Constellation A collaboration between David Bryant (of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Set Fire To Flames) and Kevin Doria from Growing, this is an exquisite 10-track drone tone, a weathered and majestic beauty with a slow burn of salted guitar whirring through the ruins. Shortwave Nights‘ woeful currents are superb, reflective, wrapped in the legioned wheeze of the dilapidated, as if written in the dust of some abandoned factory […]
Michael Rodham-Heaps
451 posts
Zoharum I’m not familiar with Machinefabriek‘s work, but on the strength of this release I think a little extra digging into the man’s back catalogue is required. Dubbeltjes (Dutch for dimes) is a collection of small wonders culled from 7″ and mini CDr rarities recorded and released by Rutger Zuydervelt between 2008 and 2013, the tracks being re-presented here in pairs and trios, reflecting how they originally appeared. […]
Slowfoot One Did has a Max Wall kind of rhythmic comedy about it, as if the instruments have taken a ministry of silly walks pill, a ganglia of legs skipping the hoots and jaggerations. You wouldn’t be surprised to know that former Stump bassist Kev Hopper is behind this gem. After having his fill of abstract, atmospheric electronica he’s back with a vengeance as Prescott, joined by former […]
Bureau B Walter Dahn (of Die Hornissen) and Tom Dokoupil (of The Wirtschaftswunder) met up for a single weekend back in ’81 and this 36 minute album was the kinetic fruit it bore. It’s a forgotten classic if you relish your post-punk Germanics as much as I do, and being quietly obsessed by anything Wirtschaftswunder related…well… resistance was futile. It sounds retro, but in a good way, a […]
Peripheral Conserve Absolutely loving this musique concrète mixer: its powertooled psych-o-delia of mis-shapes pleases me no end, quivers a satisfying kraut dot’n’dashes too. The overall sprawl is akin to a modern rework of The Faust Tapes, and well, I wouldn’t expect anything less, as The Wasp Boutique is one part Jean-Hervé Péron after all. This is rousing fare for sure, thrown into the light by Peter Strickland of […]
Phantom Code Sulphur – Tarot – Garden I was lucky to catch the premier of this back in August 2012. The band captured the eerie grace and peculiar atmosphere of Derek Jarman‘s super 8s so completely, I was falling over myself to grab one of these CDr documents they were merch(ing) at the time. A nicely packaged item that have enjoyed listening to ever since. Now in the […]
Earbook Alan Courtis (of Reynols fame) and Aaron Moore (of Volcano the Bear) are at it again… colluding; colliding… hot on the heels of Brokebox Juke and a live document comes this new collaboration, a two track, 42 minute journey of differing tastes/textures and expanding ripples between the album’s epicentres of Buenos Aires and Brooklyn. “King Pancreas” starts in mournful blowholes riding cymbal sheens, leaking dischords thrown unexpectedly […]
Lava Thief This is an extraordinary piece of work, a wordless communion in caustic colours and sterling guitar playing. Its diverting textures are best appreciated through headphones, where they funnel-web your consciousness, cut through your head, jet between the ears in sweet diffusion; adventures you can taste, savour. Both participants are highly accomplished in their own right: Bill Horist seems to have collaborated with a whole host of […]
The Island, Bristol 21 February 2014 Second time round, The Island seemed less foreboding, with its seats, circular bar and rather cosy with a choice of off-kilter ambience leaking through the speakers from Bizaare Rituals. H, AKA Heloise of the excellent ZamZam label, kicked off the proceedings in contacted cymbal loop-caught metal overlaid in temples of spinning pennies, cross-stitched, pollinated in drifting drones, cross-cut with mythological teeth and […]
London 8 February 2014 Macgillivary started proceedings with some rather spooky vocals, multiple choirs caught in the looper’s long corridors, trapped trajectories, cloister curving, quickly followed by a souped-up electric zither accompaniment, as her sorrowful voice continued to work its magic through the vastness of the chapel. She pulled out some nice feedback too, and those ‘white horse’ piano tides were superb, reminded me so much of Galás‘ […]
Bam Balam Acid Mothers Temple supremo Kawabata Makoto, arch dude of the stratospheric guitar, harbours his more reflective side on most of these discs for French label Bam Balam, transmissions from the mellower drone-loving universe that we occasional glimpse between projects. Kawabata Makoto – We’re one-sided lovers each other First up, We’re one-sided lovers each other captures Makoto at his LaMonte Young best. A two-tracker, with the title […]
Bureau B Silber When most people were glam(ming) it up in the mid seventies Mr. Conrad was studio tinkering with possible futures. Messing with the building blocks of rhythm, harmony and melody to bleed a snakey elixir that formed this sixty minute noir-riddled masterwork, suitably blighted in whir kittens and sci-fi weevils.
Premier Sang Osaka Fortune is a fiery four-way fusion. <\\….. Jojo Hiroshige of the legendary Hijokaidan chewing up his guitar’s frets… Lasse Marhaug siphoning the buzzing veins of electric chairs…. Afrirampo‘s Pika dynamo smacking the skins and yelling like Annabella’s bow wow phantom daughter whilst Paal Nilssen-Love throws his percussive toys down the stairs, up the walls, face plants them into the concrete ….//> As you could imagine, […]
Safety Meeting Inspired by Sabbath, Acid Mothers Temple & Space Paranoid seem to do black better than Black Sabbath ever imagined. That stoner bass-line on the opening title track giving out a deep seriously trough-like muscle. A rippling crypt-like foundation for Kawabata Makoto to riff-witch all over, his frets carving out super-bright highways. Veering into the uncharted with breathtaking ease, as if you could see Hendrix grinning in […]
Bureau B This is a gleeful, cheery offering. A million miles from the moody cultures of Inland, Kurt Dahlke‘s ’79 debuting ice-breaker, it’s all ruby-cheeked whimsy, paddling in the shallow end, sucking on plenty of easy ear lollipops. Knowingly going where most experimenters fear to tread, into a world reserved for elevators and on hold appeasement; in short , the land of the inoffensive ditty. Pyrolator is clearly […]
(self-released) Starts in a dawn chorus of cymbal scrapes and reverbatory metals, rebounding some abandoned factory walls, dust bars of light catching the . A mild introduction that opens to the raspy slaps of “Grey Meat,” a curmudgeon that clumsily knocks into drawers full of cutlery franked by Gnostic monk moans. Then moments later it’s jumping out of the fire extinguisher smoke going headlong into a percussive jumble […]
The Island, Bristol 22 November 2013 The venue’s an abandoned police station, now converted into an arts centre/studio space. The grim nature of the place gets more pronounced as you step deeper into the building, those institutional hues greying against the eerie wipe-clean gloss of the white tiling. The cold concrete and red-bricked Victoriana, dower, depressing as the flaking magnolia, or the raggedy plastic bag spectres barb wire […]
Trost Full of throat-throttling goodness, this powerhaus trio carves quite a ruckus that effectively fills that massive void of a stage depicted on the cover. Right from the offing Caspar Brötzmann and Marino Pliakas‘s hexagonal arcs seem to leer, goading the somersaulting percussions and hypothermic cymbals of Michael Wertmüller. All three locking horns superbly , notching up quite a temperature, gnawing on each other’s shrapnel-filled halos in screeching […]