Oblivians – Desperation - July 2013 July 21st, 2013

Memphis garage punks the Oblivians split at the end of the century, various key player permutations finally recapitalizing four years ago. The stringy solos, snotty vocals, and stomping sixties riffs remain, but the invigorating profanity and surly nihilism of old is toned down in favor of a more mature assimilation of classic blues and soul…

Crumbling Ghost – II - July 2013 July 14th, 2013

Crumbling Ghost play sixties British folk revival standards, and compositions they’ve informed, in the style of doom metal monsters Sleep or Electric Wizard, finding shamanic drones in traditional tunes. But unlike hillbilly bands that release novelty albums of AC/DC covers, Crumbling Ghost’s second record is a convincing concoction. The Submerged Forest is Can’s pulverising Yoo…

Blue Aeroplanes – Beatsongs Deluxe - July 2013 July 14th, 2013

Fronted by a whispering beatnik, flanked by a Polish dancer and a phalanx of fidgety guitarists, Bristol’s Blue Aeroplanes were the action-painted art-rockers you needn’t fly to New York to find. Expensively recorded in LA in 1992, a decade into their apparently endless flight, Beatsongs presaged an REM-style breakthough, with its chart-bound bite at the…

Janus – Gravedigger - July 2013 July 7th, 2013

In 1972 the British band Janus had their lone album of ‘70s hard rock doused in ’60s psychedelic effects by German studio engineers. The band disowned the awkward hybrid but this reissue uncovers Janus’ fascinating, acid flanged, proto-metal silhouette. A second disc sees guitarist Colin Orr politely and rather pointlessly remix the brilliantly bewildered record,…

John Bisset – Van Quixote - July 2013 July 7th, 2013

John Bisset’s kids left home. He threw his guitar in a campervan and recorded himself playing wherever his wanderlust led, an often combative improviser indulging his sometimes suppressed facility for fluid folk melodies. The Spanish and French backdrops of these fecund field recordings inspire flamenco flourishes and café society chords, as Bisset battles bird and…

Paolo Angeli – Sale Quanto Basta - June 2013 June 30th, 2013

When you listen to Sale Quanto Basta remember that Paolo Angeli is creating this curious concoction of composition, modal improvisation, and familiar folk melody as-live and all alone, triggering various mechanical pedals, hammers, mini-fans, and brushes welded, Heath Robinson-style, to the mutant body of his outsize Sardinian guitar. His sixth album sees the eleven minute…