Sunday Best Hey, who’s the new guy? He’s in his mid sixties. He’s got a good quiff. Meditates a lot. Smokes a lot too. Claims to not be a musician. Is he one of those Punk Rockers? Don’t think so. He’s a former Eagle Scout from Missoula, Montana. His father worked for the Department of Agriculture. Faced down some pretty scary times in Philly.
Monthly archives: November 2011
19 posts
Industrial OK, quickfire ‘proper review’ bit – lovely re-issue with lovely packaging all put together in a lovely way with some additional pictures, re-mastering, general loveliness, a lovely essay from Jon Savage and a lovely live show being lovely. Worth buying? Oh yes. Very much so. Perhaps their most commercial record, which is a relative term, and has a lovely mix of the very studio-y 20 Jazz Funk […]
Monty Maggot Over the past year or so Monty Maggot have steadily been releasing high-quality albums including a marvellous [post=allies-and-clansmen text=”free album”] that could be seen as a taster for future releases. Its certainly a label that deserves support for the diversity of artists they are looking to put out. So what is there to expect from the album by Nineteentwelve? A lot of cracking tunes, that’s what! […]
Corsica Studios, London 17 November 2011 I’ve probably seen Acid Mothers Temple play at Corsica Studios more times than any other venue in London and they always seem at home and relaxed on stage here. This I’ve sometimes felt is quite odd, as Corsica feels like one of those venues that is struggling to find its own identity. It caters for the Hip crowd but also puts on […]
Tourette To celebrate 20 years of Dead Voices On Air, Mark Spybey is in the process of releasing a series of 7″ singles in cahoots with a variety of friends and accomplices. The first appears under the name MzMz LalaLa, and consists of Spybey and Simon Fisher Turner. Together, the two sides of the 7″ offer , so (seemingly) brief is their span – seemingly, as the A-side […]
Norton Records 25th Anniversary All Star Spectacular, The Bell House, New York 11-13 November 2011 New York punk, we all know the story, right? It starts in the late Sixties when The Velvet Underground redefine popular music by deciding not to take the A Train, instead heading up to Lexington 125 in search of some serious narcotics and a life on the wild side; it continues in 1973 […]
Nostalgia Blackrain From the opening chimes of “Garten,” it’s apparent that Corrupted have taken on what could almost be considered a upbeat and cheery atmosphere in their music making – if only by the very heavy sludge standards they have helped define, of course. For almost anyone else this track would seem crushingly powerful, especially once the bass guitar kicks in and the cymbals crash; but no, there’s […]
(self-released) Cozmic Onion Express are one of those bands it would be far better to see live than listen to on this record. There’s nothing whatsoever wrong with it at all; in fact it’s a great introduction from one of the most zanily accomplished head-messing bands in London right now. The recording quality is fine, the dynamics are sharp, the energy conveyed is high – but they just […]
Agitated Taken – kidnapped, stripped, re-educated and reborn, even – from Mugstar‘s heavyweight slab of spacerocking goodness [post=mugstar-lime text=”Lime”] and given a thorough going over by Robert Hampson of Main and Loop fame, “Serra” reappears in a 39 minute extended format on clear green vinyl (split in two parts) and CD. And what a re-imagining this is. Hampson extracts the essentials, then reprocesses, extends, twists, unravels and distends […]
Cherry Red “I had to wank off the cat/ to feed the fucking dog” On their…John Peel…members…alcohol…living [if we must] ‘leg-end’…some bollocks about Germanic renderings…millionth…[cough]…returntoformbusinessasusuallwhydotheystillbother [delete as applicable]…wife…relatively…-uh…always the fucking same but fucking always fucking different…fucking… …Seminal: “I had to wank off the dog/ to feed the fucking cat” I very nearly decided to write this review as a review of reviews of The Fall. If anyone from […]
Blast First Petite I never saw Kevin Coyne live despite being a fan of his unique work throughout the seventies. With the absence of any UK TV coverage at the time, it was only with the dawn of the internet age that I chanced upon bootleg footage of his appearance on the German Rockpalast show from 1979. It was a great performance that reinforced my enthusiasm for the […]
Industrial Following the final termination of Throbbing Gristle, the surviving members have revived Industrial Records with the aim of presenting their recorded legacy with all the care and attention it deserves. Each of the studio albums have been lovingly re-mastered by Chris Carter and are repackaged in lovely card sleeves. All the CDs come with a second disc, selecting live highlights from the period of the respective album, along […]
Klangbad Klangbad’s series of Spielwiese releases involves label boss Jochen Irmler inviting interesting collaborators to his Scheer studio and simply recording the results. This particular meeting between the frenetic engine driver of eighties period Einstürzende Neubauten and the convivial klangmeister of Faust was always going to provide rewarding results, and their debut live appearance at the 2010 Klangbad Festival was certainly a highlight of the weekend. No Apologies […]
Essence Music A welcome re-release in lavish packaging for Aidan Baker‘s 2007 CDR-only effort, complete with remastering at the hands of the deservedly legendary James Plotkin. Noise of Silence finds Baker in muttering loopy mode once again, with ominous, faintly mechanical sounds trilling, sussurating and billowing around what could be misinterpreted as the rambling voices heard trickling through central heating systems and fluttering down the chimney stack during […]
Dissociated Press I was originally going to try to write this review in the narrative voice of that Bascule dude from Iain M Banks‘ masterful science fiction novel of nearly the same name, but had a bit of a think about it and decided that a) I really couldn’t be arsed to do all that translating of my own stuff and b) nobody else would be arsed to […]
Malicious Damage After last year’s cosmic collaboration with David Gilmour, [post=orb-featuring-david-gilmour-metallic-spheres text=”Metallic Spheres”], The Orb come back down to earth with a bump for their new album C Batter C. It’s effectively a soundtrack for a film and an exhibition that was held in Brixton in London at the end of last year. But do the separate pieces stand up on their own, without the aid of a […]
The Vortex, London 20 October 2011 “Sorry we’re a little late in starting, we were meant to start at nine. I looked at my watch and it said ten to nine, then suddenly it said quarter past. That’s what happens when you stand at the bar talking shit.” Evan Parker takes to the stage at The Vortex with this typically low-key opening gambit, a self-effacing remark which serves […]
Industrial …right, so I’ll get the actual review part out of the way, assuming someone’s reading this from either the perspective of not knowing Throbbing Gristle or is interested in what’s new in this re-release/re-master. This shouldn’t take too long, don’t worry. First – if you don’t know TG, and you’re in any way interested in early industrial music – that is, the variety that wasn’t a pale, […]