Techno in German cities, like the beer, has regional variations, which locals can be a bit precious about: the dregs of Munich Helles is sent to Cologne to make Kölsch, or so the joke goes. […]
Category: Album review
Boards of Canada 5, Guardian journalism 0
When I heard Boards of Canada had a new album coming out I got my pre-order in from Warp Records. I remember the first time hearing Boards of Canada: University Avenue, Belfast, summer 1998. I […]
JPEGMAFIA’S beat-switching left turns
“50 beat-switches a minute, they gonna put me in a Guinness,” boasts JPEGMAFIA in one bar on his new album I Lay Down My Life For You. It’s true that he could well be in […]
Can’t get no sleep: The Black Dog – Music for Real Airports
When Brian Eno released Ambient 1: Music For Airports in 1978, flying was still a relative luxury and airports were gateways to holiday destinations that didn’t involve candy floss and sandcastles. Eno’s four-track suite of […]
Suchi Selects — the sound of the Indian electro underground
New Delhi independent radio station and label Boxout FM has just started a new series of DJ compilations that “give listeners a taste of the current soundscape in India”. The first collection is curated by […]
Brontis and the sci-fi invasion – Take Me Seriously
Brontis’s new album opens with a track called ‘Sparse Audience’, which isn’t some resigned comment on the last year without live music, but there’s a story behind it. A big story too — it’s a […]
Let’s get grindcore done: Midrift Guillotine – Dig Up Thatcher and Burn Her Bones EP
If you really fuckin hate the Tories, a self-satisfied Owen Jones column just won’t cut it. Have this eight-track petrol bomb of seditionist splatter grindcore instead.
Hybrasil still keeping it very techno on new album ten
It’s tough releasing a techno album right now, when there’s a distinct lack of sweaty basements and jacked-up sound rigs to test it out live — but Irish producer Will Kinsella aka Hybrasil hasn’t held […]
It’s all just a game, I hope: Karel Fialka – Hey Matthew (1987)
In 1987, my Ma bought me the double cassette of Now That’s What I call Music Vol 10 as a Christmas present. I had my favourites – M/A/A/R/S, Billy Idol, ABC, Pet Shop Boys, Jan […]
A Scottish hello: The Vegan Leather – Poor Girls / Broken Boys
The final track on The Vegan Leather’s debut album is called ‘Zeitgeist’ — but Poor Girls / Broken Boys is no trend-chasing scenester cash-in record. Unlike, say Two Door Cinema Club who traded in their polite […]
‘Life’s decay takes hold’: Vile Sermon – The Despair Regime
“HARSH NOISE, INDUSTRIAL, POWER ELECTRONICS, ETC… NEW RELEASE EVERY MONDAY,” screams the all-caps Bandcamp bio of Ohio cassette label Deathbed Tapes. If you start your week with this stuff you’ll be squinting a little harder […]
Shrimp-scuttling ambience on Jana Winderen – The Noisiest Guys on the Planet
If you live in Ireland, you get fairly used to waking up to the sound of raindrops on glass, then pulling the blinds to let a few shades of grey ooze in. And if it’s […]
A lost treasure of cosmic Americana: Jim Sullivan – UFO (1969)
I never cease to be amazed at the breadth of incredible music from the past that’s out there to be discovered. The rarities that get excavated by musical archaeologists like Light in the Attic, Numero, […]
Colossal rave mutations on Varya Karpova & Vanya Koreya – Extrapolation
Dutch label New York Haunted released a free download compilation last week called In Debt To the Preset, a warm-hearted tribute to famous synth presets, warning: “This is not some ironic hipster joke, this is […]
Perforated Cerebral Party and a new wave of Russian “ghettopsychedelic futuristic music”
Russian duo Perforated Cerebral Party had the recent honour of being the very final act at Estonia’s showcase festival Tallinn Music Week, closing the techno venue HALL on the outskirts of the city. They were […]
Moo Kid 