Nefarious Industries So the main reason I picked up this record for review is because I think that it’s the responsibility of the writer to pick up things for spurious reasons. The reason I will never review, or listen to, Jaga Jazzist is because the name is terrible. Bangladeafy is […]
Kev Nickells
202 posts
Freaksville This comes from a world that feels very familiar to being a teenager listening to indie radio, but also not. There was a lot of this kind of stuff around — retro-ish fetishists for ersatz ’70s string arrangements and Rhodes pianos
Benedict Taylor: dashing young blade of the London (and beyond) free improv scene. He’s a busy man and a fine player and in possession of a veritable encyclopaedia of techniques. The scratchy ones, the frittery ones, the ones that sound a bit like a helicopter in the distance. But not […]
The Hope and Ruin, Brighton 29 November 2016 Imboredofbastards do some gallant opening of tonight’s proceedings — a one-man noise + objects + processing thing that, were it a carpet, would have a most curious weave. There’s an amount of textural stuff interwoven with rhythmic elements and then, every now […]
So. I did some reviews of the first batch of Every Contact Leaves A Trace releases, which were fine indeed. And here we are, just two short years on, in a world that looks slightly different. And yet, on plod sound-art micro-labels, furrowing obstinate fields. I say that in a fashion […]
Self-released Most new bands were previously other less new bands, and so songwriters behind Bloom (Megan and Emily) used to be part of The Beautiful Word, who were Brighton-based indie-ish breezes sharing borders with whimsy and twee but (mercifully) never fully occupying those territories. The Beautiful Word were great, but […]
Northern Spy Some guff you’ll read everywhere: by a large margin the best-known sitar player and largely responsible for the popularising of Indian classical music. Unfortunately, it’s still a world I don’t know a great deal about; I know there’s a difference between Hindustani and Carnatic Indian classical music, but […]
Rocket Girl It might well be the case that you’ve spent the last twenty years not listening to Urusei Yatsura. Which is fine, I guess, but it does put you and I rather at odds. There’s only one band I own every release of and these are they. I have three copies […]
Hideous Replica It’s not clear how composed this is, but there’s bits that have the quality of being like someone’s writing harmonies (ahem) while under the influence of ketamine — it’s definitely happening, but at a pace just that smidge too slow to discern quite how it’s moving. Stephen Cornford […]
Sparrowhawk Perch is seemingly smudged into shape from the leftovers of Fat Bicth, one of Brighton’s embarrassment of “why didn’t they ever gig further than London?” bands. The Bicth were, perhaps, somewhat closer to Brighton stalwarts (your I’m Being Goods and Sweet Williamses) than Perch, so let’s hope this is […]
It’s that time of year when Kev Nickells undertakes his annual mammoth hatchet job feature-length review of every entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. Let the ritual ruination and Eurotunnelvision enthusing literally begin.
London, 12 April 2016 Brighton, 13 April 2016 I went to two gigs in two days for Freq. They were unrelated, possibly, but worth pointing out that gigs are experiential things — it’s often more about the being there than what was played and such. That or I’m too lazy […]
earMUSIC OMG BEST ALBUM EVER. Yeah, probably should write more than that. Precarious, is how you might describe it. Prior to this release, there was a couple of songs floating around, notably “Road of Resistance”, which features Dragon Force, or DragonForce (I’ve no intention of dignifying them with finding out […]
Ankst It should be the case that this band don’t need any introduction, but they do, because the British are rubbish and refuse to celebrate anything beyond narrow trajectories of well-worn paths. There’s little about Datblygu that’s radically awkward or difficult to listen to, just songs in a language that’s […]
Hairdryer Excommunication Following up from the no-input field recordings reviewed here, Seth‘s either in a spirit of intrepidly obtuse field recording, or taking the piss (either’s good, frankly). The no-input field recording method, foolhardy though it is to compress it to something so asinine as a method, involves getting a […]
Awesome Tapes From Africa Oh, liner notes! I get that some people just want the music to speak for itself, but, frankly, that’s nonsense. I want someone to put it in a context, which is what Awesome Tapes From Africa have done here; thanks, ATFA. We learn that SK Kakraba […]
Important Composition’s kind of ridiculous to write about in that you have to write about (broadly) two things — the composition and the delivery — and differences between various recordings can be relatively minimal. Usually, the appeal of composition from about the ’40s onward is that it falls into one […]
Sofa Sometimes, you just want to write a review made up of ephemera and snatches of observations rather than, y’know, syntactically cogent sentences. I would say “poetic”, but what I really mean is that I find my own notes hilarious and disingenuous and the idea of having a series of […]
Ankst Yn ddiwedd mis Ebrill eleni, teithwyd drosodd i Gaerdydd (sydd yn hyfryd, o ddifrif) i wylio gŵyl CAM. Mewn gwirionedd, es i, i wylio Datblygu a digwydd fod yne bandiau eraill yn chwarae (parch i Ian Watson ai electro-acwstig clecian ac electro-pop Y Pencadlys, a byddai’r ddau ohonynt wedi […]
Universal Music Has it been twelve months already? Twelve months since Conchita Wurst swooped into our hearts and planted a big blue, pink and white flag in the heart of Europe for the second time in Eurovision‘s history. I realise that for a lot of people Eurovision is some chintzy, […]