There's no shortage of electronic reissue imprints operating these days, especially ones concentrating on 'lost' synth-wave recordings from the late 70's - mid 80's - but few have access to the kind of material amassed over the years by Forced Nostalgia, a brand new label curated by one of Belgium's most knowledgeable and methodical sound archivists: Fré De Vos. The breadth and quality of the material already scheduled for release by Forced Nostalgia is just jaw-dropping - extending the remit to begin with the post-punk heyday of the late 70's all the way through to the mid 90's, taking in often unreleased, mostly unheard and overlooked material from tape music to industrial, from bossa-pop to proto-techno, from drone to out and out analogue experimentation - with the vast majority of the music now being made available on vinyl for the very first time. For this first release, the label has unearthed incredible material from two brilliantly monikered production units dating back to the early-mid 80's: Cicciolina Holocaust and Sermonizer. Florim Prishtina and Rezart Veseli recorded together as Cicciolina Holocaust in Firenze, (Italy) during the late '70s and early '80s, releasing several tapes, all as small private editions given to friends. Using a bunch of drum machines, home-made electronic synths, guitars, effects pedals and a Tascam 4-track Portastudio, the pair produced oppressive and uber-dark synthscapes and minimal proto-techno experiments that slot perfectly alongside the kind of darkside work typified by Regis and the more experimental end of the Downwards label in 2011. Sermonizer, meanwhile, is the work of an anonymous producer from Bologna who started experimenting with primitive (field-) recordings and tape manipulations in late '79. From 1984 he recorded numerous avant-garde, industrial and ambient works on to a 4-track recorder and his massive output consists of numerous private tape albums, both studio and live recordings. The 5 tracks here were recorded between 1983 and 1986 and were made on Synthesizer, Guitar, Violin, Drum Machines, Electric Shaver and other found objects and voice - producing some of the darkest electronic material you'll likely hear - somewhere between Coil, Throbbing Gristle and Gray. For those who like to dig deep - welcome to a whole new world of crucial, largely unknown and now thankfully unearthed material from the archives. Essential Purchase. (Boomkat)

nice aesthetic framework there, which lead me to investigate this particular release ... while i really wanted to say that this thing has “fake reissue” written all over it (oddly hiss-free fidelity, esp. given the time-frame & geography / technology at work here ; discogs listing of the purported “original” cicciolina tape put up the month this went into production by an associate) ; but people tell me sermonizer is a fairly well-known figure in 80’s italian minimal-wave dealings (of which i have little-to-no greater understanding outside of a general enthusiasm ; besides if it weren’t for william bennett, we probably wouldn’t have heard of maurizio bianchi either) ... (Mimaroglu)