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It had become a little awkward watching Susanna and the Magical Orchestra drift into a cover version limbo. Like watching someone at karaoke who is good, and who kinda knows it, so keeps on having another go. And another. And another. And in the end you find yourself wishing that the red-faced wobbly-voiced guy at the end of the bar would have another crack at “Rhinestone Cowboy”. There was nothing wrong with the idea (take song, slow pace, find unexpected emotional angle), but it was becoming a little formulaic, and a little, well, a little Nouvelle Vague. It would be a shame to reduce all that early promise – and don’t forget that their own songs such as “Who Is It” were as strong as those they covered – to a position as a curious musical footnote. Some time apart, Susanna dabbling with Deathprod, and Morten Qvenild rejoining In The Country, seems to have recharged their respective creative batteries. Read the rest of this entry »
Like the Alva Noto one I linked to the other week, here is another video I didn’t see coming – despite this being, I suppose, one of the more cinematic of Machinefabriek’s tracks (see album review here). It is all relative, of course. This is a bit on the downbeat side, but it is so wonderfully shot. Enjoy.
(hat tip to Ambient Blog. Well, to their twitter)
Speaking as someone in whom bile rises at the merest sniff of hippy (get ready to cast your eyes heavenwards and groan: I clearly suffer from an irritable hippythalomus), I’m probably the last person you’d expect to pack himself off to a folk festival in the Brecon Beacons. I’m even of the opinion that security guards at festivals should be searching people not for alcohol or drugs on the way in, but searching hippies for musical instruments. Seriously, if you aren’t on the bill, leave it at home. I don’t want to hear your version of “The Weight” at 8 sodding a.m., thanks. “Is that a guitar there, sir? Hand it over. Open that mouth, you’ve got a jaws harp in there, haven’t you? I wasn’t born yesterday. Come on, and the arse trumpet…” Read the rest of this entry »
I haven’t bought a record as heavy as this before – in every sense of the word. The vinyl itself weighs two hundred grams. Two hundred grams! Not for Taiga, the feeble, floppy, flimsy 180g pressing. “We’d be as well press it on a slice of processed cheese”, they would say, “carving the groove with a feather”. That wouldn’t do at all. Instead this sequel to Homage To The Square Wave comes carved out of pure concrete, the groove made by the finest of fine diamond-tipped drills. Read the rest of this entry »
Listening to this album on a weekday work commute did it no justice whatsoever. Its long periods of silence melted into the background, and the sporadic eruptions of noise jolted me no more than the random bursts of train wheel whine; I had to check several times to see if it was in fact still playing. Utterly wasted on the Victoria Line (the album that is, not me. I was relatively sober. Well, for 8am). Read the rest of this entry »
As any zookeeper who has served his dues will tell you, big things need to be approached with great caution. I’m not sure how they would deal with the back catalogue of Steven R Smith, but a tranquilizer dart and a giant net would help – he is an artist who can’t keep still for a second. His output under his own name, as Ulaan Khol, as Hala Strana, as Thuja, as Mirza, and as part of collaborations is so prolific, that through sheer strength of numbers it could happily fell an ox. His two releases so far in 2009 (and I stress the so far, more is obviously expected) from his musical menagerie are very different breeds. Read the rest of this entry »
If the last few Six Organs of Admittance albums have seen Ben Chasny trying out some new musical outfits, then Luminous Night is the full fashion show. He squeezes himself into some tight baroque folk, struts confidently down the catwalk, does a flouncy spin at the bottom, before returning to don some Indian instrumentation, followed by some noise and psych-rock. Read the rest of this entry »
Somehow I ended up as the DJ for the London leg of Icarus’s Sylt Remixes tour at Cafe Oto. I’m not going to post a review of the gig here – lets face it, I was involved, so i’m bound to say it was great. I’m pretty sure a review will appear over at themilkfactory any day now, I’d advise you to read that instead. I’m posting my (best recollection of the) set list just beyond this break though, for those who are curious. Read the rest of this entry »
I didn’t see this one coming at all. Superb new video for a track from the last Alva Noto album Unitxt, directed by Carsten Nicolai himself. This is pretty much what happens to me at Sainsbury’s self checkouts - just replace Anne-James Chaton’s voice with a female voice repeating the phrase saying “unexpected item in bagging area”, and you are there.
A famous composer once said “If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all.” It was probably Sting. From listening to Destination Tokyo, it is clear that Nisennenmondai are avid collectors of the pearls scattered by the warbling oyster of tantric love. Except that this never ever gets anywhere near being boring. Read the rest of this entry »
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