Sonic Boom Live Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 4th May 2000 Presented in conjunction with the excellent Sonic Boom exhibition of sound installations at the Hayward Gallery, the line up for this event features three groups and artists who have also been selected for inclusion in the gallery. Project Dark are the first onstage, lurking behind a bank of samplers and sundry equipment, with the audience […]
Label: Quarterstick (North America) City Slang (Europe) Format: CD,LP Calexico are not trying to be subtle in any way with Hot Rail. From the Mexican Mafia gang tatoo font to their immediate delve into Mariachi horns on track one, it is apparent that this is border town type music for lovers of the desert from a group named after one very such crossing point. Mercifully they shy pretty […]
April 2000 I arrived at this gig a little late and in much overdone panic. First of all we were in South London, and more importantly, I had forgotten to pick up a blank tape to record this interview on. As soon as I located Arrington de Dionyso, which took about twenty seconds in the dimly lit and tiny venue, he sweetly agreed to loan me a cassette […]
Label: Kitty-Yo (Europe)/Mute (USA) Format: CD,LP There’s something extraordinarily contradictory about Tarwater‘s music. At least, that’s what their promo material says. And who am I to argue? Animals, Suns & Atoms opens with a mish-mash of spacey electronics blending seamlessly into the surreal and sinister “All Of The Ants Left Paris” on which Ronald Lippok‘s sanguine vocals sound strangely like an absinthe-soaked Lou Reed left to mutter ominously […]
Brixton Academy, London 22nd April 2000 I had a T-shirt ready for Death In Vegas. It had the cross-sectioned brain from the cover of The Contino Sessions on the front, with a Levi’s logo stamped across it. Underneath was the quote from Bill Hicks about every word from the mouths of artists who advertise being like a turd falling into his drink. In the end, for better or […]
T & C, Leeds 17th April 2000 So this is what gigs look like these days. It’s been awhile. Last time I was here I got thrown out for pogoing atop the right-hand side speaker stacks on, if I remember rightly, a combination of mushrooms and speed. This time I sit quietly on the stairs overlooking the audience and crowdwatch. Well, I’ve not been well. Girls with those […]
Anal; Ash Ra Tempel; Brain Donor; Coil; Julian Cope; Groundhogs; Kid Strange; Queen Elizabeth The South Bank Centre, London 1st-2nd April 2000 Since this two-day festival in the South Bank Centre is essentially Julian Cope‘s entry in the venue’s largely excellent series of Mini-Meltdowns, it probably comes as no surprise that he is seemingly omnipresent, playing solo twice, and collaboratively in the guise of both Brain Donor and […]
Kosmische @ Upstairs at The Garage, London 25 March 2000 When consumer electronics expanded sufficiently to include musical instruments at relatively affordable prices for the average band to use in the Eighties, the result was synth pop, unfortunately with some quite dire results. Then came the Techno revolution, and sampler-based bedroom cookups, and eventually everyone who once would have formed a garage band was in on the electronica […]
Label: Eskaton Format: CDS Immediately the title conjours images of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance driving across the wetlands of Wessex in a peripatetic wagon filled with books and synthesizers. Perhaps this is how this CD was recorded after all – it sounds as if they were spiralling though an electromagnetic storm of drones, a whirlpool of oscillator eddies, and squall of electricity. As they pass over the marshes […]
Label: Caciocavallo Format: CD It is daunting to say the least to be assigned reviews of one of my most top favourite aritsts. I have spent the better part of a cold day indoors listening to these two albums on repeat and I don’t hesitate to tell you it has been a bit of a long winter’s brain-fuck. To me every little thing that Edward Ka-Spel works on […]
Label: Touch Format: CD Richard H. Kirk is one of those electronic music producers who seems content to have found his groove, and stuck with it to good result for years, refining, developing, tweaking his sound palette into variations on themes he long ago helped pioneer in the justifiably lauded Cabaret Voltaire. As the title indicates, LoopStatic cycles its way though as many permutations of ring modulation as […]
Label: Bubblecore (North America)/Payola (Europe/Afterhours (Japan) Format: CD A high-pitched crackle like the malfunction angel coming to take your stereo away. Dulcet bass repetition and skittering percussion make a strange and uneasy juxtapose of quite lovely and what’s-that-noise? A warbling, wobbling sense of trying to move around in the world. Now a homey sort of gentle creaking, a tentative whistling, and then the sax and drums – another […]
Stop The Panic The Spitz, London 28th February 2000 O! if all nights out could be so entertaining! A New Orleans style jam session set up between avuncular B.J. Cole (occasional collaborator with Spiritualized) and chin-pierced Electro Bohemian Luke Vibert (sometimes Wagon Christ and Plug) and a couple of friends to boot. And not New Orleans because of the Jazz like you might be thinking, but because of […]
Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD Built on a circling foundation of interlocking sampled sequences which shift the initial loop into self-generated patterns of intrinsically chaotic nature, Omphalos! (the navel) has much to recommend it for its hazy, slowly drifting ebb and flow of sound mixing itself into hypnotic strands. With the stated intention being to disengage from the centred focus of science and linear thought, Nigel Ayers is operating […]
Komedia, Brighton 22nd February 2000 First round on a rare night of electronic experimentalism in Brighton, held in the converted supermarket cabaret venue Komedia and hosted by Semiconductor was Lucky Kitchen, an electronic duo between Alejandra Salinas and Aaron Bergman (AKA Alejandra and Underwood as the handy little placards placed on top of the mixer for each act stated). Their music was accompanied by a little video projection […]
@ RoTa Notting Hill Arts Club, London 21st February 2000 There’s a great sense of expectancy generated by Chicks On Speed tonight; buzzing chatter from the West London cool squad building up a tension upon a foundation of eclectic Electro DJing. When the Chicks come on stage in decorated paper dresses (on sale at the merchandise nook too) there’s an urgent crush to the front which drags all […]
Label: Touch Format: CD More than just Pan(a)Sonic without the bass oscillations, Mika Vainio‘s second solo outing still bears obvious connections to his work with Ilpo Vaisanen on their last album release under that name as A , a recording which featured moments of unsettling stillness and texture among the distened beats and noise. Naturally, it’s also more about making a different kind of sound to Pan Sonic’s […]
The Garage, London 31st January 2000 It’s been seven years since Matt Johnson released Dusk, the last The The album; and barring the frankly bizarre collection of Hank Williams covers, plus a series of dubious rumours, nobody has heard from him since. Until now. Joining Trent Reznor‘s Nothing label (after Epic refused to release his experimental album, GunSluts) appears to have rejuvenated Johnson, and his triumphant return to […]