Axis: Sova – Shampoo You. Surprisingly great garage rock, primitive drum machine ironically gives it a more modern feel than the usual Stooges etc worship, plus intriguing hints of Sonic Youth and Wipers (nowt online yet though).
Pauline Rae Gibson & Kit Downes – Emotion Machine. Very minimal and very Annette Peacock in places. Guessing Wire magazine will love it, but don’t let that put you off (also nothing to hear yet).
Gösta Berlings Saga – ET EX. More crazy, prog-loving Scandos, though again with nods to modernity. One of those albums I contemplated abandoning after the first couple of tracks, before conceding to myself that I was actually quite enjoying it (err…)
Camera – Emotional Detox. Krautrock, err, moderne. Fine, but didn’t quite grab me as much as their last one… https://soundcloud.com/bureau-1/sets/camera-emotional-detox-snippets
Jacco Gardner – Somnium. Dutch psych bloke releases instrumental concept album inspired by Johannes Kepler’s 17th century SF classic, apparently. Authentically library-ish and therefore quite Ghost Box-y in places (move on, nothing to hear)
Sharron Kraus – ‘Something Out Of Nothing’. Talking of which… last in Ghost Box’s Other Voices singles series. Folky.
Exploded View – Obey
Soft Machine – Hidden Details
Oh Sees – Smote Reverser
The Vinyl Countdown: J is for…
Jane’s Addiction – Ritual De Lo Habitual. Blimey, I hammered this when it came out (1990), which is no doubt why this particular piece of vinyl is so crackly. Nobody quite like them at the time, or since probably, a frenetic but clever relief giver amid a UK music scene polarised by the flippin’ Stone Roses and the even worse Guns & Roses. The first side is entirely kinetic, while the flip (which according to the song timings on the label is 31 minutes long!) has longer, stranger and rather wonderful tracks such as this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD8UeWHGl-A which was crazily enough the first single off the album…
Live:
Oh Sees / BEAK> – The Forum, Kentish Town. Fantastic gig, two bands you wouldn’t have immediately put together, but both animated by the confidence that comes from knowing you’re doing something that nobody else is. BEAK> were almost entirely motionless, but still driven by barely-articulated angst, while Oh Sees’ John Dwyer is a man possessed on stage, wringing torrents of sci-fi noise out of his guitar. Marvellous.
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