Australian experimental, improvisational and traditional multi-instrumentalist Mat Watson is known for being part of large and uusual orchestras and collaborations. He has played with Boredoms, conducted an orchestra for 40 synthesisers at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, has multiple solo and collaborative projects on the go at any one time.
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Latterly, although Bardo Pond’s new activities have slowed somewhat, the band’s bounteous back catalogue and previously unreleased tape vault extractions are being given considered curatorial care through regular releases on Fire Records, Three Lobed and Matador. With the latter label having just exhumed 1999’s churningly squally Set And Setting long-player, alongside Melt Away, a double-LP of choice rarities built-up around the ensemble’s four-album Matador affiliation, the time seemed more than ripe to converse over email with Michael Gibbons on the past, present and future of Bardo Pond...
The annual tradition of Kev Nickells giving the entries to the Eurovision Song Contest the benefit of his particular opinions has come to Freq once more. Strap in for his guide to the ups, highs, downs and disappointments of the musical dream of the year to some, a nightmare of cheesetastic proportions for others. Albania | Besa “Titan” Is it good? It’s kind of OK, it does a […]
As with every year, the turning of the seasons brings excitable crowds thronging to a new arena in another European city for an extended musical popularity jamboree, and Kev Nickells turns gimlet eyes and ears on the entries for 2023’s Eurovision Song Contest, sparing no blushes in the process. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Not only do we get all the fun of good looking […]
Even in the midst of the continent’s most devastating war in half a century or more, the Eurovision Song Contest sails on; and what better than having Kev Nickells take on the annual task of examining and occasionally eviscerating each nation’s entry in all the detail such a cultural monument deserves. It’s the most wonderful time of the year. In a year that Europe has been pretty shaken
Robert Sotelo‘s latest LP Celebrant comes out to the world via the good offices of Upset The Rhythm. A keen self-interviewer and lateral-thinking artiste, Robert has taken a moment or twelve to guide the listener through each song on Celebrant, giving a personal touch to each number.
The most wonderful time of the gay year, isn’t it. How much we’ve gay learned, and gay we’ve all become. I mean joking aside, there’s a lot of people have had a chance to spend some time with themselves and have come out as fuck. So it’s not all bad. What is ambiguous from this whole lockdown stuff is the effect it’s had on Eurovision. Here’s the skinny: […]
With virtually every public event in Europe and beyond cancelled, postponed or taking place on screens only, it comes as no surprise that the Eurovision Song Contest 2020 will not appear as a live and direct spectacle from Rotterdam to a billion television sets this May; but never fear, for Kev Nckells is still going to give each and every entrant into the non-happening competition a thoroughly superficial […]
Turntablist, BiP_HOp and Pandemonium label owner, radio host and more, self-professed “musical travel-agent” Philippe Petit has been a tireless bastion of electronic and experimental music, having released more than fifty albums over the last decade alone, some featuring a cast of co-conspirators including Lydia Lunch, Edward Ka-Spel, James Johnston and Eugene S Robinson. His latest venture is Modulisme, a platform / label / radio programme to promote modular […]
As per Freq tradition, Kev Nickells wades into every entry in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest and ranks them on a slithery sliding scale from rubbish and pish via banging to poppers o’clock. So here we are, another year and another Eurovision. And what joys await us.
Mark E Smith may be gone, but not forgotten by Kev Nickells. riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to the last order’s half past ten, brevity’s the soul, a fucking time ago innit. By class, vivisection. Applied Shem literally. Where’s the fucking drummer Mark? fucking drummer.
Ahead of the launch of Robert Sotelo‘s début album, Cusp, Iotar interviewed Sotelo while he was in Buenos Aires from his new abode in Graz, Austria. They talked about the drift away from a London-centred culture, the glorious meaninglessness of great pop and much more that is pertinent.
It’s that time of year when Kev Nickells undertakes his annual mammoth hatchet job feature-length review of every entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. Let the ritual ruination and Eurotunnelvision enthusing literally begin.
Universal Music Has it been twelve months already? Twelve months since Conchita Wurst swooped into our hearts and planted a big blue, pink and white flag in the heart of Europe for the second time in Eurovision‘s history. I realise that for a lot of people Eurovision is some chintzy, end-of-the-pier nonsense, but when you can have someone advocating trans* politics in front of millions of people across […]
London-based duo Kontakte‘s 2014 release These Machines brought a blissfully blistering end to their silence of two years between albums. Here, Ian Griffiths and Stuart Low give a detailed breakdown of how and why each of the album’s tracks came into being. * “Shut Your Eyes And You’ll Burst Into Flames” These Machines – Limited Edition CD by KONTAKTE Stuart: This track was birthed over a number of […]
Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire 17-19 May 2013 Bearded Theory is, pretty much by definition, a party that got out of hand. It started out as a birthday bash, and is now in its sixth year as a music festival. Somewhere in among this tangled web of history is an obsession with beards, and on the Sunday they have an attempt at the world record for the most fake beards […]
Harry Wheeler of Harmonic Rooms spends a week in November in the company of some of the current greats of the acoustic guitar, and reflects on the enduring legacy of John Fahey and Robbie Basho. Last November, I spent over a week in and out of the recording studio with my trusty video camera and two explorative guitarists, Cam Deas and Steffen Basho-Junghans. Part of the appeal of […]