Hubro Just looking at the cover of this album with Oyvind Skarbø and his musical friends and colleagues dressed as a school marching band gives you a vague idea of what to expect inside. They have quite serious looks on their faces, but the uniforms are a bit ill-fitting, as if they were borrowed and not taken too seriously. They are clutching various instruments that make them look […]
Mr Olivetti
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Cobblers Diagonal don’t trend to release albums in a rush, this being their third since 2008; but once they are in the studio, the ideas come pouring out. It has been seven years since The Second Mechanism and since that time, two original members, Alex Crispin and Daniel Pomlett have returned to the fold, the band once again becoming a six-piece. In the past few years, life has […]
Om Swagger There are some pretty eccentric ideas out there, certainly regarding music; but Ian Shirley, the editor of Record Collector, may well have come up with one of the wildest. Kraftwerk must be one of the most revered names in modern music history, and Ian has asked the internationally reputed Ebony Steel Band to interpret some of their better-known tracks in the joyful Caribbean style. I mean, […]
Thrill Jockey Thrill Jockey continue their venture into noise territory with the first release from Eye Flys. The band is named after a Melvins song and with their own track titles like “Crushing The Human Spirit” or “Weaponize” and with rather sinister cover art, you probably have a good idea of what this six-track EP contains.
Hubro Considering the island of Lanzarote is renowned for its sunshine and blue skies, this latest collaboration between Jo Berger Myhre and Ólafur Björn Ólafsson is filled with melancholy. Most of this has to do with Lanzarote being the last placed that Ólafur spent time with Johann Johannsson before he died early last year. Apparently, the two of them played a gig in a cave on the island, […]
Escape From Today / Dunque Paolo Spaccamonti has been a major player in the lively Italian avant-garde scene for the last ten years or so, collaborating with the likes of musicians Stefano Pilla, Mombu and Ramon Moro as well as Ben Chasny, Jim White and Jochen Arbeit. Not content with musicians, he also collaborates with photographers and video artists, so it is no surprise that his latest opus […]
Thrill Jockey Once again, Thrill Jockey are confounding expectations with the debut album from new soul wunderkind Sequoyah Murray. Hot on the heels of this year’s Penalties Of Love EP, the album finds Sequoyah crafting all sorts of .
Constellation It is hard to believe that Fly Pan Am have been away since 2006. Always Constellation‘s joker in the pack, their latest album carries on their rich tradition of genre-hopping, song sabotage and listener discomfort as if N’écoutez Pas were only yesterday.
Upset The Rhythm In their quest for world domination, Upset The Rhythm are going great guns with their release schedule. The latest two tasty treats to arrive are from opposite ends of the sonic spectrum and from both sides of the Atlantic.
(self-released) Brighton’s Emperors Of Ice Cream are a totally DIY band who, having worked their way through other local scene bands covering noise, improv and freak-folk type stuff, have settled on the Emperors for peddling an open-minded take on the kind of wonky indie scrawl at which the British were so good on the mid to late 1980s.
London 14 September 2019 After a tortuous journey through London and around the building site that is Hackney Wick at the moment, we find ourselves standing outside Studio 9294, one of the many curious venues that Baba Yaga’s Hut uses for its shows. Steel shuttered doors and a street art facade lead us into the concrete bunker that is serving the three bands tonight.
Trace Recordings Mark Beazley picks the Trace Recordings artistes with great care, and it is easy to see why they have chosen to release the first album from bass and voice duo Being. Not only does the bass couch the restless and emotive vocal in a dreamy gauze, but the overall sound draws the listener closer into the pervading melancholy.
Discus The two latest releases from Martin Archer‘s wonderful Discus label ply very different takes on the fluttering world of modern jazz.
Adaadat Gather round, kiddies. I hope you are sitting comfortably, because it is time for the second instalment of Story Teller‘s Lovecraftian travelogues. After the first instalment’s gory tale of love and lust between the aristocracy and plant life, I at least had some idea that it wouldn’t necessarily be the child-friendly story of the Marshall Cavendish variety. Once again, Bruce McClure has come up with something profoundly […]
Thrill Jockey Hot on the heels of last year’s Don’t Look Away, 2019 sees Alexander Tucker once again hunkering down on his own in the studio. Guild Of The Asbestos Weaver constructs tracks that employ his love of sci-fi and cosmic horror in a recognised song format, with all of the pieces here allying his gorgeous vocals to rhythmic and melodious structures that tip a hat to the […]
Courier Sound There is something so delightful about Courier Sounds‘ three-inch CD packages. There is real care in the colour scheme and presentation, while the sounds contained are little gems, ones that have to be carefully selected considering the relatively short duration of the format. Sound recordist/musician Kim Rueger trades here as Belly Full Of Stars, the moniker denoting her more abstract, electronic experiments.
House Of Mythology Back in October of 2018, Ulver‘s presence was requested at a Red Bull Music event taking part in their home town of Oslo. The request was for new work of a drone type, something that might unfold over a length of time, but at a natural pace. The group started to reconvene to work through ideas with one or two members missing, but with itinerant […]
Modularfield Continuing Modularfield‘s desire to produce beautifully designed cassettes and to highlight new and innovative electronic artists, the first side of the latest release from Emme Moises feels more about discovery and less about actual contact — but the are possibly discoveries that shouldn’t be made and are far better left alone.