Album: CHAZ KNAPP – Vie comme un Parasite Faisant la fête (Phantom Channel 2008)

Prescient. A visit to the Phantom Channel website is greeted with the phrase “These Are Troubled Times” – as it has been for the last few months. Makes you wonder if the good people there knew something the rest of us didn’t. Anyway, one way to cheer yourself up through the financial doom and gloom [...]

Album: MAX RICHTER – 24 Postcards in Full Colour (130701 CD1307 2008)

24 tracks in less than 34 minutes. An exercise in sublime miniaturisation or a sketchy mish-mash of half-formed ideas? 24 Postcards in Full Colour was initially conceived as a collection of pieces designed to be used as ringtones. Whilst they would make a welcome change to the tinny cacophony that you usually have to put [...]

A Few Forthcoming Releases (October)

Coming soon to an emporium near you:
6th Oct
BLACK SCIENCE ORCHESTRA – Walter’s Room (JBO)
BOB DYLAN – Tell Tale Signs: Bootleg Series, Vol. 8 (Sony)
CHEER – Partick Car Lights (Benbecula)
CLASH – Live at Shea Stadium (Sony)
DEERHOOF – Offend Maggie (Kill Rock Stars)
GRAILS – Doomsdayer’s Holiday (Temporary Residence)
HAROLD BUDD / CLIVE WRIGHT – A Song for Lost [...]

Album: HAUSCHKA – Ferndorf (130701 CD1308 2008)

Prepared piano isn’t a new concept. It was pioneered by John Cage who liked to bung all sorts of bolts, screws and rubber band into the piano mechanism to blunt the strings and introduce changes in pitch and tone. Volker Bertelmann takes those techniques and runs with them. Whilst Cage’s work was studied and intellectual, [...]

Three more greats bow out

September’s not been a great month for soul and R&B fans.
Fifties R&B singer Napoleon ‘Nappy’ Brown (1929-2008) died on the 20th after a long illness.
Legendary session drummer Earl Palmer (1924-2008), one of the most recorded musicians in history, died on the 19th. He was featured in the film Keepintime: Talking Drums Whispering Vinyl which was [...]

I’d rather listen to foxes mating – a few words on annoying singers

I was once at a party where I got into a conversation with a girl about A-Ha’s seminal 1980s hit “Take On Me” (I’m sure it’s happened to most of you). While she could remember (and sing) all the words, the bit of the tune that stuck most in my mind was the opening keyboard [...]

Album: SUNKEN FOAL – Fallen Arches (Planet Mu ZIQ218CD 2008)

Now this is an oddity. De-tuned acoustic guitar, gentle piano, light electronics, muted beats and occasional vocals are combined to produce an album that lurches between summery pastoralism and queasy claustrophobia – often in the same song.
Sunken Foal is known as Duncan Murphy by his mum. He’s from Dublin and Fallen Arches is his debut [...]

Norman Whitfield 1941-2008

Just days after Popcorn Wylie’s death, another Motown legend is no more. Norman Whitfield (whose birth date has been variously ascribed as 1940, 1941 and 1943) died on 16th September following complications from diabetes.
Although he worked with many of Motown’s brightest and best such as Gladys Knight and the Pips, he will forever be most [...]