I'm not waxing nostalgic for the "good old days," but the bold step in issuing three vinyl only 7" singles is very reminiscent of the merry, whimsical Stereolab which burst onto the scene and warmed everybody's hearts by a flood of 7" singles.
We made it to 700 episodes. While it's not a special episode per se—commemorating this milestone—you can pretty much assume that every episode is special. This one features Mark Spybey & Graham Lewis, Brian Gibson, Sote, Scanner and Neil Leonard, Susumu Yokota, Eleven Pond, Frédéric D. Oberland / Grégory Dargent / Tony Elieh / Wassim Halal, Yellow Swans, Dental waste in Saigon photo by Krisztian. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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This strange mix of early '90s work and more recent material, showcases some of the many moods of Steve Stapleton. Classic cut-and-paste insanity from Nurse With Wound’s middle period has been paired with some of Stapleton’s powerful ambient vocal pieces from the last few years. This compilation does not make much sense on paper and perhaps is a little misguided in terms of its scope but it does sound brilliant from every angle.
On a stop at Steve Albini's famed Electrical Audio studios during a recent joint tour, the Washington state husband and wife duo recorded this collaboration with Chicago’s noise/metal trio, later mixed by Randall Dunn. The result is a dark, yet captivating set of tracks that brings in bits of drone, black metal, post-rock, and gentle piano passages, bearing the mark of both but sounding entirely unique.
Peter Rehberg and Marcus Schmickler make a perplexing and contradictory duo. Take their computers away from them and their differences, both in theory and in practice, become clear. Perhaps because of these differences, Peter and Marcus have produced just two records together: 2007’s One (Snow Mud Rain), released by Erstwhile, and USA, a live recording released by Pan in 2011. Composed entirely of high intensity, tuneless noise, USA offers no explanation for its rationale or structure, or whether it has either to begin with, which leaves only the quality of the sounds to speak for themselves.
Great rock 'n' roll bands can be deceptively hard to find. There's too often an empty gap between the dime-a-dozen bands playing to alt-rock radio, punk/hardcore traditionalism, and the toothless, blog-hyped indie scene. Thankfully, The Men exist outside all of those spheres as one of the finest rock bands around.
Way back in 1996, the duo of Thomas Köner and Andy Mellwig released this singles collection on the revered Chain Reaction label.  Over the ensuing years, it has justifiably been hailed as an inarguable dub techno classic, but it has remained maddeningly out-of-print for quite some time.  Now it is thankfully back again and it still sounds pretty amazing, which is a rather astonishing feat for cutting edge techno from almost two decades ago.  I'm a little disappointed that Type did not try to replicate (or outdo) the original, famously CD-damaging metal packaging though.
Last year, I was pleasantly surprised by how much better Guider was than its predecessor.  Now Disappears has surprised me again, greatly toning down their signature Neu!-worship in favor of something that sounds like a hell of a lot like GVSB-worship (or perhaps merely a deep fascination with Mark E. Smith).  Fortunately, I thought Girls Against Boys were pretty awesome in their prime and The Fall aren't so bad either.  More importantly, this quizzical shift in direction coincides with a fairly massive leap forward in the band's songwriting, making this the punchiest, hookiest, leanest, and most immediately gratifying album that the band has made yet.
A verylistenable 7 song EP with a Hawaiian theme. Each side of the brightyellow 7" starts off with a luau-styled instrumental that almost sounds'easy'. The second song on the A-side is a version of the cliché Hawaiiansong "Hula Hula". The third song is a version of Elvis' "Blue Hawaii" thatis my fave of the EP along with the first songs on each of the sides.Elsewhere things are warped up a bit in the V/VM fashion, but never tothe point that listening to the track is an act of art appreciation. This is agreat EP to buy if you don't have anything from them and would like tocheck them out, though their 2 CD "Aural Offal Waffle" 52 track setremains my favorite and most recommended V/VM disc.
Howard Devoto assembled Magazine within months of departing the Buzzcocksin 1977. More artsy and dynamic than the punk he abandoned, Magazine's 5piece line-up (the only constants being Devoto and a young Barry Adamsonon bass) augmented vocals/guitar/bass with liberal use of piano, keyboardsand saxophone and drew influence from punk, post-punk, funk, new wave androck, as well as the literature Devoto devoured. In less than 4 yearsthey released 5 albums and numerous singles. "Maybe It's Right.." boxesup previously unreleased goodies and the highlights of their influentiallegacy on 3 fifteen track cds. Disc 1 covers the Real Life/SecondhandDaylight era, including "Shot By Both Sides", "I Love You You Big Dummy","My Tulpa", "Definitive Gaze", "The Light Pours Out of Me" and theinfectiously catchy "Rhythm of Cruelty". Disc 2 is The Correct Use ofSoap/Magic, Murder and the Weather era, including "A Song From Under theFloorboards", "Thank You", "Because You're Frightened", "Model Worker" and"Come Alive". Both of these discs feature alternative mixes and recordings,live songs and single A and B sides. Disc 3 is the real treat though with4 previously unreleased, live in the studio Peel sessions dating between'78 and '80. These sessions, along with the live songs from discs 1 and 2,show just how diverse, tight, edgy, explosive and cool Magazine could bewith solid versions of the big 'hits'. There's a lot of really vital stuffhere some 20 years on down the road. Other than the simple slip cases forthe discs, the ugly turquoise and yellow fold-up box contains a 28 pageinsert full of archival photos but, disappointingly, no liner notes otherthan track credits and no mention of re-mastering. Fortunately everythingsounds great and the music more than makes up for it.
Like a mixture of Sigue Sigue Sputnik & TheFast. Totally new wave, as if I didn't just tell you that comparing him tothose two. Sigue Sigue Sputnik was Tony James band after he playedbass for Generation X. Tony James was responsible for the atrocious mixof The Heartbreakers 'LAMF ReVisited' when he and Johnny took themix money and played Doctor instead of making that record "bigsounding" like they were supposed to. They just washed the masters inreverb and trashed a legendary album until the original mix was reissuedseveral years later. Despite this judgment glitch Tony James was anincredible showmen and creative force. Sigue Sigue Sputnik were reviledfor their "Love Missile F1-11", though it became a classic of its genre.The Fast were a way ahead of their time band from NYC that combineda love of Sparks into a punky power pop that predated 'new wave' by afew years. You'd do well to check out another NYC band The Speediesas well. Their "Let me take your Foto" 7" is still 10/10. The Fast and TheSpeedies were peaking around 1979. The Fast have songs on bothMax's Kansas City compilations, plus some great 7"s and an LP. Back toSylvester Boy. There are a bunch of songs on this disc that are just sofine. Sonovac and Sylvester Boy are doing almost exactly the same thing,and the two of them are my picks of the week from the Other Musicsection of this weeks gullbuy. This CD is the first non Chicks On Speedrelease on their label. It is the third release of the label.
