London 4 October 2019 The last time I saw Magma live was at an incredible performance in Paris in February 2017, when they played backed by an orchestra. This added an extra stirring and unearthly quality to Magma’s already off-world sound. It was also the finest performance I had seen the band play in the many times I have seen them. Islington Assembly Hall is a perfect kind […]
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Bristol 6 October 2019 Getting to finally see the Circle offshoot Pharaoh Overlord is a real treat, a melodic spattered-smorgasbord of kraut-inspired groovesomness. Theirs is a full-on sound, juttering in multiples, holding a riff perfectly, mulling it round in daggering dynamics, then throwing it to a glittering horizon that combines with the strobe lighting to just eat into your head.
London 14 September 2019 After a tortuous journey through London and around the building site that is Hackney Wick at the moment, we find ourselves standing outside Studio 9294, one of the many curious venues that Baba Yaga’s Hut uses for its shows. Steel shuttered doors and a street art facade lead us into the concrete bunker that is serving the three bands tonight.
Salisbury Plain 17 August 2019 The British Army first started to clear the settlements from Salisbury Plain after the First World War, but it was during the preparation for the D-Day landings in 1943 that they chose to evacuate all the residents from the little village of Imber, in the north-west section of the plain, and it was never re-inhabited. This area is opened up for a few […]
London 14 July 2019 It’s Rick Wakeman’s seventieth birthday, and what better way to celebrate than two nights of his early concept album Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, played in full with lots of extra tracks to help the extravaganza become fully realised. Originally the piece was performed and recorded live at the Royal Festival Hall on Friday 18 January 1974. At this point, Wakeman was […]
London 20 July 2019 It’s 6:30 — SIX FUCKING THIRTY — on a Saturday evening and I have never seen The Forum so packed so early (in fact, I’m not entirely sure I’ve ever seen it this early at all). The place is an oven. Fortunately, metal crowds tend to be the nicest crowds, so a room filled with this many daytime drinkers isn’t likely to erupt into […]
Honeystreet, Wiltshire 1 August 2019 Nestled within the rolling Pewsey downs, tonight’s debut from Luminous Foundation (a freshly inked joust between Téléplasmiste’s Mark Pilkington and Urthona’s Neil Mortimer) takes place at The Barge Inn, one of the few Wiltshire country pubs that have escaped gentrification, a canal side drinkery and campsite that’s always been the home of the interesting, conspiratorial and now danceable electronics.
Hastings, for those not hip to the south-east coast of England, is a funny old place. In some senses it’s got that run-down seaside town vibe. On the other some banging folk and a small but keen crowd of local weirdos turning out on a Tuesday night for an evening of rackets
6 July 2019 Bristol This year, the Stolen Body-curated Astral Festival has chosen to spread itself over three of Bristol’s city centre venues. Thankfully, the Rough Trade sweatbox, the rather charming restaurant/bar at the Lanes and the grandiose SWX are all within a stone’s throw of one another. Unfortunately, the timing of things does mean that it is impossible to take in all bands, and considering it is […]
Bristol 19 June 2019 Audience-surrounded, EP64 kicked an intense noise. Dali’s word-tangled molasses kicked around by tribal drums and hawking sax in one of the most energetic performances I have witnessed from them
Brighton 2 June 2019 The Albert‘s one of those venues that feels really empty up to a certain point, when it suddenly becomes a sweatbox. Luckily, Frank And Beans are only playing to gaps where people should be for a song or two. Fall fans (and by God did the crowd look like Fall fans) obviously need to get their time in at the bar to whinge about […]
London 3-5 May 2019 Friday: Gary The May bank holiday is normally a time for the revival of pagan customs in Britain. These can be found from local village morris dancers to the crowning of the May Queen in Glastonbury. For a few days, Britain takes on the stance of people being an extra in The Wicker Man while also drowning their innards in vast quantities of booze.
London 19 April 2019 Ten years is a long time in music. Well, I mean, it’s quite a long time in anything, really. And if you adjust for inflation, ten years in the nineteenth century is actually AGES. Especially for a punk band. So it’s quite a thing that The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing are celebrating a whole decade of their anachronistic anarchy of […]
London 12 April 2019 Ah, an evening of pure Detroit electronica some thirty-five years or more after it first happened is a must-see. The atmosphere of The Barbican’s post apocalyptic Logan’s Run architectural design just added to the palpable excitement as I made my way towards the venue. This is Juan Atkins and Rik Davis’s Cybotron, not to be confused with the seventies Australian Berlin School artists with […]
London 6 April 2019 The faded Tudor grandeur of the venue, set in the urban sprawl of Hackney, was a fitting place for tonight’s entertainment, and its small performance area just added to the night’s intimacy. The second night of celebration for Daniel O’Sullivan‘s Folly LP release (part of The New Arts and Music Programme at Sutton House)
London 2 April 2019 Italian producer and songwriter Giorgio Moroder is basically a legend. After discovering a certain sound in the mid-seventies, he reinvented disco music overnight. The sound was full of synthesizers pulsing to a pounding beat, but also never forgetting that key ingredient, melody. Moroder then won three Oscars for his soundtrack work and during the 1980s, he was pretty much everywhere working with many top […]
Demiurg / London 3 March 2019 This is a story of two enigmas. One is an inscrutable totalitarian art-rock collective, and the other is the most secretive state on Earth. And this is all about what happened when the two collided to the strains of a much-loved feel-good musical with Nazis in it. Laibach have been defying musical and artistic conventions and outraging public decency for nearly forty […]
London 2 March 2019 PFM (Premiata Forneria Marconi) were one of the earliest progressive rock bands to emerge from Italy in the early 1970s. They were certainly one of the best known Italian bands of that era, mainly thanks to being signed by Greg Lake to Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s then fledgling Manticore label in the UK and USA, giving the band a much wider profile than they […]