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A couple of weeks back I went to see band Kultur Shock perform in my hometown. I only heard a few samples at their site that didn't convince me, but tickled me enough to make me go out and see them, because I figured it might work live. Well, it did! As soon as the first Bulgarian theme on two guitars and saxophone hit off I was sold.
Margareth Kammerer is a 38 years old Italian singer, guitarist and actress. She has been playing for the last fifteen years, but To be an animal of real flesh is her first solo release. Willing to make an impression, she asked the help of good friends such as Tatsuya Yoshida, Philip Jeck or Fred Firth. Did she manage to rise to the challenge?
Glenn Branca is one of the most important guitarists of the no wave period. Less known than Rhys Chatham, he is probably as important. Lesson n° 1 is a CD reissue of a 1980 release, and it features a bonus track.
It has been in the works for quite some time but here it is: the first Estradasphere DVD. It got even better because it’s a double-disc with a live-CD too. Where the vhs Days Of Our Lives marked Esphere Phaze 1 were Dave Murray was still in the band, Passion For Life marks Phaze 2 where John Whooley is still in and Dave makes some returns as a sessiondrummer along with Theo Mordey.
Joshua Treble is Tony Boggs, a man who makes some very nice music that should appeal to fans of Fennesz and Oval.
The first rumours about Mayhem’s third full-length studioalbum were that they went into the woods to return to their roots. Afraid of an attempt at rehashing the legendary De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas-album I put Chimera in my cd-player...
No, Nickelback is not the only Canadian contribution to rock music. We knew that already. But rejoice: among the people who will listen to Winnipeg’s Ken Mode, it’s quite safe to say that even the MTV-loving kinda listener won’t consider Nickelback as heavy anymore.
They’ve had as many drummers as Spinal Tap, Dale Crover likes them, Alex Newport produced them, they played in Cuba, they groove like hell, and by the sound of their music, they can only drive motorbikes. Yeah, that’s right. Totimoshi is the name. Mysterioso, the album.
The first release by the DoubleMoon-label I noticed was Üç Oyundan Onyedi Müzik by BaBa Zula. It got my attention by looking different from other stuff in the Turkish section of the shop. I found out they sounded very different as well.
Would Gregor Samsa be a young man, and not a band, and would that man have been one of the characters of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, he’d be one of the nerds. A likeable one. By the way, this wouldn’t have prevented him from being shot at by the other nerds.
So Diggie-Das return to the game. It seems they broke ties with EPMD’s Def Squad or in fact any (wellknown) click at all. During the six-year-hiatus between How We Do and Generation EFX Dray and Skoob appear to have returned to their hustle in the hood.
Any regular Musique[machine] reader should be aware of them by now. And people who are not should start to take notice before it’s too late and people start making fun of them 10 years from know for not having heard of Boris at the time Feedbacker was released.
HydraHead just doesn’t want to stop providing the goods when it comes to releasing uncompromisingly heavy music. Keelhaul’s latest album comes as yet another proof…
The term 'jazz' is flexable. Some people consider everything improvised jazz, while others consider composed music following certain harmonic and rhythmic structures the same. The average jazz-appreciating Norah Jones-fan will probably run away in panic when exposed to Jimmy Ågren's third album. The title Close Enough For Jazz might serve as a caveat in that respect.
Philip Jeck’s explorations in the realm of vinyl loops and crackle continue to delight, but a few reservations have to be made. The 7 tracks on his 7th CD (randomly titled 7, unless there’s a hidden meaning I'm not aware of) testify to Jeck’s ongoing fascination with the vinyl medium, the crackles and the grooves, and the simultaneous looping of several records to obtain exciting new music and remarkable sounds.
In my teenage years, when one said « Doom », I thought about My Dying Bride. Then, a few years ago, I got to hear Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone. It was like discovering a whole new dimension. The Wizard led me to Boris, Sunn, Khanate, Grief and so on. Over the last few months, I got to hear a lot of one dimensional doom bands, which led me to an unwanted state of extra-depression. Was that genre I have come to love so much dead? I was ready to pull the trigger when Unearthly Trance first full-length made his way into my mail-box.
Bulgaria doesn’t have a very strong voice in the international metalscene. There is a scene that’s fighting hard to accomplish something but it isn’t easy in a country trying to find its way in the post-communistic democracy. When Zhivkov’s communist party fell, the members of Artery left Bulgaria to end up in Amsterdam, Holland via the Czech Republic.
Three famed improvisers record together an album meant to be somewhere between Death Metal and Free Jazz and release it on Grob. I’m sure this is enough for a lot of people to start salivating…
With the second album by Max Richter, FatCat and their 130701 imprint venture in yet another genre: post-classical music. Richter is a trained pianist (he studied with no less than the late Luciano Berio) who founded contemporary classical ensemble Piano Circus, commissioning and performing works by Arvo Part, Brian Eno, Steve Reich and Philip Glass along the years.
One writer referred to this Japanese quartet’s music as "serenity improv". The band would do well to use this description as the heading on their resumé, because it fits them like a glove. Keiichi Sugimoto (guitar and computer), Yuichiro Iwashita (guitar), Namiko Sasamoto (keyboards and sax – but jazzophobes don't flee just yet) and Tetsuro Yasunaga (computers and electronics) build mostly long, quietly rippling electro-acoustic soundscapes, meandering and unobtrusive, but anything but unengaging.
NWW's Steve Stapleton pronounces "Ship's a going down" and mixer's haunting drone scapes with odd (and funny) sound effects. What we have here is one long droning, sinister and haunting track. Add to this various creaks and other noises.
Christophe Stoll aka Nitrada might not know why he did it, I certainly do know why I listen to this very nice and melancholic electro-pop album.
In 2003, Ehlers and Suchy each released truly excellent albums. Less than a year later, they’re back with another CD on Staubgold, a collaboration that sees them unite with another improviser, Franz Hautzinger.
Sometimes I get the complaint that my reviews are always positive. Well, prepare for another one because only one month into 2004 and the first candidate for 'Album Of The Year 2004' is in. It might be a bit early, but staying on the safe side this will surely end in my top 10. I can't review everything so I rather use my time and space to inform people about the good stuff that I bought than write some bitter rant over some free promo.