Ueda’s metal prayer paddles aloft in rattling baptism, added to by seashells and firefly frets, her voice soaring on through, hands outstretched, as the keys and guitars jiver-jade a proggy reverie, her face clearly smiling from within the ricocheting richness of it all.
Monthly archives: August 2023
14 posts
Cyclic Law A full thousand years after its inception, Gregorian plainchant had an unexpected pop cultural moment in the 90s. Enigma — producer Michael Cretu — mixed chant, dance beats, and whispery sensuality to garner unexpected chart success. Soon, recordings of Gregorian liturgy enjoyed a spike in sales. Enterprising monks […]
Their reconvening finds them in robust mood with a touch of romantic disillusion, their tales of frustrated love and burning desire tempered by the reality of what it is like to really feel. The fourpiece set up is augmented here by strings, voices and sympathetic production that draws a series of lovelorn vignettes from a band that are confident enough to play it extra hard when necessary and then dial back to a tear-stained throb.
don't know what the popular idea is of Sonic Youth in 2023 -- I hope they're considered as slightly more important to younger people than just "yeah Dad, we get it -- New York, 1980s... well done". There's so much timbre from the unison strings, and so much harmonic invention from the tunings that it's really worth keeping them in the canon.
With one foot very firmly in the exotica camp, thanks to the dreamy vocals of Tatiana Nova and the lightness and deftness of the horn section's interplay. Ally that to a percolating rhythm section and you have what starts out as manna from supper club heaven, a late night '50s vibe, evocative of a breezy trip or a mild sashay across a smoky dancefloor.
Nine years after their triumphant 2014 return with Decline And Fall and A World Lit Only By Fire, Godflesh still feel reinvigorated by their thirteen-year hiatus, and Purge does little to suggest this is going to change any time soon.
The collaborative CARM project of trumpeter CJ Camerieri inhabits a unique sound world that, thanks to the number of personnel involved, moves surreptitiously through different perspectives, the sense of drama and remove lending a soundtrack quality.
If I was a drugs-music sommelier (and tbh that sounds great), I'd say this is a record that's going to complement a k-hole more than it is your bouncing uppers like ecstasy or speed. And either of those are preferable to the cocaine ambient of Warp's later output.
Sunshine pours out of these fourteen tracks, and although they were all penned by Yosef with assistance from producer Gilad Ronen, the input from the rest of the quartet is beyond essential. Soul Song's gentle, summery vibe is highlighted by Lionel's spidery guitar and the deft percussion that sits supporting all the other activity.
Taas Kerran, Äkkiä combines traditional Finnish folk musician Hannu Saha, who plays the kantele (a type of Finnish zither) with the electronic music duo Pakasteet. A relatively new(ish) improv group which consists of Circle founder and Pharaoh Overlord member Jussi Lehtisalo swapping his usual bass for synths, drum machine and prepared zither with film director and visual artist friend Mika Taanila accompanying him on tapes and synth.
There is one for each of the eleven pieces rendered here and they run the gamut from pen and ink minimalism to all-out felt-tipped abandon in much the same way that the musical pieces run about covering lots of ground with manic energy.
A proper overview of Goth is probably at least a decade overdue. The first band who could arguably merit the tag as exponents rather than just forerunners (and more about them later…) trod the boards around forty-five years ago, and music writing has proved distinctly tardy around giving the phenomenon some decent examination and analytic heft. In an era when the bookshelves of major retailers are fair groaning under the weight of mighty tomes covering the minutiae of everyone from EMF to The Shaggs, it seems curious that a movement that encompasses such revered names as Bauhaus, Siouxsie And The Banshees, The Sisters Of Mercy and The Cure seems to have remained so impervious to criticism for so long.
Here, with the first outing for his self-titled quartet, the atmosphere is sunnier, more vibrant and world-reaching, drawing the listener's attention to the current plight of the world and more specifically its oceans. However, rather than pound the message home with darkness and doom, the album has a far more sunny disposition, the whole album smiling through its six long tracks and forty minutes.
Roedelius is now eighty-eight years old and has had a fifty-four-year career in music, starting with the formation of Kluster in 1969 (who later changed their name to Cluster). He then ventured in to the more soporific tones of slightly more ambient sounds with Harmonia, which then lead him to recording three albums with Brian Eno in the mid-seventies. Since then, he has released dozens of solo albums and many collaborations, including one with former Japan keyboard player Richard Barbieri.