Progressive house is not to everyone’s tastes. Too surly, too slow, too subtle, too long, too – well, too progressive. Based around the subgenres of house, techno, trance and breaks, music by the likes of Gui Boratto, Pole Petersky and Trafik are a teasing, testing affair, as likely to build you up as knock you down and often peaking after so lengthy an introduction that many of us will have already got the taxi back to the flat, had our Continue Reading
When I was 10 years old I remember larking around with a Kodak camera I had ‘borrowed’ from my Dad. Not an issue in itself, but I had a friend round at the time, and as the day wore on and much frivolity was being had in the garden, my partner in crime leapt away to the back of trees to take a piss. Me? I used all my wily skills to creep up on my friend and snap him Continue Reading
This record is not, if you were wondering (and probably you were), a homage to timber in its many guises, an art rock interpretation of a page from the Travis Perkins trade catalogue, nor an obscure means of listing said materials as a kind of handy beat-driven reference guide. It is in fact the most regular thing Whirlwind Heat have done thus far. They debuted under Jack White’s patronage back in 2003 with ‘Do Rabbits Wonder?’, a frantic 13 song Continue Reading
Look. I’m going to make this as painless as I can. At the risk of going completely against the grain in the run up to this year’s World Cup, I refuse to kick a man when he’s down. Call for ‘off side’ if you will, but I’m going to turn this game around, hoof the ball back into my own half, smile at my goalie and concede an own goal. Rather gamely of me don’t you think? Anyway. Here’s my Continue Reading
The now ubiquitous ‘Wikipedia’ suggests that there is a phrase currently in usage describing the kind of downward career trajectory experienced by Gomez subsequent to their Mercury nominated, ‘Bring It On’ debut album of 1998; they call it ‘Mercury Poisoning’ or ‘doing a Gomez’ – a reference to the weight of expectation heaped on a band in the aftermath of a roaring critical response to a band’s very first efforts. Crud also has a phrase; we call it ‘shite second Continue Reading
Prior to the UK’s outrageously well received, time-travelling cop drama, ‘Life On Mars’ us Brits were already a hapless enough bunch of retro addicts as it was. Since then, everyone over the age of 25 has been busy cracking open their cans of Party Seven and pledging to auction their paisley patterned souls on Ebay. For some the 70s ended somewhere near the end of production on Shoot League Ladders, the removal of the BBC test card, the dismissal of Continue Reading
Hou does funky house grab you? It doesn’t? Well you’re likely to hate this big fat 2 disc selection of silky, slinky, heavenly house-music, 100% guaranteed to kick off your weekend more wickedly than having a pink Max Factor Stay Put Lipstick cartridge stuck up your arse last thing Friday afternoon, leaving you as high as a kite. Three albums in, and with no sign of a let up in the quality department, the sexy, grandiose and delinquent Housexy crew Continue Reading
Sometimes a little mystery can be nice, and mystery is something that El Perro Del Mar and her sound lend themselves to very well. See, we can’t translate her name by ourselves – we are linguistically inarticulate Brits after all – though it does give an impression of grace and elegance; aesthetically sleek, an exotic utterance in a soft foreign tongue. If also sounding a little like a Mediterranean beach resort. But we like it. Which makes it a slight Continue Reading
I don’t know which I love more, the album itself or writer who describes the album as ‘a must for anybody that likes their experimentalism with a touch of poignancy and introspection’. Now I don’t know about you, but when somebody asks how you like your experimentalism, I rarely have the either the nerve or strength of conviction to offer, ‘with a touch of poignancy and introspection’. Same thing with toast. If someone asks me how I prefer my toast, Continue Reading
Every so often a label comes along that taps into, however accidentally, the record buying habits of spotty, cola-quaffing teenagers and student-sorts everywhere. I’d quote one off hand, but for the life of me I can’t think of one just now, which only goes to show just how transient such fads can be. Domino, on the otherhand, has built its success on following its own peculiar instincts. Fair enough, they released an absolute bag of shite in the days immediately Continue Reading