Hifi Pig

Seasoned readers of the Album review section of Hifi Pig will already be aware that you have a bit of a space-case fanboy of the undisputed kings of the spacerock genre in the form of yours truly and so it was with a good deal of excitement that I went and collected the latest release from Mr Brock and his boys from the mail box.

Essentially the “Spacehawks” album is a run through a few remixes of recent tunes and reworking of well trodden tracks and is released on the Eastworld label and kindly sent by Daz at Plastic Head Distribution. More »

“So much to see here in the darkness…” 

Australia (and indeed the world) is enjoying a wealth of heavy music right now.  Metalcore, new-school thrash, death and progressive metal are all thriving and our newsfeeds are chock full of new releases, gigs, tours, mind boggling arrays of sub-genres and all manner of heavy goodness. Yep, metal is alive and well.

Enter Circles.  Hailing from Melbourne, their debut 2010 EP ‘The Compass’ was released to universal acclaim and (willingly or otherwise) immediately had the mark of “progressive” stamped upon it.  The band seemingly has a most promising future.  ‘Infinitas’, their self produced full length album has been (to use a hackneyed cliche) ahem… highly anticipated. More »

Kathryn Williams is Liverpool-born but resides in the fine city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Crown Electric, the company Elvis used to drive for before finding fame, is her tenth album and her first solo record in four years.

The album is the distillation of over sixty songs that were narrowed down to the thirteen we hear on Crown Electric. The album was recorded live in three days at Bryn Derwen Studios in Snowdonia with Neill MacColl as guitarist, bandleader and producer, Lamb’s Jon Thorne on double bass and Cinematic Orchestra’s Luke Flowers on drums. It was mixed by David Wrench with sumptuous strings added later at Ray Davies legendary Konk Studios, arranged and recorded by cellist Ben Trigg (Dexys, UNKLE, Arctic Monkeys). There are collaborations on the record with Ed Harcourt appearing on three of the tunes and James Yorkston on another. More »

If you’re new to Drugstore (and I am) then here’s a brief history lesson. They’re labelled as a dream pop (whatever that is) band who formed in 1993 and debuted with an eponymous album which reached 31 in the UK charts…their second album from 1998, “White Magic for Lovers”, reached number 45. In total they’ve released four albums and had a top twenty single with “El President which was a duet between the band’s Brazillian singer-songwriter and bassist Isabel Monteiro and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke. “The Best of Drugstore” takes, not surprisingly, songs from these albums. More »

This, on the Righteous label, arrived in the post on Friday and come Friday night it was on constant repeat on the CD player. Northern Boys is an album crammed full of Northern Soul tunes made “famous” by clubs such as the Blackpool Mecca and Wigan Casino and it is a really infectious collection.

Most of the twenty six tunes herein were originally released in 1959 and 1961 on obscure 45s (remember those?) and will be nigh on impossible to source now and so perhaps just for the rarity value this album is worth having – but that’s missing the point a bit I think. More »

It’s been 8 long years since The Arctic Monkeys first smashed their way onto the indie rock scene.  They sure came out swinging, brandishing the adrenaline fuelled foot stomper “I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor” and its parent album ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’ which both went straight to number one on the UK charts. 

Despite having a predilection for inconveniently long titles, they knew how to write a damn good rock song and deliver it in no uncertain terms.! However since that initial burst of energy and creativity, the band hasn’t been able to reach the bar they set so high early in their career.

Enter ‘AM’.  The title’s short… good start, but does it fulfil expectations?  Initial sales figures say yes, but that’s never any real indication.  Stew says…. More »

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 »