Southern Lord An improvised uprooting of their Pyroclast and Life Metal albums — or epic exorcism — suitably broadcast on Samhain of 2019, these three tracks catch SunnO))) at the end of their world tour, emotionally expanding the raw material, giving the BBC 6Music listeners a monumental feast.
Michael Rodham-Heaps
459 posts
Bedevil Fermenting for over six years, Scapa Foolscap began as a series of rough sketches initially inspired by the shipwreck-strewn waters of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands, understated soundscapes that gave Pumajaw’s vocalist Pinkie Maclure plenty of space to explore as it slowly evolved into the duo’s eighth album.
Abrams Now I’ve been a Throbbing Gristle fanboy for most of my adult life, became an avid follower of the many splinters that branched from its demise, a host of alienated sounds I felt a positive connection with — Coil, Chris and Cosey and of course Psychic TV. Yeah, PTV’s pre-acidhaus days really struck a chord back then, although I was very sceptical about Thee Temple Ov Psychick […]
Happy Robots The oval oddness of Anaphora’s opener “Pilomotor Reflex” are ace, reversed shivers cerebrally nibbling slowly, beaconing out on a delightful Kraftwerkian romance (minus that detached chill). A dance of chameleon-like shapes that fluidly viper that dry percussive, an agitated softness for that anti-capitalist narrative to dagger deep, tangle favouringly with your reason. Political / cultural arrows that empathetically grenade throughout the whole of this album, nestled in […]
Rose Hill As the album title would suggest, this is a Solstice recording made by God’s Teeth And The Interstellar Tropics at The Old Market Theatre in Brighton in the pre-covid bliss of the winter of 2019. A three-track recording that attempts to untangle your subconscious on a lysergic lance of percussive mis-shapes and vocalised abstracts, with a lovely Angus MacLise sensibility that floats on Karl MV Waugh’s […]
Upset The Rhythm If the Frank Sidebottom homage of a cover doesn’t grab you, the explosiveness of Bad Advice Good People‘s contents is certain to freeze-frame the widest of smiles to your face. A raucous six pack akin to Kleenex or Gang Of Four with hard-chiselled words and bloated basslines that hook you in front and centre, prowl your head like an over-active imagination with armfuls of day-glo […]
London, 15 November 2021 The sense of anticipation was immense, bathed in a blue haze, monitors staring out of it like Ewok eyes, the stage remaining empty as the words “Dream the name and I will answer to it” breeze in, tantalised in sparse flickerings and occasional birdsong roughed by the distinctive rub of a cement mixer.
Bellissima It was only a matter of time until Katharine Blake (Miranda Sex Garden and The Mediæval Bæbes) and Michael J York (Téléplasmiste, The Utopia Strong, Current 93 and Coil) would conjoin a bewitching whole, gather a few musical friends into the equation to produce this haunting debut that gathers the periphery around you in a stretchy equilibrium.
Klanggalerie Long-time contributor to and performer with Eyeless In Gaza and wife of Martyn Bates, Elizabeth S has just released her first solo album. Gather Love presents twelve tracks that texturally invite you to ask what it means to be human, sparkles with a withering warmth that stays with you.
Mute Phew‘s New Decade strips it all away, orbits the sultry sizzle of fragmented abstracts and of course Hiromi Moritani’s vocal dynamics that magnetically grab-bag. Born in the pandemic, the album’s whispering contours were a result of wishing to not annoy the neighbours too much, an oh-so-quiet verve that’s best suited to and appreciated on headphones.
Upset The Rhythm Upset The Rythm‘s radar is always sharp and can be relied on to serve up a healthy antidote to the burger’n’fries musical factory that clogs up our cultural arteries. Companioning the creative, often at the expense of commercialism they go, scouting fresh talent, scouring the musical roadside for neglected gems, and I’m guessing their recent journey with Normil Hawaiians has bought fresh dividends in the […]
Disciples / R.A.T.S. It’s been a long time since Pale Saints‘ Ian Masters and His Name Is Alive’s Warren Defever worked together as ESP Summer on their country-tinged 1995 self-titled release, so it came as a pleasing surprise when the project was mysteriously resurrected last year – even more so the strange disembodied ambience that they gathered into that tantalising instrumental offering. Now the duo return to flirt […]
Lumberton Trading Company After Siôn Orgon’s brilliant Black Object comes this freshly minted dozen. Dust is a mini LP whose first track takes no prisoners, births this baby in muscled metal, words dark’n’glistening, then slamming a singular technoid, a ballsy brilliance that surrounds itself in a jaded tinsel epitaph.
Upset The Rhythm Here’s another tasty treat from those excellent Upset The Rhythm peeps. Dark World is a twenty-two track exposé of Normil Hawaiians’ early verve, showcasing a formative pool of edgy punk / post-new wave that would finally mutate / mature into the arty haemorrhage that was their debut More Wealth Than Money and beyond. Back then things were quite fluid, sponge-like, a many-tentacled beast collected here […]
Zam Zam / La République des Granges / Permafrost / Murailles Music From the Tesla crackle of the intro to that extending shadow of organ creeping on throughout, the weird melodics here on Rien Virgule‘s La Consolation Des Violettes feed a widening crescent of expectation. A rich invitation that stirs up a Giallo sensibility, akin to Goblin, but with more lurk in the suspense department. That repetitive and […]
Finders Keepers The second of Steven Stapleton’s personal picks from his Nurse With Wound list collects together a host of lesser-known German contenders and proceeds to chuck you off the eclectic deep end from the offset. The album opens with a healthy dose of Wolfgang Dauner, whose “Output” is a crumbled stiltskin of a track that sonically scrambles
Dais I’ve been enjoying the broken mirror of Cindytalk’s music for well over thirty-odd years now. The blazing rawness of Camouflage Heart was a great starting point, and the weird dichotomy of it’s follow up In This World reinforced the love with its contrasting chromatics of classical ambiance and psychotic passion. Now the follow-ups to these early albums, The Wind Is Strong… (1990) and Wappinschaw (1995) finally see […]
Rocket The nouveau mediaevalism of the first track on Easy To Build, Hard To Destroy, “Elka” is a choice gem plucked for those early hippy daze where I first mentally hitched a ride on the Gnod train from the back of a dusty Trowbridge barn. A trickle of curling consciousness, leaking naturally into the latch key languid incessants of “Inner Z”, full of sweeping Moog and dazzling silver, […]