey of the Mind

Hi guys! How are you doing?
Again, I’m quite busy and gathering new material to publish on the site, one day. I’ve a couple of articles on cinema and on philosophy that needs to be edited before posting, but I keep postponing the operation because of my being very busy with my job and other projects. I don’t want to divulge a lot about it online, but let’s say that I’ve been actively working in the latest months on the underground scene and I’m very happy of it. Finally, I can give some more concreteness to what I like, love and support. So because of this, updates are quite scarce here…but I’ve promised myself to take some more time for Illusion City material.

Having said so, now let the music do the talking, like someone used to say! I’m posting the title track of a late album of Die Krupps (literary, “The Krupps”. The Krupp family was one of the most powerful families in Europe in the XX century, they held the Krupp industrial group, which was one of the greatest producers of iron and a lot of other industrial material of the time. They got famous for a lot of reasons, one of them being their support of Adolf Hitler during his rise to power and during the WW2), one of the most important bands in the German industrial scene. They started as pure Industrial/EBM band in the early ’80s and later, between ’80s and ’90s, they took a more metal direction, without throwing away their early influences. The result? Some very good and diverse albums, with clever mixes of metal, EBM, electronic music and clever musicianship. They later disbanded and recently reformed (but I don’t know if they are still together today).
This track is the title track of their 1995 album. The whole album is very good even if a bit short (more or less 47 minutes in it’s original release), very focused on the sense of isolation, entrapment and desire for freedom. The lyrics speak for themselves:

I set my mind on something
I would like to be
And I open up the door
There is so much to explore…

Quite good isn’t it? Now, enjoy the song itself.

Music of the Week – Danko Jones – My Little RnR

Hi guys…after a while, a new video of straight rock n roll caught my attention. It’s theme is not new, a classic tale of vampiric love and death with a nice twist at the end, very much in the vein of the old horror movies of the ’70s filled with macabre imaginary and intense passions. What it makes it interesting, it’s the visual rendition and the catchiness of the song, very powerful in it’s simplicity.

Nothing new, but done really well!

Music of the Week – Buzz Kull – Into the Void

Hello again, my dear readers…I’ve got some cool new music for you! It’s been a while since I’ve updated a new article on the site, but this won’t last for long. I have written a couple of new articles (mostly about movies) that I plan to upload here soon, as long I’ve finished polishing them. I’m quite busy these days, so I haven’t got all the time I wish to have. But now, about the music: Buzz Kull is a new (first released song is from 2013) darkwave project from Sydney, the brainchild of Marc Dwyer (Marcel Whyler). It’s heavily bent on the electro side, and very compelling. This is the video for one of the two singles off the new album “Chroma” (2017), aptly named “Into the Void”.

Music of the Week – Nine Inch Nails – Ruiner

Happy new year my fellow readers! I hope you have celebrated the beginning of the 2018 well and have enjoyed yourself.

We sure don’t live an easy situation in these years, as humanity, but somehow one can find the road that truly belongs to oneself and follow it, thus doing good for the others and himself/herself…but now, let’s leave philosophy aside and focus on the music.

I’ve noticed that in all these years I’ve never posted a NIN song! Time to remedy. This is one of my favourites off “the downward spiral”…enjoy!

Music of the Week – Heartbreak Hangover – Bitter Pill

Time for some good old rock n’ roll obscurity! Heartbreak Hangover formed in 2009 and in 2012 they released their debut (and for now, their only) self titled album. I remember catching them at the time, thanks to this very good single, pure energetic classic rock, with some compelling guitars. Nothing really new, but is it a problem? In my opinion, no.

Enjoy!

Music of the Week – Pro-Pain – Time

Thanks to a friend, I dig out after a long time some of the earlier Pro-Pain’s music…they did a very good blend of thrash and hardcore, more focused on heavy, monolithic guitars and menacing, intimidating vocals than speed or sheer aggression.

The results is an interesting mix, that helped to shape the sound of the early ’90s (Pro-Pain formed in 1991). The band is still around nowadays…

This track is taken off their 1997 self titled album. Enjoy!

Music of the Week – New Order – True Faith

Hello guys! No long wait for an update this time… :)
For this week, I decided to post another memory of a very magic dancing night. It’s a big new-wave classic, and quite a big hit on it’s own. Maybe most of you already know it…but who cares? Sometimes is good to wander in the light of what is already known, too.

As you may already know, New Order is the band that was born from the ashes of Joy Division (after Ian Curtis’s suicide by hanging). They softened a bit their sound and made it less gloomy (a lot of critics speak of “alternative dance” when describing New Order’s music) but carried the Joy Division’s legacy indeed.

For example, here it’s a slice of the lyrics for “True Faith”:

They’re afraid of what they see
That’s the price that we all pay
Our valued destiny comes to nothing
I can’t tell you where we’re going
I guess there was just no way of knowing
I used to think that the day would never come
I’d see delight in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come

That my life would depend on the morning sun…

Eerie and beautiful, made into music with a very catchy and enveloping sound. Enjoy!

Music of the Week – And One – Military Fashion Show

Hello guys, it’s been some time since the last update, uh? I’m quite busy in these days…but I never forget about old Illusion City. I have some articles written that need some refinement and then they will be ready for being published here, but it will take some time. I did a small update on the Caraco’s page but it’s a minor one (added a link, pointed by a kind reader).

However, we are here for the music! Se here it is…a nice alternative club hit straight from the ’00s. There aren’t big explanations or fancy descriptions this time. Just a good reminder of a beautiful dancing night past by, in great and gorgeous company.

Choose your weapon, time to go
A military fashion show…

Music of the Week – Christian Death – Spiritual Cramp

In these days I’ve been listening again, after a very long time, the incredible Christian Death debut album. A very young Rozz Williams, barely 19 years old at the time, with a punk legend, Rikk Agnew of the Adolescents, put together a wonderful disc of rare power.

They portrayed their own angst, uncertainty and paranoia and in the process extracted from it something essential, that still belongs to the world we live today, in spite of the changes made by the time flew by.

Only Theatre of Pain took the raw energy that punk threw outwards and made it going inwards, running in the labyrinths of the soul.
The band’s leader, Rozz Williams, did not have an easy life and career. The quarrels with Valor (who joined the band on their second full length and later took the monicker Christian Death for him, in spite not being a founding member of the band), the many stop-and-gos of his projects and the many many difficulties with addictions and drugs took the toll on him, until his suicide, on the first April of 1998. He hanged himself leaving a rose and the Hanged Man tarot card, but not a note…

I decided to share Spritual Cramp because I read a memorial wrote by a body artist, Ron Athey, who was friend with Rozz and shared some of the crazy days of their youths together. He thought this song to be very representative of Rozz and left a quote at the end of his memorial. The article made me remember Christian Death and made me listen them again…and now here we are.

I can die a thousand times
but I will always be here
With the powder skull secrets
of forgotten years
The hangman’s noose is drenched
with bloodstained tears
my hands are the killer that confirms
my fear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gr-IolI7_4