This lovingly assembled tribute to revered, yet remarkably obscure, folkie Kath Bloom combines one album of covers by a haphazard array of semi-famous fans with a retrospective of some of Bloom’s own material. While certainly an enjoyable curiosity, the covers album does not come close to capturing the fragile intensity and beauty of the original material.
Hotter than July. This week's episode has plenty of fresh new music by Marie Davidson, Kim Gordon, Mabe Fratti, Guided By Voices, Holy Tongue meets Shackleton, Softcult, Terence Fixmer, Alan Licht, pigbaby, and Eiko Ishibashi, plus some vault goodies from Bombay S Jayashri and Pete Namlook & Richie Hawtin. Solstice moon in West Midlands, UK photo by James. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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I have had a long time love affair with the first generation of electronic music composers. Perhaps it is akin to the way I used to romanticize the early explorers of America when I was a young boy, only now I geek out over those who pioneered circuit boards. Gordon Mumma was such a pioneer, exploring the cybersonic world with his own home built audio devices. His music partook in the spirit of joyful discovery that was evident throughout those early years, while also being physically visceral.
Despite its utterly mystifying and goofy lenticular packaging, My Cat Is An Alien’s contribution to Staalplaat’s long-running studio session series is a very focused, formidable, and often incendiary affair. The Opalio brothers have a refreshingly unique and calculated aesthetic that more closely resembles an inspired evolution of free jazz than anything being done by their peers in the noise underground.
Carelessness, especially the calculated variety, has become a default pose for the indie rocker of today. The music of Dustin Wong radiates the same casual sensibility, but that comes from his art rather than his manners. His first solo album, Seasons, is lazy, lighthearted, and scatterbrained, but Wong's musicianship welds its disparate elements into a unified piece of art.
Primarily the duo of Heather Young and Noah Anthony—though others have been dragged in along the way—Social Junk uses pounding beats and minimal synth to concoct some of the most pummeling pop this side of the sun. With drenched vocals and spare but wisely utilized parts the duo draw on tactics as far reaching as industrial, post-punk and Krautrock in their rugged and broken songcraft. This, their most recent sonic tastament, reaches even further into their warped world.
Marc Richeter's Black to Comm project has always been more or less singular in its scope, seeking no less than than the outer reaches of deep drone meditation. Calling on Renate Nikolaus and Ulf Schutte to contribute electronics, bells, percussion, violins, water and more on top of his own monolithic organ play, Richter has crafted a monster with this lone 35-minute piece. Just make sure submersion is an attractive state before descending.
The passing of bassist Evan Farrell was enough to make Jason Molina think about breaking up the band, according to some recent interviews. Instead, Molina turned to his guitar and ended up writing what might be the best Magnolia Electric Co. record since the group's 2003 debut. Josephine finds the band looking forwards and backwards, breaking new ground and mining old territory and creating something strangely seductive in the process.
This marks an enormous progression from the Cremations compilation released earlier this year: there are no sound experiments or atmospheric interludes here, just killer noise-ravaged synthpop. Cold Cave's proper full-length debut (on Wes Eisold's own Heartworm Press) was well worth the wait. Also, it is amusing to note that some of the most memorable and danceable indie pop songs of the year involve Dominick Fernow of Prurient.
While no one would ever call them a "singles" band, Loop certainly did put a great deal of great tracks on 7" and 12" singles and such that never made it to their albums, except as bonus tracks on hasty CD reissues. This was originally a single disc compilation from the late 1980s of mostly Heaven’s End era singles and b-sides, but this new reissue adds in everything from the more obscure Eternal album (Fade Out era tracks), as well as a smattering of latter period singles and other unreleased tracks into a three disc compilation that serves as good of an introduction to the band as any.
As their third and final studio album, Loop had mostly excised the 1960s Technicolor psychedelia that had defined their debut, Heaven’s End, leaving only a molten orange lava of layered space rock that was entirely all their own. Like the first two albums, here it is presented remastered and with a bonus disc of outtakes and demos from the era. Even nearly 20 years after its initial issue, the mix of tight structures and improvisation, all pegged out at 11, can give any modern “loud” band a run for their money.
