O2 Academy Islington, London 8 July 2011 Two very different Japanese interpretations of the idea of rock’n’roll descended upon The Angel Islington. Compare and contrast the constructions of rock’n’roll energy, of gtr-bs-dr dynamics between the leather-clad machismo of Guitar Wolf and Bo Ningen‘s more androgyne angle. Bo Ningen favour the […]
Antron S. Meister
Important (CD) / Agitated (vinyl) Once upon a time, a long time ago (but not long in the annals of Britain’s space rock godfathers), a bunch of dishevelled reprobates, part time musicians and full-time dopeheads used to play around with Hawkwind songs, frequently changing the words of “Psychedelic Warlords” to […]
Label: Decay/Target Video Format: DVD,VHS Originally released on VHS in 1987, this collection of the Dead Kennedys live in concert and the studio finds them in fine Punk Rock form. As is to be expected, the sound quality of the gig footage (mostly recorded at Mabuhay Gardens 1979-80) is less […]
Label: 4AD Format: DVD+3xCD There is an air of finality about the title and contents of 1981-1998. With the dissolution of their musical partnership into separate solo careers, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry are no longer Dead Can Dance, but as the extensive essay on the group included in the […]
Label: NTT (available exclusively via Touch) Format: DVD (Region 0, NTSC) Sometimes, nothing satisfies quite like the immersive intensity of a minimalist audio-visual feast for eyes, ears and cerebellum, and Formula provides more than adequate satisfaction on all counts. Starting with the packaging, which is realised with superb attention to […]
The Forum, London 3 April 2004 If one thing in life is true, it that people get older, bands get mellower – the noise and sound and fury of an Industrial youth flows into a neatly-tailored sartorial elegance and a penchant for slower numbers. Or so it is with Einstürzende […]
@ Kosmische Upstairs At The Garage, London 16 September 2003 A reasonably well-filled Upstairs At The Garage is in store for a sleazy night of lateral Rock and Roll tonight. Caesar Romero pull off several good sweaty tricks – they use keyboards and guitars like they were meant to be […]
Label: Paw Tracks Format: CD,LP From the acid-drenched woodland scenes of the band members lurking in a mirror wilderness on the cover to the music itself, Here Comes The Indian screams and drones and scrawls with psychedelic brightness and insanity. The Animal Collective yell and chant, whip up frenzied percussive […]
The Spitz, London 5 June 2003 When the Acid Mothers Collective come to town, a few things are certain – extended improvisations, guest appearances (tonight’s honourable psychonaut is none other than Daevid Allen), antics and japes at the keyboards, and hair. Lots and lots of hair: not just on the […]
93 Feet East, London 8 March 2002 Kitty-Yo hit London, taking over the snazzily labyrinthine 93 Feet East venue on Brick Lane for an evening of the label’s quality acts and a host of guest DJs from Berlin, London and further afield, one of whom seems to be playing Generation […]
The Garage, London 18 January 2002 Not just another of those long-thought forgotten altered-state Pop could-have been idols extracting and revitalising themselves from the Eighties and onto the stage again, Frank Tovey, here backed up by a full band is back. In front of an audience half uncolourful and speckled […]
Label: Studio Philo/Music Video Distributors Format: DVD When Genesis P-Orridge returned to London in 1999 after nearly a decade of tabloid media-inspired witchhunt and subsequent exile to America, there was no doubt that the reappearance of Psychic TV on stage would be an event. That GPO’s manifestation resulted in broadsheet […]
Label: Phantom Code/World Serpent Format: CD The title of Cyclobe‘s second album release soon becomes fitting as the music opens out, expands and contracts, almost oozes from the pores in the breathing walls – but where are they visiting from exactly? Some might suggest grayling spacefarers, others could contend, quite […]
Label: Staubgold Format: CD What better subject for a To Rococo Rot concept album than a highly modernist building in Cologne? With twelve modular rooms to work represent both the structure and purpose of, the logical method the band took was to compose a three minute track for each section. […]
Label: Matador Format: CDS,12″ Taking as its sample base the sounds of plastic surgery operations, “California Rhinoplasty” does precisely what the title describes; only funkily. Not for Matmos the obvious route of ambinece as the bones rasp and the noses are broken with a hammer. Instead, every sound becomes grist(le) […]
Label: Brombron Format: CD Edited down from a week’s recording in and around Extrapool studio in Nijmegen, Holland by Antenna Farm and Main in the summer of 2000, AF_M is the first in the Brombron series of collaborations initiated by Staalplaat and Extrapool. Using laptops, guitars, environmental and close-miked recordings […]
Label: Ronin Format: CD There’s no denying 23 Skidoo their place among the innovators at the interface of Eighties post-Industrial Funk, World Music and general experimental groove development. It’s one of those mysteries and licensing which has no doubt kept their back catalogue out of print for more than a […]
Label: Ash International Format: CD Sourced from field recordings made by Hazard and Chris Watson and reprocessed by Benny Nilsen, Wind takes the sound of that element as it moves across two continents and brings out the drama of nature in an immediate, textural manner. Where the Isolationists drew their […]
Label: City Slang (Europe)/Mute (North America) Format: CDS,12″ The Pantone EP brings together a selection of tracks originally aired on To Rococo Rot and I-Sound’s Music Is A Hungry Ghost album, here revised in light of live performance. “Pantone (Red)” whirrs out from an opening skim across the glitchscape into […]
The Mean Fiddler, London 2 July 2001 Somehow Lolita Storm should have got a better reaction on this bill – their shouty teen rants and splattery digital hardcore beats and pieces are part of the busy collision of electronics and rock the Young Gods were instrumental in creating after all. […]