WL//WH Premiere WHOLE
WHOLE is a Berlin duo that has been making electronic indie rock in the broadest sense since 2015.
First, Thomas Schernikau (Forced to Mode, Forced Movement) and Alexander Leonard Donat (Vlimmer, Blackjack Illuminist Records) sent sound ideas back and forth, worked on them individually then exchanged and edited until the musicians successfully merged their unique musical styles, Synthpop, Industrial and EBM the former, mainly indie and alternative rock the latter, and released their debut album, “BIAS”, in 2018, featured in the subsequent German tour.
Both backgrounds can still be heard in the batch of WHOLE‘s new songs, although only as the foundations on which the band creates their sound structures and, depending on the song, offers space for opulent arrangements, spoken vocals, minimalism, noise, pop and catharsis.
The second LP, “HYDRA”, due next June, is a multi-headed creature that can grab hold, pause, and break out; it’s an album from a band that has found its sound.
WL//WH is very pleased to premiere the second single “Valson”, a variation of a word Donat found on an old German Zither, with no deeper meaning concerning the song’s lyrical content, featuring Donat himself on lead vocals in an ethereal blend of Synth-pop and Post-punk.
A thrilling, passionate journey through the dark and light, harmony and dissonance, angst and hope, that encompasses modern day living, driven by the simmering driving pace of galloping crisp drum programming woven with murky droning bass throbs, bouncing through a stifling yet mesmerizing phantasmagoria of darting dazzling synth wails, resonant discordant frequencies and forlorn glowing drifts, swirling fidgety atop Donat’s grabbingly haunted, at times dreamy vocals, releasing melancholy and longing for present time awareness, whilst being vigilant about the terror injected into our lives through the daily news feed.
Whole‘s upcoming sophomore album, “HYDRA”, is scheduled to be released, CD/Tape, in the first half of June 2024 via Blackjack Illuminist Records.
Keep up with Whole/Blackjack Illuminist Records:
