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Given the near four year gap between Mutter and their last album Reise Reise it was something of a surprise to see the follow up being release just over a year later. From the first blasts of Benzin it’s clear that the band are continuing where they left off, with lead heavy riffs, and their trademark soaring choruses.
East West Blast Test’s second album: Popular music for unpopular people, brings together angery guitar work and a hardcore edge. Along with genre pick and mix that dips it’s toe in the waters of : off kilter easy listening, 80’s funk and a Resident's like take on World Music and lots of other bizarre stop off's along the way too.
Crime and dissonance is a darkly heady psychedelic audio chocolate box, full of twist and turns. Taking in Morricone’s less know and experimental soundtrack work from through out the 60’s and 70’s.Making an alternative and surprising look at one of the great soundtrack composers.
It is just over a year since Jhonn Balances untimely death from a fall at home. Since then there has been little or no activity from Threshold House apart from the promise of a full realised album based on work Coil had been developing over the last two years.
Earlier in 2005, Dan Abrams released Chessa on 13k under his Shuttle358 moniker,one of the best albums of the year . This autumn, he came back under a new moniker: Fenton. His album, Pup, sees the light of the day on the ever-so-good Japanese label Plop.
In two years of existence, via quite a few high profile shows as openers as well as some seemingly “slaying” shows on their own, Capricorns have made quite a name for themselves in their native Albion. These three men, involved at one point of time in Dukes of Nothing, Iron Monkey or Orange Goblin, were being expected by a lot of people to release a killer album.
Given the fact that Sunn O))) originally started as an Earth tribute band, it is logical that Earth mainman Dylan Carlson would find a home for the group's continued existence on O'Malley and Anderson's Southern Lord label. Many would have expected Earth to continue in the vein of their now-classic Earth 2 album, released on Sub-Pop back in '93, and at the time alienating many Sub-Pop fans who did not recognize anything they liked in Earth's lengthy guitar/bass drone workouts, which always seemed closer to minimalist 20th century composition than to the three-chord patented garage rock that Sub-Pop used to release.
Tod Dockstader is one of early electronic music’s pioneers, creator of seminal 60s works like Eight electronic pieces and Quartermass he is regarded as one of American electronic music’s founding fathers. Here he teams up with feedback composer David Lee Myers for the second time after their frog and marsh sound manipulation project Pond.
John Zorn seems to be pumping out more and more of his classical and chamber works than any other style at the moment, this is his third in just over a year after the superlative Magick and the slightly off kilter but no less explosive Rituals.
Imagine if you can a Halloween party peopled by rather tacky looking Dracula’s and werewolves. On the stage a surf/ jazz band are playing along with Perrey And Kingsley. Fronted by a sort of grimly erotic female dancer who sings and moans every now and then, right can you picture it? good, because that’s what Messer Chups – Crazy Price is like and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
The debut CD of this band was on its way to become Buckethead's own Chinese Democracy (although the much rumoured Disney album also applies, Kaleidoscalp might've fulfilled that obligation to John Zorn which may mean it will never materialize). Anyway, what reportedly delayed this album so much was Buckethead's fear of singer Maximum Bob.
It's been a while since the King Crimson guitarist released a solo-album. Love Cannot Bear is a collection of Soundscapes recorded in various places in the U.S. People who are waiting for Fripp to play some 'real guitar' or Exposure - The Sequel can stop reading, because 'it's one of those New Age albums' again.
Like all great Ambient music, When the detail lost its freedom, is about creating feelings and environments that you live those feelings in. But of course like all great art it’s subjective. what one person may get out of it, is completely different from what another person gets out of it.
Grizzly Bear’s Horn of Plenty is a real rough diamond of an album. It seems to be instilled with, wide eyed emotional honest and almost a cave like production quality, that adds to its considerable appeal. This is a reissue of the album, that originaly came out last year on the US lable Kanine Records. Here It’s been reissued ,along with a remix disk on Efterklang new label Rumraket. And it certainly is a promising first release from the label.
Esmerine consist of the duo of Bruce Cawdron and Beckie Foon, known for their work with GSBE, Set Fire to Flames, Silver Mt. Zion etc with various other contributions from members of those acts. Aurora is their second full length release after their debut If Only a Sweet Surrender to the Nights to Come be True.
They say you can never judge a book (or album) by its cover, but in the case of Black one you certainly should. It’s a haunting black and white drawing of a mass of tangled branches, that if you look deep enough in you can surely make out other faces and shapes. It illustrates perfectly the inner audio darkness that churns with sinister undercurrents.
Check the water is a double cd ,that takes in the last ten years of the leaf label. Just about every track has something to offer and there’s a nice shift in styles too. Like all good label compilations, it makes you want to go and check of the full length albums, of tracks you like.
Institut are a power electronics act fronted by Lirim Cajani, they have released several CDs and singles on the Swedish Cold Meat Industry label, this is their latest offering or audio spite.
I found out about 31Knots with their 2003 album It was high time to escape. Back then, they put some welcome energy and originality in the canonical math-rock formula, irrigating it with pop sensibilities and Yes-lite pomp. In 2004, they released an ep that saw them experiment with electronic elements and move even further in pop directions.
Just over a year after Roger Doyle released the first part of Passades, the promised second and concluding part arrives with not a little anticipation from yours truly. The slow motion grandeur of the first instalment was a mouth watering blend of electro-acoustics and computer manipulations that when listened to, seems to slow and stretch time allowing fresh, wild tones and textures to flow from the speakers. The second part follows along similar lines with some minor stylistic and materialistic shifts.
Especially Likely Sloth Try to sound odd, quirky and off the wall.But sadly most of the time they sound annoyingly child like. Think of a young relative Messing around with presets on a keyboard. That said this compilation of older material is more promising then their full length put out a few years back.
I’m at a disadvantage or advantage with this release, depending on how you look at it. As I’ve only heard one of the original tracks. But if that tracks anything to go by, then the other tracks here are easily stand alone tracks in their own right.
Rotoscope’s Andreas Mjøs once referred to Kåre João as “the star”. I have no idea what his exact fame status is in Norway, but after his 2002 Sideman album, he had a place of choice in my personal handbook of good music. Three years later, he is back with a new CD. Things have changed but he keeps on delivering the goods.
There are things about music that are completely non-musical that give one a sense of trepidation when approaching something new. In contemporary music there’s nothing that puts me off a new artist more than an inflated portentous introduction. Keith Berry is a man in possession of such an introduction.