The new Anatomy of Habit album was announced this week. The first song, "Always Arriving," is now streaming. Pre-orders are available via Bandcamp. See more information below, including details about a special launch/listening event we have planned.+++++As we enter July, the release of the new album is finally right around the corner. For this update, I’ve been spending a lot of time with the third track, “The Importance of Risk.”
Risk is something I think about in a few different ways - creatively, in relationships, and just in how we choose to push ourselves forward in life.
I think a lot about what it means to completely let go, to give into a kind of emotional surrender. Whether you're trying to navigate a totally new creative direction or attempting to be genuinely vulnerable with another person, it forces you to confront a certain fear of the unknown. It’s that wide-open, unpredictable space where the safety nets are gone and you can't see the edges of where you’re going.
There is a real danger in turning yourself into something rigid, or getting trapped trying to perfectly recreate past patterns just to avoid getting hurt. We rely on our internal rules to keep us feeling safe, but in life and in relationships, that safety often just leads to an artificial compromise. You find yourself making small, superficial gestures, settling for an echo of something real instead of the thing itself.
Reflected light doesn’t hold any heat. It’s just a reminder of warmth. Creatively, it’s relying on a formula that worked once because you already know exactly how it ends. In life, it’s managing the appearance of closeness or stability while keeping your actual self entirely out of reach. It feels like you’re participating, but it’s just a proxy.
When you guard yourself too closely, or feel like you are constantly being watched and judged, it can completely drain the real emotion out of a space. It gets cold. It’s easy to slip into a cycle where you are endlessly consuming everything around you, taking everything in from the world or the person next to you, but never making any real concessions or giving anything of yourself in return.
For me, this song is about the absolute necessity of breaking out of that numbness. It’s about those moments where you have to push yourself forward entirely without a plan or a reason.
Stepping out into the open like that can feel completely irrational. You don't get a guarantee. But staying still is usually what actually kills the momentum. Risk is the only thing that keeps the work, and the connections we have with the world, from turning to stone.
It can’t hurt to look closer.+++++If you're looking for t-shirts, please check out my Threadless site. I'm letting my on-hand stock of many designs sell out.
Along with Bandcamp, you can always buy vinyl, CDs, cassettes, etc., for my solo work and all my bands from my webstore - which is up-to-date with in-stock items. I also have any BloodLust! releases that are still available.
I've been adding more items to my Discogs store (all in-stock releases, select out of stock items, used items, rarities, etc.) and maintaining my eBay store (all of my in-stock releases).
As always, thanks for reading!
Mark Anatomy of Habit
Formed in Chicago in 2008, ANATOMY OF HABIT has been described as a hybrid of doom metal, post-punk, death-rock, early-industrial, psychedelic, and shoegaze. Although they’ve experienced significant membership changes since forming, today’s band, which includes Alex Latus (guitar), Isidro Reyes (metal percussion), Skyler Rowe (drums), Mark Solotroff (vocals), and Sam Wagster (bass + lap steel), represents their longest-standing and most prolific lineup. The band credits their treasured chemistry to their intertwining histories as friends and collaborators. Rowe and Latus have made music together since they were teenagers, growing up in Indianapolis’ heavy music scene, while playing in the band Still. Rowe and Wagster create sweeping, pastoral instrumental music together in Mute Duo. Reyes and Solotroff are old friends who’ve played together for many years and they continue to record and perform in both BLOODYMINDED and The Fortieth Day. This deep connective tissue contributes to what the band describes as consistently effortless writing sessions and innately unified live performances.
Anatomy of Habit
"Paired Sentinels"
LP + 7-inch / CD / Cassette / Digital
Pre-order here:
https://anatomyofhabit.bandcamp.com/album/paired-sentinels
Read the announcement from EarsplitPR here
Album Tracklist:
1. Always Arriving
2. Conditions for Freedom
3. The Importance of Risk
4. Paired Sentinels
7-Inch Tracklist (exclusive to LP version):
1. Sentinel (One)
2. Sentinel (Two)
Twelve Ten Gallery is pleased to host a record release event celebrating Paired Sentinels, the fifth full-length album by Anatomy of Habit, on Saturday, July 18, 2026, from 6:00–9:00 PM.
Written and recorded by Alex Latus, Isidro Reyes, Skyler Rowe, Mark Solotroff, and Sam Wagster, Paired Sentinels issues from the band's longest-standing lineup. Throughout the album, in both formal expression and lyrical content, recurring images of complexity/compression, cause/conditions, possibility/inscription, desire/identity, appear as paired conditions that delimit experience while never exhausting it. Coupled with the group's agonistic treatment of rhythm and noise, the album demonstrates the tension between the object of the represented and representation, and the forms through which this excessive lack is expressed and negotiated.
The evening will begin with a conversation between Anatomy of Habit vocalist, lyricist, and co-founder Mark Solotroff and Twelve Ten Gallery Director Joshua Johnson, reflecting on the band's nearly two-decade history and the approach. The discussion will consider the conceptual and creative processes, influences, and collaborations that have shaped the group's practice.
Following the conversation, attendees will be invited to a listening session featuring selections from Paired Sentinels and the band's catalog, offering an opportunity to engage with Anatomy of Habit's music through sustained listening. A public Q&A and informal reception will follow.
Twelve Ten Gallery
1104 W Thorndale Ave.
Chicago, IL 60660https://twelvetengallery.com/news/7-1-2026
+++++Website
Bandcamp
Instagram
Facebook
Spotify
Apple Music
BLOODYMINDED
BLOODYMINDED is a heavy electronic band, formed in New York, in 1995, after the dissolution of the pioneering American post- industrial noise group Intrinsic Action, founded by Mark Solotroff in Chicago, in 1984. BLOODYMINDED’s live shows are exceptionally energetic and are characterized by physical engagement, layers of abrasive analog synthesizer, aggressive vocals, and abundant feedback.
Recording work is back on and we're testing some mixes of the ten in-progress tracks. We have more synth to add and then we'll wrap it up with vocal sessions.
https://bloodyminded.threadless.com/designs/bloodyminded-synths-up-2024-design/
+++++Bandcamp
Threadless
Instagram
Facebook
Spotify
Apple Music
Ensemble Sacrés Garçons
Ensemble Sacrés Garçons is a post-industrial band split between Milan and Chicago and composed of Paolo L. Bandera, Andrea Chiaravalli, and Mark Solotroff. The three members are connected to numerous groups including Sigillum S, Sshe Retina Stimulants, The Sodality, Iugula-Thor, BLOODYMINDED, Intrinsic Action, Anatomy of Habit, The Fortieth Day, etc.
 
For US orders, please visit: https://ensemblesacresgarcons.bandcamp.com/
For EU orders, please visit: https://paololbandera.bandcamp.com/
Rest of world based on proximity to USA/Italy
No shows currently booked.
+++++Bandcamp
The Fortieth Day
The Fortieth Day is the duo of Isidro Reyes and Mark Solotroff, both key players in the heavy-electronics outfit BLOODYMINDED, a band known for its aggressive and confrontational live shows. In The Fortieth Day, Reyes and Solotroff utilize guitar, bass, drum machine, and analog synthesizer to create epic, blackened, psychedelic-industrial drone soundscapes.
All of our albums, dating back to 2006, are available on all major streaming platforms.
A limited number of LPs, CDs, cassettes, and shirts can be found on our Bandcamp page.
There are also shirt designs available on Threadless.
No shows currently booked.
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Bandcamp
Threadless
Spotify
Apple Music
Intrinsic Action
Intrinsic Action was an early American power-electronics band founded by Mark Solotroff in 1984.
Intrinsic Action albums and archival releases, dating back to 1984, are available to stream on all major platforms.
CDs and shirts can be found on our Bandcamp page.
There are numerous shirt designs exclusive to Threadless.
+++++Bandcamp
Threadless
Spotify
Apple Music
The Mercury Impulse
The Mercury Impulse was created in 2024 by JR Robinson and Mark Solotroff. Robinson is well known for Wrekmeister Harmonies and Solotroff is best known for Anatomy of Habit and BLOODYMINDED.
Our debut album is available on CD and it's available on all major streaming platforms.
JR and I are slowly continuing to work on tracks for our next album.
No shows currently booked.
+++++Bandcamp
Nightmares
Dark ambient trio, formed in 2009 by Jonathan Canady (Dead World, Deathpile, Angel of Decay), David Reed (Envenomist, Luasa Raelon, Imvixor), and Mark Solotroff (Anatomy of Habit, BLOODYMINDED, Instrinsic Action)
"Mouth" T-shirts are available via Bandcamp
https://synthnightmares.bandcamp.com/merch/nightmares-mouth-t-shirt
Band inactive.
No shows currently booked.
+++++Bandcamp
The Sodality
Originally created in 1984 by Andrea Cernotto and Pierpaolo Zoppo, The Sodality bloomed under Andrea‘s guidance across seminal works in the 80's and 90's. The project was revived by original members Paolo Bandera and Eraldo Bernocchi for a 2014 concert in Rome, with Mark Solotroff on vocals, and again in 2023, for a live show in Dresden, and new recordings with that line-up, along with founding member Andrea Cernotto.
I have copies of our "Unburdened Underpass" CD via my webstore.
All of The Sodality's albums and singles - including remastered versions of all older releases - are available via Bandcamp.
No shows currently booked.
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