I have been infatuated with Cécile Schott's work as Colleen since first hearing Everyone Alive Wants Answers. Its collages of toy instruments and found sounds juxtaposed bit melodies and textures in a unique and oddly touching manner. This new album finds Schott playing all acoustic instruments this time and focusing on songwriting that unfortunately loses some of its charm in its stateliness.
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9416 Hits
This release with Mick Flower on Japan banjo and Chris Corsano on drums is their first recording after less than a year of live performances. It illustrates why those shows have received such deserved praise.
9029 Hits
Released in November of 2006 to commemorate their first joint appearance, Z'EV and David Linton each contribute an original track and a remix of the other's work to form this intriguing and unusual album.
8849 Hits
Hot on the heels of The Myth of the Love Electronique comes another album from the ever-prolific Acid Mothers Temple. As consistently rewarding as most of their albums are, this one manages to surpass all but a select few of them. An unusually clear recording by their standards and the introduction of a couple of new elements make it a top-tier addition to this band's fascinating discography.
11235 Hits
The first new album in several years from this New Zealand trio is a patiently unfurling behemoth that finds them veering between loose rock songs and all-out improvised noise. It is a riveting excursion into shadowy lands of unknown destination, with little to disrupt the veil of gloom.
10366 Hits
Due to be released on vinyl soon, this is currently only available as a double CD from their recent Australasian tour. Although recorded around the same time as their Boris collaboration, Oracle is pure Sunn O))). There is a move away from the murkiness of Black One but without a total return to their classic sound. Granted there is a lot of droning guitars but there is an equal amount of guitar-free experimentation which is even heavier than I had expected.
21832 Hits
Von Südenfed is the unlikely pairing of The Fall's irrepressible Mark E. Smith with Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner of Germany's Mouse on Mars. What results is not quite a post-techno version of The Fall, and not quite the post-punk reimagining of IDM. Instead, it's a dozen tracks of mutant digital funk fighting for attention as Smith drones, mutters, mumbles and hiccups his way through the machines, short-circuiting everything in his path.
11510 Hits
Paul Dickow has more than impressed me since the release of Drumsolo's Delight in 2004. Since that time a series of outlandishly excellent 12" records have been released and Dickow has proven he can turn any song into gold if given the chance to remix it (check out his remix of "The Love That I Crave" by The Blow for proof). Future Rock rounds up everything great about those singles and situates them within the context of a solid full-length record chocked full of jazz, rock jams, and dub thick enough to make even the most resigned yuppie learn how to move his hips.
7525 Hits
The performances of Dylan Nyoukis (Blood Stereo member and Chocolate Monk label CEO) come across like rinses of an infectious disease. His collaborations end up drenching the other party in a gnarled sheen of vocal mutations like a plague sweat. Fellow Brighton heads Towering Breaker attempt to keep their grip on their own noise/splutter before the maw of Nyoukis gulps them down.
8765 Hits
Skye Klein opens Compressor with the furious bitch-slap of reversed bass, cracking snares, and an ominous array of machine noise perverse enough to warrant comparison to Venetian Snares. "Gridlike" is melodic, catchy, and vicious in its delivery, a near perfect combination of song-writing and sonic attitude. Klein tries to maintain that intensity for 48 minutes and almost succeeds.
6190 Hits
From the basic description, one might be left shaking their heads: organ improviser Nils Henrik Asheim and electronic noise thug Lasse Marhaug got together and improvised some material in an Oslo cathedral. However, as odd as the setting sounds, the result is fascinating.
11939 Hits
An initial spin of this album will leave a sense of "what the hell did I just listen to?," but a few more rotations and what's revealed is some of the most spastic of free jazz and a set of music just waiting to have a cartoon accompaniment.
8240 Hits
This limited edition 7" highlights two of Jarboe's many facets, going from the simple and evocative to the hypnotic and divine. Despite being extremely prolific these last few years, Jarboe's music has been a little patchy but there are moments where her fire burns as bright as it did during Swans' mighty career. This single is one such moment, her performances on the two songs showing both her tender, beautiful singing and her roaring, visceral hollering; both pieces are stunning.
13240 Hits
There may not be a more satisfying album than this released all year. Wound tight around the spine of a clear idea is a simple and elegant network of art, music, and performance cemented in wonder. Torch Songs is firm and tangible: a mass of skin, muscle, and bone that strikes and, in striking, cuts a path from earth to the stars.
10325 Hits
Someone better give Mrs John Carpenter a phone call and tell her someone dug up her husband and taped his rotted ass to stack of synthesizers. Of course, John Carpenter isn't actually dead yet, but this duo of Nate Young (Wolf Eyes) and Steve Kenney (Werewolves) fill this vinyl with the kind of sounds that his wired-up and bloated corpse would expel from its disc drive.
12871 Hits
Motor Ghost consists of Alex Neilson and Ben Reynolds and this limited edition LP is their first recording. It is an impressive document; their playing is challenging and full of life. A Gold Chain Round Her Breast is not always my cup of tea but it is captivating and surprising in equal measure. Most of the pieces sound much larger than a two piece, both musicians being highly adept at what they do means that they avoid the usual thinness of a guitar and drums duo.
8284 Hits
Like labelmates Noiseshaper, the aptly named Dubblestandart operates in a space metaphorically and geographically outside of dub reggae. Whereas the trailblazing, crossreferencing On-U Sound roster managed to strike a balance between the integrity of its Jamaican forefathers and the promises of forward-thinking pop, this Austrian band has yet to earn the right to do little more than skulk under Adrian Sherwood's mighty shadow.
7893 Hits
Those seeking Burial style experimentation wont find it on this dubstep producer's full-length debut. Far more comfortable representing the dancefloor, the up-and-coming artist uses his time on plastic to submerge listeners in a black sea of uneasy darkness and bass.
12077 Hits
Only four full albums into her solo career, Jessica Bailiff has already racked up enough rare and unreleased tracks to put out a compilation that succeed where most fail. It manages to stand on its own as a coherent work of a developing artist rather than a mismatch collection of oddities.
12050 Hits
Taking a sidestep from Directing Hand’s vision for folk forms and improvisation, this live set is a collective's ecstatic field holler for escaping reality. Recorded at 2005's Glasgow Instal festival with a cast noise/free luminaries such as Dylan Nyoukis, Phil Todd, Karen Constance, Ben Reynolds and David Keenan, Alex Neilson leads a 30 minute charge of the doors of constraint.
9113 Hits
