Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Godzilla Black – The Great Terror (avant-rock)

    Godzilla Black – The Great Terror (avant-rock)

    I wasn’t supplied with a lyric sheet when this album was submitted for review, so my assessment of its verbal content is a bit fractional, but there’s no mistaking the central thrust of things, as evident in the title, and in the baleful, malevolent eyes of the infant staring out at us from the cover.… Read more

  • Rael Jones – Mandrake (post-classical)

    Rael Jones – Mandrake (post-classical)

    The running times of the nine pieces collected on Mandrake fall within the broad compass of the usual song lengths of pop and rock music, and they are gathered into a whole which may fall a little short of the usual length of a contemporary album, but whose duration would once have been a quite… Read more

  • Various Artists – Singles and EPs

    Various Artists – Singles and EPs

    Twelve minutes is a respectable length for an EP, but with eight tunes on this disc they’re still pretty much crammed in, none of them clocking in closer to two minutes than one-and-a-half. If you think that makes this sound like a sampler, you’d be very wrong: although these bands clearly have much more to… Read more

  • Mechanimal – Mechanimal (electronic rock)

    Mechanimal – Mechanimal (electronic rock)

    Produced amidst the collapse of Greek civil society and the evaporation of its economic certainties, Mechanimal looks outwards, fixing its gaze in particular on America and Germany as the source of its musical materials, and by implication (not to mention common consent) significant contributors to the social ills afflicting Mechanimal’s native shores. ‘America, America/ I’ve… Read more

  • Skåglörds – Korea (doom/ electronica)

    Skåglörds – Korea (doom/ electronica)

    I don’t know what this has to do with Korea; no more do I know why doom metal (or sabbathcore as it was amusingly described by the label when Korea was submitted for review) represents the north, and electronica the south. I like some enigma in my music, so it’s not keeping me awake at… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    This entire album is performed straight to tape (or whatever recording medium was used) on a Roland MC-505 groovebox; Cory Peak chose to use a particular set of simple, rounded timbres that gives it a distinct 8-bit vibe, although the machine is considerably more sophisticated, and a much more powerful synthesiser, than the devices that… Read more