Electro Death [tonight!]

Electro death: Solvent, Lowfish and Dethlab hold Detroit-style wake for Toronto's Suction label
Normally the end of something is not a happy time. But when it's treated as a source of renewal and inspiration, well, that's quite a different story. Toronto's Suction Records began releasing music in 1997 by "snow robots" called Pest(e), Skanfrom, Solvent and Lowfish. But as its artists turned to other projects on Detroit's Ersatz Audio and Ann Arbor-based Ghostly International, product on Suction waned and the label was declared officially dead at the end of last year. The good news is that on Jan. 28 Ghostly is releasing Demonstration Tape, a 10-year retrospective of Solvent's music packed into a double CD. Lowfish also has new material out, Burn the Lights Out, on New York's Satamile Records. Even better news: Solvent (aka Jason Amm) and Lowfish (Gregory de Rocher) perform live sets this Thursday with Detroit DJ duo Dethlab, who hijacked local dancefloors two years ago when they began a series of provocative anti-club nights called Sex & Sedition. At Scrummage University, 1550 Winder, 308, Detroit. 10 p.m. $8.
Read at MetroMode

Electrophile
There’ll be no zombies at Now We Are Dead, but it’ll still be fun. Featuring Solvent, Lowfish and DJ Team Dethlab, the event celebrates Suction Records’ final release, sharing the same name. “Suction Records is over, but we’re not sad,” Solvent says, who co-founded the label with Lowfish. “We’re both really proud of the label, so it never seemed right to just let Suction fizzle out. We’ve had the idea in mind for a few years about doing a final Suction release. Since the label started with a Lowfish/Solvent split 12, we figured we’d end it the same way.”

Prior to Suction forming in ’97, the two bounced musical ideas off each other for years. “The Internet wasn’t like it is today; finding people into interesting electronic music wasn’t easy, so we got nearly all of our feedback and advice by playing tracks for each other,” he says. Solvent promised a live show of electro-pop. “Melodies will be played on synthesizers, beats will come from drum machines and vocals will be processed with a vocoder,” Solvent says. “I don’t really like to reference robots anymore when speaking about my music, but if it’s hard to imagine anything else based on that description, think more R2D2 than Darth Vader.” It goes down January 24 at Scrummage University.
Read at Real Detroit