Bristol 8 October 2013 The Exchange was rammed… Anthroprophh (Big Naturals and Paul Allen) were sprawled in front of the stage, their kit eating away at the room’s capacity. Sounded even better than when I saw them back in February, but tucked into the back corner of the venue, I couldn’t see a blinking thing! After squeezing through the sardined bodies I managed to catch their blistering finale. […]
live reviews
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Corsica Studios London 29 September 2013 Ok, there was a lot of buzz on the internet about these shows. First it was the fact that this would be Mainliner’s first European tour for a long time, and second that it would not feature the original line up. But the more I thought about it the addition of Bo Ningen’s Kawabe Taigen wasn’t such massive leap into the realms […]
Bristol 27 September 2013 This trio were incredible! The noise flowing from them was full on, bouncing with a rip cord of incentive and bold colour. A lock-horned, tri-cornered combo of gristly riffs going off into wah-wah Hendrix hedonism. Drums becoming bass, guitar chiselling percussion; a bewildering soup of pure energy, blissfully heavy in the repetition department, spurring off into delicious landslides of angles and tempos. Just as […]
London 21 September 2013 It is a mild, early autumn Saturday night and Upper Street is the very picture of modern urban revelry. Outside the doorways of fashionable bars and clubs, the pavements are clotted with thick knots of drinkers and smokers, the ‘dun-tsch, dun-tsch, dun-tsch’ beat of anonymous dance music bleeding out from their dimly-lit interiors into the warm evening air. There is scarcely a free chair […]
London 18 September 2013 Zombie Zombie is an enigma. They are neither straight ahead progressive rock like near-namesake Zombi, nor either are they jazz or even space disco, but somehow an odd amalgamation of all three. Yes, they are a synth- and percussion-based band, but there is so much more in there. This was reflected in the audience that turned up tonight; there were prog rockers, synth nerds, […]
London 14 September 2013 Loving this place, that subterranean cellar-like vibe; cobbles, cast iron pillars, oozes a Dickensian charm that no doubt Messers. Thrower and Knight approve of. On arrival, their musical wares are already set up on three tables, a tidy synth and keyboard sandwich a percussive jumble filling, the screen . There’s a long pre-show wait, having cut through London at a surprisingly swift pace. We […]
Roseland Theater Portland, Oregon 6 September 2013 The double-billing of noise guitar legends Gate, the solo project of Michael Morley of The Dead C, and the newly rejuvenated Godspeed You! Black Emperor on a Friday night at one of the United States’ largest music festivals was an act of bold and challenging programming that should further Musicfest NW‘s reputation not only as a world class music festival, but […]
London 5 September 2013 In the lead up to the first London gig in thirteen years from Manuel Göttsching we have been treated to a certain amount of media nonsense situating him as a godfather of minimal techno.
Dublin 15 August 2013 There is a story. “It’s all made of stories, you know”. There is a story that back in 1980 David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) read an article in the music press about a band from England who were rewriting all the rules, who had discovered the new sound. Impressed by what he read, and based on the description of the music not the […]
25 August 2013 en-coun-ter (en-koun-ter): To come upon or meet with. (Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English encountren < Anglo-French enco ( u ) ntrer; Old French < Vulgar Latin *incontrāre, equivalent to in- in-1 + –contrāre, derivative of contrā against) Hynekian System of Classification: ‘Close encounter of the third kind’ – sighting of an animated being. ________________ On the August Bank Holiday 2013, the animated beings that comprise the […]
18 May 2013 A rare London appearance from The Residents, stopping off at The Barbican on their Wonder of Weird 40th anniversary tour. The show is presented as a kind of unreliable ‘history of our band’, and begins with a short film, a collection of excerpts from old (and formidably strange) videos and live performances. This does a fine job of encapsulating their appeal and setting the scene, […]
London 13 July 2013 . And judging by the tens of thousands of other people prepared to ram themselves into Hyde Park and spend this July afternoon cooking slowly like rotisserie chickens under the blazing summer sun (ha ha, how I’ve longed say that these past years!), I’m not the only one that feels that way. Last summer, the incredible success of the London Olympics surprised many a […]
London 14 July 2013 London’s second night of stoner psychedelic rock was hotly anticipated as this was going to be the only UK date for headliners Acid King on their European tour. Unfortunately there was already a glitch before the show even started. One of the support act for the show, the wonderful Gates of Slumber had pulled out/cancelled the show, which left rather a gap to fill. […]
London 13 July 2013 It’s the middle of summer and London burns in plus 30 degree heat, and whilst some spent a sweltering day in parks at bars or on beaches some of us spent the time preparing for a whole weekend of psychedelic, doom-laden stoner rock. As it was so hot outside The Garage in all its wisdom decided to keep the air con on minimum (raising […]
London 11 July 2013 So the first problem is always going to be that, writing after the fact, things get a bit distorted. Nazoranai were utterly amazing. To the extent that what, on any other night, would’ve been a totally formidable set from the Flower/Corsano Duo ended up falling flat in my retroactive estimations. That sounds a bit “damning with convoluted praise,” but it’s not meant as such. […]
The South Bank Centre, London 2 July 2013 “Bonjour messieurs.” “Bonjour David.” “Est-ce un rêve ?” “Non, vous êtes vraiment voir cela. Et aussi l’entendre.” “Oh, c’est bon. Pendant un moment j’ai pensé que j’étais d’imagerie un groupe de fou Quebecoise, jouer de la musique de Tom Waits. Je suis heureux qu’il n’est pas une illusion.” “Oui, il peut être un peu désorientant. On l’aime […]
Corsica Studios, London 24 June 2013 The last time I saw Black Dice was in 2009 at the Tufnell Park Dome when they were joined by fellow uplifting souls Experimental Dental School amongst others. The evening had been a reasonably enjoyable listen of eclectic sounds and rhythms up until the point that the three members of Black Dice took to the stage. From then on in it was […]
London 23 June 2013 There is a particularly caustic line in “Losing My Edge,” LCD Soundsystem’s scathing critique of changing musical fashion, that sums up perfectly much of what happened between the mid Nineties and the early Noughties: I hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables. I hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars. After 1994, […]