Shiv-r in Rock Oracle Magazine

We've been featured in the latest issue of Rock Oracle Magazine! The issue has an interview with us, and there is a new, absolutely killer remix of our track "Incision" by CeDigest on the cover-disc. Check it out:

The magazine is available in only in Russian. So here is a tiny snippet from the original English to give you an idea of the interview:

Rock Oracle: Do you ever think that a band has to stay on top of all modern media- and internet-trends and tendencies just not to lose popularity and to stay in sight? Otherwise it’s very easy to get forgotten too quickly. I mean social media accounts and interaction on Last.FM, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook and so on. What do you think about this issue in general?
Lee Bulig: Most bands are eventually forgotten, it’s just nobody remembers they forgot them, so it’s a moot point…. But seriously, most people seem to think the internet has come along and it should be compared to the invention of vinyl recordings, television, or going back further and in a larger sense, the printing press. The internet has had exactly the opposite effect. The printing press could have opened the world to the dissemination of new and interesting ideas, yet the bible still holds the title as the world’s most printed book. Similarly, vinyl records should have opened the world’s ears to new sounds, but instead, it meant the whole world was listening to the same handful of artists. Once upon a time, the whole village would crack open the wine and get merry with the local fiddle player, and every village had a different fiddle player with a different take on fiddling, and everything was cool. Once mass produced recordings happened, your local fiddler seemed a little less cool and was relegated to fiddling himself in his bedroom. Rather than promote varied or individual points of view, mass media helped kill them. The internet has had the opposite effect. Any fool can start a facebook or whatever for his band, and they do. This is cool in that now we have a million facebooks for a million bands and you can find whatever flavour music will diddle your skittle. This might be bad news for the handful of musicians and other artists that have enjoyed a monopoly on the people’s minds for the past x amount of time, but for something like Shiv-r, it is great. Rather than thinking of all this social networking as some kind of competition for friends’, ‘likes’, ‘followers’, ‘views’ etc., which is the attitude that killed myspace, I think we should be thankful that the internet has allowed us to hear, read or see something we might have otherwise never seen.

Post mini-tour times with Grendel/Nachtmahr/Cervello Elettronico!

The weekend of 22nd April 2011 will be remembered forevermore because of 2 reasons. Number 1 - the PSN went down and has been down since; so no more Black Ops, resulting in riots worldwide, fire lighting the skies as young men take to the streets ravaging their fellow man and committing random acts of violence in order to satiate their bloodlust. And number 2 - we did a mini-mini-tour with 3 awesome bands Grendel, Nachtmahr & Cervello Elettronico!

We only did 2 shows with the lads, but it was incredibly memorable. We had an amazing time, had a blast onstage, met some great people and had notoriously killer after-party times. To all our new friends in Brisvegas - thanks for partying with us, we hope to do it again soon. And we will see Jos, Marc, Thomas, Massimo + Dave for more debauched times ASAP!

FoH view.

The heart of our setup. Cubase 5 running audio + video, Guitar Rig 4 running Rammfire, going through a MOTU Ultralite Mk3.

The "business end" of the onstage setup for Grendel + Nachtmahr.

Grendel @ Work. [VLRK] playing Rayden while [M4RK] is surprisingly fxxking good at Street Fighter 2...a sign of a misspent youth if ever there was one...

Can you believe this is our work? ^_^

Thanks again all. These have been some parties that won't soon be topped! Special thanks to Joseph @ Rivetting Promotions for managing the tour.

Now playing: Volatile Times by IAMX.

Radio Active interview

Last night I recorded a new interview with Sydney-based 2RRR FM. Here is the recording:

Interview with Pete Crane from Shiv-r on Radio Active 16 April 2011 by virul3nt

The presenter Thom, aka DJ Foxbat, is an industrial, rave and acid techno veteran, and also an avid follower of Cyberpunk culture and a fellow William Gibson fan. Before the interview we were talking about our mutual love of Gibson's entire bibliography, our other favourite authors such as Charles Stross, and our love of analogue synths.

In the interview we discuss cyber culture, the eerie accuracy with which certain authors from generations past have described our current society with a dystopian light and the merits of piracy in the information age and its consequent damage to the entertainment industry.

Mini-tour with Grendel, Nachtmahr and Cervello Elettronico

Next weekend we'll be doing a couple of gigs with Grendel, Nachtmahr and Cervello Elettronico. Specifically, we'll be hitting the Sydney and Brisbane gigs only. You won't see us on the flyer, which adds a spot of confusion as to which cities we're playing, but the real stars will be the 3 bands mentioned above. This really will be the biggest harsh-industrial/aggrotech event to have hit Australian shores, so we're proud to be a featured support. When it comes down to it, this is the movement we're currently in. This is the sound we're rocking, so let's hit it hard and fucking represent!

If you can make it, you can get tickets from Rivetting Promotions.

Dark Essence Radio interview

Last night I recorded a phone interview with Dark Essence Radio. It went to air later last night on 4zzz FM, Brisbane AU, and here it is:

Interview with Pete Crane from Shiv-r on Dark Essence Radio 11 April 2011 by virul3nt

The interviewer, Josh, asks me about the upcoming Shiv-r album, our work since our "Incision" EP, the new Crystalline Effect EP "Industrial Re-Evolution" and our work on the Deathwatch Asia "Direct World Action for Japan" compilation. Check it out!

Shiv-r confirmed for Summer Darkness 2011

We have just been added to the line-up of 2011’s Summer Darkness festival in Utrecht, the Netherlands! We really have to thank our friends and supporters a lot for this, as we set up a Facebook group to “help get Shiv-r to play @ Summer Darkness”, which saw a lot of positive responses. As well as the poll set up by the promoters of Summer Darkness asking which bands people would like to see, which was something we didn’t promote but saw some nice comments about us anyway. We’ve been to Summer Darkness a couple of times, but just as punters. Well that’s not technically true, as the first time I was there I was playing guest keyboards for our friends Angelspit. I’ve also played in Utrecht and Alkmaar with my other project The Crystalline Effect, and spent a bit of time there. Summer Darkness is a gorgeous festival that takes over the entire city of Utrecht for a weekend. There are 2 main venues, and you can get a canal boat between them, floating through some of the most picturesque old city you can imagine. Some of the other venues are the Oude Kerk (Old Church, as seen on the flyer) and some underground clubs. There is also another spectacle on the streets – cybergoths on bicycles! Holland is as cyber as it gets, fashion-wise, and the most common form of transport is the bike, so this makes a pretty cute combination. I can’t wait.

It’s going to be all hot Dutch cyber-people, Flemish beer (my favourite) and harsh fxxking industrial music!

Shiv-r take part in Direct World Action for Japan

Direct World Action is the name of a 32-track 2CD compilation released by Deathwatch Asia. Put together in just 2 weeks following the tragic earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on 11 March 2011 and comprising of almost entirely exclusive material, the compilation is a testament to the producers, artists and creative types in our scene who were willing to drop what they were doing and donate material for this cause. Also not to mention - the quality of the music on this release is second to none.

The work doesn't stop there though and it's up to everyone to support the result of the efforts. From this webstore you have 2 options. You can purchase an immediately downloadable digital-only copy of the release. Or you can pre-order the 2CD edition with 8-page booklet, which gets you both the immediate download and a copy of the physical 2CD which will ship mid-April 2011. 100% of money will be donated.

SHIV-R - Parasite (Repossession)

Our contribution to the compilation is a remake of our track "Parasite". The original version was one of our first tracks as Shiv-r, and it was a total experiment in workflow and style for both of us. As with everything on our debut EP of the same title, my parts were all written on a VAIO laptop in a London flat, mixed on headphones and some 15-quid speakers from Dixons. 3 years on and our workflow and production tools have been honed to the task, so this new version represents how the track may have turned out had it been made today.