Freq has been running in various forms since 1998, and this iteration has been around since 2010, with an archive of older material available too.
Please scroll down and on for the most recent reviews; the archives index for 1998-2009 is here while there is an A-Z index here of everything posted so far.
The bulk of the record reviews 1998-2008 are in the following pages: Continue reading …
I’m on a train a foggy winter afternoon, beats rocking me away into an unfamiliar yet known landscape. The steady beat accompanied by bass-noisy distorted guitar rhythms feeds to the familiarity of the sounds. Suddenly strange background screeching brakes hits, but without any effect on the speed, like the change of mood when entering a tunnel, but still continues when coming out of it, swirling through the narrow valley of winterly mountainous landscape. The feelings created by the first tracks on Dead Clubbing matches perfectly the dual sides of the experience of listening to the music, combined with the train ride I am on writing this. Almost like they where made for each other.
Anders Hana has made some hard impressions on the Norwegian scene of avant-rock, by his
Oh, caveats. They’re buggers right? Yeah. Well, here’s one anyway – without wanting to get into the ‘how do ‘we the west’ appropriate non-Western music?’, there’s always a massive problem writing about this sort of thing. I’d not suggest that my lack of knowledge of Carnatic/ Hindustani music is in any way an impediment to enjoying/ talking about Indian classical music, but I always get this feeling that it’d take me 20 years to get near putting this in some sort of context. Ustad Abdul Karim Khan has a phenomenal tone, lovely range, the ornaments to the rags are phenomenally delivered, the recording has been re-mastered brilliantly considering it sounds like one mic in a dusty room some point before the 2nd World War (!). But I’m taking it as read
Appearing as part of a series of DVDs from Blast First Petite unearthing performances on legendary German TV music show Rockpalast (see also Kevin Coyne in 1978) comes a rare broadcast featuring John Fahey from March 1978. Remastered from the original video tapes, this is a rare opportunity to see footage of Fahey on stage, and the results are captivating.
Fahey arrives in front of the WDR TV audience to a brief introduction and no stands upon which to place the guitars he holds in each hand. Thankfully his embarrassment is averted by the reverentially lighthearted way his corduroy jacket is instantly whisked off his waiting arms as he seats himself at the mic, at once amusing, and indicative of the esteem in which he was – and
Sweeping in on modernist orchestrations, Rupture is a very different kind of Nurse With Wound collaboration, though there is plenty which harks back to Steve Stapleton‘s tape-loop manipulations of orchestral music both in Nursey guise and with Current 93‘s earlier harshly overbearing recordings in the pre-Apocalyptic Folk days. Here there is an explicit theme hinted at in the title, as the ensemble attempt to envisage musically what it might feel like to undergo a severe brain embolism – and who better for sculptor and composer Graham Bowers to work with on such a project than Messrs. Stapleton, Liles, Waldron and Potter?
Wall of sound doesn’t begin to adequately describe the onslaught they unleash together; once the first few gentle tones of part one’s calm before the rupture (“… a
Brixton is a place that has changed a lot over the past twenty odd years. It feels very different now then when I lived (well squatted) there in the late eighties, at that time the riots had calmed down but there was still a sense of unease . It now feels less tense and has quite up-market café culture and some of the old dodgy pubs now seemed to have gone. But scratch the surface of the place and its past is still there just under its shiny new veneer. Somehow it seem quite apt that The Levellers would be celebrating twenty years of their album Levelling the Land here.
Ok, I admit it…..I missed Hugh Lloyd Langton’s set because I was in the pub watching Hawkwind covers band Hoaxwind and enjoying them way too much. They played a superb set of Hawkwind classics (including “Needle Gun” which I had not heard in years and sounded amazingly good), and were fantastic great fun and sounded quite amazing. If you have not seen them yet I strongly suggest you do and they always seem to be playing at a pub near to a Hawkwind gig.
The winter solstice machine rolls on for Hawkwind and I now can’t imagine a yuletide period without their tour of shows. Whereas last year Dave Brock was stood over to one side of the stage tonight he is dead centre, the
For most bands, tackling that ‘difficult’ second album can be a daunting experience; the expectation, the pressure to top their debut, and the need to break new ground can all conspire to form a perilous trap for the unwary and the uninitiated. Most bands, however, don’t record their second album 41 years after forming.
Figures of Light, a ghost legion of the proto-punk army who fought almost single-handedly around New York and New Jersey during the early 1970s, have returned to the studio, however, and recorded a new album, following on from their 2007 ‘debut’ Smash Hits. That album, which collated vintage material from as far back as 1970 alongside recordings made that year, was a first step in placing the band back into their proper historical context, elevating them
This is the DVD and Blu Ray edition of a performance of Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges‘ at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in September 2010, not long after the untimely death of founder member Ron Asheton. The CD edition included all eight songs (albeit reordered) from their classic third album alongside single cut “I Gotta Right,” and Alan Holmes‘ review of the disc can be read here.
Leaving the musical content to the review for the most part, it’s worth noting that the sound on the video is excellent throughout, and the performance by the band is exemplary in its energy and vigour. James Williamson rejoins The Stooges onstage for the first time since 1973 to recapture his contribution to Raw Power, while Mike Watt continues to hold
To a young mind searching for meaningful music in the early 1980s, encountering CRASS for the first time was a frightening proposition. In those hazy, far-off days, when the Californian IT development nerds responsible for YouTube and Google had barely finished breastfeeding and the ZX Spectrum was the hot shit in cutting edge computer technology, one really couldn’t be entirely sure whether CRASS was a Punk band, a twisted Dadaist subversion, a political movement or some kind of terrorist cell, like the Baader-Meinhof Group fallen to earth in Ongar Great Park. Or, come to that, all four. With no promotional images to refer to (part of a carefully cultivated tactic to avoid the usual characterisation of a ‘band’ with ‘leaders’), one was confronted only by
As part of the Lumberton Trading Company‘s limited edition subscription series (others in the set include Glass Out – with vox from the late Jhonn Balance; the ever-crackly Main; Brian Conniffe, Human Greed and Jean-Hervé Péron plus guests) of 12″ singles, Cindytalk – (AKA Gordon Sharp) teams up with Phillipe Petit for a double-A side mini-album.
Taken together, the two sides of vinyl make for an environmental audio travelogue of lengthy proportions, one which rewards the use of both powerful sub-bass speakers and tweeters which can fully capture the higher tones; without wishing to be overly audiophile about such things – though here the benefits compared to an average home stereo setup are noticeable. A good set of computer gaming speakers or a home cinema set would be
Organic grinding. The music humming inside the skulls of cannibals as they try to decide which would go better with their longpig; rosemary or thyme? Are chives too much? Too little? What would Michel Roux Jr. suggest? They’d hardly want to spoil the meat with excess seasoning, or overpower the flavour with some badly chosen shallots or unnecessary garnishes. Here, we are treated to imaginary soundtracks to imaginary places. Brian Pyle (who was in… etc etc) coming up trumpeting; weaving processed, processional sounds into the mix; keeping things flowing.
He’s amassing an interesting soundpile; working I’m guessing mostly by instinct (‘those reversed bells would sound just lovely right there’) but also paying plenty of attention to detail. And here’s where the Devil is; in the little sounds behind the main
Ok, where do I begin? This is a monumental release! Yeah, I like that even though it feels somewhat understated. Hmmmm, all right lets start with a bit of background info; Omnia Opera first appear in the mid-Eighties new psychedelic boom that spawned venues like The Deptford Crypt and big one-off festivals like Acid Daze and watched Ozric Tentacles shoot to fame. A little later Delerium Records start and release albums by various underground and free festival artists in a second summer of love type vibe. Omnia Opera release two albums for the label their space/acid/punk/prog sound being one highlights. And then silence… the Omnias disappeared into the mists of time and people like me were left clutching their old copies of Red Shift with a wistful look in our
The Necks seem to have been around forever and they’re still boiling the elements of jazz down, adding their signature dabbles and occasional electronic bursts, collecting and sieving through new sounds, gold panning their way into new forms. This album collects two 20 minute-plus tracks that shadow each other like long lost relatives at a wake. Not that this is dark music as such (though the bass rumbles) but rather that the two tracks circle each other, as if wary. They clearly know each other, share a few drops of the same gene pool, but they are rough twins, twins brought up by different brothers.
The first track “Rum Jungle” is the relentless one; drums tumbling almost into the late period jungle-jazz rhythms of Omni Trio. It’s all about the
Hey, who’s the new guy? He’s in his mid sixties. He’s got a good quiff. Meditates a lot. Smokes a lot too. Claims to not be a musician. Is he one of those Punk Rockers? Don’t think so. He’s a former Eagle Scout from Missoula, Montana. His father worked for the Department of Agriculture. Faced down some pretty scary times in Philly.
And so, here is the debut offering from new guy David Lynch. Coming hot on the heels of his recent high-profile stint in the producer’s chair for the lovely Ms Chrysta Bell, he’s obviously making up for lost time in the music department. Crazy Clown Time it’s called. Clowns. Man, most people find clowns a little scary. Many people outright hate them. Crispin Glover, who worked with
The Royal Festival Hall
South Bank Centre, London
27th September 2000
Performing for their 25th anniversary, Pere Ubu delivered such a marvelous performance as to bring me around to wondering why I don't listen to this band everyday. And why are they not lauded as the one of the best of the las
Pacou - Symbolic Language Remixes
Label: Tresor Format: 12"
Once again, we can rely on Tresor to der the goods. Think Jeff Mills, think Adam Beyer. Pacou is in that vein, with a slab of tough minimal techno. Symbolic Language Remixes is a belting EP, nasty hard and fucking groovesome. It sweats
Label: Freeborn John Theatre Company Format: CD+DVD (PAL)
Originally released in 1996, Freeborn John was Rev Hammer's folk rock opera about the life of English radical “Freeborn” John Lilburne, who fought in the Civil War and dedicated his life to liberty and freedom. A natural subject for Ha
13th Moon
OK, a bit of a lesson in rock history. Well, by “lesson” I obviously mean “completely partial and somewhat half-baked theory put together by me for the purposes of reviewing an album,” but at least it's not like double geography or something, on a sunny day, when you have to sq
The Vortex, London
20 October 2011
"Sorry we’re a little late in starting, we were meant to start at nine. I looked at my watch and it said ten to nine, then suddenly it said quarter past. That’s what happens when you stand at the bar talking shit.”
Evan Parker takes to the stage at Th
April 2000
I arrived at this gig a little late and in much overdone panic. First of all we were in South London, and more importantly, I had forgotten to pick up a blank tape to record this interview on. As soon as I located Arrington de Dionyso, which took about twenty seconds in the dimly
Susan Lawly/Very Friendly
THIS REVIEW IS UNSUITABLE FOR THOSE NOT OF AN ADULT PERSUASION OR LACKING A SENSE OF HUMOUR
She fumbled with the lock, scratching at it unsteadily with her key. Her head was swimming slightly from the drink, and she could feel his hot breath on the back of her neck,
AIMsoundCity
Lisa Dillan is a vocal improviser originating from the northern parts of Norway. She is a trained and educated jazz singer, but many years ago she moved further away from the jazz, and started exploring the possibilities that lies within improvising with the voice and creating variou
Pica Disk
This release is the first in the Jazkamer 2010 Monthly Series. A card accompanying the CD states: “One new Jazkamer album on Pica Disk every month of 2010. One year of music and anti-music.”
Perfomed by the two founders and regular members Lasse Marhaug and John Hegre, plus Jean-
Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts
25 February 2001
The present-day composer refuses to die, according to Edgard Varese, a man with legendary eyebrows. He also influenced the guy whose music an eager bunch of resurrectionists revived in the Paul McCartney Auditorium. The Liverpool based-ba
Gwymon
The "quiet one" from Gorky's Zygotic Mynci has been somewhat, well… quiet of late. In the five years since his former group officially called it a day we have been treated to no fewer than five releases from his ex-bandmate Euros Childs and yet We Went Riding is only Richard's second sol
Leather Apron
News having recently reached my ears of a troupe of performing “Gentleman Ne'er-do-wells” giving themselves the grandiose name of The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing, who have of late been Turning a fair few Heads, chiefly among the lower orders and the varied Forms of S
(Load)
The centrepiece of the recent All Tomorrow's Parties documentary is a clip from a Lightning Bolt set at the festival back in 2006. The band, true to form, is set up on the floor of the venue and the crowd is jostling around Brian Chippendale's drumkit in a claustrophobic huddle of beards a
ULU, London
26th May 2005
Okay, here's the usual disclaimer. I'm not going to be objective. In the slightest. Michael Gira's been a hero of mine for many years now, and this was the first time I got to see him live. So forgive me if I don't give it the whole fair and balanced thing in the follow
Label: Creation Format: CD,LP
"The time to rise has been engaged" - REM
It has occurred to me on more than just this one occasion that giving our seers and soothsayers money to throw about is often not the best thing for them. Witness the fate of Roxy Music and Johnny Rotten, Jefferson Airp
On The Rocks, London
10th December 1998
What does a New York Jewish MC from East Berlin sound like in soundclash mode with his East End muckers? Especially when set off by their apearance on a stage in a Shoreditch nightclub seemingly more frequented by stag and hen parties - complete with spang
The Slimelight, London
1 November 2003
The Pressure Point, Brighton
2 November 2003
The Legendary Pink Dots return to their founders' home country after an absence of a good few years is always a welcome event - that they then play two gigs in a mini-micro tour is an added bonus. First surpris
Icarus - Misfits
Label: Output Format: CD
Icarus, AKA Ollie Bown and Sam Britton, are back with the successor to last years Squid Ink album. Misfits is ultra chilled Ambience with heavy glitch content. I didn't see any trace of a track listing for the six tracks on the CD, so any references I ma
Electrowerkz, London
4 May 2001
Noise and gunge and digital Punk Rock descend on paintball hall Electrowerkz, and even if the night is also a launch for the No More Rock N Roll compilation, it really does have some stomping moments to put a writhe on the dead face of Sid Vicious and perhaps K
(Sinnbus)
I Might Be Wrong come from Berlin and are, apparently, "supported by the Initiative Musik Non-profit Project Company Ltd. with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media on the basis of a resolution passed by the German Bundestag."
Splendid! - how ca
Dekorder
Organic grinding. The music humming inside the skulls of cannibals as they try to decide which would go better with their longpig; rosemary or thyme? Are chives too much? Too little? What would Michel Roux Jr. suggest? They’d hardly want to spoil the meat with excess seasoning, or over
The Scala, London
21st March 2001
In tow with the usual Krautrock London posse I arrived at The Scala just in time to hear lots of talk about how a lot of people have not been here since it was a infamous cinema. Though I never saw it in its glory, the building is still impressive with its loads
Constellation
Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Becki Foon’s (Thee Silver Mt. Zion) latest release as Esmerine (now expanded to a quartet, with harpist Sarah Page and percussionist Andrew Barr) is dedicated to Lhasa de Sela, the Montréal-based singer-songwriter who succumbed to b
Full Time Hobby
It seems like only a few months ago that there was an ill-fated, though entirely well-intentioned, campaign on popular young people's stalking tool Facebook for Malcolm Middleton's cheery doom and gloom singalong “We're All Gonna Die” (from the album) to be the Christmas numbe
Industrial
...right, so I'll get the actual review part out of the way, assuming someone's reading this from either the perspective of not knowing Throbbing Gristle or is interested in what's new in this re-release/re-master. This shouldn't take too long, don't worry. First – if you don't know
Robot Elephant/Homeopathic
Collecting Acid Mothers Temple releases can leave you very light in the wallet area (I know this from experience) due to the volume of their output . So there is quite a minefield of material out there to negotiate, some amazing, some a little like the band treading wat
Tin Angel
[pullshow id="treads"]Green and grey, the grass and the concrete, the juxtaposition between the natural world and the man-made built environment that must now co-exist with it, ideally in harmony, yet in practice all too often in conflict. Across the 11 tracks contained within, New York
Southern Lord
[pullshow id="massive"]Xibalba are unhappy. You have invaded their space and their response is twelve tracks of letting you know just how much this has aggrieved them. This is music for pissed off, heavy-set men in their late thirties. [pullthis id="massive"]Xibalba are massive of r
Staubgold
This is one of those albums which goes on forever, but with the pleasant companionship of days passing and the changes of the quality of light and temperature on one side, and the intensity of a nightmare storm battering on the other. The title is German for Keep Cool, and the long
Label: NTT (available exclusively via Touch) Format: DVD (Region 0, NTSC)
Sometimes, nothing satisfies quite like the immersive intensity of a minimalist audio-visual feast for eyes, ears and cerebellum, and Formula provides more than adequate satisfaction on all counts. Starting with the packagi
The Underworld, London
2nd December 2000
What was supposed to be a World Serpent presents show with Sol Invictus, Sorrow, and Ostara turned out to be a lot less/more, depending on how you look at it. Due to illness, Tony Wakeford and Sol Invictus were forced to cancel, and due to lateness(my ow
(self-released)
Cozmic Onion Express are one of those bands it would be far better to see live than listen to on this record. There's nothing whatsoever wrong with it at all; in fact it's a great introduction from one of the most zanily accomplished head-messing bands in London right now. The rec
Dekorder
In their download panic frenzy, labels and artists are coming up with ever more ingenious/desperate ways of providing attractive bonus content with their physical releases. It’s common for CDs to feature bonus video content, but as far as I’m aware, this is the first vinyl record to
Parallax Sounds
Brian Ellis is the guitar player with the band Astra, whose album The Weirding was one of the best of a batch of progressive rock revival albums released last year. It swept majestically over musical fields covered by Yes, early Genesis and King Crimson. On what appears to be his
The Garage, London
7 May 2002
There's been a fair amount of good press come Bobby Conn's way since he last visited these shores in February. Appreciative album and live reviews in the national papers. A full page photo (wearing a lurid 80's shellsuit) and enthusiastic write-up from Ted Kessler in t
Monty Maggot
Well this isn’t what I was expecting (which of course is never a bad thing), before spinning the disc I did my usual thing of checking the sleeve out, reading lyrics, etc, to get a general feel of what an album may sound like. Added to this the fact that I knew that vocalist Br
Riot Season
[pullshow id="beeswax"]I’m in a marquee, somewhere in the midst of pre-Empire, pre fucking ‘Glasto’ Glastonbury. An odd hour. Somewhere just behind me, people are bartering over the price of admission to the Healing Pyramid: “Nah, mate; three quid each.” “Each? But it’s
Broken Horse
Peaches and cream, assault and battery, Damon and Naomi...some things are just made to go together...
[pullshow id="500"]With the unbelievable proliferation of ‘Americana’ over the past dozen or so years (just check out the bulging racks in Rough Trade), it’s hard to remembe
Aurora Borealis
12th February 1923, Cefalù, Sicily – Evening.
Aleister – God I hate Mondays, they’re so dreary. Aud, why don’t you put something on the gramophone? Surely you must have brought some of the latest sounds with you from London?
Stop The Panic
The Spitz, London
28th February 2000
O! if all nights out could be so entertaining! A New Orleans style jam session set up between avuncular B.J. Cole (occasional collaborator with Spiritualized) and chin-pierced Electro Bohemian Luke Vibert (sometimes Wagon Christ and Plug) and
Magic and Dreams
In China Mieville's wondrous The City And The City, the city of Beszel exists in more or less the same space as the city of Ul Qoma. The cities interweave, crosshatch; citizens unsee their counterparts in the other city, buildings themselves merge but don't merge. Neighbours live
Various - Advance 2000.3
Label: Mute Format: CD
What are the folks at Mute up to right now?
Advance 2000.3 isn`t really an album as such. It's a compilation of the up and coming Mute (and Novamute) releases. You won't find it in the shops, unless you work in the shops.
2000.3 has new releases fr
Ipecac
The Bride Screamed Murder is superb. Not at all what I expected, but sees the Melvins in fine form. A Senile Animal (2006) and Nude With Boots (2008) saw the Melvins gelling as a tight four piece unit, with Buzz Osborne and Dale Crover playing alongside Big Business’ Coady Willis and Jar
@ Kosmische
Upstairs At The Garage, London
16 September 2003
A reasonably well-filled Upstairs At The Garage is in store for a sleazy night of lateral Rock and Roll tonight. Caesar Romero pull off several good sweaty tricks - they use keyboards and guitars like they were meant to be scuzzed up
Drid Machine
I’m on a train a foggy winter afternoon, beats rocking me away into an unfamiliar yet known landscape. The steady beat accompanied by bass-noisy distorted guitar rhythms feeds to the familiarity of the sounds. Suddenly strange background screeching brakes hits, but without any effe
lf
Four new-ish releases here from Bristol's micro-label lf, run by one Mr Dsic (not his real name), documenting aspects of noise and noise-ish music. A mixed bag, but that's no bad thing - my weekly shop includes all sorts of things, from washing powder to aubergines (exotic, I know), and I don'
Label: Threshold House Format: CD
The last Coil album proper, The Ape Of Naples marks a tragic end point, a conclusion to one of the more remarkable groups to grace the annals of electronic and deviant music. Completed under the direction of his longtime collaborator Peter "Sleazy" Christophers
Thrill Jockey
Wow, this is a really different kind of Trans Am album. But wow in general, too, it's also a pretty fucking great album. The first thing that struck me about Thing was its soundtrack-like quality. At points it is more like a vision of Blade Runner rather than the electro rock we
- Iranair Inflight Magazine
- Red Madrassa
- Jebel Tariq
Label: Muslimim Format: CD
- Arabbox
Label: Soleilmoon Format: CD
-In Search Of Ahmad Shah Masood
Label: Nexsound Format: CD
Recent months have seen the continuing flow of Muslimgauze releases slow down considerably - given that it i
The Metro, Chicago
11 November 1998
There I was, freezing my proverbials off outside the Metro club here in da windy city. My cigarette was burning ridiculously quickly as the icy north breezes fanned it and made me all annoyed... but say la vie (as the French c'est). I was waiting in line to se
Sonic Boom Live
Queen Elizabeth Hall
South Bank Centre, London
4th May 2000
Presented in conjunction with the excellent Sonic Boom exhibition of sound installations at the Hayward Gallery, the line up for this event features three groups and artists who have also been selected for inclusion in
Jackie O Motherfucker - Change
Label: Textile Format: CD,LP
The first time I heard the CD I fell asleep around the end of "Bus Stop", the fifth track, and that's not a meant to be a negative response to the music. It just has a strangely lulling quality about it. There is a lo-fi feel to this tr
Interference
Union Chapel, London
30th October 1998
The cold snap is just hitting London in time for this event, set in the chilly North London church (OK, technically it's a chapel, but it looks and feels more like a Gothic construction, all pointed arches and uncomfortable pews) which has pl
Welcome to Freq.
Freq was founded on 1 April 2008, and the main focus of Freq for the last decade and more has been on the bastardized forms of music which are polluting Millennial culture so nicely - the forms which offer innovation, eccentricity and unashamed noise. Resistance to the pervading
The Albery Theatre, London
from 4th April 2002 for 11 weeks
Based on Heinrich Hoffman's dark fairy-tale Struwwelpeter, Shockheaded Peter originally opened in 1998 and last year alone played to an audience of some 80,000 West End theatre-goers. For its 2002 production, David Thomas & Two Pale
Dirty Water
Over the years a lot of the music from the 50s and the 60s has been treated badly by many bands and artists. Squeezing every nerve out of great songs to make them fit in big companies' Christmas parties, or in extravaganza shows in Las Vegas or other money filling shit-holes over the
Southern Lord
Black Cascade, the third album from Wolves In The Throne Room, is truly epic stuff, clocking in at four superb monolithic compositions. For me it ticks all the black metal boxes: big guitar riffs, big keyboard parts, triplets galore, and tempos that run from the majestically slow to
Drag City
It's fair to say that the motorik template is now so firmly embedded into popular music that a waft of Klaus Dinger's beloved rhythm can trickle over the PA in an mid-range department store pretty much anywhere from John Lewis to Galeries Lafayette via Macy's and no-one browsing there w
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 decisi
Kosmische
The Garage, London
12th September 1998
A legend or two popped into The Garage, held an audience captive for a couple of hours, and it was just as might be expected - half a trip back in time, and half a slice of something timeless. Damo Suzuki nearly three decades on still has the st
Samadhi Sound
There are few musical instruments that are as conceptually pleasing as the no-input mixing board. It is part of a rich tradition in experimental music in which peripheral hardware and audio equipment are repositioned as musical instruments in their own right (turntables, effects pe
Umbilical
Ok, where do I begin? This is a monumental release! Yeah, I like that even though it feels somewhat understated. Hmmmm, all right lets start with a bit of background info; Omnia Opera first appear in the mid-Eighties new psychedelic boom that spawned venues like The Deptford Crypt and b
Corsica Studios, London
2nd May 2007
Looking like refugees from several different bands who all met up in a jail cell after a drunken night gone horribly wrong, it's north London's finest pirate bar band Owlls, and they really should be playing in Tortuga in the 17th Century rather than Elephant &
The Peel Sessions Live
Queen Elizabeth Hall,The South Bank Centre, London
19th March 1999
John Peel's here! John fucking Peel's here! And he's still the coolest old guy in England! For his Peel Sessions Live gigs, he's chosen to host a Digital Hardcore Night! AT THE QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL! Ho
Essence Music
A welcome re-release in lavish packaging for Aidan Baker's 2007 CDR-only effort, complete with remastering at the hands of the deservedly legendary James Plotkin. Noise of Silence finds Baker in muttering loopy mode once again, with ominous, faintly mechanical sounds trilling, sussu
Enraptured
The most obvious thing to say about Autopia in the first instance is that Eat Lights, Become Lights are unafraid of putting their influences to the fore, wearing them proudly as signposts to a whole series of strands of underground music across the decades, and as with their live shows
Kosmische Club
The Garage, London
31 May 2001
Beware all snow leopards; indeed all mammals were at risk of having their asses rocked Thursday at the Kosmische Club's presentation of Acid Mothers Temple. Once Southall Riot was done with their opening imitation of all that was Krautrock in a N
Label: Skull Disco Format: 12"
The debut release from the Skull Disco label, this double A side 12" shows there's lots of promise lurking between the drumming and dancing skeletons which are sure to become a sought after signature design characteristic of the label. Neither track references du
Important
The paths of western musicians dabbling in world / global music or whatever you call it these days is strewn with heroic and not-so heroic failures; Bill Laswell please stand up. So when I first heard that members of Earth, Asva and Burning Witch( three personal favourites) and oth
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
I’m on a train a foggy winter afternoon, beats rocking me away into an unfamiliar yet known landscape. The steady beat accompanied by bass-noisy distorted guitar rhythms feeds to the familiarity of the sounds. Suddenly strange background screeching brakes hits, but without any effect on the speed, like the change of mood when entering a tunnel, but still continues when coming out of it, swirling through the narrow valley of winterly mountainous landscape. The feelings created by the first tracks on Dead Clubbing matches perfectly the dual sides of the experience of listening to the music, combined with the train ride I am on writing this. Almost like they where made for each other.
Oh, caveats. They’re buggers right? Yeah. Well, here’s one anyway – without wanting to get into the ‘how do ‘we the west’ appropriate non-Western music?’, there’s always a massive problem writing about this sort of thing. I’d not suggest that my lack of knowledge of Carnatic/ Hindustani music is in any way an impediment to enjoying/ talking about Indian classical music, but I always get this feeling that it’d take me 20 years to get near putting this in some sort of context. Ustad Abdul Karim Khan has a phenomenal tone, lovely range, the ornaments to the rags are phenomenally delivered, the recording has been re-mastered brilliantly considering it sounds like one mic in a dusty room some point before the 2nd World War (!). But I’m taking it as read
Appearing as part of a series of DVDs from Blast First Petite unearthing performances on legendary German TV music show Rockpalast (see also Kevin Coyne in 1978) comes a rare broadcast featuring John Fahey from March 1978. Remastered from the original video tapes, this is a rare opportunity to see footage of Fahey on stage, and the results are captivating.
Sweeping in on modernist orchestrations, Rupture is a very different kind of Nurse With Wound collaboration, though there is plenty which harks back to Steve Stapleton‘s tape-loop manipulations of orchestral music both in Nursey guise and with Current 93‘s earlier harshly overbearing recordings in the pre-Apocalyptic Folk days. Here there is an explicit theme hinted at in the title, as the ensemble attempt to envisage musically what it might feel like to undergo a severe brain embolism – and who better for sculptor and composer Graham Bowers to work with on such a project than Messrs. Stapleton, Liles, Waldron and Potter?
Ok, I admit it…..I missed Hugh Lloyd Langton’s set because I was in the pub watching Hawkwind covers band Hoaxwind and enjoying them way too much. They played a superb set of Hawkwind classics (including “Needle Gun” which I had not heard in years and sounded amazingly good), and were fantastic great fun and sounded quite amazing. If you have not seen them yet I strongly suggest you do and they always seem to be playing at a pub near to a Hawkwind gig.
For most bands, tackling that ‘difficult’ second album can be a daunting experience; the expectation, the pressure to top their debut, and the need to break new ground can all conspire to form a perilous trap for the unwary and the uninitiated. Most bands, however, don’t record their second album 41 years after forming.
This is the DVD and Blu Ray edition of a performance of Raw Power by Iggy & The Stooges‘ at the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in September 2010, not long after the untimely death of founder member Ron Asheton. The CD edition included all eight songs (albeit reordered) from their classic third album alongside single cut “I Gotta Right,” and Alan Holmes‘ review of the disc can be read here.
To a young mind searching for meaningful music in the early 1980s, encountering CRASS for the first time was a frightening proposition. In those hazy, far-off days, when the Californian IT development nerds responsible for YouTube and Google had barely finished breastfeeding and the ZX Spectrum was the hot shit in cutting edge computer technology, one really couldn’t be entirely sure whether CRASS was a Punk band, a twisted Dadaist subversion, a political movement or some kind of terrorist cell, like the Baader-Meinhof Group fallen to earth in Ongar Great Park. Or, come to that, all four. With no promotional images to refer to (part of a carefully cultivated tactic to avoid the usual characterisation of a ‘band’ with ‘leaders’), one was confronted only by
As part of the Lumberton Trading Company‘s limited edition subscription series (others in the set include Glass Out – with vox from the late Jhonn Balance; the ever-crackly Main; Brian Conniffe, Human Greed and Jean-Hervé Péron plus guests) of 12″ singles, Cindytalk – (AKA Gordon Sharp) teams up with Phillipe Petit for a double-A side mini-album.
Organic grinding. The music humming inside the skulls of cannibals as they try to decide which would go better with their longpig; rosemary or thyme? Are chives too much? Too little? What would Michel Roux Jr. suggest? They’d hardly want to spoil the meat with excess seasoning, or overpower the flavour with some badly chosen shallots or unnecessary garnishes. Here, we are treated to imaginary soundtracks to imaginary places. Brian Pyle (who was in… etc etc) coming up trumpeting; weaving processed, processional sounds into the mix; keeping things flowing.
Ok, where do I begin? This is a monumental release! Yeah, I like that even though it feels somewhat understated. Hmmmm, all right lets start with a bit of background info; Omnia Opera first appear in the mid-Eighties new psychedelic boom that spawned venues like The Deptford Crypt and big one-off festivals like Acid Daze and watched Ozric Tentacles shoot to fame. A little later Delerium Records start and release albums by various underground and free festival artists in a second summer of love type vibe. Omnia Opera release two albums for the label their space/acid/punk/prog sound being one highlights. And then silence… the Omnias disappeared into the mists of time and people like me were left clutching their old copies of Red Shift with a wistful look in our
The Necks seem to have been around forever and they’re still boiling the elements of jazz down, adding their signature dabbles and occasional electronic bursts, collecting and sieving through new sounds, gold panning their way into new forms. This album collects two 20 minute-plus tracks that shadow each other like long lost relatives at a wake. Not that this is dark music as such (though the bass rumbles) but rather that the two tracks circle each other, as if wary. They clearly know each other, share a few drops of the same gene pool, but they are rough twins, twins brought up by different brothers.
Hey, who’s the new guy? He’s in his mid sixties. He’s got a good quiff. Meditates a lot. Smokes a lot too. Claims to not be a musician. Is he one of those Punk Rockers? Don’t think so. He’s a former Eagle Scout from Missoula, Montana. His father worked for the Department of Agriculture. Faced down some pretty scary times in Philly.