Cave12 Recorded live in Switzerland in September 2011, Killer_kipper‘s wheezing blend of electronic loops and musique concrète reveals Norbert Möslang at his most single-minded and oppressive. Juddering bass offers little in the way of an ordinary rhythmic foothold, and the scraping, grinding sounds of whatever he’s making scribble like a particularly grating shard of broken glass on the face of what could be metal, might be circuits (bent […]
album review
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Bureau B Serious fun to be had here, sock puppets and all. Der Plan’s slick cabaret of strangeness is all over the place, eerie cinematics jutting up against cheesy trips to the German equivalent of Blackpool amusements. Take an eyeful of that gaudy cover for Die Letzte Rache and you instantly know boredom is gonna be in short supply – that plasticined comicbook aesthetic, the singing eels. Yep, […]
x2 Listen 1: Wahey, new Pet Shop Boys! [listens a bit] Wahey! Pet Shop Boys! [scratches] Wahey. Hmm. [more scratching, rolls fag] Is this… uh… well, albums aren’t necessarily the best format for pop. [wanders off] Popjustice.com – probably the only place that talks about pop seriously without going all Paul Morley/ “I’ve got a crit theory degree but no actual liking for women/ gay folk” – has […]
Dirter Promotions This oozes intelligence, and to be honest, there’s always been plenty behind everything Ralf Wehowsky (RLW) puts his hand to, even if it’s often accompanied with lots of head scratching for his listeners. Whether you think he’s poking the fun or stroking its beard with satisfied rigour, he’s there, being significant, a seeker, never fully satisfied, fraying that strait jacket of Western music with an alternative […]
Monotype Okay. Let’s get the press over with; as a press release, this is actually pretty sweet: Given the bleak times we find ourselves in today, Cascone felt that another (he’s referencing the 50 years of Sunshine DBL on Silent) tribute to Herr Hofmann was in order. To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the first LSD trip, a batch of etheric lysergic soundscapes were contributed to this project […]
Editions Mego COH intrigues because he seems to go elsewhere into the light. Most elsewheres are darkness-bound, content to continue stirring the ambient-stew given to them by their industrial ancestors (so many have made a cuckold of Lustmord) but COH’s music . This release is perhaps the most beautiful yet and works like a prettier, more sophisticated cousin of Rustie; both make music from cut class, COH’s shapes […]
Second Language Every now and then, when I need to kill sometime on the internet, I have a checklist of web sites that I’ll go through and have a peek at. The website of Cécile Schott’s project Colleen is one of them. From my sporadic infrequent checks I’d noticed that it had been notably gathering cobwebs from the web spiders (bad cyber-spiel joke). Then a post appeared in August 2011 that […]
Important Mysterious Seattle collective Master Musicians Of Bukkake return to the fold after the conclusion of their highly regarded Totem trilogy. Comprising of largely Eastern-tinged soundscapes and ‘ritualised’ music, Totems One, Two and Three are albums that I repeatedly return to, such is the quality and diversity of sounds and ideas on each. The concept behind new release Far West is the idea that the traveller seeking new […]
The Ex To say that Enormous Door is a classic Ex record, combined with a mighty Afrobeat brass section, would be accurate, but it would also be a copout. What, you might ask, comprises a classic Ex record? Well, one would expect furious, churning polyrhythms, courtesy of drum windmill Katherina Barnefield, married to Andy Moor‘s atonal, cheese-grater guitar, with alternating barked/sung and sing-song nursery rhyme vocals, typically of […]
Rocket Girl I’m loving the sustained landscaping on this, those puckerings of melodious highlights and zithery arpeggios seemingly shivering out of a slowly clearing mist. That highly composed filmic vibe that transcends time, as if caught in the yearning crystallisation of the moment. A perpetual dawn with contemplative glints of sensation magnified on accents of piano, cello and some rather unusual if subtle processing. Born completely from a […]
Important Where do I begin – with a simple statement perhaps? Like “this is one of the most important Krautrock albums made during the ’70s,” perhaps? It certainly stands singular amongst most of it contemporaries at the time (1974); it is unique and it’s difficult when reviewing it to find cultural points of reference to allude to. But here goes… “Apricot Brandy” starts the album. The track is […]
Thrill Jockey The name of the band and the album gives the game away, as perhaps it should, and the cover image of two musicians walking away towards a line of telegraph poles near-hidden in a dustcloud certainly helps too. The music by Date Palms is immediately suggestive of the desert fringes, of the places where sandy dryness meets welcome verdant relief, of Joshua Tree or the scrublands […]
Red Wharf Only listened to this twice so far, but I must say its miles more entertaining than the previous Graham Bowers collaboration Rupture. Gone are the studious symphonics, favourably replaced by liberating wonky oompha chip-chop that scatters the wares more psychsomatically without labouring any fixed point.. “Off to Hell on a Handcart” (seriously loving these track titles) is stereophonically awry, a slippery mess of Michael Jackson moonwalk […]
Thrill Jockey Phil Manley will already be known to fans of Total Music as a key member of the groups Trans Am and The Fucking Champs. To those of you who really keep your eye on the ball, you will also know that he released a solo album in 2011 called Life Coach. It is not that Life Coach but his new band Life Coach and their début […]
Exotic Pylon One year, for Christmas, due to extreme poverty, I had no choice but to make all my Christmas presents. I had finally got my hands on some rudimentary recording equipment, and set about making my friends homemade, heartfelt, brutal noise recordings. I made a CD-R of close-mic’ed electric tea kettle recordings: 12 minutes of churning ferric cacophony. When asked, my friend replied: “Yeah, it’s good, but […]
Nochexxx I could use Nochexxx to teach Freud and ambivalence. Everything I’ve heard seems to be gnashing against the groove, as if he’s almost willing to let fly and be techno, disco etc but there’s a thick seam of Super(fly)ego holding him back at the last moment and sending him spinning off into far more interesting territories. Nochexxx is close to being a superstar DJ but these twists […]
Cleopatra The sleeve of this release says: “After Listening to this Record, your friends may not know you anymore” and you can see what they meant, at least in 1971 when this was first released. Cleopatra seem Hell bent on making Brainticket a thing, re-releasing their classic albums, pushing them onwards, trying to find a space for them in the world.