Riot Season The cover of The Cosmic Dead‘s new album Scottish Space Race appears to be making an impassioned plea for national independence, depicting as it does a Scotland that is so independent it has become an island away from all the bullshit going on in the rest of the UK. And right now I can’t exactly say I blame them. But it’s not a political album. It’s […]
Album review
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Om Swagger There are some pretty eccentric ideas out there, certainly regarding music; but Ian Shirley, the editor of Record Collector, may well have come up with one of the wildest. Kraftwerk must be one of the most revered names in modern music history, and Ian has asked the internationally reputed Ebony Steel Band to interpret some of their better-known tracks in the joyful Caribbean style. I mean, […]
Hubro Considering the island of Lanzarote is renowned for its sunshine and blue skies, this latest collaboration between Jo Berger Myhre and Ólafur Björn Ólafsson is filled with melancholy. Most of this has to do with Lanzarote being the last placed that Ólafur spent time with Johann Johannsson before he died early last year. Apparently, the two of them played a gig in a cave on the island, […]
Zonedog Inaugurating the new Zonedog label with a slice of Disrupt ambience, Jan Gleichmar sets the controls for territories beyond both the heavier basslines of his Jahtari releases and the story-led drama of his Omega Station LP, exploring the concept of mood music for a starcraft’s virtual recreation room on this occasion.
Escape From Today / Dunque Paolo Spaccamonti has been a major player in the lively Italian avant-garde scene for the last ten years or so, collaborating with the likes of musicians Stefano Pilla, Mombu and Ramon Moro as well as Ben Chasny, Jim White and Jochen Arbeit. Not content with musicians, he also collaborates with photographers and video artists, so it is no surprise that his latest opus […]
Thrill Jockey Once again, Thrill Jockey are confounding expectations with the debut album from new soul wunderkind Sequoyah Murray. Hot on the heels of this year’s Penalties Of Love EP, the album finds Sequoyah crafting all sorts of .
Constellation It is hard to believe that Fly Pan Am have been away since 2006. Always Constellation‘s joker in the pack, their latest album carries on their rich tradition of genre-hopping, song sabotage and listener discomfort as if N’écoutez Pas were only yesterday.
Upset The Rhythm In their quest for world domination, Upset The Rhythm are going great guns with their release schedule. The latest two tasty treats to arrive are from opposite ends of the sonic spectrum and from both sides of the Atlantic.
(self-released) Brighton’s Emperors Of Ice Cream are a totally DIY band who, having worked their way through other local scene bands covering noise, improv and freak-folk type stuff, have settled on the Emperors for peddling an open-minded take on the kind of wonky indie scrawl at which the British were so good on the mid to late 1980s.
Rocket Composed of British-Iranian musician and composer Kavus Torabi (of Knifeworld, Guapo, Gong and Cardiacs fame), Coil and Téléplasmiste’s Michael J York, and Steve Davis (yes, snooker’s number one of yore, now fully bewitched by all things modular), The Utopia Strong‘s self-titled debut LP is a light and airy piece of work.
Trace Recordings Mark Beazley picks the Trace Recordings artistes with great care, and it is easy to see why they have chosen to release the first album from bass and voice duo Being. Not only does the bass couch the restless and emotive vocal in a dreamy gauze, but the overall sound draws the listener closer into the pervading melancholy.
Sunhair Music Germany seems to be producing some of the world’s top space and acid rock bands at the moment. Certainly the wonderful Electric Moon and its various offshoots have lead the way over the past few years, giving a wide catalogue of interstellar titles that have taken the blueprint from older bands and expanded it further outward. Acid Rooster are a band that has sprung up up […]
Discus The two latest releases from Martin Archer‘s wonderful Discus label ply very different takes on the fluttering world of modern jazz.
Adaadat Gather round, kiddies. I hope you are sitting comfortably, because it is time for the second instalment of Story Teller‘s Lovecraftian travelogues. After the first instalment’s gory tale of love and lust between the aristocracy and plant life, I at least had some idea that it wouldn’t necessarily be the child-friendly story of the Marshall Cavendish variety. Once again, Bruce McClure has come up with something profoundly […]
Finders Keepers “Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden — step out of the space provided”, goes the intro to the Nurse With Wound list – as the rivery wound within the typographics become your rabbit hole, the spidery black text your ladder. Mythology is a strange thing: a seed of truth dropped in the enquiring mind some might say.
Thrill Jockey Hot on the heels of last year’s Don’t Look Away, 2019 sees Alexander Tucker once again hunkering down on his own in the studio. Guild Of The Asbestos Weaver constructs tracks that employ his love of sci-fi and cosmic horror in a recognised song format, with all of the pieces here allying his gorgeous vocals to rhythmic and melodious structures that tip a hat to the […]
Mute At last, Chance Vs Causality, the long-lost Cabaret Voltaire soundtrack to a 16mm film by Babette Mondini, sees the light of day. Up until now, only a fragment had surfaced on a b-side to their “Silent Command” 7-inch back in 1979. Would loved to have seen the film, and if the sleeve art is anything to go by it was an artsy collage to be behold.
House Of Mythology Back in October of 2018, Ulver‘s presence was requested at a Red Bull Music event taking part in their home town of Oslo. The request was for new work of a drone type, something that might unfold over a length of time, but at a natural pace. The group started to reconvene to work through ideas with one or two members missing, but with itinerant […]