Outsideleft Week in Music in Precious Times

What they describe as "Symphonic Drone'" is a mixture of industrial beats and other worldly and ambient electronic sounds blended with classical harmonies and melodies, throat singing, hurdy-gurdy and spoken word.  Its a unique mix and lends their music the quality of an Eastern mantra.  Taken from the cheesily titled live double album featuring newly recorded live (well, live in a studio!) versions of tracks from their career, 'The Best of hackedepicciotto (Live in Napoli)', with its equally cheesy sleeve design, which looks like a K-Tel compilation from the 70's, this taster indicates that the album will be a corker.  There really is no one around right now like hackedepicciotto (spelt all lower case, in case you thought that was a typo).  ‘Third From The Sun’ is a song from their 2020 album, 'The Current', which was originally recorded in Blackpool (not that you can tell!) and is magnificent.

So these dudes are milling around at a party in Paris in '68, boring most everyone by getting nerdy about their new synth. They're broadly ignored. They're enthusing about Barthes' decade old essay about the magic of plastic. They're barely visible through the cigarette smoke. They don't know yet, but they should, that no one is going to notice them for another sixty years. Francoise Hardy is eyeing them from her Aarnio Bubble chair suspended above gorgeous handwoven Boujad rug which she tickles nonchalantly with a bare foot, the chaos, everywhere but here. This particular salon is simply stacked with all the mid-century totemic accoutrements available. All except Francoise. If only Francoise had time for these guys. This is a nice piece of easy instrumental music. Love it.

After a few years, Greentea Peng returns with an old school beat and her usual love will always triumph vibe. Its less R&B and more rap than her previous releases but Peng's muse is never anything less than intriguing and so often much more. Peng's last recording before her break was with Neneh Cherry on a version of Cherry's Buddy X. Given Cherry's history attending the early days of the likes of Massive Attack and Portishead, I suspect Peng has been listening to a lot of Bristol music from the late 80s and early 90s however she gives it a load of London swagger.

Yes, it's Kim Gordon again.  She has a 'deluxe' (ie more expensive) version of her superb 'The Collective' album coming out, and has included this on a 'bonus' 7" single with that to tempt gullible fans into buying the same record twice. It is far from her best and has the smell of a cutting room floor reject track dusted off to entice the unwary into the money pit that is a Special Edition/Deluxe release.  My advice? Just buy the standard album and ignore this.  No one thinks you are cool just because you paid more for stuff you don't need, or already have.

Mercifully short so they shived everything into their two or so alloted minutes including the very Cadillac model I always wanted. If William Gibson was thinking about this week's releases, and had split them into two piles, in one pile the future has arrived and this record would be in that pile, Little Dragon's Yves Tumor overtures notwithstanding. This is relatively okay throughout, more rounded and less spikey than maybe. It's soupy. Substantially more soupy than brothy,

Acclaimed elsewhere, well those other places can't always be wrong. Guatemalan/Italian art pop artist, Chiara Angelicola, here, from a new long EP or short LP, covers somewhat faithfully, Aimee Mann's not too objectionable sort of hit, Save Me. What more do you need to know? Maybe not much. I could give you a backstory but can't be bothered. I can listen to this though for a while. I love it when I click through to Youtube and see no views at all. Do you? How does that feel? I can tell you all about that.

Perfectly acceptable pop now. Delightfully assembled really. A comment probably on the neoliberal free market indiepop industrial complex.  On irony. You'll hear. And you really should try to. I understand no one is affording Stereolab or Laetitia Sadler these days. But now there's multiple generations waiting up for those sounds someone's gonna make new ones. From an album called Wah! on a London record label, Moshi Moshi. A hauntology. For sure. Listening here makes it even easier to understand than Mark Fisher, that our culture is in a subcultural cul de sac. And yet it's still massive responsibility free fun.

I don't know any more. This is a risible song, maybe, about Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, which I am not opposed to. There should be reasonable time permitted for stakeholder consultation. To mop up the children's blood. While we're arguing about going faster. We could have maybe high traffic neighbourhoods too, if say there was legislation governing the height of vehicle bonnets. Lowering them saves lives, it is said.  'Watching The Cars' is probably about the benefits of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.  It's such a total Talking Heads pastiche. Why would someone do that tto themselves knowing that someone else is going to say this is a total Talking Heads pastiche? It's so reductive and circular with no off-ramp. I don't want to have to invoke Mark Fisher again. Music is dying here.  Maybe it isn't even someone doing it to themselves. Maybe the whole project is a generative AI nightmare. It's likely because, everyone can spot AI videos because those generators have yet to master shoes. And it's offensive. That Epiphone with the trapeze frequensator tailpiece though, with P90's, is a thing of retro beauty. It might be a Riviera, might not, but it is a nice touch.

Great News! There's a new Elijah Minnelli record. And by combining the power of Elijah, Prawn Saunders and Aloa Input, the future of Breadminster is preserved! Perfectly torpid dub murmuring. It's 8.33am, the deadline was last midnight for the Week in Music reviews and I am writing this while driving back from Handsworth. What is going to help me face the drivers going at 40mph on the wrong side of the road to make a right hand turn right in front of me? Nothing but Elijah Minnelli's Mind. It's Mine.

The three hearts are for the Tomberlin parts which elevate here and well Tomberlin would do that anywhere. Cutouts, seriously acclaimed rising electro stars. Is that a thing? Maybe they haven't got any teeth because in the midst of all of this cosplay cowboy stuff and being dressed like a net curtain, I mean, you might just find something about yourself to smile about? No. I don't see no teeth ever.

As a "genre-defying collective reimagining the role women play in the industry" I do wonder why they felt the need to send out a promo shot with one of them standing out in front with her tits out? I'm sure there will be some 'empowering' reason or other. Musically, its like a cross between All Saints and The Spice Girls, complete with 'all girls together' lyrics and video of them driving around in a car hanging out of the window, pouting and winking a lot, and waving their arms about. Yes, its rubbish.

It's been a while since we've enjoyed the downbeat undernourished synthetic energy of The Mountain Howl. Maybe it's a seasonal affective disorder, they are not after all making music to tip your tongue into ice cream to. Put on your stockings babe, the nights are growing cold. If you hear that, then you should hear The Mountain Howl, in mid-October. From their new EP Aska in case your asking.

Self styled American singer, songwriter, subversive performance artist, video director, and purveyor of surrealist chaos, Poppy  has announced she has a new album - Negative Spaces out in November, and has pre-released a couple of tracks to streaming services to prove it. Her career to date has veered from producing surreal Youtube videos satirising Internet culture - some of which are actually amusing, to increasingly desperate attempts at "making it" as a musical artist. Descriptions of her genre hopping "oeuvre" range - with some accuracy, from pop, rock, punk, pop punk, shoegaze, heavy metal, synth pop, electronic through to industrial and even "experimental". Although to be fair the final one only works if you consider endlessly throwing shit at a wall in the hope of finding some that sticks to be "an experiment". Now ten years into her recording career with her sixth album, on her seventh record label and her 25th producer the chances of the experiment hitting pay-dirt appear to be receding fast. Of the two tracks released "The cost of giving up" is an overproduced pop song "spiced up" with industrial-metal seasoning in an apparent effort to make it sound edgy. It isn't. There's a reason the late Steve Albini was so in demand as a producer; namely he could iron in the interesting rough edges that other producers would have ironed out. Spoiler - there are none here. By contrast, the second, "Crystallised" is a bim-bam, woosh-woosh stab at an MoR 80s synth driven pop song. Yet another genre tried, possibly with the intention of appealing to the parents of the teens who would find the previous number interesting. "Interesting" is certainly what Poppy herself, or those promoting her think she is. The main page of her Wikipedia entry (excluding discography pages) runs to 11,291 words, around the same length as that of Lily Allen - another genre hopper albeit one with a string of mainstream hits to her name, and 78% longer than that of the genre hopping Fall, whose career was 320% longer than Poppy's is to date, and produced 517% more original studio albums. Back in the day "pop stars" who failed to find their mojo, couldn't gel with the public or simply lost interest could either move on to other careers as minor TV presenters, or artists, or simply disappear. Poppy already has a string of minor film and TV appearances to her credit, suggesting she may already have used up those options. If the music thing doesn't work this time (it really shouldn't) maybe time to try something different. Gardening perhaps - it worked for Kim Wilde.

Well, the synchronized swimmer start of the video is a belter isn't it? Distracting a little from the fluffy, soulless electropop. I mean it's supposed to be like that.  Fans of fluffy soulless electropop forgive me. Maybe better as a summer release but it is always summer somewhere. I like the modern production techniques, but it's a bit like William Gibson said about future doesn't arrive everywhere at once. Obongjayar's outfit. For a watery video. Admirable. 

Frank Chickens Box. Martin Devenney hears it all, here

Yet another cash in, sorry 're-visit', of an old album, in this case  Laibach's 1987's 'Opus Dei', with both a remastered reissue and a separate double album set, one a re-working of the original, one a remix, to relieve you of your hard earned cash.  That's all very well, but tbh, I am getting more than a little fed up with the endless stream of Soft Cell style 'Deluxe', 'Special Edition', 'Tribute' and so on, versions of previously issued albums, looking to squeeze more out of the seemingly bottomless pockets of the record buying public.  First you had vinyl, then buy the same album on cassette, then again on CD.  Then came (and went) the mini disc. Next was downloads.  Now we are back to vinyl and CD again.  So that's at least six opportunities there to buy the same old stuff.  I might start printing T Shirts with the word 'Mug' on them to be issued with every new Deluxe Reissue album that comes out.  I'd make a fortune!

The Armoires LP, Octoberland, is out now. Produced by Michael SImmons of Sparkle*jetsUK, John Robinson has a review as part of The Armoires Week at Outsideleft. Read it here

The beauty of Seckou Keita's kora is irresistible... David O'Byrne explains why, right here

Beijing’s Gong Gong Gong and Taipei’s Mong Tong pool their talents on 'Mongkok Duel', to create "an imagined soundtrack for a lost kung-fu film", as well as a tongue twister of a band name.  Cyclical motorik rhythms, evolving drones, textural sound effects, snarling guitar and growling bass hooks all combine into ambient space rock/psychedic electronica, with more than a nod to all the great Kraut Rock bands (I am sure Gong Gong Gong's name is no accident) and Californian experimental improvisers of years gone by.  These are all instrumental tracks, improvised between the two acts, which results in some sections falling into confused and rambling noodlings, but on the occasions it gels, it gels well and something else happens. Mong Tong are, I gather, an odd live proposition, but very polite whilst challenging at the same time.  There are more and more unusual acts like these heading West from the Far East and that can only be a good thing , as we have been sending our clapped out rock acts their way for far too long now.

"Deadly" Headley Bennett was a Jamaican sax player whose lengthy career saw him play on hundreds (thousands?) of tracks through what's now accepted as having been the golden ages of Jamaican Ska and Reggae. Having appears on early numbers by Bob Marley he later featured as a member of the legendary Studio One house band Sound Dimension and later alongside Sly and Robbie in the no less legendary Channel One house band The Revolutionaries., before moving to work with such luminaries as Prince Far I and Augustus Pablo. Decamping to London in the early 80s he featured on albums by On U Sound Creation Rebel, African Head Charge and Dub Syndicate. His solo career may have lit fewer fires at the time but his 1982 album "35 years from Alpha", also recorded for On U Sound, with a band of top level Jamaican musicians, has long been regarded as something of a lost classic. Unavailable for decades, it's now been re-released by On U Sound both on vinyl and on - CD which comes with two previously unreleased tracks. The sound varies from the early Studio One vibe of Hedley's Medley through the more mellow Channel One lovers rock groove of Head Charge to the heavier dub of the bonus tracks Independent man and Devious Version both of which make a more than conscious nod to the late Prince Far I. And (somewhat obviously), this being On U Sound, with Adrian Sherwood at the desk, the production is absolutely spot on.

I was speaking to our esteemed founder, LamontPaul, this week saying how the most memorable live performances I have witnessed were ones where the band drilled into the stage and there was a genuine danger of being hit by debris created by the chaos and destruction onstage, which far eclipsed the stage managed instrument trashing of The Who et al.  I was, of course, referring to Einsturzende Neubauten, who have been variously ripped off by Depeche Mode, and Rammstein since.  This is certainly atonal, but if you can imagine this cranked up to ten times the volume and intensity in a small club where you are only feet away from the grinders and metal smashing with nowhere to retreat to, you will see what a far cry this was from a Nick Cave arena show with its popcorn buckets and VIP seating.

Jonathan Thornton revisits Liaka's 1994 debut. It's still stunning...