Hell Was Boring – Mannequin 170

German coldwaver Johannes Haas (better known by the alias LFT, short for Love Fist Tears) has spent years orbiting the atmospherics of industrialised mechanics. Astutely connecting the disparate dots of primitive techno, electro and EBM. His latest sprawling opus, Hell Was Boring, marks his third solo full-length, following on from 2021’s Salz.

This expansive double album pairs back his signature stylings to their most minimalist and mechanical yet, utilising TR-808s and 707s to craft crisp snapping percussion fused to humming baselines and below zero synth frost, whilst recording on a Tascam 80-8 reel-to-reel to conjure a dusty, hissing aura of abandoned industrialisation, as if found on a damaged cassette in some gothy eastern bloc squat. Featuring guest appearances from Das Kinn, Rosaceae, Felix Kubin, Children Of Leir, and Konstantin Unwohl, they all contribute to a work that pays homage to the iconography of Bauhaus and Gary Numan, as well as the minimalism of Linear Movement, yet somehow more detached and dissociative. Make no mistake though, this is peak death-rave material for the sweatiest of undergrounds on the darkest periods of coldest nights.