The Social, Nottingham 30 May 2001
The first act were Floach, an electronics duo from ScoobyDooLand. With a table full of electronic contraptions that would have made Throbbing Gristle drool (and a hairstyle that would have frightened Dave Hill from Slade), they cooked up a glorious electronic rumpus. If Pierre Henry had been commissioned to compose the incidental music for a Carry On film, it would have probably sounded like this. Sometimes they hit a groove, other times they just turned up the heat and let their pots boil over. Watching lab technicians at work is usually a boring experience, but Floach were smart enough to suss this out and took the piss out of themselves in such a charming way that you couldn’t help but like them. They made you like them.
Next act, Southall Riot. Oh dear. The classic scenario; It’s all very well, and they’re probably nice
Continue reading Acid Mothers Temple/Southall Riot/Floach (live) […]
This ‘trio’ are in fact a sextet, including the brothers Marcus and Micha Acher who enjoy playing with the conventions of jazz and introducing dub and electronics alongside improvisation. The first track, “United World Elevator”, is a good example, starting in a fairly minimalist style with sparse keyboard and drums, human, electronic or both. It suddenly takes on another dimension as the tenor saxophonist, Ulrich Wangenheim, asserts himself. His improvisations are impassioned and contribute a human voice as the electronic interference of Andreas Gerth infiltrates the mix.
To call Substrata a good album is an understatement. It has been described as one of the finest Ambient albums of the Nineties. As far as I’m concerned you can scrub out the bit about the Nineties. Biosphere, a.k.a. Geir Jenssen from Norway, has created some of the most amazing Ambient music I’ve heard in a very long time. Substrata is an album to play at full volume in sub-zero conditions.
Spanning most of the musical history of Calexico, a band highly reminiscent of duo Joey Burns and John Covertino‘s previous bands Giant Sand and especially Friends Of Dean Martinez, this EP combines unreleased tracks with remixes of previously-released material, some European B-sides, and three CDROM videos to make an almost definitive collection of Calexico’s southwestern-Texas-Arizona-tinged music, all on one compact CD. While the majority of the material here is original Calexico, there’s also a wonderful cover of the American Music Club song “Chanel No. 5” that’s so heartbreakingly rendered that it blows the first version clear out of the ballpark. The remix of the trumpet-heavy “Banderilla” is also wonderful, as is Two Loneswordsmen’s remix of “Untitled III.”
Salvatore popped down to Marrakesh from their Nowegian home to record Fresh, and from the opening twang of “Get The Kids On The Street, It’s A Party” things take on an electronic groove dimension which can only have been aided by the atmosphere of Morocco. “Get The Kids…” holds all the Motorik cards, dealing out chord chugs and twirling synths on a rhythmic base held in precise tension through the crisp sound of the brushing drums and the clanking sound of brand new bass strings. The title is just about right too, as it’s a perfect number for getting things going in a bouncy style.
Electrowerkz, London 4 May 2001
So after a few hours of previews of the new DHR video compilation (well worth checking out for the expected bunch of vids from Atari Teenage Riot via 