Crucial Blast (CD)/Consouling (vinyl) In a media landscape where seemingly every mainstream early-evening crime drama routinely features grisly post-mortem footage of dissected cadavers and high-definition CGI renderings of the paths of wounds and injuries being inflicted as seen from inside the body, is it any wonder that artists such as Gnaw Their Tongues want to push the sonic envelope of morbidity? Just as slickly-sick splatterfests like the Saw […]
3by3 Back in the days when an internet café was a big deal, and a cool, hip, happening place where awesome kids did 72-hour Starcraft sessions and didn’t die (note- these days are actually largely fictional, much like the days immortalised in the movie Tron, when running an amusement arcade was essentially EXACTLY THE SAME AS BEING A ROCK STAR, but I still remember them with fondness), rather […]
Invada There is just something that doesn’t quite make it when it comes to the band Beak>; whether it’s because they seem to be trying too hard to emulate the motorik rock that came from Germany in the ’70s, or because they attempt to go for a ritualistic sound that falls short of ritual, there’s just something that they can’t manage to pull off. The band comprise of […]
Grautag I’m playing this on the road from Marrakesh to the coastal town of Essaouria, the sprawl of habitation reclaimed by stony desert, a spluttering of abandoned ruins, the odd pylon lines groping the desolation. The road ahead, a grey tarmac smear in all this scorched dust, as a ney wrapped call to prayer fills my ears, a lushness that gets the mind wandering. Out the 4by4’s window, […]
Ideologic Organ Originally self-released as a CDr by Sir Richard Bishop in 2011, Intermezzo now gets a vinyl outing courtesy of Stephen O’Malley‘s estimably eclectic Ideologic Organ imprint. Maybe surprisingly for a record with such a limited first release, this is one of those œuvre-spanning albums which provides a snapshot of Bishop’s range and versatility, as each instrumental piece on here pretty much fits into a different genre […]
Turquoise Coal The début release from the Turquoise Coal label is also Irma Vep‘s first time on vinyl, though it’s also the tenth solo album from Klaus Kinski drummer Edwin Stevens. However, anyone familiar with Klaus Kinski and therefore expecting a full-frontal assault of blistering noise from Stevens will be bound for some disappointment – in fact, a metric shedload thereof.
Woebot I’ve been way behind with my listening recently; still got a bucket of stuff (actually, some of it is in the old washing basket) I’m supposed to review, still got piles of albums and MP3s idly ticking over, mangling the datashields of my iPod… When DSM V finally comes out there’s bound to be some new disorder based around the triple anxiety felt 1) by having too […]
Thrill Jockey If there’s any kind of party going on, when the sun’s shining or no, if there’s barbecue coals warming up and a good-sized tent set up for entertainment, cornbread and sweet tea to start, grilled foodstuffs and harder liquor to follow, there should also be The Black Twig Pickers, a turkey in the straw and the ladies hopping high on a “Merry Mountain Hoedown” all the […]
Conveyor (N America)/Salvo (Europe) In 1987 I was trying my damnedest to reject the hateful and morally-bankrupt Thatcherite dream which seemed to be crushing everything in its path like some ghastly metal steamroller with Keith Joseph laughing behind the wheel, and instead recreate the psychedelic summer of twenty years before in Buckinghamshire’s green and pleasant pastures. And, with plenty of sunshine that year, the release schedules of Bam […]
Disinformation/Strange Attractor Press “I love the dead before they rise, no farewells, no goodbyes.” Alice Cooper’s “I Love The Dead” is surely the definitive romantic ode to the dearly departed, but he was by no means the first to spend his time romanticising those now six feet under. Nikolai Federov was one of the most radical thinkers in Russia during the Nineteenth Century. For a man who lived […]
Latitudes In the pagan world there are important times of year called the solstices and also various moon and planetary cycles that affect mankind on his journey around the shining orb of the sun. Sometimes musicians from ancient tribes would tap into these energy patterns and create music to conjure up atmospheres, forms and shapes of the elder gods who once resided here. Sylvester Anfang II’s music over […]
Autostatic “It sounds like someone flushing a magical toilet over and over” – this courtesy of my dear partner. She then mimed flushing a toilet for a bit, did a puzzled face, then decided it was the Victorian style of toilet with the flush you have to stand up for, rather than lean towards the cistern. Which piques any of the adjectives I could throw at it. I […]
Mute Problem the first: a month or so really isn’t enough time to deal with this. What I really wanted was a properly stodgy, fagend cash-cow studio slurry. Selfish, but it’s much easier to go ‘while there’s highlights on discs 2 and 3, ultimately it’s for the Can fanatic’. The review writes itself. Of course, that’s not the case, and I’m left with an album that’s better than […]
Mute The turn of the century saw an explosion of underground musical activity over in the states( especially in New York, and Brooklyn in particular) The bands that were part of this supernova also seemed to defy expectations by shape shifting at a rapid rate (think Black Dice, Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance), and it was almost impossible to predict what an outfit’s next album or EP would […]
Desire Path Totally loving the artwork for this one, starring into the complexity, that smokey hair appearing to be shifting with the drone, a mild perfumed aroma slipping your nostrils as the sound cascades like some oriental music box fringed by minimalist chimed sentinels. The sombre pace is totally captivating, lingering on the sustain, that Shruti box’s constant reverberation digging deep in your consciousness lit by pin-pricks of […]
Koko, London 12 June 2012 Been wrapped up in the awesomeness of NWW/SunnO)))‘s collaboration [post=sunnnww text=”The Iron Soul of Nothing”] since New Year, so naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to see both groups together. I was secretly wishing for a stage collaboration of sorts, but it was pretty clear, as Colin Potter, Steve Stapleton, Andrew Liles and somebody else I didn’t recognise on bass (was that Mr […]
Monotype The pairing of Eugene S Robinson‘s voice and Phillipe Petit‘s sound manipulations draws on the film noir rule of human nature red in tooth in claw as much as on Thomas Pynchon for this six-part tale of inhumanity and death (of which this is the first of a planned three instalments). Atmospheric and brooding, the conversational delivery of Robinson is laconic, with an underlying menace present throughout, […]
The Garage, London 3 June 2012 “I refuse to believe that Hendrix had the last possessed hand, that Joplin had the last drunken throat, that Morrison had the last enlightened mind.” – Patti Smith As Patti said “Everybody says it’s finished … art’s finished, rock and roll is dead, God is dead. Fuck that!” As Neil Young said, “rock’n’roll will never die”. And But I’m getting ahead of […]