Zam Zam The synth duo of Kevin Valentin and Benjamin Moutte have a proper appreciation of their wares, something that the ominous plunge of the opener on their new Surprise Barbue album Kabukichō solidly demonstrates. It mindscapes a lovely tensive herald, spiralised in jewelled splashes and a subtle creep of […]
Michael Rodham-Heaps
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Three Lobed Leaping off Headless’s comfy sofa, those Sunburned peeps are more frazzled and distinctively vocal with this year’s follow up release Pick A Day To Die on Three Lobed Records. The sleek-lined kiss of the previous LP seems to be left to unravel more, to tail-spin adventurously as Jeremy […]
Bureau B I know very little about Die Welttraumforscher. They’ve (or should I say he’s, as all this is a predominantly solo affair of Christian Pfluger) been going since 1981 as one of Switzerland’s most enigmatic musical projects, sung almost exclusively in German. Luckily for a newbie like me, Bureau […]
(self-released) That guttural bleakness punctuated by a lone-slap of reverbed timpani is impressive — a real sit up and listen asthetic tied to a wine-glass hum and a circle of Galás gulls that drag you into a ritualised scrape of brutalist electronics and scatter-cushioned skin. Lay In The Salt Of […]
Disciples The beginnings of a thing are rarely seen, beyond its creator and co-conspirators, an initial spark so easily buried in the bushfire it nourishes; so it’s something of a privilege to soak up the plenitude of ideas that would give His Name Is Alive their distinctive play of light […]
Buried Treasure Named after a sunken granite reef in the Celtic sea, Haig Fras takes this remote place as a source of inspiration, to sonically spill in a subterfuge of folding texture and swifting aquatics bleached in a Derek Jarman-esque gleam. Part Urthona, part Téléplasmiste, Neil Mortimer and Mark Pilkington seamlessly […]
Rocket I liked Pharaoh Overlord’s last release, but this newbie is on a whole different level. They’ve turned down that motorik dial a touch, to let in a banquet of euphoric synth work wrapped in a barrage of skewed disco flavours. A groovesome cocktail easily demonstrated by “Path Eternal’”s Giorgio […]
Zona Watusa One of the many highlights of last year’s Delaware Road festival, the Somerset collective R.E.E.L. (Rapid Eye Electronics Ltd.) have got something here on Music For Psychedelic Duelling to graffiti over 2020’s gloom in the shape of two thirty-minute mutating stabs full of brawling pyrotechnics and toppling tautness.
Dais Moon’s milk was flowing strong with Coil’s transition from London to the Weston-lands. An eerie musicality crept over them on 1999’s Musick To Play In The Dark as future and past co-existed, the altar of white rainbows and unquiet skulls soaked up the coastal mists of their new shoreline […]
One of the most flamboyant, original and exciting of synthesists in the world of modular synths and beyond, Thighpaulsandra has been pushing the boundaries of electronic music as a solo performer and as a member of Coil, Uruk (as a duo with Massimo Pupillo) and UUUU (with Valentina Magaletti, Matthew Simms […]
Sub Rosa A celebration of Mr Burroughs’ Western Lands, for the The Acid Lands, the Prague-based Opening Performance Orchestra spike the punch with their choice of narrator, and I’ve got to say the choice is a solid one. Iggy Pop’s husky bloom coherently curls into Burroughs’ talismanic trails, romances the […]
Thrill Jockey Conceptual pranksters Matmos invited ninety-nine musical souls to do what thou wilt, with the blank canvas of the cover of the resulting The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises In Group Form an inkling of the freedom involved. Complete freedom? Well, not quite – the Matmos boys introduces a tiny […]
Faustus As on Daona‘s startling debut album The Secret Assembly, this duo love to weird you out, inject you with a swaying unease and mess with your expectations. The vaporous vampires and ghostly cinematics that glue up the action on Nightside Of Eden are like midnight’s children creeping the architecture […]
Sub Rosa I absolutely love this type of thing. I’ve had a real appetite for everything electroacoustic ever since hearing Karlheinz Stockhausen at a formative age, and diving straight in to Agitations, the first track is a satisfying monster. “Abscission One” is an immersive aperture your mind falls right into, […]
Sub Rosa The group responsible for last year’s (rather excellent) Noise Of Art CD continue their no melody, no rhythm, no harmony ethos with this release that documents the carrion buzz of thirteen alternating radio sets, vintage ones dating from between 1935 and 1961.
Zoharum The dusty kinetics of Hotel Bravo‘s opener “Hotel Paris” slope into your ear in skipping recoils, navigated by quiet words and whispered replies, periodically broken by a taut Japanese-flavoured melodic and pattering synth-washes. An ambient lamp light falls into the fragmented flux of “When The Chimes End” its stuttering […]
Upset The Rhythm Well this came as a total surprise; after a steady flow of Normil Hawaiians re-issues from Upset The Rhythm over the last few years, the band now present two newly recorded tantalising glimpses into their sonic future.
Staraya Derevnya (CD) / Raash (cassette) / Steep Gloss Russian – Israeli – UK collective Staraya Derevnya dish up a refreshingly eclectic aesthetic where anything and everything has musical potential. A free-form exploration that’s open ended and primal which reaches into the unpredictable to pluck out some smouldering gold.
Mental Experience Originally released in the ludicrously slim edition of fifty cassette copies in 1984, Clear Memory has now got the re-issue Washington, DC oddities Bomis Prendin deserve, complete with rare photos and insightful (and often surreal) liner notes detailing its making. A pioneering pull, the summery chirps and Casio […]
Prescription The first volume of Coil‘s unreleased Astral Disaster sessions was a revelation, chocked with new perspectives, and even introduced us to some fascinating freshness straight from the cutting room floor.