London 23 February 2017 OK, so full disclosure — it’s been at least a decade since I went to a grindcore show. At least a decade; maybe two. So I’m coming at this with… if not “fresh”, then at least “renewed” eyes (if not ears). I’ve not been keeping up […]
Monthly archives: February 2017
19 posts
Riot Season With no less a space cadet than Makoto Kawabata at the production controls, it’s no surprise that Hibushibire engender fabulous furry freak riffs of a sort that Acid Mothers Temple can be heard blasting into space at any given psychedelic happening.
Instant Tunes Wrapped up in photo collage-style monochrome images of brutalist architecture and gear-centric band photos, “Pulse Wave”/”Subhuman” grooves in on coast-to-coast drum machine rhythms.
Thrill Jockey Doug McCombs must be the busiest man in Chicago. Not content with the amorphous beast that is Tortoise, playing bass with Eleventh Dream Day, releasing the Pullman records and undertaking various collaborations, particularly that with David Daniell, he also has what could be considered his own project, Brokeback.
London 22 February 2017 Britain is on the cusp of a storm, winds are beginning to batter the coast and a strange feeling seems to permeate the air. This unquiet atmosphere could be something out of an old horror movie; as I push my way against the start of the […]
Rocket Julie’s Haircut has been turning any preconceptions about the idea of Italian music on their heads for the best part of twenty years. I remember catching them with Sonic Boom in Bristol some ten years or so ago, and the record they released together at the time expanded minimal psychedelic guitar […]
Psychomat Swantje Lichtenstein‘s streams of (found) consciousness are half-audible, semi-comprehensible on “Miss Slipper” and “Lewes”, rendered as if perceived in a dreamstate interior monologue bouncing between dormant ears before awakening with a start.
Bureau B Amaury Cambuzat started Ulan Bator twenty-four years ago and after eleven albums and numerous collaborations with the likes of Faust and Michael Gira, their twelfth LP finds the band stripped down to Amaury, augmented by two Italian players on bass and drums/sax.
On-U Sound / Tectonic One of the delights of Pinch and Sherwood‘s 2015 début LP together, Late Night Endless, was the way in which the pair remixed, re-purposed and relocated choice elements from On-U Sound‘s extensive back catalogue into a freshly updated variation on a reggae-heavy dubstep theme.
Bar/None Forty years after forming, it is nice to welcome back The Feelies with their sixth studio album in all that time and the second since they reconvened in 2008. The band, which still contains founding members Bill Million and Glenn Mercer (who are still writing together), have not really changed their formula […]
Silver Mountain Media Group / London London Hot on the heels of Tecuciztecatl‘s rock operatics comes this new offering from Michigan’s finest, His Name is Alive. Another guitar-fuelled fandango, this time burning up on all that particle physics hysteria of a few years back when we all thought we’d be […]
Finders Keepers The opening sentence of Andy Votel‘s sleevenotes for the long awaited Moomins soundtrack is just about the most perfect phrase to describe this record, so here it is for your delectation:
Crammed Discs Imagine sitting in a bar and engaging with a tan, weathered stranger who starts showing you photographs of places you are never likely to visit; some vibrant, some serene, a group of faces here, a glorious sunset, buildings, oceans.
Temporary Residence Coalescing at the smoothed-out jazz hinterlands of dub, post-rock and psychedelic spaciousness, Grails‘ latest opus – the first for six years – finds their instrumental horizons expanded as far as their minds had ever been hitherto, drifting far out
Bureau B Conrad Schnitzler, early member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, must have found both of those oppressive bands too formulaic and stifling. By 1975, he had struck out on his own, producing music for films that had yet to be released or even made.
Mottomotto Right from the electro-slapped rub of the opener to the insistent burn of guitar that seals the deal, this baby kicks winter grumpiness out into the far reaches like its predecessor Innard Listeningestion did. Its glinty beams and squelchy piranhas are the perfect panacea to the prevailing gloom, smoothed […]
Southern Lord Ten minutes and ten seconds of stoner riffs that some waited some sixteen years to arrive since the last hazy wafts of Sleep‘s 1998 LP Dopesmoker faded out, “The Clarity” finds Al Cisneros and Matt Pike joined by Jason Roeder of Neurosis on drums. Originally released as a […]
Sulatron /Deep Distance “It was an evening in summer upon the placid temperate planet Mars. Up and down green wine canals, boats as delicate as bronze flowers drifted. In the long and endless dwellings that curved like tranquil snakes across the hills, lovers lay idly whispering in cool night beds” […]
Gizeh Back in 1931, FW Murnau, director of the Expressionist classics Nosferatu and Faust amongst others was directing a docu-drama in the South Sea Islands about forbidden love between two young islanders. After filming and just before the preview, he died in a vehicle accident and the film, although winning an Oscar, was […]