Future Noise The Pop Group reunion gigs seem to have revitalised Mark Stewart. Rather than basking in the overdue glory accorded his old group, Stewart was straight back in the studio recording his first solo album for four years. The Politics of Envy came out last March, featuring guest spots from many of his punk era peers – Keith Levene, Gina Birch, Tessa Pollitt, Richard H Kirk, Youth […]
Album review
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Handmade Birds Spluttering rupturing, discordantly eviscerating the sounds and tropes of analogue and digital synthesis, Takahe Collage arrives in three parts but leaves music (once again) shredded in to far, far more. The first two pieces, the title track and “Tendeko,” weigh in at around the half-hour mark each, and after a through listen their presence soon becomes inscribed upon the ears like a permanent tattoo. “Takahe Collage” […]
Monotype When listening to noise, collages, field recordings or other kinds of abstract music, new compilations have always been a welcome listen. Mainly as it is usually very diverse, and for me almost never tiresome. The Grief That Shrieked to Multiply is of course not a compilation as such, but a collection of remixes, done by a big number of well known and some unknown artists from the […]
Gizeh/Southern Aidan Baker‘s Already Drowning marks something of a departure for his solo releases, as each piece finds him collaborating with (in this case, women) singers with lyrical inspiration coming from the likes of Angela Carter, Philip K Dick and various folk sources. recorded over the space of two years, it’s also one of Baker’s most assured works in an already impressive catalogue both as a solo artist […]
Cardinal Fuzz For their 2013 contribution to Record Store Day, Mugstar unleash eight tracks (previously available as a tour-only CD) which emerge over the space of two sides of vinyl in an almost continuous mix of muscular psychedelic rock. Each instrumental merges with the next, the fading-out split between each side providing a suitable point to remind any stoners who might just possibly be listening that it’s probably […]
Rise Above Purson’s first album has been long awaited in some quarters. After the sell out limited release of their first single “Rocking Horse” and support slots for both Electric Wizard and Comus there’s been something of a buzz about this band and this LP doesn’t disappoint. “Wake up Sleepy Head” is a beautiful acoustic opener with lush-sounding Mellotron and owes much to the lineage of ’70s psychedelic […]
Rustblade As Legendary Pink Dot chemistry lessons go, this latest instalment to the series burns with a slow slip of reality, the simplest backbone of rhythm caught in the tattered net curtains of Edward Ka-Spel’s mind. Absorbing word weaves hooking you in as the trancelike vibes dribble the vowel fall, reflecting everything back panoramically from inside an idea’s skeletal sheen. Love “Immaculate Conception”‘s agoraphobic airs: the slippery backing […]
three:four . But not only that. I hear a lot of new experimental music, and some of it has as a sound or quality that will wear you out if you listen to full albums. Not necessarily on account of the music itself, which can be very interesting and varied, but some experimentalists tend to use the same approach to the soundscape or palette of sound throughout an […]
Grönland Brian Eno once famously stated that there were three crucial beats in the 1970s: Fela Kuti’s Afro-Beat, James Brown’s funk and Klaus Dinger’s NEU!-beat. The latter – a hypnotic, strict and Spartan 4/4 that Dinger initially christened the ‘lange gerade’ (‘long straight’) or ‘endlose gerade’ (‘endless straight’), and later referred to as the ‘Apache Beat’ – came to be virtually synonymous with entire canon of German music […]
Sulatron “How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland “A very irregular head” is how the late, great Syd Barrett once described himself, and from the sounds blasting from my stereo Dave Schmidt AKA Sula Bassana could lay claim to the same quote. Dark Days is the fourth Bassana album, […]
Black Axis Pombagira‘s last album Iconoclast Dream was a revelation to me with the immense dirty darkness they presented. Upon receiveing a brand new CD from the duo, hopes for more dark dirtyness appears in my mind. But after the first spin, I was in doubt. I am not sure if it was the day, or anything else, but it didn’t do anything for me at the time. […]
Requiem Productions NXP is a solo noise project from Norway, focusing on ambient noise, sometimes rythmic, sometimes just dirty noise. He collects samples, field recordings and various sounds and instruments to create his world of darkness. I see this album in two parts. The first three tracks are quiet dirty ambient noise. So quiet from the start that you have to go and check whether you have turned […]
Invada Loving that crayon lava of the cover, sleek minimal, that infra red chalkiness dwarfed by a sea of matt black, a darkness from which the title track “Landing” seems to howl. An epic opener, that grinding millstone riff all Bolan-esque beef, . An incredibly powerful vibe, made more so by the purposeful drop into a reflective quietness which effectively notches up the tension for the raw-throated re-entry […]
Galileo It seems that prog rock is alive and well in Europe again, which is a fantastic thing. And two of the countries that were most feverish about the original bands in the ’70s here prove their worth with these two releases from Galileo Records. Zenit (from Switzerland) begin their album with with “Awaken” – not a cover of the Yes song, but an opus of their own. […]
Sulatron I am already a fan of the wonderful Electric Moon after hearing both their 2010 début album Lunatics and last year’s monumental live double LP Cellar Space Live Overdose, so I was eager to give this new album a spin. For starters, the cover is a wonderful psychedelic creation that gives a nod to some of best artwork from the late ’60s and early ’70s. What we […]
The Muslimgauze Preservation Society Snapping into brutal gear with a slice of brightly-coloured post-dancehall rhythms which wouldn’t sound that far out of place on a record by The Bug, Martyr Shrapnel continues the work of the Muslimgauze Preservation Society of bringing the remaining odds and ends of Bryn Jones‘ extensive and still-increasing back catalogue to posthumous light. The first six tracks previously appeared as Analog Zikr on cassette, […]
Bureau B Karl Bartos: legendary percussionist of the classic era Kraftwerk, and all round good egg. The man whose biography gave us a glimpse into the closed world of the Man Machines who were more secretive than an occult order. While Kraftwerk (with their one remaining original member) are making an exhibition of themselves at various locations around the world and in effect becoming their own tribute act, […]
I have a deal with a mate that if either of us ever manage to shout out ‘Baker Street!’ in the middle of a John Butcher performance, that person will receive a crisp £10 note and a hearty pat on the back. The irony being that, even if either of us weren’t excessively polite gig-goers, we’d still have problems remembering how to speak. Butcher’s entirely one of the […]