The Bishopsgate Institute, London 21 March 2014 Greeted at the entrance to the venue by a very City commissionaire resplendent in full uniform complete with ceremonial sash and medals, it’s clear that this is going to be no ordinary gig. The Bishopsgate Institute is at once an adult education centre and a concert hall, and it’s certainly a splendid setting in which to revisit the live music of […]
live review
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Brighton 18 March 2014 This was a funny evening. Good, of course. Sidi Touré is really quite the performer, and his band some of the finest. I kind of get the impression it’s not really a regular gig-going crowd. At one point there was a chap clapping out of time (clapping out of time is quite a feat, in a way). I clocked someone who seemed to take […]
Paris 8 March 2014 Le Trabendo lurks next to a not-quite completed concrete behemoth which squats at the side of the Périphérique ring road around Paris, part of the ever-expanding Parc de la Villette with its promenades and exhibition centres, its music and (almost) out-of-town cultural activities for a city always in search of entertainment. It’s reached down a winding path through the woods and into a multi-level […]
Portland, OR 2 March 2014 Rise Of The Mutants I had the strongest sensation of living in the future, as I bussed past the emerald green glass towers of the Oregon Convention Center on my way to the Wonder Ballroom on a drizzly Sunday evening, the trancey binaural beat construction of Thug Entrancer‘s Death After Life lulling me into a theta wave slo burn. The RTD bus seemed […]
Bourgoin-Jallieu 1 March 2014 Tonight’s show at les Abattoirs provides a chance for Michael Gira to share a stage with Ulan Bator, a band he worked with on the Ego:Echo album in 2000. The venue is an unusual one, sat on the corner of a roundabout on the outskirts of a small town on the road to Grenoble from Lyon. Taking place on one of the busy weekends […]
London 29 January 2014 The London post-rock/math-rock (or as I prefer to say, maths rock) scene is a small but devoted one, so when local purveyors of big chiming epics 52 Commercial Road need to pay for the album they’ve just recorded, Communion, with a benefit gig in Dalston’s tiny Power Lunches, it’s hardly any surprise that they’re playing to a full and appreciative house. The entry fee […]
London 8 February 2014 Macgillivary started proceedings with some rather spooky vocals, multiple choirs caught in the looper’s long corridors, trapped trajectories, cloister curving, quickly followed by a souped-up electric zither accompaniment, as her sorrowful voice continued to work its magic through the vastness of the chapel. She pulled out some nice feedback too, and those ‘white horse’ piano tides were superb, reminded me so much of Galás‘ […]
Portland, Oregon 16 January 2014 It was a misty night in Portland. A thick gray pea soup clung to the street lights, obscuring any signs of modernity, anything outside of a three-foot nimbus. This Thursday evening had a particularly timeless feel – . The faithful have always gathered at night, apart from the common sense and rationality of the day-walkers. Whether it be antlered druids gathered at stone […]
London 28 December 2013 So who would have believed all those years ago that a small British label focusing mainly on doom music would last all this time? But by the time I went to the last anniversary show a few years back at the ULU it was obvious then that the scene had grown and the blood lust for this type of music hadn’t abated. In the […]
L’Embobineuse, Marseille. 20 December 2013 The first thing to notice – after being amused and bemused by the number of variously-mutilated teddy bears peppering L’Embobineuse‘s decorations (nailed to the ceiling; as the head of a nude mannequin in a fish tank) as well as noticing the number of SunnO))) stencils which have presumably recently appeared on every available surface in the place – including its in-car 3D cinema) […]
18 December 2013 Pantomime season is once more upon us, and the heaviest and most bludgeoning pantomime of all is rolling into town. My first ever concert was Black Sabbath – a scary 38 years ago, and so when a friend who couldn’t make this week’s reunion tour offered me his ticket at a Christmas party last weekend, I was sufficiently inebriated to be unable to refuse. Arriving […]
Dublin 14 December 2013 Set phasers to phase. Listening to the recent Wooden Shjips album Back to Land is a very different experience to seeing the band play the album live. That’s obviously true of every record. Every artist. Every band. But some more than others. And Wooden Shjips more than most. Fortunately both experiences are excellent. Back to Land (Thrill Jockey)is as good a slice of mellow […]
London 10 December 2013 We leave the pub and head down towards Entrance F. The night is cold and dark, breath highlighted as white wisps against the blackness, lights pinpoint bright like stars. It’s perfect. And now the excitement is building, as the phalanxes of the black-clad, the long-haired and silver jewellery-bedecked are massing. What a truly a rag-tag army it is too, as diverse in its composition […]
The Island, Bristol 22 November 2013 The venue’s an abandoned police station, now converted into an arts centre/studio space. The grim nature of the place gets more pronounced as you step deeper into the building, those institutional hues greying against the eerie wipe-clean gloss of the white tiling. The cold concrete and red-bricked Victoriana, dower, depressing as the flaking magnolia, or the raggedy plastic bag spectres barb wire […]
Portland, Oregon 19 November 2013 Portland was at it’s finest on Tuesday night, for this sold-out performance of Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner and indie staple Bill Callahan, who used to make music under the Smog moniker before returning to his given name for a series of well received albums. We’ve entered the real rainy season in the City Of Roses, but it was clear and frosty night. […]
London 15 November 2013 After some mix up on the door where I had to admit to being me twice (not sure why anyone would want or even pretend to be me), I make my way down a crowded staircase into a packed Borderline. I’d not been here since the ill fated Deviants gig a few months earlier so it was good to see the place heaving with […]
London 9 November 2013 The Black Heart is filled to capacity to witness Jex Thoth’s first ever London date. I’ve been waiting and wanting to see this band live since the release of the first album, but for some reason every time they planned to tour here it fell through. So its only now, two albums and two EPs into their career, that they are hitting British shores […]
London 5 September 2013 In the lead up to the first London gig in thirteen years from Manuel Göttsching we have been treated to a certain amount of media nonsense situating him as a godfather of minimal techno.