adam has written the following articles:
Ploughing your own furrow can be a mighty lonely business, but at least Tindersticks have the resulting tales of isolation to console themselves with. Countless record releases down the line and the world hasn’t got any better, which ensures these Brit miserablists are on familiar ground. Lead track ‘»
Nine times outta ten, Max Tundra is one of those frustrating entities who – while you listen at least – gives off waves of utter untouchable brilliance. Switch the CD player off, however, and you may struggle to remember a single note. And perhaps herein lies the reason why Ben Jacobs – who incidenta»
So. Hip-hop. The bling, the guns, the status, the East Coast-West Coast wars. Did someone forget to bring, like, the tunes? Thank God then for Atlanta’s number one structure fucker, Prefuse 73, whose new album, ‘One Word Extinguisher’, hit the streets this week. It’s a rare shot of adrena»
Sorry Vic Twenty. This is nothing personal. But enough is enough. The crime is aiding and abetting uninspired twee corporate indie: fey, terminally twinkling and incredibly infuriating. Loved by six skinny foppish dangly haired cocksniffers the world over, surely it’s some kind of Freudian admissio»
The UK's best annual festival is back for the fourth successive year (no licence problems here, folks) and DiS want to make sure you catch all the best avant-garde action. So sit back and make sure you don't miss these fine people at All Tomorrow's Parties this Friday-Sunday. First up, breaking with tradi»
This year's sold out All Tomorrow's Parties may still be just over a week away, but 2004's line-up is already starting to come together! Mogwai, Tortoise and Shellac - all previous curators of the festival - will return to celebrate AT»
Sometimes something just happens to brighten up your day and make living worthwhile. Toploader have thrown in the towel. As previously reported, the band were dropped by their record label somewhat incongruously earlier this ye»
“We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.” Dennis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Aid Co-ordinator For Iraq To paraphrase Massive Attack, it’s about time that the musical communi»
Rock music might, as Medicine 8 so astutely observe, pay off, but shit chart house doesn’t have quite the same dividends nowadays does it lads? Ordinarily, recruiting an absolutely 24 carat mad American of Wesley Willis’ calibre for guest vocal action would be genius – after all, he’s a gargantuan onc»
Prejudiced? Homophobic? Anti-Indie? Well, fuck off. Chances are you’re not welcome round these parts anyway. And you definitely won’t want to hear about The Hidden Cameras. Coming out (almost literally) of Toronto like a gay Godspeed You Black Emperor! – well, they’re a gang of Canadians at least»
Four words could reasonably be used to sum up Mouse on Mars circa ‘Rost Pocks’ – German Boards of Canada. OK, that’s perhaps not quite fair, as MoM are far from derivative and have been at this game for a good few years now. But this is indeed the stylistic ground they occupied at the t»
Don’t be put off by the presence of Coldplay’s rent-a-bore Chris Martin. Or the fact that Ron Sexsmith has received previous big ups from a who’s who of evil in music – stand up Paul McCartney, Elton John and Rod Stewart. ‘Gold In Them Hills’ is a delicately »
The ‘underground’?? What an outdated concept! Surely any decent bands get signed, and the only underground that exists this side of the water is the network of rusty tube trains that crash now and again round London, no? Yeah, RIGHT. Think again. You’ll already know that fledgling London label »
In the place of most artists claiming influences like Shellac and Miles Davies stands a dull rock band. It seems the majority of would-be arena fillers tragically overlook the difference between ‘listening to at home’ and ‘being influenced by’. But hey, name-dropping's cool, right?»
And so it continues... As if the twin tag of a New York band in the latter day tradition of NYC married with a shoegazing tendency wasn’t enough, Longwave dress like denim jackets were EVER cool. Aaaaaarghhh!!! B-b-b-but, they’re friends with The Strokes, don’t y’know??? No, and YOU SHOUL»
The quirky welcome surprise of last year, Germany’s Schneider TM, is only back with the best tune from wicked LP ‘Zoomer’. Sweet. Though the vocodered vocals sometimes veer into the kind of territory where you’ll qu»
Let’s get things straight: Venetian Snares is not for the faint of heart. If regular electronica gets you thinking “ooh, all a bit unlistenable”, you may as well get fucked in the face as soon as listen to this. The man otherwise known as Aaron Funk (honest to God!) flips his beat scattergun a»
The world’s most awkward recording artist, Aphex Twin, makes his return in March with a double album compiled from his weighty back catalogue of remix work. Previously infamous for mythical live sets with assorted props such as a razor blade stylus and sandpaper ‘records’ (try that one at home »
Hear that? That’s the sound of pained middle-class indie-metal angst. Oh, apologies, it’s actually InMe. What a fucking awful cod-intellectual name incidentally. In fact it seems as though we’ve crossed into a parallel dimension here. One where stadium production values mean more than, like, a dec»
If Elvis had lived to front The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion with a bad case of The Cramps, it might have sounded a little like ‘Psychosis Safari’. 'Might', because it also might have ended up a crock of badly digested shit squeezed from the bowels of a fat man»
The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster are staking an early claim for the first obscurity-to-chart rock success of the year with new single ‘Psychosis Safari’. Apparently the Matchbox boys are at number 24 in the midweek charts, so – with B-Line B-side action including two tracks produced by Amen»
Two of electronica’s biggest and most respected artists, Aphex Twin and Autechre, have announced they will release new albums in the opening third of 2003. Richard D James, aka Aphex Twin, lets fly with a double CD entitled '26 Mixes For Cash' on March 24th. Of the 26 remixes, which spa»
It’s utterly ironic that the best bands on ‘New Blood...’ are those who fit most awkwardly – if at all – into the nu-no-wave of rock ‘n’ roll. Or whatever the kool kidz are calling it this fucking week. Ten Benson, for example, are the backwards cousins of every true guitar-wielding gutter pun»
There’s more to life than being cool. Or so we’re told. But sometimes a musician can be so carelessly unfashionable they accidentally become inspirationally hip. Take Sparklehorse architect Mark Linkous – visually a homeless Chris Cornell dressed by Bob Geldof. You get the distinct im»
“We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.” Dennis Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Aid Co-ordinator For Iraq To paraphrase Massive Attack, it’s about time that the musical communi»
There’s a moment at the end of the first All Tomorrow’s Parties festival compilation where the click and whirr of Autechre is overtaken by an altogether more confrontational scraping. The sound of a million laptops spontaneously combusting served to many as unholy introduction to one Russell Haswell»
Squarepusher is an unexplainable phenomenon. Such is the diversity of Tom Jenkinson’s huge previous output that even the well initiated are often left scratching their heads, wondering “what, where, why, HOW?!?” ‘Do You Know Squarepusher’ is, reassuringly, no different. Opening »
If the notion of German electronica results in scrambled attempts to eat your own ears rather than endure cold, emotionless avant-wank, then think again. Mr TM, aka Dirk Dresselhaus, is a rare phenomenon – a Teutonic type without the traditional humour bypass. He’s putting the TM into Treme»
Here’s a fantastic new idea for some hot new reality TV: "I’m In The Strokes, Get Me Out Of Here". The plan is simple. Popular New York beat combo The Strokes are jetted out to unexplored dense jungle in Borneo. While there they will take part in a two-week experiment involving the filming of»
With all the fuzzy out-of-tune charm that this garage rawwwk thing is supposed to be about, The Von Bondies are Rolling Stones to The Strokes’ Beatles, less cross-generational appeal and more energetic punk bite. Oh and ‘It Came From Japan’ has a super-ace chorus, so why the hell»
