South Bank Centre, London 19 September 2000 For their third live performance in a year after the seventeen of build-up, Coil arrive onstage dressed in unlaced grey strait-jackets, backed by a neon sign proclaiming the title of the night’s performance, Persistance Is All. The multiple possible meanings of this slogan soon becomes apparent, as the playback of Jhon Balance‘s spoken title beat which opens “Something” fills the “Royal” […]
Lilly Novak
38 posts
Label: Chalice Format: CD,2LP 1. As I reclined in my sketchy little world and allowed the gasses to go to my head, I became overpowered with the notion that I was being carried away. Silly flashes of Communion-like images of alien beings lifting me and placing me against soft chrome and spraying my skin black metallic and an underlying fear that maybe, just maybe this could all mean […]
Label: Touch & Go Format: CD,LP Let’s give Three” the moodiest album of 2000 award. If we are passing out any awards that is. Black Heart Procession capture gloom and wrap it up in matte-coloured cowboy Goth like nobody’s business. Unfeigned resignation to everything is the raison d’etre and the low level chronic depressive sound topped up with teardrop pianos and rimmed with just right amount of experimental […]
Label: Nettwerk Format: CD While we’re all waiting for the Legendary Pink Dots to come back, and for Skinny Puppy to repeat last year’s German reunion with a local gig for local people, cEvin Key, Edward Ka-Spel and associated LPD and Download crews have crafted another Tear Garden album, and it’s a blinder. You know the score – a gothier Dots, maybe, or a more psychedelic Download, or […]
Label: Conspiracy International Format: CD Surely Ms. Cosey is the empress of electronic bliss. Time To Tell (2000) is nothing if not the most complete guide to a woman who stirs, blends and folds her life and art more comprehensively and with more sincerity than just about anyone else I can think of involved in modern performance and media manipulation. This re-re-release (with additions and enhancements) of Time […]
Label: Sub Up Format: CD Well I am supposed to listen to this CD and be amazed at what technology can bring to life in the antiquated traditional sounds of Cuban music today. While the production techniques of Holger Hiller are undoubtedly very masterful, what impresses me most is that they do nothing to water down the sumptuous vocals that obviously take their strengths from a long-earned heridity […]
David Pajo; Robin Guthrie; Pole; Labradford Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 24th June 2000 This year’s Festival of Drifting sees each participant playing all in one night as a national tour, as opposed to the previous two years when performances were spread out over the course of 4-6 days at various venues. Labradford‘s idea is to bring together an artist-led festival featuring performers from the softer […]
Label: Durtro Format: CD So the story goes that David Tibet of Current 93 found this act in some seedy New York drag cabaret and was so knocked out that he brought them to his Durtro label and released this CD as soon as possible. Well, it is little wonder that Antony & The Johnsons would cause such a stir. Thematically the most “Goth” music I have come […]
Queen Elizabeth Hall South Bank Centre, London 13th June 2000 The South Bank Centre seemed to be all on with their rules of protocol as I watched David Thomas from a tiny vertical glass in the big imposing closed door or the Queen Elizabeth Hall. I was a little late and the steward decided not to send me and the long line of other late-comers in to take […]
Label: 13th Moon Format: CD Mr. & Mrs. Fiend sure know how to evolve. First listen to this go ’round of Nocturnal Emissions admittedly made me wonder why they bothered with a pared down version of their sound. Production is nice, artwork is good, and there are the bonus tracks which is a quick mix or two of “Evolution” (the “Hup 2-3-4” mix, the “Back From The Dread […]
Label: Hologram (North America)/Fünfundvierzig (Europe) Format: CD O that wacky Joel Vandroogenbroeck! I am on about my eighth listen to Alchemic Universe and what keeps happening is that I forget it might not mean to be so serious. What a bunch of flexing of the ole keyboards! This is Prophet 600tastick! ooo, the DX-7, the Korgs, the Junos even! An Eighties sort of extravaganza of synthesizer music gone […]
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: Geffen Format: CD,LP This album marks yet another, slightly revised, slightly more reflective return in sound for Sonic Youth; all the way back to the rugged melodic scamblings of Daydream Nation. With their amazing capacity for distinction of sound, SY are immediately recognizable from the first stretched note, thoough they seem to have done some house cleaning and root searching for NYC Ghosts & Flowers. New York […]
Label: Quarterstick (North America) City Slang (Europe) Format: CD,LP Calexico are not trying to be subtle in any way with Hot Rail. From the Mexican Mafia gang tatoo font to their immediate delve into Mariachi horns on track one, it is apparent that this is border town type music for lovers of the desert from a group named after one very such crossing point. Mercifully they shy pretty […]
April 2000 I arrived at this gig a little late and in much overdone panic. First of all we were in South London, and more importantly, I had forgotten to pick up a blank tape to record this interview on. As soon as I located Arrington de Dionyso, which took about twenty seconds in the dimly lit and tiny venue, he sweetly agreed to loan me a cassette […]
Label: Caciocavallo Format: CD It is daunting to say the least to be assigned reviews of one of my most top favourite aritsts. I have spent the better part of a cold day indoors listening to these two albums on repeat and I don’t hesitate to tell you it has been a bit of a long winter’s brain-fuck. To me every little thing that Edward Ka-Spel works on […]
Komedia, Brighton 22nd February 2000 First round on a rare night of electronic experimentalism in Brighton, held in the converted supermarket cabaret venue Komedia and hosted by Semiconductor was Lucky Kitchen, an electronic duo between Alejandra Salinas and Aaron Bergman (AKA Alejandra and Underwood as the handy little placards placed on top of the mixer for each act stated). Their music was accompanied by a little video projection […]
Label: Tone Casualties Format: CD,LP Is this what it’s like to wake up with Mr. Czukay every morning? Well, anyway, Holger’s come back and the general consensus is that he’s looking camp as ever. Good Morning Story is a nice wake up call, sampled generously with lots of Can and it shows. Mr. C. claims this to be his first time playing with an ordinary sampler, rather than […]