It’s been almost ten years since System 7’s chillout project has released anything, so obviously something in the mind of Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy felt that now was the perfect time to reactivate the project and create something new. In true old style, the album also features Alex Patterson from The Orb, someone who has worked with Hillage many times since the early '90s.
Gary Parsons
259 posts
101 Films' wonderful 4K UHD brings out all the fantastic lurid colours that the film possesses and gives a crystal-clear image to all of Pyun’s incredible set pieces. Joseph Mangine’s photography looks sublime and you can see that every dollar the film took to make is up there on screen.
Over the years the band's sound has changed, but has still remained uniquely ‘them’; no other band sounds like Neubauten. When I first saw them they were the sound of the dynamite exploding the collapsing new building -- now they are more akin to the dust and debris falling to the ground in slow motion.
Xmal Deutschland were born within the same German post-punk movement of the early '80s that produced such bands as Mania D, Malaria! , Abwarts and of course Einstürzende Neubauten. This was a fever pitch of creativity for young bands pushing boundaries within their musical styles with some, like Xmal, being swallowed up in the early goth scene in the UK along with lots of other bands that they bore no resemblance to musically.
Bureau B Robert Wiene’s 1920 film of The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari is the cornerstone for all expressionist film-making and one of the jewels in the crown of Weimar Germany’s art. Filmed at what would become the UFA studio in Berlin, Dr Caligari was created on the large soundstages there […]
...the composer had been working on a virtual reality experience with MR pioneers Tin Drum (a name maybe taken from an album by Japan?) which premiered in both Manchester and New York and had stunning reviews. Now it has a month long residency at the Roundhouse in London to what appears to be sell out performances (the one I attended was certainly sold out with people trying to get tickets).
When establishments come under new management there are sometimes doubts from the old clientele about whether it would be as good as it was before, whether it will have the same ambience and charm or even quirkiness. Tonight, a packed house at the Union Chapel has no doubts that this revamped Penguin Café still has everything that the old one did and has added some delicious extras as well.
Myrkur gives a stripped-down performance of four tracks from the new album with herself on vocals, accompanied by a seated guitar player adding a darker metal edge to her drones and piano playing.
Modern opera is thriving at the moment with new pieces being commissioned regularly and finding homes in small theatres, such as The Arcola next to Café OTO in Dalston and various other venues. Small production companies have been springing up for a few years now, bringing not only reworking of the classics but also brand new operas that are a mixture of the instantly recognisable in structure and also more challenging work that keeps modern opera vibrant.
Its rolling rhythm courtesy of Steffen Schmidt on the drums means the track almost cruises into being like a giant craft entering the Earth’s atmosphere after a long trawl through hyperspace. Echoed guitar from Sebastian Vath calls out across the solar system, as if trying to send a message to its home world. Max Leicht’s bass and synthesizer flesh out the sound, helping it springboard beyond Kuiper Belt objects to the farthest reaches of our solar system.
Roedelius is now eighty-eight years old and has had a fifty-four-year career in music, starting with the formation of Kluster in 1969 (who later changed their name to Cluster). He then ventured in to the more soporific tones of slightly more ambient sounds with Harmonia, which then lead him to recording three albums with Brian Eno in the mid-seventies. Since then, he has released dozens of solo albums and many collaborations, including one with former Japan keyboard player Richard Barbieri.
YOU WANTED THE BEST (I was fifteen in 1980 and Kiss were one of the first bands I ever saw live), YOU GOT THE BEST (that show has stayed with me all these years making me a fan), THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD (here I am forty-three years later to bid a fond farewell to….) KISS!
The ‘Orchestra’ were originally part of Brian Eno’s Obscure Music label in the '70s, whose reason for existence was to introduce ‘rock’ fans to more avant-garde artists and modern classical composers such as Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman. The Orchestra built up a large following though, and were involved in many different aspects of the arts including dance.
...two albums that Anthony has recorded over the years; his latest is A Painter’s Life and an earlier 2007 album, British Ballads. Reynolds plays a variety of different instruments on the albums and writes all of the songs. So lets take a trip to where the wild flowers grow and moss creeps over stones.
This is the sixth album for the Brighton-based band of Lisa Jayne and Andy Pyne, and is a collection of tracks they have been piecing together between 2021-2022 and features nine songs.
The album features two mammoth slabs of psychedelic rock, with the tracks by each band clocking in at over twenty minutes each.
However, we knew that the music was inside his soul; he wouldn’t remain idle for long and would soon be strapping on the guitars and firing up the synthesisers to create new music and take us on further trips out there beyond infinity.
Conform To Deform is a must-have history for those of us who bought the records and saw those bands live at the time; but hopefully it will also inspire others to check out the label’s incredible back catalogue, even if sadly many items are now out of print. There will never be another label like Some Bizzare and thankfully Wesley Doyle has finally told its story.
London 5 November 2022 The UK 2022: it’s Saturday and it’s raining; not in a Blade Runner kind of way, with neon lights and futuristic vistas, but in a drab way that only the UK knows how to do with aplomb.