Striate Cortex You might not know joinedbywire, but if you do, you’ll probably know them for their exquisite packaging. Their latest is no exception to that rule – it’s an entirely beautiful, apparently home-made, fabric-on-hardcase thing which makes me wonder quite why most CD packaging looks so hopelessly crap – especially limited run or self-released records. I’m not sure if a little .jpg will do it justice, but […]
Monthly archives: October 2011
10 posts
O2 British Music Experience 25 October 2011 I had never been to the O2 before, but had heard lots of horror stories about it. Apparently it had poor sound, bad visuals, over priced drinks, and terrible for people with vertigo. Luckily enough I was not headed for the main arena – that joy was to be for Cliff Richard’s blue rinse brigade – I was going to the […]
Rockstore, Montpellier 19 October 2011 In the great parade of dark-suited, wild-whiskered and drink-crazed (allegedly) rock’n’roll frontmen with a penchant for country tunes and Southern gentlemanly manners, in whose songs God breathes hellfire as often as not
Industrial OK, having not been born until 1971, I was a bit late to the Throbbing Gristle party. By the time I discovered them in the late 80s, they were long defunct, the mission having terminated several years before. So when they did reform, I was cock-a-hoop (do people still say “cock-a-hoop” anymore?), and by the same token I was greatly saddened by last year’s tragic death of […]
Optimo This will play out. This will be roundly buggered, sliced and diced and shat out all over the lightflashes and discofloors of your local sleaze pit. It’s good music for dancing girls, car chases, hedge-trimming, car-jumping. Chris Carter has the Abba fixations, of course, but the Devil’s in the disco. The Neurotic Drum Band remix (reimagining) maybe slows the beat down a little to create something that […]
Hippos In Tanks History is a virus. A fifth horseman of the apocalypse. It’s brutal, beyond reason, full of rage and memory; brittle with the fear of being forgotten. It loves and hates it’s host. Nostalgia is a dish served cold and for a long time now people have been struggling against it, trying to reheat old spices (and Old Spices), attempting to blur their way out. But […]
Magic and Dreams In China Mieville’s wondrous The City And The City, the city of Beszel exists in more or less the same space as the city of Ul Qoma. The cities interweave, crosshatch; citizens unsee their counterparts in the other city, buildings themselves merge but don’t merge. Neighbours live next to each other but dutifully don’t notice their proximity, in fact are forbidden from doing so by […]
Rotorelief From the moment Bryin Dall starts singing “I Feel So Lonesome I Could Cry,” it’s evident that this is no ordinary selection of Hank Williams covers. With everyone (and probably their dog) who ever played a guitar seemingly having tackled their own version of the Hank Williams œuvre, Dall’s particular take on the subject matter primarily emphasises the pain and anguish of the songs, wringing every last […]
ReR It’s a curiosity, this one. I don’t know if you’ve seen Paolo Angeli‘s prepared guitar (have a look on YouTube), but it’s legions more cumbersome than the old crocodile clips and ebows that pass for prepared guitar in some circles. Part of me thinks of tacky one-man-bands when I look at it but, luckily for Angeli, the absurd look of his creation is quickly mollified by the […]
Raster-Noton Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto‘s partnership is nearing a decade now, and it’s odd to think that (from what I remember), the pairing of a laptop and an acoustic musician was quite odd at the time – especially given Sakamoto’s history as a ‘proper’ classical musician. It could be philistine-coloured glasses on my part, but my memory of the early ’00s was that digital musicians and non-digital […]