Label: Music Video Distributors Format: DVD (Region 0, NTSC), HD-DVD Unlike most of their contemporaries, who play up the “gang” aspect of “gangsta”, the Wu-Tang Clan, while still retaining that element, always seem to be structured more like a superhero team to me, like some crazy kung fu version of the X-Men. Even to the point of spinning off into their own solo titles, although these days Ghostface […]
Label: On The Fiddle/Proper Music Distribution Format: 2DVD (PAL) The Levellers are a bit like Marmite, really. You either love them or you can’t fucking stand them. I’m pretty much in the former camp, but, also like Marmite, I can go for ages without them. Then one day I’ll fancy some toast, and there’s nothing better. Sort of. One thing The Levellers have always been is generous- long […]
Label: NTT (available exclusively via Touch) Format: DVD (Region 0, NTSC) Sometimes, nothing satisfies quite like the immersive intensity of a minimalist audio-visual feast for eyes, ears and cerebellum, and Formula provides more than adequate satisfaction on all counts. Starting with the packaging, which is realised with superb attention to detail and layout, from the gallery-quality booklet on heavy white paper encased in a protective plastic slipcase to […]
Dingwall’s, London 7 August 2008 Chrome Hoof should be appreciated by the light of a billion braincells misfiring; by the sound of a world exploding, because that’s what they’re capable of resembling on a good night – and tonight is one such event. Though it takes while for Dingwall’s to gather the crowd they deserve, by the time the spangle-clad crew hit the stage, the place may not […]
Label: Wu Records/Sanctuary Format: DVD It’s Wu, motherfuckers! Wu-Tang, motherfuckers! And indeed it is. A 34-track live DVD featuring all nine of the buggers (well, ten, what with Cappadonna an’ all), all on stage at once!!! It’s an oft-stated truism that the Wu-Tang live experience can be patchy, at best- members not turning up being the usual criticism, as witness the occasion at Brixton Academy in London when […]
The Forum, London 26 July 2008 They’re certainly not 22 going on 23 any more, but the Butthole Surfers have taken measures to ensure their set goes down in properly deranged psychedelic hardcore style tonight. First, it’s the classic late Eighties lineup of Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary at the front and centre, with the rhythm section filled out by Theresa Nervosa and King Coffey, still managing to […]
A Music Club at The Others, London 25 July 2008 Glass used to have more members, but tonight they’re a duo who make their presence felt as is, shimmering and rattling their soft motorik way through a set which shows copius affinity for the soporific psychedelia of Spacemen 3 and Harmonia‘s elevated drum machine rattle and hum. Guitarist Ben keeps the mood vibrant on a cluster of simple […]
London Fields Lido, London 19 July 2008 Nurse With Wound at London Fields Lido. It just sounds so right. And it was, too: pleasingly strange, charmingly eccentric. It was the culmination of a series of underwater sound events, staged at various venues around the UK under the banner of Wet Sounds. Their website will tell you what you need to know there. Essentially, the set-up is this: music […]
The Underworld, London 15 July 2008 The first time I came across Part Chimp, a few years back, they were tipped as The Loudest Band in London, but now that the reanimated corpse of My Bloody Valentine has reclaimed that title with its rotting, maggoty fingers, Part Chimp have mellowed a little. They’ve also shed a bass player recently, and no doubt that has something to do with […]
Label: ATP Recordings Format: CD Fuck Buttons are fucking great. They are Bristol-based Andrew Hung and Ben Power. Their début album is superb – a huge wall of big buzzing electronic drones with more distortion and screaming vocals that your average stoner/doom metal band. Unlike some (most?) noise electronica though, there is much more to Fuck Buttons than a wall of noise for noise’s sake. Using an eclectic collection […]
Label: Beta-lactam ring Records Format: CD I dunno quite what you call the sub-genre of music which seemed to spring fully-formed from the head of Lee Hazlewood a long time ago before being kicked into touch by the punks and goths, but you know the one I mean. It’s got the Bad Seeds, Gallon Drunk, Tindersticks, Crime And The City Solution and other such magnificent acts in it, and […]
Sounds Familyre With a name like Wovenhand, one could be forgiven for expecting some sort of pagan/folk metal malarkey – you know, that whole portmanteau word thing, like Skyclad or Dragonsbum or something. When you learn that the reference is to hands woven in prayer, however, the picture changes somewhat. Perhaps something a little more fragile, more intimate… Then you put the thing on, and all these preconceptions […]
Label: TeePee Format: CD,2LP Earthless rock. Earthless know that rock isn’t found in the middle of the verse or tucked away politely in the corner of a chorus. Earthless know that rock is huge tube driven distorted excess. And that’s exactly what they did at Roadburn. One and a half hours of primal solo and riff on the main stage of the Roadburn festival. It wasn’t a gig they […]
ULU, London 23 April 2008 Ah, what better way is there to celebrate St George’s Day than to avoid all the jingoistic flag-waving nonsense and go and see a band who come from the other side of the world? Probably none. None whatsofuckingever. First up we get Growing, who I heard described by someone in the queue as “a friendlier Black Dice”. That’s not far off the mark, […]
ULU, London 19 April 2008 Merzbow was brutal. That could be the whole review. We went in knowing he would be brutal and he delivered. We came back out deaf, balance impaired, and probably several shades paler. Merzbow, aka Akita Masami, is one of the pre-eminent industrial noise artists and has had a prolific career since the late seventies. As with some of his other recent releases, the concert […]
Frenzy of the Absolute, by Belgian drone master Fear Falls Burning, is one of the sparsest and most haunting collection of drones it has been my pleasure to hear. It’s big, and sinister, and oppressive, and intensely doom laden. This is the first I’ve heard of his work, and I can see that I’ve been missing something rather special. On Frenzy of the Absolute he works in collaboration […]
The End Skin Turns to Glass is epic stuff, I love it. Huge shoegazer doom from Toronto-based duo Nadja, who began as a solo project of Aidan Baker. In 2005 Leah Buckareff joined him allowing them to leave the studio and go live, though this album was originally released in 2003 in a slightly different version with Buckareff on bass and vocals. Between them they make a sound […]
Label: Southern Lord Format: CD,2LP Boris love to surprise, and the opener “Flower Sun Rain” does just that. They go straight for Jpop in the form of a cover of a PYG song. My surprise came at All Tomorrow’s Parties seeing Earth, Boris, then SunnO))) and, reasonably enough, expecting a good wall to wall evening of drone and just not getting it: country doom, ballads, and on stage […]