Category: Recorded music
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Kevin Pearce – Matthew Hopkins And The Wormhole (indie)
There’s a lot of quality songwriters out there, ones that write sincere and sophisticated songs, and that, without necessarily straying too far from the kinds of musical materials that audiences find digestible, manage to say something particular and illuminating. Trouble is, they all sound the same. I mean, however good…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
Richard Pinhas and Yoshida Tatsuya are legendary figures in the French and Japanese experimental rock scenes, respectively. ‘Experimental’ is a term that implies a bit of diversity, and the projects they’ve been involved with have covered quite a range of approaches, so there is nothing predictable about this record, and…
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Regal Worm – Use and Ornament (avant-prog)
‘Detail’ seems to be the watchword by which this album was conceived and constructed; I hesitate to say that it’s all about the arrangements, as it’s clearly about much more, but a conspicuously enormous amount of effort has gone into them. Ideas abound in every area, in an album which…
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Paragaté – Pattern Of Light (experimental)
Paragaté is a fluid ensemble; its two permanent members are Tim Risher and Tom De Plonty, both of whose names may be familiar to you from the reviews I have written over the past few years, but the ensemble has a number of other creators associated with it, and a…
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Various Artists – Singles and EPs
Kibou Records is everything I talk about but don’t actually do. It’s a totally independent, DIY music label and online distributor, dedicated to uncompromising underground music, of the noisy punk variety. It’s basically the Revolution, as described by French anarchists The Invisible Committee, a parallel structure that is a challenge…
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Abstractive Noise – of the Adder’s Bite (post-ambient)
Woman as symbol figures prominently in the conceptual scaffolding of this album; this is something about which I have certain reservations. ‘Woman’ has been employed as a metaphor for many things in the creative languages of men: the imaginative faculty, the creative spirit, material aspiration, fields of endeavour, country or…
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Matt Stevens – Lucid (avant-rock)
Matt Stevens has a particular approach as a solo performer; he gigs on his own, with an acoustic guitar, and he plays instrumental music. He’s a great player, but he doesn’t tackle the challenge of solo performance by throwing a heap of complex technique at the problem; instead, he uses…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
In the best tradition of underground music, it’s not entirely clear what Milktoast Music is; probably not a label in the traditional sense. More likely a collective of closely related musical projects, I would imagine. This album includes tracks from four of the six acts listed on their website, with…
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Ernesto Schnack – Worldbuilding (acoustic post-rock)
I’m going to begin this review by talking about myself. This is essentially a very bad habit in a critic, and except inasmuch as it is sometimes necessary to lay ones theoretical cards on the table, I try to avoid it. However, in order to explain precisely on what level…
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Present – Triskaïdékaphobie (avant-rock)
If there’s one thing reviewing this album has taught me it’s this: always scroll to the end of the email. When I went back to the message in which this was submitted for review, I discovered that I had also received a link for Present’s second album, Le Poison Qui…
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Various Artists – Album Roundup
Drug Corpse doesn’t have quite the full-core horror content that might be inferred from the cover and the title, but it sets its phasers to dark from the off, and keeps them there. The lyrical themes are as varied as the contributing emcees (of whom there are thirteen in total),…
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Pannón Melankólikusok – Szerelmedért (chamber rock)
I don’t know if Christina Domene and Robert Hofmann were a performing duo before they conceived their love of the Hungarian language, and began to set that culture’s poetry to music. That is the agenda around which this project revolves, however, and they certainly chose its name, which translates as…
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Sons of Kemet – Burn (avant-jazz)
I often start my reviews by talking in general terms about the schtick of the artist or release; creative practice, methodology, how I theorise the music, what my critical approach will be and so forth. However, there’s equally often not that much to say. A lot of good music comes…
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Various Artists – Singles and EPs
This music is the brainchild of Michael Woodman, guitarist and vocalist in Thumpermonkey, written using the immersion composition techniques described in The Frustrated Songwriter’s Handbook. The method seems to work. I have no idea what method he employs when writing for Thumpermonkey, but that seems to work too, and for…
Oliver Arditi 