Latitudes In the pagan world there are important times of year called the solstices and also various moon and planetary cycles that affect mankind on his journey around the shining orb of the sun. Sometimes musicians from ancient tribes would tap into these energy patterns and create music to conjure up atmospheres, forms and shapes of the elder gods who once resided here. Sylvester Anfang II’s music over […]
Album review
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Autostatic “It sounds like someone flushing a magical toilet over and over” – this courtesy of my dear partner. She then mimed flushing a toilet for a bit, did a puzzled face, then decided it was the Victorian style of toilet with the flush you have to stand up for, rather than lean towards the cistern. Which piques any of the adjectives I could throw at it. I […]
Mute Problem the first: a month or so really isn’t enough time to deal with this. What I really wanted was a properly stodgy, fagend cash-cow studio slurry. Selfish, but it’s much easier to go ‘while there’s highlights on discs 2 and 3, ultimately it’s for the Can fanatic’. The review writes itself. Of course, that’s not the case, and I’m left with an album that’s better than […]
Mute The turn of the century saw an explosion of underground musical activity over in the states( especially in New York, and Brooklyn in particular) The bands that were part of this supernova also seemed to defy expectations by shape shifting at a rapid rate (think Black Dice, Animal Collective, Gang Gang Dance), and it was almost impossible to predict what an outfit’s next album or EP would […]
Desire Path Totally loving the artwork for this one, starring into the complexity, that smokey hair appearing to be shifting with the drone, a mild perfumed aroma slipping your nostrils as the sound cascades like some oriental music box fringed by minimalist chimed sentinels. The sombre pace is totally captivating, lingering on the sustain, that Shruti box’s constant reverberation digging deep in your consciousness lit by pin-pricks of […]
Monotype The pairing of Eugene S Robinson‘s voice and Phillipe Petit‘s sound manipulations draws on the film noir rule of human nature red in tooth in claw as much as on Thomas Pynchon for this six-part tale of inhumanity and death (of which this is the first of a planned three instalments). Atmospheric and brooding, the conversational delivery of Robinson is laconic, with an underlying menace present throughout, […]
Crammed Discs The sleevenotes talk about this band being derided for being from the poor part of town; . I can’t help but feel that this is Tanzania’s answer to Happy Hardcore. Moreover, all the songs are towards the pulmonary-antagonising side of tempos, and tend to get faster. They’re also handsome swines. And they appear to have a dancer with one leg. And they look cool as fuck. […]
Staubgold The press blurb says “If Morton Feldman, John Cage and David Tudor had formed a rock band, they might have sounded a bit like this.” Now. Far be it from me to pick holes in press releases [and to be fair they were quoting a review of an earlier record– ed.] – everything needs a bit of fluff to buoy it up – that’s a bit of […]
Sub Rosa Timeless Waves apparently started life as a ‘sonic work’ for a multi-channel installation of some kind (though the notes are unclear as to whether it was a conventional performance or gallery deal). I can get a bit sceptical of these things translated to disc, but luckily, Erdem Helvacioglu’s done a good job of making it into a more album-shaped whole. It’s loosely themed around a set […]
Thrill Jockey After the, quite frankly, cheesy and banal efforts from Tortoise on their previous album It’s All Around You, it was understandable if one found themselves without their hopes raised for Beacons Of Ancestorship, released in 2009. However, it comes as a relief to report that this is a vast improvement on the album beforehand; and is also a work that sees the band branching out into […]
Thrill Jockey Tortoise’s fifth album, It’s All Around You from 2004, tells the listener from the outset that they are in for no surprises whatsoever. On previous albums; and especially with the proceeding Standards, . Unfortunately with It’s All Around You they made it absolutely clear that they chose the most tedious and uninspiring one. The album cover is a dead giveaway as well, recalling the awful Athena […]
Thrill Jockey The way Tortoise opens Standards, their fourth album, suggest that they want to have some fun with the listener’s possible preconceptions. The buzz and hum of a guitar amp makes way for a bombastic passage of music wholly unlike what Tortoise are known for. It could be that they’re poking fun at their own reputation for subdued, restrained compositions. Or indeed it could be a wider swipe […]
Southern Lord It’s long been traditional for “psychedelic, stoner, trippy, headfuck or whatever you want to call it” music, for the most part, to deal in Space. From Sun Ra to Chrome Hoof, from Sunn0))) to Hawkwind, the imagery’s been of space travel, or the void, or Heavenly light. And to be honest, Earth have also dealt in this, their monolithic and lazy-but-intense pace conjuring up visions of […]
Woe To The Septic Heart! I miss Coil. If that seems like speculative disrespect in this context then it’s not meant to be. Lots of this might even be Coil, since I’ve never been convinced that they’ve gone. The meat may have died but the spirits remain, flying. I hate the phrase channelling because it’s not true; those that think they’re channelling are often merely copying, repeating […]
Thrill Jockey When TNT came out, some of the band members mentioned whilst interviewed that using Pro Tools had given them too many options, and that they had feared at one point that the album would lack direction. Lacking direction would be a harsh criticism for TNT, however it could definitely be said that it’s a sprawling album, and can become aimless and like something akin to sonic […]
Thrill Jockey By the time the second Tortoise album appeared on the scene, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of time dedicated to the discussion as to whether they were in the spirit of Prog, or Krautrock. This debate seems a little perplexing now, especially when one remembers that Tortoise started operations in the early to mid 90s. However, it’s important to remember that the year Millions Now […]
Thrill Jockey The arrival of Tortoise brought along a discussion surrounding the widespread use of a new genre term that described a supposedly emerging musical genre. The term was ‘post-rock’ and, at the time, seemed to be the focus for as much debate as the band were themselves. Supposedly coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds, the term appeared to be much maligned at the time. Deemed as po-faced, as […]
Ritual Productions The drone is king, it calls from the high mountain tops, it echoes in the valleys, it is the sound of ancient ritual or the smell of incense from temples, long may the drone exist. Bong have had number of releases over the past couple of years, many of them in limited editions; this is their second release on Ritual Productions and consists of two tracks […]