summary 
Friday, 17 October 2003
CD // £12.99The players: Britt Walford, Tim Ruth, Sean Mcloughlin, Troy Cox : following the premature break-up of what would become one of the most important bands in underground rock, the Slint boys all went their separate ways, without straying too far away from each other. Brian Mcmahan formed The For Carnation while David Pajo went solo under the Aerial M and Papa M monikers. Britt Walford formed the Breeders with Kim Deal, and subsequently bailed after recording Pod. All three helped Will Oldham get Palace Brothers off the ground, and yet with such a rich history between them, the one band that Louisville… Read more
Guitarist Jason Buehler and percussionist Mark Shirazi meticulously warp hard funk, psych, soul, dub, angular rock and no-wave noise into a mechanical beast that can take you from dream to dance in 30 seconds flat. The instrumentation is relatively simple: guitar and drums. but it's the endless tap-dancing of effects pedals and solid dub beats that make every moment more magical than the last. Recorded entirely in their home studio and having played with everyone from Black Dice to Cex to Lightning Bolt to Gold Chains –totally recommended to fans of the the new weird Americana scene and old school New … Read more
The band have had an eventful year since releasing their acclaimed ‘SteadyThe Buffs’, being personally asked to play gigs with White Stripes, The Libertines, The Hives, Fugazi, and Death In Vegas.
Friday, 10 October 2003
Cock E.S.P. by their own admission make "experimental music with a touch of class". Head Cock and ex WWF wrestler Emil Hagstrom (the minneapolis loin grinder-bomber-bulldog) compiled and executed this compilation CD which features 99 annoying remixes by 88 different and equally annoying artists. Chaos packaged and disguised as a CD. Cock E.S.P. draws on the most extreme, subversive and absurdist elements of both popular and experimental Twentieth Century music and performance art, creating abstract high-energy entertainment. Influences include punk rock, modern composition, im… Read more
Friday, 03 October 2003
Do Make Say Think have fashioned a fourth full-length album of tremendous beauty and depth, more loosely woven than previous records and played with careful, often wistful restraint. The songs on "Winter Hymn..." are eerie and iridescent, composed and captured with mesmerising attention to detail, guided by the band's most intricate and intimate guitar passages to date, instrumental rock imbued with heartrending - yes, even hymnal - narrative ideas. More than any previous effort by the band, this is an album that yearns to be listened to as a whole, or at least in … Read more
Friday, 19 September 2003
Two of the young lions on Chicago's new emerging scene of jazz improvisers came together one starry night and cut a beautifully mellow duet for bowed bass and saxophone on the back porch of their home. Bauder (a recent alumni of the great Anthony Braxton) and Ajemian produced a wonderful, concentrated dirge with the soft rhythmic ambience of crickets in the background. This is a completely enveloping listen by two musicians whose sense for melody is as natural as the everyday sounds around us. Recommended as a flipside to the recent flow of beautiful drone pieces by Keith Fullerton Whitmen and Akira Rabelais, guitar replaced by sax and double bass.
Friday, 05 September 2003
Martin Dosh, most well known for being the drummer and Rhodes player in the Minneapolis band FOG (Ninja Tune), has struck out on his own with his debut album for the Anticon label. Dosh collected hours upon hours of drum breaks and keyboard riffs in the basement of his house. Deep in a dank Minneapolis basement cluttered with musical instruments, old samplers and effects pedals, blown out amps and a couple of dusty couches, dosh worked for a little over a year putting sounds to tape with the occasional accompaniment of friends.
These recordings would become Dosh’s debut untitled full-length, a collection of 1… Read more
Marc ribot’s boldly beautiful world of atavistic horror reaches its apex in “Scelsi Morning”, a startling and eclectic collection of Marc’s most powerful compositions for chamber ensemble. Touching upon Ayler, Morton Feldman, minimalism and of course the ritualistic music of italian composer Giancento Scelsi, to whom the work is dedicated, “Scelsi Morning” features plenty of Marc’s searing guitar work, lush orchestrations for Clarinets and Strings, and primitive noise percussion.
Parsley Sound’s deceptively lo-fi transmissions have reached long-player status. A cosy coBorn in Los Angeles, Doug Wieselman has rifted back and forth from coast to coast most of his creative life, working with many of the coutnry’s greatest underground musicians. On the west coast he has been co-leader of the san francisco-based kamikaze ground crew since 1983, musical director and composer for the Flying Karamazof brothers and is a frequent collaborator with Wayne Horvitz in Seattle. In New York, he has been a veteran of bands led by, among others, Lou Reed,… Read more
Friday, 29 August 2003
The latest uber-messy outing from Tresor is a bit of a departure for this normally straight up techno imprint. The House Of Fix is a double CD collection of moments from The Fix Records camp who include Royal Blood, Circa, and Carrion Crow. The tracks come across somewhere between the harder Supercollider sound and the punked up trashy aesthetics of the DFA / LCD Soundsystem crew. Vocals feature prominently in a punk stylee, as well as the futuristic techno-trash-Gigolo moments that keep the heads in form, but I cant help feeling that this is a fashion record more than a decent stab at music. Just a humble opinion, like. One for the Mullets.......
Friday, 22 August 2003
This third full-length recording by Godspeed offshoot band Mt. Zion finds the band continuing to work as a six-piece, with guests on drums & a couple dozen folks on choral duty. The core personnel remains Efrim (guitar, piano, tapes, effects, vocals), Thierry (bass), Sophie (violin), Beckie (cello), Ian (guitar) & Jessica (violin). The new record was sketched in rehearsals through the autumn of 2002 & then extensively arranged in studio at the hotel2tango. The result is four long pieces, each in two or more sections, all featuring group and/or lead vocals. Efrim's increased voca… Read more
Brand new rush released (seemingly) album from the P.U.T.S.'s crew. Eleven very nice tracks, wicked rhymes - chopped jazz hip hop beat business - ace scratching and da boom. Compiling new tracks and some rare older goodies, Double K & Thes One are certified dope on this joint. Ace, vinyl edition come soon.
Friday, 15 August 2003
Not Royce Da 5-9 before you ask, instead a wicked live band from Chi-town in a Tortoise/Zappa mould crafting dope jams in a hip hop stylee. Guitar, bass, keys, drums, percussion, hammond, djembe, moog, novation bass station etc...etc, and Qwel adding deep lyrics to a couple of tracks. Another side revealed to the Galapagos 4 family, a fresh different album for fans of post rock and outsider hip hop. Ace artwork, fine record.
First in a new series from Music Fellowship - three artists share a CD and get twenty minutes each to showcase their sound. First up, Yellow 6, the ambient journey of Leicestershire guitarist Jon Attwood - next, Rothko, the impressionistic bass odyssey charted by London’s Mark Beazley and finally the many musical byways traveled by Connecticut-based Landing. Warm and reflective, post rock home listening.
The debut album from Client includes the recent singles 'Price of Love' and 'Rock and Roll Machine'. As the first signings to Andy Fletcher's Toast Hawaii label, Client are poppy without being sanitised, danceable without being identikit, taking the contemporary trend for all things electropop to the next level by combining pulsing, machine-funk, analogue sounds with classic song writing. Check.
Friday, 08 August 2003
As with all merzbow releases, the caustic material is painful at best and deafening at worst. Merzbow crafts sound, creating terrifying atmospheres and emotionally heavy soundscapes. Musically, the album borders on the most abusive power noise with a semblance of percussive structure. These rhythms keep this album from falling into an abyss of intolerable dissonance. Part one, which at almost 30 minutes in length will test not only your will-power but your speakers as well, leads on to part two - 40 minutes of shifting, throbbing noise, totally free of melody and structure...recommended to be listened to with headphones. Harsh.
The Czech Republic's Ecstasy Of St Theresa return after a bit of an absence with this new album for Labels. "Slowthinking" manages to uniquely and imaginatively fuse the sound of traditional instruments with electronic tinkering in a slightly more obvious fashion than Iceland's Mum, but nonetheless in a similar vein. Jan Muchow describes it as "a quiet record, which has to be played loudly". In short, it's a soothing listen that fans of Lamb will fall in love with. Check.
Friday, 01 August 2003
In a martin denny mould, John Zorn has created a beautiful and exotic soundtrack with lyricism and a wry sence of humour. Scored for classical guitar, vibraphone, brazilian percussion, acoustic bass, and voice, and performed by an all star unit from Zorn’s exciting electric Masada, this is one of the most delightful additions to the popular filmworks series. Gorgeous stuff, and one of the most accessable pieces from Zorn in quite some time. Highly Recommended.
New album from Kevin Martin (The Bug / Techno Animal) and Justin Broadrick (Godflesh / Napalm Death) - an extremely hardcore thrash punk amen break spilled mashup of a record. Justin Broadrick and Kevin Martin met whilst sharing tours with God and Godflesh. They formed Techno Animal in 1991. As Techno Animal the pair have mutated and fragmented into various experimental side projects (The Sidewinder, Sub Species, White Viper and Eraser), which have periodically mashed up Techno, Jungle, Dub and Hip Hop. But it was by touring with Alec Empire that inspired the birth of Curse … Read more
Jurado’s resourceful use of folk, country, blues and rock, added to a defining and trembling voice, has won over a faithful and convinced audience. In “holding his breath”, damien exposes 5 delicately pure songs. “I am the greatest of all liars” reveals his enigmatic and elusive side, a catalogue of what we feel but can’t see. “Oh death art with me” evokes the memory of nick drake, tarnished by the yankee touch of damien’s voice and guitar; warning us that the devil keeps an eye on us form the moment we set foot on earth. “Big let down” is solitude and abandonment, turned into music by … Read more
Tzadik is proud to present three world premiere recordings and a critically acclaimed classic by one of the world's greatest living composers. For almost six decades milton babbitt has been pushing the boundaries of contemporary composition creating a unique world of sound, form and colour. Two striking string quartets, including the first recording of his challenging sixth quartet performed by a special group organized by new music legend Fred Sherry, are balanced with rare electronic masterpiece "occasional variations" and a virtuosic guitar composition evoking legendary jazzman… Read more
Three-piece outfit Mower combine classic Kinks-esque songwriting and melodies with powerful bass and drums, all produced by Stephen Street (The Smiths, Blur). ‘People Are Cruel’ is an eclectic mix of acoustic and electric with the emphasis on one main point – honest pop songs! On Transcopic.
Friday, 18 July 2003
*Now at a campaign price!*This doped up new LP arrives from Lacks who started out as Lacksidaisycal, releasing records on Carl Craig’s hip hop-sublabel Antidote, namely the "Bitch Niggaz" 10" and "Friday Night" 12" feat. Slum Village, Big Tone & Dwele, then went on to release the "Vintage Soul EP" under his production alias Elevator Music on Inquisitive Records, and also produced the Elevator Remix of ‘People make the world go round’ by Innerzone Orchestra......and if that aint enough pedigree, he also collaborated with Jaydee on ‘Its Lyke That’ from his ‘Welcome To Detroit’ LP. The… Read more
Sticky Fingaz returns on this full length thugged up CD. The one time Onyx bad boy drops his styles over the jigged up beats, check ‘I Love Da Streets’ for a Dre-esque funk groove and phat jeep beats that’ll make ya bounce, or the hardcore Timbaland style ‘Do Da Damn Thing’ with its little sample triggers and cut up beats, plus the little Timba ‘Yo’s’ all are ripped and used to drop a heavy gangsta groove. And if you need further reason, the Erik Sermon style ‘Get Smashed Up’ has booming kick drums and some seriously bad language! over the top of r’n’b strings and cut and paste drums to drop large and loud on yo head. Only for the hardcore!
Sticking with the jiggy biznizz, Fredro Starr drops some serious jeep beats, just check the large boom bap of ‘California Girls’ with its g-funk synths and heavy bass notes on the boom of the drums coupled with female backing vocals accnting Fredro’s drawl. The acid bass and guitar licks of ‘Rambo’ contrast starkly with the cheesy and cheeky synths that stab away like mad hamsters, but strangely come together to drop a mad hatter of a hip hop track. The cd runs well, and if ya cruisin’ this weekend, you could always get a lowrider and bounce up ya neighborhood with this cd, booty shakin’ beats.
Friday, 11 July 2003
New Manitoba single on Leaf taken from the excellent 'Up In Flames' album. Mr Koushik Ghosh offers uplifting vocals to this glitch update of early nineties production that actually works. Of big interest is the inclusion of two exclusive killer tracks from the album sessions. 'Cherrybomb' offers whacked out electronica house beats with lush floating melodies, bass and chiming percussion. Tune! 'Silver Splinters' is even better like a mad crazy break battle between Scott Herron, Luke Vibert and Art Blakey. A killer drum heavy (and I mean heavy) electronic jazz bomb with 100% proof funk in the trunk. CD comes with the video to 'Jacknuggeted', highly recommended.
Crescent first emerged in the mid nineties as part of the incredibly
vibrant Bristol post-rock scene that included artists like Flying Saucer
Attack, Movietone, and Third Eye Foundation. The Crescent line-up
includes members of both Movietone and Flying Saucer Attack. This is
their fourth album, and most accessible to date. The occasional raw,
explosive violence of previous recordings is replaced with a collection
of songs that unfurl slowly and recall points from John Fahey to The
Velvet Underground, Galaxie 500 to Hood, Joy Division, and Pram, with an
utterly English and pastoral feel. Lovely.
Mini EP (four tracks) from the post rock gloom mongers, 'Black Heart
Procession'. New on Shingle Street.
Friday, 04 July 2003
Now available on CD. Electronicat is Fred Bigot, a Parisienne performer who mixes electro and rock to such good effect he featured in Time Out New York’s top 10 Artists of The Year last year : "life techno with a touch of glam rock. so obvious, you wonder why nobody thought of it before". In between biker rock anthems and glittering electronic ballads you’ll find a schizophrenic devotion to noisy and pushing sounds. Accompanied at the microphone by Catriona Shaw the record develops intimate density and tipsy no-limit attitude resulting in a new brand of electronically expressed music which is best described as electric-glam-rock ‘n’ roll.
Genuine reasons here for teary-eyed recollections, as most of the classic Magic Band reunite for an album to follow up recent live work at Glastonbury and Autechre’s All Tomorrow’s Parties. Sensibly they’ve stuck to quintessential tunes, ‘Circumstances’‚ ‘Click Clack’, ‘Moonlight On Vermont’‚ and other all time favourites. We get the classics, spanning the best of ‘Clear Spot’, ‘Trout Mask Replica’ and the more underrated ‘Spotlight Kid’, and ‘Lick My Decals Off Bab’‚ albums making for a thoroughly enjoyable listen. There still seems to be a genuine chemistry to the magical works of Drumbo, Rockette Morton, Mantis and Feelers Reebo, live to tape, raw as you like. Cheers!!
