Label: Synaesthesia Format: 3″ CD A rolling quilt of crackles and scour tumbles over the sadness of things – that low series of tones which augur an undesired reflection. How many tones and clicks does it take to raise a feeling, a memory, a thing of resonance? The cover: cross on headstone with eyes, eclipsing the sun. The sounds stretch from within, like rambling daylight… Backwards tones shoot […]
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Label: Nonplace Format: CD There’s got to be something in the water in Köln – so many weirdly talented musicians who mangle Electronica, Dub and World musics into a bizarre hybrid music of sensational grooviness and quirky humour… or maybe they all just took notes at the sleeve of noted resident Holger Czukay after all. For this release, Burnt Friedman (what an apposite name he has…) is in […]
Label: CEE Format: CD Caste collects together five years’ worth of guitar-based noise sculpture from Colin Bradley and Julian Coope, both once involved with the intriguingly angular Spleen. Their work as Dual is densely textured, layering spluttering gushes of string-wrenched gasps into feedback drones the like of which haven’t been properly explored in this guise since Main went further into the digital relams of CD-R mixing and live laptop processing. That Isolationist sense of marking the outer reaches of possibility […]
The Spitz, London 24th July 2000 First off, any further mention of the fact that Dry & Heavy are a Japanese Reggae band can largely be dispensed with; so they are Japanese, not Jamaican. Well, there are Reggae and Dub groups from all over now – the Czech Republic, the Basque Country, Texas even. Other than to say of course that this particular set have got the format […]
Label: Sonig Format: LP Recorded live by Markus Popp and Jan Werner, Improvisors takes their studio-bound sampoling, glitching, cutting and skipping CDs into an edgier space. As ever, the estranged whirr of motor-driven sound put in its place and then removed again makes for distracted listening. Sometimes it even becomes uncomfortably ripped from the context of linear sound. They push it into one shape, and it comes out another. The stutter of effects and source […]
Label: Universal Egg Format: CD Zion Train affiliates The Tassilli Players have always offered up intriguing themed Dub CDs, from their debut Great Sporting Moments in Dub via their guide to Outer Space to the interactively-designed Wonderful World Of Weed In Dub (this latter wasn’t a CD-ROM in that interactive sense – each track was designed with different varieties of weed in mind for the listener to consume […]
Label: Wavetrap Format: CD From the opening storm-warning of drones ahead, Iron fulfils all the promises its churning digital riffology and humorous dedication to “Heavy Metal fans all over the world” could possibly fulfil. Staccato loops click and swarm from one ear to the next, and possibly invite the application of a third. Deliciously dirty splutters and organic wafts of processed feedback or sample residue distract from the […]
Label: Virgin Format: CD,2LP Sad to say, this self-titled return after all those years in over one and a half decades really isn’t all that interesting; at leats, not as much as it should be, especially considering that the Industrial Funk pioneers have got a legend in the shape of Pharoah Saunders for a couple of tracks. It’s all so easy listening now, by comparison to what the […]
June 2000 People Like Us is Vicki Bennett, a resident of Brighton on the South coast of England and creator of extraordinarily witty cut-up film and music projects which take the cultural critique of Plunderphonics into new dimensions of layered reference and dissociated signifiers. As with like minded spirits such as Manchester’s Stock, Hausen & Walkman, Californian pioneers Negativland and cod-orchestral Sythetizers The Tape-Beatles, People Like Us recordings […]
Label: Enraptured Format: 10″ The title track of Radio 9‘s debut EP does exactly what it says; it’s Motorik as you could want, with the signature metronomic autobahn-riding groove copped from the big NEU! book of Dinger-drumming topped off by a throbbing bassline courtesy of Leon Muraglia and the beguiling synthesizer sweeps and swatches courtesy of Zoe Kemp. Since the former is the head honcho at London’s very […]
Label: Sub Up Format: CD Well I am supposed to listen to this CD and be amazed at what technology can bring to life in the antiquated traditional sounds of Cuban music today. While the production techniques of Holger Hiller are undoubtedly very masterful, what impresses me most is that they do nothing to water down the sumptuous vocals that obviously take their strengths from a long-earned heridity […]
David Pajo; Robin Guthrie; Pole; Labradford Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 24th June 2000 This year’s Festival of Drifting sees each participant playing all in one night as a national tour, as opposed to the previous two years when performances were spread out over the course of 4-6 days at various venues. Labradford‘s idea is to bring together an artist-led festival featuring performers from the softer […]
Label: Leaf Format: 12″ Soundclash time, as Kieran Hebden and Stefan Betke go tape-head to tape-head in their Four Tet and Pole aspects, each recording a track and letting the other plug away until some kind of remix level is reached. The original tracks are put onto the EP as well, so it’s all making for the split single for the Nineties – scratch that, Twentifirst Century… Pole’s […]
Label: Durtro Format: CD So the story goes that David Tibet of Current 93 found this act in some seedy New York drag cabaret and was so knocked out that he brought them to his Durtro label and released this CD as soon as possible. Well, it is little wonder that Antony & The Johnsons would cause such a stir. Thematically the most “Goth” music I have come […]
Label: DiN Format: CD A buried thud and muffled melody curve out from this unexpected source of sounds. Collaborations are infinitely fascinating – well, they can be – and yet relatively few happen. Are we really so victim to the village mentality as all that? The headlights of the automobiles along the highways are conjured – passing sounds garbled and warbled as they drive, drive, drive…and how difficult is it […]
Label: Ash International [R.I.P.] Format: CD This is the third in Andrew Lagowski‘s excursions into the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, and perhaps the most disengaged from the planet of sound. The theme is escape from Earth and oneself – hence the title. Much more Solaris than Apollo 13 in other words, and with nods to both the end sequence of 2001 and thirty years of NASA research and/or […]
Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 13th June 2000 The South Bank Centre seemed to be all on with their rules of protocol as I watched David Thomas from a tiny vertical glass in the big imposing closed door or the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I was a little late and the steward decided not to send me and the long line of other late-comers in to take […]
Label: Tone Casualties Format: CD As they say on “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, the Can man can! The Can man can! Uh… hold on a second, that”s candy man, isn`t it. Not Can man. Oh bugger. So what can the Can man do? Fucking tons, as it happens. But this is something of a surprise. As is the fact that, as we reach midsummer, every fucker […]