Ben Chasny returns with his tenth album under the Six Organs banner. There is a slightly softer approach compared to The Sun Awakens from last year but thankfully the electric guitar (which has improved the already formidable Six Organs sound no end) has been retained. There are few bands who use such a limited palette of instruments (i.e. just a guitar) for so many albums without sounding repetitive but Chasny can always be counted on to breath new life into those six old strings.
Two new shows just for you. We have squeezed out two extended release episodes for this weekend to get you through this week. They contain mostly new songs but there's also new issues from the vaults. The first show features music from Rider/Horse, Mint Field, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Anastasia Coope, ISAN, Stone Music, La Securite, Bark Psychosis, Jon Rose, Master Wilburn Burchette, Umberto, Wand, Tim Koh, Sun An, and Memory Drawings. The second episode has music by Laibach, Melt-Banana, Chuck Johnson, X, K. Yoshimatsu, Dorothy Carter, Pavel Milyakov, Violence Gratuite, Mark Templeton, Dummy, Endon, body / negative, Midwife, Alberto Boccardi, Divine. Cow in Maui from Veronika in Vienna. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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Edited down from hours of recordings, this collaboration between America's Sunburned Hand of the Man and Finland's Circle is a thrilling collection of improvisations and jams. Not only is it a great first time partnership but I like it better than a lot of either band's previous recordings. With any luck this is the start of a long-lasting and prolific relationship.
Ten years following its initial release, the debut album from Christian Fennesz gets the reissue treatment. Sometimes quite different from the joyous nature of his subsequent albums, it hints at the possibilities of what was to come. It is an interesting−if not altogether brilliant−document of his early work, some songs being mere experiments in texture and others where all the elements gel together to hit home.
Angelo Badalamenti is one of film and television's greatest composers, and his association with David Lynch over the past two decades has yielded some of the most haunting, beautiful, dark and unsettling soundtrack music ever produced. Of all these collaborations, arguably the finest is Badalamenti's music for the cult TV show Twin Peaks, and this disc finally collects all of the great music inexplicably left off of the heretofore released soundtracks for the series and its film prequel Fire Walk With Me.
After recovering from the sonic assault of the Consumer Electronics LP on Carlos Giffoni's No Fun Productions label, these ears are primed for the label debut and first ever CD release from Nate Young (Wolf Eyes) and Steve Kenney's (Isis & Werewolves) Demons project. The title, Evocation, suggests this is not going to be for the faint hearted. Bring it on...
Judged solely by his recordings, Wyatt seems a low-key, wry, extraordinarily loyal and honest person. Yet opinions about his work probably cover a range comprising love, surprise that he's still alive, disinterest, and hate. For sure there are conflicting verdicts on his voice. Love it, like it in small doses, or loathe it, Wyatt's hasn't changed a great deal since the late 1960s. It remains a singularly unadorned expression of our flawed humanity.
It has been over ten years since their first album and, granted there has been a big shift in the personnel on board, the group are barely recognizable in terms of sound and volume. This fifth album is their quietest, with all muted moods and introspective songs. It is a solid release by the band and, although sharing on paper many traits with the folk revival/fad of recent years, sounds like its own little world. The songs here are calm and tender; the album has a soothing effect on me from the moment it starts.
With a quick, cursory listen to this disc, it is not hard to see why these tracks didn't make it onto any other Jesu release. Not due to a lack of quality or anything like that, they just would not have clearly stuck out as too "different" among the others that have been released. With that in mind, we are presented eight tracks that are among the most experimental Justin Broadrick has released, but like almost everything else he has a hand in, are pure gold.
Lou Reed's original release of Metal Machine Music had gathered an awful lot of mythology by the time I got around to hearing it. However, my tolerance for noise already well developed thanks to more modern noise artists, the impact this album had on me was negligible. I appreciated the power of the statement but the actual musical content was underwhelming. Since my first encounter with it, I have grown to enjoy it more, no longer looking for a sensory overload or volume one-upmanship. Instead I accept it as a harsh sonic soundscape, something to pick apart rather than endure. As such, when I initially read about Zeitkratzer's arrangement of Metal Machine Music, my interest was piqued to say the least, how would "ordinary" musicians play Reed's noise?
The fifth full-length release by Marcus Schmickler as Pluramon uses three vocalists, including Julee Cruise. This simple device allows for multiple angles of perception to be explored in different narrative voices. Allied to spellbinding production, this is a fascinating record.
