Grönland Well, this is a mammoth undertaking and no mistake. A mere three months after Herr Rother arrived once more in Londinium to rock the smooth, polished wooden bleechers of Hackney’s du jour gig venue EartH – a reviewing task I lazily palmed off onto my teenage soni – onto […]
David Solomons
121 posts
Karlrecords Well, this one wrong-footed me, to be sure. The début album of Iranian composer and musician Saba Alizadeh, I had anticipated something of a showcase for Monsieur Alizadeh’s virtuoso stylings on his chosen instrument, the kamancheh, which he has been playing since the age of ten. Related to the […]
Cherry Red / MVD Audio / New Ralph Too It’s been nine months since my last foray into the deep Residential past and, subsequently, I have been sitting quietly, listening intently for the call of the Eskimo. It seems to make perfect sense that it has only now sounded forth with the […]
Leaving / Stones Throw To: Monsieur F., France London, Nov. 22nd __18. It is just after midnight, and as I write these words, weak and weary, my hand scarce possesses enough strength to hold the pen. I am in a wretched condition. I cannot rest. No sleep will come to me. […]
London 17 November 2018 My, what a strange day. Going to an afternoon concert is a rare enough event these days anyway, but when the bill of fare involves a jazz ensemble led by a bona fide Hollywood film star, who then proceeds to spend at least half the show […]
Sub Rosa As soon as the files were securely on the MP3 player of choice, I listened to First Time Out on the train, sipping coffee and watching the sun-dappled Essex countryside flash by outside. It was an unseasonably warm autumn day and, as the train stopped at Tilbury East, two […]
Jawbone Press In 1908, GK Chesterton, known by many as the “prince of paradox”, expounded his theory of change using the example of a white post. Some people, he maintained, had the idea that: …if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If […]
PNL Lazy adjective adjective: lazy; comparative adjective: lazier; superlative adjective: laziest unwilling to work or use energy. “he was too lazy to improvise” synonyms: idle, indolent, slothful, work-shy, shiftless, loafing, inactive, inert, sluggish, lethargic, languorous, listless, torpid, enervated, slow-moving, slow, heavy, dull, plodding. *
London 14 July 2018 Ah, those summer OTO nights. It’s so hot in here that I can almost feel the electrolytes leeching from my body. With my dotage rapidly approaching, this is one of those sauna-with-the-clothes-on experiences which I really wouldn’t put myself through anymore were it not for the […]
Grönland Yes, I confess, during my early teenage years I badly wanted to be David Sylvian. I spent a lot of time standing around nonchalantly beside neo-classical façades, trying to look as though I was on the cover of Oil On Canvas.
Sound On Probation It’s been proven by experimental research carried out at Yale University in 2005i that extreme ambient / drone music stimulates the part of the brain called Shatner’s Bassoon, which is the brain centre dealing with time perception. At certain highly-resonant frequencies, to the listener a second can […]
Cyclic Law You can never rely on the bloody British weather. Given that until last week April had been unseasonably cold and damp – a fifteen-minute walk from Brockley Station felt more like battling against the January elements than revelling in the joyous unfolding of spring – I was hoping […]
Cherry Red / MVD Audio / New Ralph Too Ah, where was I? Oh yeah, Residents re-issues. Normally, I make a point of not reviewing the same artist more than once for this august organ. Mostly this is driven less by any terribly noble or high-minded critical rationale than by a blind […]
SVS Records “Tell me the story”, a sibilant voice whispers on the album’s opening track, “i. Sabotage Story (unknot opening)”. Well, OK; you asked for it.
Karlrecords Mohammad Reza – better known to the world as the (last) Shah of Iran – was not a hugely likeable man. In 1979, as a youngster struggling to make sense of the images of the unfolding revolution that were flooding in via the BBC Six O’clock News, I remember […]
Cherry Red / MVD Audio / New Ralph Too Twenty minutes into the future. Allow me a short digression: He’s the toast of the town (lightly buttered). He’s the non-fattening sugar substitute in your tea. He’s a bon vivant, a gaucho amigo, a goomba, a mensch, and the fifth musketeer. He’s the […]
London 23 November 2017 “Dunkel. Dunkel ist die Nacht“.i It is most certainly dark tonight, the evenings now well and truly drawn. The winter solstice approaches. And, as is customary for such astronomical phenomena, we are gathering together tonight to celebrate by watching the rise of the strange, intense sun […]
Blue Tapes and X-Ray / Ici d’ailleurs For most people of certain age, the name of Gdańsk, Poland’s principle seaport on the Baltic, will forever bring to mind scratchy newsreel footage of world-historical importance: vast grey shipyards, cold hairy-looking men smoking furiously and wearing donkey jackets and, perhaps most vividly […]
Cherry Red High Wycombe, 1977. Thirty miles north-west of central London, famous for its illustrious furniture-making history,1 Wycombe has always been a voraciously music-hungry town. A strong local music scene took root some years ago, but viewed nationally, the town is still renowned more for its notable venues than for […]
London 22 June 2017 Hindsight can be a famously cruel opponent. On the freezing New Year’s Eve of 1961, The Beatles drove all the way down to London from their native Liverpool amidst swirling snowstorms and treacherous roads. The following day, whilst the nation sipped delicately at some Alka-Seltzer and […]