Young God / Mute Michael Gira has never shied away from the bareness of the bulb’s inspection – his narrative always gnaws at the fragmented prism of the self, right from the sweaty simplicity of their beginnings to the sophisticated diatribes of the later years, even including the physical force of Swans‘ recent rebirth.
Daily Archives: 23/10/2019
8 posts
ADAADAT The continent-straddling meeting of musical minds that is Elephant House has reconvened after a couple of years’ rest to produce this ode to pan-cultural dream states that is Chollima.
Music On Vinyl / Seventh Claude Vorilhon was a racing car driver. He was a typical French man of the 1970s. Long hair, cigarettes, fast cars; he probably watched Un Homme Et Une Femme in the cinema. All of this changed for him abruptly at the end of 1973 when he had an alien visitation from an entity that called itself Jehovah. Those of you who are looking […]
Trace It still amazes me after twenty years or so how Mark Beazley can still make the bass guitar sound so different and vital across his various releases as Rothko. It feels like a personal crusade, a one-man (sometimes with help — Johny Brown, Michael Donnelly) to keep that cavernous echoing dream sound alive in the hearts of the listening public; and Rothko albums never fail to overwhelm, […]
Courier Sound Back in 2018, while creating sleeves for Graham Dunning‘s keg/Bulkhead release, Stuart Bowditch recorded the sounds of the Silhouette Cameo 3 plotter cutter and then offered it as basis for other artists to record a response. Now, if like me you have ever worked in an office and been surrounded by the rhythmic, mechanised sounds of copiers, printers, bursters, plotters and the like, you may have […]
Cherry Red Choose your own opening pun adventure: BEATification; aPOPtheosis. Mark E Smith as can/n/on. In fact naïf-historiographical Fall are legions worse than Nicene method – the archive is interminably tumescent, engorged for torrid bores. Better still see what Falls off the table, innit. Method — you see, this boxset is all 1982. An auspicious year. The year I was born. Now, I’m not arrogantly claiming my presence […]
Temporary Residence The recent collaboration between Date Palms‘ Marielle Jakobsons and Cali guitarist Chuck Johnson under the name Saariselka has yielded an album of exquisitely crafted and slow-moving beauty that employs steel guitar and the romantic thrum of Fender Rhodes to devastating effect.
Chocolate Monk On their second album, Psanck turn in a sprawling yet concise document of impressionistic free improv and modern minimalism, transporting you to some mud-spattered Welsh village to witness an ancient, timeless ritual.