Trace It is clear from the title of the album, the tone of the cover imagery and some of the track titles that Mark Beazley and Michael Donnelly may not be treating us to another blissful series of plangent, bass heavy soundscapes. Blurred images of police lines and war shots offset by high-class partying are set against a blood-red sky.
Yearly archives: 2018
232 posts
Schoolkids / Scrawny After thirty years of playing together with the odd break here and there, Buffalo Tom seem to convene every five years or so to throw down another bid for supremacy over the few bands that are left from their post-hardcore brethren.
London 23 March 2018 “Andrew O’Neill was living at my house, and he was doing a show about British industry in the nineteenth century and he said ‘why don’t we write some songs and we can do them as a support act for the show?’”
London 7 April 8018 The Netfix TV series Stranger Things has been the go-to visual experience for all things retro 80s in the last couple of years. Set in the town of Hawkins, various supernatural and sci-fi events set off the young protagonists in the search for the truth.
Stolen Body After being fortunate enough to catch The Evil Usses‘ barnstorming set at last year’s Bristol Psychfest and being thrilled and bewildered in equal measure by their previous three releases, including the loose as a goose cassette Giblets, I was really looking forward to seeing what these Dartington alumni had to offer, and in which direction it would boldly spring.
Bureau B There’s not enough trumpet in music nowadays, something the brilliance of the opening track firmly re-adjusts. “Le Coeur Léger, Le Sentiment D’un Travail Bien Fait” is a collaborative with FaUSt that gets Jean-Hervé Péron giving it the Reeves and Mortimer pub singer swerve to some trilobiting tendrils of tuneage.
Buried Treasure It’s taken me a while to process this. I’m still processing it. I’ve watched this right the way through three times and jumped around in it (you will go into it, if you bother to go at all) a few more; selecting little movements, trying to find ways to explain what it is.
Bank A merry dance of yin and yang that finds Drew McDowall draping the canvas with his trademark shadowplay , slumberous contours for Hiro Kone to throw over her modular light and broken trinkets as both scoop at a secret melodic heart.
Bristol 1 April 2018 Ireland’s David Colohan (of United Bible Studies / Agitated Radio Pilot) and company start things off with a few vocal improvisations. Tales full of ancient ways, chalk and bones, lost histories and weathered stone, crow-picked carrion and curses to the universal robber-time.
Front & Follow Paul Snowden (AKA Time Attendant) and Maybury capture the surreal sensuality of Penny Slinger‘s story in shuttering drone and distempered decay. The merest sense of rhythm lurking in a marginalised menagerie of modular synapse and scissored sizzle.
Mr Olivetti spoke to Saverio Tesolato about the newest manifestation of his Autunna Et Sa Rose project, whose recent Entrelacs Du Rêve album draws on dreams to inspire a form of majestic musical poetry.
Leaf Laurence Pike is quite the musical polymath and one of Australia’s leading exponents of experimental drum-based music. After a number of collaborations with the likes of Australian jazz legend Mike Nock and Jack Wyllie from Portico Quartet, as well as releases by his bands PVT and Triosk, this is the first to find him heading out under his own name.
Earth “There are some great female voices around now, but I’m not one of them, and I wish I was…” states Shirley Collins, sadly, on the opening of the LP to the sound of bonfire sparks, following it sincerely with “…but I believe when I was singing at my best I was the essence of English song
Grönland Where to start with Holger Czukay? His is a name with which any self-respecting music fan will be only too familiar. Holger had a career that started in 1960 with the introduction of the Holger Schuring Quintet, then time spent as a student of Karlheinz Stockhausen
Cherry Red The second deluxe instalment of Momus albums from the Cherry Red archives (umbrella(ed) as Recreate) spans a period of transition for our protagonist that begins by pushing the boundaries before travelling out into previously uncharted radio-friendly territories.
Duophonic Tim Gane has barely rested in the last thirty years. After McCarthy was taken over by Stereolab, it was fascinating watching that band evolve into the well-loved and much imitated melder of genres that it became. From the lo-fi hypnotic racket of “Goldenballs” to the sublime pop chemistry of “Captain Easychord”, the band were in constant motion. Since their dissolution
Cherry Red / MVD Audio / New Ralph Too Ah, where was I? Oh yeah, Residents re-issues. Normally, I make a point of not reviewing the same artist more than once for this august organ. Mostly this is driven less by any terribly noble or high-minded critical rationale than by a blind fear of thoughtlessly repeating myself and being found out for just endlessly recycling the same half-dozen tired ideas.
Arlen After twenty years of playing in various groups together and apart, Ghost Music finds songwriters Matt Randall and Lee Hall reunited and plying a fine example of what I would consider to be melancholic English coastal music.