Jackie O Motherfucker – Change Label: Textile Format: CD,LP The first time I heard the CD I fell asleep around the end of “Bus Stop”, the fifth track, and that’s not a meant to be a negative response to the music. It just has a strangely lulling quality about it. There is a lo-fi feel to this track which combines a range of instruments in a rising/falling, open-ended […]
Icarus – Misfits Label: Output Format: CD Icarus, AKA Ollie Bown and Sam Britton, are back with the successor to last years Squid Ink album. Misfits is ultra-chilled ambience with heavy glitch content. I didn’t see any trace of a track listing for the six tracks on the CD, so any references I make will be rather vague. That’s not totally inappropriate, though. Part of Misfit‘s charm is […]
Brandon LaBelle & Steve Roden – The Opening Of The Field Label: Digital Narcis Format: CD One theory holds that picking at scabs or otherwise excoriating the body = self-loathing. What about the pinching and pulling at strands of nature? A dwarfing talcum hum of lighthouse proportions whiles away the background. A gentle tapping at the glass – competition with the laser-bounced CD itself? Oh, that rubberband […]
Angus Maclaurin – Glass Music Label: Bubble Core Format: CD Remember the mysterious sounds of finger-rimming wine glasses as a kid, how it hummed, and how it was so difficult to get that sound to be consistant and constant? Remember sitting at a dinner table, bored, beating on the water glasses with forks and knives until someone, probably your mum, had enough and insisted you stop. Remember stories […]
Neck Doppler – Future Hits Vol. 1 Label: Consume Format: CD Another very well-produced CDR – this one has the Consume label’s name printed out on that sticky tape with the raised letters, as used on many office products. It’s very clean, which counts these days, believe it or don’t. Echoey drums and vocals urgently exhort on to listen . The vocals are rudimentary, brutal; cut off suddenly […]
Vidna Obmana & Serge Devadder – The Shape Of Solitude – Suite For Electric Guitar, Atmospheres And Recycling Label: Multimood Format: CD Ah, how Swede…erm…suite it is… (Ouch – Ed.) Sound that often appears on the Hearts of Spa/gelbce broadcast (recently sacked from Los Angeles airwaves in favour of something called “Classical music”) manifests itself now. But what atmospheres do they mean? The sweatsoaked haze deceding carnal explosives? […]
Pacou – Symbolic Language Remixes Label: Tresor Format: 12″ Once again, we can rely on Tresor to der the goods. Think Jeff Mills, think Adam Beyer. Pacou is in that vein, with a slab of tough minimal techno. Symbolic Language Remixes is a belting EP, nasty hard and fucking groovesome. It sweats rhythm like a heavy weight boxer. “Texture # 1” wins it for me. It’s as dark […]
Radio Savage Houndy Beasty – Millennium Buggery Label: RSHB Format: CD Superb. Millennium Buggery has moments of inspired genius. Radio Savage Houndy Beasty broadcasts a mixture of deranged DJing and audio absurdity once a week on Leeds Student Radio. Think of Monty Python on the Radio, or think of The Day Today or Brass Eye. Then add numerous songs done in the style of various personalities. “Singing in […]
QT?/Alejandra & Aeron – Split Label: Fat Cat Format: 12″ Thirteenth virus, this Split Series release is also called – quite appropriately for QT?‘s tracks, which mix down bleeps and glitches into something which sounds like the record player’s got a worm infection. With titles which progress mathematically from “qqq” via “?q?” to “???”, the nine pieces drive abstractly from snicker and blasted track-reformatting noise to whittled electronics […]
Rachael Sage – Painting Of A Painting Label: Mpress Format: CD I think Rachael Sage is on the verge of becoming something great. I don’t think that she’s necessarily reached that “great” point with this album, but you can already tell that she’s growing into something here. There’s just not enough confidence or strength in her voice at this point, though, and for the subject matter and the […]
Tarentel – Mort Aux Vaches Label: Staalplaat Format: CD This is a ‘live’ recording of a U.S. guitar based outfit and consists of four fairly long workouts. “Adonai” covers some of the territory of Fripp and Eno and is a somewhat somnolent affair with rippling guitars creating a lazy ambience. “Steede Bonnet” has the kick of drums mingling with the still quite restrained guitar which, at times, sounds […]
Ui – The Iron Apple Label: Southern Format: 12″,CDS Named in respect of the vitality of the 103-year old owner of the cider house in Pennsylvania where Ui rehearsed for many years, The Iron Apple shows the band in further abstracted territory from their “post-Rock” roots. As ever, the combination of tightly-controlled energy in Clem Waldmann‘s drums, Sasha Frere-Jones‘s guitar and keyboards, and the beautifully-restriced bass rhythms (synthetic […]
Van Delta – EP No. 1 Label: Groove Attack Format: 12″ Sometimes better known as Drum & Bass duo Monophace, Hannes Wenner and Christopher Klos have taken on the Van Delta monniker to experiement beyond the genre. Their first simply-titled EP takes an excursion into diverse territory, making the HipHop break of “Enlargen” move through some distinctly Ambient areas before settling into a mellow groove for the duration, […]
Ka – Terrarium Label: Jazzassin Format: 2×7″ The exquisite paper, smelling of the tire it represents on the cover – “Superior 2000”. Confidence. The vinyl is clear – the speed at which it is to be played is not. So, this re view comes at you from 33 rpm. It is as if one is standing at the roadside – the drone and grinding Dopplers past. And now […]
Miriam de Waard – Voor Elise (an electronic welcome) Label: Staalplaat Format: 3″ CD Rhythmic ratcheting enters from the fog and brings it along besides. Fuer Elise – but only the most familiar of the notes. Plinky bells tinker along, as if trying to catch up with its larger, more melodious brother. More of those notes, only with more air in them. A kitty! – and a music […]
Xinli Supreme – All You Need Is Love Was Not True Label: Fat-Cat Format: 7″ Short description: Xinli Supreme sound something like the Japanese Flying Saucer Attack. Longer review: Xinli Supreme sound from time to time like Flying Saucer Attack when they were so much more lo-fi than recently. Monospaced drum machine beats borrowed from the Jesus And Mary Chain or just set to full speed ahead and […]
Akira Yamamichi – Sémiologie Label: Fire Inc. Format: CD The word to sum up Sémiologie is pure. Akira Yamamichi has produced on of the purest expressions of sub bass. This is the kind of album you can really share with your neighbours. He does this by working with pulse beats, constructing his music from very basic and pure sounds. The comparison with Pan Sonic is obvious, but this […]
Zorn – Bits For Breakfast/Gloomy Sunday Label: Expanding Format: 7″ Pressed up on translucent tangerine vinyl, Zorn‘s contribution to Expanding Records‘ EVS series opens with a rather pleasant synth line rising over a mechanistic yet melodic rhythm. Sparks of staticky percussion sound cleave themselves to the slowly chiming beat; the bass is warm and unobtrusive. Warbles of genial synthery make their presence felt without saying much other than […]