51 minutes, 23 seconds

Die Form
ExHuman

At some point, you have to wonder how long Philippe Fichot can keep it up. And I mean that literally as well as figuratively. The master of fetish music and photography has been at it for close to 30 years now, and he's not getting any younger. Will the whole naked-women-tied-up imagery still excite him when he's in his 70s?

Leaving aside the cover image, ExHuman is a bit of a mixed bag musically. Detouring slightly from its austere predecessors, and even from its sister album, InHuman, it harks back to an earlier, more experimental Die Form, with an approach we haven't really heard since the days of Poupée Mécanique. Éliane P.'s vocals take on a more playful character, and the backbone of the music isn't just EBM or ethereal synth but rather something harder to pin down.

It's great when an artist who's been working for so long can still confuse and possibly even frustrate his listeners. ExHuman isn't my favorite Die Form album, but it's compelling to listen to nonetheless.

Also today:

51:22 Circular, Shaping the Unknown
51:22 Dahlia's Tear, Harmonious Euphonies for Supernatural Traumas Mesmerising Our Existences in Radiant Corpuscle Galaxies
51:22 PAL, Release
51:21 Delerium, Syrophenikan
51:21 Noise Unit, Grinding into Emptiness
51:19 Pygmy Children, Deconstruct
51:18 Of the Wand and the Moon, Nighttime Nightrhymes
51:18 X Marks the Pedwalk, The Killing Had Begun