OhAh This man’s been with me for ages, through the ludicrously brief existence of Rema Rema, the equally short lived Mass (their “F.A.H.T.C.F.” is still my ultimate cup-half-empty song) and then the constant outpourings as the The Wolfgang Press. Five studio albums that poked around in some satisfyingly gloomy, dark melodics and veered towards the dance-friendly, Allen’s vocals always thistling intrigue, inquisitioning the human animal to steely basslines […]
Mute This is Aaron Hemphill‘s first solo release since his amicable departure from Liars a few years ago, and I can’t help thinking how fun it would have been if all ex-members were able to trade under the Liars name as if they were an updated version of Faust. This record, although solo, can’t help but be compared to his work with Liars and for me it holds […]
Bristol 17 June 2018 Former Throwing Muses and Belly bass guitarist Fred Abong was first up, and apparently the airport had lost his guitar so Kristin had kindly lent him hers for the night. Not heard any of his solo work, so I was at a disadvantage, but I liked that Pavement-like glimmer he was plying
All Good Clean 1099 are a five-piece instrumental rock band from Trondheim in Norway, all of whom take responsibility for song-writing duties, and according to their Discogs page the band is pretty much post-everything, including post-yacht. This little nugget goes some way to explaining why they stand out from the usual crowd of vocal-less guitar bashers that have proliferated over the years.
Thrill Jockey It has been five years since Wooden Shjips last dropped an album, and to my mind they were arriving at a point where they were taking the place of Spacemen 3 as the premium hypnotic, psychedelic riff machines, but with the frustration and ennui removed and good old West Coast chills thankfully taking their place. This album may be the one where they start to put […]
Sulatron Any album that has the words Space Soundtrax in the title is always going to catch my (mind’s) eye, but the fact that this is Sun Dial and released by the fabulous Sulatron Records; well, I knew I couldn’t go wrong. Multi-instrumentalist Gary Ramon always manages to put out some interesting music, so let the space portals open as I delve into a cornucopia of music for interplanetary travel.
Glacial Movements Paul Schutze is an Australian sound composer who has been producing music since the late 1980s. This album, his first in eight years, is released on the extremely apt Glacial Movements Records from Italy and is one long, gradually unfolding treasure that is almost like an attempt at prehistoric music; constructing sounds that pre-date what we understand and go back to the formation of the earth.
Nonplace After Nonplace‘s recent issue of two Drums Off Chaos EPs, they have chosen now to re-release Manos Tsangaris‘s 1989 12″ Elephant’s Easy Walk Through The Moonlight EP, but have replaced the original b-side “Drum 2” with a recent track, “Elephants Cry Salty Tears”, specifically recorded for the purpose of this edition.
Cherry Red Arcane shibboleths wasn’t necessarily the core of The Fall, but they were often the grist in the coal mill. I’ve bloody prevaricated on this review for yonks, which is ridiculous as it’s The Fall album I’ve probably listened to most since that fateful week in 1997 when I bought a record and was mildly outraged at what an incoherent mess it was.
Fysisk Format Spurv are an instrumental guitar band from Oslo who are a new name to me, but a fantastic discovery. By the looks of the cover, there must be six main chaps in the band, but the credits encompass quite a few more, including cellos, trumpets, synths and effects, as well as an array of guitarists, a bassist and drummer.
The Royal Albert Hall, London Saturday 26 May 2018 Hi. I’ll be conducting today’s gig review. Yeah. The Radiophonic Workshop were live at the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room last week, and because occasionally somebody buys me tickets to this sort of thing and drags me off with them, I was lucky enough to get to go and see the show. Little did I know that, this time, there […]
Jahtari For their self-titled EP, Shigeru Ishihara (AKA DJ Scotch Egg) and Kiki Hitomi have ramped up the musical mania found on their Shinsekai LP, delivering a five-track 12” which veritably throbs with dubbed-up electro, Afro-funk and 8-bit disco (e)motion. Cyberpunk to the max, the duo blitter and batter their infectious grooves
Rocket Girl Pieter Nooten seems to have spent most of his music career turning his back on the gothic luminescence that he helped conjure up on the first few Clan Of Xymox albums. His 1987 collaboration with Michael Brook saw him draw unexpected tranquillity and minimalist subtlety from his Xymox songs, paving the way for a lot of the gentle modern piano artists that followed in his footsteps.
Kscope / Eastgate At the time of his passing, Edgar Froese was working on several pieces of new music and also had decided to take Tangerine Dream back to its pure electronic past and, some would say, glory days. This release is made up of two separate releases, finally brought together
Prophecy Productions The melancholic charms of The Mystery Of The Bulgarian Voices‘ first 4AD LP, released as Le Mystère Des Voix Bulgares, still stick with me, as does that murky Cinderella moment of the cover, like some crime scene gone all arty. Thirty years old but essentially timeless, it was very much a solemn soul search of an album, just curvy overlaps of voice to the sparse flickers of instrumentation.
Essence Music Playful and swoonsome as ever, the umpteenth Acid Mothers Temple album in their Melting Paraiso UFO guise arrives with a characteristic fusion of wailing guitar histrionics, a fluidly rolling rhythm section and outer space synthesizer threnodies that never cease in their constantly exploring — and explosive — quest for the perfect psychedelic riff.
Bureau B Upending your preconceptions, Datashock delve into some mellow Jon Hassell-esque tribalisms after a percussively-tight opener. A vibe that piranhas a Sunburned Hand Of The Man glow in softly furrowed percussion, fluting flux and squawking throats (and maybe the odd squeaky dog toy too).
SPV / Oblivion This is Klaus Schulze’s first studio album of new material in five years, after many reissues of his older work. It is both a celebration of him turning seventy and also the artist reflecting on his career while he recovered from an illness that saw him stop live performances for good.