25 August 2013 en-coun-ter (en-koun-ter): To come upon or meet with. (Origin: 1250–1300; Middle English encountren < Anglo-French enco ( u ) ntrer; Old French < Vulgar Latin *incontrāre, equivalent to in- in-1 + –contrāre, derivative of contrā against) Hynekian System of Classification: ‘Close encounter of the third kind’ – sighting of an animated being. ________________ On the August Bank Holiday 2013, the animated beings that comprise the […]
Exotic Pylon 8-bit razor blade. Bedsit basement dwellers. Darkness on the edge of town. Hoofus makes music from the Animal Collective unconscious, slimy grimy retroactive electronic improvisations from the wilds of rural Norfolk. Here’s a snappy soundbyte from the press release: Hoofus performs and records electronic improvisations from the undergrowth of rural Norfolk, using fuzzy analogue aesthetics and FM synthesized unease to create visceral ritual rhythms, smeared with […]
Raster-Noton The mechanics of funk On this newest offering from Raster-Noton head Frank Bretschneider, the man behind Komet, sets aside amorphous drones and textures to explore the basic principles of dance music: rhythm. Super.trigger is essentially a collection of studio improvisations made between 2012-2013, then edited and re-configured into nine tracks of taut, sparse machine rhythms. This is the sound of an artist at work, struggling to get […]
Recollection GRM De Natura Sonorum seems an impossibly private affair. It feels a little like spying on an old guy as his mind is going and he’s trying to make sense of his belongings, looking at them with old-new eyes, touching them and trying to match the creases, smiling faintly because maybe that person in that clipping might be someone he once new, had a muscle memory of, […]
18 May 2013 A rare London appearance from The Residents, stopping off at The Barbican on their Wonder of Weird 40th anniversary tour. The show is presented as a kind of unreliable ‘history of our band’, and begins with a short film, a collection of excerpts from old (and formidably strange) videos and live performances. This does a fine job of encapsulating their appeal and setting the scene, […]
Thrill Jockey Did you know, in this age of budget-slashing and diversion of science funds to the military, that America actually has a SECOND space programme? While Commander Hadfield‘s been channelling Bowie on the International Space Station, and that Japanese dude’s been trading witty bon mots with his robot (yeah, Google it, it’s true, and we DO live in the future), it’s been toiling away at its own […]
Sireena Sireena Records seem to be in the process of reissuing a lot of the old Sky Records release from their back catalogue. This is a lovely-looking edition with original artwork and a booklet with lots of pictures as well as the lyrics, plus a complete run down of all the beautiful old equipment used (which is great if you’re a bit of a synth nerd like myself), […]
Parallax Sounds I’ve seen Acid Mothers Temple numerous times and checked most of their incarnations: those skull-scribbled morays and splintered overlays leaving you blissfully skewed on their satisfaction guarantee; and I’m glad to say this latest offering continues the fun in a erotika of vintage sc-fi and vooming accents, twisting your melon in blurring hooks of vox.
Front & Follow You enter a dark theater. Yr not entirely sure where you are, or how you got there. You don’t know what’s going on. You walk into the flickering shadows, the interior of a theater swims into halflight, shadowy patrons whispering, pockets of activity in the corner. A young man beats a bone drum in a ceremonial dirge in the corner, a woman in blood is […]
Zoharum This is a classic slice of electro acoustika. A lovingly chaotic fusion of talents from Anthony Donovan, Matt Chilton, Will Connor – and joining forces for this release composer and audio hacker Schuyler Tsuda. The Latin title Sui Generis roughly translates to ‘of its own kind’ and the improvised clatterings and purrings here certainly don’t shy from the fact. The album’s , finger paint your head in […]
Trost Anyone who loves the sound of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, while understandably being put off by their repertoire should check out Steamboat Switzerland. I saw the group live a few years ago and was mightily impressed by the sheer power of their Hammond organ, bass and drums line-up. Possibly more like Egg than ELP to be fair, but also considerably more elemental than any of the UK […]
Sosumi The Ruts were sort of our local punk band, coming originally from Anglesey, but apart from the “In a Rut” single, my punk friends and I never really got them and considered them heavy metal… which as about the worst thing you could be back in 1979! Of course in retrospect they were not really much like heavy metal – it was probably just that they could […]
Overground Who would have guessed all those years ago that there’d still be a strong UK punk scene in 2013? John Robb has been in the midst of it since the very beginning and The Terror of Modern Life shows that he’s not lost an ounce of his energy since then. All the more impressive that he has also recently revived his former gnarly noise combo The Membranes […]
One Little Indian The press release (and CD booklet) draws our attention to Morrissey‘s endorsement of The Woodentops. What’s not mentioned is that although he raved about their debut single “Plenty,” he had already publicly withdrawn his endorsement by the second (or was it third?) single, dismissing the group as has-beens. This three CD set lets us decide for ourselves whether or not he was being a little […]
Frattonove Some apocalyptic but imaginative futurists have posited that mankind will morph into a species of boneless jellyfish, once we leave the protective epidermis of Earth’s gravity well. Artists, musicians and sound designers face a similar dilemma, with a nearly infinite amount of possibilities available to even the cheapest project studio. Therefore the challenge presented to the would-be sound sculptor is one of limitation and self-control. On Erm, […]
Zoharum It’s always good to come across a record which is packaged differently. In the case of Source of Vectors, Zoharum have made the effort to do something different, if not outrageously so – there’s a pleasingly hand-produced quality to the thick fold-out card sleeve, which also bears no particular relation to the size of the CD contained inside. Released as Chapter VIII of the Into Your Hands […]
Cave12 Recorded live in Switzerland in September 2011, Killer_kipper‘s wheezing blend of electronic loops and musique concrète reveals Norbert Möslang at his most single-minded and oppressive. Juddering bass offers little in the way of an ordinary rhythmic foothold, and the scraping, grinding sounds of whatever he’s making scribble like a particularly grating shard of broken glass on the face of what could be metal, might be circuits (bent […]
Bureau B Serious fun to be had here, sock puppets and all. Der Plan’s slick cabaret of strangeness is all over the place, eerie cinematics jutting up against cheesy trips to the German equivalent of Blackpool amusements. Take an eyeful of that gaudy cover for Die Letzte Rache and you instantly know boredom is gonna be in short supply – that plasticined comicbook aesthetic, the singing eels. Yep, […]