Reviews

‘Samey’. It’s not in the dictionary. It’s not in your thesaurus, and it’s similarly unlikely to be in your ROM based Office lexicon. So what does it mean? Unexciting? Not exactly. Repetitive? Perhaps.  Boring? The jury’s out… But ‘samey’ this album is. Bon Jovi love playing acoustically. Anyone who has seen their best performances in the last 10 years will tell you that, and for a handful of songs in the midst of a fist to the ceiling high wattage Continue Reading

‘Speaker-bustin dance music’. Says it all really. And whilst the term ‘techno pioneer’ might be an outrageously overgenerous moniker for anyone whose greater body of work was crafted in the mid-nineties, there’s no doubting that Dave Clarke is an undisputed beat champ. He might be a little misunderstood, he may have a fight on his hands in troubling the mainstream, but as ‘Devils Advocate’ confirms, Clarke is incendiary fringe material. The one-time hip hop and soul DJ weaved hip hop Continue Reading

Ever wondered what it would be like letting a dozen or so monks loose with Pro Tools and a copy of Cubase? Well your idle fantasies have been quietly answered in the form of ‘Spokes’. First meeting at school in the early eighties, Andy Turner and Ed Handley of Plaid have long been spinning and refining their diverse and considerable yarn for abiding forefathers of modern electronica, Warp Records. So it’s quality assured, as far as we’re concerned. No doubts Continue Reading

If one and a half minutes is good enough for the Bellrays, then it’s good enough for me, so here goes. Loud, messy, bluesy, filthy, dirty, growly, surly, heavy, mean, moody and totally, totally uncompromising. On paper it looks good. On paper it looks like everything rock n’ roll should be: quick, painless, brutal and satisfying. Tony Fate’s whirligig guitars spirals out of control to a satisfying degree just below that of the absurd and Lisa Kekaula’s lusty, soulful blast Continue Reading

Tales From The Dark Side: for some an atrocious little known supernatural thriller made for TV in the 1970s. For Basement Jaxx – the conceptual basis for their pumping nightmare follow-up to the camp if delicious ‘Rooty’ release of 2001. The candy-coloured magic-house of that album, ultimately giving way to horra-house. Darker, more urban but every bit as mischievous and furtive than either ‘Remedy’ or ‘Rooty’, ‘Kish Kash’ was always going to be a bit of a mixed-bag, tune-wise. Caught Continue Reading

Formed in the spring of 1998 by Vito Roccoforte and Luke Jenner and inspired by punky new-wavers PIL and Televison, The Rapture typify the avant-garde New York DIY garage thing going on at the moment. Like Le Tigre, you could be forgiven for thinking you’ve suddenly fallen for all the synthetic charms of dance. Not the Kylie Minogue kind of dance, you understand, the cool kind. The kind of phlegmatic sonic sizzle you find in dodgy downtown bars on the velvet Continue Reading

Mathematically speaking, you’d expect that something that was eclectic would stretch further than something that was not, by the logical reasoning that there is more to go around, less cause to scrape the proverbial barrel. Wouldn’t you? Of course you would, although there is also the pitfall that perhaps you would be tempted, by the reasoning that there is indeed plenty to go around, to avoid unnecessarily digging deeper. And here lies both Fort Lauderdale’s strength and weakness. 14 tracks Continue Reading

It begins with a surly glimmer in the still, heavy darkness. Like Nick Cave observing his own brow furrowing in a small mirror, lit by soft candlelight, surrounded by acres of black. The fringes of this image are charred slightly, worn away like the spine of a well-thumbed, handed-down volume, and such a respectful impression gives it an air of classicism. This is an overwhelming display of capability for the mere opening moments of a debut album. And then the Continue Reading

I have to say that for someone who was not totally familiar with either the work of Japan or David Sylvian, the breathtaking re-release of the entire Japan/David Sylvian back-catalogue was always likely to be something of a gargantuan task to complete review-wise. Never an easy listen at the best of times, David Sylvian and co. carved a fair to middlin; career out of crafting clever, intricate but always beguiling pop. Such was the briney, acidic nature of their music, Continue Reading

You’re familiar with Add N To (X), right? Well believe it or not, they were the original ‘Peaches’ a few years back. Troublesome, bothersome, engagingly manic absurdists with a peculiar eye for the pornographic, the violent and the perverse and true believers in good old tried and tested vintage electronic equipment. Picking up a MS20 synthesizer they found in a bargain bin in Piccadilly Circus helped them craft some of the wackiest, noisiest, scruffiest, rockiest and most unsettling music of Continue Reading