Mute / BMG It was Voltaire who perhaps put it best when he reviewed the first Suicide album on its original appearance in 1977: “If Suicide did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them”. A punk band before the term existed, a rock band without guitars, a duo who could cow an entire room of people, like the platypus, in nature. Yet exist they most certainly […]
David Solomons
122 posts
Judi Gee Attention revellers. What with summer finally here, Europe cooking in a heatwave, and you and yours sprawled out languidly on the grass, eating picnics, drinking wine (spo-dee-o-dee), or otherwise trying to stay cool in the pool, you’re going to need a soundtrack, right? Something fitting for that golden end-of-afternoon sunlight. Something to give the end of a perfect day that slightest hint of a bittersweet aftertaste. […]
Cherry Red / MVD Entertainment / New Ralph Too In Early Modern English – the transitional phase of the English language from the Middle English of the late fifteenth century to the Modern English of the mid to late seventeenth century – the mole was known as the “mouldywarp”. Could there be any more Resident-like a term for anything than a mouldywarp? Indeed, there could not; moles were made for The Residents […]
Grönland Well, this is a mammoth undertaking and no mistake. A mere three months after Herr Rother arrived once more in Londinium to rock the smooth, polished wooden bleechers of Hackney’s du jour gig venue EartH – a reviewing task I lazily palmed off onto my teenage soni – onto my digital doorstep lands the great man’s new Solo box set with an almighty whompfff. Comprising his first […]
Karlrecords Well, this one wrong-footed me, to be sure. The début album of Iranian composer and musician Saba Alizadeh, I had anticipated something of a showcase for Monsieur Alizadeh’s virtuoso stylings on his chosen instrument, the kamancheh, which he has been playing since the age of ten. Related to the redoubtable rebab, the compelling kamancheh is a form of long-necked four-string fiddle, played with a variable tension bow.
Cherry Red / MVD Audio / New Ralph Too It’s been nine months since my last foray into the deep Residential past and, subsequently, I have been sitting quietly, listening intently for the call of the Eskimo. It seems to make perfect sense that it has only now sounded forth with the onset of winter. Sadly, however, for all devotees of the band, that lonely lacuna has recently been punctuated […]
Leaving / Stones Throw To: Monsieur F., France London, Nov. 22nd __18. It is just after midnight, and as I write these words, weak and weary, my hand scarce possesses enough strength to hold the pen. I am in a wretched condition. I cannot rest. No sleep will come to me. Its peaceful, blessed sanctuary seems now to elude me completely and, though the laudanum helps a little, the […]
London 17 November 2018 My, what a strange day. Going to an afternoon concert is a rare enough event these days anyway, but when the bill of fare involves a jazz ensemble led by a bona fide Hollywood film star, who then proceeds to spend at least half the show doing trivia quizzes, it really is quite something to behold.
Sub Rosa As soon as the files were securely on the MP3 player of choice, I listened to First Time Out on the train, sipping coffee and watching the sun-dappled Essex countryside flash by outside. It was an unseasonably warm autumn day and, as the train stopped at Tilbury East, two butterflies were fluttering madly around the station sign at the far end of the platform.
Jawbone Press In 1908, GK Chesterton, known by many as the “prince of paradox”, expounded his theory of change using the example of a white post. Some people, he maintained, had the idea that: …if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white […]
PNL Lazy adjective adjective: lazy; comparative adjective: lazier; superlative adjective: laziest unwilling to work or use energy. “he was too lazy to improvise” synonyms: idle, indolent, slothful, work-shy, shiftless, loafing, inactive, inert, sluggish, lethargic, languorous, listless, torpid, enervated, slow-moving, slow, heavy, dull, plodding. *
London 14 July 2018 Ah, those summer OTO nights. It’s so hot in here that I can almost feel the electrolytes leeching from my body. With my dotage rapidly approaching, this is one of those sauna-with-the-clothes-on experiences which I really wouldn’t put myself through anymore were it not for the presence of genuine greatness.
Grönland Yes, I confess, during my early teenage years I badly wanted to be David Sylvian. I spent a lot of time standing around nonchalantly beside neo-classical façades, trying to look as though I was on the cover of Oil On Canvas.
Sound On Probation It’s been proven by experimental research carried out at Yale University in 2005i that extreme ambient / drone music stimulates the part of the brain called Shatner’s Bassoon, which is the brain centre dealing with time perception. At certain highly-resonant frequencies, to the listener a second can feel like a month. It almost sounds like fun
Cyclic Law You can never rely on the bloody British weather. Given that until last week April had been unseasonably cold and damp – a fifteen-minute walk from Brockley Station felt more like battling against the January elements than revelling in the joyous unfolding of spring – I was hoping that a small silver lining to such a meteorological cloud might be the right atmospheric conditions .
Cherry Red / MVD Audio / New Ralph Too Ah, where was I? Oh yeah, Residents re-issues. Normally, I make a point of not reviewing the same artist more than once for this august organ. Mostly this is driven less by any terribly noble or high-minded critical rationale than by a blind fear of thoughtlessly repeating myself and being found out for just endlessly recycling the same half-dozen tired ideas.
SVS Records “Tell me the story”, a sibilant voice whispers on the album’s opening track, “i. Sabotage Story (unknot opening)”. Well, OK; you asked for it.
Karlrecords Mohammad Reza – better known to the world as the (last) Shah of Iran – was not a hugely likeable man. In 1979, as a youngster struggling to make sense of the images of the unfolding revolution that were flooding in via the BBC Six O’clock News, I remember my father explaining it to me