Label: M Records Format: CD,LP When the Freq Meister asked me if I liked dub and fancied reviewing some I said yes. And after listening to this I’d still say yes again. What I like is that you can either let it all wash over you and be vaguely aware that space is being moved around while you stay where you are, or you can focus on the […]
Album review
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Staubgold This is one of those albums which goes on forever, but with the pleasant companionship of days passing and the changes of the quality of light and temperature on one side, and the intensity of a nightmare storm battering on the other. The title is German for Keep Cool, and the long slow unwind of electronic tones is certainly chilled out to a specific degree of mellowness […]
Label: 4AD Format: CD Get ready for a complete departure. The latest from Warn Defever has absolutely nothing to do with anything His Name Is Alive has done before. This is a R&B album, through and through. In fact it is a showcase for the o-so-Blues-ish Lovetta Pippen. Listening to her velvety smooth/rough voice which can stand up to a lot of volume, it is apparent why Defever decided to produce this record and give […]
Label: Mego Format: CD,LP Interesting. We in Los Angeles have to suffer through the endless re-viewing of this surf escapade. It’s expected. It’s part of Western (literally) cinema, much now like a muscle in the face that one uses but forgets exactly what its purpose is. And yet these sounds scuttle like the smallest parts of that film – ones that are never popularly noticed, even after a […]
Label: Dubhead Format: CD,LP Counscious Centry man and all-round dub star Dougie Wardrop‘s third outing with P Davey in the Bush Chemists‘ trilogy of digital roots manoeuvrings continues to prove that this particular branch of reggae is as much a London thing as Jamaican. From the fields and tents of sunny sound-systems on Hackney Marshes to the dub clubs of Brixton, Tufnell Park and Finsbury Park, the Stamford […]
Label: ROIR Format: CD,LP Raz Mesinai‘s fourth album as Badawi soon kicks into the urgent strains of “Evocation”, a piece in the same frenetic style of his earlier Final Warning EP on Asphodel, riding on the clink of bells, the rumble and rhythm of the self-sampled and realtime Middle Eastern instrumentation of his Jerusalem background. Inflected with the dry shimmer of the Sinai Desert occasionally leavened with the […]
Label: Mute Format: CD Vince Clarke of Erasure and Martyn Ware of Heaven 17 could not be further from their ’80s adventures than they are here on this new venture. A gentle countdown leads into very soft Ambient electronics just short of sounding New Age. The tracks are named after colours they represent and the CD is a recording of a whole event featuring colour spectrum experimentalism. Listening […]
Label: Clearspot Format: CD,LP This ‘trio’ are in fact a sextet, including the brothers Marcus and Micha Acher who enjoy playing with the conventions of jazz and introducing dub and electronics alongside improvisation. The first track, “United World Elevator”, is a good example, starting in a fairly minimalist style with sparse keyboard and drums, human, electronic or both. It suddenly takes on another dimension as the tenor saxophonist, […]
Touch Format: 2xCD To call Substrata a good album is an understatement. It has been described as one of the finest Ambient albums of the Nineties. As far as I’m concerned you can scrub out the bit about the Nineties. Biosphere, a.k.a. Geir Jenssen from Norway, has created some of the most amazing Ambient music I’ve heard in a very long time. Substrata is an album to play […]
Label: BMG/Volcano Format: CD, limited CD,MC Tool. Hmm. Can we forgive them? I mean, like, ever? After all, as the instigators of nu-metal, they are largely responsible for Limp Bizkit and Slipknot, all that big-shorted, high testosterone sports metal malarkey. Only there’s nothing remotely “sports” about Tool — no, they’re resolutely “old metal” imagewise – you know, namechecking Crowley, decorating their sleeves with mystical paraphernalia, and generally getting all apocalyptic on yo` ass. And indeed, […]
Label: Racing Junior Format: CD Salvatore popped down to Marrakesh from their Nowegian home to record Fresh, and from the opening twang of “Get The Kids On The Street, It’s A Party” things take on an electronic groove dimension which can only have been aided by the atmosphere of Morocco. “Get The Kids…” holds all the Motorik cards, dealing out chord chugs and twirling synths on a rhythmic […]
Label: Planet µ Format: CD C(l)attery digital songs for cats from Mr Aaron Funk, Esq., of Winnipeg, Canada. Featuring an opener which sets the pace with eerie wails which don’t sound feline as such, but might once have done so, and they certainly make more recognizable guest appearances later. Dastardly electronic Jazz like Squarepusher was or AFX can be; slippery as a kitten and twice as playful, Songs […]
Label: Warp Format: CD,2LP Dammit, Autechre can still confound and confuse as much as they’ve ever done. Skims of the sound of the natural world meeting the digital and electronic mesh like no-one else has quite managed to acheive, despite the legions of followers who somehow get the sound but never quite the feel just right. Perhaps it’s not just the selection of what could be a ball-bearing revolving endlessly, stochastically around the […]
Label: Lunar Format: CD The first and most obvious thing to say about this CD is that one should perhaps empty one’s bladder before attempting it. Here is a magical use of water as a sound source, the Main soundsource. Layers and layers of water, dripping, running, rippling, everything that water can sound like, then done double to make it sound like something else. Sometimes it is relaxing, sometimes it […]
Label: Hypnos/Soundscape Format: DVD Somnium is one of those recordings which serves to illustrate the possibilities of DVD as a medium far beyond the mere shovelling of films, trailers and “interactive” biographical details onto a soon-to-be replaced medium. Remember how Big Black ironically referred to CD as The Rich Man’s 8-Track Tape? Well, even though DVD may be the fastest growing new medium ever – whatever that means; […]
Label: Mute Format: CD, limited 2CD It occurs to me as I listen to this new effort by Nick Cave that I might like to have never heard of him. In fact I add up the years and it has been at least nineteen since I first did so. I think I have loved him ever since. No one is able to express such ugliness and cynicism in […]
Label: 8-Leggy Delongy Format: CD Basically, The Benelux Circus is a transformed constellation of The Entropy Circus. As always the Circus is centered around Zali Krishna. To get a clearer picture of what is going on do read my other reviews. When we look upon the development from Entropy into Benelux Circus, we don’t see any radical makeovers. The spirit of Paddington Hard Stare is still not compromised. […]
Label: Staalplaat Format: CD 386DX is proclaimed as the world’s first cyberpunk rock band; what it really is is an ancient Wintel box playing MIDI files complete with song-synth software vocals. Programmed by Alexei Shulgin, the PC has stood alone as a busker, and played live across Europe and America, which seems like a fun conceptual idea, as most of these files (or similar enough MIDI versions) can […]