London 30 January 2015 The day didn’t start well. A blocked drain, forgetting the keys to work and having to go back and fetch them and then a slip on rainy plastic, a mid-air semi-cartwheel (“semi-cartwheeled headfirst in the rain,” as Edward Ka-Spel would say) into the side of a skip and a resultant injury resembling nothing so much as the remnants of a failed scalping all combined […]
Monthly archives: January 2015
21 posts
Suezan Studio The last thing I was expecting when listening to these recently-unearthed rarities was Gospel. But that’s what hits your ears first, hallelujahs, hand claps and all, roasted on some mad Blackpool-type organ and acoustic hints of blue grassy glinting holy — a bedazzle for the senses indeed. Thomas Dinger‘s only other released work, Für Mich, lightly dusted you with its composed turquoise, as its strange inclinations […]
Ici d’ailleurs/Mind Travels Important Aidan Baker has made an art of being really, really boring. Having released several thousand albums to date – with almost all of them revolving around a guitar and a couple of pedals – you’d be forgiven for thinking that ‘boring’ was in some way a pointed derision aimed squarely at the man’s omnipotence, his unwavering dedication to a singular minimalist aesthetic, but Baker […]
Staubgold Collected from two years’ worth of home two-track tape recordings made between 1982-1983 by Liquid Liquid‘s percussionist, Reel To Real gathers together Dennis Young‘s sketches of sometimes engagingly naïve acoustic songs alongside frenetic percussion workouts and occasional synth frenzies which prefigure the arrival of drum and bass in their clattery pace. The demo-like quality of most of the material makes for an occasionally intimate and sometimes plain […]
Beta-lactam Ring This has got to be Edward Ka-Spel‘s most introspective album to date; some would say business as usual, another party political broadcast from the inside of Edward’s head. Words held in tea-stained sepia and dust-choked webs, hints of jaded melody creeping out of the inky gloom, like threadbare playthings that have seen better days. Yep — definitely business as usual, and I wouldn’t want it any other […]
The Helen Scarsdale Agency Ever needed to block out the world beyond the ears with the application of sound, to soak and bleach away the intrusive noises of other human beings, their transport, the built environment, the elements themselves? Try Scarlet then, up loud and/or on headphones, and let Jim Haynes reorganise the sound world in rawer form. Tired of melody, bored to tears by tunes and than […]
The Helen Scarsdale Agency So Long is an often subtle work of suggestively imaginative electronics which offers to transport the listener to places where they are equally welcome to apply their own meaning as to take those proposed by both the music and its naming. Drifting along without a seeming care in the world, Stilluppsteypa‘s Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson seems unconcerned how long his journey will take, if a […]
London-based duo Kontakte‘s 2014 release These Machines brought a blissfully blistering end to their silence of two years between albums. Here, Ian Griffiths and Stuart Low give a detailed breakdown of how and why each of the album’s tracks came into being. * “Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames” These Machines – Limited Edition CD by KONTAKTE Stuart: This track was birthed over a number of […]
King of Spades It seems like it’s been an æon since the last Chrome album. But with Feel It Like A Scientist, Helios Creed and band returns with some of his wildest proto-punk, space rock craziness in years. “Nephilims (Help Me)” jumps straight in there with a and is a great opener for the album. Zappa-esque nonsense-style jazzing introduces “Prophecy” and within a few moments we are already […]
Staubgold Not so much glitching as rippling on a bed of deftly, deliberately placed samples organised by Timo Reuber and Staubgold label head Markus Detmer, Transit is also blessed with the production skills of Joseph Suchy, ensuring that everything unfolds with a suitably spacious, widescreen feel. A constant sense of motion, of change and unfolding, of new vistas opening up as the album progresses, matches its title perfectly […]
Sulatron A beautiful-looking release from Sulatron Records, this cosmic slab has three massive planet-sized tracks on it. The album is a collaboration between Electric Moon members Sula Bassana and Komet Lulu and Zone Six members Modulfix and Rainer Neef. These improvisations from Krautzone are pure kosmische soundtracks to outer space travelling. “Liebe” starts off with some moody synth playing and a very laid-back vibe that lets you drift away […]
Consouling Sounds Two tracks; fifteen minutes of fearsome post-hardcore grunt, groan, riff and thrash from Eleanora splashes out of the speakers as if the very devil was grinding out the best tunes behind them, goading the band into producing yet more screamed crescendos. Tight as the screws which surely must be holding down the drummer’s kit in case it should get beaten off the stage, “Mammon” shifts gears […]
Dekorder Two companion LPs from Janek Schaefer find this most mercurial of composers expanding upon some of his more exploratory audio ideas across four sides of vinyl (or nine tracks in digital form). “White Lights of Divine Darkness” is a suitably spiritual opener to Unfolding Luxury Beyond the City of Dreams, a piece recorded for Sir John Tavener on the day he died, and the mood of reflective […]
Important Recorded live with no rehearsal, as is Damo Suzuki‘s way — he makes a habit of not meeting or playing with the group who will act as his ‘sound carriers’ before the night of the gig — Start From Zero does just that. Mugstar demonstrate their proficiency as space rockers extraordinaire in from the get-go. While there’s a certain inevitable lurch into the sort of free-form jam […]
three:four Helena Espvall (of Espers) and David Maranha of Osso Exótico‘s first joint album finds the duo pushing and prodding at the boundaries of what their amplification of cello, violin and electric organ can achieve in the field of drone music. It hardly needs to be emphasised that as much volume as the reproducing equipment can offer clearly — and the listener(s) can stand — will give the […]
Dais Towards the end of his long and picaresque life, Billy Burroughs had become such an in-demand photographic accessory for the rock star du jour that the astounding body of work that had made him so notable in the first place was starting to slip dangerously into the shadow of his alternative celebrity status. , all lined, grim-set visage, grey felt hat and optional firearm (him, not them). […]
Substantia Innominata Lovingly presented as two clear 10” vinyl records wrapped up in Mars Wellink‘s artwork which graces the gatefold sleeve in suitably transcendantly minimal style, Amid Zero Echo swells up and into four sides of the most immensely practised drones imaginable. On this occasion, Thomas Dimuzio uses ultimately unrecognisable guitar-derived sounds as the base source material through which to seemingly condense the entirety of the cosmos into […]
Zoharum Originally appearing in 2006 as a limited CDR, Vintermusik finds Machinefabriek‘s alter ego Rutger Zuydervelt collaborating at a distance with Dag Rosenqvist (sometimes AKA Jasper TX) over seven tracks (plus bonus “Feberdröm / Koortsdroom”, which appeared on a 3” CDR in the same era). As the title indicates, this is music with a cold exterior, but which still allows for a warmth to reside at its heart(h), […]