With songs about drowning, roadkill, and nails in the head, the second album from Made Out of Babies finds the group assaulting the ears, leaving welts and bruises as tokens of affection. |
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With songs about drowning, roadkill, and nails in the head, the second album from Made Out of Babies finds the group assaulting the ears, leaving welts and bruises as tokens of affection.
8124 Hits
Processed sound of this nature pales in comparison to what z'ev has done in the past. The album begins with a bang, thrusting an assault of metallic sound out of the speakers immediately. As it progresses, and true to the rather esoteric liner notes, this symphony of sorts descends into a calm stillness that does not grab my attention in the same way that much of z'ev's work has before.
5395 Hits
Grails show the extent of their skill on the nine songs included here with a departure from their established sound. Black Tar Prophecies is easily the best thing they’ve done so far. They’ve found their own distinct sound and are all the better for it.
11373 Hits
Hats off to anyone who managed to collect all 13 lathe cuts that this LP compiles, but you can now file them away for a rainy ebay. It’s refreshing to see a label that’s specialised, so far, in miniature runs of lathes attempting to get the music out to a wider audience. As well as being considerably lighter on the wallet, Aryan Asshole Records Compilation Volume 1 is an excellent snapshot of the current cream of the crop in the American underground. Stick this in a time capsule, give it twenty years and it’ll be the new Nuggets.
10736 Hits
While the most important relatively underground compilations of the 1980s have either gone lost or have been chopped up and divided on anthologies, LTM has actually taken a bold step in preservation, nearly restoring the complete original release and including material recorded at the same time but previously unreleased.
10150 Hits
This is the final instalment in D_Rradio’s 7" trilogy for Distraction records, so it’s only right it be seasoned with melancholy. These two hybrid organisms continue this series' flow by excavating stratums of colorful electronic music through fragmented arrangements.
7980 Hits
Yet another posthumous Arthur Russell release from Audika, this two-disc set collects rare and unreleased orchestral material by the late NYC artist. Because the material presented here is, at least ostensibly, the most "avant-garde" in form and content yet released from the Russell archives, I expected the music to be difficult, abstract and academic. However, nothing could be further from the truth, as Russell again utilizes avant-garde techniques only as a method of approaching popular music obliquely, creating music that is as ingratiating as it is unique.
11336 Hits
Scottish composer and pianist Bill Wells collaborates for the first time with Japanese group Maher Shalal Hash Baz, led by Tori Kudo. Wells shares his unadorned pop sensibilities with Kudo’s scruffy ensemble for a slightly off-kilter yet frequently sunny album.
9987 Hits
Futurism may have lost some of its futuristic appeal in the 100 or so years since its birth. That the works of a Futurist composer from the 1920s could sound so fresh may come as a surprise. Franco Casavola's compositions have little relation to the noisier side this movement is perhaps more famous for and that it does sound so fresh might be a testament to what Futurism stood for in the first place.
8917 Hits
The eagerly awaited CD release of Dronevil doesn’t disappoint. Taking a leaf from The Flaming Lips and Neurosis’s respective books, this album is on two discs to be played simultaneously. Boris have done this trick immense justice: in the past multiple disc albums have been gimmicky but not so much here. One disc explores drones and the other sticks with Boris’s more straightforward guitar, bass and drum playing.
11113 Hits
All-out silliness ensues the second this fine 12" starts spinning. Community Library has again proven their dedication to quality vinyl releases and Eats Tapes has proven that the liveliness and giddiness apparent during their live shows can be translated to a recorded format.
8924 Hits
On their fourth album, this instrumental quartet from Barcelona pushes the boundaries of jazz, blending classical elements with psychedelic touches, effects, and just plain strange explorations. The result is one of the best unclassifiable jazz albums I’ve heard in years.
6322 Hits
If early '90s sounding techno happens not to be your thing you’re unlikely to enjoy the majority of this release. Tagged as ‘remixes and reconstructions’ from Danny Hyde’s (Coil member and remixer) Aural Rage project, this harks heavily back to the last decade’s commercial electronic music. Some of this could very easily be passed off as having been taken from charting releases of that era, and this is sort of a backhanded compliment to Hyde.
9193 Hits
All the pieces on Patherns are composed of rhythmic noises that at the right kind of party at the right time could get the crowd dancing. The four pieces on this EP are less abstract than Ivan Pavlov’s more recent work; there is less chin scratching here than on this year’s Above Air album. Unfortunately there’s less depth to Patherns, enjoyable as it is.
7127 Hits
Matt Waldron's artwork is always a pleasure, but releases like this one have me doubting the significance of 7" records with the advent of the MP3. Both the Irr. App. (Ext.) and Wyrm tracks are a nice listen, but I'm not sure they needed their own slab of white vinyl.
10455 Hits
Described by the label itself a “live goof nonsense”, this is a mixture of travelogue, unintentional stand-up and sound check banter. But where last year’s Live at East Banfields Wolf Eyes release was spoken word comedy, this mixes up that formula with musical interludes.
9142 Hits
Stefan Knappe's (Maeror Tri, Troum) new label, Substantia Innominata, has released three 10" records, two of them this year. Asianova's creeping, dark drones occupy this particular limited run of pink, red, and white marble vinyl. The music is deep and cavernous, resonating in giant swirls and bringing to mind the most unusual and supernatural of ghost stories.
7711 Hits
After years of living as a rumour, Mike Patton has finally unleashed his Peeping Tom project. Firmly rooted in hip hop and overcrowded with special guests, the first of two planned albums is disappointingly average. The album has its peaks and troughs; granted the highs are high indeed but too much of the disc is kooky hip hop by numbers.
5971 Hits
Last fall, when I was listening to the Headlights’ EP persistently, I saw that they were playing a bunch of shows in the Boston area. I didn’t make it to any of them. This was part laziness and part befuddlement. My irrationality aside, I am kicking myself presently because Headlights’ full-length Kill Them With Kindness explains how an unassuming band which plays obscure shows can conjure a remarkable album’s worth of pleasant indie-pop rockers and ballads, the perfect arrangement for a any high school or basement show despite its numbers and ages.
5751 Hits
This CD was originally issued on the Point Music label in 1994 to little fanfare, and it quickly went out of print. It was the first posthumous release of the work of Arthur Russell, who died of AIDS in 1992, but significantly pre-figured the resurgence of interest in the artist a decade later. To meet the new demand, it has now been reissued by Philip Glass' Orange Mountain Music label, in an edition nearly identical to the 1992 release. It easily ranks among Russell's best releases, filled with memorable, idiosyncratic songs drawn from the Russell's vast private tape archives.
19989 Hits
