Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Roland Bühlmann – Aineo (progressive rock)

    Roland Bühlmann – Aineo (progressive rock)

    There is a minimal aesthetic to Aineo, but its compositions are structured hierarchically, not by any remotely Minimalist procedure. It’s an instrumental record, with cool, low-key textures, that, for the most part, can be uncontroversially classified as rock – a few folky moments notwithstanding. Everything about it conforms to established norms that say, roughly, each… Read more

  • Ashley Reaks – Before Koresh (avant-rock)

    Ashley Reaks – Before Koresh (avant-rock)

    Ashley Reaks speaks from outside. His work is most obviously ‘outsider art’ if you look at his visual work, rather than his music: his collage-based pieces, deliberately ugly as they are (although they are often richly and decoratively patterned), with their disturbing, and frequently sexually explicit iconography, position themselves unequivocally away from the mainstream, far… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Chris Saunders has released several more albums under the Interceptor rubric since he sent me this one, but he hasn’t submitted them for review, presumably because it’s taken me so long to get to this! I haven’t heard those yet, and this is old news now, but Angel In The Red Room is the first… Read more

  • Orange The Juice – The Messiah Is Back (avant-rock)

    Orange The Juice – The Messiah Is Back (avant-rock)

    The physical presentation of a release is an interesting issue. There are some who would argue that it’s irrelevant, that the only interesting thing is the sound on the recording, that the packaging is an aspect of nasty, dirty, anti-art marketing, or so superficial that authentic music fans shouldn’t care about it. Context is definitely… Read more

  • Earthmass – Collapse (doom)

    Earthmass – Collapse (doom)

    When you pull music apart and start to think about it, it often appears to be built up in several ‘dimensions’. These are our modes of perception, rather than qualities with the same independent existence as the the different materials that go into making a house for example, or the elements that compose the Earth’s… Read more

  • Various Artists – Singles and EPs

    Various Artists – Singles and EPs

    The Stringers are a four-piece from Ontario, that plays rock music of the old school – which doesn’t mean that it’s ‘old-fashioned’, but that it’s pop music, god dammit! This is entertainment, with no pretensions to any kind of creative territory beyond that compass; all too often that can imply some kind of highly manufactured,… Read more