Grönland Brian Eno once famously stated that there were three crucial beats in the 1970s: Fela Kuti’s Afro-Beat, James Brown’s funk and Klaus Dinger’s NEU!-beat. The latter – a hypnotic, strict and Spartan 4/4 that Dinger initially christened the ‘lange gerade’ (‘long straight’) or ‘endlose gerade’ (‘endless straight’), and later referred to as the ‘Apache Beat’ – came to be virtually synonymous with entire canon of German music […]
Monthly Archives: March 2013
23 posts
Sulatron “How puzzling all these changes are! I’m never sure what I’m going to be, from one minute to another.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland “A very irregular head” is how the late, great Syd Barrett once described himself, and from the sounds blasting from my stereo Dave Schmidt AKA Sula Bassana could lay claim to the same quote. Dark Days is the fourth Bassana album, […]
Black Axis Pombagira‘s last album Iconoclast Dream was a revelation to me with the immense dirty darkness they presented. Upon receiveing a brand new CD from the duo, hopes for more dark dirtyness appears in my mind. But after the first spin, I was in doubt. I am not sure if it was the day, or anything else, but it didn’t do anything for me at the time. […]
Requiem Productions NXP is a solo noise project from Norway, focusing on ambient noise, sometimes rythmic, sometimes just dirty noise. He collects samples, field recordings and various sounds and instruments to create his world of darkness. I see this album in two parts. The first three tracks are quiet dirty ambient noise. So quiet from the start that you have to go and check whether you have turned […]
Invada Loving that crayon lava of the cover, sleek minimal, that infra red chalkiness dwarfed by a sea of matt black, a darkness from which the title track “Landing” seems to howl. An epic opener, that grinding millstone riff all Bolan-esque beef, . An incredibly powerful vibe, made more so by the purposeful drop into a reflective quietness which effectively notches up the tension for the raw-throated re-entry […]
Galileo It seems that prog rock is alive and well in Europe again, which is a fantastic thing. And two of the countries that were most feverish about the original bands in the ’70s here prove their worth with these two releases from Galileo Records. Zenit (from Switzerland) begin their album with with “Awaken” – not a cover of the Yes song, but an opus of their own. […]
After two decades away, Crime & The City Solution, the band beloved of Wim Wenders (see them play in his angelic Berlin masterpiece Wings of Desire) are back with a new album. with David Eugene Edwards of Wovenhand on board, American Twilight marks a new development in rousing Americana for the band. Listen to the full album stream here:
Sulatron I am already a fan of the wonderful Electric Moon after hearing both their 2010 début album Lunatics and last year’s monumental live double LP Cellar Space Live Overdose, so I was eager to give this new album a spin. For starters, the cover is a wonderful psychedelic creation that gives a nod to some of best artwork from the late ’60s and early ’70s. What we […]
Grönland released their epic four-disc tribute to legendary producer Conny Plank in February 2013. Leon Muraglia of the Kosmische Club looks back at the man, his music and some of the artists whose distinctive, revolutionary sounds he helped create. “Do you feel like a ride into the forest?”’ Conny Plank asked Brian Eno one warm autumn evening. After a short drive in Plank’s old Merc, they parked in […]
The Muslimgauze Preservation Society Snapping into brutal gear with a slice of brightly-coloured post-dancehall rhythms which wouldn’t sound that far out of place on a record by The Bug, Martyr Shrapnel continues the work of the Muslimgauze Preservation Society of bringing the remaining odds and ends of Bryn Jones‘ extensive and still-increasing back catalogue to posthumous light. The first six tracks previously appeared as Analog Zikr on cassette, […]
Bureau B Karl Bartos: legendary percussionist of the classic era Kraftwerk, and all round good egg. The man whose biography gave us a glimpse into the closed world of the Man Machines who were more secretive than an occult order. While Kraftwerk (with their one remaining original member) are making an exhibition of themselves at various locations around the world and in effect becoming their own tribute act, […]
I have a deal with a mate that if either of us ever manage to shout out ‘Baker Street!’ in the middle of a John Butcher performance, that person will receive a crisp £10 note and a hearty pat on the back. The irony being that, even if either of us weren’t excessively polite gig-goers, we’d still have problems remembering how to speak. Butcher’s entirely one of the […]
OTOroku A decoy is usually defined as a person, device or event meant as a deliberate distraction, something used to conceal the real intension of an individual or a group. Under such a definition, unless they would really rather be performing Viennese light operetta, the success of this Decoy – a collaboration between Hammond maestro Alex Hawkins, London improv drum supremo Steve Noble and bass whirlwind John Edwards […]
An arena, London 2 March 2013 HERE IS A RUBBISH PICTURE THAT LOOKS LIKE GIRLS ALOUD HAVE AN ACTUAL TANK THAT HAS DISCO LIGHTS RATHER THAN WEAPONS AND IS THEREFORE ALL QUEER-FRIENDLY AND SUCH: The arena is a complete bastard. I’m no Belgianologist, but it could fit Belgium in it, twice. The beer cost me roughly four million pounds and was watered down foamy rubbish. The staff were […]
Imprint “Well I heard that you were spoken for/it’s hard to imagine anyone speaking for you,” sings Amity Joy Dunn in the opening of “Rosy Technology,” the latest Morning Bride single, taken from The North Sea Rising. It’s a great line and one that has fuelled my anticipation as I’ve been listening to this track for weeks after I received my copy of the CD. To call this […]
Bad Seed Ltd Last summer whilst I was living it up in my small way in the south of France, celebrating true heat and the glories of car-crash-like French music spectacles which dominate the season of the votive festivals, I was utterly unaware of the fact that just half an hour away, down a treacherous twisty road lined with diseased plane trees, some of my most revered musical […]
ReR Megacorp Many years ago, I laid my hands on the Der Durchdrungene Mensch/Indianer Für Morgen LP by the multi-instrumetalist duo Heiner Goebbels and Alfred Harth, a fantastic avantgarde -New Wave/Neue Deutsche Welle/improv record. The way they blended jazz and improv with avantgarde classical and new wave style music triggered me to wanting to hear more of the work of these guys. The duo formed in 1975, and […]
Hidden Shoal The internet is a wonderful thing. I had no idea that western Australia had a rich experimental music scene. With my northern European prejudice I probably assumed that all too brief and rather damp summers were a necessary precondition for musical innovation. But thanks to the web, my prejudices can be confounded. Gilded are Matt Rösner and Adam Trainer, both notable composers and performers in the […]