Conspiracy Sunburned Hand Of The Man member Paul Labrecque turns his hand here as Head Of Wantastiquet to his own particular variation on American primitivism, taking the form down meanders which can be as strikingly wondrous as the packaging the record is released in. Both the music and visual imagery are redolent of shadow-dappled ruralism and forest-dweller rusticism, though rather than the US backwoods, Dead Seas was recorded […]
Richard Fontenoy
102 posts
Versatile Given a penchant for vintage analogue synthesis, Goblin and motorik drumming, and having named themselves after a Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer game, it is not only appropriate, but almost de rigueur, that Zombie Zombie should find themselves tackling the oeuvre of a key progenitor of electronic cinema soundtracks. John Carpenter‘s themes and incidental music for the groundbreaking low-budget and high-thrills genre movies was pioneering, and hugely influential […]
Drifting Falling London bliss-rockers Kontakte continue their journey into the outer reaches of motorik rhythms and chimingly elevated guitar work with an EP which works around the theme in differing ways. “Superbug” itself boils over with tightly-wound energy, surging from twinkly psychedelic guitar melodies which dive off into shoegaze metal territory on a bedrock of cascading, weighty beats and a buzzing undertow. It’s reminiscent of the way Bowery […]
The Barbican Theatre, London 26 June 2010 The Necks have had a pretty good upswing in their fortunes with London performances over the last few years, with sold-out runs of nights at The Vortex in Dalston so successful they added in extra shows late into the night, followed up by a triumphantly immense performance in the ecclesiastically-charged setting of the Union Chapel in May 2009. Tonight’s set finds […]
The Underworld, London 17 June 2010 With their tattooed limbs and trucker caps, their wall-eyed glares and N’Awlins shirts that might never actually have seen better days, Weedeater strike about as Southern image as can be imagined, straight out of Wilmington, North Carolina via the casting for a Rob Zombie slasher flick soundtracked by the leavings of the stoner blues. Set down like they were at home on […]
Koko, London 14 December 2009 The cavernous space of Koko, once known better in the days of music hall and indie rock dance club as the Camden Palace, turns out to be eminently suitable for hosting bands whose raison d’etre is shifting air pressure through the application of low end to the somewhat notoriously loud speakers of the PA. Koko may not exactly have the acoustics of a […]
Denovali Available on both heavyweight vinyl as a proper double-sided split LP and the more prosaic, though no less lovingly-packaged CD edition, this record serves partly as yet another waypoint on Nadja‘s seemingly unstoppable mission to collaborate with every possible combination of drone/doom-mongers across the known and occasionally unknown world. It also contains Kodiak‘s “MCCCXLIX The Rising End,” a piece which starts off in a slow accretion of […]
London 26 July 2009 Southern Lord have been doing good business resurrecting their roster from the first time round, with some spectacularly lavish re-releases from Burning Witch, for example, making it strange to reflect that their twentieth anniversary isn’t too far off yet… So it’s only to be applauded that Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley of Sunn0))) (etc) are back with Runhild Gammelsæter and the rest of Thorr’s […]
The Forum, London 26 July 2008 They’re certainly not 22 going on 23 any more, but the Butthole Surfers have taken measures to ensure their set goes down in properly deranged psychedelic hardcore style tonight. First, it’s the classic late Eighties lineup of Gibby Haynes and Paul Leary at the front and centre, with the rhythm section filled out by Theresa Nervosa and King Coffey, still managing to […]
The Underworld, London 10 and 12 February 2008 The day after a chunk of Camden Market burnt down, Southern Lord‘s finest black metal act touch down in The Underworld. Thankfully the conflagration was at the other end of the High Street, so the gig continued as scheduled with the only hint that something had occurred being the line of police officers across the road by the tube station. […]
Label: Music Video Distributors Format: DVD (Region 0, NTSC) Blind Eye Sees All is a true classic of the live music video genre, and now receives a long-awaited DVD release via those thoroughly hardworking people at Music Video Distribution. So why is it essential? Apart from featuring the world’s most wigged-out, demented and occasionally evilly silly band back in the days when they were busy redefining Psychedelic music […]
Label: City Slang (Europe)/ Ernest Jenning Record Co (USA) Format: CD Head Home is a record which works its way into the subconscious, and O’Death are one of those bands who become such a fixture on the scene in a relatively short time that they are now a yardstick against which to measure similar bands. Country music – in its widest sense – has come a long way this century […]
Meltdown 2007 Queen Elizabeth Hall, London 18th June 2007 The smoke and glitter which characterises Chrome Hoof‘s performance at Meltdown 2007 is something of a wonder to behold. Unleashing a brain-boggling riot of progtastic disco – complete with intoned disclaimer for any responsibilty for the effect of the show on the audience at the start, this thirteen-piece bunch of silver-clad space invaders proceed to set out to do […]
The Scala, London 29th May 2007 Part Chimp not only open with a big, metallic stoner rumble, they compound matters by using almost the exact riff from “Electric Funeral” to confirm that they are coming from a location somewhere between Black Sabbath and The Melvins. So then its heads down for an excercise in riffology, volume and mass squared by amplification, with the product being ringing ears and […]
Ether 07 Queen Elizabeth Hall London 3rd March 2007 Christoph Heeman opens proceedings as special guest at the debut London performance of Nurse With Wound as part of the Ether 07 festival. His solo presence onstage, lit by sweeping blue light projections, is not the most engaging of performances visually, but the drones and surges of electronic tones he coaxes from a small assortment of devices soon swell […]
Label: Mute Format: CD,2LP As purposely obscure and enigmatic as ever, Laibach‘s return to the world of record releases and live shows steps up the pressure they bring to bear upon the listener’s expectations of what this most uncompromising of groups might actually intend and ultimately mean. Presented in German, English and occasionally Serbo-Croat to thumping beats of an orchestral Techno bent, WAT kicks off with one of […]
– Iranair Inflight Magazine – Red Madrassa – Jebel Tariq Label: Muslimim Format: CD – Arabbox Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD –In Search Of Ahmad Shah Masood Label: Nexsound Format: CD Recent months have seen the continuing flow of Muslimgauze releases slow down considerably – given that it is now five years since Bryn Jones‘ untimely death, this is hardly surprising, but that it has taken this long is […]
Faust Pages, paperback 208pp A labour of love from start to finish, this book is both a personal and theoretical analysis of Faust‘s music in their classic era. Andy Wilson‘s detailed track-by-track commentary for each album and assorted other releases are insightful and rarely dry. Instead, he riffs on the music as much in an emotional and political context while clearly outlining the group’s sometimes larger than life […]