Portland, OR 30 April 2014 Seeing Thee Silver Mt. Zion, the most famous off-shoot of post-apocalyptic prophets Godspeed You! Black Emperor, on the eve of both May Day, the most famous of socialist holidays, and Beltane, a Celtic pagan festival halfway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, often associated with “popular and often raucous celebrations.” Note that I said EVE, as in the night before the […]
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Mississippi Studios Portland, OR 25 April 2014 The ramifications of the loop, the power of the riff, the subdivision of the motorik beat. College, krautrock, and working for yr music festival. This jam-packed free-for-all in the barnlike interior of Mississippi Studios on a Thursday night illustrated exactly how far kosmische musik has come since Trans Am first released its seminal Futureworld on Thrill Jockey in 1999. When I […]
Portland, OR. 18 April 2014 The Evolution Of Bass Every time a band reunites, it raises the cynical question: is this mere nostalgia, a quick cash grab? Musicians with nothing new to say, relying on former glories to make a quick buck? Or is it merely that their time has come and people are in a place to finally hear and understand what they were going for in […]
London 11 April 2014 There’s probably an argument to be made that talking about Chrysta Bell in terms of David Lynch is lazy, but that’s what I’m going to do, at least at first. The reasons for this are threefold – first, having not only produced her album but co-written it with her, he casts a pretty long bequiffed shadow over the music. Second, at a gig plugged […]
The Bishopsgate Institute, London 21 March 2014 Greeted at the entrance to the venue by a very City commissionaire resplendent in full uniform complete with ceremonial sash and medals, it’s clear that this is going to be no ordinary gig. The Bishopsgate Institute is at once an adult education centre and a concert hall, and it’s certainly a splendid setting in which to revisit the live music of […]
Brighton 18 March 2014 This was a funny evening. Good, of course. Sidi Touré is really quite the performer, and his band some of the finest. I kind of get the impression it’s not really a regular gig-going crowd. At one point there was a chap clapping out of time (clapping out of time is quite a feat, in a way). I clocked someone who seemed to take […]
Paris 8 March 2014 Le Trabendo lurks next to a not-quite completed concrete behemoth which squats at the side of the Périphérique ring road around Paris, part of the ever-expanding Parc de la Villette with its promenades and exhibition centres, its music and (almost) out-of-town cultural activities for a city always in search of entertainment. It’s reached down a winding path through the woods and into a multi-level […]
Portland, OR 2 March 2014 Rise Of The Mutants I had the strongest sensation of living in the future, as I bussed past the emerald green glass towers of the Oregon Convention Center on my way to the Wonder Ballroom on a drizzly Sunday evening, the trancey binaural beat construction of Thug Entrancer‘s Death After Life lulling me into a theta wave slo burn. The RTD bus seemed […]
Bourgoin-Jallieu 1 March 2014 Tonight’s show at les Abattoirs provides a chance for Michael Gira to share a stage with Ulan Bator, a band he worked with on the Ego:Echo album in 2000. The venue is an unusual one, sat on the corner of a roundabout on the outskirts of a small town on the road to Grenoble from Lyon. Taking place on one of the busy weekends […]
London 8 February 2014 Macgillivary started proceedings with some rather spooky vocals, multiple choirs caught in the looper’s long corridors, trapped trajectories, cloister curving, quickly followed by a souped-up electric zither accompaniment, as her sorrowful voice continued to work its magic through the vastness of the chapel. She pulled out some nice feedback too, and those ‘white horse’ piano tides were superb, reminded me so much of Galás‘ […]
Portland, Oregon 16 January 2014 It was a misty night in Portland. A thick gray pea soup clung to the street lights, obscuring any signs of modernity, anything outside of a three-foot nimbus. This Thursday evening had a particularly timeless feel – . The faithful have always gathered at night, apart from the common sense and rationality of the day-walkers. Whether it be antlered druids gathered at stone […]
London 28 December 2013 So who would have believed all those years ago that a small British label focusing mainly on doom music would last all this time? But by the time I went to the last anniversary show a few years back at the ULU it was obvious then that the scene had grown and the blood lust for this type of music hadn’t abated. In the […]
18 December 2013 Pantomime season is once more upon us, and the heaviest and most bludgeoning pantomime of all is rolling into town. My first ever concert was Black Sabbath – a scary 38 years ago, and so when a friend who couldn’t make this week’s reunion tour offered me his ticket at a Christmas party last weekend, I was sufficiently inebriated to be unable to refuse. Arriving […]
Camber Sands, Sussex 29 November-1 December 2013 So it came, as the subtitle says, to the very end of an era for All Tomorrow’s Parties on the English coast. Returning full circle to Pontin’s at Camber Sands where it all kicked off 13 years ago (barring the festival’s origins with Belle and Sebastian‘s Bowlie Weekender a year earlier in 1999 at the same spot), ATP brought out its […]
The Island, Bristol 22 November 2013 The venue’s an abandoned police station, now converted into an arts centre/studio space. The grim nature of the place gets more pronounced as you step deeper into the building, those institutional hues greying against the eerie wipe-clean gloss of the white tiling. The cold concrete and red-bricked Victoriana, dower, depressing as the flaking magnolia, or the raggedy plastic bag spectres barb wire […]
Portland, Oregon 19 November 2013 Portland was at it’s finest on Tuesday night, for this sold-out performance of Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner and indie staple Bill Callahan, who used to make music under the Smog moniker before returning to his given name for a series of well received albums. We’ve entered the real rainy season in the City Of Roses, but it was clear and frosty night. […]
Corsica Studios, London 15 October 2013 Corsica Studios was once again filled to bursting for the return of Acid Mothers Temple and the Melting Paraiso U.F.O. for what seems to be their London home (alongside Café OTO). The crowd’s anticipation at seeing the Japanese psych legends was at a high, but unfortunately we would all have to wait. The support band was running over time, this was compounded […]
Bristol 14 October 2013 Motorway delays meant totally missing most of Teeth of the Sea‘s set… I’ve been loving their latest Kraut-infused offering Master for some time now and was eager to get that all-important live perspective, but only ended up catching the trumpet soaked finale. A Miles Davis-shadowing sundowner of a track on anti-phonic wings; parabolic, infectious…the briefest of taste that left me floundering in the disappointment […]