Reviews

It’s easy to forget that the Campers’ first album emerged sometime between the birth of R.E.M. and the demise of traditional rock bands like Van Halen. This was a time when although there were no behavioural rules to break in rock n roll, there were still plenty of stylistic ones. And with the growing popularity in upbeat cynicism and back to basics approaches to playing (perhaps as a direct counterpart to the rise of electronica) along came bands like Camper Continue Reading

I’ll dispense with all cod Post-Modernist shenanigans – the chameleon-like inferences and the half-arsed references to popular culture that Beck usually stirs up and instead play it simple. You bought ‘Mutations’? You’re halfway there. Building on (or narrowing the field still further – depending on which way you look at it) the back to the farm folk weariness of Beck’s Pre-Vulture album, Sea-Change tips the scales again in favour of the ponderous, sepia toned glory of bluegrass psychedelics; as far Continue Reading

The press release reads well enough: lush, elegant refined and intricate. Not words you could deny – but neither are they the only words you could use: bumptious, overbearing and conceited might perform equally as well. The Australian neo-psychedelic, The Church (they of late 1980’s hit, ‘Under the Milky Way’) whilst melodic and deliciously moody enough to draw comparison to anyone from U2, INXS and The Doors, and for all their artful and wizened experience fail to light my fire Continue Reading

Little Axe may not be a household name, but themusician/performer/producer has been a well respected and significant artist for the past 30 years.  His alias was Skip McDonald, a blues performer whose list of credits includes work on some of rap music’s most influential records.  McDonald, besides being a member of the Disco inspired Wood, Brass & Steal in the 70’s and the heavy Industrial group Tackhead in the late 80’s and early 90’s, has been called upon by many Continue Reading

Since 1999, producers Morgan Geist And Darshan Jesrani’s series of EP releases have always managed to find respect and approval from many of the daddies in clubland. And whether or not your tastes are discerning enough to appreciate it – the pair have cooked up an album of cuts that pretty much cements that credibility. Casting some old classic cuts alongside new material, the album is a summation of their careers at this point in time. An established techno artist Continue Reading

Some have already commented on the sheer breadth of non-conformist knick-knacks that My Computer manage to ‘shoe-horn’ into each and every track on their debut release, Vulnerabilia and the single itself is no exception. Whilst not as staggeringly eclectic as ay Lemon Jelly or Add N’ To X (or as much as their press release suggest) the Manchester duo have managed to mine a hard seam of soul and originality through the snarling vocoders, analogue keys and the general noise Continue Reading

As a Folk singer dressed like a Punk Rocker with an attitude to match, Ani Di Franco has operated outside the mainstream from the beginning.  By turning her back on corporate rock, the unconventional Di Franco has emerged as one of the most prominent and inspiring cult heroines of the 90’s underground music scene.  Lyrically uninhibited, Ani constructs politically driven songs pertaining to but not limited to: rape, abortion, and sexism.  The controversial singer/songwriter has seen little commercial radio play Continue Reading

Irish DJ – producer – soundtrack composer David Holmes originally conceived The Free Association as a means of taking his music live – and whilst that seems an impossibly grand ambition, it may go some way toward explaining the polarities of the record: at one pole loungey and jazzy, at the other a squealish hybrid of industrial rap. So excuse me if this sounds odd – but it’s an odd record. The Free Association (as is the name of the Continue Reading

The video that accompanies recent single, ‘Never Be Alone’ shows the band passively instigating a pub brawl amongst a dozen or so local hoodlums in a non-too illustrious drinking establishment in London’s notorious Bethnal Green.  Allegedly banned by MTV the video just about sums up the dark, schizoid mental-as-anything duality of this release – and about as far away from the lush, harmonious greenery of the band’s debut, ‘Chemistry Is What We Are’ as you can get. Starting as any Continue Reading

As a founding member of industrial messiahs KMFDM in the early 80s, Raymond “Pig” Watts is a seasoned producer, performer and musical engineer with the ability to morph styles with ease.  Pigs’ latest solo effort, Genuine American Monster, fluctuates between aggressive industrial to ambient trance.   After teaming up with Sascha Konietzko and Tim Skold for KMFDM’s recent come-back recording, Attak, Pig strikes with his sixth solo endeavor and his debut for Metropolis Records.  While the KMFDM influence is still with Continue Reading