Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Robert Wyatt – ’68 (avant-rock)

    Robert Wyatt – ’68 (avant-rock)

    Robert Wyatt has very few rivals for the title of most influential percussionist in British underground music (among many other things), but he hasn’t played drum kit in over forty years, after losing the use of his legs in an accident. The release of an album on which he does just that (among many other… Read more

  • The Fierce And The Dead – Spooky Action (avant-rock)

    The Fierce And The Dead – Spooky Action (avant-rock)

    It used to make a certain amount of sense to refer to The Fierce And The Dead as a post-rock band, and they have indeed been known to make use of that term themselves; I feel they’ve moved on, however, into some kind of a post-post-rock phase. Leaving aside my irritation at contemporary culture’s tendency… Read more

  • Review Of The Year 2013: 12 Albums

    Review Of The Year 2013: 12 Albums

    This is the fourth consecutive time I’ve written a review of the year’s albums, which is slightly scary, as I’m under the impression that writing about music is something that I’ve only just started doing. Still, as senility begins to work its erosional magic on the brain, the years do slip past without leaving so… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    My first exposure to Olds Sleeper was startling, and he’s yet to disappoint me, across four albums of his own and one collaboration with the beguiling Heidi Harris (not to mention the cigar-box guitar stuff he puts out as Jellyspine Jenkins). Using lo-fi production as a device to emphasise the pure materiality of his music-making,… Read more

  • 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