KiEw - Diskette EP

Finding an inspiration for an EP in SEGA Dreamcast® announcement sounds rather strange, doesn’t it? But nevertheless, results are magnificent: I haven’t heard hard tech-industrial this good since U- TURN compilation from Artoffact (it’s been already a year now!) where teams like Massiv In Mensch showed their knowledge in welding industrial melodies to hard rhythm.

KiEw does it better. It is the first project that successfully combined toughness of techno/hard-house metal and strength of EBM/industrial ore. Alloy created is of amazing quality. Their new sharp-cut songs like ‘DCDISK’ (a.k.a.‘Dreamcastdiskette’) and ‘Anstalt’ are a sign of true progress. Add to that rework of ‘Staub’ from “Divergent” album (2001) which is 12 minutes long rhythm attack (but far from tiring!) and you have a nice release in your players.

“But wait! If you continue to listen there’s more! In this fantastic limited offer there’s more products to fit your needs!” Remixes and more tracks!

‘DCDISK (Soman Special Edit)’ that includes english version of Dreamcast warning announcement displays fantastic technoid use of voice-sampling and true knowledge of making killer dance track. Accolades to Soman! Rotersand answers with ‘Vintage Rework’ of the same song, in it does look a bit slow and old and clunky but it still moves. More about notable remixes later…

I must say that exhibitions like ‘Sojifu (Cleaned)’ that incorporates anime samples and especially more-than-annoying latino-carnival style ‘Silence’ really affected quality of this release. I don’t understand why these tracks were included in the first place. Even without them, this release went over EP format with 9 excellent songs. One of them must be put under spotlight as one of the best songs in 2003 - ‘GRAOGRAMAN (LEATHER STRIP REMIX)’.
Calling professor Claus Larsen to help in redesigning this “Divergent” hit was a right move. Arranging this song by putting Leaether Strip-like melody in background, vocoding the vocals superbly and pumping bassline and drums to 75% strength was true work of art. Director Larsen has given this hit an ultra- prefix. This release could have been ultra too, but some unexplainable tracks kept it low to just ‘ADDICTIVE’. KiEw can do better than on “Diskette EP” and much much better than many other tech-industrial bands.