- Daniel McKernan
- Albums and Singles
After having heard the teaser single, "Legal Man," which is not available on this album, I was surprised at such a new sound and was curious to hear more of their new material. The single does not have the same feeling - that classic Belle and Sebastian mood - that the album does. The opening tracks, "I Fought in a War" and "The Model" show lots of promise, retaining the band's older styles and Stuart Murdoch's wonderfully emotional voice, but still moving forward. However, the third track, "Beyond the Sunrise," completely breaks the flow of the album with mellow acoustics and deep, funny sounding vocals. The album picks up again after this, with wonderful tracks like "Don't Leave the Light on, Baby," and "Family Tree." Some of the lyrics on this release seem a little sillier than previous albums, but for the most part they are still fairly classic B&S. There is an even mix of male and female vocals, and also a balance of dancey and sulky numbers. For the most part, this album, despite those few "flaws," is a really nice listen: quaint.
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- Daniel McKernan
- Albums and Singles
Download's "Toooly Hooof" is a remix from III, nice and danceable with Key's stylistic touch. A Duck, D.R. Goettel's solo project, delivers "Quakerz (Revision)," an awesome tune light years ahead of its time insofar as techno sounds go. The platEAU track is quiet and makes a nice ambient break in the beats. The Doubting Thomas track has their classic dancey, hard-hitting beats with wavery synths in the background. The compilation stops to beat the dead horse that once was Skinny Puppy by including "Rodent (Remix)," seemingly stuck in here merely to have the name dropped (an "exclusive, unreleased" track). Next is a new Tear Garden track ? a bouncy and touching tale of abuse, from "To Be An Angel Blind" sessions. Ryan Moore donated a somewhat predictable Twilight Circus tune. Philth's track, "Sanity Shovel," is a bit boring at first, though later picks up and is reminiscent of his last album, The Escapist. Floatpoint is Philth and D. Handrabur ? who together create a wonderful electronic sounding track, "Foundflap," heavy on the Eastern influence. "I Still Ate Here," from cEvin Key sounds like an outtake from the 'Music for Cats' album which didn't make the cut. Lustmord's "Infinite Domain" is an alternate version from an upcoming album, 'Metavoid,' which has me convinced enough to look forward to it. Off and Gone consists of the same people as Floatpoint, but thri contribution is a faster A Duck-style beat-driven track. While "Fate's Faithful Punchline," from Legendary Pink Dots is beautiful, this 'version' is all too much like the original ? with very little differences. Dead Voices on Air meets Dropstar for album's closer, "Rijn" -- it's a minimal soundscape with quiet, processed vocals ? much like other DVOA stuff of this nature. This compilation is really a great disc overall, as expected when dealing with 14 exclusive tracks from some really wonderful artists.
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- Daniel McKernan with Jon Whitney
- Albums and Singles
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- Jon Whitney and Andrew Shires
- Albums and Singles
They're tight and solid, have excellent melodies, energetic as all hell and recorded the album almost completely live. You have to when you're just starting out, living in an expensive city and short on cash. There's no tricks and gimmicks on this disc, you're getting a sound from the best live concert you could experience, with a minimal amount of correcting (if any) going on in post-production. Lots of melody, a tight knit with the rhythm section, bits of distortion and feedback and no vocals, this disc is a great release from the seeminly endless train of minimal electronica driving through your living room right now. For those who know who Tarentel is, the bassist used to be in them. Rumah Sakit has been brought to us by our charming and sexy friends at Temporary Residence.
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
Ryan Moore makes it sound so easy. He's become a natural at the Dub Soundystem project.
Over the last five years, his progress has moved into utilizing more electronic and organic instruments while staying true to the ideals of old school dubmasters. Organs and pianos echo, sub atomic bass lines swirl mesmerizing any listener caught in its path, new chimes ring in (almost never heard before), drum beats remain simple and reverberate in loops which end perfectly. The feelings are still there of a desolate scene in a hot western ghost town, or driving for hours in the desert. Listening to this sometimes makes me wish I enjoyed pot smoking as I can picture this would be a great soundtrack to chilling out with meaningless conversation, passing the coochie on the left hand side. Gosh that sounds tacky!
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- Scott Lundquist
- Albums and Singles
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
I saw this bandlive about 4 years ago as one of five people in the audience and wascompletely stunned by their insane and delightfully tastelessperformance. I hadn't heard anything about them since, so needless tosay, I was very surprised to see this 7" turn up. The music isincredibly amusing, and highly innovative in its own ways. Using aplethora of eccentric samples, they combine a kind of extreme congodancin' funk to create this surreal music. This release also comes witha free ingrown toenail! Definitely for fans of Negativland, Nurse withWound, Volcano and the Bear, and the likes. They have several otherreleases available through their record label, Nerve Rust, which youcan contact at Box 211, Athens, GA, 30603, USA. Tell them Brainwashedsent you.
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- Daniel McKernan
- Albums and Singles
Thoughjudging by the instrumentation alone, this album seems to have no realconsistency to it, there is definitely a certain "Echoboy mood" thatglows through the whole disc, in instrumental and vocal tracks alike.The single of the album, "Kit and Holly," is a lovely blend of pleasantsounding keyboards and a nice guitar melody that mix very well with thelyric, "I've got to keep on running..." Great music for the road or forwalking around town with headphones, dancing to yourself. There aremany tracks that consist of simple keyboard programming with guitar orbass strummed down on top, making a nice, quaint sound. The album isreally well produced and constructed, especially for a debut. Echoboywill soon be playing in Barcelona at the Sonar Fest 2000, as well asother European dates. www.echoboy.com
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- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
- Mark Weddle
- Albums and Singles
In October they spentless than a hundred pounds for half an hour of studio time to recordthe "Spiral Scratch" EP, the first independent, do-it-yourself, selfreleased UK punk record. The 4 songs that make up the EP ("Breakdown","Time's Up", "Boredom" and "Friends of Mine") were done live in thestudio, most in 1 take, each with a single guitar overdub. They'reexactly what you'd expect from the early days of punk ... simple,cynical, sarcastic, catchy, brief and explosive. Howard Devoto's lyricsare more personal than political, delivered in a nasally whine over thetight and talented (in punk terms) rhythm section of Pete Shelley,Steve Diggle and John Maher. The Devoto fronted Buzzcocks is thedefinitive line-up as far as I'm concerned.
The album that followed, "Time's Up", has slower, less abrasiveversions of the 4 EP songs plus 7 more songs including the classics"Orgasm Addict" and "I Love You, You Big Dummy". If you're a fan of anyearly UK punk (such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, etc)these two discs are just as essential as "Never Mind..", "Damned,Damned, Damned" and "The Clash". Kudos to Mute for giving a shit aboutthe past and re-issuing them ... this is really important stuff forhistorically minded music aficionados such as myself and gives everyonea chance to discover vital music. The "Time's Up" disc also includesthe "Breakdown" video with footage from the first gig and both discshave really nice inserts chock full of pictures (most from Devoto'spersonal collection and previously unseen), liner notes, interviews andlyrics. My only complaint: why 2 discs? The EP is a whopping 10 minutesand the album less than 30, so why didn't they just put it all on 1? Ohwell, both were reasonably priced. Thanks again Mute ...
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- Jon Whitney
- Albums and Singles