Album: JÓHANN JÓHANNSSON - Englabörn (4AD CAD2733 2007)

I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask? I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.
Roman poet Catullus’ conflicted poem known as Catullus 85 or Odi et Amo was written for his mistress Lesbia. An orchestrated version opens Englabörn with the original Latin text intoned by [...]

Album: HARMONIA - Live 1974 (Grönland CDGRON78 2007)

These tapes languished in a vault somewhere for 33 years before being dusted down and given a release. The trio of Michael Rother, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius recorded it on March 23rd 1974 at an old railway station-cum-venue in Griessem, a small town half way between Hannover and Bielefeld in north-west Germany. The ‘concert’ [...]

Song of the day: BRIAN ENO - An Ending (Ascent) (1983)

One of the odd things about instrumental music is that it can trigger off different moods in different people, even when they agree on its merits. “An Ending (Ascent)” is one piece that some find desolate and depressing where others see rhapsody. It appears on the 1983 album Apollo – Atmospheres and Soundtracks, an ambient [...]

A Few Forthcoming Long Players

These are all subject to change, of course.
BOXCUTTER GLYPHIC PLANET MU 29-Oct
BUCK 65 SITUATION STRANGEFAMOUS 29-Oct
CHARALIMBIDES LIKENESS KRANKY 29-Oct
FROG POCKET COME ON PRIMATES PLANET MU 29-Oct
GESCOM A1-D1 SKAM 29-Oct
HEINER GOEBBELS LANDSCHAFT MIT ENTFERNTEN VERWANDTEN ECM 29-Oct
NADJA RADIANCE OF SHADOWS ALIEN8 29-Oct
BUCKETHEAD ISLAND OF LOST MINDS TDR 5-Nov
BURIAL UNTRUE HYPERDUB 5-Nov
HIS NAME IS ALIVE SWEET EARTH [...]

Song of the day: Burial - Ghost Hardware (2007)

A delicious dose of distressed dubstep from the new album Untrue. 

Album: The Complete Motown Singles Vol. 8: 1968 (Hip-o-select 2007)

In George Pelecanos’ 1968 set novel Hard Revolution, black rookie DC cop Derek Strange dismisses Motown as “soul music for white people” (although he retains affection for DC-born Marvin Gaye). The quote is indicative of how things had changed in America by 1968. It was a country at war with itself, with huge schisms opening [...]

Gig: Boredoms / Michael Gira (The Arches, Glasgow, 23/10/07)

The cream of Glasgow hipsterdom turned out en masse for this show. As is usually the case, they were more interested in each other than anything going on elsewhere, so from the start Michael Gira was struggling against a hubbub of chat. He took ages rearranging his drinks, picking up and putting down his guitar, [...]

Song of the day: CRASS - Reality Asylum (1979)

When the masters of the Feeding Of The 5000 EP arrived at the pressing plant in 1978, the workers downed tools and refused to press the record unless the opening track, “Asylum”, was removed. Thus the twelve inch was released with a short track of silence sarcastically called “The Sound Of Free Speech”. As “Reality [...]