The Raincoats – Odyshape - September 2011 September 11th, 2011

Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain found The Raincoats’ can-do, English art school playfulness as invigorating as Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon did their dismissal of gender stereotypes. Nominally still under punk’s umbrella, The Raincoats’ second album, from 1980, featured then forbidden art rock drummers Robert Wyatt and This Heat’s Charles Hayward, betraying wider influences. Tempos and moods mutate…

Lean Left – The Ex Guitars meet Nilssen-Love/Vandermark Duo Volume 2 - September 2011 September 11th, 2011

It’s a tag bout to drive wrestling enthusiasts wild. On guitars, Holland’s Terrie Ex and Scotland’s Andy Moor, from Amsterdam’s anarcho-punks The Ex; on drums, the Norwegian improviser Paal Nilssen-Love; and on tenor, Chicago’s free jazz drill sergeant, Ken Vandermark. The twelve minute appetiser Knuckle Cracking Party lets the guitarists spew electric sparks at each…

David S Ware, Cooper-Moore, William Parker & Muhammad Ali – Planetary Unknown - September 2011 September 11th, 2011

The saxophonist David S Ware, the pianist Cooper-Moore, and the bassist William Parker are Seventies veterans, pre-dated by half a generation by the drummer Muhammad Ali, whose brother Rashied defied time for John Coltrane when he broke rules still being broken here. Planetary Unknown is an instant genre classic, Cooper-Moore’s pendulous suspensions bracketing sustained ecstatic…

Edinburgh School For The Deaf – New Youth Bible - September 2011 September 11th, 2011

Historically, Scottish indie rock favours either the transcendental power of feedback, from the surly Jesus And Mary Chain to the spiritual Snow Patrol, or winningly winsome feyness, from The Pastels to Belle And Sebastian. Teenage Fanclub switched from the former for the latter. Edinburgh School For The Deaf do both simultaneously. Like all today’s youngsters,…

Cian Nugent – Doubles - September 2011 September 4th, 2011

Like Glen Jones, the young Dubliner Cian Nugent operates in the shadow of the American avant-folk maestro John Fahey, here on two lengthy acoustic guitar instrumentals. The drone-tuned, one note, assault of the opening five minutes of Peaks & Troughs, and its subsequent quarter of an hour flirtation with development, echo Fahey at his most…

Glen Jones – The Wanting - September 2011 September 4th, 2011

The former front-man of the Boston psychedelic band Cul-de-Sac, Glen Jones is ageing gracefully, touting his fourth collection of acoustic guitar instrumentals. Titles shape responses; Twenty-three Years In Happy Valley, Or Love Amongst the Chickenshit, invites us to read its banjo flurries ambiguously; the seventeen minute closer is a dense cycle of blurred finger-picking, with…