BALLAMONA - institutions - BRAND NEW CASSETTE TAPE

Bedlam. Arkham. Ballamona. Asylums (asyla) all, the troubled spaces inside their walls ringing with ideas both ingenious and inglorious. Ballamona, the Manchester-based neo-industrial band, take perverse pleasure in exploiting these uneasy spaces, massive production from Scott Fair of Mandy, Indiana dialling everything up into the red.

Hear the repetitive tapping of enamelware on cold bars and the groaning of a central gas boiler. Recoil from the ill-regimented clatter of footfall echoing off concrete floors and from the hum of harsh strip lighting. Feel the claustrophobic throb of alienation that everyone within the unforgiving walls endures.

Muscular sub-bass and EBM pulses punch through the oppressive grime to clear the air for yearning cyber-goth choruses. Darkwave drum-machine compressions hammer like pistons. Violence is inevitable and rusty steam vents and dangerous synth surges deliver, rioting rave rhythms duelling with distortion, sheet metal and pressure sirens. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.