Reviews

Executive Distraction Tasks – Finished with Grind 3” CDR

Executive Distraction Tasks

Astronomical turbo-technical progressive DeathGrind. sodden in secrecy, for reasons that continue to astound me just a little less than they infuriate me, this lost god-particle of seminal British Grindcore-Tech were active from 2004-2009 (this nine track MCD having been recorded in 2008). Describing the bands objective, drummer Elliot Smith (indubitably one of Grinds greatest, also playing with The Afternoon Gentlemen & other groups) writes on the inlay “the sole mission of EDT was to play the silliest music possible”. Continue reading Executive Distraction Tasks – Finished with Grind 3” CDR →

Reviews

Canale 666-s/t CDR

Canale 666

Super novel Italian Noise, Electronic sound-scapery, with a multiplex of scattered randomized incidents compacted into a fifty four minute distention of segmented sonic montage. The man behind the basket-case is Luca Carlozzo, most frequently manifesting his pugnacity in harsh noise maim-dispensary Digital Noise Distortion (DND) spewing out predominantly ultra-limited CDR releases that vary from mundane & typical to legendary bouts of superiority in extreme Stridor destruction. This project/album is clearly inspired & infatuated with Horror movies with masses of samples integrated into the miscellaneous motley. The samples are sometimes verbatim sections, almost like cinematic Field Recordings. Continue reading Canale 666-s/t CDR →

Reviews

Sam Rivers – Dave Holland – Volumes 1 & 2 LP

Rivers-Holland_1

Two droll editions in the truly awesome & vast Rivers n’ Holland back-catalogue. Both excellent LP’s feature the two laureates rushing through improvisational expanse as a duumvirate with no supporting musicians or percussion throughout the entire session.

Continue reading Sam Rivers – Dave Holland – Volumes 1 & 2 LP →

Reviews

Henry Threadgill/Air – Open Air Suit 12 LP

Open_Air_Suit

Aw’ shiiiit! Henry & henchmen really land the haymaker on this super scintillating four track 1978 exposition. Renowned probably most putatively for his acute compositional verve, Threadgill’s cult “Air” trio that conscripted Steve McCall on drums & Fred Hopkins on double-bass pushed beyond the Jazz preserve & much more in to the dense foliation of intense improvisation/Off Road/Out Back yet sagaciously infusing unstable & sporadic structures & preconceived portions. The clashing essemplastication & subsequent ingrowing-oddity of themes coupled with Threadgill’s momentously anomalous approach to song-status & the razor-sharp expertise of his fellow assailants do yield a particularly unique experience.

Continue reading Henry Threadgill/Air – Open Air Suit 12 LP →

Reviews

Brigitte Fontaine – Comme á la radio 12″ LP

Brigitte

& thus, we arrive at Madame Fontaine’s highly heralded second LP as the unofficial leading artist from 69, a collaboration with a juvenile Art Ensemble Of Chicago (& Leo Smith) – Comme Á La Radio. This LP generally seems to be perceived as a de-facto Brigitte Fontaine album, where the Art Ensemble Of Chicago who at that time were based in France & were kicking up quite a shit-storm were hired to perform on about half the tracks on this LP. The liner notes on the LP (going by my trashed n’ tatty original) & it’s title are pleasantly confusing & ambiguous – the cover & spine suggest almost a concept album, simply iterating the album’s title & no particular artist. The back of the LP lists Brigitte Fontaine, Areski (who performs on many of the tracks) with Art Ensemble Of Chicago, which as stated, this time includes Leo Smith & was just prior to long-term drummer Don Moye joining the mob (no full drum-kit is used on this album).

Continue reading Brigitte Fontaine – Comme á la radio 12″ LP →

Books

The Divide – American injustice in the age of the wealth gap – Matt Taibbi

The Divide

The Divide is one of the greatest & most salient books I have ever read! it’s also a book/subject that is screaming-out for documentary treatment, as really, everybody the world over needs this information in this kind of stark, veridical form with a cutting quality of certifiably overt-clarity, free from academic restraint or pretention.

The crux of the book is juxtaposition, between gigantic & rampant white collar-crime committed by the wealthy &, well, not so much committing crime as, quite literally, just living in poverty which is becoming, without exaggeration – an unofficial crime itself.

Continue reading The Divide – American injustice in the age of the wealth gap – Matt Taibbi →

Books

Hand To Mouth – The truth about being poor in a wealthy world – Linda Tirado

Hand To MouthWell it’s about fucking time! Well-off academics recalling ancient childhood experiences of poverty & deprivation or studying contemporary penury from the must of university libraries has got a bit out of control. Oh absolutely, the genuine outrage & in depth & accurate analysis of poverty & the shitter angles of “economically deprived” & destitute communities lives can be exposed & castigated by those that observe the affliction externally rather than suffer directly from it, but the absence of those really on the receiving end in literature putting it in their own words is totally unacceptable. Continue reading Hand To Mouth – The truth about being poor in a wealthy world – Linda Tirado →

Reviews

Vaudou Game – Apiafo 12” LP

Apiafo

Vaudou Game – Apiafo Bleg Excerpt

Here’s an interesting exercise in atavism. A contemporary shot at a distinctly ancient style using purely analog recording equipment to re-enact/enkindle the original sound & energy-currents. There are some really astonishing 60’s/70’s African reissue compilations (particularly the West African stuff) doing the rounds, most notably for me the superb Analog Africa series levelling some profound gyration & beautiful distorted obscurer from multiple decades back. Vaudou Game perform the raw Funk influenced sound from the Benin, Togo, Ghana districts commingled with Afro-Beat & some Rock styled residue. Continue reading Vaudou Game – Apiafo 12” LP →

Reviews

Sonny Sharrock – Monkey Pockie Boo 12”LP

Monkey-Pockie-Boo

Sonny Sharrock – Monkey Pockie Boo Bleg Excerpt

The seminal shockwave. Passion-sodden discordant ictus lurid contumacious mayhem with all the hinges gone & the screws ejected from their cavities. Sharrock & his mad-moll Linda took certain principles further than anyone & FIRST! it certainly did not always work but this classic LP is an excellent display of Sharrock’s churlish Avant-Garde aggression. Summoned to agitate the storm-currents are Sharrock on guitar & vocals, his partner Linda on vocalizations & two French session musicians that were synonymous with the BYG/Actuel collective & performances – Beb Guerin on Double Bass & the excellent Jacques Thollot on drums. there are three expeditions, one with a hugely destructive radius – “Soon”. Side-A’s solitary track is the unsettling & ectopic “27th Day, a sixteen minute plus metaplasia of cardinal Avant oddity. It’s a spectacular, bizarre & intensely estranging experience. Continue reading Sonny Sharrock – Monkey Pockie Boo 12”LP →

Reviews

Sonny Sharrock – Black Woman 12”LP

sonny_sharrock_black_woman

Sonny Sharrock – Peanut (Bleg Excerpt)

So this is actually the initial Sharrock as a leader effort, recorded in 1968 two years before the more widely vaunted Monkey-Pockie-Boo LP. Sonny scrambles Dave Burrell on piano, Milford Graves on drums, Norris Jones on bass & of course Linda on larynx-lallation. There are five tracks on the LP, all splaying to different dichotomies. Frankly, I think all but one are really quite terrible, albeit very interesting & adventurous conceptually. Some of Sharrock’s themes & the simplicity exacted (stripped back acoustic for example on Blind Willie), plus the nature of the totally admirable but (to my ears) lost & unfulfilling experimentalism fail to accomplish substantiation as a complete track. Continue reading Sonny Sharrock – Black Woman 12”LP →