A Few Forthcoming Releases (July)

Incoming stuff on the radar.
7th July
BECK Modern Guilt (Rough Trade)
BUG London Zoo (Ninja Tune)
BURIAL DJ Kicks (K7)
HAROLD BUDD / CLIVE WRIGHT A Song For Lost Blossoms (Darla)
KLAUS SCHULZE / LISA GERRARD Farscape (SPV)
LEILA Blood Looms and Blooms (Warp)
MELVINS Nude With Boots (Southern)
PATTI SMITH & KEVIN SHIELDS The Coral Sea (Cargo)
SAUL WILLIAMS the Inevitable Rise And [...]

Gig: Hey! You! Get Off My Pavement! (Mono, Glasgow, 29/6/2008)

The weather forecasters threatened a repeat of 2007’s drizzle-fest, and it was lashing down when the gates opened an hour late. In the end, the elements were relatively benign, although nobody was going to go home with a tan. Hey You Get Off My Pavement is Mono’s annual mini-festival held outside the vegan restaurant-cum-bar-cum-record emporium [...]

Album: BRASSICA – Microvictories (Tartaruga TTRCD002 2008)

Microvictories is subtitled ’songs sculpted from a scrapbook of experiments, field recordings, improvisations, thoughts and reactions to times and places’. That’s a fairly broad and all-encompassing manifesto. It’s the work of one Michael Anthony Wright, aka Brassica, and shares a similar outlook on the methods of music making to that of Norwegian duo Alog. At [...]

Album: BUILD – Build (New Amsterdam NWAM008 2008)

Thirty or so years ago, classical/rock crossover was the sort of thing that made the heart sink faster than the arrival of a quarterly gas bill. It was usually instigated by rock musicians whose egos were way bigger than any accompanying talent. The classical players roped in, would grimace and squirm with embarrassment, kept going [...]

Cult Albums: #6 IDAHO – Year After Year (1993)

Idaho could be the archetypal cult act. They’ve been going for ages with little in the way of mainstream attention or commercial success, but have a small, deeply loyal and dedicated following. I first came across them some fifteen years ago when they were featured on a cover mounted cassette that came with Lime Lizard [...]

Album: NALLE – The Siren’s Wave (Locust Music 109 2008)

Nalle (Finnish for ‘little bear’) are a Glasgow based avant-folk trio led by Anglo-Finn Hanna Tuulikki. The Siren’s Wave is their second album, following on from 2006’s By Chance Upon Waking. Using a bewildering array of instrumentation, ranging from analogue Moogs and oscillators to bouzouki, harmonium, clarinet and viola, they craft loose, drone and raga [...]

Harry Smith Anthology Remixed (CCA, Glasgow) / Glasgow School Of Art Degree Show

In the first half of the twentieth century, the American record industry was purely about ‘the now’. Music was recorded, records pressed and sold, and everybody moved on to the next thing. There was little attempt to go back, take stock, and put the growing recorded legacy into some kind of context (with the possible exception [...]

Cyd Charisse 1922-2008

She was simply the best. Here she is with Fred Astaire “Dancing in the Dark”.