Red Wharf Only listened to this twice so far, but I must say its miles more entertaining than the previous Graham Bowers collaboration Rupture. Gone are the studious symphonics, favourably replaced by liberating wonky oompha chip-chop that scatters the wares more psychsomatically without labouring any fixed point.. “Off to Hell […]
Michael Rodham-Heaps
444 posts
London 19 May 2013 Stuck in traffic, time was slipping away from us like a buttery thing, a total nightmare as impatient idiots decided to forge an extra lane in front, and I’m behind this person in a huge sports car that was probably twice the price of my house! […]
Rustblade Disc one of Kibako, and “Nigatsu Nijuugonichi”‘s abrasive banquet of blow torch and bruised industry is definitely a room clearer. Lurching around in shifts of attacking energies, fearsome, intense – full of percussive dynamite snipping at squalling hordes. It’s a weird kind of rapture, overwhelming the senses with spiky […]
Rustblade As Legendary Pink Dot chemistry lessons go, this latest instalment to the series burns with a slow slip of reality, the simplest backbone of rhythm caught in the tattered net curtains of Edward Ka-Spel’s mind. Absorbing word weaves hooking you in as the trancelike vibes dribble the vowel fall, […]
Invada Loving that crayon lava of the cover, sleek minimal, that infra red chalkiness dwarfed by a sea of matt black, a darkness from which the title track “Landing” seems to howl. An epic opener, that grinding millstone riff all Bolan-esque beef, . An incredibly powerful vibe, made more so […]
LF This was conceived after a particularly arduous eighteen months whilst a basement flat beneath Seth Cooke‘s Leeds home was being renovated. Building noise, pneumatic drills, shouting, workmen urinating in the garden… you name it, and it was probably suffered. The sheer beauty etched into the metallics of this disc […]
The Lamb, Devizes 8 February 2013 Gentleman’s Relish are a wicked combo, a spiky pop duo of tight guitar evolves, countered by neat percussive candy. Those quirky poetics of lyric, comically charged and made further so by the drummer’s Bill Bailey mannerisms. A lot of sweet action indeed: that switch-a-roo […]
3 February 2013 The Exchange, Bristol Giant Swan were first up, a duo plying a lush clamour of harsh ear schisms that materialised into gristlised rhythms, a lot of box teased goodness to soak up. These boys certainly knew a thing or two about the art of bending circuitry. Loops […]
Cold Spring Tanith and the Lion Tree revels in that rich and sumptuous world Edward Ka-Spel has carved for himself, one where the surreal becomes vivid, a vibrant play of words that like Kenneth Anger’s pleasure dome inaugurations, slowly unfold, ensnaring you in simmerings of dark fascinations. Tastes that jump […]
Rocketgirl “Bound for Magic Mountain” is a whopping start. A neonised cascade choked full of bouncy goo and bleeping keylines breezes through your head like a mechanised kiss. The guitar kingpins transmitting a massive joy in kegs of wah-wah and laser, everything tilting to the max, smothered in copious effect […]
Monotype I’ve been struck by this band’s mysterious flavours since hearing them on numerous compilation LPs from the early ’80s, and then much later, on the Tionchor CD back in ’98 which gathered them all up in one (very odd) listening experience. ‘Nouvelle Concrète’ that was, and continues to be, […]
Dissolving As synthesized sci-fi goes, this does a really good job, drawing its inspiration from a Philip José Farmer novel of the same name. That Seventies Panther pulp cover of scarred red and Space 1999 data font of the inlay warming you to this homage to those late ’60s/early ’70s […]
Bureau B I first came across this album in a particularly smelly charity shop in the middlings of the ’90s. Sandwiched between some mouldering ’70s fodder, the massive sans serif Palais Schaumburg red of the slightly worse for wear cover, screaming out 2buy me now, or you’re gonna regret it!” […]
Dirter Really glad to get a proper chance to listen to this again – disc rot, the scourge of so many early World Serpent gems (the un-initiated should see here) and barmy auction prices have totally scuppered my chances to get re-acquainted with its Frankensteined charms until now. Dirter, those […]
Exotic Pylon Absolutely love the cover for this! A grinning turnip head with nasty teeth, pipe and wire glasses. A comedy shaman vibe which fits well with the jovial surrealism enclosed. Sharing a similarly damaged vibe to fellow Nordic maverick Goodiepal, the first track “Animal accompaniment is a cage they […]
Bureau B This release oozes an interstellar optimism. Rhythmic entanglements and driven drums playing Tom and Jerry with the spacey medications, whilst battling guitars spar, silhouetted on a blazing urban skyline. “Ego” is quite an opener, filling the canvas in a metrical rainbow of dramatic sweeps and boredom quashing sub-currents, […]
Rustblade This is like a spider’s web of sonic backgrounds, songs hanging to the sticky radials like cocooned insect, trapped meals in the spectral dust of some netherworld. The title may give it away, but this happily avoids any chain rattling cliché. “Throwing Things” is probably the only complete song […]
Bureau B This baby’s got kinetic candy aplenty, tearing up that flat ’80s graph paper, banishing machine rigidity in a blur of angles. Any inkling of metronomic dead flesh is given a dust kicking of sampledelics bolstered by live trumpets and fret slipping guitar, the momentum throwing your head in […]
Bureau B Those good people over at Bureau B have been delving into the archives to bring us two classic slices of pre-Cluster goodness. Well before ‘71 and Zuckerzeit, these two albums, originally released in micro editions of 300 copies, demonstrate an avant-garde spirit that was and still is, a […]
LF Wow! Take in that space. It’s practically a whisper for the first minute … Hákarl’s violin glowing like some gipsy succubus in the headphones… tugging the emotions as Daniel Hignell‘s electronics flitter the periphery, hugging those violin strokes in a dance of vaporous tastes. Vignettes of sensation, like a […]