CD Releases: April 2003 updated:10/12/2003
SMOG Supper CD
(Drag City / Spunk)
File Under: Smog
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For over twenty years, Bill Callahan has been finding devious new ways of defying expectations. Whether playing the role of the lo-fi pioneer, the boisterous noise-making prankster, or the darkly smirking balladeer, Callahan has always made music brimming with tension and complexity. When Callahan is at his best, a squealing, distorted guitar can break your heart, a rumination on death can make you laugh, and a joke can make you hate yourself. In a sense, Callahan's best work is often the most difficult to listen to - a tapestry of revelation, humor, despair, beauty, and noise hardly qualifies as easy listening. Slipping and gliding, your hero has returned. Smog is back in the building. With him is his newest record. But he’s not going to sing it for you, no. Instead, he's going to play it for you. And so, with a press of a button the new Smog album, Supper. Supper will strike some of you as easy-listening Smog which is simply proof that you Smog fans out there have hardened over the years. Sure, Supper features soft steel guitars, female harmony vocals, fluttering guitars, a sentimental ode to 'Our Anniversary', and more heart-warming things packed into its 43 plus minutes, but honestly it's still Smog, isn't it? That means sharp observations, a steady stream of humorous spectres, discomfiting intimacy and other heart-warming things packed into nine melody-filled tunes. Supper, Callahan's eleventh proper album as Smog, is a lovely collection of songs.RADIO 4 Gotham CD
(Gern Bernsten Records / Modular Imprint)
File Under: Rock
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2002 should be remembered as being a fine year for American groups bringing their British '80s influences bang up to date and relevant again. So whilst Liars capture the essence of Gang Of Four, Interpol tackle Joy Division and this year's Jesus And Mary Chain are Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Radio 4 aim for The Clash's post-London Calling phase. It's another ambitious step to take and one which should provide many pitfalls, but once again it's another brave and successful excursion. With vocals recalling the vitriol of Mick Jones and a sustained melodic intensity 'Gotham!' is another post-punk exemplar. 'Our Town', 'Dance To The Underground' and 'Save Your City' are driven, urgent anthems which sound a rallying cry for the disenfranchised. Perhaps even more satisfyingly, 'Struggle' and 'Pipe Bombs' re-enact The Clash's experimental dubbing techniques. Purists may scoff that this music is unoriginal but it would be foolish to moan when some of this revivalist material has a level of consistency, which surpasses the original work.
KATALYST Agent Manipulated CD
(Invada Records)
File Under: Katalyst
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Ashley Anderson, formerly of Moonrock, is Katalyst. Having released his debut album Manipulating Agent (INVCD010), but also launching Invada Records, the label he has set up with two other musical provocateurs; locally engaged engineer /computer wiz Fraser Stuart and their man in Britain, Portishead operative, Geoff Barrow. Agent Manipulated is a collection of remixed, reworked tracks from their debut album accompanied by two unreleased tracks. With remixes coming from Easton Rocks, Purple Penguin, TOR, Crackpot, Two Dogs, Dynamo Productions and 7Stu7 amongst others. All the tracks are far removed from the originals from which they drew influence. The producers were in no way restricted to using material from the existing tracks, and came up with 15 new and exciting tunes. Rather than a remix album, it is more like a new album inspired by Katalyst's first release Manipulating Agent. The only thing that didn't change was the quality of material.
THE MINUS FIVE Down With Wilco CD
(Yip Rock Records / Spunk)
File Under:
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Produced and ably assisted by the less than compromising, Jeff Tweedy of fellow pop-pranksters, Wilco, The Minus Five – are very quickly turning into one of the most audacious (if bookish) alt-indie supergroups. Get this if you will: Scott McCaughey of The Young Fresh Fellows, REM’s Peter Buck and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, with special guests Rebecca Gates and Sean O’ Hagan amongst others. Recorded at Soma Studios in Chicago, the album lunges drunkenly from the nostalgic and the tender (Days of Wine and Booze) to the breezy and charmingly insane (Retrieval of You, The Town That Lost It’s Groove Supply) and even through moments of pure psychedelic brilliance (The Family Gardener, What I Don’t Believe) and tearful laments to the sacrificial heart (Life Left Him There). Bit like 'Prefab Sprout sans the dodgy bird and evenly sprinkled with much the same lyrical magic. That Scott can do an uncanny George Harrision impression, is obvious. What isn’t so obvious is the fact that for all its iconic Wilsonisms and Beatle whiskers, ‘Down With Wilco’ is about as playful and original as you’re likely to get this side of ‘Revolver’ or ‘Head’. Pick it up, play with it, see what it looks like down your trousers. The Minus 5 are not in the business of disappointing. Neither should your trousers.
SWAG No Such Thing CD
(Version Music)
File Under: Dance
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Producer of that inimitably Sheffield flavoured House sound, Chris Duckenfield and Richard Brown are Swag. They drop their eagerly awaited second full-length offering No Such Thing an album packed with technicolor snapshots of unique music in all its acclaimed diversity, moving as it does through raw house grooves to gritty electronic cuts and sublime vocal tracks. the album features collaborations with vocalists Nesreen Shah and Cyz. From the opening scratch segue into the music into the familiar kick drum, the listener knows this CD is going to be, in the very least, just a little different from the standard house music release. Organic house grooves, splattered with otherwise unfitting synthetic noises, are somehow melded together in a tongue-in-cheek offering that turns out to be so much more than just dancing grooves. Stepping on the boundary of deep house and funky house, Swag lays it down rather thick using infectious drum patterns and space filling synth melodies, and a progression from the straight up funky Wire Me Up to the downright strange sequences of Giddy Kipper, will keep the listener glued. This is for the house music enthusiast who enjoys a slight twist of the unexpected on their menu.
INTERPOL Say Hello To The Angels / NYC CDS
(Matador)
File Under: Interpol / Rock
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CD single taken from their debut long player Turn On The Bright Light (OLE5452). Features Say Hello to the Angels and NYC as well as including the demo version of NYC from 2001.
TIM KOCH Please Don’t Tell Me That’s Your Remix CD
(Aural industries)
File Under: Electronica
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Please Don't Tell Me That's Your Remix features fifteen artists' re-workings of tracks that originally appeared on Tim Koch's Please Don't Tell Me That's Your Volvo album, his second full-length on Aural Industries. Warp's ambient-techno of the early 90s has been an obvious reference point for Koch and his contemporaries from the start, but on this collection the evolution away from the template is complete. By now these slightly melancholic moods, reminiscent melodies, wistful wibbles and electro bloops, and occasional glitchy microsounds, underpinned by slinky grooves or skittery percussion have become a kind of lingua franca of international post-millennial intelligent dance music. And internationalism is the order of the day here, with artists ranging from across the post-digital musical world. First off is our own Jet Jaguar's (check their sublime new album Think About It Later out on Capital Recordings) down tempo rendition of Obatem By Night, presenting us with a dubbed-out trip-hoppy groove embellished with echoy elliptical keyboard fragments. Next stop is the U.S. and Proem's Rzswingrmx, on which he takes us into the darkest corner of his reverb unit and proceeds to assault us with thudding chattering post-Autechrean percussion and a series of wonderfully snaking wriggling atonal synth motifs. Proem also provides the wonderful artwork proving he is an artist of many talents. On to the U.K. via a smart piece of C64 retro-electro from Goto80+Extraboy, then to Australian Bloq's explorations of rhythmic timbres and tempos and Mr Projectile gives us backsliding glitch-ridden rhythm track, flip-flopping and fluttering to offset the mellow keyboard loops and deep bass underpinning. Elsewhere the retro-electro-funk contingent are well served by the likes of Quark Kent, Adrien75, Vim!, and Coffee Table. The recently emerging strain of Russian electronica is well represented by Novel23, who choose to highlight the melancholic resonance of Koch's keyboard motif for Obatem By Night. Indie-tronica leanings are displayed by Ten & Tracer and his subtle atmospherics. More experimental takes are provided by Bauri, Raven, and Yunx. All in all a strong and cohesive compendium, providing the listener with an enjoyable overview of the current fertile state of the art of the sonic architecture of electronica.
CONSTELLATION MUSIC UNTIL NOW Various CD
(Constellation Music)
File Under: Rock
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Constellation began releasing experimental rock music in Montreal in 1997, seeking to enact a mode of cultural production that critiques the worst tendencies of the music industry, artistic commodification, and perhaps in some tiny way, the world at large. The compilation contains tracks from A Silver Mt. Zion, Frankie Sparo, Re, Exhaust, Hanged Up, Sofa, Fly Pan Am, Speed Bike, Sackville & Do Make Say Think. The packaging of Constellation's albums is fantastic: bi-fold, cardboard folders with inserts the way old LPs used to be packaged. They smell nice, too!
YO LA TENGO Summer Sun CD
(Matador)
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Nineteen years and 11 albums haven't dulled or lessened the restless eclecticism of Hoboken's enduring avant-rockers Yo La Tengo. Summer Sun follows 2000's album And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out and like that album, it is the sound of warm, slow-burning enchantment. Yo La Tengo's feat is the way in which their wildly adventurous music sounds so understated and natural. Summer Sun embraces everything from brooding slo-core, kitsch bossa nova 60s pop through to rhythmic and folky electronica without ever sounding contrived or forced. The gorgeous Today is the Day evokes the much-referenced Velvet Underground right down to Georgia Hubley's measured, somnambulant lilt. Don't Have To Be So Sad pares shuffling beats with tinkling keys, suggesting a fantasy collaboration between Four Tet and those other masters of downtempo--Low. Let's be Still is jazz-inflected pop and the closing Big Star cover Take Care is near perfect; an exquisite bittersweet parting shot to the end of a relationship. In their 40s and after nearly 20 years together making music, Yo La Tengo shouldn't sound this good. That they do is no small reason to rejoice. Recommended!
THE KILLS Keep On Your Mean Side CD
(Liberation Music)
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"Once upon a time rock'n'roll was all about the sex you really shouldn't have. The Kills haven't forgotten." Q Magazine
Amidst a U.S, New Zealand and Swedish garage-punk explosion, The Kills are ready to make some noise for Britain. With one self-recorded EP release — a raw, trashy five-song debut called Black Rooster, released in May on Dim Mak Records — the London two-now offer up their debut long player Keep on Your Mean Side. Away from the plethora of column inches and the crushingly inevitable forecasts of megastardom that follow, let's look at the facts about The Kills. There are two of them: Alison Mosshart, former singer in Californian minor league pop-punkers Discount, and Jamie Hince, previously of indie hopefuls Scarfo. Mosshart now goes by the name VV, while Hince calls himself Hotel. And the two of them together make the most unholy racket with only the aid of guitars and a drum machine. Fresh from a tour supporting fellow critical darlings the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the spotlight is now falling entirely on The Kills. It's a messy music, the aural equivalent of waking up alone in a dingy bed, in soiled sheets, having thrown-up the previous night's consumption of intoxicating substances. There are signs that this duo could force themselves to the vanguard of this - ahem - 'New Rock Revolution' given time. Forget t.A.T.u. and Kylie, in 2003 The Kills are the only artists offering 21st century sex and longing set to music. It ain't pretty, but then the true blues never have been.
SHIMA Tender Loving Rage CD
(Shima)
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Shima’s second long player follows a similar route from his previous album (see below). Simple, lush and beautiful are terms that spring to mind when listening to Michael’s accomplished compositions. Like the debut album Shima’s music is best described as mood music, or ambient perhaps chilled but not chillout. Highly recommended!
also available
SHIMA Not Quite The 21st Century CD
(Shima)
SH01
"Call it what you will: comedown, ambient, space music, whatever, it’s pure pleasure from start to finish" Lava Magazine
"Slow, contemplative, dreamy ruminations… the simplicity is fetching, and there are some beautiful touches.." Gary Steel Real Groove
Shima is Auckland musician, Michael Ferriss, who released his debut album Not Quite the 21st Century a collection of electronic pieces recorded between 1995-1998 in 1999 and then distributed by Universal Music. Shima's music has been described as an orchestra on acid. His approach to sound is almost organic with samples of found sounds mixed with digital and analogue synthesizers. A seriously good album if you want to enter into a uniquely different world of electronic music.
DANNY KRIVIT Edits by Mr K CD
(Strut)
File Under: Danny Krivit / Disco / Strut
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"Music is my life and sharing it is my biggest joy" Danny Krivit
Danny Krivit, who is now in his 32nd year as a DJ, releases this collection of his ‘dancefloor edits’ on Strut. Krivit, who also released an album on Strut in 2002 - Grass Roots - has a long DJ history, which kick started in the early days of disco. The new album features dance edits of artists as varied as Diana Ross, LTD, Ecstacy Passion and Pain, Lenny Williams and Sly And The Family Stone. As with all Strut releases the music is stunning, it features extensive liner notes and this comes highly recommended!
SKUNK #1 Various CD
(Below Par Records)
File Under: Punk / Hardcore / Emo / Ska
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Revolver mag’s classic Australian punk compilation has finally returned with this one, featuring new, rare and hit songs from Frenzal Rhomb, The Living End, Bodyjar, For Amusement Only, Something With Numbers, Blueline Medic, Mach Pelican, STR, Away From Now, Draw The Line, Thinktank, Edison, The Porkers, Last Year's Hero, Seraphs Coal, Antiskeptic, Day Of Contempt, One Way Out, I Killed The Prom Queen, Piebald (USA), Pilot To Gunner (USA), Thought Crime (USA), Numb (Japan) and more, you wont be dissappointed! 24 tracks in all to keep you rocking along all year long at a great price.
STEPHEN MALKMUS & THE JICKS Pig Lib CD
(Matador / Spunk)
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Sending out a call to the swines of modern music, an inspired return from the undisputed guv’nor of independent rock music - "Are you ready to be liberated?" What's really great about Pig Lib, Malkmus' second solo album, is its faintly sad, understated charm: the work of a musician who you feel is unaware just how good he is. As with his first solo outing, Pig Lib finds Stephen Malkmus tempering Pavement's more audacious art rock leanings and emerging with some of the most insanely catchy and sorely beautiful tunes of the year. What makes these songs really special is their ability to maintain a pop coherency, whilst being genuinely quirky and experimental. Do Not Feed the Oysters not only has a great tune, it's also got a beguiling sitar refrain and some mad wavy guitars. Ramp of Death - has a beautiful half murmured melody, plus a sweet mid range organ line that sounds surprising, and at the same time completely obvious. In this sense, Pig Lib owes much to the Velvet Underground. Like Lou Reed, Stephen Malkmus has a rare avant-garde melodic touch. He even shares Reed's curiously unmusical vocal style - just sketching the tunes and leaving the listener to join the dots in his head. This is an album that demands to be lived with, nurtured and have attention lavished upon it for it to amply repay the kindness. Another classic, in Malkmus's trash-free catalogue.BONNIE PRINCE BILLLY Master & Everyone CD
(Drag City / Spunk)
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Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's third album finds him more popular than ever. Master and Everyone was recorded by Mark Nevers, and features Tony Crow, William Tyler, Matt Swanson, Marty Slayton, and Paul Oldham. Master and Everyone, is not the follow-up that everyone is likely expecting. It is, more importantly, a good album that finds Oldham retreating from the layered solemnity of his most recent releases in favor of a mood that is as intimate and delicate as it is bittersweet and biting. The album opens with Oldham singing Winter comes and snow/ I can't marry you ya' know, as if it were a lullaby -- and even though it's not. Each squeak of the chair, each toe tapped on the floor, every deep breath drawn can be heard dancing among his acoustic guitar and haunting voice (The sprinkling of strings and an organ throughout the chorus do nothing to lighten the mood). On Ain't You Wealthy, Ain't You Wise? Marty Slayton makes her appearance as Oldham's duet partner. Her presence, however, does nothing to keep him from ruminating on a loneliness that functions as the album's solitary theme.
THE FOLK IMPLOSION THE NEW FOLK IMPLOSION CD
(Domino Records / Spunk)
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From Dinosaur Jr, to Sebadoh’s indie rock standard bearer, to his home taping solo project Sentridoh, to the Folk Implosion, who cant help but love, & be inspired by, Lou Barlow? Now alongside new personnel Russell Polland (Sebadoh’s stalwart drummer) & guitarist Imaad Wassif we have it all. Sebadoh might have been one of the defining bands of the indie-rock revolution, but it seems it was Lou Barlow's side-project, The Folk Implosion, that was really built to last. The New Folk Implosion is, despite its name, a fine example of what Barlow has always done best: an album of fraught, soulful rock music that vocalises the shyness and inadequacy of its maker into genuinely artful poetry. Barlow's lo-fi edge mellowed into a loosely adventurous experimentalism long ago, and it's this guiding principle that sees ex-Sebadoh drummer Russell Pollard's rhythms augmented by fluid loops on the likes of Brand of Skin and Leaving It up to Me. There's nothing here as immediately hooky as Natural One, the group's unlikely hit that crashed the US charts after its inclusion on the soundtrack to Larry Clark's controversial teen movie Kids. But those still mourning the passing of Sebadoh ought to find what they're looking for in the windswept Releast. And elsewhere, there are some quietly classic moments: Creature of Salt, where Barlow coos of "dissolving in front of your eyes" in a characteristic expression of self-disgust, or Pearl, an acoustic love song with a barbed tail.
CLUBE DO BALANCO Samba Swing CD
(Mr Bongo Recods)
File Under: Latin / Swing / Samba
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Masters of the Jorge Ben malanca swing sound Clube Do Balanco's album is a celebratory shuffle through orchestrated life-affirming Latin that can't fail to lift the spirits. Clube Balanco are reinventing the sound of 70s Brazil when Jorge Ben, Bebeto and Marku were the dons. The old guard are well represented on this album with Bebeto, Marku, Erasmo, and Luis Vagner. The new wave are also featured with Paula Lima on Zamba Bem, Simoninha (Trama) on Paz e Arroz, and Seu Jorge and Ivo Meirelles, the favela kings, on Segura a Nega. With all the stars of the Brasilian 70s funk scene on this album it is a tribute to a swinging time that formed the backdrop in the film City of Gods. This album represents the new musical movement called Samba Swing which is exploding all over the biggest city in Brasil, Sao Paulo.
NICK WARREN Reykjavik 2CD/3X12"
(Global Underground)
File Under: Global Underground / Nick Warren / Dance
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Nick Warren is famous for selecting offbeat locations for his Global Underground mixes. Not balmy Australian beach ports or funky Californian cities for this born and bred West Country lad, he goes for the chaotic, starting in Prague (GU003) then onto17 million strong metropolis of Sao Paolo (GU008), the anarchic grandeur of Budapest (GU011), the cobbled alleys of Amsterdam (GU018) and now Reykjavik in Iceland…In a DJing and producing career that goes back 15 years, Nick Warren has always pursued the unusual. So his choice of Iceland comes as no surprise. He emerged as the stand-out DJ in the fertile Bristol music scene of the late 80s and early 90s that produced Tricky, Portishead and Massive Attack. Then, as now, he excelled at finding great records either before everyone else, or once they’d missed them. He became Massive Attack’s tour DJ then rose through the early "Balearic" network to become one of the best-loved and most reliable names on the international DJ circuit. Yet he remains unassuming, stoic, stubborn, irritated by fuss, quietly sure of himself, refreshingly devoid of star DJ airs and graces. "This is my best album to date", proclaims Nick, a testament to the wide-ranging musical influences that radiate throughout CD1. It’s full of the kind of musical diamonds that he has spent much of his career unearthing. "I wanted to do something which summed up what I’ve been into and am still into", he says. There’s an element of retrospective here, as the CD swings from atmospheric, digital reggae into the rock-steady beats of Boards Of Canada’s wistfully obscure Happy Cycling before dropping into the kind of euphoric breaks that Nick has championed over the years with his own Way Out West project. It’s on CD2 that you get a real taste of 21st century Nick Warren – tracks like Starkids’ Crayons and Subsky’s Strawberry Fields have a fierce, minimalist energy to them. But these aren’t just thumping grooves; there are subtle, fluttering melodies at work too. Nick’s not afraid of getting musical. "Most compilations have been at best dark and at worst, really boring, with no music to them, basslines, tribal drums and loads of effects," he says. "Melody always works…". The track Rise by Vector, featuring singer Alan Johnson, is his perfect example. It’s a powerful house track with all the dynamism of an Underworld hit, but with a searing vocal that’s almost a call to arms. Whether you are into the pre-party grooves of CD2 or enjoy the post-club neural massage that is CD1, one listen to Nick Warren Reykjavik and you’ll agree it’s one of our most diverse and appealing CDs to date, a real testament to one of the original genre busting DJs who is never afraid to break the mould whilst rocking the party…
DECKS AND THE CITY VOL 1 Various CD
(Takeout Records)
File Under: Dance / house
TRCDS1001-2
Decks and the City is a new series by Takeout Records (a new label from Takeout PR) and it’s aim is to offer a compilation series from a new generation of DJ’s and their respected cities. Volume One features the Ireland to New York house transplants, Marcus and Dominque, two downtown NYC DJ’s that work as production team Plant, and are residents at Centro-Fly on Saturday nights. Along with a couple of their own tracks, they’ve chosen a number of fine house tunes by folks like Derrick L. Carter, DJ Sneak, Bushwacka, Tony Senghore, Paul Johnson, Hippe & Tony, Tiefschwarz and more for their set and it makes for a strong start to a new series.
SUBLIMINAL SESSIONS FOUR Jose Nunez & Who Da Funk CD
(Subliminal)
File Under: Dance / House
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Once again it’s that time...time to party. And who better to party with, knowing they deliver the funk in full-on house style, but the winning Subliminal label who bring together the dynamic musical mix talents of shining stars Jose Nunez, and men of the moment, Who Da Funk. Subliminal don Jose Nunez meshes together a stunning blend of electro-vibin house music, including nuggets from Cassius, Kobbe & Fabb X, Piliavin & Zimbardo, Thick Dick and E-Smoove. Whilst still reeling from their Top 15 National Chart success of their debut UK single, Shiny Disco Balls, Who Da Funk unleash the electro-charged attack with their rocking selection which features cuts from Steve Mac, Punx, Bond Street and plenty more. The sound of one of the world’s most upbeat and contagious dance floors. Subliminal Vs SubUSA on Subliminal Sessions Vol 4 and already racking up as the latest essential must-have and unbelievably not a Shiny Disco Ball in sight, phew!
in music releases are available at all good record stores nation-wide