:: GussetBLOG ::

:: Tuesday, December 01, 2009 ::

Album Reviews: Kush Arora, Nommo Ogo & Imminent

Imminent – Cask Strength (ant-zen)



Let me start by stating that Imminent (née Imminent Starvation) has a strange effect on me. You’ll have to bear with me a moment here. There was a recurring dream I used to have as a child, involving contrasting changes in scale between the micro and macro. What would it be like if I were shrunken to the size of an ant? (This was long before a film franchise was based on this premise) Or an ant increased to a scale towering over a human? (Also long before I had seen b-movie classic Them!) Or if these changes could be zoomed in and out with the ease of a camera lens? Why do I lose all concentration when I try to recall this dream, especially as it often comes back vividly to me when I am climbing the rough Victorian stonework of the façade of my primary school? Why do I always fall from the wall when I remember the dream? And what’s that strange droning sound I associate with it?

The last question wasn’t quite answered, but came flooding back to me, when I first heard Imminent Starvation’s Strass on the Ant.Colony compilation. The flashback returned for the first time in years, but still as vivid as ever. The distorted looping rhythms that I now realise I can trace back to this dream are quite possibly what drives, and always has driven, my love of industrial music and complex aural textures.

I dip in and out of this sort of music as, like many other styles, can be produced relatively easily and there’s a lot of noise out there that the signal needs to be filtered from. When done properly it is a finely crafted article indeed. And that is exactly what this release represents.

Imminent has been maturing this album for a long time. As a whisky connoisseur he has applied the same principles to his music as a master brewer applies to his favoured tipple. The sumptuous laser cut wooden packaging every bit as carefully considered and lovingly crafted as the sounds contained therein.

Cask Strength is out now on ant.zen, distributed by Ad Noiseam [mp3 samples included on site]


Nommo Ogo – Across Time and Space (Record Label Records)

Nommo Ogo claim to have emerged from the "mid '90's Alaskan psychedelic noise underground" and from listening to this I can believe it. Created by a group of musicians surrounded by hardware this is the sound of ethereal electronic music. To be enjoyed in open woodland or huge dimly lit cathedral spaces as readily as it should be endured in claustrophobic reverberant caverns, crushing in on you from all sides.

Drawing musical comparisons is difficult but elements of Krautrock and shades of early Autechre are evident, along with many other new and interesting things, pulled from the writing guts of the machinery and controlled by new human masters. The simultaneously ominously haunting yet enchantingly beautiful soundscapes form the aural equivalent of a Brother’s Grimm fairy tale.

You may be getting the impression that I quite like this. And you would be completely right. I can see this album sitting near the top of the play list for sometime.

Across Time and Space is released on RLR on 14 Jan 2010


Kush Arora – Boiling Over (Record Label Records)

Unashamedly a dub-step album I have to put aside my casual indifference to the genre as I listen to this. The tracks where Kush’s ambient background are allowed to shine through are the richer for it but the UK Garage 2-step rhythms fail to grab my attention as much as they do elsewhere. The genre is clearly still developing and evolving, which can only be a good thing.

Although this falls towards the darker side of the 'step it doesn't have the post-industrial grit of the likes of Vex'd or most of the Combat crew. Although I am sure there is plenty in here for fans of the 12" series these works have been collected from it doesn’t, for me at least, stand out in any way.

Boiling over is released on RLR on 14 Jan 2010

Labels: Review

:: Dan 1.12.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Returning to my occasional series of reviews of local news papers, the latest to cross my desk is The Guernsey Press. All of the best local newspapers serve their local community with stories of local interest and best of all, to an outside reader, local interest that could not possibly be of interest to an outside reader.

Sometime through shear lack of things local interest many papers stray into other nearby geographic locales for padding. On an island of ~65,000 there is little scope for this. The occasional reference to nearby Jersey is made but not when it can be avoided. Not when you can fill a full page with sic recent graduation photos of islanders.



Not when a Woodcock has been spotted.



Not when a local policeman is accused of harbouring a grudge against a woman who ran over his foot six years ago.



Not when you can indulge in a good old fashioned witch-hunt!

The builder I met on site told me many interesting stories about the local life and history. All of which I found in that days paper. I felt like you could go there and and read up on everything that you could possibly need to know in one handy information repository that would fit on the table next to your pint. Local news at it's best!

Labels: Newspaper, Review

:: Dan 13.4.09 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Despite my general loathing of the Beatles I read with interest the interview with the two thumbed wonder about his experimental side in last weeks Guardian. It was enough to make me go and listen to his new, Youth produced, solo album. The third under The Fireman alias. I'm not sure where the experiment comes into it. Apart from the heavy blues opening track, with a falsetto that reminded me of U2, it's all pretty boring and ordinary. I don't think I could be any more scathing than that review so I'll let you read that.

Labels: Review

:: Dan 6.12.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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I attended the Phill, Bagpuss and Friends event as part of the Encounters short film festival at the Watershed yesterday.

Hosted by Phill Jupitus along with Loaf of The Dragons' Friendly Society and animator Brian Cosgrove the event celebrated the work of Oliver Postgate and Peter Firmin of Smallfilms.

It was great to sit in a room full of nostalgic 30 to 50 somethings and enjoy these great pieces on animation again. Not that there is anything technically spectacular about them; it's the story telling, the pacing, the eccentricity, the music and the general mood that make them unique. Not to mention Oliver's voice.

There were a few things I'd never seen before. Like the "terrifying" Pogles episode "King of the Fairies" (watch when the witch appears). And I'd never even heard of Pingwings, which is brilliantly funny and touching at the same time, not just in it's naivety as they hadn't thought about the lighting problems shooting animation outdoors.

The BBC 4 documentary "Ivor the Engine" and the story of "Smallfilms" is on YouTube in three parts.

Oliver is now 84 years old and is in a retirement home so the event was being recorded for him. Keen to send him a message about how much his work is loved Phill Jupitus insists on all of the camera equipment being rearranged at the end so the whole audience can wave to him and send him their love. It was a funny, fantastical and heart warming afternoon.

Labels: Animation, Film, Review

:: Dan 28.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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I am way way behind on the reviews again. Thanks to everybody who sends me stuff. I will play tracks from each of these on my next Goatlab radio show so readers can better put sounds to my words. In the meantime, here are my thoughts on these releases.

Dalglish – Ideom (Record Label Records)



According to the press release this latest album from Dalglish (Chris Douglas, a.k.a. O.S.T. and Rook Valard) refuses to be comparable with anything else, but I have to try at least. My initial thoughts, during the jarring opening track Exhinenoln, are of Detach’i. In particular, I remember once having an online conversation with Detach’I where I joked that he was the only musician I knew who had more fetish models in his myspace friends than I did. His response was, “one day, I will have them all in my chamber.” This is what I imagine that would sound like. Think of the huge galactic atmospheres created in something like Meat Beat Manifesto’s Echo in Space Dub, and then imagine those sounds displaced into a disused underground bunker, walls wet with seeping water, an earthy smell in the stale air, huge empty metallic tanks of long forgotten use ringing out in sympathy, a gloomy half-light of a cheep torch about to fail and plunge you into darkness. Something is alive down here. Has someone else crept in too? What’s that bubbling noise? Where is than num coming from? Just your mind playing tricks surely. This is the sound of urban exploring. Of daring to go where you know you shouldn’t because you just can’t resist finding out what’s there, despite knowing the dangers. The idea of being the only person to see it that way is such a temptation, so maybe you should record something to show other people when, or if, you ever return.

Released 4th August on Record Label Records

Fluoresent Gray – Gaseous Opal Orbs (Record Label Records)



The sleeve notes here give the impression of something that is focused more on the academic experimentation than on making music one might listen to in a club environment. Explanations of tracks created entirely from time-stretching pure sine waves and white noise, or entirely using physically modelled instruments or reverse engineered Nintendo sound chips is interesting stuff. Intentionally limiting your sound palette in such a way can force you down experimental paths you perhaps wouldn’t have tried otherwise, force you to find new ways to do things, and perhaps most importantly force you to avoid cliché. It definitely makes for some intriguing listening here. My only complaint, however, is that because of the different approaches used the album doesn’t gel well as a whole. Any given track works great when mixed with god knows what else when I listen on shuffle, but if you play the album through a couple of the tracks stand out from the others for all the wrong reasons. The world music sounds used heavily on Ayhuascaro Empyreal but nowhere else for example. It just doesn’t seem to fit with everything else even though it is fine in isolation. I get the impression that this album is made up of lots of individual experiments, where the lessons learnt in each are not employed again in the others. I’d suggest as the next experiment, that everything learnt composing all of these tracks be used to create a new album. A more cohesive album with a sound of its own. It would draw together more learning than most other people would achieve in an entire career.

Out now on Record Label Records

The Teknoist – various new vinyl releases
Thanks to Miike for the MP3 versions of his forthcoming (and probably long since released by the time I get around to publishing this) releases on Bangarang, Deathchant, Death$ucker, Ninja Clone, Ninja Colombo and Sustained Records. The Teknoist usual gabba head is on form with the Deathchant and Sustained releases. I’ve taken the piss when chatting to Miike previously about everything he does being just a gabba track with some film samples over it. He dispels that here by producing a gabba track with Kill Bill samples over it. ;-]

The Bangarang, Ninja Clone and Ninja Colombo releases are all collaborations with Scheme Boy (a.k.a. Ash of BOEP, of the Adverse Camber collective). These are a little more playful and a childish sense of humour comes through in them. Not that they aren’t still hard enough to tear the flesh off your grannies ass at 50m, to indulge in the same juvenile banter.

The highlight of the selection though, has to be the Death$ucker split with Eustachian. Perhaps spurred on to compete with Eustachian’s furious and complex layered death metal inspired beats, Teknoist has created something much closer to breakcore than his normal output. And I have to say, he does a stunning job of it. I hope there is more like this to come in the future.

Death$ucker and Bangarang releases out now, the others to follow

Labels: Electronic Music, Review

:: Dan 17.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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goatlab venue review
Originally uploaded by gusset.

Thank you Venue for this lovely review!

“Gusset, with Parasite, at one point puts Lily Allen’s ‘Smile’ through a rapid wash cycle and his faders-to-10 set closer is a thrilling jack hammering explosion of drum & bass and a highlight of the evening that sets the room properly dancing. “

This was actually a Gusset back-to-back with Parasite set so full credit to Armin too. I think that final track referred to was one of his selections. As I remember, it went something like this:
Exillon – Acid Panda Laptop Death
Parasite selection
Alan Titmash – Ditch Pig
Parasite selection
The Teknoist & Scheme Boy - Leppers on Garys …
vs Microphist – I Love Lily Allan (cranked up a bit)…
vs Julie Andrews – The Lonely Goat Herd (cranked up a lot)
Parasite selection
Gusset – Gussetbusters (Ghost Busters theme mash-up)
Parasite selection

So thanks to Jay, Jon, Mike, Ash, Dunc, Julie, Spokesy and Armin for their input there!

Labels: Gigs, GoatLab, Gusset, Review

:: Dan 1.7.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Rhapsody's Verdict
Originally uploaded by gusset.

Parasite and Ana Kissed's 6(?) year old daughter, Rhapsody, is helped a little by Anarchist606 to write this little summary of Friday's Goatlab gig for me. The phonetic spelling is beautiful, but I've provided some explanatory notes in case you have any trouble. (Click to zoom in and see notes.)

Labels: Art, Flickr, Review

:: Dan 20.4.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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I saw Stewart Lee's "41st Greatest Stand-Up Ever" show at the Comedy Box in Bristol last night. I was also pleased to be able to buy a copy of his '90s Comedian DVD (show reviewed here, DVD available here) from 2005.

It struck me during the show what sets Lee apart from many of his contemporaries. It's something best described in musical terms: Dynamics. His performances have dynamics. The same way classical music does and pop music doesn't. He works through a whole range of emotions, from irritation and anger to loving care and sympathy. He whispers, he shouts, he smashes the mic against the mic stand, he throws the mic down and wanders into the audience to perform un-aided (I've seen Ian Cognito do this too but he only has anger mode), he appears close to tears at one point, he looks angry about the response some material gets, he laughs and seems to be enjoying himself, and he sits and chats to fans as they leave. I can't think of any other comedians who can work through that sort of repertoire every night and that's what I think makes him worth seeing. It's honest. It hasn't had all of the personality compressed out of it to appease the masses.

Labels: Comedy, Review

:: Dan 12.4.08 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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DJ Floorclearer's Goat Slaughterer EP presents brutal dark-dnb/metal-breakcore in much the same vein as early Venetian Snares releases such as printf("shiver in eternal darkness/n"); There has been a huge amount of metal sampling breakcore appearing the last couple of years, but this is one of the better examples of it. If all of the DJs who keep that bloody Amon Tobin / Player release in there box – not that it's bad, it's just ridiculously overexposed – ceremonially burnt it and dropped this in there instead club land would be better place. Also, all of the DJs who keep a copy of Venetian Snares Shitfuckers for instant-mosh-pit-required emergencies, you should probably have this in there next too it as you need somewhere to go from there. Like Mr Floorclearer's previous Death$ucker release, Roger's Massive Armpits, he has once again provided his own lovely twisted graphics to complete the package. But of course, all of that pales into insignificance, as how can you not want to purchase a record with a track called Smell Awaits on it?

It's been a case of long time no hear for Electromeca, his last full 12" was 2004's Battling Doll Beats, so it's great to hear another 12" full of brutal-electro-funk to get the party shaking again. The Reines (France) Peace-Off crew have been turning out phenomenal material like this since sometime around the millennium, and despite spinning off numerous off-shoot projects and sub-labels, it's good to know they can still pull the punches with the breakcore too. Those guys know how to put the funk into those breaks, rather than just create a distorted mess like many copy-cat artists think is all they need to do. This is music for dancing to, and I advise you do it.

It's transparently biased of me to say that both of these releases are essential, but anyone who's enjoyed the odd Death$ucker release in the past, owes it to themselves to check these out. Samples are up on dSWAT:

DJ Floorclearer - Goat Slaughterer - 12" DSR24
Electromeca – Brutal Funk EP - 12" DSR26

Labels: Death$ucker, Review

:: Dan 17.10.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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You know this is going to be an usual show before anything actually happens. There is no support act. The bar packed with people wearing colourful wool and linen. The auditorium filled with haunting stripped down vocals dubs. And the backline on the stage features no drums, just a centre stage guitar rig (Orange head and cab and Vox AC50), a wooden chair to the back, a couple of wooden cheeked keyboards/synths to the right, and a piano to the left with a strange collection of ornaments perched on top. The whole collection is crapped in fairy lights. The piano stool has a huge puffy sheepskin cover. It all screams gypsy chic before Polly even takes to the stage in head to toe black, ankle length gypsy skirt with sequined train, puffy shouldered Victorian bodice, orange flowers/leaves in her naturally curled hair, and multi-strapped heels. She seems more comfortable, more at home, and more playful that I have ever seen her before. She flashes her legs several times when sitting down and comments on the importance of positioning correctly to play the auto-harp, then spreads her legs, hoicks her skirt right up, and stretches her feet out to reach her pedals with a childlike lack of embarrassment.

When she stumbles over singing a song about a/her mother, she blurts, "Aww, fuck it," then provides a quick rendition of Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, "Where's your mama gone? / Where's your mama gone? / Where's your marbles gone?" and ends up on her knees, forehead on a monitor wedge, banging her fists on the stage, all to much laughter and applause. She converses with the audience a lot more than usual too, and has to ask to borrow a compact at one point as she has got a fly in her eye. This one woman show has the audience absolutely eating out of her hand. The whole thing seems more intimate than even the tiny Fleece and Firkin gigs back in '96.

The sound mix is not great, I can hear levels being adjusted as things go on, but that’s always to be expected with one- two-off gigs rather than tours. The venue is just small enough that even sat towards the back you can still hear some direct sound from the stage, so the AM-radio like crackling, band-limited, distorted vocal effects that are used sound as if they are coming from the side walls. I can see people’s heads turning to check.

Like the new single, When Under Ether, the new material is much more stripped down than anything she has released previously. Five or six tracks from the new album (White Chalk, released the same day) are played. Mountain the mot atmospheric and memorable, and Devil interestingly accompanied by a clicking metronome. The album has been produced by long time collaborator John Parish, who is in the audience, and it shares the sparse arrangements of his solo work, such as Rosie OST, How Animals Move, and Once Upon A Little Time. Songs from all of the PJ Harvey albums get this stripped down treatment. Strangely, the only album missing from the set list is the previous Harvey/Parish collaboration project Dance Hall At Louse Point. Some songs have been heard in similar formats before, such as the Rid of Me tracks included on the 4-Track Demos album, and the 4-track demos of Dry included with the initial release. Songs like Shame and Big Exit have a new lease of life in this form, it would be great to hear demo material from the more recent albums included on another compilation, or released as B-sides. In fact, I'd love to get my hands on a bootleg of this gig, and listen to it again; mistakes, banter, heckling and all. Its an interesting new direction and I love where it's going. Especially if we can still hear the classic guitar wielding, growling Polly in stripped down form somewhere too.

Labels: PJH, Review

:: Dan 25.9.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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A very quick review, and no spoilers, I just have to say I loved this. I can't remember looking forward to a cinema release that much in ages, and when I do do that I'm usually disappointed, but not here. The Treadstone replacement project it revolves around Mrs P noticed was name dropped back in the closing scene of the first film. I like details like that. It all works very well. And there is plenty of Nicky* action and a great part for Albert Finney. The sound work is also pretty good, although too loud in the cinema, there's nothing worse than unrealistically loud foley. The scene with the fight in the bathroom, where Bourne's attacker is thought to be holding a blade of some sort (razor?) is so fast moving you can barely see a thing, but the knife sounds in it are great. Although, if you removed the visual action it would probably sound like the Goon Show.

[The Bourne Ultimatum is out now]

* I've just discovered that "Julia Stiles" is a dangerous Google Image Search.

Labels: Film, Review

:: Dan 18.8.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Frank Tavakoli (aka Rotator / Black Ham etc), of French based label Peace Off and its numerous sub-labels continues with his fascination with Bristol sounds. His releases have been peppered with music by Bristol based artist since 2000, when Parasite appeared on the second volume of the Kamikaze Club series. When he comes here he views the place almost as a spiritual home, or perhaps as a twin town, and he's been keeping up with the scene here through various genres and sub-genres, right up to the dubstep explosion for which he has created the Ruff sub-label.

Local boy B-Lam gets his debut release on RUFF004, which is the first Ruff release to be dedicated to a single artist. The two tracks are closer to the purest dubstep material than most of the other Ruff releases and more so than any of Sam Kidel's other output I have heard.

I often say that I think some of the best dubstep producers are the more mature ones who have moved into it from other areas. My favourite examples would be Atki2/Monkey Steak, Drop the Lime, Mathhead and the rest of the Werk Records and Combat Recordings crew, the first to spring to mind to have moved from breakcore production into dubstep; RLF's mutant downbeat hip-hop (for want of a better description) mutating into Bass-Clef (as he moved from Bristol to London); and Ireland's Barry Lynn (aka Boxcutter), who found a niche outside of Squarepusher impersonation when he found how to apply that to a different genre.

I personally react against tight gentrification and although trying to emulate something can be interesting from a learning perspective it will never be true to yourself or reflected your best potential. On this release I feel B-Lam has strayed too far into the realms of following the norm and not allowed enough of his own sound to permeate into these tracks.

Traitor especially I feel sounds formulaic. I like the intro and I like the lead lines but it never comes to much. It's atmospheric but not engrossing. Even at only four and a half-minutes it seems too long, it really needs some more variation as it progresses. Mongrel, however, holds my attention much better, and the full seven minutes of it is an engaging listen. It's pacier and has a good bassline with the all important wobble. This track is worth getting hold of, I just feel the other side lets it down. I admit I've been a little harsh here because Sam asked me for a critique of his production. That said, for 18-years old he is doing pretty well here and I'm looking forward to hearing his sound mature and develop.

Traitor / Mongrel is out now on Ruff.
Discogs page
Buy it from dSWAT (also includes MP3 samples)

Labels: Review

:: Dan 14.6.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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I found two envelopes full of CDs for review in the post when I got back from Spain. I've finally worked my way through them and bring you my thoughts, for what they're worth.

Herman Dune - Giant (Source etc)

Amusing comedy singer/songwriter Herman Dune has got some good songs on here. It's not really sunk in very well yet, I'll be keeping this and playing it again. As far as comedy music goes it's not as witty as Jake Thackery or as absurd as Vivian Stanshall but sits comfortably in between. I particularly liked Bristol, not out of geographical bias but because it tells an intriguing story yet always holds off critical details and keeps the listener hanging on for more. This is contrasted by more reflective moments like When the Water gets Cold and Freezes on the Lake to produce a well rounded album full of good hooks.

Giant is out now on Source etc

The Mules – We're Good People (Organ Grinder Records)

This very '80s ska / Ian Dury sounding song gets two makeovers here. The CSS remix removes all of the subtlety of the cello and theremin that gave the radio edit the slightly disjointed sound of European bands like dEUS and instead bludgeons it with a funky bassline and bongos. Bongos! That's inexcusable! The Lights Odd People remix seems to thrive of Max/MSP glitchiness, pulls out the synth part nicely, and adds some great droning bass stabs. I really like this one and uncharceteristically played it again straight away. Going back to the original the lyrics don't really strike any chord with me and I'd rather hear something with a bit more social commentary. The Russian folk music / kozak aping b-side Problems With Exits invokes memories of seeing Leningrad Cowboys, which can only be a good thing. All good fun.

We're Good People is out now on Organ Grinder Records

Various – Ed Rec Vol.2 (Ed Banger Records)

This label sampler of electro, big beat and hip-hop influenced dance music contains its fair share of skippable tunes but also a couple of gems. One highlight is Busy P's Rainbow Man, which is a funky electro-techno floor filler that builds perfectly. It also uses delayed basslines to great effect. The other highlight, and this is sad in a way, is Mr Oizo's INTRA, which is the one-minute long opening guitar groove with vocoded voice samples that is the introduction to the rest of the contents. I was also surprised that nu-rave name droppers the Klaxtons come across well thanks to So Me's old-school sampling remix. In all I can't help but feel this would have been a better marketing tool if they had mixed it and given it away free online, letting the music speak for itself, rather than posting CDs to bloggers so they can write bollocks about it.

Both of the mentioned highlight tracks are on the Ed Bangers myspace

Ed Rec Vol.2 is out now on Ed Banger Records

Robyn – Robyn (Konichiwa Records)

Jesus, what the fuck is this? Yes, it's the '90s Swedish pop sensation, Robyn! I don't like the irritating slightly too girlish rapping voice used on the early tracks on this album, but as it progresses into more singing it gets even worse. There is some reasonable production that could perhaps stand-up on its own if allowed to progress and flourish a little more but that's only evidenced on a handful of tracks. The rap lyrics that don't suck are generally references / borrowed from elsewhere, and the rest of the song writing and imagery try desperately to follow Pink and Gwen Stefani without success. Having said all of that I quite like Cobrastyle for some reason, but I feel kind of dirty admitting it.

Robyn is out now on Konichiwa Records

Ash – You Can't Have it all (Infectious Records)

Sounds like Ash. The same old lame power-pop. The photography on the sleeve shows their characteristic rocking-out-to-tunes-that-don't-warrant-it poses, so no change there. Can you tell I don't like Ash?

There's a best of album too, Then & Now, just to remind you there were always this uninspiring. I'm sure all of these songs were written as cynical festival crowd pleasers. Girl From Mars in the only song here I can imagine leaving any lasting legacy, but they'll be laughing all the way to the bank none-the-less.

You Can't Have it all is release 16th April on Infectious Records
No confirmed release for Then & Now

Stateless – Exit (K7 records)

Massivly over orchestrated indie dirge that will probably end up over the closing credits of some disposable summer blockbuster movie later in the year. I suppose you might like it if you were into Air but felt they could do with a bigger sound, but if you're more of a Spiritualized person it'll be best avoided. Although you're going to hear it anyway.

Exit is released 23rd April on K7

Dragonette – I Get Around (Mercury Records)

Fairly standard club material here, I'd expect it to be a vinyl only release. I can imagine some big-mouth Radio 1 DJ getting unnecessarily excited about it. The Arthur Baker remix adds a much needed harder edge to it but then ruins it by falling into the trap of endlessly repeating a meaningless, slight smutty sounding, vocal snippet, in this case "here I come," in the way that people who listen to this sort of shit presumably like. Whenever I hear anything like this now my mind just overlays it with Cassette Boy's parody explaining how to "Suck the Corporate Cock." I found some of the other mixes could be made more interesting by tapping out a different rhythm on the search button so you could at least hear some variation in the now skittering beats.

I Get Around is released 23rd April on Mercury Records.

I'll be keeping the Herman Dune disk but if you'd like any of the others first to drop me a mail can have them.

Labels: Review

:: Dan 7.4.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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"Do you like Manga?" asked the fresh-faced, dark-haired, glasses-wearing, probably Polish, petrol station attendant.
"Eh?" I eloquently responded, whilst thinking, 'I could be in here. I wonder if the Mrs is watching from the car?'
She pointed at my Hook Ups T-shirt with the bug eyed goth-girl in the tiny pleated tartan skirt.
"Oh, um, not really. That's a skate thing really. Not that I skate. I just liked the shirt."
"Oh." She sounded dejected.
'Damn, blown it!'

This T-shirt often leads to odd encounters. I once wore it when visiting a National Trust property and the old geezer in the shed at the entrance couldn't take his eyes of my cleavage. He just stared at the picture on my shirt with a strange, distracted intensity, as he fumbled for change (on this occasional not a euphemism), and spoke directly to by two-dimensional cartoon breasts rather than my face. I think I now know how women feel when they are being leered at.

Despite intentionally wearing this t-shirt as my best attempt at blending in at a NIN gig I was questioned by the door staff on the way in and told by a suspicious middle age woman that I didn't look like a Nine Inch Nails fan, in the nearest thing I've heard in London to a "youz ain't frum rownd yere, arr ya?"

We arrived in time to get in a round of drinks while the ladies nipped to the loos, as was there want. We then played a quick round the goth fashion observation quiz before heading for our standing room in the gods. Trent and co were just taking the stage and bashing out Mr Self Destruct, which I was very pleased to hear, as we shimmied up the stairs that I presume were Tolkien's inspiration for 'the secret stair' in The Return of the King.

Then followed approximately 90 minutes of classic Nine Inch Nails, playing almost all of Broken and The Downward Spiral with a couple of tracks from Pretty Hate Machine and The Fragile thrown in as gap fillers. Personally it was exactly what I wanted to hear, as this is the material I know best.

Musically I'm dubious about how much of it is actually performed live; the live drummer appeared to be there mostly for visual effect and playing fills as the vast majority of the percussion sounds were coming from samples, the acoustic guitar parts I'm sure were mimed, and one of the guitarists filled up all of the gaps in his parts by flailing himself and his guitar around so much it created a performance in itself. Mr Reznor mostly just sang but also played guitar and keyboard in a couple of places. The solo spot for Hurt worked well. I missed the keyboard bashing as I was at the bar but I know it upset Ref/Mrs Spokesy who pointed out disapprovingly, "that's a very expensive keyboard," and wagged her finger.

The lighting was simple but effective. Almost exclusively white, with the exception of Closer (red, obviously) and Head Like A Hole (blue, I think), and with lots of strobe. Later in the set some hanging lamps with metallic inverted-wok shades descend, one over each member of the band, a small toilet flush chain hanging from them (the lights, not the band) putting them just in reach so they could then enjoy swinging them about over the audience and into each other. I liked this effect.

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Great Photo Opportunity I Have Missed #4

The Brixton Academy has pictographic no-crowd-surfing signs to the side of the stage. Depicted traffic sign style with a stick figure being carried above a crowd of other stick figures, in a red circle with a foreboding red slash across it. It's a wonderful piece of graphic design simplicity. If you could get a shot of that over the heads of a steaming crowd just as a couple of crowd surfers are carried past it you would be capturing beauty in its purist form. Sadly, I neither had the camera or the vantage point to capture this.

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The set came to a close about 20 mins before the curfew for the venue so I expected a cynical planned encore, but the crowd was obviously just slightly too apathetic and the house lights went up almost immediately. Out we all filed, and found our selves turned away from all the local pubs. Ah, looking too much like a NIN fan now am I? You can't win.

Labels: GPOIHM, NIN, Review

:: Dan 5.4.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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The GoatLab 3 gig last Friday went well. Well, went OK at least. My photos have been added to this Flickr set. (Also includes GoatLab 1 from September).

Once again I played so early in the evening there was no-one there at the start of it and when asked to extend it as the place filled up I dropped some of the early material in again. I don't think the recording is going to sound very good.

Hunting Lodge provided a hilarious does of guitar based noise. They were tight, their guitarist was good, their bassist kept trying to trash his base but forgot that it was attached to his neck, the vocals were unsurprisingly unintelligible, but their drummer made the band. Wielding nothing but two sticks, his underpants, and a sweaty hairy beer gut full of attitude, he stole the show. This is male bonding music. As long as the bonding consists of pushing and shoving, shouting and generally trying to intimidate and embarrass your mates.

Acrnym lived up to the sales pitch of sounding like "Venetian Snares on crack." At least, I'll buy that description, without having ever taken crack. His three quid CDR was a bargin too. Incidentally, I noticed a poster advertising the film Outlaw this morning. The quote from lads rag Nuts called it "Football Factory with guns!" Yeah, because any film can be improved by adding guns to it, can't it? At least it makes a change from the tired journalistic cliché of simply adding "...on drugs" to the end of everything. The above adage only proves that promoters are just as guilty of falling into the same literary hole.

Mad EP played a great, dark and heavy hip-hop influenced set. It seemed to throw people again, in the same way Milanese did at the same venue. What is it with Bristol breakcore fans and there 300bpm ears? Sometimes it's good to slow down now and again. Maybe just not slap band in the middle of the evening I guess.

Patric C / Candi Hank was one of the founders of the breakcore scene, back in the Digital Hardcore days, but someone I knew embarrassingly little about. His set showed he is still at the top of his game. It much harder (and with less Germanic rapping) than the example set I linked to last week. The most impressive thing about it was that huge chunks of it were played live out of a GP2x handheld Linux console (link) and an old Commodore Amiga running a tracker that was projected onto a giant screen. Best crowd reaction of the night too.

Jason Forrest played a thumping happy hardcore tinged DJ Donna Summer set, which seemed to keep everyone happy. I think would have preferred a live set of his own prog-rock influenced disco madness personally. The inclusion of the Beastie Boys Girls made me smile in particular. Like his DJ set I linked to here some of the material looses its intensity and starts to sound silly when played that fast. Am I getting old?

Ironside finished off with a one-deck Final Scratch DnB DJ set that was only marred by me rummaging through cables behind the booth and accidentally cutting his power. Sorry about that.

Unfortunately technical problems – failed sound system – in the back room means the eagerly anticipated 'Mrs P 7" Collection' DJ set didn't happen. I'll keep that for the next GoatLab on 4th May. Also playing at the next one will be Hecate*, Cdatakill, Soundbytes (of Prodigy mash-up fame), and Gareth Clark.

Let's hope having Hecate and Gusset on the same bill doesn't curse the night. We've been booked to play with Rachel twice in the past and both times the night has been cancelled. Really looking forward to actually seeing her live finally. Third time lucky, eh?

Labels: Gigs, GoatLab, Gusset, Review

:: Dan 6.3.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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Semiconductor – Worlds in Flux (Fat Cat)



"A DVD-Video of Short Films, Art-Works, Music Videos and Live Cinema Documentation" by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. I have to admit to being initially sceptical about this, worried that it was just going to be a load of typical club visuals presented on a DVD.

In places it is much more than that, with films of sunspots (untreated documentary data with a choice of 10 different soundtracks) and some brilliant art pieces with dissolving images of Paris, ravaged by mysterious meteorological events. Likewise the treated footage of the Northumberland coast and Earthquake devastated buildings are gripping "fictional documentaries." Their love of architecture is also clear and buildings have been subtly treated in such a way that you wonder how much of it is actually real.

However, the live cinema pieces are exactly what I was worried about. They really don't work outside of the live performance environment. Despite it being apparent that they were impressive at the time (several of them date back to 2002) it is obvious that the technology has already moved on and what was perhaps cutting edge five years ago is now something you see all over the place. The 200 Nanowebbers video for Double Adapter is the best of the bunch here, although it's not entirely clear how live this one actually was.

The highly abstract electronic music used though-out counters the feeling that this is club material, as there is almost nothing danceable here. There is some impressive noodling, some of it also live, but like extreme guitar workouts it's the sort of musical fetishism that is probably only appreciated by practitioners.

In conclusion, there are some intriguing moments I could happily watch and re-watch here, and would love to see performed in a larger, sensory immersing environment, but these are interspersed with some dated and more limited material that distracts from the whole.

Worlds in Flux is released on Feb 26th on Fat Cat.

Ra – Wxfdswxc2 (Sublight)



This limited initial run of this brilliant new album from Raoul Sinier, who I would call the greatest export of French hip-hop influenced electronica, includes a bonus DVD of his video work. Ra's musical work and video work are both just as impressive and together form something greater than the sum of the parts. Although the parts are all worthy on their own. The detail and effort that goes into both is staggering, evidenced by the fact that even the credits on this disk is a short film in itself.

His videos for ddamage are also presented here – compete with animated David Lynch, um, cameo – for completeness, along with a little easter-egg (a plus symbol appears at the bottom of the menu after viewing the stills gallery) of his "day job" material, in the form of odds and sods of ads and flash web design.

The album is more abstract than his pervious Raoul Loves You and perhaps even darker and more brooding. The music alone is perhaps not as instantly accessible as some of his previous work but together with the video it all makes sense.

It seems a shame that for such a visual artist the packaging is so sparse, but considering what a bargain the two disk set is already that is perhaps asking slightly too much. Having said that, I would shell out extra for a book of some of his material.

Brilliant album / video combo. Get it now while you still can!

Wxfdswxc2 is out now on Sublight

Labels: DVD, Electronica, Music, Ra, Review, Semiconductor, Visuals

:: Dan 19.2.07 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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I went to see Underworld last week. (As Grom has already reported, Sony Pictures are being sued by White Wolf for 17 counts of copyright infringement and over 60 points of unique similarity between Underworld and their work, the official filing is here.) Now, you would think that any film featuring a raven haired vampiress in a rubber cat suit can’t really go wrong, right? Wrong. This films only redeeming feature is its costumes (see previous comment), the music is appalling, the effects and make up are a long way short of spectacular, and much of the action is laughable. I’m going to explain these three complaints in a little more detail to try and convince you not to spend any money on watching this.

Music: When, oh when, will the general public get tired of "Nu-Metal" soundtracks? The scene where one of the characters turns into a werewolf for the first time, in the back of a car, and the people in the front notice, say "oh, shit" unconvincingly, and turn the radio up so the transformation is accompanied by a less-than-thrashing guitar riff and some guy doing some girly screaming, is utterly pathetic.

Effects: I know effects are often over played and over used in movies these days, but just look at the make-up when Bill Nighy’s character, Victor, is first awaken, it looks some sort of Blue Peter make your own cardboard skeleton that turns into a vampire project.

Action: There is a scene where someone takes a sword and in some unrealistic half arsed flying spinning jumping movement is suddenly on the other side of the room. The person they were fighting then stands up and slowly turn around to see that the sword is now blood stained. A close up of the victims face then shows a small diagonal superficial cut appear across their face and a little blood oozes from it. The view thinks, oh, he’s got a minor cut there look, I wonder what the relevance of that is? A look of shock comes over the guys face and the top half of his head then slowly slides of sideways as his head had actually been totally, perfectly, cleanly severed through the middle, showing us the cross section of his brain which was apparently capable of thought as well as controlling motor movement and facial expression despite this somewhat major trauma. The audience hold their sides and shake with laughter so much they are rendered incapable of asking for a refund.

You have been warned.

Labels: Film, Review

:: Dan 13.10.03 [Arc] [0 comments] ::
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