The Forum, London 17 December 2009 ‘Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the Forum, not a creature was stirring apart from that seething, thronging mass of goths, punks, crusties and beardy CAMRA-men that only New Model Army seem to be able to unite into one celebratory whole. And […]
Deuteronemu 90210
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uZu Music UnicaZürn was, apparently, a surrealist artist known for automatic drawing. I never knew that. Well, not until I just looked it up, anyway. The wonders of the internet. These days, at the touch of a button, you can learn all manner of things. You could, for example, go […]
Dirter Hmm. Nurse With Wound. Nurse With Wound, Nurse With Wound, Nurse With Wound. What to say? Writing about Nurse With Wound is like trying to nail a jellyfish to the fourth wall. After what seems like over nine thousand albums of surrealist sound sculptures, Stephen Stapleton (and partners in […]
Coptic Cat Well, here it is at last, the long-awaited new full studio album from David Tibet‘s ever-shifting collective Current 93. Their first since 2006’s apocalypse opus Black Ships Ate The Sky, it’s quite a departure from that album’s panoramic folk sound. Anyone who didn’t see any of their recent […]
Full Time Hobby It seems like only a few months ago that there was an ill-fated, though entirely well-intentioned, campaign on popular young people’s stalking tool Facebook for Malcolm Middleton‘s cheery doom and gloom singalong “We’re All Gonna Die” (from the album) to be the Christmas number one. Actually, it […]
The Cesarians – Flesh Is Grass/Woman Imprint Hailing from Hackney, The Cesarians have been packing out gigs for a while now, their frenetic live performances assuring them of a huge cult following (I thought I had a huge cult following once; unfortunately it turned out to be a typo. When […]
Label: Cleopatra Format: DVD Yet again, it’s a Goth revival. Only a couple of weeks ago, one of the broadsheets began proclaiming black as the new black. The old black obviously not having been quite black enough. So here’s Cleopatra, with a bunch of nostalgia and some newer stuff too. […]
Label: Freeborn John Theatre Company Format: CD+DVD (PAL) Originally released in 1996, Freeborn John was Rev Hammer‘s folk rock opera about the life of English radical “Freeborn” John Lilburne, who fought in the Civil War and dedicated his life to liberty and freedom. A natural subject for Hammer, who’s carved […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
The Scala, London 20 November 2007 This has been a long time coming. Last time I tried to see Jesu (supporting Jarboe, in this very venue) it got scaled down to a Justin Broadrick solo perfomance as Final, which consisted of him hunched over his laptop making incredible noises. Now, […]
Label: Mute Format: CD OK, confession time- I have yet to get around to seeing the film to which this is the soundtrack, though I have been assured by people who have and whose opinions I respect that it’s awesome. Though that’s not really the point – the point is […]
The Water Rats, London 27th October 2007 Even though it’s about as far from the stuff he plays these days as a non-executive directorship is from a proper job, the spectre of Swans‘ Cop weighs heavily on proceedings tonight- particularly its mantric repetition of the phrase “THE HEAT… HURTS! THE […]
Label: Attack Attack Format: CD There’s something a little disorienting about this CD right from the off — it uses a different font. Yup, that’s right, gone is the stencilled military-style lettering they’ve been using for… blimey, for about TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS! (Doing a quick bit of mental arithmetic I’ve just frightened myself […]
Label: Letterbox Format: CD Paradoxes. (Yeah, I thought the plural’d be “paradoces” as well, but no). Paradoxes and Hackney. I love Hackney, yet at the same time I fear her something rotten. No, it’s not just the fact that I’ve been mugged here more times than I care to remember […]
Bush Hall, London 27th May 2007 It’s raining. Not just raining, but absolutely pissing it down. The streets are running with water, and my eyes are so full of rain it takes me fully half an hour longer to find the venue than it should otherwise have done, meaning that […]
Corsica Studios, London 2nd May 2007 Looking like refugees from several different bands who all met up in a jail cell after a drunken night gone horribly wrong, it’s north London’s finest pirate bar band Owlls, and they really should be playing in Tortuga in the 17th Century rather than […]