Peripheral Conserve én‘s op. 80530 needs loudness, craves it. Minimal wares that require you to be encased in its edifice, the window-shaking physicality of its dronial weathers, a humble servant to the stretching dramatics, that bare corridor eating into the shadows like some Lynchian neurosis. Feels for the majority like a key slipping a lock whilst falling down the rabbit hole, forever dangling on hooks of expectation. It’s a […]
Album review
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Bureau B Berlin loves airports. Or it loved airports. Mm, I think on reflection it probably still does love airports, even if it no longer has quite as many as it used to. From the über-Zentral elegance of the now-decommissioned Tempelhof (once amongst the 20 largest buildings on Earth and key locus of the incredible 1948 Berlin airlift), to the international gateway of Tegel, the airy spaciousness of […]
Beta-lactam Ring It’s hard not to reference Popul Vuh while attempting to describe the effect of the opening moments of Kosmodynamos, but that’s no bad thing at all. The chime of bells, an evolving ripple of flute, Michel Leroy and Alberto Parra‘s cycling clean guitar strings which coalesce in a slow percussive parade — all hold the same pregnant promise of Florian Fricke‘s singular, almost holy, vision. However, […]
DAC Hélène Breschand plays her harp in as wide a variety of ways as is possible to imagine (and some which might be less obvious), at times sounding like she is letting rip in an electric guitar, prepared piano, zither and effects pedals all simultaneously. What it doesn’t really sound like is the limpid waftings of angels serenading the hosts of heaven, unless said host happens to be […]
Hubro If there’s a defining quality to modern life – and hence to contemporary music – it’s perhaps hybridism. Everything which has come before has never been as accessible as it is now, and like those innumerable monkeys who’ve been toiling away at recreating the works of Shakespeare, humanity seems to be intent on taking the sum of its knowledge and slotting it together again and again in […]
Southern Rudimentary Peni always seemed like a ticking clock of dystopias to me, a psychotic scaffold of tri-chords and drums, pyre-building a grinding axe of vocals, ranting at the greed miestering stink that (still) ruins, contaminates. Death Church, their first proper long player, spews out a gothika of crucifixes to nail society’s ills to – world hunger, hypocritical religion, the two-faced cancer of celebrity, vivisection and more. The […]
Young God (North America)/ Mute (Rest of the world) I always thought there was some kind of law, like a law of physics rather than one drafted for use in courtooms, like the Universal Speed Limit or something, that stated that it was physically impossible for a band to come back from the void of non-existence and still be at the top of their game. You know what I […]
Huta Artzine/Noisen/Zoharum Introduced by the shorter drones and electronic shimmers of “Alpha, “Beta” which rise up in a revenant scrawl of threat and ominous sounds (including some fine rabble-rousing samples which set the mood of the album as one slightly apart from the merely abstract and instrumental) the centrepiece of Ninkyo Dantai rests on the form of the twenty-minutes and more of “Alpha+”. But first comes “Gamma,” whose […]
With the annual festival of all things Europop upon the screens of a continent and beyond, Kev Nickells runs through the entries. Eurovision – a cherished institution. Writing this has been a bit of a nightmare, to be honest, because Europe’s a lot bigger than you think it is. Spreads all the way over to Azerbaijan. And for all the tack/awesome stage-setting, it’s a timely reminder that Europe, […]
Constellation A collaboration between David Bryant (of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Set Fire To Flames) and Kevin Doria from Growing, this is an exquisite 10-track drone tone, a weathered and majestic beauty with a slow burn of salted guitar whirring through the ruins. Shortwave Nights‘ woeful currents are superb, reflective, wrapped in the legioned wheeze of the dilapidated, as if written in the dust of some abandoned factory […]
Dekorder Love these guys. Just love them. This is a bubbly, ecstatic mess of an album, in every good way… It’s all over the place; a dig around a wet pit of transcendentalism, an overflowing tub of funny jelly. There’s moments where the Ghost Box almost appears (in fact a few of the melodies resemble the chord progressions and gentle hauntological swotting/swatting of Concretism) but these moments are […]
Zoharum I’m not familiar with Machinefabriek‘s work, but on the strength of this release I think a little extra digging into the man’s back catalogue is required. Dubbeltjes (Dutch for dimes) is a collection of small wonders culled from 7″ and mini CDr rarities recorded and released by Rutger Zuydervelt between 2008 and 2013, the tracks being re-presented here in pairs and trios, reflecting how they originally appeared. […]
Editions Mego The opening number sounds like the closing track; it’s all about endings with Fennesz; endless endings, everything slowing down and finishing off. These are jet trails, not jets. This is the stuff that clings to rock, not rock itself. “Static Kings” opens Bécs like it’s the last album he’s ever going to make (cf. the, in retrospect frankly fraudulent, last track on Orbital 1.0’s Blue Album, […]
Drag City It had to be Detroit. At the turn of the 1970s, local act Rock Fire Funk Express were just one of many small bands performing undistinguished R&B in the front rooms and garages of Michigan. The band had been formed some years previously by three young Afro-Americans – David, Bobby and Dannis Hackney – inspired by witnessing The Beatles’ legendary first appearance on the Ed Sullivan […]
PIAS (Europe)/Ipecac (North America) A full quarter of a century after Twin Peaks, Angelo Badalamenti‘s languid yet sinister lounge-jazz template has permeated music to the extent that it’s almost a genre in itself, as the preponderance of writers lazy enough to fall back on them as a descriptor, such as my good(ish) self, will attest. Think Chrysta Bell, think Guano Padano‘s “Lynch”, think a million and one neo-noir […]
Dekorder A hyper-collectible one-sided ‘hybrid vinyl’ you say? *strokes non-beard* What curious engine is this? *bug-eyed lunatic face / “Soylent Green is people!”* Well, it’s got meaty black vinyl on the audio side and the usual slack-jawed picture-disc vinyl on the other – AKA this is what Leibniz was referring to when he uttered under his wig “Die beste aller möglichen Welten” (“the best of all possible worlds”). […]
Slowfoot One Did has a Max Wall kind of rhythmic comedy about it, as if the instruments have taken a ministry of silly walks pill, a ganglia of legs skipping the hoots and jaggerations. You wouldn’t be surprised to know that former Stump bassist Kev Hopper is behind this gem. After having his fill of abstract, atmospheric electronica he’s back with a vengeance as Prescott, joined by former […]
Harbinger Sound Sleaford Mods, Nottingham’s self-styled purveyors of “electronic munt minimalist punk-hop for the working classes and under,” are back with Divide And Exit, the follow-up to their cult classic compilation Austerity Dogs; so brace for anger, scatology, moshing and swearing. If they were a publication they’d be a cross between Class War and Viz, but they’re not. They’re a band. And they’re fucking excellent. Frontman Jason Williamson […]