We're tying up some Year End odds and sods on this week's podcast, with a quick rundown of our Top 25, and then some discussion of a whopping twenty releases we're putting forth as honourable mentions. Finally, what are the larger trends which marked the year that was? How many self-released records made our list? What can we make of the artists appearing on the list for the first time? And most importantly, what the hell was up with all the italo disco?

It's a bit of an odd catch-up episode of the podcast this week, friends, as we're discussing three recent albums released too late to be given regular review coverage. Records by Deine Lakaien, The Necromancers Union, and HAEX are taking us through darkwave, goth rock, and industrial territory respectively. All that plus the skinny on the just announced 2022 iteration of Vancouver's own Verboden Festival on the latest episode of We Have A Technical.

We're talking records by Mesh and Mlada Fronta on this week's podcast, as synthpop/alt rock and rhythmic noise/IDM combos are considered. Also, talk about the first major concert the Senior Staff have been able to attend since everything went down!

As selected by our Patreon backers, an album which needs no introduction whatsoever is the subject of this month's We Have A Commentary podcast. We're discussing 20 Jazz Funk Greats' recurring theme of manipulation, the ways in which it presaged the various post-TG projects each member of the band would pursue, and its eternal position at a strange intersection of pop, noise, experimentalism, and emerging dance styles.

We're talking about the changing roles served by vocals in industrial and post-industrial music in this week's episode of the podcast. Whether tilting towards pop conventions or serving to explode the control machines, how has the human voice been deployed in music ranging from Throbbing Gristle to futurepop? Lock your eyes on your navels and prepare for a deep dive with the Senior Staff.

Was 1998 a peak year for darkwave? You decide after listening to this episode of We Have A Technical, which discusses the broad-reaching electro-acoustic laments of Deathwatch Beetle Repairman's Hollow Fishes and the foray into chill breaks which was Love Spirals Downwards' Flux. All that plus a run-down of the lineup for the upcoming Terminus: Fragment fest in Calgary!

From an uncertain electroclash hangover to an experiment in pure drone, this week's two albums formatted episode covers a lot of ground. First up it's a discussion of Mount Sims' 2004 Wild Light LP, and then a dive into 2, the 1996 LP by Justin Broadrick's solo project Final. We also touch upon a recent interview with Steve Albini in which the infamous engineer and songwriter reckons with his own 'shitty edgelord' past, and some hopeful intimations from the folks behind Terminus Festival.