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 that I’m only able to judge this album on how well its stands up on its own. Don’t […]
Album review
2436 posts
Label: Beta-lactam Ring Records Format: CD Fom the opening blasts of the title track, it’s apparent that Epitafio a la Permanencia is going to be more than just strange – it’s going to be weird. First off Un Festín Sagital get top marks for impersonating Magma within the first few bars, then dropping the dramatic chorale motif for now in favour of a deliciously avant slide into the meanders of […]
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 with the realisation that my first New Model Army gig was some eighteen years ago. I’ll get me slippers). […]
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 (well, even just the first time was technically “more than I care to remember”, but, y’know…), or that […]
Label: City Slang (Europe)/ Ernest Jenning Record Co (USA) Format: CD Head Home is a record which works its way into the subconscious, and O’Death are one of those bands who become such a fixture on the scene in a relatively short time that they are now a yardstick against which to measure similar bands. Country music – in its widest sense – has come a long way this century […]
Label: Very Friendly Format: CD The Super Roots series is an epic series of compilations containing previously unreleased material from the Boredoms. Previously unreleased in the west, at least. The series is as ever shifting and hard to pin down as the band themselves, which makes Super Roots a good introduction to the crazy noisy creative genius of the Boredoms. There are some absolute gems in the series, […]
Label: Central Control International Format: CD,LP Not so much a supergroup as a superhighway-connected collective, mostly based in the south of France, Strings Of Consciousness delight in melding acoustic instruments with electronics, sliding one over the other and processing the former with the latter. The results could be messy, or could be described as extremely hallucinatory soundtracks to that imaginary collective headtrip movie which everyone who composes this sort of music seemingly contributes […]
Label: Vivo format: CD Featuring guest musicans (or sound carriers as Damo Suzuki prefers to refer to his collaborators) from Rovo, Ruins and the legendary Hoppy Kamiyama of God Mountain records and Optical*8, The Fire of Heaven at the End of Universe was, as its subtitle indicates, recorded live at Tokyo’s UFO Club in March 2006. The recording quality is good, if very live sounding and lacking in […]
Label: Very Friendly/Adaadat Format: CD/LP Fox Mulder described Bach as having a genius for polyphonic composition. That’s all well and good, and yes it’s all very clever stuff, but there will always be some people who feel that Bach just doesn’t rock enough. DJ Scotch Egg redresses this balance and gives the classics a hardcore noise work over … on a Gameboy, that low tech favourite. The results sound […]
Label: Domino Format: 3CD Remember when it was all the rage for everyone to do an Eno and describe their music as being soundtracks for movies that didn’t exist? (Barry Adamson, In The Nursery – I’m looking at YOU). Not sure if The Third Eye Foundation (aka Matt Elliott) ever made the same claim for his music, but if he didn’t, then I will, and will go further […]
Label: Mute Format: CD/Ltd. ed. CD + hardback book As far as I know, no-one since Stockhausen has attempted a major re-interpretation of the national anthems of the world, and anyone but Laibach would be foolish to try it. There’s little sign here of the triumphalist bombast of “The Final Countdown”, “Jesus Christ Superstar” or “Leben Heisst Leben”, which is surprising given that some of the most notorious imperial […]
Label: 13th Moon Format: CD Alien Sex Fiend were always a strange beast. A lo-fi Electro-Goth Punk band fronted by a demented Alice Cooper obsessive with a scatological sense of humour, they were a bit of a pie (probably a poo pie) in the face to the Goths’ sucky-cheeked solemnity, but still they lapped it up. Odd, yet strangely exhilarating, and quite unforgettable as a live experience, though […]
Label: Mute Format: CD,2LP As purposely obscure and enigmatic as ever, Laibach‘s return to the world of record releases and live shows steps up the pressure they bring to bear upon the listener’s expectations of what this most uncompromising of groups might actually intend and ultimately mean. Presented in German, English and occasionally Serbo-Croat to thumping beats of an orchestral Techno bent, WAT kicks off with one of […]
– Iranair Inflight Magazine – Red Madrassa – Jebel Tariq Label: Muslimim Format: CD – Arabbox Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD –In Search Of Ahmad Shah Masood Label: Nexsound Format: CD Recent months have seen the continuing flow of Muslimgauze releases slow down considerably – given that it is now five years since Bryn Jones‘ untimely death, this is hardly surprising, but that it has taken this long is […]
Sunrise Label: Ektro Format: CD Alotus Label: Klangbad Format: CD Operating at the junction between hard rocking metal and psychedelic space exploration groove melodramas, Circle‘s sound is certainly enveloping in a total manner with nods to the Kosmische sounds seeping across the other side of the Baltic Sea to their native Finland for the last three decades or so as well as the leather-clad tomfoolery of Judas Priestand the single-minded starship thrum of Hawkwind. Alotus opens and closes […]
Label: Threshold House Format: CD The last Coil album proper, The Ape Of Naples marks a tragic end point, a conclusion to one of the more remarkable groups to grace the annals of electronic and deviant music. Completed under the direction of his longtime collaborator Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and bringing together tracks recorded in many locations over the last decade or more, this album marks the last such […]
Label: FatCat Format: 2LP,CD Sometimes there are groups who are so off the wall that it’s a bit of a trip just hearing them for the first time. With Animal Collective, it’s fair to say that their oddness continues for the second, third and pretty much every listen, and Feels is one of their strangest and most compelling releases to date. Fortunately, it’s also one which is so […]
Label: Mayan Format: CD So Bush got in again. Fuck. Well, look on the bright side, at least it means Al Jourgensen still has something to be angry about. Small comfort I know, but you take this shit where you can find it, I guess. I mean, a better world would obviously be great to live in, but I’m not sure my mind could cope with the ontological dissonance that would come with […]