Bristol 26 November 2014 Warming us up between sets was turntablist Simon Wildrfid; now some people play records, but this chap gave them another life completely, filter-feeding and FXing the blighters with a nice skull-scouring intensity, a rejuvenating diaspora of pulsing colour and industrialised zest splattered in cordoned beatologies and copious gristle. He had a mysterious selection of releases on the merch table too, that wackILy entitled Innerself […]
live reviews
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London 19 November 2014 As one does before seeing a show by a well-loved band, I muse on my own personal history pertaining to this group as I make my way to Camden to see Einstürzende Neubauten perform their latest release Lament. I can work out in approximations that I have loved this band since 1984 or so and I’ve seen them around 20 times before. They are […]
London 24 November 2014 Bush Hall was built more than ten years before the outbreak of the First World War. It still has that feel of Victoriana, even though it was built after the Victorian era, and a gothic charm too; with its chandeliers and pillars it seems at odds with the world outside its location. So a perfect place for the Mediæval Bæbes to play. Their set […]
London 18 November 2014 Seventies-inspired heavy rock is slowly making a comeback at the moment, with several new bands strapping on their guitars and playing like it was 1972 all over again. Two of the finest exponents of this revival of great music are playing tonight, so it was time for me to pull on my patchouli oil-soaked jeans and cowboy boots and get ready to shake my […]
London 14 November 2014 The Cesarians and The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing together at last! Finally London’s finest purveyors of punked-up big band music are sharing a stage with its premier gang of Victorian anarchists, and it’s a wonder it’s never happened before. Also a wonder that it’s happening at all, Men frontman Andy Heintz having only recently been given the all-clear for throat […]
London 31 October 2014 It’s Halloween and the streets are bustling with people dressed as various horror icons and kids trick or treating on their neighbours. Revelling in the air of spookiness, I’m heading out to the concrete Logan’s Run-looking Barbican Centre to witness a horror icon, the wonderful Fabio Frizzi. The venue is packed with horror film aficionados from what sounds like all over Europe. Most wear […]
Brighton 11 November 2014 In one swift motion I will disperse any notions of latent ’90s cool – I’d never knowingly listened to Trans Am before. I didn’t even know if it’s Tram Am or Trans AM, an automobile or a radio station. Entering the venue I was immediately struck by the very particular nature of the audience – not a one under 30, few over 40 — […]
Elektrowerkz, London 8 November 2014 One can learn a lot about two bands from their inter-set changeover. Here in the black box of Elektrowerkz, surrounded by dressed-down men with beards and a few women too, we are watching AK DK remove a lot of equipment. There are two drum kits in there, a couple of synths with reassuringly wooden sides on tables covered in lots of other associated […]
London 8 November 2014 It’s almost as if they planned it. It’s pissing it down. Absolutely fucking pissing it down. Exactly the sort of weather that makes you want drone doom. Which is just as well, because doom legend Stephen O’Malley‘s playing tonight, and he’s supporting doom jazz maestros Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. The line of bedraggled amplifier worshippers stretches back from the church almost to […]
London 2 November 2014 The Black Heart seems to have taken over from The Underworld as London’s main doom venue. It’s a small space, which means it’s quite an intimate venue and if you’re near the back of the room it can be a little difficult to see the bands. However, its smallness is also one of its redeeming features, especially when you are seeing some excellent doom […]
London 28 October 2014 Wow; it’s packed in here tonight, a testament to all the hard work Purson have done over the last couple years. I’ve been singing the bands praises here on Freq since the first time I reviewed them as support to Comus at this very venue. First up were Ulysses, a foot-stomping four piece with their roots firmly set in the 1970s. Their sound reminded […]
London 8 October 2014 Jex Thoth are one of the names heralded as part of the new occult rock boom that has spawned so many great bands like Blood Ceremony and Jess And The Ancient Ones. They have produced two amazing albums; the last, Blood Moon Rise, was released last year. So it’s quite odd that the band is back for their second series of UK dates with […]
Lillehammer 8 October 2014 My friends, ; forget longing for the days gone by — what we have right now is incredible. I’m spending a lot of time in Lillehammer these days — usually I go outside town for my musical fill, but last night, quite luckily, I got smacked for weeks by three utterly thrilling musical rides. The pictures do not at all express the level of […]
London 3 October 2014 I had forgotten what a large space The Roundhouse is — it really is quite big. For me it will always be the venue of psychedelic bands, The Pink Fairies, Man, Hawkwind and The Doors all played here and I always have the feeling that the venues walls are soaked with incense and patchouli oil. Those walls were certainly echoing tonight with the sound […]
Corsica Studios, London 23 September 2014 So we’re back again for round two — the second night in a row at London‘s tiny but perfectly-formed Corsica Studios, this time to see space-rock reprobates White Hills and One Unique Signal. And there will be volume. Oh yes, there will be volume. Lots and lots of lovely, lovely volume (say this in the voice of Neil Kinnock‘s Spitting Image puppet […]
Bristol 30 July 2014 Rock the Roberts(on)s plumbed an ad hoc and lo-fi angle spectacularly. A bizarre scrapbook of spurting poodle rock from a butchered karaoke machine injected with gargled indigestions that were grins-ville all the way. Irate spikes of feedback, ruler twangs, radio miss-tunes, things literally falling off the table and lord knows what else. This girl art school stoic mumbling dead pan, holding a sign up […]
London 7 July 2014 Kev Nickells went to see Japanese kawaii-rockers Babymetal live in London, and loved it. Barnabas Y, however, offers a riposte to the popularity of the genre-bending phenomenon. Pictures by James Sting. The review You should probably be aware of Babymetal by now. I first came across them when “the hard man of Harsh Noise Wall” Clive Henry put a link up to it. It […]
Brixton Electric London 27 May 2014 Since reforming – or, perhaps more accurately, reincarnating – in 2010, Swans have rapidly become one of the most extraordinary musical entities of our age. Their comeback album, My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky, was a fine release, and they soon re-established themselves as a formidable live act. But with 2012’s The Seer – a vast, audacious, […]