The Sound of White Columns Unlike Star Trek fans, Can enthusiasts never have to choose between the two key vocalists of the Can oeuvre. Partly this is because Damo Suzuki and Malcolm Mooney both found idiosyncratic ways in which to interact with the rest of the band. It is also because Can enthusiasts are not necessarily Star Trek fans. Mooney’s sojourn with The Can initially manifests as one […]
Iotar
33 posts
The Jazz Café, London 10 November 2012 Anyone who knows anything about Krautrock will already know that Agitation Free were one of the most significant bands during the early ’70s in Germany. They will also know that both Manuel Göttsching and Christopher Franke are included amongst their alumni, and that the three albums that make up the core of their discography, Malesch, Second and Last, are some of […]
Sub Pop There’s always a tension going on between artists and their audiences growing up. Back when we first encountered Low they were playing deliberately quietly, persistently black and white. . In a few years we all stopped being so bloody miserable; us, them, everyone. Although God knows there was plenty to be miserable about. Some people went off and had kids. We thought that was the last […]
Paw Tracks Prince Rama‘s ecstatic mantra-core would have smacked of mere exoticism hailing from any other clime than the Florida Hare Krishna community where this trio met. What we hear in their Shadow Temple album, more so than any of their previous releases, is an expression of a domestic American syncretic Hinduism, which embraces a core Saivism that is at first glance at odds with the Vaishnava Krishna-bhakti […]
London 11 May 2004 Since leaving Thee Headcoatees, Holly Golightly has been carving her own idiosyncratic niche in Garage Blues, lo-fi R&B in a retro Punk vein. Eschewing the vagaries of digital technology for the immediacy of vintage Vox amplifiers, Hofner guitars and a voice turned to honkytonk leather by bourbon and bar room smoke. Bearing all this in mind it is perhaps surprising to find Holly playing […]
Label: Rock Action Format: 12″,CDS Three tracks, barely eleven minutes in total and more accomplished than an hour of almost any other band you choose to name. The five piece Kling Klang – the original core trio of Joe McLaughlin , Amy Corcoran and Dave Smyth with Ali McDonald‘s drumming and Peter Smyth filling out the keyboard ranks – are a force to be reckoned with. The band […]
The Klinker The Sussex, London 20 September 2001 Well, The Klinker was its normal inchoate self: the irrepressible Hugh Metcalfe yelling “We start in ten minutes” as a half dozen apparently unrelated machine operators tinker with toy tape recorders, laptops, bits of wiring, large wineglasses, violin bows and Super 8 projectors. I concieve a momentary connexion between autism and the avant-garde – the unconnectedness, the lack of affect, […]
May 2000 As impassioned and animated offstage as behind his massive drumkit, Charles Hayward radiates a genuine intensity. He first came to wide attention as drummer with the highly influential This Heat as the embers of Post-Punk simmered off into wilder experimental tangents. He has released a dozen solo and colaborative albums, and puts on rare solo live shows which pull the raw muscular percussion at the heart […]
Label: Klangbad Format: CD,2LP The big Krautrock album of ’99? Well, it’s certainly caused a lot of excitement in those circles. Fresh from turning London’s Garage into a gas chamber and ejecting long-time figurehead Jean-Hervé Peron, Faust land in the recorded arena with Ravvivando – twelve tracks of uncompromising noise of vintage quality. Phew! Original members, Hans Joachim Irmler and Zappi Diermaier have assembled four cohorts to continue […]
Label: Quarterstick Format: CD Rachel’s may be the logical conclusion of the tradition of Tortoise and Slint. This is not to say that they sound like either of these bands, but rather that one may trace an evolution in contemporary American music from a highly developed No-Wave to an end of millennium conservatoire music. Of course this music is not really specifically millennial either and at its best […]
Label: Guided Missile Format: 7″ The seven inch single, that ancient hallowed artifact: Conduit of commerce, copper coin of pop song, object of reverence and disposable frisbee. Once in a very rare while one will come along to download into your daytime consciousness and unconscious reverie: A hook, a lyric and a skilfully-turned bassline, a drumming of the fingers on public transport or a bout of air guitar […]
Label: Kranky (CD)/Constellation (Vinyl) Format: CDS,12″ Perhaps the criminally overused expression “intense” can be used with justification, just this once, to describe the sound of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The mysterious Canadian nine-piece roll out another of those accelerative weighty soundscapes that we’d always hoped Glenn Branca would produce. Discipline and a telepathic, egoless sense of control push the multilayered epic “Moya” into peaks and troughs similar in […]
Label: Touch & Go Format: CD,LP Don Caballero are part of the recent contemporary phenomenon of American men with big guitars, no vocals and, thankfully, a sense of humour. Much of their musoid noodling would have been tarred with the Progressive brush in halcyon eras of wide trousers, big hair and expansive stage concepts but what Don Cab bring to the boot fair is their own brand of […]
Label: Ochre Format: CD The first album from this psychedelic collective proves to be a cosmic affair of considerable depth and originality. Taking their cues from the space rock of Brainticket and Amon Düül II and the lo-fi acid folk of The Incredible String Band, this group kick out some truly noxious grooves with time for multiplex neo-pagan storytelling trips and obscure Electroacoustic klang worthy of a lost […]
Kosmische/The Sausage Machine The Vibe Bar, London 11 June 1998 I was foned on Wednesday night by Iain, a friend who I hadn’t heard from for a little while. He asked if I liked Fridge. I asked whether he meant my fridge or whether I was merely well disposed towards refrigerators in general. He told me that they were playing Thursday night in Brick Lane and thought I […]