Dwayne Sodahberk's latest for Tigerbeat6 pushes some of the glitchy electronics with which the artist is often associated to the background, allowing the simple pop melodies to rise to the fore. Though perhaps less experimental than some of his other work, Cut Open wins by being direct.
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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Anticipating a new full length, Sonig reissues every side of non-album Lithops material on one disc, with unreleased tracks from the same time period. At least three of these singles have been long out of print, and as bittersweet as it is to see my $2 copy of “Tubino-see-through / Filterabend” (Static Caravan 1, clear-vinyl, hand-stamped sleeve, decal insert) swiftly devalued, having the rest of these immediately available is almost better than a new record from Jan St. Werner.
Maybe it’s a bit too early to call, but right now I’d say it is safe to say that Stay Afraid, the latest release from Brooklyn noise-rockers Parts and Labor is the first great fist-in-the-air rock record of 2006. With all the instruments jacked up within an inch of their lives, the band goes flat out on every song here, and comes up victorious for the most part.
2nd Gen mastermind Wajid Yaseen also works under the alias Uniform with partner Alice Kemp, and Protocol is their latest effort for Planet Mu. Despite Planet Mu's ruptured dance tendencies, 2nd Gen's reputation for heavy break beats, and Uniform's first album for Ad Noiseam of abstract beat compositions, Protocol takes a hard left turn into unexpected territory.
Japanese instrumental group Anoice cherish melodies over everything. This, their debut release, doesn’t redefine music but it does carve out its own little space somewhere near the sea and sets up its own nest of ideas.
With their sixth full-length album, Drew Daniel and M.C. Schmidt once again approach their music from the conceptual level, hitting upon a brilliant idea and elaborating it perfectly. The ten "audio portraits" that comprise the album evidence a precision of concept and working method that is almost fetishistic in its exactness, but nonetheless provides an engaging, humorous and often illuminating listening experience.
Numero Group's fifth number covers the output of this southern gospel/country singer, a collection of recordings that, unlike the other Numero releases, was recorded for a major record label, however equally challenged with facing extinction as the others. Fern's album Singing a Happy Song was recorded for Paramount's Dot imprint but it soon became the property of MCA following a buyout and basically layed dormant for 25 years before being returned to Fern Jones after a lengthy letter campaign.
Not unlike 2002's Amore del Tropico, the focus on The Spell is on love. Devastation, remorse, seduction, memories, and a whole host of emotions ranging from despair to anger occupy every thought and every syllable of every song. Whittled down to a five piece, now including The Album Leaf's Jimmy LaValle, the band sounds forceful. The entire album buzzes with a apprehensive energy, summoning the spirit of Alfred Hitchcock with equal parts lone poet and repenting sinner.
This mysterious UK noise collective bring out the torture chamber intern side of Thurston Moore and get Jim O’Rourke as pumped as your average everyday metal teen. The omission of Chris Corsano's name, however, seems like an oversight as he deserves credit for the five and a half minute hardcore percussive finale.
Numero 004 is named after Yellow Pills, the magazine that Jordan Oakes began publishing in 1990, dedicated to the power pop sounds discovered through obscure 45s from bands he thought of not as "has-been"s or "never-were"s, but "could-have-been"s. That, however, is up for debate.
