Label: 4AD Format: CD Mid-’80s effusive journalism alert! I mean, for fuck’s sake, they’re on 4AD, the tracks range from ’81 to ’85, and one of them (“No Motion”) is produced with the aid of Robin Guthrie, creator of the “swirling sonic cathedrals” (see what I mean?) The Cocteau Twins hung out in being all elegant and ethereal and giving it some with the “Frou-Frou Foxes”. It has to be ethereal (see, it’s that word again; […]
Album review
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Label: Warp Format: CD,LP How do I start talking about Jimi Tenor? He`s mates with Pan(a)sonic and certainly one of the most curious individuals I`ve come across of late – rumour has it that our Jimi likes to appear on stage on top of a white horse. A lot of Organism has a cocktail lounge Jazz Funk feel, rendered through Electro of course. This doesn`t go anywhere near summing our Jimi up. As I was […]
Label: Touch & Go Format: CD,LP Don Caballero are part of the recent contemporary phenomenon of American men with big guitars, no vocals and, thankfully, a sense of humour. Much of their musoid noodling would have been tarred with the Progressive brush in halcyon eras of wide trousers, big hair and expansive stage concepts but what Don Cab bring to the boot fair is their own brand of […]
Label: D.N.W. Format: CD Despite being recorded live in Austria in January 1990, Vernissage has only just now received a release through Damo Suzuki‘s own record label (incidentally packaged in a neat gatefold corrugated card sleeve, for those who care). Perhaps ominously, it precedes a threatened seven-CD set of live recordings from 1986-90, though judging by this disc and the recent live tour, it may still be more […]
Label: Duophonic Ultra-High Frequency Disks Format: Limited 2CD,2CD Stereolab have been known for their prolific releases on limited-run seven-inches, compilations and sundry other media – fortunately, they’ve also been very good at collecting their ephemera into neat bundles for those unable to find the original editions. Aluminum Tunes is Switched On Stereolab Volume 3, though quite why the extra name was needed isn’t clear. The two CD package […]
Label: Asphodel Format: CD Love Is The Devil is a reasonably arty film about the traumatic love-life of painter Francis Bacon in the early Sixties, whihc despite may flaws is an engaging and occasionally powerful depiction of an alcoholic artist and his relationship with a young stranger who appears from the roof of his studio one night. Sakamoto‘s soundtrack, heard in the context of the film, is a […]
Label: Disko B/V2 Format: CD,2LP Adopting an international playboy persona to rival Yello‘s for its ridiculous embrace of the notion of artist as fantsatic sportsman, Bond-age lover and all-round suave entertainer, DJ Hell bundles together a collection of tunes which restore the front to upfront. From the paen to its author from a West Coast American female voice of “This Is For You” to the bizarre cover of […]
Label: Mego Format: CD There’s something ominous afoot in Vienna. What seems to have happened is that a band who might at one point have enjoyed metallic doom-merchandising have discovered the joys of mincing music through a sampler, hardcore digital style. The result is The Male Comedy, a record which takes liberties beyond the mere juxtaposition of disparate elements of rock music, but proceeds to shaft them royally, […]
Label: Output Format: 2CD With this double CD collection of singles and compilation appearances, Fridge reveal their remarkable emergence over the last year or so as a pretty good answer to the flood of American and German post-rock acts, without resorting to pastiche or fitting particularly into the straitjacket of what is rapidly becoming a dismissive generic label. Generally far better organized and more satisfying than their debut […]
Label: Ochre Format: CD The first album from this psychedelic collective proves to be a cosmic affair of considerable depth and originality. Taking their cues from the space rock of Brainticket and Amon Düül II and the lo-fi acid folk of The Incredible String Band, this group kick out some truly noxious grooves with time for multiplex neo-pagan storytelling trips and obscure Electroacoustic klang worthy of a lost […]
Label: Kitty-Yo Format: CD Still led on a wayward course by the softly-spoken vocals of Roland Lippok, Tarwater continue their elegantly wastrel progress deeper into the realm of something which draws variously from Trip Hop, electronica and metaphysical poetry. The beats may be a mix of the live and sampled; the sundry noises, blips and snatches of conversation much in line with the times; what keeps it all […]
Label: Mute Format: CD As acerbic as their recent gigs together, the collaboration of Alan Vega with two-thirds of Pan Sonic shows that the loss of a vowel has not affected the latter’s ability to construct minimal sine-wave beats and blasts, nor the former’s anomic bile against The Man and his system. While the Finns lay down the tearing glitches, chundering basslines and hard stepping thuds of analogue […]
Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD When not making up a sizeable chunk of the musical bedrock of The Legendary Pink Dots, and surprisingly unprolific in his solo work by the standards of that group, Phil Knight has been known to settle down to produce some stunningly hypnotic recordings in his time. Following on from the hypnagogic Dreamcell of the early Nineties, Silvermandalas opens with an untitled track which shows a fascination for the watery sound of an electric […]
Label: Rocketgirl Format: CD,2LP Now that Spacemen 3 have joined the pantheon of those influential enough to have had a wide impact on a broad variety of other bands sufficient to inspire their collection into an album’s worth of covers, perhaps there’ll be a flood of homages to late Eighties groups to follow those of the Seventies. Despite the inherent tendency towards pot-luck assortments in such endeavours, at […]
Label: Mute Format: CD There’s no doubting Diamanda Galás’s intensity, integrity or innovation; more than anyone else, she not only bridged the underground-overground divide while such tactics were still relevant, but has created some truly spell-binding works of lasting impact on the subject of AIDS in Plague Mass. Malediction and Prayer is a record of her global performances in 1996-7, showcasing her dynamic range to full effect through […]
Label: Mute Format: CD, 2CD There’s a problem I always have with “Best Of” albums. To me, at least, they always bring to mind images of motorway service stations, racks filled to overflowing with Greatest Hits, The Very Best Of, or, worse, The Best (insert allegedly zeitgeist-defining noun here) Album in the World, Ever!. They suggest something a little too posthumous, a little too much like an obituary- […]
Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD,Limited 2LP In his inimitable style, master mythologer and spinner of eerie Millenial tales for The Legendary Pink Dots here presents some further solo efforts. There’s the hissing, steaming clockwork music box of “Supper At J’s” with unsettling reflections on the state of virtual 1999, which rises and falls from song into semi- orchestral concrète-samplescapes as the lead-in for an album which includes the disturbingly […]
Label: Truckstop/Atavistic Format: CD, LP Coming across like Jesus Christ Superstar on (more) acid, Chicago’s favourite Judeo-Christian Edutainer Bobby Conn is out to save your soul and wallet from resisting temptation. Aided in his Millenialist assault on reason by sundry members of (among others) Brise-Glase, Flying Luttenbachers, Rome and the production efforts of Jim O’Rourke, Conn conjours a straight-faced vision of an alternate universe where Seventies meet Nineties. […]