ESCAPE-ISM - Charge of the Love Brigade (2025) Hi-Res

Musical vandal Ian Svenonius (electric guitar, drum machine, keyboards, vocals)—you know him from The Make-Up and Chain And The Gang, but he’s done a lot more—is back with his “found-sound-dream-drama” project Escape-ism. Teaming up with Sandi Denton (electric bass guitar, keyboards, percussion, vocals), he recorded ten idiosyncratic tunes for the Charge of the Love Brigade LP (his fifth album under this moniker, if you count The Silent Record, which literally was an entirely silent protest against sound), in his own words nothing less than revolutionary.

Although the premise concerns a reformation of the traditional notes and scales—”an entirely new sound alphabet”—and there is a chance that casual listeners will miss such deeper layers, the result comes across as highly enjoyable, like a mash-up of Suicide and The Velvet Underground, but more catchy. Vintage electronics provide hypnotic rhythms that go surprisingly well with the poetic lyrics that are declaimed in a talk-singing manner, with time and time again memorable hooks and choruses. Intriguing and addictive, cool stuff.