Label: Output Format: LP,CD Sharing less of the rock part of post-rock of his other band Fridge, multi-instrumentalist Kieran Hebden expands into wider areas with his debut album as Four Tet, leavening the cycling live drum kit and guitars of opening tracks like “”The Space Of Two Weeks” and “Chiron” with increasing amounts of synth burbles as well as more prominent Jazz elements. What emerges is a transition […]
Album review
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Label: Cherry Red Format: 2CD Okay! Hands up everyone. Gimme your Alien Sex Fiend Moment (if you don’t have one, go out and buy this album and wait until something funny happens. May spoil the whole point of the review, but quite frankly, who gives one?). Mine? Here we go. Off me tits, so to speak, watching Sex Fiend at The University of London Union, oooh, a fuck […]
Label: Acrylnimbus Format: CD Hmmm. where to start with this one? From the packaging (which is, incidentally, very nice) and the track titles (which are, incidentally, very funny) you’d be forgiven for expecting something along the lines of Nurse With Wound. Funnily enough… …though I don’t remember the boy Stapleton ever having a passion for Drum’n’Bass. Think about that last sentence. Think harder. Yup, they said it could […]
Label: Satellite Format: CD Hmmm – I found myself reciting a mantra over and over as I loaded up the pretty blue-backed disc… “Please don’t let this be like Marilyn Manson, please don’t let this be like Marilyn Manson, please don’t…” It isn’t. At all. Psycho patience may as well get in the car and volume up, rev up, run over some beautiful people along the way. Like […]
Label: City Slang Format: CD,LP There’s a thing with prefixes and the word “Rock” (or “ROCK!” if you prefer) – Post-Rock, Art-Rock, sometimes (dare I say it) Prog-Rock. Salaryman seem content to slide about in this general area, not quite difficult enough to be Post-Rock, too much fun to be Art-Rock (“Thomas Jefferson Airplane” as a track title for example. Cool!) and never going quite that little bit […]
Label: Staalplaat Format: CD At first seemingly a strange departure for Robin Storey in his Rapoon guise, The Alien Question starts out as a series of simple sound loops and harmonium chords accompanying the spoken words of alien ambassador Hoh Krll. The increasingly paranoiac ideas which Krll outlines are of course familiar to almost everyone from Western popular culture’s obsession with all things alien and Grey (or from […]
Label: City Slang Format: CD, LP From their beginnings as the musical department of an art exhibition, To Rococo Rot have shown themselves to be something special – it’s not the methodology alone, not the combination of sequencer, sampler, drums and the sometimes floor-threatening bass they favour live, but is to be found in the precise combination of all the above with that special spark of warm humanity […]
Label: MDZ Format: CD,LP Oh. are a band from Germany who like to combine Electronica, Dub and Ambience; while there is a steady stream of such movers and shakers coming from that country at the moment (and have been for the last four-five years), Oh are among the most pleasantly gentle of them, streaming with warm basslines, head-down complex drumming and wilted, washed out and occasionally bubbling synths, […]
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; […]
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 […]