Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Just as he did on Reminisce Bar & Grill, on The World at Night Walter Martin blurs the borders between his “juvenile” albums and the ones aimed at adults in winning ways. In Martin’s world, clever wordplay and irrepressible melodies shouldn’t be relegated to children’s music or the pop of the past, although the striking opening track of his fifth solo album borrows from both. “October” draws back the curtain on The World at Night by tapping into the eternal thrill of the spooky season. Over elegant strings, woodwinds, and brass that call to mind mid-20th century vocal pop (and a twinkling piano that harks back to the Walkmen), Martin delivers offhandedly brilliant lyrics like “The trees have gone bald/Guess the world is getting older” that uphold his reputation as a master of whimsy.
Like his other solo work, “October” is a delight, but it and the rest of The World at Night are a little darker and deeper than his earlier releases, and understandably so: The album is dedicated to Stewart Lupton, his close friend and Jonathan Fire*Eater bandmate who died in 2018. Martin honors him with songs that are brimming with the joie de vivre of youth and shadowed by the reality of mortality that comes with age.
On “To the Moon,” Martin floats through the stars accompanied by an organ last heard on a silent movie soundtrack; on “Little Summer Fly,” he celebrates small joys like the spots on a woodpecker’s wings. As sweet as The World at Night can be, it’s never sugarcoated. A lighter-than-air flute solo punctuates “Hey Joe”‘s friendly conversation with a blackbird about existential angst, underscoring the feeling that Martin’s music is so easygoing precisely because life can be so hard. He also takes the opportunity to branch out on The World at Night, drawing on his prior band’s barreling, brazen rock for “First Thing I Remember” and adding a filmic scope to two of its standout tracks. On “The World at Night (for Stew),” he drapes its vision of nighttime as a sweet, secret realm in drifting orchestral beauty that’s intimate and all-encompassing. That feeling then extends to “The Soldier,” a seven-minute ramble that covers the well-lived life of Martin’s grandfather-in-law from his point of view, summing it up with “My young heart was overcome with both joy and sadness.” It’s a mood that describes The World at Night perfectly — the album radiates so much care, empathy, and genuine emotion, listeners can’t help but be touched by it.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.When MySpace lost 12 years’ worth of audio files during a server migration last year, many grieved the loss of what had been a formative source of music discovery. Sure, the site has been a shell of its former self for years now, but the phrase “MySpace music” still feels inextricable from a certain irreverent, malleable sound. Los Angeles’ glass beach breathes life into those audacious bygone trends. Their idiosyncratic debut, the first glass beach album, is a whirlwind of post-emo maximalism, fusing mid-aughts pop-punk with synthy, sugarcoated chiptune. Combined with a mid-century jazz flourish and a few ambient interludes, it makes for one of the more bizarrely inventive recent rock albums.
Glass beach came together sometime around…
…2015 under singer and multi-instrumentalist J. McClendon, then working under their solo alias Casio Dad. Future bandmates William White and Jonas Newhouse were DJs together at a college radio station in Minnesota, where they occasionally played Casio Dad tracks. A real-life friendship was born, and the trio began making music together in LA. Though glass beach’s unique confluence of influences appears tailored to a niche audience, they’ve found loyal devotees and a measure of underground buzz. Supporters championed the band with such earnestness that Run for Cover has reissued the first glass beach album on vinyl just eight months after its initial Bandcamp release.
Glass beach separates lengthy bursts of electro-punk (“bedroom community,” “yoshi’s island,” “dallas”) with shorter, palette-cleansing instrumentals. “I’ve always just been more into the idea of listening to a whole album all the way through,” McClendon has explained, a philosophy that keeps the sequence feeling orderly even amid its most frantic exaggerations. One such moment is the opening track, “classic j dies and goes to hell part 1,” a jazzy opus best described as TheBlack Parade off-Broadway. It’s the most overblown track here, but if you can bear it, more polished moments throughout the rest of the record are their own reward.
While glass beach most immediately call to mind recent cyber-pop phenomenons like 100 gecs, they cite the influence of the Brave Little Abacus, an obscure, short-lived emo group from New England with a similar affinity for experimental electronic elements not often heard in rock music. “bedroom community” fits a traditional piano solo between passages that evoke classic video game soundtracks, while the first portion of “dallas” taps into minimal Midwest emo before breakneck synths take over. There’s as much pop-punk and math rock here as there are cartoonish embellishments. But despite the laundry list of resemblances—American Football’s odd time signatures, the Octopus Project’s theremin hooks—nothing on glass beach sounds copied and pasted.
The band falls short when their subject matter starts to rely on hackneyed mid-aughts emo tropes: “I’m always making a list of all the people I’d help if I wasn’t helpless myself,” McClendon croons on “bone skull.” “cold weather” has little to add to its description of a relationship conducted over text: “I love the way you make me feel/When I’m staring at my screen/At 4 a.m., trying not to fall asleep/And you hit me up just to see if I’m OK.” But even when glass beach’s lyrics feel slight, they deliver them with conviction—a confidence that comes from committing to artistic decisions hardly anyone else would make. They’ve learned that genuine connection sometimes means forgetting about trying to appeal to the masses.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Combined reissue of TG’s long out of print “come-back” album plus their sought-after ‘TG Now’ 12”, previously only available at their 2004 RE:TG show at London’s Astoria.
…this boxset coughs up a strong reminder of Throbbing Gristle’s sorely missed energies, back when they were still a four-piece, before the death of Peter Christopherson (1955-2010) and the acrimonious departure of Genesis P-Orridge. While Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter would continue as X-TG in 2010, these recordings are some of Throbbing Gristle’s last group efforts.
…In chronological order, 2004’s ‘TG Now’ was recorded and released by the band’s legendary Industrial Records to coicide with the RE:TG show at London’s Astoria. The vinyl was sold…
…exclusively at the show and has traded for way of rt. original price ever since, making this fresh pressing of aces such as the sputtering rock ’n drone of ‘How Do You Deal’ and the slithering groover ‘Splitting Sky’ newly available on wax to a whole new wave of freaks. Likewise, ‘Part Two – The Endless Knot’ has been long out-of-print on vinyl, but this one is more an album “proper”, with duties divided between group efforts and four individual tracks by Carter, Tutti, P-Orridge (and Bryin Dall) and Christopherson, who mark distance travelled since the likes of ‘D.o.A’ with a compelling concentration and expansion of what made their sound so vital in the first place. — boomkat
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Having collaborated with artists as diverse as Alameda Organisation’s Kuba Ziołek (Zimpel/ Ziołek), producer Forest Swords and poet Belinda Zhawi, electronic artist James Holden, slo-mo psych rockers ARRM, as well as his own Polish-Indian project Saagara – and that’s before considering his forthcoming release with Sam Shackleton – it can become a little too easy to forget that Polish composer and musician Wacław Zimpel is very much an artist in his own right. Indeed, the four years since the release of his last solo album, Lines, has seen Wacław Zimpel add his touches and flourishes to any number of musical collaborations, but it’s now, with Massive Oscillations, that he truly steps into the limelight.
His second solo album, Massive Oscillations is…
….an undisputed career highlight that finds Zimpel scaling new heights. While his debut picked up the baton from minimalist influences and composers such as Terry Riley and La Monte Young, here he goes for full maximalism and the results are staggering.
This isn’t a shy album and he’s certainly not backwards about coming forwards. The opening drones of the title track usher in a collection of muscular electronic music that isn’t so much listened to as experienced. An immersive journey into sound, beats, pulses and freakouts, ‘Massive Oscillations’ more than lives up to its name. A distant descendant of Jimmy Page’s Lucifer Rising and the keyboard work of John Paul Jones on Led Zeppelin’s ‘In The Light’, its hypnotic charms seduce and beguile in equal measure.
As displayed by the sixteen-minute epic, ‘Random Odds’, Zimpel’s real skill is incrementally ramping the music up in such a measured and subtle manner that it’s difficult to pinpoint the moment that true mental elevation occurs. Those opening beats are understated, yet they gently increase in intensity as they merge with seemingly random keyboard patterns. Of course, they’re anything but, for this is ordered chaos that leaves nothing to chance.
James Holden’s sympathetic and skillful mixing is another factor at play here. There are moments when lamenting the seeming absence of Zimpel’s clarinet are replaced by the realisation that it’s actually in the mix, adding urgency and power in a way that blends rather than overwhelms.
The creation of an ever restless and fecund talent, Massive Oscillations is a beautifully bold and powerful album that should bring Wacław Zimpel to the attention of a wider and deserved audience.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Following touring in support of a 2015 debut album that blended the hazy textures of dream pop with a buoyant, anthemic pop, Philadelphia’s Cheerleader went on an indefinite hiatus. Founding member Chris Duran parted ways with the group, and though bandleader Joe Haller began writing songs again in time, he did so for himself without any intention of them serving Cheerleader. However, he eventually did present some of the darker, more reflective material to bandmates, who ultimately embraced the not-so-subtle tonal shift.
Recorded with producer Chris Coady (Beach House, Foals), the resulting Almost Forever is a spaced-out, psychedelic outing that still puts a premium on glistening atmospheres but moves them into a more introspective setting.
Beginning with a crash and a wistful verse involving pretending, altered states, and dreams, “Flight Tonight” sets the stage with a Lennon-esque melancholia and trippy soundscape built from ringing guitars, vintage synth and organ timbres, and fluttery effects. Its restrained melody and floaty feel are soon contrasted by the livelier “Domestica,” which continues to reside in fluid, echoing atmospheres. Elsewhere, “Non-Stop Flight” ventures into bass-driven post-punk, “Chimera” buries vocals in effects amidst a swirl of Cure-like synth rhapsody, and “Things We Regret” approaches a more-refined ’80s pop, if one that maintains reflective surfaces. Sharing some of the opener’s ghostly noise effects, closer “All That’s Left” bookends the album with another spacy narrative concerned with dreaming and regret, though it seems to drop off listeners at a station somewhere in space, far removed from the opener’s airport. Along the way, catchy entries like “Everyone’s Wearing Skin” and “Providence” provide lasting mementos from the journey.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. After changing their name from Pinecones to the even-greener Arbor Labor Union, this Georgia four-piece debuted on Sub Pop with I Hear You, a peculiar mix of stoner rock, post-punk, and psychedelia with a just a touch of twang.
The album introduced the group’s core guitar duo of singer Bo Orr and fellow axeman Brian Adams who, when not chugging mightily at a middling pace, were prone to writing spry and intriguing circular riffs that spun neatly throughout the songs. It’s the latter of those two tendencies that comes to the foreground on New Petal Instants, the band’s eccentric 2020 follow-up. Led by the exuberant sylvan guitar pop standout “Flowerhead,” ALU presents a strange world of errant jangle and post-punk complexity served up with…
…a vaguely Southern-fried hippie mindset. They’ve almost completely done away with the heavier stoner rock elements of their previous release in favor of an inventive twin guitar attack that makes them feel like the Soft Boys of the South.
With Orr’s friendly tenor caterwauling atop a wild double-fingerpicked frenzy, “Big Face in the Sky” is another track highlighting the band’s erratic, woolly charm. Occasional fiddles and banjos pop out amid distant birdsong and wah-wah guitar squalls with rickety harmonies and shouted gang vocals reaching skyward. Countering the loose folksy appeal is the album’s production, which is rather jagged with the guitar tones bordering on overly harsh. As unique as some of the central riffs are, many of them tend to be repeated over and over, giving the impression that their initial creation was enough and no secondary motif was needed. As a result, songs that sometime wow at the top lose their luster by the end. Still, New Petal Instants is a major improvement on its predecessor, with ALU landing on a distinctive and original new sound.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Oh Wonder had listeners hooked from the get go. Way back in 2014, before the release of their self-titled debut album, Josephine Vander Gucht and Anthony West were crafting and producing music in their tiny London flat where they ambitiously released a track a month for a year.
It definitely paid off – now with a world tour firmly under their belt, a music studio built in their London garden, and a dog adopted, they are three albums deep into an impressive career.
With No One Else Can Wear Your Crown, Oh Wonder delivers everything that the fan base has been crying out for – including a (maybe not so) shocking confirmation that they have in fact been a real-life power couple since before Oh Wonder first burst onto the scene. It would be easy…
…to brush aside the relevance of their romantic relationship if it didn’t linger so heavily on ballads like “In and Out of Love” and “Nebraska” where their renewed frankness teeters uncomfortably on the edge of sickeningly sweet, but they manage to stay on the side of ‘relatable’ instead.
It’s vital to acknowledge the positivity that Oh Wonder seeks to encourage through their music, tracks “Hallelujah” and the album opener “Dust” aim to empower the listener. Whilst some lyrics are a bit on the nose, the sentiment is appealing, and the musicality of “Hallelujah” is unparalleled – cacophonies of strings precede choir-like vocals as the track rollercoasters from serene verse to symphonic chorus. It’s a perfect showcase for Oh Wonder’s music-writing abilities.
“How It Goes” is a pleasant, meandering track complete with jazz notes and saxophone riffs. With some Craig David “7 Days” inspiration, the opening lyrics walk us through the emotional lows of the week “On Mondays I wake up invisible / On Tuesdays I don’t feel quite right /In the middle of the week it seems impossible / On Thursday I just pray for night”. It’s probably one of the strongest songs on the 10-track record, and the duo should be praised for creating a piece about being okay with not feeling okay all the time “Yeah the weekend comes / and I’m alone and dreaming I was a little more brave / but I guess that’s how it goes”.
Some tracks are cleverly designed for radio success – the catchy violin motifs and complex, layered percussion on “Happy” assists for an interesting take on bittersweet subject matter. The only minor downfall on “Drunk On You” is that it doesn’t lyrically make much room for subtext. However, it remains sonically interesting with percussive and synth textures that have become signature to Oh Wonder’s sound.
“Nebraska” is the final track on the album – despite the title, the duo confessed it’s actually one of three states in the U.S. that they’ve never been to. It is a sentimental closer that stylistically bridges the first two albums. Deliciously minimalistic at the start, it teases a dramatic musical ascension but expertly ends as quietly as it started.
NOECWYC is made up of all the things that Oh Wonder do best. It is comfortable, holding fewer surprises than second album Ultralife, but that shouldn’t undermine the fact that this is still sublime pop music – from their start, Oh Wonder were putting out high quality tracks that were stylistically interesting and excellently produced. In some ways, it would be foolish of them to deviate from the formula that served them so well in the past. As a record, this is unsurprising by wholly satisfying nonetheless.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Alphaxone is Iranian Mehdi Saleh, a dark ambient composer and performer, who brings his own twists to that expanding genre. Dystopian Gate is his 11th or so solo release, though he has recorded several joint releases, singles, and EPs, and has also contributed to compilations. The album focuses on deep drones and washes, shored up by dissonant waves and walls. Underneath and around are shifting background elements, echoing percussion, and crackling static. There is a distinct lo-fi feel. The result would not fit comfortably into the outer space or primaeval ambient buckets. Instead, this is industrial / urban ambient. In it, buildings have walls that breathe, while menacing thunder reigns over dark cityscapes.
Alphaxone is just one of many unconventional…
…modern arrangers from Iran who are slowly coming to prominence outside of their home country. Compilations such as Visions of Darkness and Anthology of Persian Experimental Music are great overviews of modern Iranian experimental music, where ambient, industrial, techno, and electroacoustic stylings mix with more traditional influences. It is terrific to finally be able to hear what these artists have to say.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Kevin Parker’s project strays further from psych-pop origins, doubling down on electro-funk finesse with this kinetic, if less-than-trailblazing, follow-up to Currents.
The Perth-based artist’s career has seemingly been fixed on a turbo-charged trajectory since Innerspeaker’s breakout success back in 2010, collaborations with artists such as Mark Ronson and a cover from Rihanna resulting in a stream of mainstream hype alongside a sea-change in direction. Tame Impala’s journey from nascent open-ended pomp into radio-friendly reliability reaches effective, perhaps inevitable, completion on The Slow Rush – fragments of the act’s earlier incarnation returning at brief but increasingly scarce moments.
With recording divided between LA and Parker’s studios in Fremantle, this fourth album broadly sheds, without qualms, remnants of Tame Impala’s original neo-psych skin – supplanted with dancefloor-destined polish, the bankable and accessible embraced in totality. The writing had been on the wall for a while, Currents’ transcendence beyond the giddy instrumental-focused bombast of previous efforts was a watershed juncture – a benchmark release for the band that bore an introspective, if evermore radio-friendly blueprint. The Slow Rush takes its cues from the latter in this sense, harvesting the highlights and cutting loose its excess. Parker’s self-awareness of a decade-long stylistic and professional transformation is neatly nodded to on “Borderline”: “Quite a show for a loner in L.A. / Askin’ how I managed to end up in this place / And I couldn’t get away”. A bittersweet, double-edged glimmer hinted at on an album that is, musically at least, flowing with carefree bubblegum beats.
Elsewhere, “Breathe Deeper” basks in ’90s house piano chords, while the bass-bouncing “Lost In Yesterday” simmers with ’80s pop fizz; bursts of laser-like synths interlocking with Parker’s silky vocals. With its Wurlitzer-esque sound, “It Might Be Time” bears more than a passing resemblance to the kind of prog-pop Supertramp specialised in, while its sage-like lyrics confront the prospect of time waiting for no one, with a lingering resignation to the aging process: “You ain’t as young as you used to be / It might be time to face it”. Despite this sense of capitulation to the social pressures of growing old, The Slow Rush, in general, sports an unabashedly youthful sound, excising the less linear aspects that graced earlier efforts. Finale “One More Hour” figures as the strongest example of Parker harking to the experimental sprawl of Tame Impala’s formative years, though this is presented as a mere bookend rather than a hint to a return to this era.
The Slow Rush stands as a certifiable summer-ready soundtrack, the confessional tropes of its predecessor cemented, harnessing the escapist hues of ’80s R&B and ’70s yacht rock in a more concentrated form. And while lacking the convention-breaching identity of Currents, Tame Impala commits to a formula that will undoubtedly guarantee heavy rotation – an album sporting plenty of standouts and very little filler.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.“It’s obvious that you represent a generation that knows it’s doomed,” CTM Festival curator Michail Stangl told Borusiade after seeing her play there in 2018. She didn’t disagree. The Romanian producer makes gloomy, ’80s-inflected synth pop and techno. (However, she has said that she is much more inspired by a childhood spent in a classical-music choir in Bucharest.) The result is greyscale but romantic. Doomed, sure, but also sexy — not quite goth though almost there. Fortunate Isolation, her second album, is inspired by the idea of a bystander experiencing the changing world from afar. Alienated, incisive and affecting, the LP is a wistful commentary that sounds like a lost classic from the ’80s, only with themes updated for the modern day.
A few instrumental tracks, like “Welcome Them,” hint at her baroque past. They’re simple but pull a lot of weight—the impact of Borusiade’s music often comes from its compositional strength. Still, she’s one of the best lyricists in dance music, whether she’s throwing down poetic couplets (“Dreams are lurking like the shadows / Of the memories you forgot”) or matter-of-fact statements, like when she mutters “I’m reading the news again” with the same mixture of fatigue and fatalism any headline junkie will recognize. Her voice is all over the album, pooling into a dreary swirl on “When I Read The News Today” or a jabbing, halting cadence on “To The Self” (which resembles an angry Chris & Cosey track). Her voice is both focal point and wallpaper, as much a part of the foundation as the sputtering sequencers and world-weary pads.
“Time (No Time)” repeats the mantra, “This is our time / This is no time,” which helps define the album’s taciturn yet powerful narrative, a black-sky-thinking also present in titles like “The Death Of A Desire (A Ghost)” and “Lament (Fortunate Isolation).” That track—the album’s best—is particularly poignant. “Just a soul on a timeline / Sorting out my beliefs,” she sings in a gorgeous choral arrangement on “Lament (Fortunate Isolation),” before adding, “Nothing left to believe in.” It’s a familiar sentiment for those living in a world whose politics seem to deceive, disappoint and threaten at every turn. Fortunate Isolation, as much of a reprieve as it is a commentary, paints a picture of that world as something dark but still beautiful.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Out of all the Southern California hardcore punk bands of the early ’80s, Bad Religion stayed around the longest, although frontman Greg Graffin has remained the group’s sole constant member. For nearly four decades, they have retained their underground credibility without turning out a series of indistinguishable records that all sound the same. Instead, the band refined its attack, adding inflections of psychedelia, heavy metal, and hard rock along the way, as well as a considerable dose of melody. Between their 1982 debut, their first major-label record, 1993’s Recipe for Hate, and 2019’s politically charged Age of Unreason, Bad Religion stayed vital in the hardcore community by tightening their musical execution and keeping their lyrics complex and righteously angry.
Bad Religion formed in the northern suburbs of Los Angeles in 1980, comprising guitarist Brett Gurewitz, vocalist Greg Graffin, bassist Jay Bentley, and drummer Jay Ziskrout. Gurewitz established his own record company, Epitaph, to release the band’s records. Between their self-titled EP and their first full-length record, Pete Finestone replaced Ziskrout as the group’s drummer. How Could Hell Be Any Worse?, their debut album, was released in 1982 and gained them some attention on the national U.S. hardcore scene. After its release, the group’s lineup changed, as bassist Paul Dedona and drummer Davy Goldman joined the group. This lineup produced 1983’s Into the Unknown, an album that revealed the group’s interest in progressive rock and featured extensive keyboard work; the LP and the band’s new direction proved highly controversial among Bad Religion’s core fans.
In the meantime, the band’s lineup was undergoing some more shakeups. Gurewitz had to take 1984 off to recover from various substance abuse problems, leaving Graffin the band’s only original member. In addition to Graffin, the 1984 incarnation of the band featured former Circle Jerks guitarist Greg Hetson, bassist Tim Gallegos, and returning drummer Pete Finestone. Bad Religion’s next release, the harder, punkier Back to the Known EP, restored faith among the group’s devoted fans. After its release, the group went on hiatus for three years.
When Bad Religion returned in 1987, the band featured Gurewitz, Graffin, Bentley, Hetson, and Finestone. They released Suffer the following year, a record that reestablished the group as prominent players in the U.S. underground punk/hardcore scene. They followed with No Control (1989) and Against the Grain (1990). By the time of their 1993 album, Recipe for Hate, alternative rock had achieved greater visibility in the rock mainstream; in addition, the band’s following became one of the largest in American punk. These two factors contributed to Bad Religion signing a major-label contract with Atlantic Records.
Recipe for Hate was originally released on Epitaph, but it was soon re-released with the support of Atlantic. The group’s first proper major-label album was 1994’s Stranger Than Fiction; it was also Gurewitz’s last album with the group. Before the release of Stranger Than Fiction, Epitaph had an unexpected hit with the Offspring’s Smash, causing Gurewitz to spend more time at the label; reports also indicated that he was displeased with Bad Religion’s major-label contract. The group replaced Gurewitz with hardcore veteran Brian Baker (formerly of Minor Threat) for their supporting tour, which proved to be one of their most successful.
Bad Religion released their second major-label album, The Gray Race, in early 1996, but it didn’t achieve the same results as its predecessors. No Substance followed in 1998, and two years later the band returned with New America, which was produced by Todd Rundgren. Although it featured Bad Religion’s best work in years, Atlantic dropped the band, and they returned to Epitaph. In the summer of 2001, Gurewitz rejoined the lineup after a six-year absence, and the group began work on The Process of Belief. The album appeared in February of the following year and was widely hailed for its recalibration of the Graffin/Gurewitz axis.
Bad Religion’s next project was the remastering and issuing of their early catalog. The discs began appearing in April 2004 with the release of Generator and How Could Hell Be Any Worse? The former included relevant 7″ material from the era, while Hell took the place of 80-85, which had previously accounted for the band’s earliest output. Both were fully remastered, as were subsequent reissues of Suffer, No Control, and Against the Grain. Bad Religion then returned in June of that year with The Empire Strikes First, a typically acerbic LP that reflected the surge of anger and defiance in the punk and indie music communities toward the policies of the Bush administration.
The powerful New Maps of Hell, released in 2007, continued on the path of discontent and railed at what the band saw as rampant apathy in the face of global crisis. Coinciding with Bad Religion’s 30th anniversary in 2009, the bandmembers announced they would be going into the studio to record their 15th studio album. Titled The Dissent of Man, the album was released the following year on Epitaph. Rumors circulated that the group might be disbanding, but Graffin denied that there were any such plans, and in 2013, Bad Religion released True North, as well as a Christmas album, the aptly titled Christmas Songs. February 2016 saw the release of 30 Years Live, a vinyl-only album that featured a cross-section of songs from throughout Bad Religion’s career, recorded during their 30th anniversary tour in 2010. In June 2018, the band released their first single in five years, the searing “The Kids Are Alt-Right,” and the following year they issued a new studio album, Age of Unreason.
Suffer (1988)Digitally remastered
The first record in three years is the fastest thing they’ve ever done — even faster than 1982’s How Can Hell Be Any Worse? With the exception of “Best for You” and “What Can You Do?,” the other 13 songs are in the same super-speedy tempo, which is too bad, and at least four times on this record they’re ripping themselves off, stealing riffs from their previous work. And you know what? This is still such a terrific LP none of that matters. Perhaps since so many of the songs are so dead similar, at first it’s hard to tell them apart, but after a couple of plays that’s no longer the case. And if you do play it once, you’ll no doubt play it another 20 times, just to hear Greg Graffin sing. “You Are (The Government)” ends in one of his great held lines, “And I make a difference too.” On “When,” he hits five notes just singing this one word, and the last time he sings the word “suffer” on the title track, he holds it for eight snare hits, a great descending trill. None of this makes any sense to you, so you’ll have to buy it to understand — an unbeatable punk/hardcore singer on top of the most melodic, riff-ridden hardcore band going now. And those lyrics: “The masses are obsequious contented in their sleep/The vortex of their minds contented in the murky deep” (“1000 More Fools”), “Production and consumption define our hollow lives…When will mankind finally come to realize this surfeit has become his demise…Tell me is there anything so sure/Rapacity, tenacity, capacity for more!” (“How Much Is Enough?”). Graffin admits on “Pessimistic Lines” that he’s a full-time skeptic, but in this “sick society” (as Martin Luther King called it upon hearing of the murder of John F. Kennedy), that’s a rational position, and frankly, the lyric sheet is worth the money, much less the music and singing.
1. You Are (The Government) (1:22)
2. 1000 More Fools (1:36)
3. How Much Is Enough? (1:23)
4. When? (1:40)
5. Give You Nothing (2:02)
6. Land Of Competition (2:05)
7. Forbidden Beat (1:57)
8. Best for You (1:56)
9. Suffer (1:47)
10. Delirium of Disorder (1:39)
11. Part II (The Numbers Game) (1:41)
12. What Can You Do? (2:44)
13. Do What You Want (1:07)
14. Part IV (The Index Fossil) (2:04)
15. Pessimistic Lines (1:10)
No Control (1989)Digitally remastered
Suffer had already wound the meter on Bad Religion’s Cali hardcore even tighter — No Control simply and forcefully continued the shift, delivering a pummel of melodic songwriting made sharp by Greg Graffin’s populist cynicism and the stinging barbs of a twin-guitar strike. The remastering for the 2004 version greatly amplified the album’s volume. It might also strip away some reverb from the instrumentation, but the latter observation is mostly theoretical, as the later No Control really just sounds louder. This is welcome, as it makes the band sound that much more direct on principal cuts like “I Want to Conquer the World,” “Automatic Man,” the aggressive title track, and “Progress.”
1. Change Of Ideas (0:55)
2. Big Bang (1:42)
3. No Control (1:47)
4. Sometimes I Feel Like (1:35)
5. Automatic Man (1:41)
6. I Want to Conquer the World (2:18)
7. Sanity (2:45)
8. Henchman (1:08)
9. It Must Look Pretty Appealing (1:22)
10. You (2:07)
11. Progress (2:15)
12. I Want Something More (0:48)
13. Anxiety (2:09)
14. Billy (1:55)
15. The World Won’t Stop (1:58)
Against the Grain (1990)Digitally remastered
The third in a flurry of releases that followed Bad Religion’s 1988 reunion, Against the Grain found the band’s edge honed sharper than it had been in years. Epitaph’s 2004 remaster respects this. Increased clarity between mouthpiece Greg Graffin, guitarists Brett Gurewitz and Greg Hetson, and the rhythm section of Jay Bentley and Pete Finestone increases the inherent melodic tension and amplifies Graffin’s righteous lyrical anger. “My path renewed/Against the grain/That’s where I’ll stay” — for many, Graffin’s resolve over Grain’s martial pace was a restatement of purpose, a refueling of belief in the punk and hardcore ethos as a new decade dawned. “21st Century (Digital Boy)” was a throaty, gritty, gang-vocal anthem that name-checked No Control and bitterly dismantled middle-class complacency in the technology era. One of Graffin/Gurewitz’s pet themes, it also guided cuts like the rapid-fire opener, “Modern Man” (“I’m a cyborg just like you”), and the acerbic anti-greed rant “Quality or Quantity.” Bad Religion had always warned against the excesses of the future and the assimilation of individuality. But the gospel cut deeper with Against the Grain. Songs began in an instant, with the single crack of a snare drum signaling the beginning of another screed. The guitars came in, twining between fiery leads and urgent, sometimes hyper chording — the album seemed like a signal fire to the lost tribes of hardcore. Its best moment might be “Turn On the Light.” As a thick, trademark Bad Religion melody rips in the background, Graffin spits out lyrics that define ideology with literate pacing, even as they ignite the genre’s base emotions. “I’ll construct a rack of tempered beams and trusses and equip it with a million tiny suns,” Graffin sings. “…and I’ll burn like a Roman f*cking candle.”
01. Modern Man
02. Turn On the Light
03. Get Off
04. Blenderhead
05. The Positive Aspect of Negative Thinking
06. Anesthesia
07. Flat Earth Society
08. Faith Alone
09. Entropy
10. Against the Grain
11. Operation Rescue
12. God Song
13. 21st Century (Digital Boy)
14. Misery and Famine
15. Unacceptable
16. Quality or Quantity
17. Walk Away
Generator (1992)Digitally remastered
Generator demonstrates an improved sense of melody from Greg Graffin, which doesn’t mean Bad Religion have abandoned their blistering hardcore inclinations. Instead, the band has managed to incorporate melody within the framework, adding an increased depth to their already provocative songs.
01. Generator
02. Too Much To Ask
03. No Direction
04. Tomorrow
05. Two Babies In The Dark
06. Heaven Is Falling
07. Atomic Garden
08. The Answer
09. Fertile Crescent
10. Chimaera
11. Only Entertainment
Recipe for Hate (1993)Digitally remastered
Punk veterans Bad Religion don’t rely on bankrupt laurels, nostalgia, or a facade of long-expired cool. LP after LP, they just set vicious hooks, a blitzkrieg attack, and potent lyrics to soaring singer Greg Graffin’s piledriving passion. It’s easy to take them for granted, to view Recipe as just another red-hot LP (ho hum) by the last and best band to survive the ’80s L.A. punk explosion. And on first listen, it’s tarnished by their previous mild malaise: everything sounds alike, and some exit the boat here too quickly. But then the beautiful sonic smack starts to sink in, and the luxurious melodies introduce erudite parables. Their hometown’s riots inspired the gut responses of “Recipe for Hate” and “Don’t Pray On Me” (“everybody’s equal, just don’t measure it”), but they think too clearly to grandstand. Rather, from the epic, anti-military sneer of “All Good Soldiers” to the introspective nausea of “Struck a Nerve” and “Looking In” (“our evolution is our demise”), Bad Religion issue more warnings about our unquestioned ways than Rachel Carson or Michael Crichton could shake a stick at. Warning who? Die-hard punks remain their core audience, but with the co-optation of that carcass into mainstream nirvana, this band is ambushing the slackers. Accordingly, they ripened out of the rapid-fire detonations of 1988’s Suffer, 1989’s No Control, and 1990’s Against the Grain into 1992’s more methodical Generator. Recipe’s saner speeds and better variety should further inveigle any upstanding gormandizer of killer tunes and dive-bomb chord changes. And in any real taste test, Bad Religion is the alternative to alternative. Smug, silly, ironic ’70s retro bands feign danger and detachment, but this band’s urgency, lyrical contentiousness, and wicked crunch crush that au courant crap flat.
1. Recipe For Hate (2:03)
2. Kerosene (2:42)
3. American Jesus (3:18)
4. Portrait Of Authority (2:45)
5. Man With A Mission (3:12)
6. All Good Soldiers (3:07)
7. Watch It Die (2:35)
8. Struck A Nerve (3:48)
9. My Poor Friend Me (2:42)
10. Lookin’ In (2:04)
11. Don’t Pray On Me (2:43)
12. Modern Day Catastrophists (2:46)
13. Skyscraper (3:15)
14. Stealth (0:41)
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A couple of things in particular distinguish What’s Good for the Goose Is Good, the first instrumental album in over thirteen years from NYC-based composer Bradford Reed: the distinctive sounds produced by his self-invented pencilina and the fact that all ten of the pieces were spontaneously composed by the musicians involved. Recorded at Reed’s own studio and at Pioneer Works in Brooklyn, the release catches the eye too in adorning its covers with photographs taken by him at abandoned sites in Hachijo-jima, Japan.
As central as his pencilina, a two-necked, four- and six-stringed creation Reed plays from a sitting position using sticks and a bow, is to the project (modular synthesizer also), What’s Good for the Goose Is Good is far from a solo…
…recording, even if the vinyl set’s closing track features Reed alone. Saxophonists Daniel Carter and Nicole D’Agostino, pianist/synthesist Hoppy Kamiyama, guitarist Zach Layton, and vibraphonist Rae Howell play pivotal roles, given how much the spontaneous composition aspect hinges on the interactions between the players and their contributions. Reed’s apparently been improvising with the musicians for years, which goes a long way towards ensuring performances of substance result.
At album’s start, the percussive array generated by the pencilina lends “Waterfall of Invisible Nymphs” strong gamelan flavour that’s offset by the calming flow of D’Agostino’s tenor sax and synthesizer-generated swirl. Distant echoes of No Wave seep into the title track when fractured guitar textures appear alongside the percussive base established by Reed and vibraphonist Howell, though Layton also veers into Fripp territory later in the piece. Layton and Reed operate like twin guitarists during “Birds of Pairs of Dice,” their minimalism-inflected expressions imbuing the performance with a psychedelic edge that’s stabilized by the presence of vibraphone and sax.
As its title suggests, “Waves of Wind through Tops of Trees” nudges the music into a pastoral zone, though again Layton alters the mood by weaving a spidery, rather African-styled guitar pattern into the meditation. Adding to the relaxed mood, Carter’s saxophone murmurs softly, Reed adopting a restrained presence that allows the guitar and sax to dominate. “The Business of Leaves in Streams” reminds us not to overlook the textures Reed’s modular synthesizer brings to the material, with in this case the instrument’s percolating burble adding to a pulsating brew of sax and pencilina twang. He bows the instrument to give the concluding “Clouds Once Fathers” a somewhat mournful quality while also filling the air with a dense array of contrasting timbres, the resultant sound design emphasizing the range the instrument’s capable of producing.
Though the tracks on What’s Good for the Goose Is Good were spontaneously composed, they’re largely free of the aimless, uneventful drift that sometimes weakens a recording of extemporaneous playing. The long-standing relationship Reed’s shared with his partners does much to make its pieces seem considerably more composed than they are. Yes, it’s outsider music and unapologetically experimental, yet it’s also surprisingly listener-friendly, however strange the sound worlds produced by the players.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.A Dream in the Dark: Volume 8
A conceptual sequel to The Hot Tub Tapes that picks up right where Wren Among the Pornographers left off, From the Christel Corner is a treasure chest of of soundboard tapes curated by longtime Okkervil River fan Christel Adina Loar, documenting two whirlwind years of touring in the wake of The Stand Ins.
The liner notes represent a departure from previous volumes in that Christel takes over, documenting her entry into the Okkervil orbit around 2006 and weaving through her heartfelt and insightful observations about being on the other side of the band-audience exchange.
If all that wasn’t enough, there’s also a killer ABBA cover thrown in there.
Singer Songwriter
You Can’t Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man
Calling and Not Calling My Ex
On Tour with Zykos
Does Your Mother Know? (ABBA cover)
Title Track
A Girl in Port
John Allyn Smith Sails
Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe
Unless It’s Kicks
Blue Tulip
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Surachai Sutthisasanakul is an intriguing music producer and sound designer extraordinaire, who has been traversing the furthest reaches of the extreme music domain. From black metal all the way to dark ambient, Surachai has been producing impressive works of experimentalism, from the electronic-based black metal assault of Embraced to the heavy atmospherics of power electronics featured in Instinct and Memory. Returning now, his new album Come, Deathless sees the producer return to his dark ambient realm and solidifying his electronic ethos.
Surachai’s music has always been defined by an earthy, guttural sense, mainly radiating from his trademark use of rhythms. “The Shedding of Useful Skin” introduces this notion, seeing…
…the controlled pace slithering through dark atmospherics and morphing constantly. It is an aspect that awakens a primal sense, and one that is further enhanced in tracks like “An Unfamiliar Reflection Activates a Gate” and “Articulation of a Dead Tongue”, where Surachai incorporates a further layer of ritualistic rendition to drench this whole endeavor in pitch black darkness. Similar is the case with the more mysterious pathways investigated by the producer, in the impressive “Splinters and Thvrst”, where Surachai performs a majestic tour through an ambient setting resembling a dim and dangerous rainforest.
While Surachai has always firmly stood on the electronic domain, Come, Deathless sees him relying on the rhythmic component much more heavily. This has led the producer towards perfecting not only the organic aspect of his rhythmic backbone but also allowing the tracks to progress in a very natural manner. The movements of “Empress of the Starved Lung” display this characteristic, arriving with an underlying, almost danceable quality. That is not to say that the more harsh and off-kilter elements of Surachai’s musical past are not present. The abstract motifs rise to the surface in “Casts of Broken Timelines”, seeing an exquisite recital of temporal manipulation taking place, filling the ambient space with pieces of debris falling from a dystopian future.
Still, the organic quality of the synthetic percussion and the laid back perspective that Surachai takes in some of the tracks are complimented very nicely by the synth progressions. “The Shedding of Useful Skin” and “Empress of the Starved Lung” come alive through the use of these subtle synth progressions, while there is also an almost melodic quality that makes an appearance through this dark offering. “Cadence of Sleeplessness” for instance brilliantly implements strings to add more depth to the track and release an unexpected dose of sweetness. However, the more adventurous side of Surachai prevails and sees the synths awakening a more mysterious quality in the monumental “Deciphering Whispers from Wind”, which evolves from its atmospheric beginnings to a towering mantra of repetitive force. Similar is the case with “An Abandoned Throne in the Hall of Extinction”, which implements a more mesmerizing approach, slowly unfolding and working towards an imposing and overwhelming manifestation.
All these motifs and qualities of Come, Deathless compliment the main core of the record, which lies in the dark ambient dimension. The atmospherics of the album are drenched in the tradition of the genre, and Surachai is highly capable of delivering a result with maximum impact. From combinations of post-industrial notions and noise leanings, as is the case with “Leaning Into Pain”, or more straightforward and punishing tracks, in the likes of “An Unfamiliar Reflection Activates a Gate”, the record shines in its obsidian armor. By combining these design elements and harnessing his creativity to a maximum effect Surachai has once again been able to deliver a fantastic journey through his experimental mindset.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.On “Goodnight,” the opening track of South London post-punk quartet Dry Cleaning’s debut EP Sweet Princess, vocalist Florence Shaw performs the role of digital archaeologist, pasting together a series of absurd comments mined from YouTube videos. The words link into a demented chain of paper dolls, muttering lines like, “During what was probably the longest two and a half months of my life after a near-death experience… the only thing that kept me going was Saw 2.”
Dry Cleaning brings together longtime friends bassist Lewis Maynard, drummer Nick Buxton, and guitarist Tom Dowse. In late 2017, they recruited Shaw, an artist, university lecturer, and photo researcher, as the group’s singer. Though never a performer, she’d always kept lists…
…— neuroses, daily annoyances, advertising copy — with the idea to one day use them in her drawings. Her excavations became the starting point for Sweet Princess, six cerebral, spiky songs that extract something touching and tragic from the mundanity of social media and social anxiety.
“Followed by another porn account on Instagram,” Shaw notes dryly on “Conversation,” a song about dating and the painful task of interacting with a person you resent yourself for wanting to impress. On “New Job,” a sing-song tribute to a couple called Jimmy and Olga—the kind you might imagine scratched into a bathroom stall or a school desk—transforms into a spoken list of anxieties: conversational missed connections, overstepped boundaries, desperate attempts to grasp something in common.
Stripped of context, collected fragments like, “Who’s the Pride of Britain?/Michelle blasts Mark/I was shot in the head by my kid,” mean little. But the things that strike Shaw’s fancy, that prove silly or strange enough to warrant pulling out a pen, betray what she values. Spliced together and set to tight, unpolished guitars, “Traditional Fish”’s recollections of signage and newsstands offer a grimy reflection of mundane British life as written in tabloid headlines.
Enter Meghan Markle. From the Sex Pistols to the Specials, British punks have long rallied against their heads of state. But over spirals of guitar that conjure memories of the Raincoats or the B-52’s, first single “Magic of Meghan” offers a staccato accounting of Markle’s graces. The Duchess of Sussex is illustrated as if she’s a young guidance counsellor who lets Shaw call her by her first name, or a friend from school she admires from afar. On the day of Markle’s engagement, we learn, Shaw was moving out after a breakup. The way she writes about Markle is almost like fan fiction: a morsel of celebrity bent and manipulated until it forms a new narrative specific to its author. It’s so endearing that it could almost stand to be a touch more critical of, you know, the monarchy.
Like empty bottles melted down and repurposed as stained glass, Dry Cleaning’s assembled observations capture the distortion of life on and off the internet, of spewing our deepest emotions into an anonymous void but biting our tongue when we encounter a real person. Type what you really feel, then close the tab and delete your history—maybe Florence Shaw will find it.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Music to Eat Bricks By is a limited edition CD-R release sold by The Residents in July 2019 their website as a bonus with copies of their 2018 novel The Brick-Eaters purchased through their website.
It features music previously heard as the instrumental soundtrack to their 2006 serial drama series The River of Crime, as well as Tweedles!, The UGHS! and The Voice of Midnight, but in their original, unedited “crime-jazz” versions (as described by the group).
…Much of the music was previously heard in 2006 as the soundtrack to the group’s serial drama The River of Crime, however the mixes on this are their original, unedited instrumental versions and also include previously unheard tracks, compared to the earlier soundtrack album.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Any review of the Budokan Boys really requires a bit of backstory, because they can hardly be accused of being a traditionally formed band. That probably accounts for the deeply unusual style of their music. Jeff T. Byrd and Michael Jeffrey Lee formed a duo in New Orleans in 2012 for the specific purpose of playing one hastily arranged show. After a few more shows, they went their separate ways. A few years later, through a series of coincidences, they reunited in Austria and wrote a heap of songs, which became their debut album, That’s How You Become a Clown.
Soon afterward, they found themselves living in Byrd’s brother’s house in Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was there that their latest album, Dad Is Bad, was written, arranged and recorded.
One could say that this stop-start musical coexistence, coupled with the haphazard globetrotting, helps to inform their eerie, cartoonish, wholly unique sound.
…With Byrd writing the music and playing the instruments (with a heavy emphasis on synths and drum machines) and Lee singing and writing the lion’s share of the lyrics, it’s a fairly cut-and-dried setup. But what comes out of this somewhat traditional collaborative makeup is truly startling. To be clear, it does take some time to find a footing in the unusual landscape of Budokan Boys – especially if you’re unfamiliar with their work – and an opening song like “Sick Pic” can be a tough pill to swallow. The unsettling quality of the song is underscored by Lee’s sped-up voice and the oddball, nursery-rhyme delivery. It’s as if Captain Beefheart came back from the dead to remake Trout Mask Replica for the 21st century, but with synthesizers instead of jagged, distorted guitars.
The title track sounds slightly more user-friendly, as a sort of robotic blues number (albeit a number about an unfit, mentally unstable father). The fear imposed by the song is more of a simmer than an explosion, resulting in a truly unnerving experience. On the single “God Today”, Byrd’s immensely creative, rich musical layers provide the perfect accompaniment to Lee’s twitchy, highly treated vocals. But the atonal, high-strung experimentalism is tempered by startling surprises like the soulful reggae ballad “No Show”, a deeply tuneful experiment that seems to gradually veer from romantic to possessive as the song progresses. Lee’s voice conveys the type of emotional expression that’s perfectly suited to the subject matter.
But “No Show” is a bit of an anomaly in that it may be the only song on the album that could have some roots in commercial pop. Everything else seems to draw from pop music’s stranger, darker corners. “Rent Me”, for instance, is odd in its simple, naïve execution, sounding almost like a 1980s synthpop superstar taking a stab at outsider music. With “The Hermit”, DAD IS BAD closes by way of a gentle ballad with Byrd’s electric guitar strums mixing with bird sounds, waves of synth blips, and Lee’s soulful falsetto. It sounds almost like a dream that feels foreign and uncomfortable, but for some reason, you don’t want to wake from it.
As on their debut album, Budokan Boys continue to steadfastly avoid tradition or easy categorization on DAD IS BAD. As they explore the darker, more mysterious corners of modern pop music, they keep producing more and more disarming and exciting results. Not bad for a couple of guys couch-surfing in New Mexico.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Forever cemented in indie history for her contributions to Belle & Sebastian’s earliest albums, Scottish vocalist/songwriter Isobel Campbell went on to build a complex, stylistically winding body of work that never quite got out of the shadow of her six years with indie pop’s biggest band. While her whisper-thin vocals and distant, melancholic presence were integral to the unique chemistry that made early Belle & Sebastian so magical, her artistry expanded in all directions afterward. She wandered from soft jazz-inflected indie outings as the Gentle Waves to grainy collaborative albums with Mark Lanegan to 2006’s gorgeously sad solo set Milkwhite Sheets, a collection of beautifully spare songs inspired by traditional U.K. folk. There Is No Other continues the understated…
…grandeur that has touched all of Campbell’s work, this time her muse taking the shape of glowing Californian pop. Campbell’s signature soft-touch vocals are underscored by twilight-toned acoustic guitars and string arrangements on many of the tunes, recalling a specific moment in late-’60s Laurel Canyon psychedelic pop. This comes through the clearest in the laid-back bongo rhythms and carefree electric bass noodling of “The National Bird of India,” a sunny and lighthearted song that aims for the midpoint between Joni Mitchell’s searching and Serge Gainsbourg’s mystery. More subdued readings of this low-lit sound appear throughout the album, with insect chirps and lazy chimes on “City of Angels” and cooing layers of backing vocals on the reverb-coated “See Your Face Again” both reminiscent of Françoise Hardy’s delicate early-’70s arrangements. Campbell also successfully incorporates unlikely elements into her more lively tunes. On paper, a minimal cover of Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream” built around fuzzy synth and drum machine shouldn’t work, but Campbell warps the concept into something lilting and pleasant, like the friendliest imaginable interpretation of Suicide. Other surprises glide in and out over the course of the album, like the nervous electronic undercurrents of “Ant Life” or the gospel backing vocals that drive otherwise pop tunes “Hey World” and “The Heart of It All.”
Breezy, graceful, and luxurious, There Is No Other… ranks among Campbell’s best work. Though 14 years passed between this album and her last fully solo outing, it sounds as if it were conceived fully formed, unaware of time or trends. Instead, There Is No Other… perfectly suspends the smiling mood of a hushed evening, embodying the fading warmth of the day’s last sunlight.
1. City of Angels (03:08)
2. Runnin’ Down a Dream (03:27)
3. Vultures (03:40)
4. Ant Life (02:35)
5. Rainbow (02:43)
6. The Heart of It All (04:52)
7. Hey World (03:15)
8. The National Bird of India (04:37)
9. Just for Today (02:32)
10. See Your Face Again (01:52)
11. Boulevard (04:26)
12. Counting Fireflies (03:33)
13. Below Zero (02:48)
Deluxe Edition
14. Boulevard (Acoustic) [4:25]
15. Just for Today (Acoustic) [2:01]
16. The National Bird of India (Acoustic) [4:02]
17. Rainbow (Acoustic) [2:41]
18. Ant Life (Acoustic) [2:22]
19. Vultures (Acoustic) [3:30]
20. Below Zero (Acoustic) [2:35]
21. The Heart of It All (Acoustic) [4:54]
22. Counting Fireflies (Acoustic) [3:30]
23. Hey World (Acoustic) [3:14]
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Each of Nyege Nyege Tapes’s artists follow distinctive paths, but the Ugandan collective’s broader MO feels rooted in collaboration. Slikback made the most of his China tour last April, linking up with the Shanghai’s SVBKVLT crew on two pummelling releases. Closer to the festival and label’s East African home, its Kampala headquarters — known simply as the “villa” — has been the site for creatively fertile group efforts (just look to Jay Mitta and Sisso’s ebullient tape alongside The Modern Institute and Errorsmith). It’s here that Elvin Brandhi, part of the father-daughter noise duo Yeah You, was invited last April to record Headroof, a collaboration with rappers Hakim and Swordman Kitala, percussionist Omutaba and producers Don Zilla and Oise. True to the alias…
…adopted for this release, Headroof is a hybrid record firmly indebted to where it was made.
You might detect the the influence of other experimental artists, from the fluid structures of Amnesia Scanner’s early SoundCloud releases to Lotic’s unsettling sound design. But Headroof is unique, partly because of its appealingly brittle textures, courtesy of Omutaba’s percussion. Harsh computer noises are mostly absent in favour of earthen thwacks, insectoid clicks and eerie field recordings. The opening track, “Troof,” sets the scene with clipped screeches and cawing birds. “Ghott Zillah” cranks up the pressure. Hanging around a simple four-note refrain, the collaborators twist the skeletal sounds around ominous bass stabs. While other Hakuna Kulala artists such as Rey Sapienz retain an unerring focus on the dance floor, this track is built almost entirely on anticipation. The drop threatens but never materialises, making it all the more menacing.
Negative space is critical to Headroof, where melodies or beats are often implied. Take the seven-minute lurcher “Ettiquette Stomp,” whose bare-bones production is supplied by various sampled voices and a rhythm created almost entirely out of a single austere kick. The track builds to a crescendo of sorts but in admirably downbeat style, much like the album’s final track, “Rey.” Its vocalists are coated in syrupy AutoTune and backed by cavernous synths, conjuring modern rap at its most melancholy, though the form is reduced to a vapour. Not everything posseses this fragmentary quality. “Hakim Storm,” despite only running to just over a minute, adds flesh to the spartan arrangements, reverberating with bass and a more traditionally rapped verse. “Kaloli” follows, laying a fiendish and at times pulverising groove of gum-like drums. To call it relentless or an onslaught sounds like a criticism, but these clattering sounds can often feel rejuvenating, as if capable of scrubbing you clean.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.Across 5 mesmerizing rhythm-laden tracks, Julian Cope brings us his masterful upbeat tribute to John Balance. All of the tracks instrumental, save for the vocal opener ‘Sandoz’, these hefty grooves shimmer and shake as Cope guides us through the various stages of the artist’s journey into legendary Valhalla. The massive motorik groove of the 15-minute title track depicts John’s journey out of the Earthly Realm, its final musical moments enacting a conversation between two air-force pilots mistaking John’s Shamanic Spectral Body for a distant UFO. Next is ‘John Valour’, an emphatic piano-led Glam Rock beast that pushes ‘Virginia Plain’ and ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us’ into true Lamonte Young/John Cale territory. Concluding this mighty devotional work is a musical…
…end-piece full of roaring slide guitars and a long unwieldy German title. Its meaning? Something about how hungry John is after his long cosmic journey into the Underworld: time now for replenishment in Father Odin’s Valhalla kitchen. — headheritage.co.uk
Sandoz
Positive Drug Test
John Balance Enters Valhalla
John Valour
Geoff, Voller Tapferkeit, Aber Leer Von Magen, Betritt Die Grosse Küche Der Unterwelt Odin
Just as he did on Reminisce Bar & Grill, on The World at Night Walter Martin blurs the borders between his “juvenile” albums and the ones aimed at adults in winning ways. In Martin’s world, clever wordplay and irrepressible melodies shouldn’t be relegated to children’s music or the pop of the past, although the striking opening track of his fifth solo album borrows from both. “October” draws back the curtain on The World at Night by tapping into the eternal thrill of the spooky season. Over elegant strings, woodwinds, and brass that call to mind mid-20th century vocal pop (and a twinkling piano that harks back to the Walkmen), Martin delivers offhandedly brilliant lyrics like “The trees have gone bald/Guess the world is getting older” that uphold his reputation as a master of whimsy.
