Tuxedomoon - Desire

Tuxedomoon are a San Francisco based experimental act formed in 1977. They are still quite a prolific and active band, still releasing records and touring today. However, their late 70's/early 80's records form part of Ralph Records' amazing roster of weird bands - and are a complete pleasure to listen to. This is my favourite of theirs, Desire.

Non-stop erotic cabaret, new wave in spirit and kind of velvet in mood, Tuxedomoon deliver the perfect soundtrack to living vicariously through the eyes of someone just like you, but cooler, more seductive and possibly far more perverse. Live a thousand lives via pictures.

it's a jinx

OOIOO - Feather Float

OOIOO are a side project by Boredoms (best band ever?) femme fatale Yoshimi P-We. Their 2004 record 'Feather Float' is, well, one of the most colourful albums you're likely to hear. Cover art is fairly suggestive of this.

Just about as much fun you can have within the popular music sphere without losing your mind. Or whatever, lose your mind, who cares. Contains bits of Vision Creation Newsun, Neu! like trance pulses, rock experimentation that may make their peers embarassed, and repetition. and repetition. and repetition. and repetition. and repetition. and repetition.

be sure to loop

Bästard - Radiant, Discharged, Crossed Off

Radiant, Discharged, Crossed Off is a hidden gem when it comes to low key, fragmented, disjointed experimental rock music. Think This Heat but a bit less sinister, think Bark Psychosis for the industrial landscape. Lazy descriptors aside, this one is loaded with elegaic passages, subtle rhythms and just really cool riffage throughout, made from equal parts of chaos and silence. Enjoy, folks.

200 miles from Hanoi

Electrelane - The Power Out

Electrelane were an all girl quartet from the UK, Brighton specifically. They formed in 1998 and disbanded in 2007, but have reunited recently. I'm hoping for a a couple of records from their side soon. Here's my favourite of theirs, 2004's The Power Out.

Power pop? Post punk? Experimental Pop? Jazz? Choral Music? Nietzsche? Singing in 4 languages? Perfect krautpop that would make Stereolab jealous? Ladies and gentlemen, this is quite possibly the greatest album put out by an all girl band, ever. I'm actually surprised Arcade Fire was the big deal in 2004, because hey, as good as Funeral was, as far as pop music went in 2004; very, very few people were worthy of comparison to Electrelane.

you make me weak at the knees

V/A - Xpressway Pile-Up

Xpressway Records was a short lived New Zealand music label that lasted a few years in the late 80's and dissolved after releasing 23 records on its catalog. I'd like to call them Flying Nun's twisted little sister though, they nurtured and established the more experimental NZ acts of the late 80's, whose influence over independent music over the 90's cannot be understated. Here's a compilation of whacked out tunes compiled after Xpressway disintegrated.

Chronicles the best of the short lived Xpressway label from NZ. Despite having only 23 releases to its catalog, Xpressway lived to be immensely influential to the local scene and housed the more experimental acts in its roster; and as such that is what you get on this compilation. Ranging from aural assaults to mumbled drones, from gloomy introspective balladry to exercises in improvisation and noise, it features some of New Zealand's best musicians (Peter Jefferies, Dead C, The Terminals, Plagal Grind, Alastair Galbraith and the like) and is fairly essential for anyone reaping the rewards of the NZ music scene and looking to dig a bit deeper.


you and me, walking on the wire

Slint - Spiderland

Slint were a band that formed in 1986 and disbanded after recording their 1991 masterpiece, Spiderland.

Sometimes reviewing stuff you love is near impossible. So I suppose I'll put it this way. Spiderland is an enigma. It's like, as snoogans once said, a really dark episode of Twilight Zone. It's also like a film noir murder mystery that seems to unravel with repeated listens. Or it's possibly an attempt to strip rock and roll dynamic down to its barest form; so much so that you're left chasing the spoken word ramblings of a man on the edge and the wandering instruments that feel directionless, even though you know exactly where it's headed. Whatever it is, all answers lie in Spiderland. Hope you have as much fun trying to piece it together as I did. 

good morning, captain

Can - Tago Mago

Can are pretty much my favourite band of their era. The mother-band of sorts; at their peak everything they touched turned to gold. 1971 saw the coming of one of music's best experiments of all time; a double LP by the name of Tago Mago. Some great reading here from Stylus:

What can you say about Can? About The Can? Because, make no mistake, they are the definite article. Their name is an acronym of Communism, Anarchism, Nihilism. Or it’s the German word for “love”. Or an African word for “life”. Or something you keep beer in. On the cover of Ege Bamyasi it’s a tin of okra. Who knows? Can. The Can. Can formed because of an argument between a music teacher and his student. The student said The Beatles were more radical than Stockhausen, the teacher laughed, they formed a band. They recruited the greatest drummer in the world (Jazz-trained—instilled with the motto “never repeat, never repeat” from the day he picked up sticks. And when given the freedom to play how he wanted? Decided to repeat forever.) and a giant black American singer, a sculptor evading the draft by travelling Europe. They recorded in a castle, strange nursery-rhyme inverting songs about getting high with Mary, about your father being unborn, weird, European psychedelic junctions. 20-minute jams about nothing in particular but keyed in to the rhythm of the universe. Oh yes. The singer couldn’t take the stress, or something, and left. The rest of Can spotted a Japanese man shouting at people in the street, and asked him to join their band. He did, and proceeded to sing in a made-up language for the next five years. (Later he would find religion, and become a Jehovah’s Witness, which is the mentalist inversion of Americans or Europeans “getting” Buddhism or Taoism.) 

Everyone has stolen from Can. Talk Talk (the looped piano riff from “Life’s What You Make It”, everything they did from Spirit Of Eden on), Happy Mondays (“Hallelujah” is “Halleluwah” from Tago Mago performed by a load of Mancunian drug addicts with no sense of musical history), Primal Scream (everything,everything), The Fall (“I Am Damo Suzuki” to name but one of hundreds), The Stone Roses (“Fools Gold” is Ege Bamyasi’s “I’m So Green” run through acid house and The Byrds), Stereolab (everything, everything), My Bloody Valentine (texture over form), The Verve (10-minute spacerock grooves), any band that ever started playing around with electronics or weird jams, anyone who ever played at spacerock or being experimental (hello, Radiohead), anyone who ever went for texture and rhythm and sound over song, anyone who ever got a singer to sing in a made-up language (hello, Sigur Ros). Before every album Blur have released, Damon Albarn has either claimed that it was influenced by Pavement or by Can. The only two occasions when he wasn’t lying were Blur(Pavement!) and 13 (Can!). The Mooney Suzuki stole their name from Can’s two singers (Malcolm Mooney and Damo Suzuki). LCD Soundsystem’s most important namedrop in “Losing My Edge” isn’t about being the first person to play Daft Punk “to the rock kids”; it’s about having been at the first Can shows in 1968, “in Cologne”. Which is, of course, a lie, because James Murphy was a baby if he was even born. Eno, Mogwai, Cabaret Voltaire, Tortoise, AR Kane… You could keep naming bands forever.                  

A contender for one of the greatest albums of all time. A trip unlike any other, 40 years since it's release now and there still isn't anything that fucks with your head as beautifully as this album does. That album cover is pretty spot on, I'd say. Musical nirvana, if there ever was one. Give it a few spins, you'll see what I'm on about.

halleluhwah!

Bark Psychosis - Independency

Compiles the EPs of one of the most complex and consistent band of the 90's. When you listen to this stuff, remember that it was a bunch of 15-16 year olds recording it. Yes, amidst all that grunge and commercial bastardisation of rock music, these kids saw the future, and played alongwith it. Immense, layered and gorgeous in its simplicity, Independency should open a few doors for those treading these grounds afresh. 

blood rush

Stereolab - Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements

Behold, ladies and gentlemen, one of the greatest bands of the last two decades, no questions asked. Stereolab were formed in 1990 by like minded music enthusiasts Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier. Throughout their career, they've been called fiercely independent and creative, both of which would somehow still be understatements in comparison to what they've accomplished over their time. From their early jangle pop and c86 incarnations they transformed into children of the Velvet Underground and heirs to the krautrock scene, without losing their pop sensibility or the passion for experimentation on album, the evolution continuing over the course of their career (and all the way upto Mary Hansen's unfortunate death in 2002, no two albums had anything in common except for the fact that they were all masterpieces). Now with so many fucking good Stereolab albums and compilations (yeah they have about 5cds worth of non LP material which is just as good) I'm going to have to take some time to get through them all, so I'll just start with my favourite of theirs, their major label debut; Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements - and a top 5 album of the 90's for me.

Sometimes I have to be in the mood for this. But when I am, nothing else will even begin to suffice. Every single song on this is its own beast, whilst still retaining the signature Stereolab sound. Not a wasted note here, this album basically showed that the band is more than faithful to its name and were pioneers to the exact revolution they idealised in their songwriting. And oh yeah, Jenny motherfuckin' Ondioline. 'Nuff said. 

If there's been a way to build it, there'll be a way to destroy it

Pram - Gash

Pram are an experimental band based in Birmingham. Originally from Yorkshire, Rosie Cuckston and Matt Eaton went to school together. Along with drummer Andy Weir, the three then moved to Birmingham in the late 80's. A chance meeting between Rosie Cuckston and Sam Owen at a local supermarkets Singles Night started off the unique band. They began gigging under the name Hole in 1988. The only sounds included her eerie vocals and a home-made theremin. Matt Eaton later joined the band playing multiple instruments. Keyboard player/sampler Max Simpson also joined, with Sam playing bass and Andy Weir on the drums. The band's first album "Gash" was self-released and sold by mail order and at gigs, and is now completely out of print (sells for about $500 on Ebay). 

This as a debut marked Pram as one of the most innovative bands in the UK in the 90's. Filled to the brim with mind bending experiments in deconstruction, Gash has a near psychedelic nature in its delivery but never flirts with pomposity or wank. It's a very intriguing world of sound that Pram have conjured in Gash, one could say the chaos within is meticulously detailed, and once a while it's possible to witness the myriad of musical cornerstones that Pram use to decorate their tunes; ranging all from free jazz, ambience, usage of toys and toy-like instruments (that well compliment the child-nightmare themes that the songs portray) and the part-controlled/part frenzied krautrock drumming that gives the songs a really cool, rough edge, like a yacht getting rocked by the mighty ocean in the dead of the night (we would in fact be lost at sea if it wasn't for Rosie Cuckton's sweet, soothing voice that adds a semblance of 'normalcy' to the whole affair). 

All in all, a bizarre barrage of sounds on this one, every song is unique, from the industrial mutant pop of 'I'm a War' which climaxes into a serious funk workout, the calm solitude of 'Pram', the grotesque 'Flesh' which possesses a frantic punk spirit and some violent, noisy guitar lines that show that these guys were good at just about everything. I'm not sure how analogies work in reviews, but at this point in time I think it's fair to say that Pram were the heirs to the kind of thing This Heat and Can were doing decades before them - pushing the boundaries of sound in ways not thought entirely possible without sacrificing any of it in quality. Sorry if I'm gushing, I fucking love this record.

Nightmares and dreamscapes

Swans - Soundtracks for the Blind

Swans have been an immensely influential no-wave act who have gone through various transformations, sort of like a shedding skin and maturing with absolute class without sacrificing any of their quality. 


Michael gira is an enigma. Raised and fed on a diet of the experimental and largely noise oriented new york scene, Swans is practically his vehicle for expression, one he's guided through the years and has been its only consistent member, from the inception of the band to date, where we await their new studio album almost 20 years after the band formed. 

Early Swans material, was in a nutshell, absolutely fucking brutal. Tape loops, heavy riffs, guitars completely detuned and atonality are pretty much commonplace here. This is basically some of the most aggressive music that ever existed. Case in point, shows were so loud and dissonant that people were reported to have ended up passing out and occasionally going dizzy, from sheer volume. Cops would regularly shut down and ban them from playing in certain areas (Gira returns his love for the authority on the wonderful release 'Cop') But it wasn't harsh for the sake of being harsh, the time signatures were reminiscent of Gira's love for jazz influenced 'rock', the minimal chord structures seemed to be a nod to early, minimalistic blues based rock and roll.   

Swans themselves are a study in evolution. From the violently noisy beginnings in the now legendary no-wave scene, they carved out a really unique path for themselves, seeing them morph ever so slowly, but surely, into a more melodic juggernaut, paving the way for 2 of their finest efforts - White Light from the Mouth of Infinity and The Great Annihilator. What was to follow was anyone's guess, but really, nothing in the world prepared anyone for the masterwork that was Soundtracks for the Blind. Soundtracks adds up to nearly two and a half hours in length. It's a sprawling effort, one that changes mood and tempo on every possible turn, but still retains its character alongwith its devotion to an unique, sinister atmosphere that is always seductive and hypnotic. Dissonance is the modus operandi here, you are literally compelled to understand music as you know it as a different kind of instrument altogether. 

They meddle with a frenetic punk aesthetic on "Yum Yab Killers" which is layed out deliciously over Jarboe's ferocious vox, they travel into warped techno soundscapes on "Volcano" and even feature a medieval harpsichord swirl on "Red Velvet Corridor". The drones exist to serve as psychoactive rather than a foreground mechanism, slowly lulling you into a lucid daydream, evoking ambience that brings to mind desolate industrial landscapes, war torn fields and ruins of ancient civilisations. Maybe they are allusions to the dark recesses of the human psyche; "Prisoner in Yr Skull" and "Final Sacrifice" seem to be the sound of personal ghosts being exorcised.  There also seems to be an undercurrent of carnal sexuality to the rhythms that pulsate under each selection, from the thunderous tribal drumming to the beating of primal overtones that permeate the drones. But the two key highlights on the record are definitely the epics, 'Helpless Child' and 'The Sound'. The former being a cinematic ode to a obsessively dependent relationship that glides effortlessly into the atmosphere as it builds to it's climax, and the latter is just about the best fucking song there ever was - a monstrosity that predates the 'post rock' movement by at least 3 years and is arguably the watermark for Godspeed you! black Emperor's career and every other derivate that has followed since - 'The Sound' stands as a milestone in 'build-and-release tension' finesse in music; a solemn orchestral dirge that marks Gira's omniscience on the record to fantastic effect. 

It's quite hard to believe they bowed out with this, even for today's standards. A disjointed, double disc ode that compiles nearly every manifestation of Swan's career and more; tape loops, mournful drones, samples, field recordings, distorted guitars, ambient keyboards and Gira's lovely baritone - the result is spectral, to say the least, there's not a wasted minute, and the album is so unstably unfocused that trying to allocate a narrative to it is almost invariably bound to be futile - it has to be heard to be believed. Soundtracks for the Blind stands as a testament to one of the best bands of our time - Swans were so far ahead of their time that most of us are still catching up. I recommend that you give it a listen because it could possibly change your life.


Lose your eyesight