The Bloomsbury Theatre, London 6-7th April 2001 Perhaps if Billie Holiday had received nuptial visits from the spirit of La Cage Aux Folles and produced an offspring, that might explain how the universe has been blessed with Antony Hegarty. Perfoming live for two nights in London in support of Current 93 and the David Tibet Show, Antony And The Johnsons provided us with a glimpse into the nature […]
Label: Mute Format: CD, limited 2CD It occurs to me as I listen to this new effort by Nick Cave that I might like to have never heard of him. In fact I add up the years and it has been at least nineteen since I first did so. I think I have loved him ever since. No one is able to express such ugliness and cynicism in […]
Label: Domino (Europe)/Thrill Jockey (North America) Format: 12″,CDS Some high-energy silliness from the Mouse On Mars folk, running straight at Garage with a wild yelp and a cheesy grin before folding it up into bouncy breaks and a full-mouthed wade through distorted vocals, better tasted on the full-length mix. Smartly insane, as is the electronic detritus swept up by the trio and Herbert, AKA Dr Rockit into “DJ […]
The Smell, Los Angeles, California 29 March 2001 The stages faces a room which cages a particular piece of modern art and the reflection is this: levelor blinds painted with barcode marks bracketed by (0) and (1) and a neon word consci divides ousness. White of the eye stares back towards the white of another eye. Yet, is consciousness the answer? Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question. Still […]
Queen Elizabeth Hall, South Bank Centre, London 28 March 2001 Tonight’s Wire Session Live promises to present a few intriguing collaborations, and first up on the scene are Jaki Liebezeit and Burnt Friedman. The latter’s usual live minidisc setup is enhanced with a Korg analogue synth and another keyboard, from which he produces a series of smooth, almost liquidly funky electronic rhythms and grooves. With the added input […]
Label: 8-Leggy Delongy Format: CD Basically, The Benelux Circus is a transformed constellation of The Entropy Circus. As always the Circus is centered around Zali Krishna. To get a clearer picture of what is going on do read my other reviews. When we look upon the development from Entropy into Benelux Circus, we don’t see any radical makeovers. The spirit of Paddington Hard Stare is still not compromised. […]
The Barbican Centre, London 22 March 2001 “This guy played at The Barbican. About 200 people watched the show. The jam session was awesome. It rocked a snow leopard’s ass. The crowd roared like a lion. WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS, WES-LEY WILLIS. Rock over London, rock over” – sorry, is that not enough? Bollocks. But, fucking hell, man, Wesley Willis. Live and direct, in the flesh, huge behind a synth […]
London 21 March 2001 In tow with the usual Krautrock London posse I arrived at The Scala just in time to hear lots of talk about how a lot of people have not been here since it was a infamous cinema. Though I never saw it in its glory, the building is still impressive with its loads of marble and Art Deco swirly tiles not quite lost in […]
Label: Staalplaat Format: CD 386DX is proclaimed as the world’s first cyberpunk rock band; what it really is is an ancient Wintel box playing MIDI files complete with song-synth software vocals. Programmed by Alexei Shulgin, the PC has stood alone as a busker, and played live across Europe and America, which seems like a fun conceptual idea, as most of these files (or similar enough MIDI versions) can […]
18 Kingsland Road, London 7 March 2001 18 Kingsland Road is not a squat, but looks a bit like one, or that it once might have been. It’s now an art gallery and occasional music venue, with steep leg-endangering staircases twisting into the depths of the improvised cellar bar among the salvaged chairs and exposed brickwork, and up to the tiniest of tiny toilets. It really is quite […]
Label: Planet µ Format: CD This album rocks like a solid gold bastard. This is how Hardcore should be. It’s dirty and brutal to the nth degree. Hellfish will have you bouncing off the walls with this corrosive sonic collage. Hardcore Techno has it’s origins in Hardcore Rave and Gabba – that wonderful amphetamines-only Dutch creation. The sound has much more of a Rap influence here though. So […]
Cargo, London 28 February 2001 It only seems like, ooh, five years since Rough Trade were celebrating their 20th year as the Indiest of Indie shops; tonight’s gig in the cavernous railway arches which are the hyper-trendy Cargo venue showcases some of recent years’ emergent electronic and guitar-droning artists. First up is the geekly-chic Duplo, who continues in jump-cut noise Electro style even through his towered-up PC crashes […]
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts 25 February 2001 The present-day composer refuses to die, according to Edgard Varese, a man with legendary eyebrows. He also influenced the guy whose music an eager bunch of resurrectionists revived in the Paul McCartney Auditorium. The Liverpool based-band The Muffin Men and the classical Ensemble 10:10 came together to re-create some of the compositions Zappa produced in his thirty-odd creative years of […]
Label: Nonplace Format: CD Ahh, Burnt, you have done it again, wooing the worlds of the cocktail-spping Lounge devil and Electronica studio boffin alike with your splendid charms, equally divided between raunch and drum roll science. How long before the Galactic Prize For Extreme Cleverness will have the name B Friedman inscribed upon its shining sides? This is not a piss-take – Plays Love Songs really is that […]
Label: Eskaton Format: 2CD,2LP Presentation is important. This is an element that Thighpaulsandra understands very well indeed. This double album is packaged in a lavish sleeve which folds out to reveal a epic photograph of the man himself standing by the seaside dressed in really groovy Druid gown, throwing a spell with his magic wand. On the inside sleeve there is a picture of Thighpaulsandra floating a few […]
Label: Caciocavallo Format: 2CD As might be expected, Robin Storey‘s take on drum & bass is somehwat denser than the usual clatter of hyperspeed breaks, rolllllls and rewinds. Instead, the two discs of Cold War Drum ‘n’ Bass are crammed with unfurling meditations in rhythm and texture, linked by the ideas of paranoia and mutually assured destruction of a childhood surrounded by the hardware and attitudes of unfought […]
The Union Chapel, London 21st January 2001 Back at the Union Chapel for another of its most appropriate events, A Silver Mt. Zion playing their coolly Classical and most definitely Goth set from the album “He Has Left Us Alone But Shafts of Light Sometimes Grace the Corner of Our Rooms”. Union Chapel being as it is the most gothic of venues sans the cobwebs and Halloween decoration […]
Label: Force-Inc. Format: CD,3LP Auch‘s Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye was by all accounts one of the albums which brought the glitch to the wider dancefloors filled with the minimal Techno put out by Force-Inc and similarly-inclined labels. Here it gets demixed further into the realms of attenuated, deracinated clickety-snips and thumping grooves alike by eleven co-creators (plus one crackling self-mix) of electronic bleeps, belches and occasional blasts. No-one gets a track title, just […]