Founded in 2012, Beat:Cancer is a volunteer-run UK charity uniting the industrial and alternative electronic music community through releases, club nights, concerts and festivals. It raises funds for ethical cancer research, treatment and care projects, supporting people affected by cancer while staying true to its grassroots origins.
Drawing on the talent from its grassroots origins in the electro-industrial, EBM, and alternative electronic music scene, and with 35 tracks from artists across the world, all I can offer here by way of a review is a snapshot, a tantalizing taste of the music found here, leaving it up to the listener to explore further and buy the album, and in doing so donate to this most worthy of causes.
tr4nsiets kicks things off in fine style with a long and lush piece called “Sculptures,” a place where beat-driven soundscapes seem to gradually shatter and warp into new and more challenging forms. Some songs found here are all about the dance floor, such as Simon & Fabsi’s reworked “Moonwitch,” shamanistic dance grooves for the denizens of the night. Then there are unexpected pieces like the brilliant Spray and “Somewhere Out There (Somebody’s Burying The Bodies)” which sound like Jim Steinman writing Euro-disco for a Sisters of Mercy gig after-party.
Other songs echo the earliest days of the darker underground dance sound, such as Kalt’s “37 Degrees,” stark, sonorous and in your face, and there are songs, such as Chekhov’s “Croel,” that could almost slip subversively into today’s charts without too many mainstream gatekeepers putting up a fight.
As I said at the start, this is just the tip of a dark and delicious iceberg, but hopefully it has whet your appetite. The music is great, but, of course, what is important here is that every penny you spend on this will go to a fantastic cause, one working to beat something that has probably affected everyone of us to some degree.
Altruism and artistry, creativity and charity all dancing hand in hand. How great is that?
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