A Splendid Chaos 28th October 1998 Faust have been a legendarily chaotic group since their origins as a kind of experiment in the creation of an anti-rock band in the early Seventies. Nearly thirty years on they remain as surprising and unpredictable as ever, live or on record, as they have throughout their erratic career, as Antron S. Meister witnessed at their London gig at The Garage on […]
Antron S. Meister
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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 […]
The Dublin Castle, London 16th October 1998 +Penthouse; Stoke Newington, London 17th October 1998 There can be few experiences as strange or as wonderful as when Bobby Conn and band show up in town in a flurry of wigs, imposture and post-Glam Rock attitude. Truly an eventful, landmark kind of proceeding, where the atmosphere rocks by itself, and the band play on as if they were the only […]
Label: KiffSM/PIAS Format: 12″, CDS Taking the only track from Kreidler‘s Appearance And The Park album to feature vocals, Mute‘s Daniel Miller adopts his Sunroof persona in collaboration with Gareth Jones to reconfigure the track in decidedly Eighties style – all arpeggiating FM keyboards and synth stylings – to initially amusing, then relaxingly suave effect, revisted on the slightly extended instrumental version which substitues analougue squiggles for the […]
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, […]
Kosmische @ The Garage, London 12 September 1998 A legend or two popped into The Garage, held an audience captive for a couple of hours, and it was just as might be expected – half a trip back in time, and half a slice of something timeless. Damo Suzuki nearly three decades on still has the stage presence of the Can days (at least that evident in Peter […]
Label: Kitty-Yo Format: CD Still led on a wayward course by the softly-spoken vocals of Roland Lippok, Tarwater continue their elegantly wastrel progress deeper into the realm of something which draws variously from Trip Hop, electronica and metaphysical poetry. The beats may be a mix of the live and sampled; the sundry noises, blips and snatches of conversation much in line with the times; what keeps it all […]
Label: Klangbad Format: VHS Recorded (oddly enough) during Faust‘s most recent visit to Japan, this video, despite its brevity at only two pieces with a total length of around eighteen minutes, also gives a good impression of the whole live experience of the band as it now exists. The hulking figure of Zappi Deirmaier, bashing away as the powerhouse of the group on his extensive range of percussion; […]
Label: Output Format: CDS, 2×12″ The first non-compilation solo release from Fridge’s Kieran Hebden is a one-track single (cunningly presented in DJ-friendly style as two one-sided 12-inches) whose title reflects its length – even if the CD does register various lengths on different players. Smoothly slipping from motorik breakbeats to fast beats, with a selection of instruments and samples flowing over the top of it all, ambient-style. Given […]
Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD When not making up a sizeable chunk of the musical bedrock of The Legendary Pink Dots, and surprisingly unprolific in his solo work by the standards of that group, Phil Knight has been known to settle down to produce some stunningly hypnotic recordings in his time. Following on from the hypnagogic Dreamcell of the early Nineties, Silvermandalas opens with an untitled track which shows a fascination for the watery sound of an electric […]
Label: Rocketgirl Format: CD,2LP Now that Spacemen 3 have joined the pantheon of those influential enough to have had a wide impact on a broad variety of other bands sufficient to inspire their collection into an album’s worth of covers, perhaps there’ll be a flood of homages to late Eighties groups to follow those of the Seventies. Despite the inherent tendency towards pot-luck assortments in such endeavours, at […]
Label: Go Beat Format: CDS,12″ Having set up their own studio with all the creative freedom that allows, Fridge seem to be heading outwards further from their alleged post-Rock roots into the realms of cluttered Electronica, and as with Kieran Hebden‘s side project Four Tet their HipHop, jazz and even easy tendencies have more room to breathe. Kinoshita Teraska is split into two tracks, each having half the […]
Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD,Limited 2LP In his inimitable style, master mythologer and spinner of eerie Millenial tales for The Legendary Pink Dots here presents some further solo efforts. There’s the hissing, steaming clockwork music box of “Supper At J’s” with unsettling reflections on the state of virtual 1999, which rises and falls from song into semi- orchestral concrète-samplescapes as the lead-in for an album which includes the disturbingly […]
Label: Truckstop/Atavistic Format: CD, LP Coming across like Jesus Christ Superstar on (more) acid, Chicago’s favourite Judeo-Christian Edutainer Bobby Conn is out to save your soul and wallet from resisting temptation. Aided in his Millenialist assault on reason by sundry members of (among others) Brise-Glase, Flying Luttenbachers, Rome and the production efforts of Jim O’Rourke, Conn conjours a straight-faced vision of an alternate universe where Seventies meet Nineties. […]