The Skull Mailbox (and other Horrors)
The strangest so far. Mostly songs; a lot of acoustic instruments, a lot of unidentifiable sounds, a lot of fragments borne on a wind from somewhere else; bizarre picking interludes, humour (maybe) and snatches of incandescent playing. You can't pin this one down; it's full of twists and turns and a geometry that doesn't quite add up. Seemingly casual, there's not an ounce of fat on it, and the production - or anti-production - is, on repeated listening, quite extraordinary. Impressive.
Little Black Train
Thinking Plague, Hail, EC Nudes, 5UU's bassist and mixmaster with his second solo CD. Fast and furious country picking meets weird fragmentation and fast cut compositions. Guitars, Bass, Drums, Violin and odd unidentifiable noises all flawlessly performed, recorded and mixed into a single organism of musical strangeness. One of a kind.
Itsunomanika
Paolo Angeli and ex-After Dinner/Volapuk violinist/singer Takumi Fukushima present an integrated, complex and largely composed programme of deft, focused pieces that make the most of their not inconsiderable individual talents and instruments; mostly sounding like a much larger ensemble. The sonorities of Paolo’s extended, customised, prepared giant Sardinian guitar doing extraordinary, and sometimes chameleonic, work as bass, chord accompaniment, melody instrument, viola/cello, and even percuss…
S'Û
An amazing record. It’s beautifully recorded and almost impossible to believe that such a layered and polyphonic music, with chords, percussion, lead lines, bass lines, harmonies, string sections and sometimes voice could all be produced by one person in real time, without overdubs or loops. But it is. The instrument, a specially designed and augmented Sardinian guitar (almost the size of a cello) is equipped with motors, pedals, individual string mic’ing, and extra appendages; and of course the…
A Face We All Know
'A Face We All Know' breaks new ground altogether. This is a single work with texts by Chris Cutler, Rainald Geotz and Thomas Pynchon and documents the last days of a political nightmare. Start here with Cassiber.
German reggae
Teenage Panzerkorps have been playing during these last ten years their unique and special kraut-punk that continues the musical tradition of Neu! and Kraftwerk. They have already produced two lps and lots of eps and singles that offer us lots of interesting songs to hear.“German Reggae”, Panzerkorps’ new effort, is, in my opinion, their best album so far. This album is full of early post-punk rhythms and krautrock melodies. It reminds me of the genre’s most notable bands such as Savage Republic…
Split
Introducing In Zaire, the improvised live performance of Claudio Rocchetti, Alessandro De Zan (G.I. Joe, Orfanado) and Riccardo Biondetti (G.I. Joe). They mix dub-funk rhythms, tribal percussions, indian and electric bass guitar melodies, arabic and psychedelic voices and minimal-introspective electronic sounds.
On the flip, leading the way, The Skull Defekts. Given the band members pedigree (drummer Henrik Rylander was a co-founder of Union Carbide Productions, guitarist Joachim Nordwall was a…