Le­æther Strip

Leæther Strip originated as the solo endeavor of Danish electronic musician and producer Claus Larsen, surfacing in the early 1990s with a forceful style that laid groundwork for Western Europe's EBM and electro-industrial scenes. Among the first major signings to Germany's Zoth Ommog imprint, the project dominated the 1990s while sustaining the dark electro-industrial and EBM tradition through the 2010s and 2020s.

Born in Aalborg, Denmark, Larsen first experimented within the heavy metal community before shifting focus to electronic music toward the end of the 1980s. Seeking to fuse his admiration for Depeche Mode and Soft Cell into fresh territory, he launched the Leæther Strip name in 1989 via the single "Japanese Bodies," issued on the then-new Zoth Ommog label. The subsequent full-lengths Pleasure of Penetration and Science for the Satanic Citizen arrived in 1990, solidifying the act's presence across Germany, Belgium, and Denmark. Larsen launched the industrial metal outlet Klute in 1991, issuing several EPs, singles, and albums under that name until he altered it to Klutæ in 2006 to avoid confusion with drum'n'bass artist Tom Withers.

Six additional albums and five further EPs appeared on Zoth Ommog prior to the label's closure in 1999. During this span, Semaphore handled broader European distribution while Cleopatra and Metropolis Records secured American availability. Larsen kept Leæther Strip mostly dormant from 2000 through 2005 amid label complications and private matters, yet returned in 2007 with the studio album The Giant Minutes to the Dawn on Alfa Matrix, reviving the pounding electro-industrial approach of the project's earlier peak. Four more full-length releases followed on Alfa Matrix before Larsen pursued an independent path beginning in 2011. Since that point the project has maintained live activity across Denmark and internationally, delivering intense, thematically charged EBM and industrial recordings such as Æscapism (2014), World Molæster (2018), and Last Station (2023). Larsen released the seventh entry in his Aeppreciation covers series during 2024.