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Label: 4AD Format: DVD+3xCD
 There is an air of finality about the title and contents of 1981-1996. With the dissolution of their musical partnership into separate solo careers, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry are no longer Dead Can Dance, but as the extensive essay on the group included in the luxurious slip-cased hardbacked book (jam-packed with landscape photos) which makes up the packaging of the set observes, the band lives on through its music. However trite that may appear at first – all now-split bands or deceased artists exist beyond their actual personal existence together, barring reunions and the like – somehow it seems even more appropriate when considering Dead Can Dance, who practically embody the idea of timelessness in their uniquely overwhelming sound.
One of the
Continue reading Dead Can Dance – 1981-1996 [...]
Label: Mute Format: CD,2LP
 As purposely obscure and enigmatic as ever, Laibach‘s return to the world of record releases and live shows steps up the pressure they bring to bear upon the listener’s expectations of what this most uncompromising of groups might actually intend and ultimately mean. Presented in German, English and occasionally Serbo-Croat to thumping beats of an orchestral Techno bent, WAT kicks off with one of the most outrageously utopian Space Operas committed to disc in the shape of “B Maschina”. From the opening tinkling electronics and rising hum of power steeling itself for release, the archetypal deep voice of Laibach speaks the lay of dream machines raising into orbit to a whirring rhythm which soon grinds into escape velocity on impassioned digital whinnies and an explosion into
Continue reading Laibach – WAT [...]
- Iranair Inflight Magazine – Red Madrassa – Jebel Tariq Label: Muslimim Format: CD – Arabbox Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD -In Search Of Ahmad Shah Masood Label: Nexsound Format: CD
Recent months have seen the continuing flow of Muslimgauze releases slow down considerably – given that it is now five years since Bryn Jones‘ untimely death, this is hardly surprising, but that it has taken this long is in itself a testament to the legacy of finished material he left behind. This round-up of new and reemergent material covers only some of the diverse CDs which have appeared – a second instalment is likely to follow shortly.
 With track names taken from the Iran Air Inflight Magazine of the album title and referring in turn to the
Continue reading Muslimgauze review feature [...]
The Ralfe Band; The Destroyers; Guillemot; The Paetbog Faeries; Salsa Celtica; Sild; Cheltenham, UK 2nd-4th June 2006
Lying in the green heart of the Cotswold valleys is the small town of Cheltenham, where the remains of the emerald giant Wychwood Forest stands. This had been a site for forest gatherings and folk ceremonies until the 1850s when the land was sold to the Navy, so there is special significance now to dance over those rotten dealings in the name of better things. There is a lot of conscience here, with a big presence by Greenpeace, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth and more, and its also a really good way to discover new performers who are and have been playing in the Folk circuit for a long time already. There is a Songlines tent doing artist signings and selling records of the
Continue reading Wychwood Festival 2006 [...]
Label: Studio Philo/Music Video Distributors Format: DVD
 When Genesis P-Orridge returned to London in 1999 after nearly a decade of tabloid media-inspired witchhunt and subsequent exile to America, there was no doubt that the reappearance of Psychic TV on stage would be an event. That GPO’s manifestation resulted in broadsheet The Guardian running an extensive feature on his welcoming into the very heart of the arts establishment was almost as remarkable as the fact that PTV would be playing in the Royal Festival Hall itself, site of many a surprise underground-made-overground event before and since, but never one quite so outré.
Thanks for this eagerly-anticipated marathon gig is largely due to the then-head of contemporary arts programming, David Sefton, and as the accompanying Cut Up Concert documentary on the
Continue reading Psychic TV – Time’s Up Live [...]
Label: Mute Format: 2CD
“Still with Mute Records, the sadly neglected Fad Gadget looks like he could give The Human League a run for their money in the smart electronic pop stakes. His third excellent single in a row previews two tracks for his forthcoming album and features more of his clever, black humour lyrics and nifty tunes. “Fireside Favourites” pointedly combines the home fire, the atom bomb and an insanely jolly cakewalk, while “Insecticide” views life from an insect’s point of view with some clever effects. Highly recommended”.
Smash Hits, October 2-15 1980
 That was then. Now there are a 1001 dodgy Eighties and Electro Pop compilations out there. As with all retro compilations memory and sellability are just as important as the music
Continue reading Fad Gadget – The Best Of Fad Gadget [...]
Label: One Little Indian Format: CD
 If, at any point in the last six or seven years, you had only taken the time to ask, then I would have told you, dear reader, that Björk Gudmundsdottir was THE Great Pop star of the 1990′s, what Bowie was to the 70′s, and, I would contend, Prince to the 1980′s. I use the term great not in the term of these people selling the most records, although they all have done great business there too, in their time. What I am referring to is a certain kind of character who is the best example of their age, a unique voice completely of their times and yet somehow always outside of and beyond them, a genius at the peak of their powers,
Continue reading Björk – Vespertine [...]
Label: Ralph (America)/EuroRalph (Europe) Format: DVD, CD (soundtrack only)
  
There have been plenty of strange and powerful musicians and groups out there for many a long year. Captain Beefheart, Coil, Wesley Willis, Ken Nordine an so forth, each extending the realms of taste and disrupting the boundaries of what exactly constitues music and art . Then there are The Residents.
Through thirty years of wilful obscurity and cutting-edge innovation, they have maintained a largely successful anonymity, one of the features about the group which is at once integral to their mystique and irrelevant. The eminently ridiculous sight of a Resident in a tuxedo with an eyeball
Continue reading The Residents: Icky Flix – Live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 9th June 2001 – Icky Flix DVD [...]
The Bloomsbury Theatre, London 6-7th April 2001
  
 Perhaps if Billie Holliday had received nuptial visits from the spirit of La Cage Aux Folles and produced an offspring, that might explain how the universe has been blessed with Antony. Perfoming live for two nights in London in support of Current 93 and the David Tibet Show, Antony And The Johnsons provided us with a glimpse into the nature of that blessing. And like a book is always better than the movie, Antony live was far better than even the CDs would let on. He poured himself onto a stage before a bedazzled audience, swathed in pink chiffon, as elegant as an angel, and sang like a violin.
Continue reading Current Ninety Three/Antony And The Johnsons (live) [...]
November 2000
 Bobby Conn does his very best to be the model of a post-Modern underground superstar. His two albums to date, Bobby Conn and Rise Up!, have placed him somewhere in a grey area between parody and genuine adulation of crooners, cabaret singers and all-round stars of the spangly stage. This interview took place after his New Orleans gig in November 2000, and as Bobby remarked “I could talk for hours about my favourite subject – myself!”. Fortunately, what the creator of the Continuous Cash Flow System has to say in person is usually as entertaining as his remarkable songs.
FREQ: What was the main motivation for you to start out portraying this particular image you have, as Judeo-Christian Edutainer, as a sort of Antichrist cabaret singer?
Bobby
Continue reading An Interview with Mr Bobby Conn [...]
Label: Creation Format: CD,LP
“The time to rise has been engaged” – REM
 It has occurred to me on more than just this one occasion that giving our seers and soothsayers money to throw about is often not the best thing for them. Witness the fate of Roxy Music and Johnny Rotten, Jefferson Airplane, Sly Stone, The Rolling Stones, Kurt Cobain and (most recently) Van Morrison and Prince. One of several things almost invariably happens. Either they dry up, they compromise their vision, trying to recreate past glories, but with a more commercial spin on it; more catchy, more popular. Or they get a taste for all the money thrown at them, and want more. Or else they spend it all on drugs. Some of them just can’t
Continue reading Primal Scream – Exterminator [...]
June 2000
People Like Us is Vicki Bennett, a resident of Brighton on the South coast of England and creator of extraordinarily witty cut-up film and music projects which take the cultural critique of Plunderphonics into new dimensions of layered reference and dissociated signifiers. As with like minded spirits such as Manchester’s Stock, Hausen & Walkman, Californian pioneers Negativland and cod-orchestral Sythetizers The Tape-Beatles, People Like Us recordings use found sounds, old vinyl of dubious value in its original kitsch state, TV snippets and general audio detritus to nag at the edges of what constitutes sampling, copyright avoidance and sometimes music itself. Interviewed by Freq at the time of her stunning Brighton performance in February 2000, sections of the interview were later completed by email.
FREQ: What’s upcoming on
Continue reading People Like Freq talk to People Like Us [...]
David Pajo; Robin Guthrie; Pole; Labradford Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 24th June 2000
This year’s Festival of Drifting sees each participant playing all in one night as a national tour, as opposed to the previous two years when performances were spread out over the course of 4-6 days at various venues. Labradford‘s idea is to bring together an artist-led festival featuring performers from the softer side of Rock/Ambient/Electronica, and piece them all together between a stich of writers and a thread of visual artistry, developing a tapestry of music, art and literature that all revolve and influence each other in this world of dark and calm atmospheric expressionism. Competing with Glastonbury this weekend, Drifting has attracted an impressive quantity of observers, even if many of them come out a little disappointed.
The first problem presented to festival
Continue reading Labradford’s Third Annual Festival Of Drifting [...]
South Bank Centre, London 27-29th May 2000
Now semi-permanently established at the South Bank for the past few years, the LMC Experimental Music Festival has become one of the fixtures of the London Improv and New Music scene, struggling through into something approaching mainstream cultural acceptance – though that’s a relative position of course. This isn’t to say that its become particularly watered down, blanded out or easily commercial; far from it, and while not everything will be pleasing to all ears, it neither should be nor could be, and much on offer is is such high quality that a few dull spots can easily be avoided by those disinclined to favour one piece of Avant-noodling will soon find another of superb quality for their edification and enjoyment.
Ninth time around, and Saturday’s Purcell Room show has two extreme of
Continue reading London Musicians’ Collective Ninth Annual Festival of Experimental Music [...]
After The Deluge
29th May 2000
Jean-Hervé Péron is best known as the former de facto front man for Faust, a group he sometimesseemed to embody the group’s chaotic lunacy for in his onstage antics with chainsaws and naked painting sessions. Following his traumatic personal split with the band after their early Nineties re-emergence, Peron spends his time raising horses and children on his small farm near Hamburg.
For years there were rumours that he would return with a rival group, an Anti-Faust to seal the rancour; instead, his first London show as a live performer took place in May 2000 at The South Bank Centre as a surprise performer in the Ninth Annual Festival of Experimental Music put on by the London Musicians Collective. Before the gig, Jean-Hervé took time to talk to Freq about his musical career,
Continue reading An interview with Jean-Hervé Péron [...]
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