VA – You’re No Big Deal – Grunge, The U.S. Underground and Beyond 1984-1994 – Cherry Red Records. Well, let’s get the griping out of the way – the word ‘grunge’ may be used. It’s in the title; it’s used by people ‘on purpose’; I have very little control over history, despite my best efforts, […]
Capricorni Pneumatici – ‘Ix Tab’, Eighth Tower Records I don’t often start reviews like this, but I think the accompanying text with this release speaks (in tongues) for itself: Ix Tab is an album dedicated to the mysterious Mayan deity, goddess of ropes and snares, and patroness of those who hang themselves. Originally released on […]
Various – Joe Meek – A Curious Mind Outer Space! Horror! Death Discs! The Wild West! Demos!. Cherry Red Joe Meek, astronaut extraordinaire (in his Holloway flat), was the launchpad for some of British pop’s most eccentric experiments. But while the stars get most of the spotlight, A Curious Mind – a new 3CD box […]
8 Discs. 82 Tracks. 1 Inverted Cross. There’s something oddly comforting about the endurance of Deicide. A strange cultural relic from a more chaotic age, where even Twisted Sister could be viewed not just with suspicion, but with a real sense that they might corrupt the future of our world. Glen Benton and his band […]
VA – The Eraserhead – Music Inspired by the Film of David Lynch – Unexplained Sounds Group In the cult cosmos of David Lynch’s ‘Eraserhead’, silence drips like oil, and the industrial groan of existence becomes its own character. The original soundtrack – the brainchild of Lynch and Alan Splet – wasn’t just music. It […]
Music’s strangest séance gets its final incantation – tea brewed, minds blown. Three albums into their collaborative endeavours, we can safely remove any semblance of novelty from this album. Now able to record together in Peter Buck‘s basement, with Scott McCaughey, one of music’s safest pair of hands on bass, and Linda Pitmon on drums, […]
The Residents’ ‘American Composer’s Series‘ – Cherry Red There are bad years for music. Then there’s 1983. It was the year everything got airbrushed. Bowie traded Berlin’s paranoia for peroxide and pastel suits. Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ was less an album than a an attempt to allocate him his own GDP. UB40. Just…UB40. MTV had turned […]
Sonologyst – Planetarium Cold Spring Records Ah, to be floating, gliding, soaring through the silent everlastingness of outer space. Or, as the latest album from Sonologyst makes clear, the incredibly ominous, doom-laden rumble through the blackness. If NASA ever needed a house band for the heat death of the universe, Sonologyst would be first on […]
Heat Wave – The Intoxicating World of Nexotica as Dug by Lux and Ivy I’m sure I said I wouldn’t get any more of these, but here we are. It seems entirely reasonable that some, if not all, of these records were owned by the fair, jettisoned by 50s hipsters when their family began to […]
Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry Presents Confusion: The Jamaican Upsetter Singles 1971 One of the reasons I love music is the way that it captures an unrepeatable moment in time – thoughts, emotions, character, mistakes, genius, and madness saved forever, to be savoured long after everyone concerned has passed away. Little captures that feeling of peering into […]
