Massive drums, double bass and a shiny grand piano meant The Necks were crammed into what remained of the stage. A physically crowded space that suited the band’s intimate interlock.
Yearly archives: 2024
189 posts
After years of them being out of print, 4AD have taken the decision to repress the two LPs and an EP and allow them to straggle back out into the world, hopefully spreading their ramshackle charm to a new generation of listeners. Cass has been constructing his own little musical universe over the last quarter-century, so to listeners old and new alike, it is fascinating to rediscover how this journey started and all three of these releases are essential to that.
It’s been almost ten years since System 7’s chillout project has released anything, so obviously something in the mind of Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy felt that now was the perfect time to reactivate the project and create something new. In true old style, the album also features Alex Patterson from The Orb, someone who has worked with Hillage many times since the early '90s.
Frise Lumière is an experimental project from composer Ludovic Gerst that uses just bass guitar in an attempt to explore the rhythmic, textural and percussive possibilities inherent in the instrument. Over the course of nine tracks, he uses broomsticks, mallets and other percussive implements to draw secrets from the body of the instrument, offering up unexpected sounds and feelings.
Man, the energy was insane — breathtakingly direct, leading to me totally losing it (maybe to the gritty pump of “Devoción”?), my body all salvo-daggered, head-flinging abandon as the electronics twerked and tasered. My kinda dance music for sure ...
Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu has been based in Ireland for the last twenty years and it would seem that the desire for travel and the stimuli of being a collaborative player in a European country has opened his mind and heart to a whole wealth of influences. Those influences, be they home-grown like soukous or more wide-ranging like flamenco or jazz, have enabled his elegantly fluid playing to become truly continent-spanning yet unique to him.
Yet, out of the blue in the middle of this year came word of a new solo album -- via the Drums & Wires Recordings label run by her erstwhile bandmate and still-fellow Seattleite Michael Wells -- in the shape of the very welcoming and much-welcomed Beckonings. A richly diverse collection that reacquaints us with Torgerson’s skills as a singer, a song-interpreter, an arranger and a collaborator, as well as her lesser-explored role as a writer.
Although Ghanaian-born trumpeter Peter Somuah's latest release has the title Highlife, his is a unique interpretation of the musical style. Born in Accra, he is now settled in Rotterdam and with a group of four Netherlanders and a Dutch-Surinamese percussionist, plies a pan-continental version that shows its love of the African tradition while happily melding it with European influences. Recording the album in Berlin only adds to the constant sense of movement.
Whereas its aforementioned predecessor presented itself as a widescreen and eclectic set, this year’s six-song Last April is a far more intensely concentrated and intimate affair. Assembled out of necessity, to process the grief from the premature passing of a close family member, this is an extremely poignant suite of reflections.
Moving from dramatic, classically influenced pieces through romantic introspection to more modernist tendencies, Leviathan contains eleven shape-shifting pieces which -- considering none are more than six minutes long -- are impressive showcases of the band's ability to let ideas flow, yet to be concise with nothing allowed to outstay its warm welcome.
French sound artistes Matthieu Prial and Christophe Havard have been exploring the possibilities of recording sound on the move in the form of walking concerts or just generally playing whilst in the elements for a few years now and the final fruits of their work together have been captured on this new disc.
101 Films' wonderful 4K UHD brings out all the fantastic lurid colours that the film possesses and gives a crystal-clear image to all of Pyun’s incredible set pieces. Joseph Mangine’s photography looks sublime and you can see that every dollar the film took to make is up there on screen.
The first release in four years under the Møster! moniker finds Kjetil Møster and his compadres stretching ever further the refinement of their genre-hopping sound. With more production work being taken on by Jørgen Træen, the quartet finds itself freer to pursue the ultimate in cross-pollination. With jazz as a distant reference point which seems to recede into the background, the album opens with a flourishing whirl of strings, wavering horns and an impending sense of drama, but soon breaks free and the quirky instrumentation and unexpected directions pull the listener in.
The latest release from musician Louis Pavlo is under his Apollo Ray guise with an LP of space-related electronic pieces that find him playing most instruments, but with assistance from various good friends.
Photographer Paula Rae Gibson is an intriguing character, well renowned in her chosen profession; she has also spent time writing and recording experimental jazz-based music, sporadically releasing albums on the 33 label. The latest on 33 Extreme finds her teaming up once again with pianist and composer Kit Downes and trumpeter Alex Bonney for an hushed, intense collection of late-night tales.
Latterly, although Bardo Pond’s new activities have slowed somewhat, the band’s bounteous back catalogue and previously unreleased tape vault extractions are being given considered curatorial care through regular releases on Fire Records, Three Lobed and Matador. With the latter label having just exhumed 1999’s churningly squally Set And Setting long-player, alongside Melt Away, a double-LP of choice rarities built-up around the ensemble’s four-album Matador affiliation, the time seemed more than ripe to converse over email with Michael Gibbons on the past, present and future of Bardo Pond...
Clearly, the quintet line-up must have worked for all concerned, because this ever-progressive group has chosen to move forward as five. Somehow with the addition of new members and specifically an unfettered vocalist, more space has crept in, allowing the assembled pieces much more opportunity to breathe. There must have been a surfeit of ideas as the disc squeaks in at just over seventy-eight minutes; but as with all their previous output, those ideas are free range, roaming over whichever distant landscapes you might try to imagine.
London 24 October 2024 It was rather a dull day to traipse halfway across London for a gig, but I had high hopes that Goat were going to bring some life and spectacle to the evening. First though, a few words on the venue, the East End’s Troxy in Limehouse. […]
I'd like to say that it's something like if Jeff Mills was Ugandan but that's ridiculous. This does share the intensity but not the build-up. It's adjacent to techno and there's cowbell; but it's also a smidge faster and more dynamic -- second track "Boiller Omukka" gives the impression of a slurring tempo, like a wobbly sea journey, but it's a more concise and mobile thing than four-to-the-floor Detroit-isms.
The latest release from our favourite pastoral bedroom psychedelicist finds Robert Sotelo in the esteemed company of Mary Currie where they weave four treatsome tales from the heart and mind.