6TH CIRCLE
Satanic/anarchist Electro Industrial/EBM act 6th Circle is embodied by sole mastermind Matt Auxier, a Columbus OH-based multi-instrumentalist who writes, performs, records, and produces all the project’s music entirely on his own. Beginning conceptually in 2017 and influenced by classic EBM/Industrial such as Front 242, Front Line Assembly and Skinny Puppy as well as modern acts such as Dead When I Found Her and HIDE, 6th Circle has been compared to acts like FLA, Youth Code, Statiqbloom, Leaether Strip, and Qual, and described as “rotting electronic dance with a modern and vintage influence”. The project has in fact been lauded and denoted for its iconic and retro-feeling timelessness as well as for its imaginative and transformative take on the style which has pushed its boundaries forward and expanded its horizons by incorporating elements of occult darkness, anarchism, satanism, and the darker and most fringe and uncompromising sides of goth and punk. Combining driving and pulsating drum rhythms with harsh samples, and apocalyptic atmospheres mixed with dark and disorienting overtones, and sinisterly abrasive and scathing vocals, 6th Circle has revitalized and re-imagined the genre by bridging its historic and intransigent past legacy with a broad new spectrum of futuristic transfigurations. Auxier created 6th Circle as a means to take - and never leave - the left hand path, conceiving the project as a sonic and conceptual full frontal attack on hate and oppression through themes of ritualism, anti-religion, magic and anarchism. The journey began officially in 2018 when Auxier presented his electronic weapon to the masses in the form of the noisy and scathing sensorial assault of the debut Pacified EP released that year by iconic underground raw black metal cassette forge Knife Vision, an unpredictable but perfectly timed and executed marriage that set the tone immediately on the “place” where Auxier had envisioned his creation to exist: on the fringe and at the edge. The Pacified EP introduced 6th Circle’s diabolically catchy and abrasive electro dance mayhem to an unexpecting underground in a time and age where quality contemporary Electro-industrial EMB was a scarce commodity, and the underground responded positively with the Pacified EP becoming one of Knife Visions’ most distinctive releases and the cassette stock being decimated in a matter of weeks and becoming since a practically unfindable underground novelty. Around the same time, the project had also evolved in the meantime to become a baneful and punishing living act, with Auxier often getting in the van to bring his apocalyptic one-man weapon of digitalized terror to the road. The Conjuring EP soon followed in early 2019, released on praised American harsh noise death dealers Phage Tapes, maintaining the same abrasive levels of scathing noise and pummeling evil of its predecessor while ulteriorly refining and sophisticating the project’s vision and intents with even more lucidly aggressive songwriting and an even more organic production quality. Auxier then spent the early portion of 2019 giving birth to his first, real and inevitable stepping stone, envisioning and flawlessly executing his debut LP The Third State, a post-industrial melting pot of electronic mayhem and apocalyptic industrial dance bedlam which has sublimated his every influence and the project’s every intent and purpose into a scathing maelstrom of pummeling and diabolical electronic pandemonium. To see the light through Sentient Ruin in the later half of 2019, The Third State debut full-length LP was made using both hardware and software synthesizers from Moog, DSI, Elektron, Novation, Massive, Ableton, and is - both in songwriting and imaginative force and in production and execution quality - Auxier’s most sophisticated, accomplished, and unrestrained work to date.