Steve Albini 1962-2024

Posted by Dez Wright on

Just heard about this. A real shock. He died of a heart attack just as the new issue of The Wire with Shellac on the cover was hitting the streets, and a week before the new Shellac album To All Trains. He was a mouthy git, to be sure, and could really rub people up the wrong way. He was never shy of voicing an opinion or ten, but when it came down to it he seemed to be someone whose ethics, moral compass or whatever you want to call it was exemplary. His opinions were one thing, but he always was actually pretty self-effacing. Never the ‘big I am’. Sometimes I agreed with him, sometimes I didn’t, but I always had a hell of a lot of respect for the guy.

Simon Reynolds – Future Mania

Posted by Dez Wright on

Out of all the writers who came up through the UK music press during the eighties, Simon Reynolds is probably the best. Not only is he a skilled writer, but he’s always been forward thinking. Sometimes this has led him up the garden path as he champions micro-genres that amount to nothing, and fade away forgotten. But you can’t fault his questing nature. He does get swept up in the minutiae of genres, but then he’s probably named half of them himself. Future Mania is a kind of potted history of forward thinking electronic music, mostly dance-floor related, from 1977’s big bang of Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” to now. It follows a roughly chronological pattern. Unlike Rip It Up and Start Again and Energy Flash it is a compendium of previously published articles written across the last three decades for publiscations ranging from Melody Maker to Pitchfork, via the Guardian and The Wire. It does hold together, but as a history it’s a bit like a Swiss cheese: plenty of fat, but plenty of gaps. A few of the chapters run to just a handful of pages, and entire scenes are represented by single acts, or in the case of rave, a single record (Acen’s “Trip II the Moon”). I would question Omni Trio’s central position in the history of drum ‘n’ bass (Goldie, Bukem, Roni Size and Photek are all much more significant players), and while the pieces on Burial and Jlin are excellent, they are both figures that are both peripheral to and transcendent above their scenes (dubstep and footwork). There is much of substance here, though, and there isn’t really a scene or movement that isn’t represented along the way. For me, the two essays that are worth the price of admission alone are the comprehensive history of Auto-Tune (Reynolds comes down broadly in favour, while acknowledging the validity of the arguments against it), and, even better, a history of the representation of music in Science Fiction, both on the screen and on the page. It’s a fascinating survey that could easily be expanded into a book of its own. I’d say Future Mania is not without its flaws, but these are inevitable considering the way it has been compiled. But there’s plenty of informative and entertaining reading between the garish pink and green covers.

L. B. Dub Corp – Only The Good Times (Mote-Evolver)

Posted by Dez Wright on

L. B. Dub Corp is techno veteran Luke Slater. “Only the Good Times” is a warm but chilled, wistful but feel-good piece. A nostalgic reminiscence of, well, “Only the Good Times”. The synth riff is like a cinema Wurlitzer heard through fog. A magnificent track. Burial’s remix is more than twice the length – in excess of ten minutes as seems often to be the case. The part of the vocal used is de-genderised by raising the pitch, but stretching it so the duration is the same. There is a muffled kick drum rhythm that threatens to take off, but never really builds, and the original synth melody finally comes in as a coda in the final minute. It’s effortlessly transformed into a Burial track, but on this occasion the emotion of Slater’s superb original is lost.

Tectonics 2024, Glasgow City Halls

Posted by Dez Wright on

I’ve attended every Tectonics bar one over its eleven year span (not counting the COVID years) and one thing I have noticed is that the number of acts has dwindled a little. The price is still dirt cheap compared to any comparable events, so there’s not really much to complain about. For those who don’t know, Tectonics is an annual new music shindig curated by conductor Ilan Volkov and local promoter Alistair Campbell that presents new orchestral works played by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra along with pieces from artists working in all sorts of fields from electronica to free jazz, performance art to noise, folk to avant-pop. It’s always a lucky bag as far as quality goes. Amazing things rub shoulders with not-so-amazing things (to be kind).
This year’s festival had a few of the latter. Not many, though. Everyone is always enthusiastically received, even if it’s more for their efforts rather than the results of them. To pick on the weak spots seems churlish, so I’ll gloss over them.


Day One
Saturday was the stronger of the two. Norway-based duo fiddler Sarah-Jane Summers and guitarist Juhani Silvola collaborated withthe BBC SSO strings on a suite called The Spirit Multitude which combined some slightly out there avant-gardisms with Scottish traditional music. Occasional squalls of electric guitar and atonal string drones punctuated passages of joyful, up-tempo, melodious music. It all blended organically and was a triumphant start to proceedings. Elaine Mitchener’s bio conjoured up the phrases vocal improv and performance art, both of which have my heart sinking to my knees. Just goes to show how you should never presume or pre-judge. Her take on the old spiritual “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” was slow, deliberate, and rode upon a dark, metallic noise that reminded me of Scott Walker’s Drift-era journey into darkness. Her version of “Amazing Grace”, again slow and prolonged, used vocal loops to make it a multitude of voices, perhaps echoing the origins of the song in slavery (composer John Newton was an ex-slave ship captain turned abolitionist). In between she did an improvised piece with audience walkabout that was both clever and amusing. The evening’s orchestral concert was totally underwhelming before the interval, and sensational after it. Matthew Shlomowitz and Mariam Rezaei’s Six Scenes for Turntables and Orchestra was a superbly realised and seamless fusion of scratching and looping, and orchestral colour. The latter not just providing a background wash, but actively engaging with the turntablism. It was brilliantly wrought and performed and deservedly got one of the best audience responses I’ve seen at Tectonics.

Day Two
Brian Irvine is an Ulster-born composer, and a conceptualist par excellence. With just one rehearsal he brought together a bunch of musicians of multiple backgrounds, ethnicities, ages and abilities, and created something really quite special. Directions came on cue cards rather than traditional conducting methods. Beginning with a solo violin playing the Londonderry Air, it evolved through music and movement, singing, chanting and playing that at times was a barrage of cacophonous noise, at time plaintive, at times naive, and at times genuinely moving as in the choral finale. And at times it was just bonkers. What there was throughout was a palpable joy of creation, and the fun was transmitted to the audience who were eager to join in when they could. Irvine should be sent to every school and care home in the country. He could do wonders for people’s psyches.
The two solo works for electric guitar played by Yaron Deutsch were both inventive. The first had patches of brilliance, but seemed to lack much structure as it moved linearly from one idea to the next. The second, perhaps lacking those transcendent spells, felt more of a piece. The final orchestral concert featured four works, including two world premieres. All were engaging enough in their own way, but the closing Uberlala, Song of Million Paths for violin and orchestra composed by Mireal Ivecevic was something much more. Beautifully played by soloist Ilya Gringolts (who’d tested my patience on Saturday with a long and tedious piece for solo violin by Salvatore Sciarrino, but was quickly forgiven) and the orchestra, it mixed tonality with experimentation in the way that kept it grounded and yet let it wander off into unexplored spheres. So, another festival ended. The best bits will stay with me. The BBC SSO deserve special praise for their dedication in learning these new works, and giving them the same focus and application as they world a performance of an established work from the classical canon.