Pop Montréal, Ukrainian Federation, Montréal 3 October 2009 The gathering krautrock-keen fans filled both levels of the seated, community-centre vibe auditorium known as the Ukrainian Federation which has hosted the likes of Patti Smith, Joanna Newsom, Loudon Wainwright III, and A Silver Mt. Zion. For Faust’s first ever show in Canada, heralding their entrance, Jean-Hervé Peron started by squawking and squealing on a trombone from the back of the […]
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Casa Del Popolo, Montréal 16 September 2009 Another Alien8 extravaganza at Casa Del Popolo in Montréal: guaranteed visceral jiggling with nice folks who make confrontational music. A panda bear stands behind a flower-strewn hill, arms aloft, beseeching a soldier. Rainbow beams explode from the bear’s mouth through the soldier’s torso. The contradictory poster for this Alien8 happening may have the candy-coloured hue of yesteryear’s psychedelia, but don’t expect […]
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 […]
Nadja Bardens, London 22 March 2009 Having missed Nadja in 2008 I was on a mission to get to Bardens in Dalston. Despite the whole of East London being inexplicably gridlocked this particular Sunday evening, I wasn’t going to miss Nadja a second time. Fighting my way through the traffic was worth it, Nadja were awesome. Standing either side of a table of effects pedals, Aidan Baker and […]
Concrete And Glass Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London 2 October 2008 When you go to a show by a shirtless, rabble-rousing mob like O’Death, you really expect to see the band set up on the floor, separated from their sweaty audience by little more than a few blobs of spit and sawdust. That’s how I imagined it anyway, so it is with some apprehension that I view the […]
Dingwall’s, London 7 August 2008 Chrome Hoof should be appreciated by the light of a billion braincells misfiring; by the sound of a world exploding, because that’s what they’re capable of resembling on a good night – and tonight is one such event. Though it takes while for Dingwall’s to gather the crowd they deserve, by the time the spangle-clad crew hit the stage, the place may not […]
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 […]
A Music Club at The Others, London 25 July 2008 Glass used to have more members, but tonight they’re a duo who make their presence felt as is, shimmering and rattling their soft motorik way through a set which shows copius affinity for the soporific psychedelia of Spacemen 3 and Harmonia‘s elevated drum machine rattle and hum. Guitarist Ben keeps the mood vibrant on a cluster of simple […]
London Fields Lido, London 19 July 2008 Nurse With Wound at London Fields Lido. It just sounds so right. And it was, too: pleasingly strange, charmingly eccentric. It was the culmination of a series of underwater sound events, staged at various venues around the UK under the banner of Wet Sounds. Their website will tell you what you need to know there. Essentially, the set-up is this: music […]
The Underworld, London 15 July 2008 The first time I came across Part Chimp, a few years back, they were tipped as The Loudest Band in London, but now that the reanimated corpse of My Bloody Valentine has reclaimed that title with its rotting, maggoty fingers, Part Chimp have mellowed a little. They’ve also shed a bass player recently, and no doubt that has something to do with […]
ULU, London 23 April 2008 Ah, what better way is there to celebrate St George’s Day than to avoid all the jingoistic flag-waving nonsense and go and see a band who come from the other side of the world? Probably none. None whatsofuckingever. First up we get Growing, who I heard described by someone in the queue as “a friendlier Black Dice”. That’s not far off the mark, […]
ULU, London 19 April 2008 Merzbow was brutal. That could be the whole review. We went in knowing he would be brutal and he delivered. We came back out deaf, balance impaired, and probably several shades paler. Merzbow, aka Akita Masami, is one of the pre-eminent industrial noise artists and has had a prolific career since the late seventies. As with some of his other recent releases, the concert […]
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. […]
The Institute for Contemporary Arts, London 30 January 2008 Here is my ATP festival experience. I always seem to miss the bands that I wind up liking the most. So, having missed Fuck Buttons at The Nightmare Before Christmas I wasn’t going to miss them again when they came to Ithe CA, and they more than lived up to my expectations. First on was fellow ATP label mate […]
The Scala, London 20 November 2007 This has been a long time coming. Last time I tried to see Jesu (supporting Jarboe, in this very venue) it got scaled down to a Justin Broadrick solo perfomance as Final, which consisted of him hunched over his laptop making incredible noises. Now, while this may have sounded awesome, on every other level there was little to distinguish between the experience […]
The Water Rats, London 27th October 2007 Even though it’s about as far from the stuff he plays these days as a non-executive directorship is from a proper job, the spectre of Swans‘ Cop weighs heavily on proceedings tonight- particularly its mantric repetition of the phrase “THE HEAT… HURTS! THE HEAT… HURTS!” Mr Gira, avuncular and smiling, has decreed that the lights be turned on full. On the […]
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 […]
St. Giles in the Field, London 1st June 2007 I hit the church shortly after opening time, still muddleheaded from work, the sun only just beginning to slip it’s way behind central London’s monstrous office monoliths, and St. Giles’ church is already packed, a situation not helped by the decision to close off the balconies. I succeed in grabbing a pew toward the back though, and bear happy […]