You are currently browsing the monthly archive for July 2011.
As we walk without flinching through the burning cathedral of the summer, our bank of wild grass is majestic and full of music. Time, then, for July’s Liminal Minimals roundup. Reviews by me this month: Machinefabriek, Aquarelle, Temporal Marauder, Reinhold Frield, and Spring.
As the dust settles on another year of uninspired Mercury Music Prize nominations, The Liminal have decided upon a selection of 12 albums that far better represent the variety of extraordinary music being produced in Britain today. No entry fee, no token nominations, no cosy industry shindig, no reference to sales figures or the tedious critical consensus which dominates elsewhere: we call it the Uranus prize because it revolves on a different axis to the others. We will announce in due course who will follow in the footsteps of last year’s inaugural winner Richard Skelton. See the full list of nominees here.
It has been over a decade since The Thing formed, assimilating the combined talents of Mats Gustafsson, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, and Paal Nilssen-Love. They were named not after the John Carpenter horror film, but instead after a Don Cherry composition of the same name. They made an immediate impact with their self-titled debut album of Don Cherry covers, with the rhythm section of Håker Flaten on bass and Nilssen-Love on drums showing themselves to be one of the tightest units out there, and Gustafsson taking extended saxophone technique and then extending it some more. Eagle-Eye Cherry commented on hearing this early work that it was what his father would have called “organic music”; and The Thing have grown and mutated ever since, taking on new musical forms. Read the rest of this review at The Liminal.
For all the humour and even high pantomime of Sunn O))) (they have a track called “HELL-O)))-WEEN”! The singer is dressed as a tree, and shooting lasers from his fingers! They must be playing this for laughs), it is clear that Stephen O’Malley wants to be taken seriously as an artist. His most recent live appearances have been in increasingly improvisational settings with Aethenor, which has brought him into contact with the free jazz community via their drummer Steve Noble. And now he has assumed that position of respect du jour, that of label curator. Having given John Elliott a similar role on their electronic Spectrum Spools offshoot, Editions Mego have put O’Malley at the head of a new acoustic imprint called Ideologic Organ. Without electricity there can be no lasers; the first pair of releases, from Phurpa and the pairing of Jessica Kenney and Eyvind Kang, focus primarily on the human voice. Read the rest of this review over at The Liminal.
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