Archive for August, 2022

Mannequin Death Squad / The Bricks / Ketamine Kat / KissKissKill – The Victoria Vaults, York, 18th August 2022

Posted: 18 August 2022 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

It’s been a very long while since scuzz-punk rock duo Mannequin Death Squad came to our shores, and even longer since they last set foot in York – but hailing from Melbourne, Australia, it’s been quite a while since they’ve set foot anywhere outside their province, with now fewer than six lockdowns and more than 260 days under restrictions during the pandemic, which led to Victoria’s state capital to be dubbed the “world’s most locked down city”, according to the BBC. Hardly conducive conditions for a band who thrive on playing live.

MDS seems to have harnessed all of that pent-up energy for this month-long UK tour, scheduled at relatively short notice, but before they’re on, they’ve got a solid bill of local talent in support, too (let’s face it, four bands for £7, you can’t go wrong), and first on, up-and-coming KissKissKill (styled as XXK so as to avoid any iffy connotations, and who’ve been around a while but seem to be finally kicking things up a notch) prove to be a solid opener giving an assured performance. Their sound may bet kinda standard rock with some big guitar solos, but they’ve got a good level of energy and enthusiasm. Singer Gemma-Louise performs with her eyes as well as with powerful lungs, and she’s backed by some solid riffs and she bounces around a lot: they all do, apart from the bassist who hides at the back behind his straightened hair. They’re a lot of fun, and clearly have potential for great things.

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KissKissKill

Ketamine Kow bring mouth frothing energy and aggression. They’ve had their songs shared on Twitter by Sleaford Mods. The front-cunt’s proper mental and the songs are almost secondary to the spasmodic energy as he charges around maniacally, getting in people’s faces and generally creating a disruptive energy. I mean, there seems to be something not quite right about the guy, but this is the spectacle of a performer who lives every second of the performance for real. Like a young Iggy Pop, it’s all for the moment. There are some squalling riffs and pounding percussion going on behind the manic screaming and shouting. Ketamine Kow could well be the new Baby Godzilla: with the exception of the drummer, who also provides strong second vocals, the band spend as much time in the crowd than on stage, the singer everywhere all at once, hollering from the back of the room, leering in and looming over the crowd, or writhing on the floor. Skinny white boys with gangly limbs, you can’t imagine that being in a band is likely to help any of the members of Ketamine Kow to pull: they’re sweary, sweaty, raw, authentic punk, and so, so angry – and fucking brilliant.

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Ketamine Kow

The Bricks Draw the Line at the start of the set, and they seem to get sharper, more solid, more meaty with every outing, and singer Gemma is more confident and more commanding than ever. The sound is a perfect amalgamation of juggernaut bass with choppy stuttering riffs that splinter onto shards, with heavy hints of Gang of Four and Wire with martial beats. In terms of performance, Gemma doesn’t ‘do’ much – no bouncing about, no, posing: she doesn’t have to. The voice is immense, and is all the presence, allowing the three middle-aged blokes (no criticism, especially as they’re clearly having a blast playing the songs and have the sound absolutely nailed) to fade into the noisy background.

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It’s gone 10:45 when Mannequin Death Squad start, but when they do it’s incendiary: the set is back to back killers, heavily raiding their 2016 debut mini-album ‘Eat Hate Regurgitate’ alongside songs released on-line since and brand new material, too. They’re loud and they’re tight with a full sound, the dual vocals really defining the sound over the big, grungy riffs. They play hard and fierce. ‘Sick’ lands third before a new track off the forthcoming debut album. Elly’s eyes lol up into her head as she kicks out the riffs. The mid-set instrument switch seems to take it up a notch, and Dan steps out from behind the drums to take over the guitar and lead vocals, and stomps the stage fiercely. Meanwhile, the hi hat’s fucked and zip on her trousers is bust, but still Elly doesn’t miss a beat. They’re committed, alright. Live shows don’t come better than this.

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Mannequin Death Squad

Things are running late and curfews are a kicker for most venues these days, especially those in residential areas, so they’re forced to truncate the set a little – and so what it lacks in duration, they compensate in energy, turning the small venue into a total sweatbox as they deliver the title track from their forthcoming debut album, ‘Super Mental Psycho’ as the penultimate song, and it’s blistering. We’re all wiped and melting by the end, and while there’s no chance of an encore, the rush to the merch and to chat to the band after showed the level of appreciation. And rightly so – they’re one of those bands who never disappoint.

Watch: ‘Crows, Sparrows and Cats’ by Blacklab featuring Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier

Posted: 17 August 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Doom metal meets dreampop on ‘Crows, Sparrows and Cats’ by Blacklab, the self-proclaimed ‘Doom Witch Duo from Osaka, Japan’. Featuring a lead vocal by Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, the Hawkwind riffs, motorik heavy stomp and fuzz fat guitars coupled with that cool pop vocal is a surprising combination that hits the spot.

Hot on its heels comes a new video, featuring Hanaka the thirteen year old daughter of Blacklab drummer Chia, who creates her own dance routine for the track whilst footage (from their recent stay in London) is projected ‘Liquid Len’ like, for full psychedelic overload.

Watch the video now:

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‘Crows, Sparrows and Cats’ is taken from their latest album ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ which is out this Friday (New Heavy Sounds).

Their debut ‘Under the Strawberry Moon 2.0’ saw them taking Sabbath inspired doom, mashing it with a Japanese sensibility and a fuzzed-up groove. It certainly caused a stir, but only hinted at their potential.

Album two ‘Abyss’ added to the mix. A Stooges like squalor to the riffs, dollops of lo-fi hardcore punk and loose riffing, pointing the way towards a signature sound.

So what of the ‘difficult’ third album? Not so difficult at all it seems.  ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ ups the ante considerably, to let rip and define what Blacklab are about.

The combined talents of Jun Morino on production and Wayne Adams (Big Lad, Green Lung, Pet Brick, John, Cold In Berlin) on the mix have conspired to produce a towering beast of a record. A real step forward for the ‘Doom Witch Duo’.

The drums have a humungous ‘Fugazi’ like welly, and the guitars are a boiling maelstrom of fuzz dense riffola and warped psychedelics, with added synth. Yuko’s throat shredding snarls are as mean as a pissed off Satan, and melodious, often within the same song.

This is doom meets hardcore punk, hooky melodies, and killer riffs, all cranked up to the max. Japan has always had a special take on ‘noise’ and ‘heavy’ and with ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ Blacklab add their own spin to that tradition.

Gone is the lo-fi approach, here is Blacklab in full effect.

EDIT MASTER

Konstrukt & Peter Brötzmann – Dolunay

Posted: 16 August 2022 in Albums
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Karlrecords – 26th August 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Konstrukt – the Istanbul-based collective led by multi-instrumentalist Umut Çağlar and reeds player Korhaan Futaci have, in their fourteen-year career amassed an impressive catalogue of works, many in collaboration with international luminaries of the experimental / jazz scene.

As the accompanying notes detail, ‘The German Free Jazz titan [Peter Brötzmann] was invited to the Deneyevi Studio in the Turkish capital in November 2008 where they recorded Dolunay, an album that was released three years later on a small label in Turkey only. Back then a quartet with drums AND percussion, guitar, reeds but NO bass player, KONSTRUKT and their iconic guest took off on a session full of fire and fury: shrieking reeds, thundering drums andandand… Free Jazz of the wildest, most energetic and kathartic (afterwards) kind!

And so, eleven years after its release, and a full fourteen since its recording, the epic that is Dolunay finally gets a vinyl release, having been remastered for the format. Karlrecords haven’t skimped, either: the six tracks, spanning just short of an hour, has been laid across four sides of 180-gram vinyl.

Now, oftentimes, double-vinyl pressings feel like a bit of a cash-in geared at audiophile snobs and hardcore collectors – you know the kind, who will drivel on endlessly about the superiority of gold-plated plugs and shit (and I say that as both a vinyl fan and owner of separates, but also someone who accept the limitations of human hearing, especially after years of live music) – butt this, this truly deserves the treatment.

Because of the slightly awkward track lengths in relative terms, they pack ‘Dolunay’ and ‘Siyah’ – at ten-plus minutes apiece onto the first side, but the advantage of this that the listener gets to feel the cumulative power of the slow-simmer of the wandering discord. Thee drums clatter and roll, but they’re subdued and distant on the title track while the brass weaves frantic. As one saxophone withers and slumps, puffed out and weary, another rises in its place to honk to the heavens. ‘Siyah’ is sparse and slow to begin, and almost smooth at times, before an unexpected twist toward the humming, thrumming, cacophonous a few minutes in – and by the mid-point, it’s a sustained explosion of sound. ‘Kurtlar’ nags and spirals with a twist of Eastern exotica, but then… then…

No, I don’t love this kind of thing – I often find it too much – way too much. I spend so much time just willing for it to end. But then, equally, I find myself marvelling not at the musicianship, but the audacity. And then along comes along a piece like ‘Makinalı’ and for all of the hectic rolling percussion and wandering reeds, there’s some tranquillity, at least to begin, and the breathing space allows time for reflection, and the realisation that this s quite remarkable, in technical terms… but then before long it’s a swarm of hornets in your head and aaaagh!

In its field, its exemplary, and pushes the parameters of free jazz to the max – but that also means that it is challenging, hard work even – but of course, hard work always brings its rewards.

AA

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Watch: ‘Yarrow’ by Celestial North

Posted: 15 August 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Edinburgh born Kendall based artist Celestial North has shared ‘Yarrow’, a haunting atmospheric ‘botanical’ soundtrack.  For fans of Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds or Sigur Ros, this reflective and meditative piece gently sways with a wash of pianos and sighing melodies. It’s a tantalizing other side of Celestial North’s artistry and a teaser for her album released later this year. 

Watch the video for ‘Yarrow’ here:

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She says of the song:  “I often think in ‘music’. My thoughts are usually awash with colours and sounds. I was sitting trying to meditate, or contemplate, beside the yarrow patch in my garden. I was finding it difficult to articulate how I was feeling and started to feel a bit frustrated. I decided to sit quietly and start again. I realised that I didn’t really have any words to write down as such but I did have a tune playing in my head. I decided to record this tune on my piano and added some other elements that I felt benefitted the song — a bodhran drum, a choir, the rustling of the yarrow patch and the roses recorded from my garden and some simple electronic sounds.  This botanical soundscape is representative of how I felt whilst I was sitting with the yarrow and the tune played on the piano is the tune that was playing in my head whilst sitting with the plant."

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### – Nasilno

Posted: 15 August 2022 in Albums
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9th May 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Back in the spring of last year it was our honour to stream ‘Pretvorivši se u ogradu, prošao sam kroz ogradu’ by Croatian noisemakers ### (which, their Bandcamp page advises is ‘pronounced by hitting a random object three times’) from the Nim Brut compilation Deprived of Occupation and Pleasure We Feast. And now they’re back with a full-length release in the form of the seven-track Nasilno. Produced by the band’s bassist, Anja Tkalec, they’ve made a conscious shift from using unusual locations in which to record, and instead spent some time camped out in Rattus Rattus studio in Zagreb ‘which allowed the band to fully record the wall of noise that is well known to all those who witnessed their concerts’.

The titles and lyrics may be lost in translation, but equally lost in a totally shredding, overloading wall of noise. There are magnificent quiet passages – brief as they are – and there are strong elements of post-rock and post-metal as well as the grainy, timeless analogue of Neurosis and associated acts, and they pack countless twists and turns in the sinewy, dynamic five minutes of opener ‘Jer život je ljepši kad se zaustavi’, with tense builds and an abrupt ending that collapses the expectation of a crescendo.

The blistering ‘Negativ cvijeće’ cuts free of genre to deliver a cataclysmic sonic blast that in time yields to shrieks and yowls of sculpted feedback atop crunching riffs, and of post-rock ad post-metal tropes have begun to grow weary – and yes, it’s fair to say that many of them have – ### breathe new life into them and then some. They also bring plenty of their own angles and a unique energy to proceedings: ‘Jednom kad tebe ostavim Satano’ and ‘Pretvorivši se u ogradu, prošao sam kroz ogradu’ have the angular jolt of Shellac, but the but the forrmer brings the juggernaut riffage of the likes of Amenra, and while it may not even extend to three-and-a-half minutes in duration, it’s expansive, solid, immense in scope and sound, and hot after lands the seven-and-a-half-minute ‘Oprostite, što u taj sumrak pada’ which blasts soaring riffs and squalls of feedback on a truly epic scale.

They do a lot with only a little: instrumentally, they work with a conventional rock format of instrumentation, but sonically, they’re staggeringly ambitious, and so often sound greater than the sum of their parts. Closer ‘Dvanaest boja za nasilje’ goes full Sunn O))) with grating drone and eternal feedback hums, and it makes for an intense and powerful eleven minutes of organ-kneeding that’s equally exhilarating and exhausting, in that it seems to go on for ever.

Nasilno is not an easy album, and it’s not an album that confirms to any one form or genre: it’s abrasive, angular, challenging – and GOOD!

AA

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Petrol Hoers – Please Note Intentional Misspelling of Horse

Posted: 15 August 2022 in Albums
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26th August 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

How did this happen? How?? I mean, it’s no bad thing – quite the opposite, in fact – but somehow, a joke band so jokey as so seem almost mythological has broken through, not just on the local scene, but nationally and with songs being played on high-profile radio stations like BBC introducing and even 6Music. They’re a way off beating Shed 7 as York’s most renowned act, but they really are gunning hard for national status right now, following the success of Oh I Don’t Know, Just Horse Stuff, I Guess and now Please Note Intentional Misspelling of Horse.

To look at the covers of early Petrol Hoers albums – or indeed, alboms – is likely enough to deter most sane people – cartoon horses with toilet-wall scrawled enormophalluses provide the housing for messy combinations of hardcore techno and grindcore, the most improbably of hybrids imaginable rendered cheaply and with not only a knowing, but a gleeful lack of sophistication.

So what happened? Not much, really, at least on the face of things. The material is still very much centred around shameful horse puns and so on, and their sound is still a weird mash-up of techno and industrial metal, kinda like Revolting Cocks gone even wronger than on recent tours. The cover art’s been toned down a bit (Horse Stuff featured Danny elegantly draped in a dressing gown in his horse head mask), and some hard touring alongside mates Horse Bastard turned the nation on to all things equine seems to be about the summary of the turn in favour for the act whose most renowned merch is a T-shirt that was born out of a hilarious misunderstanding with the printers, bearing the slogan ‘“PETROL HOERS” IN COMIC SANS CENTRE FRONT BIG AS YOU CAN TA’.

Danny Buckley isn’t daft, and the whole HOERS project is very much an escape for him – but he does it all so well. From the relentless, eye-bleeding block caps posts on social media to the tie-dye T-shirts and pants, HOERS are the full package, so to speak.

Lead single, ‘Captain Me Space Daddy’ has already had some radio play, which is an incredible achievement, considering that it’s an aggressive shouty racket that switches from grating aggrotech to some kind of cheesy Eurovision pop shanty meets early Wax Trax! that’s 100% what the fuck.

It’s exemplary of the album as a whole: fast and frantic – Ali G rapping over chiptune Cossack disco in a head-on collision with full-on raging metal abrasion with raw-throated hollering vocals. It is utterly absurd, and even knowing what to expect, you still find yourself dazed by the audacity of this insane hybrid that singlehandedly knells the death toll for postmodernism, because now, it really has all been done. The thing is – and make no mistake, it’s absolutely genius – even if you absolutely hate it, it’s impossible to deny the audacity and to admire it. ‘Honk if You Like Donk’ is pretty much self-explanatory, while ‘You Can Give Horse a Buckfast’ is a balls-out rager that slips into some kind of lederhosen-slapping ho(rs)edown. ‘You can give a horse a Buckfast / but you’ll never see me drink’, snarls the tee-total Hoers. Wait, he does this shit sober? Oh yes.

It kicks off – and boy, it kicks off – with the Hi-NRG happy horsecore / doom-grind crossover of ‘It’s Just a Mask’, and one feels for all the horseplay, there’s something quite insightful and honest about this. ‘I Would Die for Mr Crunchy’ finds The Hoers spitting vitriol about politicians and the monarchy, and again illustrates that for all the frippery and puerile puns, there is some genuine substance here, and Hoers are by no means completely crass and two-dimensional.

Closer ‘Biblically Accurate Horse’ is a pumping techno tune that invites worthy comparisons to PIG and KMFDM. It’s a bangin’ finish to a bangin’ album, and yes, yes, it really does bang all the way. It’s completely barmy, and that’s precisely why it’s brilliant.

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Watch: ‘Poison Fresh’ by SPECTRA*Paris

Posted: 14 August 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Enigmatic Italian singer Elena Alice Fossi has released the lush single, ‘Poison Fresh’, which is taken from the forthcoming new full-length of her dark electro project SPECTRA*Paris. The fifth album of that band is entitled "Modernism" and has been slated for release on August 26.

Watch the video here:

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SPECTRA*Paris comment: "The new single ‘Poison Fresh’ is perhaps the most psychedelia-inspired song on the album", singer, composer, and lyricist Elena Alice Fossi writes. "It is a journey to unknown shores, where you learn how to free yourself from reptilian and poisonous empires. Getting on that spaceship has a price and takes you away from the known side of the world. But the dream is well worth living. ‘Plant your stigma on all dogma’!"

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A.R.T – Nothing Better to Do

Posted: 13 August 2022 in Singles and EPs
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12th August 2022

James Wells

I have questions. Not least of all, why is the bassist with A.R.T, Tiarnan Mathews known as 10” Tiarnan? I sincerely hope it isn’t because of the obvious, unless it’s ironic. But then, they all have daft nicknames, with lead guitarist Bradley Allen being known as General Sweet Tooth, drummer Scott Gordon as Dijon Mustard, and rhythm guitarist Tom Strange also known rather dubiously as Daddy Strange.

To their credit, they’ve been favourably described as ‘Bowie meets The Killers’ rather than ‘oddball creepy buggers’, which s a plus, or they wouldn’t be getting a review. I’m not prejudiced, just really busy, and give preferential treatment to acts who aren’t a bit sus.

‘Nothing Better to Do’ is pitched as ‘strolling a line between indie rock and glam, whisked together with the charm of the likes of Madness and Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ and I have to admit that this doesn’t sit comfortably. I loved Madness as a kid, but by my mid-teens I not only found them a little wearisome, but had started to take issue with their flag-waving fanbase. Granted, you can’t necessarily blame a band for the fans it attracts, but nevertheless, it can be offputting.

It’s early days for A.R.T, and there’s a lot going on here with a load of 80s indie in the nagging guitar line and a certain needling insistent groove that’s hard to ignore. There are hints of Orange Juice in the mix, not to mention a dash of funk but equally some raucous white soul and a splash of blues, before they chill the vibe with a mega sax break. Why did sax breaks seem to die a death in the 80s? Shit, we need more sax breaks. We need more A.R.T.

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A.R.T artwork

Bedroom Tax – Kin

Posted: 11 August 2022 in Singles and EPs
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12th August 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

While we swelter in the middle of the hottest, driest summer on record, during which wild fires and hosepipe bands sweep the nation, people are shitting themselves about paying for heating in the winter as the cost of living crisis bites ever deeper. When a tub of butter costs £7 and people are staying home because they can’t afford to put fuel in their vehicles, it’s clear that things are beyond fucked and that this isn’t simply some post-Covid dip. This is aa cataclysmic collapse, exacerbated by shit government and capitalist greed. You see, not everyone is struggling here. The top guys, the ones who make all the money from the work of their employees, their doing ok. The major shareholders in the companies raking in profit by the million, by the billion, they’re doing ok. Bankers are landing double-figure pay-rises while the people who keep the country going – from the teaches and nurses to rail staff and refuse collectors – are queuing at food banks at the end of their working day. This crisis, then, is a crisis of social division, a crisis of capitalism.

Formed in 2018, Bedroom Tax sound nothing like Benefits, but both bands are clearly part of a growing swell of stylistically disparate but politically similar bands who exist to voice dissatisfaction, and their very name reminds us of just how hard the Conservative government has pushed an agenda to fuck over the poor.

‘Kin’ is a hybrid amalgam of indie, alt UK rap, and blues influences and they’re probably the post-millennial answer to The Streets – only they’re better than that.

‘Kin’ delves into kitchen sink territory, and blends social commentary and disaffection – not so much bile but a whole lot of downtrodden day-to-day depictions, with the jittery drumming and scratchy guitars of the twitchy verses leading into a magnificently melodic chorus that’s buoyed along by some jangling guitar work. It’s genuinely beautiful, and so well-delivered you can forgive the rhyming of ‘issues’ and ‘tissues’ in the blink of an eye.

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Kin - Release Artwork

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