People think I’m insane More from the Pilgrim Talk label sent to us in late October. The Pilgrims there just keep on coming up with surprises, just after one was tempted to tag them as a strictly “art” label. Back Magic are a duo of young men from Illinois including the prolific Nick Hoffmann...
The News from Neptune Following in a haphazard American tradition of home-made instruments and objects that are half-sculptures are Neptune, who have been in existence for about 17 years and have over two dozen releases to their credit, yet Silent Partner (NORTHERN SPY NS013) is the first thing I ever heard from this highly...
Hidden Bird’s Nest (3LEAVES 3L011), eh? Know what you mean…if this was an English folk song record it would be a collection of lusty songs about courtship. Instead this is actually a field recording record made by Hiroki Sasajima and Takahisa Hirao, pointing their microphones into the rich repository of wildlife that abounds in...
Born on the Veyou Last heard from the American sound artist Nick Hoffman in September with a couple of very subdued and inexplicable releases, still amazing the crowned heads of Europe to this day. Here he is again as one half of Swamp Hag, teaming up with Stephen Hilliger to create the half-hour CDR...
Small Cruel Party at the Zoo An unsettling item of ambiguous electronic music is Soft Zoo (FIRST FOLD RECORDS FOLDCD011), a record credited to A Small Party Of Pressure, a cabal of mummers which includes the massed talents of Justin Wiggan, Mark Vernon, Anders Gjerde, Hild Sofie Tafjord and Lois Laplace. Some of these...
If you want to sharpen your wits with some good old-fashioned astringent modernism, the double CD On Tour (MUTABLE MUSIC 17544-2) by Ostravská Banda ought to be poured into your daily tub like a pouch of bath salts. This ensemble went on a tour of Europe in 2010 and took with them a strong...
Univrs. (RASTER NOTON R-N 133) by Alva Noto is a record which I would like to think celebrates the joys of typesetting – Univers is everyone’s favourite font – but in fact it’s a follow-on from a previous release Unitxt, and has something do with the properties of a universal language. Given Carsten Nicolai’s...
A cassette it be…short in length…Pee in My Face With Surgery, an American absurd noise combo comprising Fritz and Jaime from Peeesseye. In the Nest c/w Children’s Crusade (SICK HEAD 34) it be called, released on a small Glasgow label. Feedback noise shalt ye hear, guitars being unplugged and replugged, said devices raising considerable...
Dan Melchior is an English singer-songwriter based in New York, and his Catbirds and Cardinals (NORTHERN SPY NSCD011) was recorded in North Carolina and is credited to Dan Melchior und Das Menace. It’s a fine piece of idiosyncratic songcraft and raucous music, based around heavy reverbed guitar, simple beat-combo percussion (played quite loudly), and...
Renewable Sources Energy (BIOMETRAX BIOM01) is the promise of Biomass, a Californian project put together by Walter Ovtha Woodz, and the title of a CD he released in September 2011. Tangible releases like this are probably just the tip of the biomedical iceberg; Biomass is more of an immersive experiment of sorts, involving meditation...
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