Drag City (North America)/Domino (Europe) Will Oldham has never shied away from revisiting the past. He updated the indie primitivist early work of Palace Brothers (and name variations thereof) from before he took on the Bonnie “Prince” Billy identity with a collection of veteran country session musicians on Sings Golden Palace Music (2004) to excellent effect. The album gave a polish and shine to songs which were only […]
London 8 October 2014 Jex Thoth are one of the names heralded as part of the new occult rock boom that has spawned so many great bands like Blood Ceremony and Jess And The Ancient Ones. They have produced two amazing albums; the last, Blood Moon Rise, was released last year. So it’s quite odd that the band is back for their second series of UK dates with […]
Mute Perennial problems of established bands — your new record is very good, but you also wrote… fucking hell, “Oh L’amour,” “Drama!,” “Ship of Fools,” “Blue Savannah,” “Victim of Love”… I mean, just the ornately extended “never” on “Drama!” is enough to merit a statue of Messrs Bell and Clarke on every street corner, let alone that they’re basically better than the Pet Shop Boys in terms of […]
Lillehammer 8 October 2014 My friends, ; forget longing for the days gone by — what we have right now is incredible. I’m spending a lot of time in Lillehammer these days — usually I go outside town for my musical fill, but last night, quite luckily, I got smacked for weeks by three utterly thrilling musical rides. The pictures do not at all express the level of […]
Jnana More pleasures from the Legendary Pink Dots archives, re-packaged for your delectation in a lush gatefold slipcase, the original Stephan Barbery artwork given a soft silky sheen. Originally released back in ’85, Asylum was a double opus that almost never was, beset with bizarre dislocations, disappointments and judging by the liner notes threatened the band’s very existence. Luckily things worked out for the best, and out popped a […]
London 3 October 2014 I had forgotten what a large space The Roundhouse is — it really is quite big. For me it will always be the venue of psychedelic bands, The Pink Fairies, Man, Hawkwind and The Doors all played here and I always have the feeling that the venues walls are soaked with incense and patchouli oil. Those walls were certainly echoing tonight with the sound […]
Misery Guts Music OK, quick history lesson. A hundred years and a couple of months ago, someone shot Franz Ferdinand (not the band) and the whole world descended into madness (also not the band). What followed was essentially a human meat grinder, millions of young lives fed into one end and coming out the other as the sausages of empire. Such extremity of experience gave birth to some […]
Tigertrap Rhythm is probably the earliest organizing factor of music, going back to when humanity were beating on rocks and picking up sticks. The rhythm defines what kind of music something is, whether it’s a romantic rockabilly ballad or a classical scherzo; or an aimless ambient drift in its absence. Rhythm is of a piece. With the proliferation of digital recording and the prevalence of pre-recorded loops, there […]
Avalanche Gigantic oxygen-snatching riffery, scorched parabolic vocals… Godflesh are back, as strong as ever. 2000’s Hymns seems in comparison a mild precursor to an all together heavier rebirth, something that June’s Decline And Fall EP hinted at. This is an unbelievably loud album even by Godflesh standards, a holy trinity of bass, guitar and drum machine whose energy is always pushing against its own thresholds without caring what […]
Pingipung “Are you chicken, bone or soup?” asks Jo Zimmermann at the start of the title track of his latest electronic oddity using the Schlammpeitziger identity. “Are you a castle, tone or group?” he wonders, offering “Are you sentence, word or dot… button, box or cock?” and sundry other suggestions before pleading in an almost comically louche tone, “What’s fruit?” An idiosyncratic sense of humour has always been […]
Faber and Faber Back in 1986, some real waves were made by the publication of The Audit of War, a bitter and excoriating account of Britain’s strategic socio-economic decision-making during the first ten years after World War Two. The work was written by revisionist (military) historian Correlli Barnett, who critiqued – unfavourably and controversially – the ethos that guided Britain through its immediate decade of post-war reconstruction.
Editions Mego Recorded across two continents and one island not exactly in between, as well as in various environments on tour in Europe, BJ Nilsen (AKA Hazard), Stilluppsteypa and Anla Courtis (from Reynols) each bring their own particularities to the jump-cuts and drone-fades of Golden Circle Afternoon. Of course, it’s often difficult to determine who might be responsible for what – some pass notes are offered up, but […]
Verlag System To reach the stars and beyond, to travel into infinite space alone in the cosmos… MKM’s Ad Astra Per Aspera is . It creates beauty but also, like a black hole, swallows planets whole. “Terry” is a noise-laden cosmic freakout over a kind of motorik beat that makes it hang together but somehow transcends it into an air of melancholy within its groove. “Retorn Al Planeta Imaginari” […]
Corsica Studios, London 23 September 2014 So we’re back again for round two — the second night in a row at London‘s tiny but perfectly-formed Corsica Studios, this time to see space-rock reprobates White Hills and One Unique Signal. And there will be volume. Oh yes, there will be volume. Lots and lots of lovely, lovely volume (say this in the voice of Neil Kinnock‘s Spitting Image puppet […]
Corsica Studios, London 22 September 2014 Despite its location, deep in the heart of Elephant and Castle, I really, really like Corsica Studios. It’s essentially a tiny concrete box with a wicked sound system, the combination of which tends . We’re here to see Bardo Pond, of whom more later
Bureau B The opener is meaty, elasticised basslines wrapped in kicking drum folds, the guitar caterpillaring plenty of shimmering scenery, traction for a heliumed goblin of vox. A super-tight jigsaw whose balance is temporarily upset by a tempo flick knife into vocals that don’t quite gel until repetition shape-shifts a rescue plan. “Massa” blows this minor gripe clean away, as sleek lazer lights aero-dine your ears. That excitement […]
Electrowerkz, London 25 September 2014 I had not been to see anything at Electrowerkz for a very long time; in fact so long, I initially forgot where it was, and so was surprised that the place had changed very little over the years. One thing that has improved though was the sound in the venue, and both acts tonight have a wonderful clear sound that penetrates deep into […]
London 16 September 2014 Listen, For in each tiny sound, In the movement of the air, And in the song of the birds, Shall the voice of God Speak unto you, If only you chose to hear it. Johannes Dieterich, Prorsus Inventa, 1573