Showing 310 results for: Album Reviews Archive
Various Artists – Weirdlore, Notes From The Folk Underground - July 2012 July 29th, 2012
Weirdlore encompasses a mystic strain of mushroom-flecked contemporary English folk, newly nesting in hedgerows between outright traditional music and the rootless folk-pop of The Mumford And Sons massive. Rapunzel & Sedayne’s Innocent Hare is a shimmering psychedelic drone. Starless And Bible Black arrive by way of West Coast California. The Scottish interloper Alasdair Roberts channels…
When the Suharto regime opened Indonesia to Western Influence, its previously repressed rock scene went overground, and here collectors who prize the region’s vibrant native hybrids of acid rock, hairy funk and indigenous melodies reluctantly share highlights of their hard to snag stash. It’s difficult to tell, from these twenty cherry-picked tracks, whether ‘70s Indonesia…
Dave Graney & The Mistly – You’ve Been In My Mind - July 2012 July 22nd, 2012
The older the listener gets the more sense the gnomic beatnik platitudes of Dave Graney, the Lee Hazelwood of suburban Melbourne, make; functional philosophy, crooned over coiled leads and funk-footed rhythms. Transcending his punk past, and his subsequent immersions in the various genre fictions of country, lounge and songwriter styles, Graney sculpts the slick Seventies…
Moebius + Tietchens – s/t - July 2012 July 7th, 2012
The endlessly productive Dieter Moebius originally thrummed analogue synths for Harmonia, Seventies Krautrock fellows of Kraftwerk. Asmus Tietchens played alongside him in the short-lived Liliental. Reunited after thirty-six years, their new album moves mainly through typical Moebius modes, amorphous electronic cloudbursts subsiding into motorik throbs. But the ten minute Kattrepel, a cyclical and cheap sounding…
Fushitshusha – Hikari To Nazukeyo - July 2012 July 7th, 2012
Hikari To Nazukeyo appears to be the one hundred and first album the durable Japanese contrarian Keiji Haino has released since 1970. Though a classic blues rock trio in shape and sonic palette, like Cream or the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Haino’s Fushitsusha group genuflect toward no-tunes European late Sixties free improvisation. Their 9th album finds…
The Beat – I Just Can’t Stop It - July 2012 July 7th, 2012
It’s nice that the late Seventies Ska pioneers The Specials have reformed to stash some pension cash, but The Beat, strafing Two Tone’s punky reggae template with taut new wave twin guitars, afro-pop inflections, and dubwise excursions, delivered the movement’s best debut. I Just Can’t Stop It’s sparkling originals still outshine the cover reliant sets…