The Dome and Boston Music Room London 24 May 2015 I have to admit that I’ve never been to Raw Power before. Every year, more than any other festival, there are always an amazing bunch of bands that I have wanted to see, or at least witness again. So even though I was unable to do both Friday and Saturdays events, I managed to race to the venues […]
live review
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London 22 May 2015 Fortis Green, north London. A place of fertile musical soil. Back at the turn of the Sixties, Fortis Green was the manor of brothers Ray and Dave Davies, whose combination of gifted lyricism, overdriven Vox amplifiers and almost unrivalled songwriting ability saw them take the output of their ground-breaking – although never less than highly combustible – band, The Kinks, to the pinnacle of […]
London 21 May 2015 – The Conscious Pause – It is daunting to write about a show that was attended by so many Freq contributors because I know they’ll all read this and I am sure they will all have things to add (or deny). But what does that matter? It is daunting to write about a Swans show, because – Swans – This was my second time […]
Bristol 20 May 2015 Sadly, I only caught the end of Okkyung Lee’s set — a real pity as that scraping reverberation of cello was curving some lovely tonal mirages. It wasn’t long before the Swans gradually graced the stage (sometime around 8.37pm). First Thor Harris, who brewed a lovely metallic warble from his massive gong, a sound that sizzled excitingly in the ear. Phil Puleo joined him, […]
London 15 May 2015 Friday night at The Roundhouse, and the faithful are gathered for what promises to be a night of epic heaviness — four bands culminating with the mighty Electric Wizard are set to compete for our hearts, minds and ultimately, souls. However, due to a rubbish London Transport experience, I arrive when the first of them, Moss, are already half-way through their set.
London 12 May 2015 Ozric Tentacles gigs now seem like a celebration. They are the meeting of the multi-coloured clothed tribes come together in one place and celebrate the wonderful psychedelic sounds of the Ozrics. The fact that the band are now 31 years along their long strange trip to Erpland also proves the continuing love and respect and support the band have with their far-out fans. The […]
London 8 May 2015 I remember quite a few years back after a Magma show, a friend of mine turning to me and saying, “That was like being on another planet for two hours”. And he was right, very few bands make you transcend to another realm but Magma has the capacity to do this. Maybe it’s because the songs are sung Kobaïan, a language invented by band […]
Bristol 29 April 2015 The no-show of Shit & Shine was a bit of a disappointment but Anthroprophh wiped any dissatisfaction clean away with their deep-bellied spectral scream of speaker abuse.Wedging their weapons into the speakers, it was a wholesome racket, all ill-tempered tilting extremes, suddenly poured out into a martial law of double drums, Gareth and Jesse smacking a strong rhythmic core to which Paul fed a […]
London 2 April 2015 A spectre is haunting Camden, and that spectre is the spectre of Spectre, Laibach‘s most recent and sublimely poppy album. On the face of it, you’d think Laibach’s “foregrounding the totalitarianism inherent in pop music” schtick would have worn thin really fast, like a one-joke Damien Hirst piece that blows your head off at first and then gives you no real reason to go […]
Église Saint-Merri, Paris 9 April 2015 Paris’s historic Église Saint-Merri is the scene for the more sedate concerts in Sonic Protest‘s busy festival schedule of gigs which take place across the city and its environs over a very long weekend. The music which unfolds beneath the multi-coloured illuminations that scatter across the ranks of cherubim, illuminate the stained-glass windows and fall upon the various sculptures and multimedia installations […]
1 April 2015 The word “Hoxton” to me is like the word “Mordor” to hobbits — a terrifying place whence flows all the evil plaguing London. So tonight I’m deep in the heart of enemy territory to see Bo Ningen, and you know what? It ain’t that bad. There are very few shovelbeards on show here, and while part of me fears that this may just be because […]
Bristol 2 April 2015 Pohl were an epic, hard and ultimately satisfying display of heavy riff-based shenanigans. A mighty three piece whose ranks boasted Hugo of Bristolian psyche monsters The Heads fame, who supplied some seriously grunged-up basslines whilst the (Buddy Holly look-a-like) singer stabbed at them with octave grates of guitar and some excellent shouty incentives, leaving the drummer to smash and grab at the sound barrier […]
London 13 March 2015 Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life. I thought of their unfathomable distance, and the slow inevitable drift of their movements out of the unknown past into the unknown future. H G Wells – The Time Machine The Orb are celebrating 25 years of making music that has headed for the outer reaches and then […]
Brighton 24 February 2015 Last time Earth came to Brighton they played The Haunt, a tiny space which scores highly on the intimacy scale, but you couldn’t help feeling a band of this stature deserved a bigger stage, both literally and metaphorically. It’s pleasing then to see them upgrading to the Komedia, but before the main event we have the intriguingly named Black Spirituals, who turn out to […]
London 27 February 2015 Its been a long time since Node has performed live in London. So not only is the show sold out tonight, but it’s also at one of the most astounding venues that the capital can offer. Sitting opposite the back end of the Royal Albert Hall, I’m assuming that the Royal College of Music doesn’t normally see that many rock concerts happen here, but […]
The Shacklewell Arms, London 25 February 2015 Called in at the last minute to cover a band of whom I’ve never heard but am assured I’ll like, I’m downstairs at The Shacklewell Arms, its cave-like stage, especially the part where the drummer has an actual alcove instead of a riser, proving to be the perfect location in which to take in the oddly-named Seven That Spells, purveyors of, […]
Bristol 23 February 2015 From the IYABE’s screamy staggering starts, I was expecting that riot grrrl action to continue, but it was quickly evident these weren’t one-trick ponies, but a dynamic beast, dissolving onto something more deliberated, atmospheric, flitting happily between spindly trip-hops, brooding frustration and a whole lot else. They fitted themselves around an array of spooky pre-recorded landscapes that exploited that soulful vocal exploration to the […]
Heaven, London 15 February 2015 So tonight CarterTutti bid a fond farewell to their iteration as Chris & Cosey, and as expected the place is rammed to the rafters, as nobody wants to miss the end of this particular era. Prior to the gig my Facebook feed was a constant stream of updates telling me that one person or another on my friends list was going, and judging […]