Nick Cave is just about to finish his nine-date, seven-city solo tour
of the US. It seemed odd that Nick would have started off the US-dates
at a place most known for the New Orleans' Symphonies: the Orpheum
Theatre. After arriving and seeing the set, though, it was obvious that
Cave was going for a very much more sleek, less rock-n-roll atmosphere.
Too bad much of the crowd could not grasp this distinction.
Arriving at the show, which was the only date in the country that did not sell out, I was faced with an extremely eclectic crowd: from teenaged goths to swanky yuppies to drunken 40-something assholes. The show started with Kelly Hogan, who had a strange country-esque shoe-gazer style. The highlight of her show was her performance of the Magnetic Fields' "Papa was a Rodeo," though even that was overlooked because everyone wanted Nick Cave.
The stage looked simple: grand piano, drums, electric violin, electric bass, and an accordian. And hanging from the ceiling were four glowing stars set to nice blue curtains. The mood was definitely not hardcore Birthday Party/Bad Seeds rock'n'roll.
Finally Nick Cave came out, put his cigarette out, and sat at the piano. Someone shouted the question "Can we smoke too, Nick?" and he replied "Absolutely not-this is a NO SMOKING venue," and afterwards chain smoked throughout his whole performance. He opened with an assaulting version of "West Country Girl," which he played alone.
Soon he was accompanied by Jim White (drums) and Warren Ellis (accordian/violin) of the Dirty Three and Susan Strenger (bass) of Big Bottom, and played mostly recent Bad Seeds material very low-key styled, though he did throw in an old Birthday Party song, "Wild World," which picked up the pace on drums and electric violin, while Nick pounded harder at the keys and shouted a bit. My highlights were definitely "Stagger Lee," set to a cabaret-style beat with the harsh, shrill ending sounds being replaced by electric violin. The line "I'd crawl over fifty good pussies just to get to one fat boy's asshole." definitely threw aback the uptight old men serving as ushers to the rather unpredictable crowd.
Throughout the whole show you could hear Nick Cave's mental tempo being tapped out by his foot below the piano. With that known, no one could really understand why some fucking asshole kept talking loudly during the first half of the performance. Eventually security was called to deal with him, and to deal with the massive amount of people who ignored the "NO SMOKING" signs because of the "NO RE-ENTRY" signs. It was a strange show.
Along with classics like "The Mercy Seat" and "Into My Arms," he played a few new tracks from the new album, I Sat Sadly Beside Her, including "No More Shall we Part" the great "God is in the House," which is a mock-Christian anthem about a town where they "bred all our kittens white so we can see them in the night, since God is in the House." The crowd responded with a "Hallelujah!"
It was definitely a great performance. Nick Cave's amazing stage presence shined during the encore, where he played "Henry Lee," "the Ship Song," "Loom of the Land," and "Straight to You." Lastly he performed "Little Emtpy Boat" from King Ink II to end the night with a "fuck you" to the audience that left everyone laughing their ways to the exits.
Arriving at the show, which was the only date in the country that did not sell out, I was faced with an extremely eclectic crowd: from teenaged goths to swanky yuppies to drunken 40-something assholes. The show started with Kelly Hogan, who had a strange country-esque shoe-gazer style. The highlight of her show was her performance of the Magnetic Fields' "Papa was a Rodeo," though even that was overlooked because everyone wanted Nick Cave.
The stage looked simple: grand piano, drums, electric violin, electric bass, and an accordian. And hanging from the ceiling were four glowing stars set to nice blue curtains. The mood was definitely not hardcore Birthday Party/Bad Seeds rock'n'roll.
Finally Nick Cave came out, put his cigarette out, and sat at the piano. Someone shouted the question "Can we smoke too, Nick?" and he replied "Absolutely not-this is a NO SMOKING venue," and afterwards chain smoked throughout his whole performance. He opened with an assaulting version of "West Country Girl," which he played alone.
Soon he was accompanied by Jim White (drums) and Warren Ellis (accordian/violin) of the Dirty Three and Susan Strenger (bass) of Big Bottom, and played mostly recent Bad Seeds material very low-key styled, though he did throw in an old Birthday Party song, "Wild World," which picked up the pace on drums and electric violin, while Nick pounded harder at the keys and shouted a bit. My highlights were definitely "Stagger Lee," set to a cabaret-style beat with the harsh, shrill ending sounds being replaced by electric violin. The line "I'd crawl over fifty good pussies just to get to one fat boy's asshole." definitely threw aback the uptight old men serving as ushers to the rather unpredictable crowd.
Throughout the whole show you could hear Nick Cave's mental tempo being tapped out by his foot below the piano. With that known, no one could really understand why some fucking asshole kept talking loudly during the first half of the performance. Eventually security was called to deal with him, and to deal with the massive amount of people who ignored the "NO SMOKING" signs because of the "NO RE-ENTRY" signs. It was a strange show.
Along with classics like "The Mercy Seat" and "Into My Arms," he played a few new tracks from the new album, I Sat Sadly Beside Her, including "No More Shall we Part" the great "God is in the House," which is a mock-Christian anthem about a town where they "bred all our kittens white so we can see them in the night, since God is in the House." The crowd responded with a "Hallelujah!"
It was definitely a great performance. Nick Cave's amazing stage presence shined during the encore, where he played "Henry Lee," "the Ship Song," "Loom of the Land," and "Straight to You." Lastly he performed "Little Emtpy Boat" from King Ink II to end the night with a "fuck you" to the audience that left everyone laughing their ways to the exits.
While the Fat Cat people boast about their committment to introducingfresh new artists, they've played the game relatively safe for theirentire existence. A successful record label has to establish themselvespretty much before they can make bold moves like this one, releasing aCD comprised entirely of demos received by the label from completeunknowns. Fat Cat established themselves by releasing an assortment ofbuzzworthy 12" split singles, sneaking in a relatively unknown act onone side with an established act on the other side. In sales it'scalled the "foot in the door technique" — now that we've got yourattention, try this! The label's intentions are well and this techniquesure paid off. 
It isn't until the fifth track of 'Hoshi No Koe' that you hear musicstrongly resembling the majority of Nobukazu Takemura's previous work.In and of itself, this isn't such a bad thing. To continue to rely onthe same reverb-laden, scratched, looped, and manipulated CD soundswhich have come to be so closely associated with Takemura (as well ashis "Child's View" alias) would have been redundant, if still quitepleasant to listen to. With the release of the "Sign" 12-inch a fewmonths back, Takemura signaled a shift away from the avant-gardeindulgence of 15-minute tracks of skipping digital beats, and towardsan almost danceable mix of vocoder-enhanced vocals, 4/4 rhythms, andcatchy melodies - and which kept his trademark sound as coolornamentation to what was his most single-y track yet.
The Angels of Light are the current song writing device of Michael Gira of Young God Records. How I Loved You, follow-up to 1999's superb debut New Mother, commits to tape many of the songs from the now legendary first tour and others written since. It is a collection of love songs of sorts with references to various women and Gira's parents, whom grace the front and back cover of the digipack.
The debut full-length from Belgium's Scratch Pet Land resembles what anaudio Rorscharch Test might sound like. Fans of the quirky Sonig soundfrom groups like Vert, Mouse On Mars and Wang Inc. should be warnedthat the proverbial happy blippy sounds don't really jump in until thefourth track and don't stay very long as this German duo seems to havean amazingly short span of attention. Given the chance however, thisfull-length debut is quite pleasing, with creative crack addict-likemelodies and noisy audio scribbles. There are spots where the soundsappear to be strange mutated samples of kids hiccuping in a playground,short tunes of randomized aural splotches, or a musicallyimpressionistic walk across a stained glass carpet crunching betweenyour feet. When the melodies do arrive they stand as shining moments ofan almost Kraftwerkian tributary nature. Forty-two minutes of randomtest tones, pots, pans, circus animals, babies and flying saucer soundslater I'm left somewhat confused, but rather satisfied. 
Thomas Brinkmann is a prolific producer of numerous minimal/experimental techno platters, both digital and analogue. His tools here are simple but unique: a knife, a pile of old records, 2 turntables, a mixer, an isolator and an effects unit. If I'm to understand the process correctly, Brinkmann literally cut the locked grooves into the records and then played and mixed them to create the 10 4-7 minute, binary titled tracks.
Taking a break between albums, the Tied & Tickled Trio have released a brief 8-song collection of remixes from last year's "EA1 EA2" album. The disc is released through Morr Music in Germany and features remixes by Console, Kandis, Max.Ernst and others. For the most part the remixes basically go one of two ways. Some of the tracks are pumped up discotheque versions of the songs while others take a route accenting the more jazzy elements. The Max.Ernst cuts are quite watery with obnoxiously repetitious horn loops while the Console mix flows nicely with an element of technological mastery.
Console, a.k.a. Martin Gretchmann a.k.a. 'that guy in the Notwist who -isn't- in the Tied & Tickled Trio' has also released a disc of remixes, but this one's from the other side of the mixing board. 'Console Yourself' is eight tracks of other peoples songs remixed by Gretchmann, over the course of three years, including an overlap from the Tied & Tickled remix disc. Also featured on the disc are remixes of Isan, Barbara Morganstern, Ammer/Hage and even a Console song remixed by Console. Gretchmann's mixes stand out as he's got a keen ear for when to keep a loop going and when to kill it. While both of these discs are good to have for collectors, they're nowhere to start for people who aren't existing fans already. I personally recommend the most recent full-length albums from each of the three, Console's "Rocket in the Pocket", Tied & Tickled Trio's "EA1 EA2" and of course the Notwist's "Shrink." With any luck at least one of these entities will release something excellent later on this year.
Phill Niblock is a drone specialist. Everything he composes pursues the same drone idea but he varies the textures drastically by utilising different musical instruments. His pieces are supremely mind altering, and this release on the continually engaging and intriguing Touch art label is the most hallucinogenic dense and intense recording I've heard from him, or anyone else for that matter.
Ah, the obligatory 'best of' album! Chances are you've sampledsomething from, but perhaps not something from each era of, Pigface'sdecade deep oeuvre. The history of Pigface is inextricably tied todrummer / ringleader / Invisible Records head honcho Martin Atkins withsome 100+ members (as listed in the insert) having passed through therevolving door. The talent amassed on stage and in the studio isstaggering and includes most everyone in the rock and 'industrial' rockunderground. The musical result is varied and impossible to pigeonhole,taking in elements of punk, funk, noise, dance, etc. Disc 1 collects 20(!) re-edited, re-mastered tracks representing the 4 studio albums,emphasis on "Fook" and "Notes From the Underground", and a few of theremix/live EPs and albums. The editing merely tightens up everythingfor maximum disc capacity and the remastered sound is most clearlyevident on the most dated studio material, "Suck" and "Point Blank"from "Gub". It all sounds great and flows well through the years with afine track selection courtesy of fan submissions. Disc 2 is the realincentive for long time fans with 9 of the 15 tracks being previouslyunreleased nuggets: brief interviews (Atkins, Ogre, William Tucker),songs either aborted or in an infant form ("Dribble", parts of whichbecame "Empathy", "Taiko" which became "Asphole"), re-mixes (includingnew versions of "Chickasuarus" and "Hips, Tits, Lips, Power"), and anamusing radio ID. These include Dirk Flanigan, Astrid Welz, Jim Marcus,Andrew Weiss/Ween, Black Francis and Robert Santiago of The Pixies ...some accomplished pieces and others spontaneous, fun and loose jams."Preaching to the Perverted" does just that but does it with style. Anincarnation of Pigface will likely tour later this year. 
The second release in the over-priced under-packaged series of livediscs on Mute's Jenny Divers label is another concert from Panasonicrecorded in 1995. This recording however was from one show in London,(as opposed to the two-show in NY release reviewed a few weeks back).The sound is much different as the group knows how to cater to thedifferences in fans and concert goers in both cities. While the NY showwas full of meaty bass-heavy beats, this disc is littered with moreintrospective art-school class "A" electronica, with much aim to pleasethe stuffy London chin-scratchers searching for irony in an electronicconcert. The disc is considerably shorter, totalling only 53 minutesbut thankfully is indexed track-by-track. Once again, only the seriousfans need to worry about shelling out the stupid cash to pay for thisslab of black plastic accompanying the CD, each without artwork. 
