London 28 December 2013 So who would have believed all those years ago that a small British label focusing mainly on doom music would last all this time? But by the time I went to the last anniversary show a few years back at the ULU it was obvious then that the scene had grown and the blood lust for this type of music hadn’t abated. In the […]
Yearly archives: 2013
214 posts
Instrumentarium I love vinyl. There is something about it, lifting the needle and placing it down on a record seems real. That slight crackle of the run on groove, that wonderful analogue warmth that breathes from the speakers, the music’s cold hard digital heart taken away. So it was nice to be sent a real piece of proper lovely vinyl to review from a band local to me, […]
L’Embobineuse, Marseille. 20 December 2013 The first thing to notice – after being amused and bemused by the number of variously-mutilated teddy bears peppering L’Embobineuse‘s decorations (nailed to the ceiling; as the head of a nude mannequin in a fish tank) as well as noticing the number of SunnO))) stencils which have presumably recently appeared on every available surface in the place – including its in-car 3D cinema) […]
Bureau B This is a gleeful, cheery offering. A million miles from the moody cultures of Inland, Kurt Dahlke‘s ’79 debuting ice-breaker, it’s all ruby-cheeked whimsy, paddling in the shallow end, sucking on plenty of easy ear lollipops. Knowingly going where most experimenters fear to tread, into a world reserved for elevators and on hold appeasement; in short , the land of the inoffensive ditty. Pyrolator is clearly […]
18 December 2013 Pantomime season is once more upon us, and the heaviest and most bludgeoning pantomime of all is rolling into town. My first ever concert was Black Sabbath – a scary 38 years ago, and so when a friend who couldn’t make this week’s reunion tour offered me his ticket at a Christmas party last weekend, I was sufficiently inebriated to be unable to refuse. Arriving […]
Clouds Hill On the many occasions I have seen Faust live over the last years, the original krautrockers have played many favourites and songs from the ’70s classics, although mixed with some improvisations. But other times they grasp the opportunity to collaborate with other artists, letting them colour the expression, or even get a feel for a different setting creating new fresh music. This time it is the […]
Cadiz Music Although Julien Temple’s film about pub-rock heroes Dr Feelgood dates from 2009, it is only now receiving a DVD release (through Cadiz Music) in the US, and it’s this new edition that is reviewed here, although I’m not aware of any difference between this and the original release. Nevertheless, the fact that this is intended for an American market immediately invites focus on an intriguing aspect […]
Dublin 14 December 2013 Set phasers to phase. Listening to the recent Wooden Shjips album Back to Land is a very different experience to seeing the band play the album live. That’s obviously true of every record. Every artist. Every band. But some more than others. And Wooden Shjips more than most. Fortunately both experiences are excellent. Back to Land (Thrill Jockey)is as good a slice of mellow […]
Dekorder Conical Space, the first offering of Dekorder‘s brilliant Hybrid Vinyl series, finds Pye Corner Audio‘s Head Technician channelling all his loves: ’80s horror synth, Detroit Techno, kosmische and corrupted technology. These synthscapes conjure images of polished chrome skylines, with miles high neon adverts, before yr cruiser exits the stratosphere, eventually being swallowed in the event horizon of Dr. Reinhardt’s black hole. It’s always a pleasure to hear […]
Thrill Jockey Getting the hastily-search engined blurb out of the way: Sidi Touré (no relation to the other famous musicians with the same last name from the same country) is from Mali; Mali’s had it pretty rough of late, and seems to be in a tempestuous state politically. I shan’t embarrass myself by feigning more than a cursory awareness but the appearance of a number of conflicting voices […]
Clouds Hill For those who have waited for a recent live document of Gallon Drunk, I’ll say it’s halfway there. As a part of the Clouds Hill live 10” series, only five songs fits on this white vinyl record and the good thing is that the fans can stay hungry for more.
Zoharum For his first album in seven years under his own name (rather than as S.E.T.I.), Andrew Lagowski seems to have decided to revisit every possible way of making synthesized music – let’s lump them all under the rubric of techno just for the moment – and give it an extra shove in various oblique directions. Sprinkled with bleeps, thwups, trickles and sprightly bursts of brightly-crafted sonics, Redesine+ […]
MIE Is Black Dirt Oak a supergroup? Perhaps. With members of Desert Heat, Violators, Pelt, Black Twig Pickers, Rhyton, Psychic Ills, D. Charles Speer‘s band and NNCK (that’s just from the more well-known groups too) it probably counts as one, if such a term really holds much meaning anymore. With seven musicians on board, it often sounds like there are yet more hard at work on creating as […]
Dubmission Deep Fried Dub are on a bass mission to quiver the livers of all who enter to within a five kilometre radius of ground zero around their bass bins, it would seem; because every track on Slow Cooked, whether presented in rootsier style, teched-up or given the dubstep wobbleover is a binshaker of the highest quality. Breakbeats and stepping rhythms are flavoured with horns, skanking guitars and […]
Zoharum The desert is a place of sunlight and shadows; a place of bedouins and fertile deltas; lazy, muddy rivers and ancient tales. Time stands still beneath the flaming orb of the relentless sun. You feel the need to whisper, despite the whining wind. It is a place of fakir and genie, supplication and purification. This is the realm of Vernal Crossing Revisited. Vernal Crossing was the third […]
London 10 December 2013 We leave the pub and head down towards Entrance F. The night is cold and dark, breath highlighted as white wisps against the blackness, lights pinpoint bright like stars. It’s perfect. And now the excitement is building, as the phalanxes of the black-clad, the long-haired and silver jewellery-bedecked are massing. What a truly a rag-tag army it is too, as diverse in its composition […]
Camber Sands, Sussex 29 November-1 December 2013 So it came, as the subtitle says, to the very end of an era for All Tomorrow’s Parties on the English coast. Returning full circle to Pontin’s at Camber Sands where it all kicked off 13 years ago (barring the festival’s origins with Belle and Sebastian‘s Bowlie Weekender a year earlier in 1999 at the same spot), ATP brought out its […]
Zoharum Tadeusz Łuczejko‘s eighth album as Aquavoice finds him stepping out beyond the more abstract and/or ambient territory hitherto occupied by his particular take on electronica. While all the elements are synthesised – in software or with physical devices – there is much on this album which resonates with the warmth of acoustic instrumentation. This is particularly evident on “Magma,” whose cellos and other strings, however artificial, tremble […]