Label: Domino Format: CDS,12″ Exhibiting a kind of Bristolian faux-gangsterism with sampler firmly in cheek, Matt Elliott is definitely getting more proficient with the drum & bass these days. Still spooky and atmospheric, the use of choral samples on the title track recalls the early unsettling soundscapes of Current 93 […]
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The Dublin Castle, London 16th October 1998 +Penthouse; Stoke Newington, London 17th October 1998 There can be few experiences as strange or as wonderful as when Bobby Conn and band show up in town in a flurry of wigs, imposture and post-Glam Rock attitude. Truly an eventful, landmark kind of […]
Label: Asphodel Format: CD Love Is The Devil is a reasonably arty film about the traumatic love-life of painter Francis Bacon in the early Sixties, whihc despite may flaws is an engaging and occasionally powerful depiction of an alcoholic artist and his relationship with a young stranger who appears from […]
Label: Disko B/V2 Format: CD,2LP Adopting an international playboy persona to rival Yello‘s for its ridiculous embrace of the notion of artist as fantsatic sportsman, Bond-age lover and all-round suave entertainer, DJ Hell bundles together a collection of tunes which restore the front to upfront. From the paen to its […]
Label: KiffSM/PIAS Format: 12″, CDS Taking the only track from Kreidler‘s Appearance And The Park album to feature vocals, Mute‘s Daniel Miller adopts his Sunroof persona in collaboration with Gareth Jones to reconfigure the track in decidedly Eighties style – all arpeggiating FM keyboards and synth stylings – to initially […]
Label: Mego Format: CD There’s something ominous afoot in Vienna. What seems to have happened is that a band who might at one point have enjoyed metallic doom-merchandising have discovered the joys of mincing music through a sampler, hardcore digital style. The result is The Male Comedy, a record which […]
Label: Output Format: 2CD With this double CD collection of singles and compilation appearances, Fridge reveal their remarkable emergence over the last year or so as a pretty good answer to the flood of American and German post-rock acts, without resorting to pastiche or fitting particularly into the straitjacket of […]
Kosmische @ The Garage, London 12 September 1998 A legend or two popped into The Garage, held an audience captive for a couple of hours, and it was just as might be expected – half a trip back in time, and half a slice of something timeless. Damo Suzuki nearly […]
Label: Warp Format: CDS, 12″ Plone have a nice ear for the uses of old technology, turning in three deceptively simple songs (which happens also to neatly provide the title for track two) , equal parts Pram and retro elevator music. “Plock” is a shimmery analogue bossanova featuring that most […]
Label: Ochre Format: CD The first album from this psychedelic collective proves to be a cosmic affair of considerable depth and originality. Taking their cues from the space rock of Brainticket and Amon Düül II and the lo-fi acid folk of The Incredible String Band, this group kick out some […]
Label: Kitty-Yo Format: CD Still led on a wayward course by the softly-spoken vocals of Roland Lippok, Tarwater continue their elegantly wastrel progress deeper into the realm of something which draws variously from Trip Hop, electronica and metaphysical poetry. The beats may be a mix of the live and sampled; […]
Label: Mute Format: CDS, 12″ How to make a remix EP, 1998-style: take a track from your last album (Control Data, in this case). Process in a variety of styles by Ultraviolence (Gabba, twice), No-U Turn (Drum & Bass) and, last but not least (apart from the original mix, naturally), […]
Label: Klangbad Format: VHS Recorded (oddly enough) during Faust‘s most recent visit to Japan, this video, despite its brevity at only two pieces with a total length of around eighteen minutes, also gives a good impression of the whole live experience of the band as it now exists. The hulking […]
Label: Output Format: CDS, 2×12″ The first non-compilation solo release from Fridge’s Kieran Hebden is a one-track single (cunningly presented in DJ-friendly style as two one-sided 12-inches) whose title reflects its length – even if the CD does register various lengths on different players. Smoothly slipping from motorik breakbeats to […]
Label: Mute Format: CD As acerbic as their recent gigs together, the collaboration of Alan Vega with two-thirds of Pan Sonic shows that the loss of a vowel has not affected the latter’s ability to construct minimal sine-wave beats and blasts, nor the former’s anomic bile against The Man and […]
The Festival of Central European Culture Queen Elizabeth Hall,The South Bank Centre, London 10th July 1998 Across between political rally, religious service and Thrash Metal gig, tonight’s appearance in the centre of High Art’s temple of culture simultaneously enthralls and overpowers with meta-kitsch imagery and extreme volume. From the mechanistic […]
Irregular The Africa Centre, London 2nd July 1998 Having sat throught he absence of promised DJ Holger Hiller – and hence a repeated digi-dub tape instead – the appearance onstage of two-thirds of Pan Sonic presaged the arrival of Alan Vega. Strutting with his customary swagger, and dressed like a […]
Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD When not making up a sizeable chunk of the musical bedrock of The Legendary Pink Dots, and surprisingly unprolific in his solo work by the standards of that group, Phil Knight has been known to settle down to produce some stunningly hypnotic recordings in his time. Following on from the hypnagogic Dreamcell of […]
Label: Rocketgirl Format: CD,2LP Now that Spacemen 3 have joined the pantheon of those influential enough to have had a wide impact on a broad variety of other bands sufficient to inspire their collection into an album’s worth of covers, perhaps there’ll be a flood of homages to late Eighties […]
Label: Mute Format: CD There’s no doubting Diamanda Galás’s intensity, integrity or innovation; more than anyone else, she not only bridged the underground-overground divide while such tactics were still relevant, but has created some truly spell-binding works of lasting impact on the subject of AIDS in Plague Mass. Malediction and […]