Rottenmeats

Tape Hiss Bliss

2012-01-28T10:20:00.001Z

Ultra Bonbon's Tape Hiss Abyss has just been re-issued by Lava Church. If you need convincing grab an eyeful here.

Fireside Favourites

2012-01-28T10:00:00.000Z

We're In Heaven

2012-01-26T19:47:00.000Z

Cruise Family have broken out of tape culture to go all vinyl on us... We're In Heaven it's called, released on Not Not Fun... i'm defo loving that retro 'Tron/Hitchhiker's guide' vibe to the arts, but to give you a flavour of what to expect soundwise here's a snippet from Stefan's last release Nachtbote...

Mothers Of The Third Reich

2012-01-26T18:58:00.001Z

...seriously wonky in all the right ways

Collision Detection v1 - Psychological Strategy Board

2012-01-25T23:03:00.000Z

Marking the second project in a series of experimental collaborations from Front and Follow. This is like a Exquisite Corpse of sound where various artists were invited to submit audio clips to a central pot which in turn was randomly re-distributed 'lucky dip' style for each subsequent group to dabble with as they saw fit... The results promise to stretch across 2012 and beyond, encompassing known label mates like Doomed Bird and the amazing Sone Institute as well as exciting additions like Kemper Norton and Isnaj Dui.

From what I'm hearing though, the series is definitely off to a flying start with Collision/Detection v1. Jonny Mugwump of Exotic Pylon fame and Time Attendant's Paul Snowdon have taken their fragments and certainly ran with them... the resulting oddness, like a perfectly glued Airfix kit of sound that melts straight into your cranium.

'The Synthetic Profile' starts on a 23 Skidoo gamelan crawl full of pulsed penance, the sliding of torpedoes through rotting jellyfish heralding wobble board textures and diaphanous equations. That vaselined nail gun, spurting 'Frankie Says' orgasms, transforming into the hum n burr of tiny dynamos sucking at the air as the fader reveals a bleeping emergence on a lung pumped inflexion...

'Enharmonic Bow' is a bouncy elastane with Coil like shears... a sliver of tune running through an old projector... falling backwards ... a haunted air, marred in digital flecks... the flirtation, queasy full of half glimpses and triggers cavorting around a centrifugal Da Vinci mechanism. Headphones are a must

The third 'Internal Workings of a Noise Intoner', is a noisier endeavour, an octave climbing blow football match of bad tubing scalectrix jivver as a flatulent wasp smashes into rubber walls... the radius of collision rebounding in the ears like false memories...The last track settles for a straight drone affair, slipping on its own horizon, besmirched in a lustre of barely audible keyboarding... opening a gateway that doesn't seem to shut... here's to the next instalment...

WwrrssddrrwwsS

2012-01-23T22:16:00.000Z

wwrrssddrrwwss from the cryin' skull

Grenadilla Splinters

2012-01-22T13:04:00.001Z

This is saintly dust, wheezen reeds and dripping tap drummage... ambulance ambience on the exhaust fumes of a whirring mind... absolute love and respect

Perfect TEETH

2012-01-21T10:54:00.005Z

Teen-beat are re-releasing Unrest's PERFECT TEETH, no cheap jewel case shenanigans mind, but a beautifully boxed collection of six coloured 7 inch records with extra tracks. Hats off to you Marky Robinson… it looks so lush… if I wasn’t so strapped I’d grab one off you…

Really loved this album back in the day, shit that was a long time ago must be 17 years, seems like yesterday... those poppy hooks and that jangled sizzle, grabbing the focus, simple songs full of mileage. Now Imperial FFRR will always stay with me as their greatest work, but this was genius of a different kind, surfing on the right side of commercial, that Simon Le Bon production guaranteeing true earworm deployment…

A true pinnacle of achievement and so f’ing danceable in places, it showed that indie music didn’t have to be miserable to be sincere.… even if I did do plenty of mopping to stylised ampersand... Pity it marked the last big release for the band, even though it did set the template for the equally amazing Air Miami. Quality!

CTRL/V\3RR0R

2012-01-20T20:47:00.000Z

Bleakhaus?

Daniel Vincent and Atay Ilgun - Fragments of Sound C40

2012-01-18T23:29:00.001Z

Side one demonstrates some masterful guitar playing, deft, descriptivewith plenty of colour between frets, spurring off on otherworldlytwilights… Halfway through, this captivating narrative takes up a moreoccultist tone with creeping circles prowling a low lit amplitude…Gliding on some lovely glassy eyed synthetics, the guitar graduallyletting the optimism in, the tone warming…. then finally drifting outon doubled layers, the crystallised strings caught in the falling ofleaves.

In complete contrast, side two is a aquatic-lined burbling ofsubmerged sounds … A sweeping bubble wand of multicoloured oceanics.A humming flange of dolphin rasp providing the bassline, as keystrokesgive out the definition in 'close encounters' forages… Piano spansstretching, yarning, imbued in treble highlights and glitteryrefractions, bloating out in gaseous spirals, dimensionally diving toresurface in a shoal of piranha like metallics… The fade opens tomore strung out atmospheres, celestial and drifty. A Northern Lightsmanatee of subtly changing hues and reverberated space. Sliding dronewaves… swallowed on swollen ebbs, the outflows layering up on anenveloped heaviness that churns everything up nicely... The faintcrackles of cosmos almost audible in those soft manta swirls andtentacled ear wraps… A satisfying journey’s end.

What a great first release for any label, as relaxing as it is intriguing, a delicate beauty full of raised contours, whose melodiceddies and fibrous flurries tap straight into your soothing pulse.

Broken Sounds

2012-01-16T21:30:00.000Z

2012-01-13T18:02:00.002Z

Stig Noise VII - Stig Noise

2012-01-11T20:43:00.000Z

This is an intense blast of Mariachi punk fusion, with its Miles Davis trumpet sputters and elastically wedged guitars… I haven’t heard this much energy since the Dog Faced Hermans back in 9O's… That Stig Noise brass section is just superb here, holds the mayhem together in tasty derailment… This is a real 'lay back and enjoy the ride' release, full of crazy angles and garbled trashcan vox. There’s a slight detour into cruel, tonal abuse on Family Chainsaw but the rest of the tracks are content, dishing out the serotonin with zing grin faces… the EP signing off (far too quickly) on a Pere Ubu Sub-Beefheartian deathslide of carpet burn goodness… I recommend you grab a copy today and wreck your living room trying to dance along...

Big Blood and the Wicked Hex

2012-01-11T20:35:00.000Z

Loving that home recorded aesthetic. Nice blasts of room atmospheres, tape static and a slight tunnelling in fidelity give this release a gritty authenticity that studio albums often shamefully polish away… The opener, Run grabs you instantly, like some forgotten psych gem with its meaty bass proposition and incredible vocals… a strong authoritative voice akin to Catherine Ribeiro. A folksy saturation to which Jefferson A’s magical ‘White Rabbit’ sort of slips into comparison rather seamlessly…

The fun continues on the next track, the vocals going all deranged in the souped-up discord … Like a psychotic Kate Bush or Galas, hexing an arcane rant, drilling her words into your skull… I will love you, I will love you… like a real bunny boiler…

The next, gets a Spaghetti Western treatment. Vocals throwing themselves into the distance, the prairie twang and episodic bass combo sounding like something the late Roland S Howard would have produced, alive with a dusty Hungry Ghosts oeuvre... An Eartha Kitt diva vastness to the vox, coupled with a oomphed up drumming that sounds unmistakably like the heavy stamping of spurred feet.

The flip is just as good. A little kid's happy birthday song slips into accordion followed by operatic, Meredith Monk like vocals, all vowel spread and classical, multi-tracked in disorientating streams … Nice touches of bell and broken shells that build into a driven, boron like tumble, a heady mix of electronic bird calls and rattling percussion … vocals weaving their way through with a delightfully eerie wobble... The clapping at the end really takes you by surprise.

The last track creeps up on you with tiny tea-lights and bendy branched theremin. The pace is far slower than the other tracks, with the vocalist plumbing for a more restrained vibe, sometimes baked in the contoured periphery of reverb... A symbiotic shimmer of guitar accompanying it, the focus deteriorating then escalating, a spacey thread, well weaved ... like a 20's radio siren tied to a 'Twin Peaks' bass undulation and lightly wrought drums... her purrings... imbued with a slight Irish lilt... maybe there's a touch of Slapp Happy's Dagmar Krause in there too...

Boy, this is a real variety pack of goodness, oozing a bitter sweetness that on headphones has a secondry inflexion that sounds like a ghostly whirling, attempting to converse with you from outside itself...

Run Run Run

2012-01-09T23:31:00.002Z

...can't get enough of this song right now... it's yelling me the pure love...

Chatroom enhancing drugs

2012-01-03T21:41:00.003Z

thee gods, back to the future the ride are giving away some lovely drones... just watching that throbbing gif and getting sucked in sonically... 2012 time benders

SS/GB

2011-12-28T00:41:00.002Z

oh, think this is gonna be the daddy...

Lumens

2011-12-23T20:03:00.002Z

mystery balms... milky milky wrapped gamelan blisters... wkd glitter caked psychedelic whispers from Kikiilimikilii... feel those unicorn hooves down yr spine...

LeeDVD

2011-12-23T19:44:00.000Z

...this is how i imagined Martina Topley Bird would sound... sticky n narcotic in the 40watt illuminations...

Now that's what i call festive 2011

2011-12-16T12:14:00.000Z

+ + and more from those Moth Glue Peeps + +

Men Diamler, Brown Torpedo, Longstone, Andy Oliveri, Fursaxa, Sharon Kraus, Meg Baird

2011-12-13T21:48:00.002Z

Thursday 1st December at the Cube Bristol

The song writing demon Men Diamler was in the process of packing up guitar and Houseache Horse forever, as in full stop… Rumour has it he’s going all Mieses Gegonge on us for 2012 - ditchin' the strings for hover tubed electronics, and avant ear violence... a spectacle I'll defo be lining up for … So Thursday was the night to catch his penultimate Diamler show over at my favourite all time venue, The Cube… For the occasion, he’d collated the help of a few Cheltenham based pals to supply a varied send off… Ochre stable mates Longstone were amazing, with live procession spicing up the 'behind a table' electronics and bass… The hilariously name Brown Torpedo were also killer with their mutant blend of dancy Korg splashes and Marky Smith vocodering.

First up, Andy Oliveri certainly gave out the Neil Young shimmers and when Rich finally hobbled onto the stage, multiple shots lined up for nerves… he just launched straight into it… Mexican wrestler masked for the first ditty, requests for Admiral Axe were brushed off as he rode through some classic Rich fayre… his warped realities leaping from the depths of sorrow to deranged joy.

Plenty of 'dirty tramp' yelling and mangled cross-eyed blues along the way… When the final tune died away I felt the loss of the Diamler massively.

Sunday 3rd December at the Cube Bristol

A few days later I found myself back at the Cube for Fursaxa… Seen Tara twice, this being my third emersion… She never fails to captivate, weaving mystery from mandelas of whistle, bells and voice, stretching them out on sacred organ totems, creating glimpses of elk shadows and forest ancients. Delving into the past with relatively modern means… Those spinning wheels of voice layering up; drifting on through slowly, disassociating you from time / place… working their faerie magic as her profile glowed all Native American in the stage lights. … I think a few tunes from her witchy Mycorrhizae Realm of last year snuck into the set. That reversed chant element, tripping into real time voice was a real mind scrambler… as if the random cut up, were dolls' faces falling away to reveal yet more intricate masks… infinite vapours becoming other, as the whispers prised you from reality's grip… Her white hands, like spectral mangrove roots… The drone bedrock, humming like a fleet of aircraft, cut into, tempo curved… A phantom choir behind her, all baritone bass, her featherlite voice chanting over the top, or bleeding from inside in differing tones, casting stilettoed patternings of emerald, amethyst, vivid azure. Bewitched I was …

Wasn’t really fussed about the others on the bill, although both Sharon Kraus and Meg Baird were without doubt masterful guitar players and great vocal harmonists, their tranquillised beauty was seriously bad news for my sleep deprived slump, kept catching myself nodding off and withdrawing to a parallel world where somebody was shouting ‘fuck love’ from inside their guitar's innards...

Well that wraps up my gig going for another year, was going to pop along to Death in June’s shindig at the Underworld at the end of the month, but frankly don’t know whether I can face another 'bride stripped bare' strum-a-thon through Mr P’s classics, or jostling for a good view amongst the fetish neo-militia… Probably spin some late night vinyl instead and sink a few glasses of homemade druid juice…

Welcome Orphans

2011-11-28T23:46:00.001Z

+++ TaSty HypNo tHrEaDs +++( MORe iNfO hERe )+++

Slow Death

2011-11-27T22:00:00.001Z

this creeps round under yr skin, leaves u twitchin

U.S. Girls

2011-11-21T23:27:00.001Z

Meghan Remy's got a new album out don't yr know...

Kania Tieffer

2011-11-21T12:50:00.001Z

Brussels babe gets jiggy with her special blend of skitty shivers... My French is dire (or should that be Flemish) so I’m probably missing out on the banter side of things but this is so catchy it doesn’t really matter… The rest of this excellent EP (le sens des valeurs) can be found over at FMA

His Naked Torso

2011-11-21T12:30:00.001Z

Love 'em... two no wavers from Cardiff giving all these glum recession vibes a what for...

NOV 23rd @ Cardiff w/ Dolfinz, Islet
JAN 11th @ Fleece, Bristol. w/ Sly Dirac.

Eapy Sampol by His Naked Torso

48 Space Platform CDR - Joinedbywire

2011-11-06T23:13:00.002Z

This lushly packaged release from Joinedbywire, gives a pleasant Nagasaki shake to the speakers. Textural towers of junkshopped machine give out a pure concrete satisfaction of jittering geriatric rivet and other broken automata. But it's not jumping into the deep end too quickly, things are allowed to develop gradually, built up on the dust of insectal aluminium and spazzed circuits... paraphernalia piling until it’s a mechanised tumour pushing through skin with parasitic life. A mangle of malfunction, snapping hungrily or scurrying through your cranium with nervous energies, the magnetized haze, a myriad of loose mouthed spurs.

Tracks bleeding into each other, constantly paring themselves back into an oasis of bruised ambience… twilight reflections peppered in field recordings of overlapping dirge and velveteen reek, revealing secret pockets of Viennese chimes that clank with an unnatural aura between your ears. The last track Drym Lane Atomball stretches leisurely. A threadbare pianola, revolving on the circumference of some oscillating tardis thread, mutating into a mechanoid Windy and Carl. Dronic sails battered by nano-crunch, whirring glass and blasting furnace …this is so goddamn beautiful ,it's as if you could glimpse the scope of the universe in its grainy collisions... that neo primitive machine vocab, blowing out into the hissy ferrics of actual human conversation... something that definitely seems a possible seed behind this album's creation…

Bardo Pond and Circle

2011-11-02T20:15:00.000Z

It was like glass flying past my ears… catching instrument reflections; fragments within… Those guitars embossing rich shapes, tangles of crayoned majesty … the noise was incredible, satisfying, full of raw claws … that clarinet slaughter smearing… vocals eaten by delay… can’t believe it’s taken me this long to catch Bardo Pond live, but that rich sandpapery vibe was well worth the wait…

Right from the start out Circle were on a full-on Hawkwind homage… plying plenty of explosive riffology, rocking out the feel good energy in glittery spandex and studded metal … Mika Ratto giving out a real show of Norseman fist. Coming across like a Finnish Freddy Mercury strutting the stage part ringmaster/part rock cliché Lenin… adding vocal syrups and keyboard lightning , stirring up the soup, yodelling all shamanic into the mic… They diverted into some artsy DNA crawl of guitar strings and collapsing tempos, but the rhythmic highway was never that far away as they tore it up again and again in heady psycho nautical directions, slapping that well worn counter of rock/metal with fresh meat… One of the best croft gigs of 2011...

Jessica Rylan, Cian Nugent Band and Bill Orcutt

2011-10-19T12:44:00.001+01:00

13th October @ The Cube Bristol

Jessica Rylan was being eaten up by a flu bug, having just woken from the back of a van... brandishing a few glasses of medicinal brandy. She chatted in fragmented thought, post arms race concerns, anti-anarchy... a cough here and there ...she proclaimed a liking for chaos over noise, started the circuitry then decided to append the previous conversation...

She laughed to herself at the pointless of this and recommenced the music in a sliver of extinguished dog toy sounds and squeaky salvos... she patched in more leads, introducing a deep and satisfying aggregate to the equation... and with a few more tweaks it was a burning pylon of asymmetrical judder and twitching spasm. A further scuzzed bass deliverance threw out random anchors...

But it wasn't until her vox bled through this, that the true shivers started... the vocal vibe, a possessed, scary, phatomised one... The quality of ripping sellotape or brittle cellophane landscaping the feedback... Unpredictable colours and spiking ugliness seemed to erupt from her body, as if she was mischievously toying with the electrics.

This was way better than that full moon show back in 2005... then, it was all over as suddenly has it had begun followed by a short bit of funny, observational poetry... Glad to say she still remains the queen of my noise loving heart...

Cian Nugent Band more conventional than the other's, a showcase of just two songs. One, a short skewered traditional Irish lilt with some gorgeously warm viola... whilst the other, was a lengthier and far braver distillation, entitled 'three and sixes' that burnt up on some heady tempo swings.

The bare footed Bill Orcutt was like a bearded golem, hugging his bruised and battered guitar. Face, snug to the instruments contours almost salivating on the worn varnish as 4 strings took their punishment in a rush of bent blue chords... Some nice off key cantering and neck grabbed fret damage was displayed with the occasional vocal whimper breaking out. Coming across all soul wretched with an urgency that wiped away any inkling of pretention... Half an hour of viral exorcism with a few feedback chasms scraping the speakers and some life affirming howling that proved there was plenty of life to be had after Harry Pussy.

Men Diamler's Admiral Axe

2011-10-14T20:44:00.000+01:00

this had me in stitches

STIG NOISE

2011-10-05T23:20:00.003+01:00

i just luv this, pure carny-val bullfighter... More info's here for the inquisitive

Malapropism - Arklight

2011-09-29T21:06:00.000+01:00

stop motion scribble for arklight's soured pop sensibilities...

UT and Big Naturals

2011-09-27T23:13:00.001+01:00

Saturday 24th September at the Croft, Bristol

The Big Naturals were on vicious, ear wrecking form. Bombastic drums and screeching bass claws with reverbed to fuck vocals howling hopelessly inside... Convulsive fits of effect wah's blistering within that headache inducing cymbal... carabiner scraping the strings in wheel-spinning scars... no let up... the occasional re-tuning oasis filled with the growl of a ravenous stack of amps.

UT started off a bit lacklustre after the ear traumas of Big Naturals, but soon satisfyingly sped off... the trio getting nicely agitated in the guitar department, wiry rhythms that cantered around the drums like a tangle of hungry dogs.

Loved that misshapen, scratchy quality to the music... and those sandpaper vocals - like a trio of Mrs. Hershs throwing their muses... Canal, Ham and Young's shrillings coming across witchy in places... seemed fitting Jacqui was sporting those pointy shoes.

Later K Martin (?) from God, took over the drumming from Nina... his arms sported a disturbia of Rorschach tattoos ... moved the furniture round in insistent slams as all three guitars needled their way through Griller and In Gut’s House material as if twenty years ago was just yesterday...

The Heart of The Sky - Listening Mirror

2011-09-21T20:11:00.005+01:00

on Bathetic Records

The space is a serene drumless one where everything transfers in a soft leisurely manner, propelled on diaphanous pulses as if caught in the swirl of a glass bell jar … An undercurrent of atomised inflections creep through your ear like a smooth flurry of birds… distended key strokes glow in amplitude as Eno-equse quivers infect the tourmaline in slo-mo sunspots and diffused halos… Diamond like puckers burst with momentary light, rooting themselves deep into your slowing heart rate… the landscape slipping through your fingers, teetering on the cusp of unconsciousness. The final track pulling you back umbilically with a hypnotic female vocal from New Zealand's Alicia Merz (Birds of Passage) that gives this 30 minute creation from Listening Mirror a definitive and satisfying conclusion...

Psychedelic Basement

2011-09-18T22:29:00.003+01:00

A great review of our first Non Ferric Memories release for LF Records over at the sound projector... liking that Amon Düül II reference...

Winston Egbert, Fairhorns and Foot Village

2011-09-15T21:32:00.010+01:00

5th Aug - The Croft Bristol

Regrettably, I only caught the last bit of Serena's new band Winston Egbert... some craziness about aubergines that spun out far too quickly for my liking... Serena swapping her usual guitar for some drum massacring... Fortunately, managed a full portion of Matt's Fairhorns persona ... a wobbled sci-fi that seemed to be rebounding on a bent Perspex collider... Got seriously lost in all those mood swings he was plying, dark disco beans flipping into lovingly knackered kraut incentives... A hell of lot of discovery... His glasses falling off as he nodded out to the rhythmic spew... Little glimpses of tune marching out all dirgy and crumpled. Some gorgeous little ear hooks in there, dancing in their repetitive kernels, struggling to keep afloat on fluorescent battery acids...

The headliner, Foot Village were like the Thee Truth side of PTV's
Live In Gottingen but quadruple the tribal chaos, mixing in capacious amounts of incoherent yelling for good measure. A full on cathartic joy of a performance... must have been about 3 -4 drum kits all bunched into the middle of the floor, us spectators circling the periphery... A tiny girl giving out massive throat violence whilst those skins thrust the primitive into your face... Satan's horn stewing filthy spikes across it all... The irresistible urge to fling yourself stupid was totally irresistible, the need to open your lungs and yell frustrations to fuck... 110% satisfied!

TravelSex

2011-09-07T12:47:00.000+01:00

Supernormal 2011

2011-09-06T23:48:00.029+01:00

Normally I hate camping, partly down to this country's banana weather... but throw three days of music into the equation and the obvious discomfort seems to mysteriously disappear - so when another opportunity to be Supernomalised presented itself, it was back to that much loved field in the middle of nowhere...

On arrival, a whiff of rhythm hits us, all bassy and deliciously slothful, like Godspeed tangoing with some shoegazery glaze... I was so hooked that after evil tent assembly I drifted straight towards its origin. Turned out to be Hakarl's 36hr Communion, which was without doubt one of the best things going down at this year's festival. This was a sleep deprived improv collective with extra members floating in and out at any given moment, jamming endlessly, gathering small repetitive threads together and bleeding out some gorgeous mutations. You could literally lose hours watching how things developed without any clock watching lulls in the action, so much invention was going down, minute occurrences became fused, diffused, hijacked... each member following cues into the unknown...Plenty of re-visits were had and when it ended on Sunday it was sorely missed...

The satisfyingly gutsy noise coming from the bottom of the field turned out to be 'Cold in Berlin' who were much better live than I'd imagined them to be. Predictably gothic, but not in a bad way, heads above that mopey syrup and Twilight bull that passes for darkness these days... they even seemed to be channelling some genuine angst... all zombie armed choruses and screaming expletives, fucking loud too... loved that murderous zeal and bony economy that seeped outa their particular version of crypt loving black... their hard as nails guitar and wailing existentialism went well with my slippy slidey head...

This was followed by a generous helping of Rat Face in the dance tent, who has single handedly dispelled my dislike of all things hip and hop... that mixture of beats and razor sharp lyrics certainly hit the spot, plenty of circuit twitchwifery slinking around there too. Later, I caught some 'Edward Lear' spoken words coming from the improv tent, struck up conversations with some lovely strangers, somebody from the 'A' band slipped me a cdr said I'd like it...The silvery moon turned the night sky's clouds into a tidal canvas, I failed to capture it through the camera... my was head strobing too much… decided to retire to tent sanctuary - don't know why, as sleep just wasn't a graspable prospect... a moonlit mind wanders in a white rabbit suit.

Saturday started slowly, noodle maggots for breakfast, chats with friends, wandered through the masturbating cloth sculptures hanging from the trees... cloven hooves and halo of flies. Met the creator, he said 'you want to see my live performances.' I sniggered at the imagining...then the heavens poured. Clad in my batman cape, I watch said artist riding bare arsed round the top field, the cloth creature on the back of his bicycle jerking away...

we retired to the blue haze of the tent and I drew as the rain hammered down. Reminders of Cave's carny and recently observed headbangs into trees to choruses of 'why why why?'. Heaven was raging that day and fear of fading memory was totally disabling..... 'nature morts' from the tent hi-fi flowed into the ears... early 80's post everything helps... afterwards took a listen to that cdr that I stuffed into my pocket the night before, spoken word with wonky instruments, really liked it, the manner of voice reminded me of Karl Blake's rantings... gonna have to give this the proper write up it so eagerly deserves...

As the rain mysteriously subsided the music was a blur, z+ were an amazing cathedral of bone, but Thought Forms were the first to give my ears a savaging, rolled up into a fearsome racket, Guy's drums full of bricks being lobbed into some metal silos, the three of them were burning up... even when Deej's guitar lead became severed they refused to be abated... as he rubbed his spine up and down Charlie's guitar... love burningggggg from hollowed out frames...

In comparison, Maria and the Mirrors had a bit of a shaky start, but luckily found their footing quite quickly afterwards... a drunken bloke grabbed my ear, shouted he hated the electronic scribble behind the drumming... I stared back in wry disbelief... I shouted back 'what yr talking about, that's the glue' he looked back at me more than a little bewildered... The last track from them was killer, a complete mess of tribal spluttering, like some Manga deathslide on wiry hairshirts gift wrapped up in 2nd gen atmospherics 'travel sex' I think it was called...

I got lost in the skies, they were truly amazing... the clouds turned into a shark eating its own thoughts, nobody else saw and the moment quickly vaporized... I captured a leaning head, a pure psyched flowering iris... and later some great sunsets.

Primordial Undermind were good, that totally soild riffage was ticking my boxes and Eric's guitar was amazingly loud, I sat and drew to the vibe...

Then GNNNNNNNOD who started off a bit bi-polar, too ranty, the Gillespie lookie likey getting hot under the collar... later hooked into some divinely twisted Gregorian fuelled funkiness that got me waving arms and swaying around like only Gnod can supply... the cherry picked reverb screamed, shooting my head in slimy ricochets...

Wasn't feeling much for David Deviant, watched through my hair... the lyrics were fun but I was feelin' shite... which resulting in sleeping through Teeth of the Sea and the 'A Band'... Got woken up by Mr.O grabbing his stuff before journeying home as he was working the record store the next day... said something about a nudity before disappeared into the night... I fell back into blissful sleep...

Caught Maria and the Gay first up Sunday, bore no relation to Maria and the Mirrors, although i was secretly wishing they would, anyways they were a great wakeup call full of sleazy presets scrappy guitars and stupidly catchy lyrics... firmly in the 'Chicks on Speed' camp, really wished I'd brought more money as that 'pushchair suicide' song would have been a great in car anthem...

Mooched around the merch, more kandy for the eyes than buying... caught Arthur Brick who captured the boiling hot day with his scuttling banjo frolics...

Next I nosed the startings of the Apatt Orchestra, but felt uneasy… As they were finding their differing voices, decided to distract myself with some 'Gum Takes Tooth'... who turn out to be blistering schizoid fun for the ears... I missed getting back to the Apatt as a result...

later Ross told me they dedicated their set in memory of Joe, but wasn't until the Fuzzylights played their closing number that I started to well up... I was losing it to the violin, how clichéd was that... reconciled myself visioning the stagelights through my beer, looked like the first frostings of November, swollen with demonic action... Mardt's cider all sweet smelling in the fading sun...

Skullflower were much anticipated, me being a massive fan...
must have been the shortest set on the bill and the most disappointing... this latest incarnation was a trio of full on guitar feedback... verging on the monological with far too few fizzing overlays for my liking. Everything seemed to flounder in the kinetic scrum, felt it would have suited a more confined space...

Cindytalk on the other hand were great, a hard edged razor reflection with bitter dispersions of eelectricity whipping the conventional rock dynamics... couldn't really string any sense from the vocals, too effect diseased, but they imparted a tasty strung out/comedown angry almost vitriolic vibe... a souring of affections, mulled over disappointments. The lead singer downed the contents of a hip flask on the music's fractures... occasionally snogging the audience... Pissed on Skullflower's toe dipping into the void, and defo got me curious about hearing more...

The fest was slowly burning out into the night ...wandered through the illuminations, the shuffling shadows, shouty hardcore behind us… mental collapses and the universal love of star filled skies… drifted to sleep whilst the sound of Suspira seeped from the dance tent... I swear that dawn chorus on Monday morning was calling me a Nazi bastard…

Here's to next year...

Back to the future the ride - Gay Wish

2011-08-17T23:23:00.008+01:00

Back to the future the ride is a mysterious solo project from Brian Miller of Foot Village and Deathbomb Arc fame, the cover giving out a certain retro chic . The contents miles removed from his usual sonic assaults and by all accounts a stepping stone to fresh pastures yet to be explored.

Starts all celestial drone…as if a fraction of Carl Orf’s Carmina Burana was Stretch Armstronged into eternity …a real medicating angel this one…a choral bleed with the dichotomy of feeling like time is standing still whilst still filtering endlessly outward. Something that seems to fit nicely with the time travel theories of Miller’s concept behind this side project…

A scrapbook of sorts, this tape then wanders all over the place, from tuneful paddlings to eerie vapour trails and ghostly mirror breaths… Track four brings to mind Coil’s classical dabblings for Jarman’s Angelic Conversation… a rotary sycamore shearing out a sinister crochet of spidery digits… an eastern kindling aglow with vaporous fireflies.

On the flip the inflexion is less sinister, a pleasant industrial hum, underneath which organ hand spans oscillate in their bindings…as if a hollow hilled crust is being peeled slowly away inside your head or the DNA of the universe is being broken down into quivering molecules…

Next, a vocoded hymn breaks…all gnomically Cher-esque , takes you by surprise. The chopped up lyrics drowning in the gloop, logic happily crumbling … all ending in a card shuffle of tinny percussive falls, a popcorn of differing tones… a flanged chord fray that mysteriously dies, as if the power was suddenly cut.

Squeeze me Macaroni, Roving Blades and Matt Loveridge

2011-07-29T12:48:00.010+01:00

Cafe Kino - Tuesday 26th July

The disappointment of hearing that Silver Stairs of Ketchikan couldn't play was soon quashed on finding her replacement was none other than Serena of Squeeze me Macaroni... Seen her numerous times, usually fx-ed up to the eyeballs, but here she stripped away the looping paraphernalia, and pedals to give us a series of well executed covers, just her voice and electric guitar with a touch of reverb to fill the space... turned out to be a very melodic beast indeed, a real showcase for her crystalline voice.

The next act Roving Blades made a refreshing change from the more experimental expectations too... an acapella English folk ensemble of 10 people who's differing harmonies rolled around the room with the currency of loss and loving... ending on some 'chicken on a raft' funny business.

The main star of the show was definitely Matt though, and after some warm-up stretches, he commenced smashing the ivories of some rotting piano... continuing to nail them in a Terry Riley expansion of chords, all caps-locked in pointy toothed repetition... Mirages of tune crawled out from under this unbearable light, fleeting wasps of saintly rainbows lisping in the hammered current...The ferocity of his playing was awe inspiring, the pain on his face all evident... must have been a good 15 minutes before this hypnotic intensity finally uncorked itself... flowing into a slow dribble of lonely keys, those high end pings stapling the requiem-esque reflections home... broken handed he strode out of the room to rapturous applause ...

This be rather excellent...

2011-07-19T21:48:00.002+01:00

The Dogface Sockets, Sennen Timcke, Kebele Choir

2011-07-19T21:23:00.015+01:00

Friday 15th July, Folk House, Bristol

Those Dogface Sockets were simply superb, debauched n ridiculous, everything grotesquely exaggerated, burning out on scary in places. Jonny coming across like a neurotic Billy Bragg pursued by a clamber of disabled children, Mini's dented diagonals working into his guitar and vocal spurs, adding extra vocal yelps along the way.

Their set brimmed with weird tales and crooked flights of fancy, funny quips on each song’s heritage between songs… real entertaining stuff closing with the 'Elephant Song' backed by the Kebele Choir…an improv collection of voices that had performed beautifully earlier on along with Sennen Timcke... The waving arms of the choir’s lead Polly Staple conducting a background of wailing animal noises and 'Scooby Doo' sound effects from all assembled, fitting well with the duo’s bizarre cabaret…

However the best surprise was their cover of Nick Cave’s Stagger Lee… the foul mouthed n bloody ballad becoming even more deliciously over-caricatured and skewered in the hands of Mini n Jonny… their insane screaming sealing the deal… We left the place buzzin’... think they'll be playing the Harbour Festival at the end of the month - something that's begging to be checked out.

Gnar Hest - The Dogs Churned

2011-07-14T18:13:00.005+01:00

Diving into the same fertile furrow that marked Matt's previous release for LF records, this short tape starts out with a pumping spandex bass, filled with hungry pacmen wolfing down trebly jewels, cat meows and bonkers pitchwifery. The sounds get me all nostalgic for the chase scenes of 80s cult classics such as Subway or Diva …a futurism filling my head like the digitised blueprints from the TV version of Hitchhikers guide.

Matt’s like a pixeled Vangelis, or Rick Wakeman without the chintz, sound tracking a virtual world… In the early days of computing (Commodore 64) I remember spending weeks/months of code chugging to produce a bleeptastical score that was nowhere as good as what’s happening here… His compositional skills bludgeoning blandness in multiple layers that slip this way and that, the cute tunefulness choked with satisfying hooks and scenic reflections. …

By the third track, the pace slows to a dry tinkerbell musika, a harpsicordal twang showing a true deftness of touch … a sober grandfather clock chime to falling jewellery… or is that a frozen catfish's whiskers being plucked? …

The pace picks up once again for the tapes finale... a bleeping treadmill of goodness , where neon lines foreshorten into some pixelated orange dawn. This is as addictive as the arcade games it parodies… All hail the 8 bit king.

Dancin' man

2011-07-13T22:15:00.003+01:00

Joey Chainsaw Rest in Peace

2011-07-01T00:30:00.004+01:00

I will miss you Joey... the sounds that flowed out of your head are still as vibrant now as the first time I heard them all those years back, the exotic strangeness of your art mirroring the noisy scree that often poured out of the speakers... It is a privilege to have known you... worked with you and have you as a close friend... You were, and still are, an inspiration and more over, this past month a welcome part of our family... I will treasure you forever... Sacragoon dude

McDowell, Dogfaced Sockets, Radiant Sounds of Dust and more

2011-06-27T19:25:00.014+01:00

16th June - The Croft, Bristol

A Sri Lankan fundraiser with lots of mystery bands... most were of the folksy persuasion which we checked out briefly... A few tasty diversions were had, but the main room seemed to be where it was at... and after the 'Felt' like chords of a solo McDowell (who I must say, singlehandedly captivated us with his guitar mastery) the Dogface Sockets dark cabaret of words and jarring shapes seriously stole our attention ... Hilariously too! …

The guitars spiky, whizzing to differing angles, Mini’s drumming gleefully kinetic, stumbling around that spurring guitar and vocal delivery as Jonathan’s voice darted from sinister creak to insane merriment… The drums enhanced the lunacy… pointing the punchlines, tweaking the dark humour in loose kettle bounces and shivering cymbal kisses…sort of Tiger Lillies-esque, sometimes shifting into Comus like territories but never too dire… Mr Olivetti leaned into my ear saying it was the best thing he'd seen all year… and they defo had a similar effect on me as they oozed with an English eccentricity, the likes of which I haven’t seen since the Cardiacs, Thinking Fellers, Stump or less familiar Noseflutes… Those imaginative word weaves and Aubrey Beardsley contours lodging oddly in the mind…great fun … Very tempted to catch more of the magic at the Folk House next month…

The headliners filled the stage with a mass of guitars… McDowell's front man making a re-appearance… the sound a mangle of Floyd-esque guitar licks, proggy edges and a fair bit of pedal distortion… slipping into druggier hazings, sounding uncanningly like Ultra Vivid Scene, the sonics full of jangly paraphrasing and climbing indie sensibilities, the vocal daubs all shimmering slurs… The last track rocketing off, people in front cartwheeling silver foil to the stoked vibe… the interlocking combos drawing out a psychoactive fuzz, spurs from the tambourine glinting in the soupy reverb…

Gnar Hest – Tracts on how severe i welcome nonexistence as harsh as is

2011-06-23T21:38:00.004+01:00

This is one continuous track plucked from one of the many alter egos of Matt Williams... a total escalator ride of churning synth-dom, elastically channelling the golden age of arcade gaming … This is brilliant, like some 8 bit shifting Tron travelogue, pacey, full of nibbling pixels tugging at your lobes in waves of pure optimism... A tongue in cheek homage to Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, packed with mutated Mario Kart shiny coin clambers and curdling key shivers …The architrave a curvy, joy splashed forecourt of goodness, pure sulphated agitation, filled with tasty shifts of action that fill your attention span right up to the 20(ish) minute cut off...

sky dweller

2011-06-19T00:28:00.002+01:00

...how about this for detail to drown in

The Fedicia Exine Remixes - Various

2011-06-18T00:19:00.001+01:00

Don’t really like remix albums, think they often fall prey to DJ egos slipping into that generically 'party album' pool, full of boring beats and sequenced bleep flips … but this collection is how I always imagined a remix album to be…a collection that breathes new directions and atmospheres from the original… and when the original is as stark as Doomed Bird’s Fedicia Exine I’m doubly amazed that so many people have managed to open so many new doorways from the raw goods … hats off to all included… these six tracks not only take an imaginative leap from the original but could be argued, stand out as tracks in their own right… the majority taking a rich vein of ambience and chord drone…with a few taking the dancey equation and running with it… either into filmic spreads or pure floor filling goodness…

For the first track things are stretched in a Troum styled homage… the raw ingredients becoming a chord impregnated distillation thrown to some Dali-esque perspective, a bassy broth expanding and contracting in space…

The second, penned by Rothko’s Mark Beazley keeps the original but introduces bassy stepping stones between the gaps before meandering off on twilight chords… Plenty of rich depth-charge riffage that gave me an irresistible urge to dig out my old Rothko records…like I need any excuses!

Position Normal opt for a gaseous squeeze…with watery tears… bicycle wheels with traffic noise on wet concrete… harp flutterings and glacial glide, pleasantly pastoral…

The next ticks my boxes completely as the original vox melts away on harmonium drone… … sort of sounds like it’s dwelling in a Lustmordal universe… the sound taking all sorts of interesting directions …modular jewels descending into some lute… milk bottles full of mechanical moths…garnished in tasty reverb Dettol… Mono piano fingers wrapping themselves around plodding drum patterns, like Eno circa mid to late 80’s… Fairy wing textures... and those beautiful modulated zithers… what’s not to love... I’ve been seeing clouds shaped like Klaus Schulze ever since…

Zoon van snooK edit is a complete dancey make-over…a Lemon Jelly mix of Spanish guitar and splatters of pilfered voice over hand claps… a funky mud bath of a track that leads to the chill-out curves and semi-realism of the last track…a junky’s ghosting of the original by Robert Logan … those Casio smears recalling Alan Wilder's side project Recoil all filmic synth-phonics and sampler combos dealing out pure atmospheric craftsmanship.

Indexes1 (Radical Laser Spectre) - Matt Loveridge

2011-06-14T18:45:00.010+01:00

Imperceptible at first, until percussive blasts jolt you awake.. like the detonated blooms of soil from some WW1 newsreel, setting off a chain reaction in your ear of wet earth and startled hooves… further rubble hitting tin roofs as if a biblical rain of frogs. Through the clatter, a warm choral feed stretches like a neo classical slurry, making definite connections to the Xeroxed spires on the cover. The organ pitch steps between each drum sprawl reinforcing the ecclesiastical connection, as irregular wreckage is worked over in atonal scribbling, and DIY hells...

Matt never deals it monochrome, but fills your head with avalanches of variety and this disc is a siren carve up of the highest order, not overtly harsh, but pleasingly forceful, a jumble of drum patterns / vocals and plenty of screech-o-phonics. The wind tubes whistling light circles, chains dragging behind spurting tubular vents... Zapping lasers cutting in over a sweet ripple of metallic wings, wounded by sped up swordplay.

A gorgeous bleed strapped to a pulsing intent, striving higher, almost celestial. A centrifugal riot of colour with reparative yelling at its centre, the tension cascading back into a dying organ and the odd hint of tasty reverb finally fading on the exasperation of a piano innards … 22 minutes well spent…

Astral threads

2011-06-11T20:09:00.004+01:00

Belltone Suicide – Cartilage Evaporator

2011-06-06T22:41:00.005+01:00

This is like glacial fluidity submerged within buried sirens, subtle, nomadic! Slinky loose steps into a pathway door, a slow motion circus sped up in stop frame with fizzed out fireworks, and that was just the opening into this documented adventure. Static turbulence and shifts that behold... vocalised unicorn satellites emitting, to scratch at those buried, unleashed! KACKER HAPPY swirls, exotic trips consumed into mumbled euphoria and pulsing out in sections all aquatic foam... signals disturbed, swimming rippled waters.. skipping, one foot off the ground stopped in motion, striding elegantly. Swan songs with crackled transmissions of messages, then x-files alien invasion bowling with a Tetris landslide, dripping into a self filling waterfall. Xerox, scan printers, distinguished fireworks, and whizzes into asteroids, tinkering flickers that emerge into blares, slowly and suddenly motors hum and pass... Perfect for the nocturnals, a document for the witching hours!!! A total joy to experience within its many avenues.

by Joey C.

Sacragoon

2011-06-05T21:11:00.001+01:00

coming soon...

Matt Loveridge, Thought Forms and Six Organs of Admittance

2011-06-05T13:15:00.052+01:00

Friday 3rd June - The Cube Bristol

Matt (Loveridge) formerly Team Brick... subscribed to differing degrees of cruelty... betwixt floods of crocus spikes and plate glass jostle there was an exasperated lung machine crammed with sewing needles... yelling, whispering. Hyenas crushing glass bottles, rolling the broken shards around their gums. It was a real 'patchwerk' of noise joy... as the layers on layers became a hessian of false narratives, giving out a gideon of tonal claws. Dragging the subliminal ' allhummingbirdsmustdie through my head, a bludgeon of Kari arms and paralytic tv's. Thought forms' drummer, Guy, adding a guest bit of pounding skin to the equation... Matt greedy for increased volume... Guy obliging... but for all the effort, he sounded like a distant boxing match on rough canvas to the guitar monolith Matt decided to implant. Real clenched fist material with dull hail on bendy windows, fading out on xylophonic tics that left the girl behind me in spasms of laughter... a pretty impressive take on INDEXES 2 that left me green with envy...

Thought forms were up next... that new amp of Deej's like a cave of evil bats, as if the treble was holding the bass in torn carrier bags, giving out a multitude of unholy sonics... Proceedings started with Deej in crosslegged evocation... bringing on a trickle of chords, Charlie's flute sadly lost in the ampage... drums not far behind stalking their prey, a rising brew of interchanging textures, growing fast, getting lost in total guitar love. The duo's vocals coming across really well, better than ever ... smeared between the jangle of jubilant shapes and pogo(ing) bodies, rolling back into a spacey shoal of hungry barracuda. The effect afterimages lingering in the ear, unfurling hooks that led to a finale that ripped at your head in delicious demi-god-like savagery. A bit of a short set from the 'forms' but nevertheless satisfying, leaving the audience crazy for an encore, that sadly failed to materialised...

Haven't seen Six Organs since they played Seymour's back in 2006 with Lisa Germano, Mr Wood and those awesome Sunburned guys... but this time he was totally solo, pared back and utterly captivating, just voice and electro-acoustic. His fingers were all over the place, on an improvising vibe, messing with time signatures, tempos and the like with warmth flowing out of those strings... at one point turning them into a throbbing pylon full of vibratory shimmer as if it were a souped up synth... curling the drone back into a meandering codex of frightened rabbits, his fret fingers sending out semaphores... and lots of silence, interrupted by the gurgling of somebody's ringtone... with the last track being a dedication to Phil McMullen of Terrascope.

Another great night amongst friends, the cool summer night despatched in conversation and Cube cola, a touch of greasy chicken caught on the breeze... and Beefheart departures down the M4

The Memory Surface discs A/B - Nurse With Wound

2011-06-02T22:14:00.022+01:00

A 78' grain, crinkle puckered in birdie recoil…a harpist smothered in dust and zither string zig zag …Ghostly utterances and murmers haunting the space …these two discs are seriously antiqued... the sound clogged in cobwebs and insect husks reflecting the scratched nature of the F.W. Murnau silent movie it was soundtracking…

The grooves are slipping like wet tongues in dry mouths, sucking operatic scales backwards, fingerings of chamber music fringed in Miss Havisham’s rotting lace … half submerged snippets of classical / 20’s music hall, sounding like an overtly sinister episode of Bagpus … giving out Shining vibes… glassy flashes of Jack reflected in the eyes of barkeep Lloyd… goosebumps a plenty...

The disconcerting headphone canters are brilliant… darting between left and right channels… climbing in volume, toying with your psyche, details continually spiking the foreground…giving out those falling awake heebyjeebies… the drift, a deliciously tattered, raggedy disembodiment …suspended in smeary sustain…, The gramophone crackling like rain, sizzling fat, a tattooists needle scrawling purgatories across milky skin… guitar picked phrases leaking through garbled curses… If you listen too closely you might even hear a few long dead relatives.

Without losing any of the accrued mood, the end of the second disc features two early demos of tracks fully realised on The Surveillance Lounge album. These are a bit lowercase n sketchy as you'd expect, practically skeletons of the final product, a disc that is up there along with the eerie rivers of Sugar Fish Drink or the mental wonk of Homotopy to Marie.

Euryphadiorossae - DR(DR)ONE

2011-05-27T20:23:00.006+01:00

plus a freebie from team dr(dr)one... gotta say i'm lovin' Scrambled Eyes

Lace Cupped Cross

2011-05-22T21:42:00.003+01:00

Freq-Peek

2011-05-20T12:12:00.006+01:00

Done a bit of journo freewheelin' over at freq music magazine on the subject of that truely amazing Nurse with Wound show... enjoy

Magic Carpathians

2011-05-19T21:43:00.005+01:00

Magic Carpathians... some day i'm gonna visit the Carpathians for real...

Fertility Stick

2011-05-19T18:21:00.003+01:00

Pencil Chit Chat

Nurse with Wound, Bruce Gilbert and Mika Vainio and Radian

2011-05-19T18:00:00.002+01:00

The KoKo London, Sunday 15th May 2011

Loved the minimal post rock vibes of the opening act Radian... that
23 Skidoo ethnicity and those broken This Heat narratives were
riddled with an exciting unpredictability ... each track, a scattered
jigsaw filled with unusual colours and textures, oozing a restrained
intent that was really impressive...

Bruce Gilbert and Pan Sonic's Mika Vainio were next on the bill.
Introducing themselves in a short burst of hi-end pierce that got the
crowd cheering... they continued with a Malaysian flavoured ambience,
a gigantic staked beauty, fluttering like a quartz split mouth of the
night... later molested in high pitched scars. Then the beats kicked
in, like sacks of liquidised potatoes slapping all hardcore ,whirring
on the rebound, turning the rainbows of electro abstraction into a
lush avant-club land... the convexed projection dancing along...

Probably impressed by the previous act, the Nurse with Wound
foursome blasted out a delicious cacophony… a real ear rape... Colin
doing arm requests for more volume… to which I was glad the sound guys
didn’t oblige as my head felt like an aching ball of phosphorus…

Slowly the harshness sheared into eerier waters, bespeckled in mumbles
and moaning vapours and other classic staples of 'Nurse' whimsy
...gestating nicely as 'word worms' snaked the screen. To my
disbelief, 'I’m the Poison' materialised (the very song that
originally converted me to 'Woundworld') …Stapleton's vocals sounding
over medicated, nicely obsessional…Waldron n Liles churning out a gut
wrenching bass to Mr Potter's eccentricities… the phasing nimbus
projection behind them giving out Coil déjà vu's… If you ask me, this
was worth the ticket price alone!

On the back of this, some seriously sexy trumpet smears pursued,
leading to outbreaks of tomfoolery from all assembled… Liles getting
carried away with a toy megaphone and being pushed off stage by Steve…
Matt Waldron on pin hole music box, all Nosferatu hunched, cranking
out delicate Hellraiser trickles… Random noises a plenty as all four
squabbled over their contacted junk like a bunch of kids...

Bacteria multiplied on screen as an arse-clenching rumble of a drone
made it’s headway… potholed in snapping mouse traps, S&M whims and a
sinister flux of electro statics…...On screen, squid-like creatures
floated around Manhattan to the ghost-written operatics… The scene
quickly changing to visions of some Lynchian travel lodge populated by
shadow shifting creatures... Corrosive drones crackled with flashes of
amped tinfoil... the half-light revealed the fleeing shapes of
scattering monkeys, their muddy primate faces looking genuinely
perturbed. … The sound, a tight knit claustrophobia, squeezing out
every ounce of tension then detonating in bursts of gorgeous
brutality. A few comical switchblades broke out as the BPM index flew
off the handle in funfair-esque detours... contradicting the images on
screen that definitely seemed to take a back seat as the team finally
disembarked into a deformed drum n bass hoedown. Here's hoping
somebody pressed the record button. The best NWW show yet!

Lost Decade - Dead Gum

2011-05-14T21:50:00.008+01:00

Here’s another full length gem from Pan’s (Reverse Mouth) solo outfit Dead Gum, which see’s him neglecting those trademark feedback scars in favour of more introspective fruit…

Renegade is a gripping opener…Glorious burnt-out guitar full of hornety intent… a lashed wreck of a universe entangled in sparking flint… a wounded angst, corkscrewing nicely into psychic loop locked frustrations…

The scrying mirror drone of Nostalgia Syndrome is creeping all over me… a rubberised aerosol, bending around the gravel rub of concrete… dual phasing, recurring in diminished returns and dry stoned metallic breathes … vocals reciting Autogedden... like a crumbling hymn whilst carnivorous insects shift the shadows.

The Sister Took Over… has a beautiful sense of resignation
in that Cohen through a tracing paper comb vox and numb stump of chordage accompaniment…whereas Spans Two Levels is a low-end and valved dance of data…a soiled fry of constrained pattern and vocal murmer…a granular collection of slowly destroyed shapes.

Those bendy shapes of Sober States veering off in differing directions reminds me of the modulated pancake flipping of Coil cira LSD… mattress strung jewelleries spurring off on their wiry ways… a track full of cute glitter ball verbs and oily consistencies, the contents balanced precariously, on the verge of toppling...

The disc ends on the total ‘come down’ of Electric Hangover, an anaesthetized hissy vacuum, a distant machine purr…
fringed plankton-like flecks of electricity over hollow gong and muted thunders…the whine of automated recovery never too far away... tasty industrial audios play off each other… revealing a barely perceivable vox trapped in flypaper glue…

Lost Decade really glows with an understated beauty, intoxicated with the souring flavours of disappointment. Long let it illuminate your head....

Burning Fingers

2011-05-08T21:46:00.003+01:00

opto-electronic and opto-mechanical - is that Damien Hirst in the background?

The Tree That Bears The Equine Fruit

2011-05-05T21:39:00.012+01:00

The Tree That Bears The Equine Fruit by ANTA

Nouveau-prog-space, it's riddled with plenty of tasty hooks... their even touring at the moment... luckily i got to see them last year, as i can't make it to Bristol tonight... oooh man, looks like i'm missing out on Urethra Franklin too

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma and Barn Owl

2011-04-29T23:04:00.022+01:00

27th April 2011 - Cube Cinema

Jefre Cantu Ledesma, of Tarentel fame lingered in morhphic clouds of sound, puckering them in nodding spasms and guitar crackle. Ugly feedbacks growing out of this, sucked back into tidy hooks of syncopated ambience, gelatinous drones and pulsing filigrees of harmony...

'Little girl lost' vocals from Lisa McGee (vestals, Higuma) flowing through the spider veined statics, all phantomised and enticing. Vocals that sounded like distant wood pigeons trapped behind tracing paper or at other times, like a swallowed shadow in a metallic zest... Really liked the dusky Durutti Column guitar fragments breathing out their lightness and the way they would later curdle in agitation and blistered envelopes... those rolling swells of water were lush too, sandpapered my mind in imagined surf and then that deeply immersive finale, like some electrical christ causing closed eyes and curling toes... slowly fading away on hushed vapour... very stylish machine locked wares indeed, really regretted not picking up that solo LP of his...

San Francisco's Evan and Jon continued the lush vibes, their umbilical circuitries and duel guitars carving it up in shamanic hues. Splitting the bass and treble between each other like ying and yang reflections, they sent cosmic swirls of loopage into a fractured majesty.

Filthy, overloaded plumes later cut into your head in piercing hum... an ugliness thrown backwards into a washy séance of slippery strings and slow bled Earth like autopsies. Sitar like fingers, contrasting nicely against the deep chord plummets, the pock marked and bleached projections behind, testament to the meditative confetti dancing the inner ear...

The architecture, like the gothic floods of Karl Junkers or the misshapen biblical treescapes of Dinsmoor unfurling... a teasing of shape and texture, I really felt a part of me was slipping away along with it all, disentangled from the tyranny of gravity - totally captivating. 45mins without a single let up in intensity... leading to a 15min encore that was just as satisfying (if not more so) as Jefre Cantu Ledesma's vibrating ballerinas added a melodic counter to the duo's snaking intentions...

Forgotten Classics #3 - Los Microwaves - Life After Breakfast

2011-04-18T21:48:00.004+01:00

Mornings often leave me feeling like i should be asking this question more

The Doomed Bird Of Providence - Will Ever Pray

2011-04-16T18:06:00.012+01:00

This flows with a sadness akin to Matt Elliot’s drinking songs, those upright piano bones throwing woe through a salty squeezebox exhaustion… A certain Cave-esque atmosphere in the spoken embers, that rugged gnaw of a vox giving me proposition type connections, vivid tints of 19th century hardships… The first track's spidery chords setting the scene... bowing out on a lush violin screech, like the sting of hemp burnt palms … those tightening notches reminiscent of noose holds…

Lighter melodies counter the prevailing dirgy vibe, an addition / subtraction that goes on throughout as the narrator relates his grisly tales… When track three’s percussion sounds akin to a detached appendage lazily slapping a lifeboat’s side, it’s tied up by a sparkling meander of guitar... a flourish that rises above the solemnity … Later, a quickening harpsichord swallows the bodhran skin and funeral piano to the same effect, in fragments of moonlit madrigal. A Gilmore-esque electric guitar strengthening the refrain momentarily… until that squeeze box exhale reclaims it’s grip and hope flows through your fingers like sand…

'Slowly detaching limbs from bodies…' goes the narrator, later adding
'ammonia and vinegar to suffocate the rot’ the gaseous key changes strengthening impressions…

The second half focuses its attention on a nautical massacre… real or imagined spread over five parts... though the body count doesn't stack up to Stagger Lee or O'Malleys Bar proportions the atmosphere is lovingly sordid with instrumentation authentically lamp lit.

A catastrophic fog of a violin/squeezebox drone starts part one... gathering its wares to a deliberately pensive horizon… Pleasant melodies flow over this deep underbelly... teasing you away with a double bass sucking at the tension, letting it flow in regulated chunks… fading nicely to muted wave breaks.

Further on, a Parisian accordion and sea-shanty shin slap introduces the
murderous deed with Pogue-esque glee…...with the next track documenting the throat slashing with an appropriately hollow sounding sinew of guitar, clipping the sanguine motifs swimming over it... as the Captain's sticky entrails are spread over the decking.

Later a two finger piano drips casually through rigging, as sweeter melodies spur off that accordion and bass combination… float around like drowned girls hair… bounding out on musical box spans… a beautiful lament that bleeds into a popular nautical motif that ends the album… this seems a bit throw away until reverb sends it into the past tense and a crashed wave kills it stone dead.

Bi-o-graph

2011-04-06T20:24:00.007+01:00

While on the subject, had my head in this since Saturday... it's an oldie... picked up for a steal at the local book shop... been a devoted fan since listening to From Her to Eternity and luckily this biography finishes off just before my listening relationship with Saint Nick soured... Usually books take me an age to get through... on account of my dyslexic head, but I'm whizzing through this with only two chapters to go... A bit journo scrapbook in places, with Cave's words only coming across through the medium of press cuttings, but plenty of supportive material from the rest involved - gives a pretty vivid picture... The mayhem of the Birthday Party years is particularly superb... lots of dot joining and insight, leading to welcome dips back into the recordings...

The Other Nick Cave...

2011-04-06T20:09:00.005+01:00

More soundsuits here and a brief explanation from the artist himself below

disciplina antropológica

2011-03-30T23:00:00.000+01:00

Kassette Kulture 33# - Nox Factio - Live Series Vol 5 (C20)

2011-03-17T20:10:00.013Z

Nox Factio are Andrés Ramirez & Elise Vandewalle, a duo who seem to favour the conceptual and mysterious by the looks of their sleek homesite, but this live document definitely plumbs more visceral pleasures.

A broody drone bone synth starts proceedings, the hue a weighty new wave cauterised in ribbony splashes. The odd scorching cleaver stopping everything from getting too generic as they chaffe against the souped up brew…

So far, it’s ticking my boxes completely… but when the sound’s fisted in some wildly distorted yelling, it’s taken to a whole new level. The vox is superb - bleeding a true Niagara. The cat looks on, more than a bit disturbed as I revel in the industrial bleakness of it all...

A satisfaction quickly hijacked by a corroded techno... the beats like Nizer Ebb, but way more steroid and edgy. The chasms, spanned by more demonic throat action... this is premium stuff, a real booted rave-a-thon that descends into some lovely Kristallnacht crunch. The vibe getting all rhythmic, bringing on Test Dept comparisons... which is never a bad thing…only for the intensity to die out on a ration of delayed vox vapour and rumbling deformity...

But this tape isn't bowing out just yet as dry beats kick on through the expected fade out, trashing around in muddy puddles... followed by whip kissed tinfoil and plenty more vocal thuggery... In a word, excellent!

Souvenir Silky

2011-03-13T22:42:00.001Z

Twisty dials and soft mouthed limpets, the glare of horizon whites in the gently slipping pain of hospital light... Parisian rainbow wares from el-g

Becketts Lust

2011-03-08T22:54:00.009Z

...lots of shiny indie with some noisier inclinations on this 99 pence bargain dug up from the murky depths of Southampton last weekend, the cover shot being aptly pubic... here's a cool vid of the band floating around in the surf circa early 90's with a song that closes the album...

Wishy Wishy Flower - Beren and Joey Chainsaw

2011-03-07T23:08:00.007Z

Apocalyptic dead fall drums, cinder fringed...an empty canteen fatigue in atomised guitar … a caustic wave cuts through this ambience, wreckage shivers beneath it's delicious acrimony... splitting hairs in oily colours as nailed tin bangs out a garbage coda on the shore…

The metal hits... it’s clanking gives me the This Heat twitches… but this is way more phosphorescent, chaotic... to be later choked in treble and rendered thoroughly alien… Stuttering phaser accompaniment, like bacterial cities laid waste on fizzing dentures…

This oversaturated spillage is miles removed from the hooded comedies of Sunn 0))) or any other hammer horror dirge, as the notion of something uninvited creeps out of the multilayered ampage... The spindle legged insect eye and acrylic smears of the artwork, just adding to the experience.

Southampton Kulls

2011-03-06T22:45:00.004Z

Infinite Light

2011-03-02T22:41:00.005Z

wow... massive thanks to Ross Parfitt for getting this on video, that Infinite Light bloke was simply amazing at the Singing Knives all dayer last year. Incidentally when not maiming guitars, he runs a small tape operation up north called lotus birth that's well worth checking out... releasing many a ultra limited and lusciously packaged gem...

Talk Out Loud - Blanche BLANCHE Blanche

2011-02-27T20:12:00.003Z

oh yeah... this be the goood shit

Alt Vault

2011-02-24T12:40:00.004Z

Should be an excellent night...

Night Terrors 1

2011-02-23T20:30:00.014Z

Some lovely words on the subject of our first ever Non Ferric gig...

Labasheeda and Thought forms

2011-02-18T22:25:00.024Z

Thurs 18th Feb - The Victoria, Swindon

Small patterns drawn in the dirt... frostings of flute... a whirling of Eastern flavours in dry ice blue... guitar thrown spirals, peppered in light drum fall... Phantoms growing, growling then hitching up all doom ridden n heavy, the riffs crawling round like talons coaxing prey...

...shifting swifty to lighter melodies, and painted tomorrows. Dictaphone on the pick-ups, like half erased memories, both guitars building in intensity then relishing the violent release. Guy's pneumatic hammers carving up a stampede of a finale ... leaving him hunched over his kit, completely knackered as Charlie n Deej conjured the embers of the night into a spinning collapse...

You can draw comparisons from everywhere to describe the magic these three create, that mix of joyful fury and intoxicating grace rides out on so many influences, but that Thought Forms chemistry remains utterly unique...

The Dutch Labasheeda were headlining, Joe was loving that souped up Bettie Serveert parallel... for me, it took a few songs in to completely dig the vibe, but by the time the violin was cutting the action into tasty echoes I was really hooked... crouched in the corner scribbling along... my biro dancing to that aggressive riffery they continued to ply. A welcome change from the cover version norm of this town

Cameron's Britain

2011-02-18T12:54:00.003Z

Just-in-bee-bar and other toys

2011-02-13T22:51:00.002Z

In search of Hawkwind

2011-02-10T12:28:00.003Z

This is horRIFFically wholesome...

Vertical Slum , Thought Forms and Mugstar

2011-02-08T21:49:00.016Z

4th Feb - Louisiana, Bristol

Vertical Slum were like a psyched Oasis, bass and drums sucking at the air... half burying the lead's ballsy delivery... the threesome threw out loads of energy... hints of 60's excess in the sway...

Thought forms followed, screaming out an epic vibe, a clash of gnarly guitars beneath turbulent skies… drums insanely churning it up and throwing it straight through your skull in majestic spans... Purring abstractions shimmering between tracks like sly eyed serpents beckoning you in with a gauzed cross haze, the riffs around it building on scorched hues … Taut chimes origami(ed) outward ... growing intense, then exploding...

Mugstar did a great job in following them. A super saturated assault on the senses with a visual back wash of swirling b/w fragments and TV statics, incredible stuff akin to Oneida's insistent ruttings. Plying an infectious kraut vibe, but with the breathing spaces removed... machine gun drums peppering your body whilst you struggled for an endlessly retracting horizon... vocal yells sucked in... guitars dicing them up into mirrored wounds... spacey effects aerosoling the serrated innards. Those secondary and tertiary layers bending out of shape in the sunburnt growl, the eyes of Jesus fading inside out behind them... I'll definitely be checking these boys out again...

Hiroshima Bird Market - Bridge Bypass All CDr

2011-01-30T22:13:00.003Z

Gone are the buzzing furies and baking hot cauldrons of the previous release, replaced on this three tracker by a cleaned up, focused, slow bled virgin of a sound that’s molested and shadow fed.

Myasnoye begins as a dirgey violin tune-up, flecks of key synthetics anaconda through…the sounds are unstable, as if staggering in an intoxicated haze… a bubbling condensation of valves… scraping basifications, coruscating into guitar sparkle, stabs and tempered throat drones...Suddenly, the track finds a pulse, sets up tenancy… the guitar hitching a ride… a lovely recurring chord structure flashing its flanks within that mouth organ haunt and sporadic violin scurry. Germanic narration grabbing a foothold, loose cymbal/drum chattering within the sentences… chords supplying extra percussive plunges, bent chimes…

Everything gathers up to quite a dreamscape, then cuts back into trk two’s pastoral glazery…More narration spreads out over the strum, with secondary shouts from low in the mix punching through.. gets quite angsty, frustrated with the dull clip of apathy... ending far too quickly on the oasis of ‘…sometimes I feel like crying’.

The last track, Bridge bypass all is an infinitely darker beast, a reprise of the first track, but more consecrated…the amps UFO saucering, climbing a bass incline…. violin scraping… drums falling through the gaps in pitted refrain…. curls of horse hair fed to the feedback shadows… finger spans travelling a Kafkaesque gloom…

One of the best defunct french bands ever

2011-01-25T23:30:00.001Z

Flaming Dragons of Middle Earth - The Seed of Contempt

2011-01-25T21:47:00.013Z

'I’m in a wheelchair, I have muscular dystrophy... and I'm a lead singer, singing apocalyptic improvisation lyrics' barks Danny Cruz the self professed leader behind the Flaming Dragons of Middle Earth... He comes across like Tiny Tim’s aggressive twin, while his collection of non musicians throw out some suitably off key harmonics around him, like an audio equivalent to the wicked crayoned artwork that houses this baby.

This freeform rabble is not to everybody's taste… his 'off the cuff', 'in your face' jabbering takes some getting used to... sounding not unlike Zed from Police Academy... And it's not until the first side hits the 13 minute mark that the albums' outsider promise really begins to shine in the form of a lovingly realised freak-folk ballad I think is called Shadow of the night ... A low-key Comus thumble of Beefheartean hints carried on a ram shackled melody almost picked bare and gently swept up by wisps of trumpet... a dog barks along, the phone goes off... all seamlessly absorbed into the flickering splendour... 'hate myself today...' whines Danny...blood in my eyeballs...' 'heart half arachnal...'

From here on, the record never looks back, further pushed home by Evil knows your name... a banjo and spoons peel with an orphaned synth line weaving greasy smears...

The second side relives the experience, with a piano nailing that overbearing vox... Later on, they totally slaughter Lennon’s Power to the People to great effect... ends up a million times better than the original... builds up a lunatic energy from the jarring guitars and misaligned drum flurries … repetition giving way to an insane shrillness that would no doubt leave Simon Cowell in a coma of disbelief.

There should be more of this in music, doing it for the sheer hell of it... messing with the salesmen and connoisseurs tiny worldview, unafraid of that crippling notion of uncool ... un-tutored, gutsy, it must be said there's a whole heap of musical wrongness on this slab of vinyl but enough oblique beauty to make it a worthwhile investment...

Swallow This Turd

2011-01-25T21:14:00.004Z

Quite enjoying this free 33trk collection of oblique new rave/cute indie/guitar molestering whatevers from the tic-tac-totally vaults, just submit yr email address and it's all yours

Chi-knees birthday cake

2011-01-24T22:00:00.003Z

bless them stinky toys...

Kunstformen der Natur

2011-01-20T18:52:00.012Z

loose yourself in the detail... part of the artforms of nature series...

Guilty (not so) secret

2011-01-19T21:09:00.008Z

For all its faults (and there are plenty), DIJ's new offering Peaceful Snow is fast becoming my guilty (not so) secret of twenty eleven. The simple balladry is sticking in my head more and more, the piano adding a refreshing depth from that camp-fire acoustic Mr. P has been strumming since 'symbols shatter '. Wasn't expecting the past, but somehow this has snuck in there and taken me hostage... There's an online assassination over at sputnik music, a lot of which I completely agree with, by rights i should hate this... but ironically it's outplayed the latest Nurse with Wound collaboration hands down...

A Horseback Ride To The Temple Of Montu and much more

2011-01-18T22:15:00.013Z

Reviewed this sun dappled cassette last year... now after disappearing into the ether it's been resurrected over at the FMA along with plenty of other tasty Tanzprocesz morsels...

Squeeze me Macaroni, Ultrakill, Timothy Weary

2011-01-13T12:36:00.006Z

9th January - The Croft, Bristol

Oh man, Fairhorns was a total no show and I think Ten pulled out, but the disappointment was totally quashed by Serena’s set…

She was definitely worth the trip, as the stormy weathers and toy xylophonics of last year’s Cube show were ditched in favour of bespoke beat backdrops and more of that captivating riffage. Smashing the mic into the stand… she cut the resulting loops up with hand claps and eerie guitar scrapings, adding a liberal amount of delay along the way… A real mesmeric performance as the architecture built up …emotive guitar lines thrown over depth charged cauldrons, adding low-end fret meanders and then garnishing them further in some blinding top end romanticism …… Nothing outstayed its welcome, the density, after short bursts of intensity, mostly guillotined to solitary stirrings … navigating moody Labradford territories shot through with glittery cycles of light and a haunting vox that simply strung your mind … If you ever get the opportunity to see Squeeze me Macaroni go for it… the ease with which she does her thing is breath taking.

Somebody on solo snare was up next (think this was Ultrakill, but could be completely wrong)…he launched straight into a Corsano drilling of the drum skin… A blur of stabby jazz angles and torqued tippings, sticks, a snapping of teeny alligators …between his two short tracks he shrugged his shoulders and related that Matt invited him along then didn’t turn up…and all he had was a snare and cymbal… Surmounting the obvious limitations, he jabbed out a quick fire Queen request…then another short improv burst before calling it a day… sneaking off the stage looking a bit embarrassed.

Last up was some tasty finger picked country vibes from Timothy Weary, but I could feel myself fading…the grim remnants of flu clinging on still… so decided to call it a day after only three songs.

Blue Sabbath Black Fiji - Mistake of a Small Bird Cdr

2011-01-06T00:16:00.005Z

No ugly autopsy of harshness here, but super bright squidzella psyched foldings... choking on fast food concoctions and slippery textiles... deft hands keeping each track just tuneful enough to scream sheer genius without cramping any of that day-glo pzazz spurting through yr ears at an unquenchable rate... The whole album mainlining a pure N-ER-G that's incredibly infectious... particularly partial to the rampaging monster cut-outs that the sexy Screamin Janin B charges your mind with, but there's plenty of other tasty directions wrapped up in these eight tracks... this definitely feels like the future with a fucking massive smile on its face...

Now available in sumptuous vinyl for twenty eleven

Tasseomancy #2

2010-12-15T21:07:00.001Z

Roman Birdhouse 3" mini cdr - Dsic

2010-12-15T21:00:00.003Z

First thing that strikes you is the overtly tactile nature of this latest dsic release, there’s something of an apparitional whiff of Sindre Bjerga about it as processing boundaries smudge into more ‘hands on’ realities…

Machine frictions and industrial indigestions start the disc… a ping ponging of mechanized rhythms, counter pointed by a rattle of skeleton chop sticks … later drowned out in bassy bulks and slow bled manipulations…

Track three shifts the focus in an unravelling of brittle shapes… sweeps of fractured china dripping in the condensation of masked breath… the grain, overtly visual, like an asthmatic after party clean up… a bag dragging enema of broken crockery, turpentine hex and eerie taps…

Track four is more processor locked, grabbing your ear in a painful squeeze from the offset , dancing out on a multi textural circuit squeak, squirting out Barbarella bubbles and lush explosive colours …effect envelopes within envelopes … a transforming Russian dolly of transistorised mangleaze … I could happily listen to a whole album of this, a true highpoint …

The album closer is a droney one, with a loose string resonance… drylined acerbic, growing out in threatening spurts and slowly wrung psychodramas, those mirror written déjà vu’s upping sinister tensions…

Mantrasphere (12 track cd)

2010-12-14T20:22:00.000Z

Hello Eaters of The Rottenmeats!

An advance copy of a self-published debut album has found its way into Mr Bucca’s hand, and I have to say I’ve been mightily impressed with it. Readers and regulars of Rottenmeats will have to suspend their normal musical extremes to hear this one out, but bear with me. (You’ll note as well a serious tone to my keyboard meanderings today – I’ve spent a very pleasant hour zoning out to the following…)

Produced by Barry Andrews of Shriekback and XTC fame, the album ‘Mantrasphere’ by Hugh Carroll contains 12 tracks of sublime head music: acoustic guitar entangled with chants and mantras in a completely beguiling and entrancing way.

I had a chat with Hugh the other day regarding the development of the album. It found its genesis when he suffered a serious fall whilst working as a circus performer in 1991. This experience lead Hugh through a long (and ongoing) process of recovery, the traces of which resonate through the music. During that process, he has developed a deep love of Buddhism which enabled him to cope with both the trauma and the illness which followed. (Rottenmeats lovers of drone and musical repetition take note – the roots of much of what you enjoy find a resonance in some of the practices of Eastern culture - and you might find the cross-over extremely interesting.)

So, with Mantrasphere you have a genre (and prejudice) defying collision – this isn’t anodine 'relaxation' music but a passionate search for the universal and transcendent in the midst of the personal and tragic, an artists manifestation of an inner journey. I’ve been blown away by it – not only is it very moving in its own right, but it forced me to take a longer look at my own musical preconceptions and restrictions.

Please have a look at Hugh’s website for some clips and sample tracks here. The album will be fully released in the next few weeks – and I’m hoping will be followed up with some dates (I’m suggesting he contacts The Croft, as the intimate venue of the front room would be ideal).

Sam Bucca

Thought Forms Picture Disc

2010-12-14T17:11:00.010Z

...Translating this from teeny weeny cd was a lot of work, but well worth it... really chuffed with the results... Didn't realise it was going to be so limited, but that makes it even more desirable... You can grab a copy over at Invada or Cargo...

New Goo

2010-12-11T17:37:00.003Z

some new sketchbook work... this was inspired by Levitating Discs

Dusted

2010-12-10T23:21:00.002Z

...the fairytale is now drain water