PAIN OF SALVATION - In the Face of Death

With the album "In The Passing Light Of Day" the Swedish progressive metalers Pain Of Salvation return to their roots after years of stylistic excursions. That they can do this is anything but self-evident: at the beginning of 2014 Daniel Gildenlöw fell ill with a life-threatening streptococcal infection. The singer/guitarist had to spend several months in hospital. In a very personal interview he told eclipsed how this time has shaped the new album and what is currently going on with the 43-year-old exceptional musician.

eclipsed: Daniel, almost three years have passed since your severe infection. How are you today?

JEFFERSON AIRPLANE - Lift-off in Hashbury

It sounded like Maurice Ravel on LSD, and the singer's icy voice made tender natures' blood freeze in their veins: In July 1967, the legendary Summer of Love, "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane conquered the top ten of the US single charts. It was already the second bang of the drum that the band from San Francisco landed in this wildly moved flower power year. Only a few weeks earlier, on June 16th, the very day when one of the first big rock festivals started in Monterey, Jefferson Airplane celebrated their hit premiere with "Somebody To Love": 5th place in the USA. Like "White Rabbit", the song came from the successful album "Surrealistic Pillow", which was released exactly fifty years ago on February 1, 1967.

BLACKFIELD - Fairly best friends

Not all musicians can put their art into words. This also applies to Aviv Geffen, who receives at the Cologne Hilton, but prefers to play with his mobile phone rather than concentrate on the conversation. He suffers from a discreet self-overestimation and sometimes has less to say than one would expect from a man of his reputation. After all, he is not only a musician, actor and TV celebrity, but also the mouthpiece of the political left in Israel, critic of the radical Orthodox like the Netanyahu government and a good friend with all kinds of rock celebrities. In the end, however, a revealing conversation was relaxed.

eclipsed: The last two Blackfield albums were rather solo albums from you, where Steven supported you only moderately because of other obligations. Now it seems to be a real cooperation again. What's the matter with you?

CRIPPLED BLACK PHOENIX have freed themselves from their existential crisis

Crippled Black Phoenix deal with the current socio-political situation. Their thoughts also revolve around internal topics. Behind the band from Bristol are legal disputes with their former members Karl Demata and Christian Heilmann. She survived the ordeal. Crippled head Justin Greaves has meanwhile passed through a personal misery: he has fought his depressions and put them in their place. The 45-year-old said that he had emerged stronger from it. In any case he turns against negative elements like populists and other dividers with the new record "Bronze".

eclipsed: Justin, during the "New Dark Age Tour" 2015 you prophesied a dark phase of untruths and oppression. Do you feel confirmed in the face of Brexit and Trump election?

Sister Morphine - MARIANNE FAITHFULLfor Seventieth

On 29 December Marianne Faithfull turned seventy. For the former junkie, who became an elegant dark icon with albums like "Broken English", "Strange Weather" or "Before The Poison", no reason to celebrate. In the sixties, the "mother of all rock chicks" was the first woman next to Nico to celebrate just as wildly as the rock stars with whom she was associated. We visited her in her adopted home Paris for a coffee in the Hotel Costes at the Rue Saint Honoré.

The Art Of Sysyphus Vol. 91

BLACKFIELD - Family Man (3:37)
Album: V (2017) (Release: 10.02.)
Label/Distribution: Kscope/Edel
www.kscopemusic.com/artists/blackfield

Smoldering strings, sinewy guitars, a chorus that seeks its equal, and melodies that seduce and enchant. All this applies not only to the rocky "Family Man" presented here, but to almost all songs on the album. BLACKFIELD's new work is a continuation of their early masterpieces.

25 Years of Electronic Sound Signals from Berlin - Mario Schönwälder on the MANIKIN Label

eclipsed: How did the Manikin label come into being? What role did you play?

Mario Schönwälder: That was at the end of 1991, when I decided after two CDs on the label MI to go my own way. I was, so to speak, the leading actor who wanted to do something new.

eclipsed: And how did you yourself come to electronic music as a musician?

Beautiful woods: It was a mixture of curiosity and disappointment about the music of my "Heroes" at the beginning and middle of the 80s. The curiosity was so great that I learned the technical basics and playing as an autodidact. On a Korg MS-20 - today again a synth that is "in".

eclipsed: How would you describe Manikin's style - also in contrast to other electronic labels like Spheric Music? Second or third wave "Berlin School"?