Hifi Pig

This popped through the letter box from those helpful chaps at Cherry Red a couple of weeks ago and I was a bit surprised that they’d sent me something from the mid 70s. Actually this is a re-release of the ninth album from Man, – originally released on UA Records – this one is released on Esoteric Recordings (ECLEC 2020) and comes with the original album plus a second CD recorded at the Whiskey a Go Go and previously unreleased – this release originally came out in 2007. The original album reached the giddying heights of 12 on the “hit Parade” in the UK. The album is produced by Roy Thomas Baker who you may know from his work with Queen.

Now, Man is an interesting band. For a start they’re Welsh, South Wales – Merthyr Tydfil in fact! If you look back into the bands history there have been numerous line up changes with people coming and going with great regularity and the only real mainstay being Micky Jones. Their style on this record can be roughly described as East coast psychedelia  – which is no bad thing in my book. More »

Snip Records is a new record label which focuses on high resolution digital music and this is the debut album from the group “ti-an-guis” an international group which play folk music from all over the world. The band’s name is derived from the Mexican word “tianguis” which is an open air market and reflects the band’s melting pot of influences and sounds, though I initially assumed the name was of Breton origin for some reason.

The group consists of a female vocalist, a bass player, two guitarists and a percussionist who met in the Netherlands but come originally from Mexico, Brazil, Portugal and Croatia. More »

“It costs ten bucks or go fuck yourself”.

A nice personable accompaniment for the album’s release from Trent Reznor himself. He’s obviously not terribly fond of  the “pay what you want” system as championed by Radiohead… never mind Trent, thousands upon thousands of people will pay absolutely nothing besides a bit of bandwidth for it.

Anyway, the current state of music retail notwithstanding, this is NIN’s 8th release and the first since 2008′s ‘The Slip’ and depending on who you talk to, the first with any merit since 2005′s ‘With Teeth”.  A lot of water has cascaded under many bridges in that time though.  Reznor and co-conspirator Atticus Ross (who co-produced this very album) have become Hollywood darlings, winning numerous awards for their collaborative film scores.  So much so that the very existence of NIN appeared to be quite nebulous and Reznor has surprised many with the announcement of this full length offering. More »

Ok, so a few of you may be familiar with Mr Cat (Stephen Bruner to his friends), either from his recent role as bassist in LA superpunks Suicidal Tendencies or his collaborations with Erykah Badu and Flying Lotus.  If it’s the former, this album will really come flying out of leftfield for you, but those comfortably familiar with the R&B stylings of Erykah and the space-tronica of Flying Lotus…well you’ll be in your element here. More »

Whilst I enjoyed the Polyphonic Spree’s first album “The Beginning Stages of…” they were never really a band that I explored further than that one album and perhaps this has been a mistake on my part given how much I loved “Yes, It’s True”.

The first album was a gloriously positive and uplifting offering from the boys and girls in white robes and “Yes, It’s True” has Tim De Laughter and his throng continuing this theme…though the robes are a little more colourful these days it would appear.

If you’ve not come across Polyphonic Spree before then imagine a psychedelic, indie cult of twenty odd individuals that listened to “Pet Sounds” (a lot) then decided to take to the stage and studio and you’ll not be too far away. More »

This is not a new album having been released in 2004 but it looked interesting and so I thought I’d give it a whirl anyway. It’s a collaboration between Jim Lampi and the German producer Zeus B Held (what a fabulous name that is!) with input from Australian musicians including Craig T and Damian Armstrong from the rap-metal band NoKTuRNL. Digital Dreaming is an album inspired by the Australian outback and has vocals provided by Frank Yamma who is perhaps Australia’s leading aboriginal musician and sings in his native language Pitjantjatara as well as English. Percussion is provided by Olaf Tzschoppe from Les Percussions de Strasbourg and reggae singer Silvalox adds improvised vocal textures and “body rhythms” to the album. More »

Voigt is owner of the Kompakt label and on the occasion of its 20^th anniversary, was invited to contribute to Art Cologne, Colognes highly respected art fair. For the event, Voigt designed the sound installation “Inter Alia” which was situated in the entrance area of the art fair.

On this album Zukunft Ohne Menschen (Future Without People), released 2^nd September of this year, Voigt has created a multimedia concept in ten parts which incorporate music, video and digital painting. With the album comes not only the CD itself but also 10 pieces of artwork presented in a deluxe book format. More »

OK, I must confess that Phantom Limb completely passed me by and it is more by good fortune than good planning that I find myself writing this review of their first, eponymous album …admittedly coming a little late to the party.  Sadly it would seem that in January of this year they split!

Formed in 2004 the band released their first album in 2008 and on first listen it would seem that the band are trailing a well trodden track of alternative country blues seeped with good old Southern vibes. Yolanda Quartey’s vocal is full to the brim and overflowing with emotion and with that indefinable quality that immediately has you thinking, by god this woman can sing! So it comes as no surprise then that the band come from…err, Bristol.  More »

Heavy progressive music is in an interesting state of flux circa 2013.  There are certainly some amazing and inspired bands kicking about, but conversely there is a disturbing number of pale imitators flooding the market with their own sub-par take on djent/prog-metalcore/mathcore… or whatever  moniker will next be self applied by some mediocre & generic 8 string toting band trying vainly to stand out from the pack.  More »

You’ve all heard the hype.  First album with Ozzy in 35 years, Brad Wilk of Rage Against the Machine replacing Bill Ward on drums, yet another metal album referencing the number 13, a huge world tour etc etc, blah blah.

Sure it’s big news.  Massive in fact.  The whole rock world has been salivating over the prospect of an Ozzy-fronted Black Sabbath since the news of “the second coming” was leaked a year or so ago.   For my part, I was sceptical to say the least.  Tony Iommi is ill with cancer, Ozzy is…..well, his history of gargantuan amounts of substance abuse is abundantly clear in his persona, and besides the recent addition of Brad Wilk, they’re all REALLY old!  Was my scepticism justified?  Are they still the kings of metal? Well…. More »

Iron & Wine…sort of rolls off the tongue nicely doesn’t it?  Likewise does the name of the man who is Iron & Wine, singer/songwriter Samuel Beam.  With a name like that, what else could he have been but a purveyor of gritty folk music and Americana?  Say it again….Samuel Beam…Iron & Wine.   Cellar door anyone?

Anyhow…the impressively hirsute Beam has a cool name and has chosen his moniker nicely.  He’s been around the traps for a while now; Ghost on Ghost is his 5th full length album and  wilfully or not, he’s been lumped by music pundits into the genre of “indie folk”.  Certainly his earlier works befitted such a categorization, containing a sort of dark brooding tension found elsewhere in the alt-folk/country macrocosm, particularly in the music of the likes of Bonnie Prince Billy or Calexico. More »

No names, no faces, no identities, a ghoulishly papal stage presence & 2 albums….and we have Sweden’s Ghost.  There’s been much hype surrounding their sophomore effort Infestissumam (Latin for hostile), and none of it appears to be self-propagated.  The metal community seems to have gone bananas over it for whatever reason and praise for them/it has spread like wildfire on the back of their unique live shows.

So what’s a reviewer to do when presented with “the next big thing”?  Why, pick it up and put it to the critical sword of course!

First of all…this album is barely what I’d call metal.   There are elements of it; a couple of chugging Metallica-esque riffs here and there and occultist lyrical themes, but for a band which has been erroneously (and presumably unwillingly) branded as “Doom Metal”  this album has some real surprises in store.

The record opens with the short title track….beginning with some A capella vocal harmonies which border on Gregorian chants….(a theme that is repeated throughout the album at various stages), but it quickly morphs into the pulsating atmospheric hard rock of  “Per Aspera ad Inferi”.  More »

Any new release from The Flaming Lips is sure to be met with a degree of anticipation from critics and fans;  they’ve recently put on some spectacular live shows and their catalogue of work contains some absolute classics.   So when a band with their kind of reputation releases an album called “The Terror” you can’t help but be intrigued about what sonic madness it might contain.

The Terror is a concept album and getting your head around the lyrical theme is fairly important.  Basically, the terror which Wayne Coyne sings about is the fear of life without love.  That no matter the terrible circumstances you may be in, life goes on….and that is the terror:  continued existence.  This is very personal to Coyne as he recently split with his partner of 25 years, so you’d expect this record to be harrowing and representative of its title wouldn’t you? More »

15 albums in nearly 20 years.  So is the celebrated career of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.  Their last offering Dig, Lazarus, Dig!! was released in 2008, but sating Cave appetites between the aforementioned and this release was the energetic Grinderman project which was a veritable adrenaline rush compared to most of the (impressively prolific) Nick Cave discography.

Hanging around from Grinderman is Warren Ellis (The Dirty Three), and also returning is Barry Adamson who played in The Birthday Party waaaaay back in the day and has also performed with The Bad Seeds in the past, but Mick Harvey is notable in his absence.

Cave’s music has long been regarded as somewhat depressing and morbid.  These sentiments are fairly accurate for the most part.  Most of his catalogue is hardly music you’d play to get a party jumping…besides Grinderman of course. More »