House Of Mythology Back in October of 2018, Ulver‘s presence was requested at a Red Bull Music event taking part in their home town of Oslo. The request was for new work of a drone type, something that might unfold over a length of time, but at a natural pace. The group started to reconvene to work through ideas with one or two members missing, but with itinerant […]
Mr Olivetti
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Modularfield Continuing Modularfield‘s desire to produce beautifully designed cassettes and to highlight new and innovative electronic artists, the first side of the latest release from Emme Moises feels more about discovery and less about actual contact — but the are possibly discoveries that shouldn’t be made and are far better left alone.
Front & Follow Manchester-based purveyors of forward-thinking sound adventures Front & Follow have called upon the services of bassist Michael Donnelly for the second part of their ongoing series Ex Post Facto. Here, artists are given an opportunity to prepare a new piece of work which is then presented alongside an overview of previous recordings.
Salisbury Plain 17 August 2019 The British Army first started to clear the settlements from Salisbury Plain after the First World War, but it was during the preparation for the D-Day landings in 1943 that they chose to evacuate all the residents from the little village of Imber, in the north-west section of the plain, and it was never re-inhabited. This area is opened up for a few […]
Southern Lord Next up in Southern Lord‘s Caspar Brötzmann Massaker re-issue series are albums three and four, and once again on album three, the line-up has changed a little. Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore was originally released in 1992, three years after Black Axis, and Frank Neumeier had made way for Danny Lommen on drums. The intervening years and the final track on Black Axis must have caused […]
Adaadat / TUTL Rutger Hauser‘s growth from their birth as an improv bass and drums duo in 2013 to the hydra-headed multimedia six-piece of 2019 has taken them from Lewisham in south London, where they were the unofficial house band of the Lumen Lake, to a point approximately 1,000 miles north, namely a community hall on the Faroe Islands. Here, over the course of a weekend, they attempted […]
Glacial Movements Line Spectrum‘s Bruma goes beyond music to the Earth’s inner workings; an inspired soundscape of tidal movement, the fabrication of fossils and the erosion of landscapes. The idyllic lapping of waves gradually subsumed by the roar of the surf as dolphins call is eventually dissolved in a wash of static and morse code structures.
Church Ceilings Deaf Joe‘s long-player Love Stories is an attempt to convert some of his most cherished travel memories into a kind of series of ambient soundscapes, retaining those souvenirs in a more fulfilling and long-lasting way than a pile of unseen photographs and scattered postcards.
Upset The Rhythm The ceaseless band-hopping of the two Rachels has seen a five-year gap since the last Trash Kit album, and also the departure of Ros Murray and arrival of Gill Partington on bass. Bas Jan, Bamboo, Shopping and Sacred Paws have kept them plenty busy, but thankfully they have reunited for their third album for Upset The Rhythm, and what a treat it is.
Castle Face I had a real soft spot for the slightly psychotic electro-punk disco dust-up of Six Finger Satellite and was sorry when they called it a day both times, so it is good to hear that Rick Pelletier is back on the scene with Dare Matheson and Jon Loper, both of whom helped out with the band the second time around.
Crammed Discs Band Apart were a short-lived US/French duo that blossomed at a time that put them in the eye of the New York No-Wave storm. Vocalist Jayne Bliss was a poet who had been performing with various members of the US avant-garde such as Bill Laswell and Don Cherry. On being introduced to Marseille-based musician M Mader, they judiciously decided to set off on their own sonic adventures […]
Hubro The title and track names for Exoterm‘s first album read like stage directions or parts of a screenplay, and the atmospheres that they produce over the course of the six tracks on Exits Into A Corridor are dark and foreboding but suffused with a giddy mania.
Courier The latest beautifully packaged release from the ever-reliable yet increasingly diverse micro label Courier is the four-track EP Silences‘ from south-east England-based duo of the same name, James Green and Nick Dawson. Intended as the first in an ongoing series, the recording took place on one day in Southend and the end result takes you far away from any obvious points of familiarity.
6 July 2019 Bristol This year, the Stolen Body-curated Astral Festival has chosen to spread itself over three of Bristol’s city centre venues. Thankfully, the Rough Trade sweatbox, the rather charming restaurant/bar at the Lanes and the grandiose SWX are all within a stone’s throw of one another. Unfortunately, the timing of things does mean that it is impossible to take in all bands, and considering it is […]
Constellation What on earth could Lungbutter be? It sounds most unappealing. It kind of sounds oozy and uncomfortable, and I am not sure that describes this Montreal trio all that well — but on the other hand, there are elements that are oozy and some of Ky Brooks‘ rambling doesn’t sit comfortably in the musical uproar that Joni Sadler and Kaity Zozula produce. It is a unique sound
Bureau B Martin Rev‘s renown in the history of electronic music from the early ’70s onwards is generally as one half of avant-doo-wop street synth rebels Suicide, but as well as constructing the beats and sounds for the duo, Martin also had a sporadic solo career, the second and third albums of which Bureau B are giving a well-earned re-issue.
Discus Martin Archer‘s Discus label continues its sonic adventures with the latest release from Belgian bassist Guy Segers’s improv project the Eclectic Maybe Band. An improbable bevy of some of the finest improv musicians, the project finds group-constructed freeform pieces sitting side by side with Guy’s speciality, which is taking improv recordings from different sessions and then stitching them together in the studio over a bass-line written especially […]
Constellation For Siskiyou‘s fourth album for Constellation, they appear to have returned to their roots with that lo-fi home-recorded sound that echoes the kind of direction in which Mark Linkous originally headed. On Not Somewhere, Colin Huebert has taken on the majority of instruments and constructed frayed but hopeful vignettes