A Few Forthcoming Releases (Aug 08)

Here’s this month’s list of forthcoming goodies. The autumn rush is nearly upon us already. Looking forward to the Hauschka album especially.
4th August
FUGS – Don’t Stop! Don’t Stop! (Box)(Fugs)        
 
11th August              
HALL / RANALDO / HOOKER – Oasis of Whispers (Alien8 ) 
HILDE MARIE KJERSEM – A Killer For That Ache (Rune Grammofon)                                                                                                    
MINOTAUR SHOCK – [...]

Album: ALVA NOTO – Unitxt (Raster-Noton R-N095 2008)

This has been on and off the player for a couple of weeks now. It’s a strange one in that it is both Carsten Nicolai’s most accessible and his most wilfully difficult work to date. The first ten tracks take the Alva Noto trademark machine-tooled minimalism and give it a turbocharged tweak. The beats are [...]

Johnny Griffin 1928-2008

Another jazz legend checked out at the weekend.
Full obituary here
 
Here’s a short and sweet solo piece. Not sure where it’s from, or what the tune is called.

Album: VARIOUS – The Greatest R&B Hits of 1957 (Acrobat ACQCD7007 2008)

The concept is simple. Take the 96 biggest hits of 1957 on the American R&B chart, arrange them chronologically and stick them on four CDs. Job done. And that is precisely what Acrobat have done here.
Unlike the Boulevard Vintage series of year-themed Rhythm and Blues collections (which go back to 1947 but have yet to [...]

Mercury Prize Shortlist

Adele – 19
British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial – Untrue
Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle – Shine
Laura Marling – Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon – Stainless Style
Portico Quartet – Knee-Deep In The North Sea
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset – The Bairns
Radiohead – In Rainbows
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
The Last [...]

Landfill Indie

This is quite a good article from yesterday’s Independent on Sunday:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/does-the-world-need-another-indie-band-870520.html
The only thing I wonder is why has it taken the mainstream press so long to cotton on that the world is being sold wave upon wave of generic identikit shite? It’s been thus for many years, with NME churning “best new band in Britain” [...]

Cult Albums: #7 VEX’D – Degenerate (2005)

My first encounter with dubstep was hearing this album back in the late summer of 2005. I’d been an enthusiastic drum and bass fan back in the mid to late nineties, especially the more rhythmically complex and bass heavy stuff such as Photek, Source Direct, Tech Itch, Dom and Roland etc. But as the rhythms [...]

Constellation

Constellation Records have rejigged their website a bit, and have now made available download samples for a few of their forthcoming releases.
What is it with Constellation and singers? Virtually every one they have are majorly idiosyncratic in their style. Some I like a lot – Carla Bozulich’s possessed rawness, Vic Chesnutt’s slightly hicky drawl, Efrim [...]