Full Time Hobby The core duo of Venn have been together since 2013, with the current trio format since 2014. They have released a few 12″s and a CD-R which was distributed by hand in random places like HMV, Oxford Street, Soho House toilets and on Jack Kerouac‘s grave.
Album review
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Ponderosa (Europe) / Northern Spy (USA) A culmination of a thirteen-year itch to get back to business, Cuidado Madame cuts into some of the sweetness of previous outings to revel in skittish twists of modernity.
Rocket This is Swedish six piece Flowers Must Die‘s fourth album and the first to be made available outside Sweden. Rocket Recordings must have welcomed them with open arms after hearing the dramatic, expansive psychedelic masterclass that they have managed to squeeze into the nine tracks and forty three minutes of this LP.
Thrill Jockey Of all the so-called post-rock bands of the 1990s, Trans Am are one which can be relied upon to remain intriguing and interesting some quarter-century or so later. Completed in the week after the 2016 US presidential election, California Hotel (named in honour of the late Glen Frey of The Eagles, who died that year) still bursts with more energy and excitement than many far younger groups
Adaadat / Drum Rider Hypnotic and dreamlike, Elephant House‘s début LP ambles in on a calmly unfolding ride through ticking, tickling and trickling percussion that sets the scene for the strange and beguiling journey that follows.
Sleeps Brothers The epitome of 2010s Steel City metal, You Are We will climb into your head and make itself at home. Full of rage and angst, this album is the soundtrack for modern youth’s opposition to the world right now.
City Slang It has been about twenty years since I last listened to Turkish pop music. A trip to Istanbul for a wedding saw us return with CDs by Sertab Erener and Tarkan, amongst others. The mysterious and impenetrable Turkish language made even the most basic pop sound exotic and mildly exciting. Jakuzi are one of a new wave of underground pop acts singing in Turkish
Zeitkratzer Productions / Karlrecords Continuing their long-running series of interpretations of avantgarde and electronic music through the ages, Reinhold Friedl‘s exploratory ensemble celebrate their twentieth birthday (and Karlrecords‘ tenth anniversary) with the first round of a selection of pieces
Impossible Objects Of Desire I didn’t ask for this, but it came anyway. I’d been a Fujiya and Miyagi sceptic: too accommodating, too precise, too Brighton.
Jahtari Shinsekai comes on fresh and fast, as if WaqWaq Kingdom are in a hurry to cut to the chase, to speed through the dubs and rev up themselves and their listeners into a frenzy of echoed FX and sturdy rhythms.
Is this folk music? Perhaps, in the way that an elegiac requiem mass can be, or a threnody of loss and suffering felt on the part of a musician for the shocking violence which unfolded in his home town.
Trilithon Transits consists of three evenly spaced explorations of sonic time and motion taken – as the band name suggests – at the speed that the duo of Holy McGrail and Howard Marsden find most conducive to eroding the boundaries between the listener and the music.
Jahtari Seemingly beamed in from a parallel easy listening universe where the one and only King Tubby still reigns supreme, the Gl. Harlev Organ Orchestra deploy their vintage Technics organ, complete with cheesy electronic rhythms, dubbed up and overdriven.
Sulatron During the late Sixties, part of the psychedelic experience was to discover your inner self by going on the hippie trail to India and Nepal. Here people would find gurus, live in ashrams and contemplate the universe by the side of the Ganges. Electric Moon’s fifth studio album seems to be almost a soundtrack to these journeys
Play Loud! Formed in 1994 by ex PLO and Young Scamps members Kai Drewitz and Sabine Blödorn, Floating Di Morel have been mixing it up on the Berlin underground circuit for some time now. This, their latest album is my very first taste and I’ve got to say I’m really partial to what they have to offer.
Ormo Derby Derby is a French three-piece consisting of bass, drums and electrified trumpet. For them, the perfection of a monotonous drone is their goal, the sort that takes you away, transcending the ordinary and allowing you to slip into that mantra-like mindset where the slightest variation or the minutest change of detail become enormous.
Consouling Sounds With just two LP tracks totalling a shade over forty minutes long, Lueur presents its mood-altering substance in paths that wander from ultra-faded darkness into the natural world and back again.
Arts & Crafts This is Kid Koala‘s fifth album and I have to say is a serious change of pace to his previous output. Gone are the busy turntable experiments and instead with the aid of glacial vocals from the delightful Emiliana Torrini, we have a song suite of the kind of magnitude we are not fortunate enough to see very often.