Crammed Discs Imagine sitting in a bar and engaging with a tan, weathered stranger who starts showing you photographs of places you are never likely to visit; some vibrant, some serene, a group of faces here, a glorious sunset, buildings, oceans.
Mr Olivetti
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Bureau B Conrad Schnitzler, early member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, must have found both of those oppressive bands too formulaic and stifling. By 1975, he had struck out on his own, producing music for films that had yet to be released or even made.
Gizeh Back in 1931, FW Murnau, director of the Expressionist classics Nosferatu and Faust amongst others was directing a docu-drama in the South Sea Islands about forbidden love between two young islanders. After filming and just before the preview, he died in a vehicle accident and the film, although winning an Oscar, was lost to the sands of time.
Accretions The Argonauts are a four-piece underground supergroup of sorts, surfing out of Japan with this high octane album of instrumental jams that shows all the players, guitar, bass, drums and keyboards to be in excellent form.
Round 2 Oriental Sunshine‘s sole album, Dedicated To The Bird We Love is one of those treats that come along rarely in our musical travels. A psychedelic folk album recorded in Norway in 1969 with a surprising Eastern influence, it received a release from Philips back in the day but sold poorly and sadly, the band spilt not long after, releasing nothing more.
three:four This is Mike Wexler‘s third album, originally recorded in 2013/4 and thankfully receiving a belated release through the lovely people at three:four. It has the feel of being magically recorded in some sunlit glade hidden far from view; and as it it transpires, it was recorded in rural Vermont, the studio lurking in a wood there and that image pervades the whole album.
Bureau B Back in 2012, Dieter Moebius was asked to score Fritz Lang‘s Metropolis and for that purpose produced some pre-arranged tracks to be played during the film which along with some live improvisation would suit the film as he saw it. One imagines that this would have been a roaring success, and therefore he had intended to prepare a recorded album of the results.
Trace It has been nearly twenty years since we first marvelled at the extraordinary sounds and textures that three gents could elicit from bass guitars. Catching them in support of Appliance was a revelation and following Mark Beazley‘s mercurial career has been both fascinating and frustrating. I haven’t heard much since the Stateless solo album, but 2016 saw the delivery of not one but two albums.
Hornschaft Back in 2014, two guys spent one day recording music for a 10″ record in an old school in Nowa Hut to accompany a hardback book of photographs. The result of photographer Giordano Simoncini and musician Alessandro Incorvaia‘s labours, hand-numbered and limited to 500, I hold in my hands and it is a thing of beauty.
Double Six / Domino This is a very welcome reissue of John Cale‘s 1992 solo live album and on listening to it again, I am struck by various things. We know him so well as producer — The Stooges, Nico, Jonathan Richman, Patti Smith, etc — and as a collaborator (Lou Reed, Terry Riley, Brian Eno, Spedding, LaMonte Young, etc), but what this album shows us is just […]
Bristol 7 December 2016 St George’s Hall in Bristol is one of the city’s finest venues, a church set in a lofty position halfway up Park Street, this evening looking splendid in backlit winter gloom. Inside, the stage was lit in red, mysterious yet comforting. I half expected to see Laura Palmer come out to meet us.
Bureau B Well, Bureau B have unleashed another Camera album like some hyperactive missile of joy for us all to experience. This is the third LP from the Berlin duo and this time there is a lot more to it than the feeling of Neu! songs being played by adolescent teenagers with too much energy. There is energy in abundance, but this is tempered with real thought as […]
Kranky I remember seeing Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt‘s band, whilst touring with the aptly-titled Painjerk at the much missed Croft in Bristol. We were incredibly thankful for the aural balm that Emeralds provided after the assault of Painjerk. It was akin to bathing your face in a warm sunrise after being hit by lightning.
Drag City It has been a tough couple of years for David Pajo. A suicide attempt after discovering his wife’s affair was followed by a motorcycle accident that left him temporarily wheelchair-bound. We would not be blamed for thinking that music was the last thing on his mind, but Drag City have done us all the great service of releasing Highway Songs, the latest collection of tracks under […]
Bristol 14 November 2016 A revolving blue police light welcomes us to the stage at the cold and cavernous Motion. I puposefully had not looked anything up about Wild Style Lion, so knew not what to expect. Their setup was parked in front of Murph‘s drums with their logo emblazoned on the front and was small enough to be wheeled away afterwards.
Bureau B There were two main reasons that I was eager to hear the latest Automat LP; firstly you cannot go wrong with Bureau B, from current albums by the likes of Faust and Camera to re-issues of important back catalogue from the likes of Conrad Schnitzler, Asmus Tietchens, Palais Schaumburg, etc, they represent the cream of German underground music; secondly was the involvement of Jochen Arbeit, latter-day member of Einstürzende Neubauten and guitar slinger […]
Medical We should all rejoice in the fact that finally the first two Pram albums proper have been given the re-issue treatment, and what a lovely job Medical Records have made of them: coloured vinyl, recent interviews amongst the sleeve notes and a clear appreciation for the magic contained therein.