Sulatron OK, are you ready for take off? A big heavy stoner riff, swirling noise and a cosmic chant vocal from Komet Lulu — it can only be the title track from the reissue of Electric Moon’s classic The Doomsday Machine.
Yearly archives: 2016
178 posts
Bureau B Well, Bureau B have unleashed another Camera album like some hyperactive missile of joy for us all to experience. This is the third LP from the Berlin duo and this time there is a lot more to it than the feeling of Neu! songs being played by adolescent teenagers with too much energy. There is energy in abundance, but this is tempered with real thought as […]
The Alphabet Business Concern The first taste of this album (as you’d expect) is a salty one, buffered by a sea breeze, Sarah Smith‘s eerie delivery peeking through spidery fingerings of instrumentation. It’s a short atmospheric swell that ignites an introspective shiver, a curiosity that’s quickly burnished in light and airy intoxications.
Sulatron Tanzlinde is the début album from Italian psych band Sherpa and is very impressive for a first LP. Containing ten songs, it spirals across the full psychedelic spectrum of many-coloured hues, but also touches on elements of progressive rock within some of its sound textures.
The Hope and Ruin, Brighton 29 November 2016 Imboredofbastards do some gallant opening of tonight’s proceedings — a one-man noise + objects + processing thing that, were it a carpet, would have a most curious weave. There’s an amount of textural stuff interwoven with rhythmic elements and then, every now and then, a swoopy noise that manages to make me feel like there’s swimming pool of ants ostentatiously […]
London 18 November 2016 Men guitarist Andrew O’Neill opens the show, an amiable, affable presence beneath his comedy black metal goatskull backdrop. His is a fascinating cocktail of comedy — the gentle absurdism of an Eddie Izzard or Ross Noble shot through with a pitch-black streak and edged with a harder political sensibility, all .
So. I did some reviews of the first batch of Every Contact Leaves A Trace releases, which were fine indeed. And here we are, just two short years on, in a world that looks slightly different. And yet, on plod sound-art micro-labels, furrowing obstinate fields. I say that in a fashion that might sound derisory, but if I know one thing about ECLAT label-head Seth Cooke, it’s that he’s […]
Self-released Most new bands were previously other less new bands, and so songwriters behind Bloom (Megan and Emily) used to be part of The Beautiful Word, who were Brighton-based indie-ish breezes sharing borders with whimsy and twee but (mercifully) never fully occupying those territories. The Beautiful Word were great, but they’re not here any more and (ahem) from that seed grew Bloom. (Sorry). There’s a bit of a […]
Kranky I remember seeing Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt‘s band, whilst touring with the aptly-titled Painjerk at the much missed Croft in Bristol. We were incredibly thankful for the aural balm that Emeralds provided after the assault of Painjerk. It was akin to bathing your face in a warm sunrise after being hit by lightning.
Drag City It has been a tough couple of years for David Pajo. A suicide attempt after discovering his wife’s affair was followed by a motorcycle accident that left him temporarily wheelchair-bound. We would not be blamed for thinking that music was the last thing on his mind, but Drag City have done us all the great service of releasing Highway Songs, the latest collection of tracks under […]
Bristol Sunday 20 November 2016 Blimey, what an action-packed night, Bristol was heaving with musical busyness, Microdeform playing the Kino, Circuit des Yeux at The Anson Rooms and the Arnolfini hosting Les Diaboliques, all spinning out on same night — if I hadn’t have already committed to this Cube show, I’d be spoilt for alternatives. Anyways it was brilliant to be back at The Cube, haven’t been here since […]
Bristol 14 November 2016 A revolving blue police light welcomes us to the stage at the cold and cavernous Motion. I puposefully had not looked anything up about Wild Style Lion, so knew not what to expect. Their setup was parked in front of Murph‘s drums with their logo emblazoned on the front and was small enough to be wheeled away afterwards.
4AD Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (1987) This was the band’s third masterpiece, and a firm favourite of mine. The otherworldliness of Spleen And Ideal is here leaning towards the symphonic, a neo-classical oomph held on an animated skyline. As with Ideal, Brendan Perry is in fine fettle, dedicating a whole side to pondering life’s woes, drawing inspiration from the historical, mythical, going for the emotional jugular in […]
London 13 November 2016 The last time I saw The Vintage Caravan play, they were promoting their first album and supporting Blues Pills on an evening that saw both bands give their all. Tonight, as I made my way to the subterranean delights of The Underworld in Camden, I had already made up my mind that there would be no such competition this time and that the headliners […]
Bristol 8 November 2016 This was an intimate show, just Kristin Hersh laying herself bare – furnished with a few self-released books and a shiny electric guitar. Last time I saw her live was just as intimate, in a small, vaulted church off Park Street, where she delivered a stripped-down acoustic shindig full of wonder. That harrowing encore satisfaction of “Delicate Cutters” is still creeping the personal archives […]
Bureau B There were two main reasons that I was eager to hear the latest Automat LP; firstly you cannot go wrong with Bureau B, from current albums by the likes of Faust and Camera to re-issues of important back catalogue from the likes of Conrad Schnitzler, Asmus Tietchens, Palais Schaumburg, etc, they represent the cream of German underground music; secondly was the involvement of Jochen Arbeit, latter-day member of Einstürzende Neubauten and guitar slinger […]
Nomadic Island Musically, Olga Szymula‘s début LP is like a toothpaste tube of psilocybin rainbows and juttering dislocations. A sizzle of torn circuitries and bright petroleum blisters that spill haunt-o- delically from its instrumental start into the mysteriously entitled ‘Ø’.
Gizeh There’s a moment on The Stone Is Not Hit By The Sun, Nor Carved With A Knife, not long into “The Stone”, where Nadja hit their full metal mark, ramp up the drone-doom riffs hard and it becomes essential to reach for the volume knob in order to bring the levels up yet further.