Label: Beta-Lactam Ring Records Format: 2LP,CD As is only to be expected from someone who contributed so much to the classic Nineties Legendary Pink Dots guitar sound, Martijn de Kleer‘s So Close Yet So Far Out spreads out into psychedelic space as deep as the images from Hubble used on the cover art. Trippy is the word, and then some, though for the most part de Kleer shows […]
The Mean Fiddler, London 27 April 2003 I’ll be honest: I went for Peaches. Her 93ft East show last year was one of the most bacchanalian gig experiences I’ve had in recent years, a benevolent riot of loud, fired sexuality and abandon. But, truth be told, I’d really enjoyed the lyrical audacity / buffoonery of the few Gonzales tracks I’d heard. Someone summing themselves up as “a combination […]
Label: XIII Bis Format: CD Announcing their return after a decade’s absence on a wave of gritty noise which soon gives birth to a storm of digital rhythmania, Front 242 have chosen an obvious yet fitting title for their new album. The opener “SEQ666” shifts and gurgles from deep, ever growing, rumbling techno-industrial beats through shivers and ripples of analogue synth swoops and elevated keyboard chords, crashing tempos […]
Label: Nonplace Format: CD,LP Burnt Friedman‘s latest gathering of musicians from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres brings together the usual Dub influences with a healthy dose of fractured Funk and Souldful vocal stylings and brass arrangements. As such, it’s a heady slice of Post-modern collage and remodelling, from the strangely-parcelled version of the “Fuck Back” 12″ with its laid back, slightly sinister vocal from Theo Altenberg onwards. Proceeding […]
The Klinker, The Sussex, London 17 April 2003 The Klinker! A club to conjour with, and a place to witness the indigestibly strange among the ineffably great. Take The Unseemly Trio for starters, three genially odd chaps who pluck the exposed piano strings of one of two which adorn the back room of the Sussex pub while rattling a variety of objects, musical or otherwise. Where else can […]
Label: 130701(Europe)/Alien8(North America) Format: 2CD Some bands and their sound are inextricably linked to their chosen recording environments. Can and Faust immediately come to mind with place and process being inextricably linked. So it is with this thirteen-piece Canadian collective. Their last CD Sings Reign Rebuilder derived much of its atmosphere from the location in Montreal where they recorded it . They called the place “an old falling […]
The Buffalo Bar, London 16 March 2003 The Guinea Pig club’s second outing finds the experiment being performed through the strange filter of Hyper Kinako, an Anglo-Japanese power Punk Pop band. As they’ve apparently got classical training to back up their skittish riffs and obscure lyrics, it’s no surprise that the delivery is precise in it’s chaos, a well-drilled cacophony of rattly percussion and reedy keyboards which includes […]
Label: Constellation Format: 2LP,CD Yanqui U.X.O. is a record that demands time and attention to it’s myriad details as they shimmer past in a gathering whirl of music that sounds absolutely and profoundly played, rather than constructed, by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Recorded by Steve Albini with all his usual craftsmanship, this slow-building album coruscates with a stately emotional fire which reflects the band’s personal-political agenda of righteous […]
Label: Young God Format: CD This has got to be one of the oddest musical surprises in a long time, and an intriguing one too. Devendra Banhart recorded the twenty-one tracks on dodgy 4-track tape recorders, and the hiss is evident throughout — but just adds to the close-up intensity of his songs, played on acoustic guitar and only occasionally supplemented by handclaps, thighslapping and some off-key whistling. […]
Label: Wonder Format: CD Black Gothic letters and skull graphics in gloss black print on a matte black Digipak (although it’s a shame about the barcode’s intrusion on a white rectangle breaking up the black theme). An opening choral Mellotron drone worthy of Popul Vuh‘s soundtrack to Nosferatu The Vampyr. Will it be the heaviest of doom metal or the most brainpan-shuddering of nasty gothic industrial anguish? Not […]
The Royal Festival Hall, London 1 October 2002 Following an introduction which emphasizes the psychedelic nature of the selection of musicians and bands from Glenn Maxx, the South Bank Centre’s mastermind for the Mind Your Head season, Coil emerge on stage bathed in UV light, their white costumes stark as the sine waves of their opening number, traces of the music projected visually on the giant screen behind […]
Mind Your Head Royal Festival Hall, London 1 October 2002 After a blazing performance by Coil, (which was, incidentally, their best yet which I’ve seen: completely charged with the energy one craves from Coil) I was not optimistic about seeing Sigur Ros, despite being a devoted lover of Agaetis Byrjun. Another example of a headliner being shown up by their “special guests”? Just goes to show how wonderful […]
Label: 4AD Format: CD I‘d heard of, but not heard, HNIA and that’s my loss. Still, you can’t be expected to hear everything, can you ? So this turned out to be one of those almost magical and rare recordings that upsets your expectations and surprises you in the best possible ways. It isn’t ground-breaking but it does combine certain musical elements in a refreshing way. I’m a fan. Between them, singer Lovetta […]
Label: 4AD Format: CDS, 7″ “Son Of Three” finds The Breeders in ginding guitar-pop mode – but when have they ever been anything else? – chugging along their melodic road with carefree automobile enthusiasm. The soundtrack to a cheery buzzing taxi road movie where the lyrical concerns are as obscure as they are self-assured and disposably neat. Since the theme to Buffyalways sounded lie one of The Pixies‘ […]
Label: Kitty-Yo (Europe) Mute (North America) Format: CD/LP Tarwater return, enigmatic and phlegmatic as ever with Dwellers On The Threshold, charting journeys across an imaginary landscape of shifting borderlands and elusive edges. Opening with the hypnotic and immediately engaging “70 Rupies To Paradise Road”, with words spoken on this occasion by Tone Avenstroup, it is apparent that there is something special about this record. Partly thanks to a […]
Label: Ipecac Format: CD,LP Brimming with fractured beats and an omnivorous musical approach which draws in experimental influences from Industrial, Post-Rock and Jazz as much as from the conscious side of HipHop, Dälek‘s From Filthy Tongue Of Gods And Griots burns with a bright spark of questioning anger, musically as well as lyrically. Having collaborated with Techno Animal, 2nd Gen and Faust on occasion, coming at this outfit […]
Label: Beta-Lactam Ring Records Format: CD, Limited LP Argentinian three piece Reynols have been walking their own particularly strange path for nearly a decade, droning and chugging on a collection of home-made and improvised instruments and guitars, with everything underpinned by the percussive and vocal drive of Miguel Tomasín. Their sound is at first chaotic and then enveloping, with walls of distortion and other effects piled on the […]
Label: Tone Casualties Format: CD Can You Smell The Rain Between? was accompanied by “Enjoy ?” written on the press leaflet. Was I not meant to enjoy it ? Should I have endured an unpleasant hour or so ? The press release sets out to create an impression of something baleful and malign, which somehow made me think of the first Black Sabbath album. Anyway. The Controlled Bleeding certainly […]