Staubgold This is one of those albums which goes on forever, but with the pleasant companionship of days passing and the changes of the quality of light and temperature on one side, and the intensity of a nightmare storm battering on the other. The title is German for Keep Cool, […]
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Arts Café, Toynbee Hall, London 3 July 2001 One of the things about getting older is the urge to mellow out, to chill into a fully-realised state. Warn Defever has been skimming the surfaces and wading into the depths of music for over a decade now, and his frequently disparate […]
Label: 4AD Format: CD Get ready for a complete departure. The latest from Warn Defever has absolutely nothing to do with anything His Name Is Alive has done before. This is a R&B album, through and through. In fact it is a showcase for the o-so-Blues-ish Lovetta Pippen. Listening to her velvety smooth/rough voice which can stand […]
Label: Speakerphone Format: 7″ Tucked away on this seven inch disc of transparent red plastic is one of Black Heart Procession‘s mini masterpieces of melancholic glorying in the sadness of things in general and the passing of time in particular. “Love Sings A Sunrise” coasts on a slow-turning beat and […]
The Mean Fiddler, London 2 July 2001 Somehow Lolita Storm should have got a better reaction on this bill – their shouty teen rants and splattery digital hardcore beats and pieces are part of the busy collision of electronics and rock the Young Gods were instrumental in creating after all. […]
Label: Mego Format: CD,LP Interesting. We in Los Angeles have to suffer through the endless re-viewing of this surf escapade. It’s expected. It’s part of Western (literally) cinema, much now like a muscle in the face that one uses but forgets exactly what its purpose is. And yet these sounds […]
Label: Dubhead Format: CD,LP Counscious Centry man and all-round dub star Dougie Wardrop‘s third outing with P Davey in the Bush Chemists‘ trilogy of digital roots manoeuvrings continues to prove that this particular branch of reggae is as much a London thing as Jamaican. From the fields and tents of […]
Beyond Baroque, Venice, California 29 June 2001 (15 in attendance) Consolidated Lint Guitar, Pro One and toy spun over the head of the person furthest right. Pitch shifts and the bowing starts. Chattering, like automotive idling, wells up and fills the room. Much bowing, and it’s as if the doors […]
Label: ROIR Format: CD,LP Raz Mesinai‘s fourth album as Badawi soon kicks into the urgent strains of “Evocation”, a piece in the same frenetic style of his earlier Final Warning EP on Asphodel, riding on the clink of bells, the rumble and rhythm of the self-sampled and realtime Middle Eastern […]
Kosmische Upstairs @ The Garage, London 23 June 2001 I‘d never heard of Khan (aka Can Oral) before hearing about this gig a few weeks back, but his odd background (Finnish mother, Turkish father, grew up in Germany) and his array of current collaborators (Kid Congo Powers, Diamanda Galas, Julee […]
Label: Flesh Format: 12″ Flesh Records take on the dancefloor with their blend of extended electro-techno-gothic, neatly introduced by the throbbing smash-to-be of ST AP 00‘s “Mr GD”, in which someone with a very keen enthusiasm for David Bowie describes a sinister encounter of the less than savoury narrator with […]
Label: Mute Format: CD Vince Clarke of Erasure and Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 could not be further from their ’80s adventures than they are here on this new venture. A gentle countdown leads into very soft Ambient electronics just short of sounding New Age. The tracks are named after […]
The Spitz, London 7 June 2001 The Spitz tends to look different every time I go there. Tonight it is a late arrival just in time to see Appliance play their version of Krautrock-inspired Electronica. Projections on small screens around the room show Rand McNally maps of the Great Lakes […]
Kosmische @ The Garage, London 31 May 2001 Beware all snow leopards; indeed all mammals were at risk of having their asses rocked Thursday at the Kosmische Club‘s presentation of Acid Mothers Temple. Once Southall Riot was done with their opening imitation of all that was Krautrock in a Nineties […]
The Social, Nottingham 30 May 2001 The first act were Floach, an electronics duo from ScoobyDooLand. With a table full of electronic contraptions that would have made Throbbing Gristle drool (and a hairstyle that would have frightened Dave Hill from Slade), they cooked up a glorious electronic rumpus. If Pierre […]
Label: Clearspot Format: CD,LP This ‘trio’ are in fact a sextet, including the brothers Marcus and Micha Acher who enjoy playing with the conventions of jazz and introducing dub and electronics alongside improvisation. The first track, “United World Elevator”, is a good example, starting in a fairly minimalist style with […]
Touch Format: 2xCD To call Substrata a good album is an understatement. It has been described as one of the finest Ambient albums of the Nineties. As far as I’m concerned you can scrub out the bit about the Nineties. Biosphere, a.k.a. Geir Jenssen from Norway, has created some of […]
Label: BMG/Volcano Format: CD, limited CD,MC Tool. Hmm. Can we forgive them? I mean, like, ever? After all, as the instigators of nu-metal, they are largely responsible for Limp Bizkit and Slipknot, all that big-shorted, high testosterone sports metal malarkey. Only there’s nothing remotely “sports” about Tool — no, they’re resolutely “old metal” imagewise – you […]
Label: Quarterstick Format: CD Spanning most of the musical history of Calexico, a band highly reminiscent of duo Joey Burns and John Covertino‘s previous bands Giant Sand and especially Friends Of Dean Martinez, this EP combines unreleased tracks with remixes of previously-released material, some European B-sides, and three CDROM videos […]
Label: Racing Junior Format: CD Salvatore popped down to Marrakesh from their Nowegian home to record Fresh, and from the opening twang of “Get The Kids On The Street, It’s A Party” things take on an electronic groove dimension which can only have been aided by the atmosphere of Morocco. […]