Author: Oli
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Fit And The Conniptions – Sweet Sister Starlight (blues rock/ folk rock/ singer-songwriter)
Although I have written elsewhere about the singularity of the song as an artistic form, and the fallacy of regarding it as merely a fusion of music and poetry, it can be observed that most singer-songwriters focus their efforts more on one aspect of their craft than another. Some are…
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VK Lynne – Whiskey Or Water (blues rock/ singer-songwriter)
VK Lynne plays to the mythical archetype of the strong but vulnerable, hard drinking rock chick: how much of that is VK Lynne the narrator of this sequence of songs, and how much of it is VK Lynne the writer and woman is above my pay grade to speculate, but…
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Monday Musings: What’s So Good About Music?
I’ve been thinking back recently to my abortive attempt to train as a secondary school music teacher, and the furious bout of self-examination it induced. The process, which was not a positive one, but from which I learned a great deal, forced me to question, and explicitly articulate the value…
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Shrine 69, Another Dead Hero, Meadows & Hobopope & The Goldfish Cathedral at The Northcroft Social Club, Sudbury, 20 May 2011 (metal/ pronk/ heavy rock)
The Northcroft seems to be going all out to turn itself into one of Sudbury’s busiest venues. They’ve been putting on a variety of local and regional acts from all areas of the musical spectrum, but tonight their upstairs room was hired out by some of the noisy bastards. The…
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Hope and Social – Sleep Sound (alternative rock)
I remember at school my art teacher exhorting the class to stop drawing tiny pictures in the corner and to cover the page with bold strokes, to step out and give voice to whatever it was we wanted to express. Well, there are no bushels on top of Hope and…
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Fresh Like Dexie – Step In The Sun (funk rock)
Fresh Like Dexie are funky. Very funky. I’ve been a fan of funk since I first heard Herbie Hancock’s Headhunters and the Parliafunkadelicment Thang in my late teens, and I devoted a lot of time after that to studying the music, so I have some idea whereof I speak.Funk can…
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Monday Musings: Advice For Bands – How To Annoy Me And Lose My Interest
I write this blog; I also write reviews for two excellent websites, the music magazine eBurban and very wonderful independent bands’ resource Live Unsigned. Doing these things requires me to find out about various bands and musicians, listen to their music, get a handle on where they’re coming from, and communicate…
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Fernando’s Kitchen at The Junction, Cambridge, 19 May 2011 (world fusion)
There are not many completely independent bands that can pack out a venue the size of The Junction (which is not huge, but it’s a substantial venue); and a smaller subset of those which perform something as commercially challenged as ‘world music’. Fernando’s Kitchen are playing a good game (admittedly…
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Alun Vaughan – The Kindness Of Strangers (solo bass)
The long standing association between the solo bass release and a meaningless display of rippling technical muscularity is thankfully receding into history. It’s reasonable that it should have come about: to play something that is more agile and melodic than the traditional low thump of a bassline requires rather more…
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Big Block 454 – Bells & Proclamations (folk-funk/ psychedelic rock)
Big Block 454, named for a 1970 Chevrolet engine, are one of the oddest bands I’ve encountered in a while. They are creatively out there, full of weird sounds and transgressive stylistic collisions, and yet they are, to me at least, accessible, pleasing, and decidedly danceable. Apparently they’ve been around…
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Monday Musings: What’s The Use Of Critical Theory?
I pay a certain amount of attention to critical theory, which is to say, I think about the ins and outs of what I do, as someone who makes statements in one medium that are responses to someone else’s statements in another. I also mean that I read what some…
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Knifeworld – Dear Lord, No Deal (psychedelic rock)
Kavus Torabi, Cardiacs guitarist, among many other things, originally pursued Knifeworld as a solo endeavour, but this EP marks the beginning of the project’s recorded life as a six piece band with a permanent membership. The initial release, Buried Alone: Tales of Crushing Defeat, had a particular sound, and a…
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Archangel – Project Rave (8-bit/ IDM/ techno)
It’s unclear how much of this album might have been created using the genuinely simple digital resources it seems to utilise, and how much use was made of rather more sophisticated plugins standing in for them, but either way, there’s a lot more processing than would be permissible on purist…
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Marley Butler – Procras The Sample (ambient/ electronica)
Marley Butler had something to do; but, he also had a new software sampler he’d downloaded for free. The something didn’t get done: but he did record this EP, which strikes me as some pretty darn constructive procrastination. Each tune was written, recorded and mixed in a single evening, and…
Oliver Arditi 