Alas the weary travelers conclude their two-month sojourn above the Arctic Circle with Final Broadcasts. Released last month at the group’s North American live debut in San Francisco, it’s an album of startling power that deserves wider distribution.
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The debut album from this Boston trio is something else. It takes influence from dozens of different sources and combines them seamlessly without being an academic chore or a self indulgent amalgamation of record collections. It is just a fucking great album.
From a seed of a gentle warm up drone this single untitled track becomes a wrenching guttural live thing that just won’t settle. With all this spiky movement the track doesn’t have an overall feel to it; it’s more like a smeared splurge of sound across the disc. It works but it’s not giving anything away.
When I first heard that Current 93 and OM were releasing a split EP, I tried not to get my hopes up as I was sure I was going to be disappointed. Luckily, the final product sees both groups in fine form. OM provide a trademark hypnotic mantra while Current 93 throw a curveball with an entirely unexpected piece that is heavier and sludgier than the vast majority of the Current 93 back catalogue.
New Buffalo is the project of Australian Sally Seltmann, who not only sings but also creates almost all of the music as well. This self-titled EP, featuring a few new songs as well as an alternate version and a remix of a track from her full-length The Last Beautiful Day, includes contributions from Jens Lekman and Broken Social Scene.
Label compilations should be compulsory in some cases, a necessity imposed on those labels that release too much music for the average college student to keep up with. Unreleased tracks by Kid 606, Tarwater, Charles Atlas, Nudge, Signaldrift, Strategy, The Sems, Stars as Eyes, a killer cover of a Yes song by Grizzly Bear, and many others all help make this compilation truly great, both as an introduction and a retrospective.
Packed with far more tunes than the typical Wackies re-release through Basic Channel, this extremely accessible CD comprising two long out-of-print albums will surely satiate reggae lovers.
A record built from distorted, screaming renditions of Christian and Catholic prayers could’ve easily ended up buggering an already stiffened concept. Having already been thoroughly pillaged by bearded Norwegian sociopaths through the late eighties, this turns the concept into something beyond ineffectual ranting at the already converted. This re-released and reformatted six track disc sees Dominick Fernow spewing venom and generating tension.
