SINGLES
KELVIN KRASH - We Can Go (Buck Shots 2) (Minor I think)
by Tim London
Just an excuse for a holiday in Morocco it seems. But props to the director, Kelvin Krash, and the DOP, Kelvin Krash, the editor, Kelvin Krash and sound designer, Kelvin Krash, who are all listed as is proper, for all their hard work. And it’s helpful having the lyrics written out like that in case you want to sing along.
LOGIC1000 - Grown On Me (Therapy/Because Music)
by Lee Paul
Grown On Me is dancing in wide pants great.
MEECHY DARKO - The Slaughter (Loma Vista)
ZERO s
by Alan Rider
If I wanted someone shouting in my ear I can just go to any bar in town and try to order a pint on a Friday night. This example is one of the new fad of Rubbish Rap that is sweeping the country. Its a talent free zone but the kids love it as all you have to do is shout aggressively out of tune and try to keep your jeans from falling down.
GEORGIA GETS BY - So Free So Lonely (Luminelle recordings)
by Toon Traveller
BARRY CAN'T SWIM - 'Deadbeat Gospel feat. some deadbeat (Youtube)
by Tim London
More of a mini doc taking a deep dive into ironic nostalgia. Perfectly put together images with an instantly familiar instrumental, the club scenes of acid-era ravers just brings home the stasis of the past few decades of youth culture. And the freestyle that has been bent around the 4/4 is a reminder that some of the best performances take place in a small room in front of three people, in between getting a bus and a drink.
TOM HEYMAN - The Mission Is On Fire (Bohemian Neglect Recording Works)
by Alan Rider
The tune is bog standard acoustic country rock, but he sure tells a good story about crooked developers in San Francisco torching properties to clear the way for faceless new office buildings to go up where once there were lovely old buildings (NB: 'old' in the US is anything over 50 years of course). It happens here too of course. You have to agree with him on that, even if his ten-a-penny Good Ol' Boy strumming bores the pants off you as it does me.
MADNESS - Theatre of the Absurd Introduces C'est La Vie (BMG)
ZERO s
by Tim London
The march of the taxi drivers continues. A black cab driven by a nutty boy with a Bad Manner or two squeezed in the back. It smells of old London jealousies and 1970s hatreds and does not touch the hem of the battered, Weimar cabaret it apes.
THE STREETS - Each Day Gives (Don't Know)
by Tim London
Mike Skinner - stand up, boy - now, I’d like you to recite these lines from this poem by Lord Byron. No, don’t sing, boy, no-one wants to hear that. Try it again with some feeling. Try to find the rhythm. Right, thank you. Just sit back down. This… is how people from the UK should do rap. Like a chip butty on Ramsgate sea front. With a cup of tea.
SARA SERPA & ANDRE MATOS - Night Birds (Robalo Music)
by Toon Traveller
PROBLEM PATTERNS - Lesbo 3000 (Alcopop! Records)
by Ancient Champion
Lesbo 3000 is an earlier, furious feminist punk rock polemic from Belfast's really brilliant, Problem Patterns, it'll be included on the debut LP Blouse Club out on Alcopops on October 27th. Fabulous is not just a word here. Lesbo 3000 is an arsonist at work loving their day job, wisecracking while world they lit up burns, here's the fractious punk rock poetry you've been waiting for since Noname wrote of how her pussy wrote a thesis on colonialism. 'Call me a dyke, it's a badge of honour...' It's the way the tell it, urgent and important, Irish writers mesmerising with their eloquence. Can a band still be dangerous? If there's danger in an unvarnished and unambiguous telling of the truth, Problem Patterns make me think so.
GHOST WOMAN - Yoko (Full Time History)
by Toon Traveller
MILLICENT CHAPANDA - Samatenga Ringirai (Bandcamp)
by Ancient Champion
Technically part of a wide ranging mbira EP, Samatenga Ringirai by the simply marvelous Millicent Chapanda... (No one has worn the Marvelous mantle so well since Marvelous Marvin I'd say. Wouldn't you?) If this isn't the most joyous beautiful thing you hear today, let me know and you can have your money back tonight when Millicent appears at the Outsideleft Studio67 Night Out in Corks... Oh wow!
THE BREATH - Land of My Other (Real World Records)
by Toon Traveller
Every now and again, an artist, a sound catapults you back in time, to early childhood memories, good, bad, indistinct, BUT formative. This is one of those records for me. It's mid 60's, it's family catch-up, it's Irish immigrants, it's wistful, saccharine, 'show band' Irish Country from the 'oowle country' (owl country?) that hugs or scars for life. If you've been there, you're in those early memories already, this is the music that turned me off Country Music for decades. BUT I am openly biased
DOGANOV - Locked Up (Floyd Records)
by Alan Rider
Belgian industrial metal band Doganov tread a well worn path with this single. Indistinguishable from any number of others in that stagnant genre, it is no Morlocks for sure. Pretty ugly video to go with it too, although not surprisingly they seem to think its really good. Hmmmmm.
GAZELLE TWIN - Fear Keeps Us Alive (Invada Records)
by Alan Rider
Like a cracked fairy tale, this is both genuinely spooky and highly original in a way that we don't often see. Gazelle Twin is actually composer, producer, singer, and visual artist Elizabeth Bernholz, and on 'Fear Keeps Us Alive' she effectively conveys the constant fear all women feel of being attacked and the spectre of the aggressive predatory male that in some way haunts them each time they venture out. The upcoming album this is taken from, Black Dog, is actually all about fear in its many forms, personal, collective, or even supernatural. It is heavy stuff all right, but cleverly done without resorting to cliches. If 'like' is indeed the right word to use, I like the way Gazelle Twin has tackled a tricky subject here very much.
BONNACONS OF DOOM - Signs (Rocket Recordings)
by Alan Rider
What a funny bunch Bonnacons of Doom are. Full of mystical statements, pretentious predictions (bit of alliteration for you there!) and Residents style promo shots of them standing around with mirrored globes on their heads. They are going for the mysterious cult look, but its been done before by others. A lot. There is of course nothing new in music now, just ever decreasing circles to hop between until we fall off. Nothing to see here, move along.
PINK PANTHERESS - Mosquito (Parlophone)
by Tim London
How do people with really long nails text so quick? That is the deep mystery that unfolds as I watch a video about shopping promoting a song about owning a person but also shopping and which is so perfectly poised to tickle that pastel shaded, ice cream buzz of anticipated purchase that it is quite simply perfect. Not a wrinkle or a bad smell, eyebrows frozen in place and spots squished and zapped. Much more radical than any of your old man electro radical noise stuff.
GIRL AND GIRL - Strangers (Sub Pop)
by Alan Rider
The names of bands get weirder by the day. Girl and Girl? OK, if you say so. I'm sure I've heard this tune several millions of times before too. It's a pretty standard blues scale isn't it? So nil points for songwriting originality then. They seem a jolly bunch though and appear to have a nice Man Cave to record their video in, complete with one of those cheap 'Recording In Progress' illuminated signs you get off Etsy. I'll throw them a bone then and give this one three hearts for giving it a good go.
EPs
MUSEUMGOER - Musemgoer 22 (Bandcamp)
by Ancient Champion
Anything less than five hearts for 22 would be disheartening. Read the Musemgoer Track by Track here
FAN CLUB WALLET - Small Songs Vol.1 (AWAL)
by Toon Traveller
LPs
DHANI HARRISON - Innerstanding (H.O.T. RECORDS/BMG)
ZERO s
by Alan Rider
Omigod, I'm so bored with this smooth music industry BS. This is yet another pile of smug, over produced kak by yet another "Multiple Grammy Award-winning musician and composer". All I can say is that whoever dishes out the gongs at the Grammy's clearly has a total lack of imagination. Dull tripe like this needs drowning at birth not given multiple awards by their back slapping chums. The fact that it features a guest appearance by Blur's Graham Hoxton parping along on a saxaphone just confirms my opinion. The accompanying video is a pile of pseudo mystical bollox too.
AUGUSTUS MULLER - My Animal (Original Score) (Nude Club)
by Alan Rider
Augustus Muller certainly seems to be on a roll with his move into film soundtracks, as he revealed in his recent interview with Outsideleft. This time it's a score for a werewolf themed full length feature film, written by his Boy Harsher bandmate and partner Jae Matthews, which recently premiered at Sundance to rave reviews. In common with most film soundtracks, this is a mix of short atmospheric textures, and longer electronic tunes, all designed to enhance the visuals. Lighter and more melancholy in tone than his previous 'Cellulosed Bodies' soundtrack, this hasn't quite the immediacy of that or Boy Harsher, but is an extremely well executed and thoughtfully composed collection. I do like soundtracks as they are not bound by the restrictive constraints of song structures but focus instead on creating moods and textures and experimenting with sound in an open way. Muller grabs that opportunity and runs with it. I confidently predict Augustus Muller will become a name to look out for on film credits in future, in the same way as Graeme Revell transitioned from producing metal bashing industrial noise with SPK to crafting Hollywood blockbuster soundtracks. Now I'm just waiting impatiently for the next one!
ELECTRIC FORGIVENESS - Original Score (Broken Sound Tapes)
by Alan Rider
'Original Score' purports to be a 43 minute soundtrack "that cleanses the third eye while blinding the other two", but in reality is just the sort of unstructured messing about that I used to get up to with whoever happened to be around on a Sunday when there was nothing else to do. Its all over the place and despite the rather pleading tone of the press release claiming it to be revelatory, it simply isn't. Still, these noodlings you do in a hungover haze often find their way years later onto a record so they are following in a fine tradition here, but haven't even waited for someone to discover this and herald it a lost treasure and just banged it out themselves on CD, download, and cassette.
Buy it here if you have nothing better to do https://electricforgiveness.bandcamp.com/album/original-score
MEATRAFFLE - Base & Superstructure (Blang Records)
by Toon Traveller
IAN WILLIAMS - Slow Motion Apocalypse (Slaughterback Records)
by Alan Rider
Ian Williams is a bit of a revelation, says Alan Rider, read Alan's review of Ian's LP Slow Motion Apocolypse which is released on 27th October on Slaughterback Records, here
Essential Information
Main image screengrab of The Streets guy
