- Graeme Rowland
- Albums and Singles
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Bless Ba-Da-Ben Goldberg's sweet heart for keeping the magic going... Publishing a +200 page book with a various artist compilation CD doesn't happen easily, overnight, nor is it probably financially rewarding. Thankfully he's got the support of a number of great writers and wonderful musicians which I'm sure make the realization of the project worth it. The writings in the fifth book (I can't call these magazine issues), as Ben describes, is lacking a thematic tie. The music, however (recorded especially for the compilation) is somewhat of a tribute to Raymond Scott's classic, 'Soothing Sounds for Baby' LP without doing any cover versions or reinterpretations of the original.
This volume's decidedly more electronic cast than volume 4 includes Cex, Solex, Flowchart, Marumari, Bogdan Raczynski and Arovane alonside a number of others I can't say I'm familiar with, but afterwards am surely interested in. The music and the book work well together, as the soothing, electronic melodies have allowed for some quality "me time" with the book without being obtrusive. [Anybody who has fallen in love with the prettiness of Mum — and I know there are a ton — shouldn't avoid this package.] The book entries are relatively short and entertaining, ranging from a short play, a profile on Boston's best record store Twisted Village, features on upcoming indie rock stars I've never heard of, Raymond Scott, Franklin Bruno and Drew Daniel discussing dissertations, and a ton of music reviews more brief than we've ever been here on The Brain. All this for under $8 even! Mahvelous. This would have been the perfect Christmas gift to a music-loving loved one. -
samples:
- Flowchart - The Goo Goo in U
- Marumari - Indigo Florist
- Cex - And Now the Babies Are Playing Mozart For Their Parents
- Alea - Lullaby
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Tony's probably quite pleased to have thesereleased as they seem to back up his claims that Dream Syndicate sonichappenings were very much collective endeavours. The opening twentyminute Cale and Conrad string drone duet certainly has all the traitsof the previously released 'Day of Niagara' but is a better recording,although still sounding rough hewn. Perhaps it could be viewed as astepping stone on the path to Conrad's unrelenting skullfuck "FourViolins", but it's a transcendent portal in its own right. Cale's deepviola is the foundation with Conrad's violin cutting through the dreammist at spiky glancing angles. The viola is overwhelming, and everytime Cale shifts the drone up or down a notch colours swirl, shift,dissolve and reform. 'Ex-Cathedra' is Cale solo on Vox ContinentalOrgan with a beautiful shimmering tremelo loop underpinned by anintermittent half drowned lower chord. The third track is twelveminutes of what sounds like rummaging through the guts of a piano witha bunch of keys. Latterly the strings are bowed frantically to anintense maelstrom, and remind me of a couple of Thurston Moore'scomparatively polite duets with Nels Cline on "The Pillow Wand".'Carousel' is perhaps the most throwaway track, but only because it'sbeen done better so many times since. Cale makes 'electonic sounds'which thunk thunk thunk in the way that a guitar resting on top of itsamp might. The best is saved until last. The second duet with TonyConrad is as strangely beautiful and haunting as a track with a titlelike 'A Midnight Rain of Green Wrens at the World's Tallest Building'ought to be. The strings ooze retuned sadness for plummetinginter-dimensional avians. The final track finds Cale rattling off someextremely ragged guitar strumming with original Velvet Undergrounddrummer Angus Maclise bashing away on the cimbalom in a clatteringfreefalling ecstatic frenzy which perhaps shows a step in the evolutionof the glorious finale of the first Velvet Underground album. -
samples:
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Album of the year
- Low - Things we lost in the fire
- Fennesz - Endless Summer
- Autechre - Confield
- Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of...
- Mogwai - Rock Action
- Cannibal Ox - A Cold Vein
- Fridge - Happiness
- Matmos - A chance to cut is a chance to cure
- Four Tet - Pause
- Aphex Twin - Drukqs
- Angels of Light - How I Loved You
- Tortiose - Standards
- Labradford - Fixed::Context
- Silver Mt. Zion - Born Into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward
- Squarepusher - Go plastic
- Current 93/Nurse With Wound - Bright Yellow Moon
- Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
- M√∫m - Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is OK
- Nick Cave - No More Shall We Part
- Set Fire To Flames - Signs Reign Rebuilder
- Strokes - Is This It?
- Dntel - Life Is Full Of Possibilities
- Fugazi - The Argument
- Spiritualized - Let It Come Down
- Lali Puna - Scary World Theory
- Stereolab - Sound-Dust
- Hood - Cold House
- Microphones - The Glow Pt 2
- Mouse on Mars - Idiology
- Prefuse 73 - Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives
- white stripes - white blood cells
- Telefon Tel Aviv - Farenheit Fair Enough
- Ulrich Schnauss - Far Away Trains Passing By
- Bonnie Prince Bilie - Ease down the road
- Cex - Oops, I Did It Again
- clouddead - clouddead
- Cyclobe - The Visitors
- Fantomas - The Director's Cut
- Red House Painters - Old Ramon
- Skinny Puppy - Doomsday Back and Forth Vol. 5
- Sparklehorse - It's A Wonderful Life
- Bardo Pond - Dilate
- Beta Band - Hot Shots II
- Calla - Scavengers
- Godflesh - Hymns
- Herbert - Bodily Functions
- Jan Jelinek - Loop Finding Jazz Records
- Plaid - Double Figure
- Thighpaulsandra - I, Thighpaulsandra
- Explosions In The Sky - Those Who Tell The Truth...
single or ep
- Mogwai - My Father My King
- Low & the Dirty Three - In the Fishtank
- Squarepusher - My Red Hot Car
- Thighpaulsandra - Michael Publicity Window
- Low - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me
- Belle & Sebastian - Jonathan David
- Matmos - California Rhinoplasty
- Antony & the Johnsons - I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy
- Squarepusher - Untitled
- Autechre - Peel Sessions 2
- Fugazi - Furniture
- Hood - Home Is Where It Hurts
- V/A - 2 Remixes by AFX
- COH - Love Uncut
- Anti Pop Consortium - The Ends Against The Middle
- To Rococo Rot & I-Sound - Pantone
- Mouse On Mars - Actionist Respoke
- Calexico - Even My Sure Things Fall Through
- Tortoise - Gently Cuping the Chin of the Ape
- Stereolab - Captain Easychord
fave remix
- 808 State - Flow Coma - Remix by AFX
- Slag Boom Van Loon - Poppy Seed - Remix by Boards of Canada
- Missy Elliot - Get Yr Freak On - remix by Kid 606
- Depeche Mode - Dream On - remix by Kid 606
- Foetus - Cirrhosis of the Heart - remix by Amon Tobin
- Kings of Convenience - Weight of My Words - remix by Four Tet remix
- Matmos - Disco Hospital
- M√∫m - Please Smile My Spring Reverb AMX - remix by Uwe Zahn
- Slag Boom Van Loon - Fallen Angels Entering Pandemonium - remix by Coil
- Yann Tiersen - Lost - remix by Third Eye Foundation
best various artist compilation
- Tigerbeat 6 Inc.
- Clicks & Cuts 2
- All Tommorrow's Panties
- [O]acis.Box
- Bip Hop generation 4
- Emre - Dark Matter
- Snow Robots Vol. 1 & 2
- Braindance Coincidence
- House Of Distraction
- The Wire Tapper 7
- Warp - Routine
- electric ladyland 7: glitch-hop compilation 2CD
- Immediate Action
- Putting the Morr Back in Morrissey
- RKK 13 remix comp
best single artist compilation
- Einsturzende Neubauten- ""Strategies Against Architecture III""
- Coil - A Guide for Beginners
- Coil - A Guide for Finishers
- Coil - Moons Milk In four Phases
- Dead Can Dance - 1981-1998
- Godflesh - In All Languages
- Piano Magic - Seasonally Affective (1996-2000)
- pigface 'best of - preaching to the perverted'
- Cabaret Voltaire - Conform To Deform
- Third Eye Foundation - I Poo Poo On you Juju
best double or multi-lp/cd release
- Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid
- Aphex Twin - Drukqs
- Thighpaulsandra - I, Thighpaulsandra
- Unwound: Leaves Turn Inside You
- Einsturzende Neubauten: Strategies Against Architecture III
- Clicks & Cuts 2
- Current 93 / Nurse With Wound - Bright Yellow Moon/Purtle
- Xhol Caravan - Motherfuckers Live
- Coil: Moon's Milk (in Four Phases)
- Orbital - The Altogether
- Cabaret Voltaire - Corform to Deform
- Low - Things We Lost in the Fire (2LP version)
- Miles Davis - In A Silent Way complete sessions
- Nuggets II
- Rewriting The Book
- Ride - Box Set
- Velvet Underground - The Quine Tapes
- Nart Nibbles
- Dead Can Dance box set
- Faust - The Wumme Years
coolest unusual packaging
- Aranos - magnificent! magnificent! no one knows the final word
- Set Fire To Flames - Signs Reign Rebuilder
- Silver Mt. Zion - Born Into Trouble as the Sparks Fly Upward
- Aphex Twin - drukqs (vinyl version)
- Cyclo
- No-neck Blues Band - Sticks & Stones...
- Shipping News ""Carrier""
nicest cover design
- Fridge - Happiness
- Jim O'Rourke - Insignificance
- Tortoise - Standards
- Set Fire to Flames - Sings Reign Rebuilder
- Angels of Light - How I Loved You
- Björk - Vespertine
- Radiohead - Amnesiac
- thighpaulsandra - i, thighpaulsandra
- Silver Mt Zion - Born Into Trouble as Sparks Fly Upwards
- Current 93 / Nurse With Wound - Bright Yellow Moon
best rerelease/repackage/reissue
- Coil - Love's Secret Domain
- Neu! - Neu!
- Neu! 75
- Neu! 2
- Coil - Horse Rotorvator
- Coil - Scatology
- Nurse with Wound - Chance Meeting
- Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
- Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information
- Love - Forever Changes
- Nurse With Wound - Automating vol. 1
- 23 skidoo - 7 songs
- This Heat - Deceit
- Current 93 - Imperium
- Gescom - Keynell
most amusing song/album title
- Cex - Florida (Is Shaped Like A Big Droopy Dick For A Reason)
- Matmos - A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure
- Aphex Twin - Drukqs
- M√∫m - Please Smile My Noise Bleed
- Third Eye Foundation - I Poo Poo on your Ju Ju
- Cex - Oops! I did it again
- Current 93 - Cats Drunk on Copper
- Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid
- Massimo - Hey babe, let me see your USB and I'll show you my FireWire
- Tenacious D - Fuck Her Gently
worst album you bought
- Aphex Twin - Suqks
- Radiohead - Amnesiacrap
- Autechre - Confield
- Depeche Mode - Exciter
- Death In June - All Pigs Must Diet
- Spiritualized - Let it Come Down
- Weezer - Weezer
- Stephen Malkmus - Stephen Malkmus
- Squarepusher - Go Plastic
- Mogwai - Rock Action
most anticipated disappointment
- Aphex Twin - Drukqs
- Autechre - Confield
- Spiritualized - Let it come down
- Death In June - All Pigs Must Die
- Squarepusher - Go Plastic
- Tortoise - Standards
- Weezer - Weezer
- Air - 10,000 hz Legend
- Mogwai - Rock Action
- Current 93 - The Great in the Small
guiltiest pleasure
- Strokes - Is This It?
- Britney Spears - I'm a Slave 4 u
- Kylie Minogue - Can't Get You Out of my Head
- Madonna - Greatest Hits Vol. 2
- Missy Elliot - Miss e... so addictive
- Daft Punk - Discovery
- Depeche Mode - Exciter
- Destiny's Child - Bootylicious
- N'Sync - Pop
- Radiohead - Amnesiac
band of the year
- Coil
- Low
- Mogwai
- Sigur Ros
- Matmos
- Stars of the Lid
- Autechre
- Cannibal Ox
- Mouse on Mars
- Tortoise
best solo musical artist
- Jim O'Rourke
- Christian Fennesz
- Thighpaulsandra
- Jimmy Lavelle (Album Leaf)
- Tom Jenkinson
- Will Oldham
- cEvin key
- Kid 606
- Michael Gira
- Richard D. James
new act of the year (band or solo artist)
- Explosions In The Sky
- Cannibal Ox
- Set Fire To Flames
- Strokes
- M√∫m
- Avalanches
- Baby Dee
- Dntel
- Clinic
- Amenti Suncrown
best live show/concert experience
- Coil
- Radiohead
- Low
- godspeed you black emperor!
- Sigur Ros
- Mogwai
- Mouse on Mars
- Tortoise
- Björk/Matmos
- Autechre
sexiest musical artist
- Björk
- Kyle Mnouge
- Britney Spears
- Cex
- Peaches
- Hope Sandoval
- PJ Harvey
- Shakira
- Jennifer Lopez
- Alison Goldfrapp
most overrated band/artist
- The Strokes
- Radiohead
- White Stripes
- kid 606
- Aphex Twin
- Sigur Ros
- Björk
- Godspeed you black emporer
- Matmos
- Mogwai
most irritating band/artist
- Fred Durst/Limp Bizzkit
- The Strokes
- Creed
- Radiohead
- Kid 606
- Britney Spears
- Aphex Twin
- Destiny's Child
- V/Vm
- Ryan Adams
- p. diddy
- Björk
- White Stripes
- Vincent Gallo
- U2
lifetime achievement
- Coil
- Michael Gira
- John Fahey
- George Harrison
- sonic youth
- Radiohead
- Autechre
- David Tibet
- Johnny Cash
- Richard H Kirk
fave producer/engineer
- Steve Albini
- JIM O' ROURKE
- John McEntire
- Steven Stapleton
- Dave Fridman
- el p
- Timbaland
- Nigel Godrich
- Brian Eno
- Michael Gira
who will break big next year?
- Cex
- Sigur Ros
- Explosions In The Sky
- Lali Puna
- The White Stripes
- M√∫m
- Clinic
- Fourtet
- Coil
- Calla
record label
- Kranky
- Warp
- Morr Music
- Constellation
- drag city
- Thrill Jockey
- Temporary Residence
- Matador
- Eskaton / Threshold House
- Young God
- World Serpent
- City Centre Offices
- Def Jux
- Domino
- Schematic
music video
- Sigur Ros - Vi√∞ar vel tl loft√°rasa
- Add N to (X) - Plug Me In
- Björk - Pagan Pottery
- Gorilaz - Clint Eastwood
- Björk - Hidden Place
- Coi Live in NY
- Mouse on Mars - Actionist Respoke
- Ohgr - Cracker
- Tortoise - Seneca
- Low - Dinosaur Act
OTHER STUFF
movie of the year
- Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amelie)
- Memento
- Mullholland Drive
- Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Rings
- Ghost World
- The Man Who Wasn't There
- Waking Life
- Royal Tenebaums
- Amores Perros
- Hedwig & The Angry Inch
- Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone
- Moulin Rouge
- Monsters Inc
- Sherk
- The Others
- A.I.
- Apocalypse Now Redux
- Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
- Blow
- Brother
- From Hell
- In the Mood for Love
- Oceans 11
- Battle Royale
- Odishon (Audition)
- Otanesek (Little Otik)
- State and Main
- The Anniversary Party
- Vanilla Sky
- L.I.E.
tv show
- Simpsons
- Daily Show
- Sopranos
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Futurama
- Family Guy
- The West Wing
- Absolutely Fabulous
- Invader Zim
- Malcom in the Middle
- That '70s Show
- South Park
- Will & Grace
- Brass Eye special (UK)
- 24
magazine/newspaper
- The Wire
- The Onion
- Magnet
- alternative press
- Chunklet
- Q
- grooves
- Tape Op
- XLR8R
- Devil in the Woods
- guardian (uk)
- urb
- uncut
- The Nation
- Mojo
book of the year
- Neil Gaman: American Gods
- No Logo by Naomi Klein
- Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
- Eric Schlosser - Fast Food Nation
- Haruki Murakami - Underground
- How to be Good - Nick Hornby
- our band could be your life-azerrad
- Salman Rushdie ""Fury""
- Alain de Botton ""The Consolations Of Philosophy""
- David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
fave actor
- Johnnny Depp
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
- Brad Pitt
- Billy Bob Thornton
- Guy Pearce
- Anthony Hopkins
- Benecio del Toro
- Christopher Walken
- Jack Black
- Jason Lee
fave actress
- Thora Birch
- Audrey Tautou
- Nicole Kidman
- Reese Witherspoon
- Carrie Anne Moss
- Julianna Moore
- Asia Argento
- Cate Blanchett
- Jennifer Connelly
- Gwyneth Paltrow
fave director
- David Lynch
- Peter Jackson
- Jean Pierre Jeunet
- Coen Bros
- Darren Aranofsky
- Wes Anderson
- andrei tarkovsky
- Christopher Nolan
- Guy Ritchie
- John Waters
fave writer (book/tv/film/play,...)
- Kurt Vonnegut
- Neil Gaiman
- Chuck Palahniuk
- David Foster Wallace
- David Lynch
- David Mamet
- Haruki Murakami
- nick hornby
- Thomas Ligotti
- Bret Easton Ellis
best website
- Brainwashed
- Pitchfork
- The Onion
- Threshold House
- Allmusic Guide
- Audiogalaxy
- eBay
- Warp Records
- Buddyhead
- Fake Jazz
most annoying trends
- Nouveaux Patriotism/American Flags on cars/Cheap Patriotism/Flag Waving/Cashing in on 9/11
- rap metal / rap rock / dysfunction rock / nu metal / sports rock
- misdirected patriotism / violent nationalism / rampant fervor
- Cell Phones / Everything becoming wireless
- Clicky glitch music
- corporate garage rock / the strokes / the white boy blues rock revival (again) / pop punk
- IDM
- war & terrorism / bioterrorism / fear
- Emo
- SUVs
- Scooters
- boy bands
- 1980s retro music/clothing
- Approval of George W. Bush
- Harry Potter
- Rock bands going electronic and being considered innovators
- Icelandic music obsession (Sigur Ros/Björk)
- Indie rock fashion fascist kinder-punks
- big pants
- Increased Commercials (everywhere, in movie theatres)
- Reality TV
- Benefit concerts
- Manufactured Bubble Gum Pop
- Stale electronic music
- Mods
dumbest category on this poll
- This one
- Sexiest
- Guiltiest Pleasure
- Who Will Break Big Next Year
- TV show
- Most Annoying Trends
- all of the them
- Fave Remix
- Music Video
- None of them
"
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The Fall continue to tour a disturbing experimental past life and pack pristine venues with enthusiastic dripping venom, shambolic contempt and twisted wry amusement. "We are the new Fall," the lads hesitantly proclaim on the up an' at 'em opener, as Smith harrangues anyone who'll listen that they'd better look up! Who knows whether they'll stick it long enough to become an old Fall? The drummer's already shuffled off. For now Fall fans can ruminate on the twenty-third (at least 18% studio non-compilation) album proper from Mark E Smith and whoever else can put up with his bad Spanish accent impressions. Ditching the band that made the mostly excellent pro-tooled belter "The Unutterable", Smith has marsalled his ever expendable bedraggled combo to belt out a raw rocking set.
Cog Sinister
Every Fall album has at least one track that demands endless repeated listening. This album's classic 'Crop-Dust' gets its hooks into my brain for hours, combining primal addictive Fall rhythm with a killer snake-charmer riff whilst the sound levels are tweaked like tape drop-out. Mumbled backing vocals recall the twilit dusk of the haunting gross-chapel era, and Smith declaims a tale of a hesitant old singer from Manchester joining World War I soldiers in great coats. There is no mention of flabby wings here, but the time travel plays havoc with the liver and brain. The whole album has a kind of twisted time-warped feel to it. It sounds like the band that made early classics such as "Grotesque" and "Slates" took a dose of straight strychnine at a rockabilly festival and took a temporal wrong turn into an alternate pre-gramme reality in which only Smith could emerge the winner. A small alteration of the past turns time into space, which explains why shoddy collections of Fall demos have been proliferating across the earth. The hilariously abysmal sleeve and credit mistakes (two songs are listed in reverse order; there is a keyboard on the latter live portion of 'African Man' but no sign of former keyboardist Julia Nagle's name) are either a cockeyed homage to fan fleecing demo slew, or Smith just doesn't give a monkey's. In fact he eats monkeys for breakfast if the hilariously messy destruction of Iggy Pop's super dumb 'African Man' is to be taken seriously, which it obviously isn't. The African man eats elephants and lions too, but only because the hotel provides them. Lo-fi tapes and dyspeptic guitars infest the hotels and park themselves willy nilly in Afro Ibis Hotel man's driveway, where he strangles a screaming ibis for his supper (no fork or knife for him). He eats a skunk for lunch and sounds a bit shocked, triggering a time lock back to recent gig audio fragment.
The Fall haven't sustained such a lengthy unhinged and uncommercial onslaught since the violin scraping of 'Papal Visit' and this'll have trendy fairweather White Stripes fans running for cover faster than you can say 'Spectre vs Rector'. It's also far and away the funniest track I heard in 2001. Whilst mention of skyscrapers in 'Crop-Dust' might have some dubious claims on Smith's prophetic capabilities, it's 'Kick the Can' and the resurrection of their Can homage 'I am Damo Suzuki' at gigs prior to Michael Karoli's death that rings grimly eerie. For 'Hollow Mind' they redo 'Jerusalem' with too many notes on low power with no discarded brick chip. The R. Dean Taylor cover 'Gotta See Jane' pales anaemically next to the bouncy 'Ghost in my House'. Nevertheless this version of The Fall could teach most of these hyped-up soft rockers, like the Strokes with their Housemartins plus little feedback lick shtick, a thing or seven. This album sounds as ravaged as everyone's favourite toothless idiot savant singer from Salford looks these days. The band are solid enough, if rather normal next to the formidable Scanlon, Hanley, Brix attack, and Smith sounds gloriously deranged even if he seems to have less to say than ever. He's probably been saving up witticisms for his next spoken word album. Mostly Smith's voice has been mixed at speaker damage levels, and if he doesn't finish off yer hi-fi, the dustbin lid drumming on 'My Ex Classmate's Kids' will. That song is basically a slowed down rewrite of the popular freebie Flitwick single 'When I Wake Up in the City'. Instead of coughing and tapes of say nothing radio chat, Smith drawls his most barmy alingual vowels and latterly complains of aftershave stench like twigs up the nose. That's what you get for living in a 'Bourgeois Town' where container drivers do the hassle shmuck with a handful of antacid!
 
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"Difficult" is a loaded word when used in electronic music reviews. In one context, it can be taken to mean the record is so far ahead of everything else out there that it needs numerous intense listening sessions to be understood and appreciated. On the other hand, it could simply mean that the record is an unfocussed, unlistenable and pretentious piece of crap. So when I tag these two new releases from Miami's Schematic label as being "difficult", which end of the spectrum am I referring to? Well, somewhere in between, but at least a little bit closer to the former than the latter.
On "Aleamapper", Atlanta's Richard Devine almost entirely abandons the crunchy beat structures of his previous releases and offers a set of soundworks that could loosely be referred to as "ambient" for lack of a better classification. There are some really inspired moments amongst the 16 tracks on the disc, but unfortunately the more interesting and vital bits are often cut short (one of the album's best tracks, "Mtr Method", doesn't even hit the two minute mark), while the more esoteric experiments are more often than not allowed to wander aimlessly. Despite these flaws, "Aleamapper" exhibits strong evidence of an artist who is committed to taking his music into new directions, so with a bit of fine tuning, I suspect that Devine's future work in this field of abstract sound could be phenomenal.
 
 
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As for Mr. von Schirach, his "Escalo Frio" platter feels like a cross between Matmos (who appear as guests on a track) and Prefuse73: quirky, organic sounding IDM with a hint of fractured hip-hop. [Jon adds: but kind of feels like a stoner kid obsessed with video games, Saturday morning cartoons and Count Chocula.] Unfortunately, the MCs he chose to provide vocals to be processed don't offer much in the way of exciting or insightful rhymes, but since they only appear in a comprehensible form on a couple of tracks it's not too distracting. Otherwise the album is actually a lot of fun, with sounds and ideas of all sorts ping-ponging back and forth, and even a goofy fake commercial at the halfway point that's good for a chuckle.
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Given enough time Jah Wobble will, hopefully, collaborate with just about everyone. Over the past few years he has successfully mixed his trademark, bedrock bass guitar styling with Laotian folk ("Molam Dub"), inventive saxophone ("Passage to Hades") and all out industrial rock ("The Damage Manual"), among others. Here he teams up with Temple of Sound, the duo of Neil Sparkes and Count Dubulah, both formerly of Transglobal Underground.More success! The disc is initially only available by mail order through Wobble's 30 Hertz label. And no, this isn't an album of Motley Crue covers, just an unfortunate title coincidence. Ten tracks, most in the 5 to 6 minute range, explore a genuine Arabic electro dub amalgamation. Wobble provides the soul shaking bass lines, Dubulah the guitar, keys, strings and programming atmospheres and Sparkes a host of ethnic percussion such as riq, zils, Egyptian tabla and darabuka. Among other contributors are 3 female vocalists - Shahin Badar, Natacha Atlas and Nina Miranda - who grace half the album with powerfully emotive, mostly foreign tongued strains. Every track is solid. Really solid. The quirky loops of "Cleopatra King Size" are laced with electronics, stuttered guitar notes and booming low end.
The wandering bass line of "Once Upon a Time in The East" reminisces of Wobble's legendary late '70s tenure in Public Image Ltd. The sweeping strings of "Maghreb Rockers" weave together a delightful tapestry of Middle Eastern flavors. A rolling mass of effected percussion brings "Symphony of Palms" close to Muslimgauze territories. And it doesn't get anymore lovely than the slower, more subtle "La Citadelle" - the lumbering groove, the solemn vocal, the gliding background guitar notes - all of which are revisited in the finale "Mistralazul 2". Fantastic. No word yet on what Wobble is up to next, but other recent releases include "The Early Years" and "Radioaxiom - A Dub Transmission" with longtime collaborator Bill Laswell.
 
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samples:
- Diane Ray - Please Don't Talk to the Lifeguard
- Bernadette Caroll - Party Girl
- Priscilla Parts - My Window
- Lori Burton - Love Was
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