Mika Vainio was a member of the legendary minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic. Emerging from the Finnish industrial and rave music scene in the early '90s, they became one of the most important electronic music acts. Joachim Nordwall has run the iDEAL Recordings label since 1998, releasing intense electronic music of various kinds and organizing club nights and festivals around the globe. He started making electronic music as a teenager in the late '80s in the psychedelic drone duo Alvars Orkester, drifted off to sweaty avant garde punk rock with Kid Commando in the late '90s and formed the ritual rock and electronic drone group the Skull Defekts in 2005. Monstrance is their first album together and consists of drone works and pulsating electronic minimalism, but also guitar, acoustic elements, organs, and metal percussion. It was recorded in Einsturzende Neubauten's Berlin studio during an intense session in early summer of 2010. Monstrance is a place where Vainio's and Nordwall's backgrounds as musicians and composers meet, and something new and extremely powerful is born. Something deep, raw, and direct. Artwork & photography by Jon Wozencroft.