Born 1983. Illusion Of Safety intrepidly charts the terra incognita where sound, silence, noise and music intersect. Using conventional instruments, sound generating devices and random objects, IOS hews sonic sculptures that deliberately provoke, mesmerize and even affront listeners. Their work has been continually evolving, never settling into an easy niche. Since 1991 IOS have released 20 CDs on labels such as Silent, OddSize, Staalplaat, Soleilmoon, Manifold, Tesco, Die Stadt, Ossosnossos, and Complacency. Their work has been called ambient, post-industrial, electro-acoustic, electronica, noise, sound collage, improvisation, and power-electronics. Unable to categorize their work into one style, each release, live performance, and sometimes individual piece often shifts abruptly from one atmosphere to another. Leading some to describe their output as schizophrenic. Referencing external & enhancing internal locations, manipulating semi-recognizable elements in structures of a re-arranged language of error. Destroyed music, broken sound, disturbed ambience and the quest for the sublime. Sounds of Hell, May 19, 2007 I am a huge fan of Illusion of Safety (IOS). My goal it to own all of Dan Burke's IOS albums. That being said, here is my review of "Bad Karma." Each album has it's own identity. This particular album, I feel at any rate, focuses on terror, paranoia and human cruelty. The first track searches and lands on a sound collage of people muttering and repeating terrible sound bits of mania and then it goes on to a countdown ending with a crescendo of breaking glass. What an incredible introduction! And it only gets better from there. This album was my introduction to IOS and, subsequently, my favorite. I love the samples. They range from a woman saying, "human life is extremely cheap" to interviews of students from Dateline talking about a priest who is "too affectionate." Another IOS album similar to "Bad Karma" is "Historical." It too has lots of samples and is rather dark in it's theme. "Inside Agitator" is also a little like "Bad Karma." But believe me, all of IOS albums are truly different from one another. Comment