-gen- has written the following articles:
Aaahhhh, Reading. That glorious weekend where, for a few sunny [perhaps] days you can forget your worldly woes, throw hygiene to the wind and rock out for the weekend, oblivious to the fact that by Sunday you probably smell like the underside of a pig's trotter. Shyeaah. Fuck that for a laugh. For the less...»
It's difficult to know what to say about The Century of Self , the sixth pouring forth of ideas from ...Trail Of Dead. This isn't the sound of a band winding down or running out of ideas, just the sound of a band in need of some focus. »
'Lowlife' sounds like someone pulling down the room around them, hands sweeping blindly through glass, china, books, cds, photos, electrical equipment, sending it all crashing to the floor. Sarah Daley's panicking voice rises and rises, losing hope and breath, over a pounding torrent of grinding, grieving guitars.»
This isn't any noisy band, this isn't even about noise at all; there is no noise. Noise is what you get when sound doesn't make sense anymore, and all of this makes sense, in a warped, lawless, six-dimensional kind of way. Lightning Bolt are one very simple opposition; drums and bass bounced off each other like nuclear fission until something violent and unconceivable happens.»
His guitar saws back and forth on his knee, glinting with different intensities of reflected red light and emitting a weary, bleary haze of ennui. Remember Slint's 'Good Morning Captain'? Listening to Steve Gullick's new band Tenebrous, one gets some idea of what the hell happened to the poor, titular seadog's ship.»
What should the uninitiated expect from a TV On The Radio set? Your scribe, untouched by the TVOTR live experience, arrived with mixed expectations: a fevered party-time celebration? A self-consciously clever patchwork of sounds? The biggest surprise, given their intensely well-regarded stock of material and general reputation for being one of the best and most forward-thinking bands around, is how laid-back tonight's packed ULU excursion is.»
The opening bump-bump-bump acoustic smile of 'Love Your Bum' - "Tuggable and huggable... / Super soft and extra strong / Love your bum" - should give you an idea as to the tone of Eberg's second long-player, Voff Voff. Supremely understated throughout, it's a tiny, firefly symphony of whispered, buzzing voices, plucked guitar and funny little digital cacophonies that poke their colective heads, every so often, around the corners of these odd songs.»
White Rose Movement are perhaps the monosodium glutamate of rock and roll. Initially addictive and tantalising, their neon-lit eighties electro is more than a little vacuous. Still, when did the absence of vitamins ever stop you eating Hula Hoops?»
Manic Japanese popsters Mika Bomb have announced a show at London's Garage in May, as a benefit for their absent drummer Ergi Ahmed, who was taken severely ill before Christmas...»
Listening to On A Bridge Between Clouds is like being intently aware of your breathing for half an hour; it becomes a hypnotic exercise, and you start to wonder what will happen if you stop. Fine-grained, gravelly vocals filter through the record like rice through a colander and incongruous lyrics humming through a veil of varied, moody instrumentation; out of it all rises a collection of very considered, aerated songs.»
My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts took its listener on a sensory voyage around the far-flung corners of the world, beginning in the mind and ending in the middle of some dark, anonymous forest. Its reissue now sees it offered back up to the public, supplemented with outtakes from the sessions leading up to its recording.»
Maybe it's something to do with the climate. There's a peculiar, light-drenched that defines a lot of Scandinavian music - maybe, given their limited and erratic exposure to the sun, music fans dwelling on top of the Earth absorb as much of it as they can, and spew it all out again in lustrous, reflective music that shivers with life. Finnish newcomers Magenta Skycode certainly fit this theory.»
You can picture Veldt now, tall and aloof, resplendent in velvet smoking jackets and slicked hair, crooning and swaying in front of fat old BBC microphones. 'Walking In Silence' sweeps by like Scott Walker, propelled by waves of clarinet and watery, programmed beats.»
Beatglider's half of this split EP is ever so pretty, but it's the sonic equivalent of someone murmuring "I'm fine..." as they patiently bleed to death; Shinri's music suggests something held back, kept selfishly to themselves, to be used when they see fit.»
A single, unemployed father of four is being sued by seven record companies for internet music piracy, according to Hong Kong's Sunday Morning Post. 54-year-old Yeung Chun-Choi, however, attests that he doesn't even know how to turn on his computer...»
Tonight, playing to a respectable crowd of bright young'n'lost things in Tattys' booze-soaked bunker, Little Death demonstrate exactly what a productive and determined gestation period can produce.»
This year's Lollapalooza line-up has been announced. The festival, which will take place in Chicago's Grant Park on August 4th-6th.»
While tickets for 2006's festivals sell out one after another in the absence of Glasto this summer, Mean Fiddler Managing Director Melvin Benn has announced that a large new festival is to emerge...»
There's something awfully Swallows And Amazons about the Mystery Jets, from the nautical imagery to the mini neverland of their Eel Pie Island HQ. A playful spirit, a refusal to grow up... call it what you will, the essence of childhood is distilled in their music, and Making Dens realises these sensibilities in a concise, passionate, and surprisingly sad pop debut.»
Mogwai's problem is they're one of those "ultimate" bands. They wedged that bar pretty damn high, and we all expect a little more from them. We expect them to break our minds and blow our hearts, because we know they can. So why doesn't Mr Beast stick in the memory?»
If 'Guilty Language Of Gossip' is battle waged by the rules of engagement, 'One Side Of A Conversation' leads an altogether more lawless charge; a bomb in a city centre, guerrilla warfare fought dirtily and desperately, a crack squad rendered in SVGA and dispatched to eliminate the baddies in an splatter of pixelated guts and guns.»
Eden Maine will play their final show together at the Luminaire in March, in association with Drowned In Sound. Expect a stellar line-up from start to finish, a blistering array of sounds, and all manner of DJ hotshottery... »
this is out already, and is AWESOME. i think i love this band. - gen Brooklyn's Proton Proton have been concocting this succinct, sparkling sound for less than a year. The on/off guitar thrusts on EP2's first track are crankier than Albini and harder than Chuck Norris. Be assured: fists WILL fly in all directions.»
Goldfrapp's glistening, copulating robots have long since ceased production, replaced by a bored-sounding, chrome-clad human whose only concern is getting a timecard punched before leaving. Ugh. How disappointing.»
Melodic twinkles and sparse basslines give way to a tempest of sulky despair, woebegone vocals carving angry shapes on the twin columns of guitar that hold the whole thing aloft. At least, that's how one imagines Cherubs might have designed it on paper.»
In two years Selfish C*nt have changed course considerably. The onetime purveyors of nihilistic, roughed-up electro-rape swapped the drum machine for a drummer some time ago, replacing the screamingswarmingslicing fly-drone hostility that got them all the attention in the first place with something more suggestive, more... tolerable.»
How many people do you know that can single-handedly silence a full Barfly?»
This is Arab Strap at breaking point. The sedated gloom that has characterised much of their career, finds itself thoroughly bullet-riddled in the carnage of The Last Romance, Aidan Moffatt's heavily accented vocals spat swiftly through thundering instrumentation. It's feverish, unbalanced, disturbing, and for the most part captivating.»
Sometimes, an exquisite record slips under the radar. This is one such occasion. Yeah, we missed the boat. Sorry. Released in August this year, Set Yourself On Fire smacks of class. A superbly packed parcel of tender, warm songs that buzz with feeling, the third record by Stars is another example of why we should all move to Canada forthwith.»
