Camilla Sparksss – ICU RUN

There are artists who follow genre, treating it as a shelter or a safe zone, and then there are artists who treat genre like an obstacle course, something to dismantle, rewire, and set aflame. Camilla Sparksss has always belonged to the latter camp. With ICU RUN, her fourth full-length album, she tears apart the scaffolding of modern electronic and experimental music, reassembling it into a fine piece of artistry. This is not a record about comfort, polish, or catharsis neatly tied with a bow. ICU RUN is about disarray, fracture, and survival. It was born out of personal experience. The music carries this biographical scar, but also transforms it into something greater, an album about chaos and defiance, about the tension between collapse and resistance. It is simultaneously fragile and furious, a body of work that serves as a collection of songs rather than a transmission from the edge of experience.

Sparksss, born Barbara Lehnhoff, is already a formidable presence in the European avant-garde. With Peter Kernel, she reinvented post-punk as sly performance art, while as Camilla Sparksss blurs electro, darkwave, and noise pop into unpredictable hybrids. But with ICU RUN she seems to be moving beyond her previous experiments. The record doesn’t just collage genres, it shreds them into pieces and rearanges them into more complex sonic forms. Hip-hop cadences rub against industrial squalls. Darkwave synths drift into fractured turntablism. Pop melodies surface only to be shredded by distortion and then reconstituted as noisy, slightly dissonant anthems, resulting in an unstable, volatile, and always conscious music. Sparksss has mastered the art of composing through disorientation. Every sharp left turn, a beat collapsing into silence, a synth line detuned into chaos, or a vocal phrase spat like a curse feels earned and inevitable. Her voice acts as a weapon and anchor here. Sparksss sings with the as someone who refuses to retreat into abstraction. One moment she sounds intimate, vulnerable, almost whispered, while in the next she erupts into jagged shouts that tear through the mix. There is no effort to smooth these shifts. Instead, they mirror the psychic violence of loss. When harmonies arrive, they don’t soften the edges. They fortify them, turning songs into communal calls.

But ICU RUN is not an album of resignation. It is an album of continuous fighting. Sparksss wants you to dance, even as she pulls you into the abyss. The rhythms are jagged but irresistible, industrial beats colliding with hip-hop grooves, synth pulses echoing through reverby space. Recorded under her own On The Camper Records, the production carries textures honed for impact. Bass roars with physical force, synths slash like blades, and the beats hit with the ultimate precision of heavy machinery. However, there are moments of unexpected delicacy, scanty passages where silence is allowed to breathe, where Sparksss’ voice hangs naked in the air. These contrasts prevent the record from sinking into monotony. It is tempting to situate ICU RUN within the lineage of industrial, darkwave, synthwave, and experimental hip-hop. But Sparksss resists being pinned down. Where many of her contemporaries lean heavily on aesthetic consistency, she thrives in fracture. Each track arrives like a demolition of what came before. This refusal of cohesion is the most radical gesture here. Sparksss delivers a comprehensive collection of energetic, catchy, memorable compositions that defiantly avoid all the cliches.

After all the experimental and avant-garde movement, there are addictive melodies and infectious rhythmic patterns. Sparksss understands that experimentation without connection is hollow. Her work always gestures outward, toward an audience, toward shared experience. It is not an abstract exercise in form, but a transmission of raw and unfiltered emotion. In this sense, ICU RUN belongs to a long tradition of punk and experimental music, the refusal to accept imposed systems, whether social, political, or sonic. Just as early punks tore apart the structures of rock, Sparksss dismantles the clichés of electronic music. But unlike many who posture in the name of rebellion, her work is grounded in lived experience. The stakes here are not theoretical. It is also worth emphasizing the sheer craft at work. Sparksss is not simply improvising chaos. Every sound, every cut, every lurching transition is expertly designed. This balance between precision and volatility makes this album so gripping. It embodies what great experimental art has always done, it unsettles while revealing new forms of beauty. ICU RUN  is too rough, confrontational, and unwilling to provide easy catharsis, but for those willing to enter its world, it is one of the most powerful statements of the year. It is an album that insists on music as survival and resistance. With ICU RUN, she has delivered her most personal work yet. It is a document of chaos reclaimed as art and survival rendered audible. ICU RUN will immediately appeal to even the pickiest darkwave, post-punk, experimental, and avant-garde fans. Do not miss it!

GothDiscoInferno #85

Das #GothDiscoInferno vom 12.09.2025 zum Nachhören:

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Trackliste:

[01] KAUAN – outline / pave
[02] Be My Wife – Only You
[03] The Essence – Fire
[04] The Lucy Show – Sad September
[05] Cold In Berlin – Hangman’s Daughter
[06] Siouxsie and the Banshees – Metal Postcard – John Peel Session
[07] Ladytron – I Believe in You
[08] In Mitra Medusa Inri – This is Just the Beginning
[09] Grey Factor – Above The Gun
[10] December – Two Hearts Beat as One
[11] Joy Forever – Two Minds Collide
[12] Quixotic – Schwarzenegger
[13] Vague Phonique – The Last Man
[14] Fotoform – You Set Fire to the Sun
[15] Life Cult – The Death Bell
[16] Schonwald – Dope My Soul
[17] Ballerina Black – Microphones in the Mattress (Mix for Solidarity)
[18] Sparks – The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte
[19] Violence – Sublime
[20] The Cure – A Forest – Tree Mix
[21] Lathe of Heaven – Portrait of a Scorched-Earth
[22] Das frivole Burgfräulein – Lieblingsband
[23] The Guilt – Naked on My Own
[24] Tomas Tulpe – Schön mit Dir – Radio Edit
[25] Deadpilot – Shadow Walking Dopamine
[26] Laura Krieg – Red Skies
[27] Twin Noir – When you don’t care
[28] Specimen – Dead Man’s Autochop
[29] Drab Majesty – Behind the Wall
[30] Ash Code – Far Away
[31] Resplandor – Adore
[32] New Order – Temptation – 12″ Version
[33] Delores Galore, Tiffadelic – Ring Around The Rose
[34] Love Spit Love – Long Long Time
[35] The Arch – Deathwalls
[36] Oslo Twins – I Wake Up Slowly
[37] Glaring – New Dawn
[38] Depeche Mode – Enjoy the Silence – Live at O2 World – Berlin, Germany
[39] Dlina Volny – Doppelgänger
[40] ALLES – Wszystko
[41] Also – Schwarze Wasser
[42] Life Cult – Life is Love