From the band's name, I was expecting something more along the lines of pretentious 1970s prog rock, but this most definitely is not the case. While a rather short album, the three expansive tracks that comprise it encompass a vast variety of sounds and styles that create an ethnographic, soundtrack experience unlike many others.
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Sublime Frequencies presents a CD reissue of a limited edition vinyl by this Tuareg rock group featuring the enigmatic guitar hero Bibi Ahmed. The group brings to its hybrid of roots rock, Afrobeat and plugged-in fuzz rock a political urgency, the music having its origin as a political weapon used to communicate from Libyan refugee camps within the Republic of Niger in the 1980s and '90s.
Girls Against Boys frontman Scott McCloud's half-whispered, cigarette burnt vocals on this, his telling solo debut, channel the scuzzy street-level vibe of that seminal Touch & Go band, leavened by the sagacious musings of an unblushing, unpretentious gutter poet. For this fan, these wizened, largely acoustic ditties frequently spark thoughts along the lines of "Gee, these sure would make some great GVSB songs."
Out of my latest order of three releases from Faraway Press, the current CD from this infrequent Mirror collaborator and often overlooked co-conspirator of Faraway Press (alongside Andrew Chalk) has been by far the most rewarding. On this, her second solo release, she has consciously let go of the single-piece-per-side mold and created a decidedly not-drone album.
It angers me that Some Bizzare Stevø has treated one of the best releases of the 1980s with such utter negligence, issuing versions like this with embarassing mistakes on tracklisting, indexing errors, chintzy packaging, and dreadful artwork recreation. I encourage nobody to buy this shitty reissue and I hearby challenge Stevø to recall these copies at once and put out a fucking proper release of this classic once and for all.
I relish the opportunity to expose our readership to new independent music on a regular basis. For this writer, it is the ultimate high to help lift from obscurity a worthy band that lacks the marketing muscle of a major label machine, and, like a crusty hygiene-deficient junkie, I am instinctively trying to score the next great fix, regularly on the lookout for such opportunities. That dutiful yet addictive sentimentality is precisely how I got conned into trying this band, lured by the unfulfilled promise of moderately morose music akin to those early Factory Records artists that LTM Recordings has such a veiny hard-on for.
Most attendees at a Suicide concert these days would claim to respect the "work" of the streetwise electronic innovators—provided that said "work" consists of their confrontational eponymous debut and, possibly, their glorious Ric Ocasek helmed sophomore album. I, on the other hand, am a Suicide fan, one who eagerly pounces on the members' infrequent solo albums with the same vigor as I did the reissues of their underrated third and fourth records. Simply receiving a copy of this release in the mail was a perverse joy unto itself.
This compilation of Negativland's video work over the past two decades fits right in with the YouTube Poop generation: plunderphonic video cut-ups sourced from mass media are spliced together into prankish, mindbending collages that shock, confuse and annoy in equal measure. The main difference between this material and the video lulz currently polluting the Internet is that Negativland use these techniques to touch on issues of spectatorship, copyright law and American cultural imperialism.
Although his reputation as the “screaming philosopher” precedes him, this vastly insufficient nickname does nothing to convey the power and skill of Tomokawa’s singing and songwriting. While the gasping, almost convulsive delivery of some of his lines does of course lend credence to this moniker, everyone seems to overlook his earthy, troubadour voice that carries most of the songs. Backed by a band who seem comfortable playing in a traditional Spanish style (with an Eastern European twist), this album shows Tomokawa at an ever higher peak than usual.
Charlie Looker has issued every rock band in existence a very serious challenge: write music as inventive and natural as the stuff on Secular Works or get the hell off the stage. I'm certain that this album spells the end for nearly every math-rock band in existence.
