Oliver Arditi

Blog archive

  • Grindlestone – Tone (ambient)

    Grindlestone – Tone (ambient)

    When music has no lyrical content, its titles become gnomic and mysterious, intentionally or otherwise. ‘Our Floor With All Its Beliefs’ could be taken in so many different ways, but to be honest I think it’s best not to take it at all. Unless there is a very clear relationship between the musical themes and… Read more

  • Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Various Artists – Album Roundup

    Serious pop music: I love it. Of course most pop music has been made with a serious attention to getting the sound right, such as it is, but then there’s the stuff that applies the language and sensibility of pop to its chosen themes in a manner that looks way beyond the superficial concerns of… Read more

  • Chris T-T, She Makes War, Paul Goodwin and Sophie Jamieson at The Portland Arms, Cambridge

    Chris T-T, She Makes War, Paul Goodwin and Sophie Jamieson at The Portland Arms, Cambridge

    I should come clean at the outset: I knew about this gig because She Makes War, of whose music I’ve been a fan for some time, put it on her website, and as it’s in my old stamping ground, it seemed an ideal opportunity to finally find out what she does live. It was only… Read more

  • Interview: Barren Waste

    Interview: Barren Waste

    New Hampshire, USA band Barren Waste first came to my attention when they sent me their debut release for review: Divine Intervention is an EP of six very short tunes in a predominantly grindcore vein, but with a very distinctive and creative approach to texture and dissonance, which immediately struck me as an interesting and… Read more

  • Astralfish – Far Corners (space rock)

    Astralfish – Far Corners (space rock)

    Labeling this record as ‘space rock’, as I have above, is a bit like an American telling you that they’re Italian, or Polish or Armenian. I don’t have to write anything after the title, and I’m never trying to ascribe any particular set of characteristics when I do so, but it serves as a useful… Read more

  • The Blackswords: Episode 1

    The Blackswords: Episode 1

    Irtain could smell burning, and hear the rumble of a crowd at war. It wasn’t so much the clash of arms, although there was that as well, muted and intermittent, but the sound of many voices; he had survived enough battles to know the difference between the note of a market, or an angry mob,… Read more