Konntinent, Degrees, Integers (Symbolic Interaction)

I first came upon Japan’s Symbolic Interaction label via the Rudi Arapahoe release Echoes From One To Another last year, which was a wonderful record blending electronic and acoustic sounds with spoken word. Well, bugger me if they haven’t gone and done it again. This time it is Antony Harrison (better known to me via his association with the Phantom Channel label) under his Konntinent pseudonym who with his Degrees, Integers record has delivered one of the finest sounding records I’ve heard in a long time.

Hildur Gudnadóttir, Without Sinking (Touch)

Such perfect timing. I had only just finished waffling about the importance of cellist Hildur Gudnadóttir’s contribution to the band Angel, noting how the band changed from being all awkward and abrasive to being lush and listenable when she joined them, when along comes her first solo album on the Touch label. And what a perfect thing it is too.

Philippe Petit and AGF at Cafe Oto, 25/03/09

Even though it has only been in existence for about a year, it is hard to remember what we in London did before Cafe Oto was around to attend to our more avant-garde musical cravings. We probably all sat around some street in Shoreditch watching a man scraping the road with a stick, nodding sagely all the while. Much to my financial cost (the tickets, the Pitfield ales, the inevitable meal at Mangal II or some such establishment), my trips to Dalston are becoming increasingly frequent, and in can only get worse if Sprawl continue to put together bills like this one.

Daniel Higgs, Hymnprovisations for Banjo with Piano and Raindrops (iDEAL)

Daniel Higgs was the singer in now defunct Dischord band Lungfish. With each passing release that fact becomes less and less relevant – I mean in 2003 he released a solo jaws harp record; the path from hardcore band member to jaws harp performer is not a well trodden one. In fact, it isn’t even a path at all, just a couple of fragments of wood floating atop a bog. Now look at the title of his new album. Then look at the picture of Daniel Higgs above. How can this record fail to be the total epitome of absolute awesomeness? It can’t. And it doesn’t.

Nancy Wallace, Old Stories (Midwich); Marissa Nadler, Little Hells (Kemado)

All you need to make an album is a girl and a guitar, as Jean-Luc Godard would most likely have said, if he hadn’t been too busy pontificating on the precise number of girls and guns required to make a movie. As ever, I find it hard to disagree with things that Godard never actually said; with this in mind my attention turns to new albums from Nancy Wallace and Marissa Nadler.

Liondialer, LIVE! (White Box)

Today’s topic: people talking during gigs – is there anything more annoying? Discuss. Unless you are currently at a gig, in which case don’t discuss, keep your bloody mouth shut, and more to the point what are you doing reading this during a gig? Put your damn phone away too. Check your email once the band has finished, ffs. And shit…are you wearing a hat? It is statistically improbable that any climactic extreme which would necessitate the wearing of a hat will occur indoors. Take it off. Now. Might help the people behind see better too, you six foot tall giant chattery freak.

Angel, Hedonism (eMego); Strings of Consciousness and Angel, S/T (Important)

The three piece Angel’s first release was their second album, although they were a two-piece when they recorded their first, which is released second; for their two-track third album they have become ten by joining forces with seven of the dozens who make up the Strings of Consciousness ensemble. So If Angel were to travel through a three kilometer long tunnel at sixteen miles per hour, how many apples would I have left?

Wildbirds and Peacedrums, The Snake (Leaf)

While I enjoyed their debut Heartcore, it was only when I saw Sweden’s Wildbirds and Peacedrums perform live that I really appreciated what it was that attracted the attentions of the usually more electronically-minded Leaf label. On stage, the two-piece were rather exciting; an exuberant blend of percussion and disarming vocals. With their more diverse second album The Snake they have really pushed on, adding a plethora of new instruments to their arsenal, and hitching these to some utterly irresistible melodies.

Haswell and Hecker UPIC Diffusion Series #20, The Barbican, 08/03/09

You see that date: 8th March – not the 7th March, as this didn’t kick off until around 00.45. Perhaps such confusion led to this performance being strangely unheralded, with the Barbican not knowing which day of their schedule to append this to (it would have been easier if they had opted for the 7th), or which of the concurrent Xenakis and Le Corbusier events this was part of (they opted for the latter, although the former might have made more logical sense). And it wasn’t in any of the Barbican’s music venues, but in the Gallery instead. The staff in the ticket hall were similarly confused: did I need a ticket? Ummmm….ummmm…let me see…no you don’t….ah, yes you do, but not specifically for the show; any ticket for the Gallery that day would suffice. I see. Possibly as a result, there was but a smattering of people there to bear witness to the twentieth occurrence of Haswell and Hecker firing up Xenakis’s UPIC graphic input device.

Total Immersion: Xenakis, The Barbican, 07/03/09

I, along with a large proportion of the London population it seemed, opted to spend most of Saturday in The Barbican Centre. They were billing it as “do something different day”; the ziggurat was full of kids making bags and butterflies, people running around playing team games, and me: skulking around in the shadows in search of strange sounds. I wasn’t doing something terribly different, then.