For reasons unknown, Thomas Brinkmann's Georgian muse simultaneously presents her third and fourth full-length releases for the clandestine Max Ernst imprint, comprising three discs worth of all-new material. Seldom groundbreaking, flagrantly derivative, and intermittently appealing, Natalie Beridze's purposefully glitchy compositions appear apropos of the icier temperatures of the season. |
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For reasons unknown, Thomas Brinkmann's Georgian muse simultaneously presents her third and fourth full-length releases for the clandestine Max Ernst imprint, comprising three discs worth of all-new material. Seldom groundbreaking, flagrantly derivative, and intermittently appealing, Natalie Beridze's purposefully glitchy compositions appear apropos of the icier temperatures of the season.
10130 Hits
Instrumental bands are everywhere and invariably they sound like some combination of Mogwai, Godspeed and Explosions in the Sky. Other influences creep in but rarely do they escape the dreaded "post rock" tag, not without some gimmick anyway. The Jimmy Cake do manage to come across as being separate to this whole thing, despite on paper sounding like they are the archetypal late '90s/early '00s art rock band: nine core members, string section, unusual instruments and long songs. No, they are more than that; they have a creative spirit that pushes them beyond their contemporaries.
9524 Hits
Just over a year after Klick Revolution, the dazzling, spiritual sequel to 2000's much lauded Klick, the veteran boundary-pushing German techno producer strives—and invariably fails—to capture a claustrophobic personal experience. A risible counterfeit masquerading as artsy, post-millennial singer-songwriter fare, this atypical record exhausts its pretense almost immediately and rarely recovers from the obviously nonexistent heft of false malaise.
9119 Hits
While folk music these days seems to have forgotten all the traditional songs that make it the music of the folk, some artists are remembering the old songs that sound as vibrant today as they probably did when they were performed first. Directing Hand know what they are up to when it comes to traditional music, there is a reverence for these songs yet no fear of adding the sound of a new generation to the pieces. Combining these dusty old tunes with improvised pieces of their own, this album is a true new folk music; it sounds like the here and now.
11542 Hits
The looming silhouettes of the pyramids on the cover give some idea of what to expect on Sam Shalabi's latest release. Born in Egypt and finished in Canada, Eid is an eclectic and ecstatic album. Each track sounds like it was pulled from a local radio station in Cairo yet no two pieces sound like they came from the same station. Shalabi fuses Western and Arabic music without straying into trite, watered-down fusion territories.
18823 Hits
Before I even got around to playing this album I was intrigued by the album's packaging. The red fuzzy sleeve contains both the CD (obviously) and sleeve notes printed on a thin, Styrofoam-like material. The different textures of the materials are at first baffling but then a certain kind of logic begins to emerge while listening to the album. The music itself changes texture persistently, from soft to rough, from hard to gooey; by the time I adjust to a piece I am lost again. It is a wonderful feeling, like being a little drunk in a foreign town.
8206 Hits
Although collaborators since the early 1980s, Raw Powder marks the first official release from this duo (excluding self-released CD-Rs) that encapsulates some 18-plus years of rock and roll into a sprawling, slap-dash collection of 24 tracks, intentionally raw and rough around the edges. While many may know Denham more for his/her connections to Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Greater Than One, and other integral bands of the era, s/he proves here that his musical sensibilities are just as noteworthy as his paintings and artwork.
13263 Hits
The premise alone sounds should be enough to get people's attention: a folk "supergroup" featuring members of Yellow Swans, Deerhoof, Six Organs of Admittance, and Charalambides, among others. Considering the pedigree, it is safe to assume that it won't be folk in the conventional sense. Instead of the "overly sensitive guy in the coffee shop with an acoustic guitar" folk sense, it's more of an ethnography of early Americana music. It is dense, rich, and more than just a bit sinister in nature.
11469 Hits
Exploring the limitations of an instrument can be more enlightening than obsessing about perfect tone or versatility. On Everydays, Onda and Licht use the button noise and trashcan fidelity of cassettes as a tool rather than a handicap. The results range from bucolic chatter to full on noise assault.
11825 Hits
Fans of the post-punk shouldn't let fear of diminishing returns dissuade them from checking out The Lines. While Memory Span is not a proverbial lost masterpiece of rock and roll, the songs collected display enough nuance and diversity to separate the band from usual glut of also-rans and could-have-beens.
14923 Hits
Mountain Battles sounded like a superficial hodgepodge with few promising moments. Desperately seeking positives, I sought a suitable listening venue and found one with a Breeders fan: my hairdresser.
8139 Hits
One of the early bands associated with Factory Records, Section 25 never quite got the recognition that their peers did, and unfairly so. Their sound captured the zeitgeist of that early era just as effectively as Joy Division or A Certain Ratio, but they never seemed to set the world on fire quite the same. Coinciding with their "reunion" album, last year's Part-Primitiv, LTM has reissued early S25 material, including this first "best of" compilation, spanning their entire 30-year career.
9945 Hits
The title couldn't be more appropriate for this album: the band's work has always seemed to come out of a smoky, hallucinogenic haze, and this collection of rare and unreleased tracks demonstrates this clearly. The sound is an odd mix of 1960s psych tinged rock with some of the more current attention to drone and noise that works extremely well.
11948 Hits
This 7" only release sees Andrew Liles form yet another collaborative unit, this time with Clodagh Simonds' wonderful (and ever changing) group. Established Fovea Hex approaches to song recur only to be almost completely dashed aside with new approaches to their work. That so much can happen on two shorts sides of vinyl is not very surprising considering how epic Simonds' previous EPs with her group have been. With Liles' sonic alchemy, the results are breathtaking.
12540 Hits
This latest album by one of the greatest living singers is a celebration of the damned by the damned. It stands out in stark contrast to her more usual themes, a smirk and a wink to co- conspirators instead of the damning finger of accusation or cry for those who never got a chance to cry out. This change of tact makes Guilty Guilty Guilty one of her more instantly listenable albums. Instead of working myself up to listening to an hour or two of dejected misery, this is a far more accessible voyage through some of the not so dark ballads in Galás' songbook.
10975 Hits
Czech psych group Seven That Spells add Acid Mother Makoto Kawabata into their fold for an album that sounds almost exactly like an Acid Mothers record. Be that as it may, it is still a high-quality recording that holds its own against some of that band's better material.
8809 Hits
Excepter's fourth album seems like an obnoxious mess at first, but repeated listens reveal patterns in the chaos. Using deceptively simplistic beats, electronics, swimming voices, and even a bass clarinet for good measure, they add rich textures to uneasy rhythms for music that is ridiculously addictive.
7421 Hits
The four untitled tracks that make up No Canal are stylistically both familiar and new. While two of the songs feature the mechanical churning of previous Mouthus efforts, the other two stray from the group's comfort zone with mixed results.
9437 Hits
Starving Weirdos Brian Pyle and Merrick McKinlay and guests don their wizard robes to invoke unknown realms of existence. Some of the methods may change from song to song, but each has an allure and mystery all its own.
10409 Hits
The new work from Mike Gallagher of Isis finds him using a subtle touch with sparse guitars and hazy drones to create instrumental atmospherics with a dramatic edge. While it works great as background music, there are also plenty of nuances to reward attentive listening.
10837 Hits
