Label: Pagoda Format: CD Having hung out with the Reinforced Records crew, as well as The Future Sound Of London in North-west London while cutting his teeth on the sampler, it’s no surprise that The Rise (AKA Simon Wells) makes the kind of semi-abstracted Techstep Drum & Bass that propelled his breakbeat science in Vortexation and Headstone Lane (denizens of the area may notice a, hmmmm, “streetwise” trend […]
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Label: Beta-lactam Ring Records(US)/Beta-lactam Ring Records(UK) Format: CD If this recording of Edward Ka-Spel and Hero Wouters live in concert in Amsterdam’s noted/notorious Paradiso Club in May 1985 still sounds weird sixteen years later, just imagine what it must have sounded like then. Under a throbbing, scuttling digital percussion send off in post-Kosmische rhythm loops, surrounded by a whirl of effected keyboards and analogue lo-fi electronics, the contrast […]
Label: Manifold Format: CD The tentative roughing of the recording – this time out, the sound source is stone. It’s packaged between two sheets of stone. Fucking-a right! Scraping repeats repeats and so forth as other pieces of stone make occasional and spectral appearances. The wow of the feedback moves alongside the scraping repetition spinning in slo-mo dervish joy. These tones fade out and other, subtler tones take their place. […]
Label: Ytterbium Format: CD “What’s that sound?”, from the other room. Brain-wave sounds. Electroencephalograms. “Okay, whatever turns you on…” And so on. I think what he meant to ask was, “What were they thinking when they recorded this?” Which is an incredibly salient point. The sounds come from those brain-waves but what thoughts engendered those waves? So often these recordings by Nakajima-san are tied thematically but what lies behind those themes? […]
Label: Mute Format: 2CD Neubauten. Yeah, you know, Neubauten. (Somehow, after all this time, it’s kind of easy to forget that there ever was an “Einstürzende” in there at all; we are, indeed, on second-name terms. Thorough familiarity.) Because everyone knows what Neubauten do. They hit stuff, make a racket, and be German. Yeah? Fuck off. Well, apart from the third one (although there is a great deal […]
Rectangle Bells come ringing and buzzing and oh, that French! It reminds of first listenings to Einstuerzende Neubauten – unsure of what was being said but perhaps something profound…one never knows, so, keep shrugging those shoulders. Irrevocably humourous liner note photographs – salvation in the hovering black angel, the war ends, the fighting ceases and all eyes turn toward Heaven and the ascension. Oh, that scratchin’ is makin’ […]
Label: Geffen Format: CD,LP This album marks yet another, slightly revised, slightly more reflective return in sound for Sonic Youth; all the way back to the rugged melodic scamblings of Daydream Nation. With their amazing capacity for distinction of sound, SY are immediately recognizable from the first stretched note, thoough they seem to have done some house cleaning and root searching for NYC Ghosts & Flowers. New York […]
Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 7th May 2000 It’s City Slang‘s birthday – ten years old and going stronger than ever at the interface of good old-fashioned Post-Indie Rock, Country dispatches from the edge and exuberent German Electronica. Tonights show is the first London event, featuring the latter stylings in the shape of Dirk Dresselhaus‘s bubbly bleep outfit SchneiderTM and the ever-evolving melodies of To Rococo […]
Sonic Boom Live Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 4th May 2000 Presented in conjunction with the excellent Sonic Boom exhibition of sound installations at the Hayward Gallery, the line up for this event features three groups and artists who have also been selected for inclusion in the gallery. Project Dark are the first onstage, lurking behind a bank of samplers and sundry equipment, with the audience […]
Label: Quarterstick (North America) City Slang (Europe) Format: CD,LP Calexico are not trying to be subtle in any way with Hot Rail. From the Mexican Mafia gang tatoo font to their immediate delve into Mariachi horns on track one, it is apparent that this is border town type music for lovers of the desert from a group named after one very such crossing point. Mercifully they shy pretty […]
April 2000 I arrived at this gig a little late and in much overdone panic. First of all we were in South London, and more importantly, I had forgotten to pick up a blank tape to record this interview on. As soon as I located Arrington de Dionyso, which took about twenty seconds in the dimly lit and tiny venue, he sweetly agreed to loan me a cassette […]
Label: Kitty-Yo (Europe)/Mute (USA) Format: CD,LP There’s something extraordinarily contradictory about Tarwater‘s music. At least, that’s what their promo material says. And who am I to argue? Animals, Suns & Atoms opens with a mish-mash of spacey electronics blending seamlessly into the surreal and sinister “All Of The Ants Left Paris” on which Ronald Lippok‘s sanguine vocals sound strangely like an absinthe-soaked Lou Reed left to mutter ominously […]
Brixton Academy, London 22nd April 2000 I had a T-shirt ready for Death In Vegas. It had the cross-sectioned brain from the cover of The Contino Sessions on the front, with a Levi’s logo stamped across it. Underneath was the quote from Bill Hicks about every word from the mouths of artists who advertise being like a turd falling into his drink. In the end, for better or […]
T & C, Leeds 17th April 2000 So this is what gigs look like these days. It’s been awhile. Last time I was here I got thrown out for pogoing atop the right-hand side speaker stacks on, if I remember rightly, a combination of mushrooms and speed. This time I sit quietly on the stairs overlooking the audience and crowdwatch. Well, I’ve not been well. Girls with those […]
Anal; Ash Ra Tempel; Brain Donor; Coil; Julian Cope; Groundhogs; Kid Strange; Queen Elizabeth The South Bank Centre, London 1st-2nd April 2000 Since this two-day festival in the South Bank Centre is essentially Julian Cope‘s entry in the venue’s largely excellent series of Mini-Meltdowns, it probably comes as no surprise that he is seemingly omnipresent, playing solo twice, and collaboratively in the guise of both Brain Donor and […]
Kosmische @ Upstairs at The Garage, London 25 March 2000 When consumer electronics expanded sufficiently to include musical instruments at relatively affordable prices for the average band to use in the Eighties, the result was synth pop, unfortunately with some quite dire results. Then came the Techno revolution, and sampler-based bedroom cookups, and eventually everyone who once would have formed a garage band was in on the electronica […]
Label: Eskaton Format: CDS Immediately the title conjours images of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance driving across the wetlands of Wessex in a peripatetic wagon filled with books and synthesizers. Perhaps this is how this CD was recorded after all – it sounds as if they were spiralling though an electromagnetic storm of drones, a whirlpool of oscillator eddies, and squall of electricity. As they pass over the marshes […]
Label: Caciocavallo Format: CD It is daunting to say the least to be assigned reviews of one of my most top favourite aritsts. I have spent the better part of a cold day indoors listening to these two albums on repeat and I don’t hesitate to tell you it has been a bit of a long winter’s brain-fuck. To me every little thing that Edward Ka-Spel works on […]