First Terrace The first side of FTS003 is a gentle amalgam of mechanical whirs and snipping conjunctives. One of Pierre Bastien’s robotic creations — a specially adapted Casio that conducts a huge sound sculpture, a Mechanical Orchestra invented by Cabo San Roque in Barcelona. The hiccuping apparatus is ever-present, delicately puckering a slow pulsing organ backdrop as this trumpet sauces its sinews.
Yearly archives: 2019
261 posts
UMC I first bought a copy of Apollo: Atmospheres And Soundtracks when it came out in 1983 on vinyl and a copy has remained in my collection ever sincem as its one of my all-time favourite Brian Eno albums. The early 1980s were as many artists began to explore this area and records were beginning to sell rather well.
Robyn’s Rocket Robyn Steward is a London-based experimental trumpet and cornet player who took up the cornet at the age of eight, but after a period of inactivity took up the trumpet after meeting Andy Diagram of James, Spaceheads and David Thomas And Two Pale Boys in 2016. Her use of the trumpet, played through various effects as a means of improvisation, produces a series of meandering and thoughtful […]
Upset The Rhythm Unlike the pebble-dash that passes for indie these days, this lot show how it’s done, sabotaging the commercialism for the (un)common good, deliberately submerging their lyrics, knifing the flow with a juxtaposed jab to fearlessly craft something unique and as changeable as the British weather.
6 July 2019 Bristol This year, the Stolen Body-curated Astral Festival has chosen to spread itself over three of Bristol’s city centre venues. Thankfully, the Rough Trade sweatbox, the rather charming restaurant/bar at the Lanes and the grandiose SWX are all within a stone’s throw of one another. Unfortunately, the timing of things does mean that it is impossible to take in all bands, and considering it is […]
Infrequent Seams There’s often something worth listening to when you get a not-entirely-composer working in a relatively (or entirely) “classical” setting. And here we have Elliot Sharp composing for an orchestra, a choir and (arguably something more typically Sharp-ian, if that’s not an oxymoron), electronics / bass clarinet.
Constellation What on earth could Lungbutter be? It sounds most unappealing. It kind of sounds oozy and uncomfortable, and I am not sure that describes this Montreal trio all that well — but on the other hand, there are elements that are oozy and some of Ky Brooks‘ rambling doesn’t sit comfortably in the musical uproar that Joni Sadler and Kaity Zozula produce. It is a unique sound
Peaceville It’s become something of a cliché to say “I like their early stuff”, but in Darkthrone‘s case I don’t actually know a great deal of their recent stuff. I loved the first few albums, especially once they really hit their stride with Under A Funeral Moon
Bureau B Martin Rev‘s renown in the history of electronic music from the early ’70s onwards is generally as one half of avant-doo-wop street synth rebels Suicide, but as well as constructing the beats and sounds for the duo, Martin also had a sporadic solo career, the second and third albums of which Bureau B are giving a well-earned re-issue.
James Green and Nick Dawson release their self-titled Silences EP on Courier Sound on 8 July. The short film of the EP being recorded at Bear Hug Studios is premiered here:
Mute / BMG It was Voltaire who perhaps put it best when he reviewed the first Suicide album on its original appearance in 1977: “If Suicide did not exist, it would be necessary to invent them”. A punk band before the term existed, a rock band without guitars, a duo who could cow an entire room of people, like the platypus, in nature. Yet exist they most certainly […]
Discus Martin Archer‘s Discus label continues its sonic adventures with the latest release from Belgian bassist Guy Segers’s improv project the Eclectic Maybe Band. An improbable bevy of some of the finest improv musicians, the project finds group-constructed freeform pieces sitting side by side with Guy’s speciality, which is taking improv recordings from different sessions and then stitching them together in the studio over a bass-line written especially […]
Judi Gee Attention revellers. What with summer finally here, Europe cooking in a heatwave, and you and yours sprawled out languidly on the grass, eating picnics, drinking wine (spo-dee-o-dee), or otherwise trying to stay cool in the pool, you’re going to need a soundtrack, right? Something fitting for that golden end-of-afternoon sunlight. Something to give the end of a perfect day that slightest hint of a bittersweet aftertaste. […]
Constellation For Siskiyou‘s fourth album for Constellation, they appear to have returned to their roots with that lo-fi home-recorded sound that echoes the kind of direction in which Mark Linkous originally headed. On Not Somewhere, Colin Huebert has taken on the majority of instruments and constructed frayed but hopeful vignettes
Disciples The wind-caught piano on the first track on His Name Is Alive’s All The Mirrors In The House daggers a smooth spectral draw that dissipates into “Lliadin”’s sustained shimmer. Its autumnal flow pin-heads multi-tracked murmurs, eating into the unaccompanied fret repeats
Taken from his forthcoming solo LP on House Of Mythology, “There’s A Light” is a taster of things to come from Ulver‘s Stian Westerhus:
Oleg Puzan (AKA Dronny Darko on Cryo Chamber) has a new album coming out on CD via Glacial Movements under the name Line Spectrum,
Rune Grammofon For Fire! Orchestra‘s fourth album for Rune Grammofon, the core group has once again reduced the numbers, this time to a far more manageable fourteen. The introduction of a string quartet (three violins and one cello) still has reed players outnumbering strings, but it doesn’t make for a top-heavy sound at all.