Bill Leebis the Vancouver-based musician and mastermind behind electro-industrial scene mainstays Front Line Assembly and ambient-pop duo Delerium, as well as a key member of recording projects that include Noise Unit, Intermix and Cyberaktif. He releases a solo album this month with `Model Kollapse` which refers to a phenomena in artificial intelligence where trained models, especially those relying on synthetic data or AI-generated data, eventually degrade over time.
`Demons` leads us in and the artist has shared that it`s a comment on “how much darkness and evil exist in the world, some of it created via technology that is here to stay, and how we have to carefully navigate our way through it all on a day-to-day basis.” An EBM-tinged offering that has a kind of restrained feel and a fairly powerful marker to open on. I was intrigued by the title `Exotic Matter` and found that we can create exotic matter in laboratories by cooling some materials to very low temperatures. Extremely cold helium is one example. It is called superfluid helium and is a liquid that can climb walls. The track has a questioning sexual uneasiness about it with a recurring pulse like beating heart with vocals that at times are synthesised.
`Neuromotive` again has a pulsing beat at its core and drives this electronic number along which lyrics that veer between English and German. There was a delightfully enticing appeal to `Folded Hands` which has a fairly darkly introspective outlook on life.
`Pinned Down` is another thoughtful piece which has a fair bit going on, there`s swaying synth swathes, all sorts of electronic beats and underlying unclean vocals. Vancouver musician and graphic artist Shannon Hemmett who is a member of post-punk/darkwave band group ACTORS features on `Terror Forms`. A number that imagines a nihilistic future and asks the question, faced with the very end of civilisation, what would you do?
`Muted Obsessions` is an appealing electronic rhythmic nigh on dance like submission that will certainly have you moving along to. Theres a compelling attraction to `Simulation` a slow burn that draws you into its automated depths.
`Infernum` lyrically conveys hellfire, fire, and brimstone, maybe the netherworld but the musical soundscape is far from dystopian and strangely fairly alluring. We enjoy a pretty hypnotic aural outing with `Fusion` during which I found myself drifting off into internal mental exploration.
The album concludes with `Erosion Through Time` whose title when analysed is quite a profound thought on human existence. The track itself is quite dreamlike and ethereal.
It was surprising to learn that `Model Kollapse` was Bill Leeb`s debut solo album. It`s a seductive listen full of what you would associate with the genre of music that this trailblazing artist is known for with tinges of electronic dance, industrial rock, synthesized sounds, and EBM laced throughout. The lyrics were a little surreal at times but for me, what I couldn`t understand was balanced by the delightfully compelling musical ambience.
Rating 8.5/10
