Thrill Jockey It has been five years since Wooden Shjips last dropped an album, and to my mind they were arriving at a point where they were taking the place of Spacemen 3 as the premium hypnotic, psychedelic riff machines, but with the frustration and ennui removed and good old West Coast chills thankfully taking their place. This album may be the one where they start to put […]
Mr Olivetti
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Glacial Movements Paul Schutze is an Australian sound composer who has been producing music since the late 1980s. This album, his first in eight years, is released on the extremely apt Glacial Movements Records from Italy and is one long, gradually unfolding treasure that is almost like an attempt at prehistoric music; constructing sounds that pre-date what we understand and go back to the formation of the earth.
Nonplace After Nonplace‘s recent issue of two Drums Off Chaos EPs, they have chosen now to re-release Manos Tsangaris‘s 1989 12″ Elephant’s Easy Walk Through The Moonlight EP, but have replaced the original b-side “Drum 2” with a recent track, “Elephants Cry Salty Tears”, specifically recorded for the purpose of this edition.
Fysisk Format Spurv are an instrumental guitar band from Oslo who are a new name to me, but a fantastic discovery. By the looks of the cover, there must be six main chaps in the band, but the credits encompass quite a few more, including cellos, trumpets, synths and effects, as well as an array of guitarists, a bassist and drummer.
Rocket Girl Pieter Nooten seems to have spent most of his music career turning his back on the gothic luminescence that he helped conjure up on the first few Clan Of Xymox albums. His 1987 collaboration with Michael Brook saw him draw unexpected tranquillity and minimalist subtlety from his Xymox songs, paving the way for a lot of the gentle modern piano artists that followed in his footsteps.
Aagoo The tracks presented here were originally intended for Philippe Petit‘s Strings of Consciousness collective, but after their break-up, the songs clearly needed a good home and so Philippe has re-activated the And Friends moniker. Considering the wealth of different talent here, including some regular collaborators, it is very fitting.
Rougge / Green United Music Rougge is a mysterious French composer operating in a modern neo-classical kind of vein, but with an added air of intrigue. The pianist and vocalist’s apparently wordless vocalising sketches shadows and light all over the compelling soundscapes generated by a wonderful string quintet
Thrill Jockey For The Sea And Cake‘s eleventh album and the first since 2012’s Runner, the band has slimmed down to a three-piece following the departure of bassist Eric Claridge. I can find no obvious reason for his departure nor information as to who has taken over the bass playing duties, but regardless, the band’s sound is still that same unique mix of gossamer vocals, Caribbean-inflected guitar melodies […]
LM Dupli-Cation I remember years ago catching A Hawk And A Hacksaw playing various little venues in Bristol. At that point, it was just Heather Trost and Jeremy Barnes and they were plying a kind of Eastern European street music, Jeremy sitting down playing the accordion with a drumstick taped to his hat and a large drum between his legs, knocking out a rhythm as Heather patrolled the […]
Play Loud! Locust Fudge is a duo comprising Schneider TM‘s Dirk Dresselhaus and his old Sharon Stoned compadre Christopher Uhe. It seems they last put an LP out about twenty years ago, after which Dirk concentrated on the gradual and rather elegant electronic deconstructivism of Schneider TM.
Grönland After Robert Görl and Gabi Delgado spilt up DAF back in 1982, for one reason or another, Robert lost all interest in music. He travelled to New York intent on taking up acting, but was required to leave after his visa expired. Once back in Germany, he was detained due to having missed military service and escaped by the skin of his teeth to Paris on a […]
Feeding Tube / Public House Daniel Wilson, who operates under the nom de plume Meadow House, is one of the great English eccentrics. As well as being part of improv quartet Oscillatorial Binnage, releasing the intriguing Radionics Radio and acting as Resonance FM‘s composer-in-residence for 2014, he has operated a mediadropping scheme for the last twenty years.
Trace It is clear from the title of the album, the tone of the cover imagery and some of the track titles that Mark Beazley and Michael Donnelly may not be treating us to another blissful series of plangent, bass heavy soundscapes. Blurred images of police lines and war shots offset by high-class partying are set against a blood-red sky.
Schoolkids / Scrawny After thirty years of playing together with the odd break here and there, Buffalo Tom seem to convene every five years or so to throw down another bid for supremacy over the few bands that are left from their post-hardcore brethren.
Stolen Body After being fortunate enough to catch The Evil Usses‘ barnstorming set at last year’s Bristol Psychfest and being thrilled and bewildered in equal measure by their previous three releases, including the loose as a goose cassette Giblets, I was really looking forward to seeing what these Dartington alumni had to offer, and in which direction it would boldly spring.
Mr Olivetti spoke to Saverio Tesolato about the newest manifestation of his Autunna Et Sa Rose project, whose recent Entrelacs Du Rêve album draws on dreams to inspire a form of majestic musical poetry.
Leaf Laurence Pike is quite the musical polymath and one of Australia’s leading exponents of experimental drum-based music. After a number of collaborations with the likes of Australian jazz legend Mike Nock and Jack Wyllie from Portico Quartet, as well as releases by his bands PVT and Triosk, this is the first to find him heading out under his own name.
Grönland Where to start with Holger Czukay? His is a name with which any self-respecting music fan will be only too familiar. Holger had a career that started in 1960 with the introduction of the Holger Schuring Quintet, then time spent as a student of Karlheinz Stockhausen