DEAD BANDITS, ANNA CALVI PEAKY BLINDER AND KIM GORDON DO THE BUSINESS IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
Belated welcomes to the new year in music. Am only just locating the new-tunes mojo after winter hibernation (and we’re not out of it yet but more on that, maybe, in a different blog, possibly) so let’s just plunge right in to this clutch of groundshaking 2024 newbies.
KIM GORDON – Bye Bye
Kim Gordon reads a list of things.
And? And sets it to a depth charge called BASS. With one-note piano jabs, noise guitar influx and agitating keyboard chaospheres thrown together with cut-up panache, Bye Bye compels and arrests with a contemporary weight that almost defies belief. A controlled explosion of art rock and industrial hip hop beats.
Kim Gordon reads a list of things. Best thing you’ll hear this week? Yes. BYE BYE.
DEAD BANDIT – Memory Thirteen
Instrumental heavy warmth is the order of the night for Dead Bandit’s Memory Thirteen, its brushy drum shuffle positively inviting you into wherever brushy drum shuffles hang. Exploratory guitars draw on Mogwai’s cleaner panoramic angles but the bass here is looser and dirtier. The whole thing teases a climactic Rock eruption but it never arrives. Instead, Dead Bandit deliver a neat triple-time groove that moves in and passes by, just out of reach.
ANNA CALVI AND NICK LAUNAY – Miquelon
If a gothic garage band escaped their four-walled space and wound up playing some sort of wild west Americana drone and chant, Miquelon would be their name. The riff in this loose, bass-bending, ritualistic stomp made Anna Calvi’s fingers bleed from the hard playing she hit it with but look where Miquelon ended up – Peaky Blinders soundtrack.
Right, that’s it for now – a short, word-rusty Rewind but the tunes excelled. As always.
DEC/NOV REWIND: THE SCRATCH PLUS SPARSE SCOTS BEATS, JARMUSCH ODDITY, RUDE FUNK AND CHELSEA’S WHISPERS
Last-ditch scramble round a couple of new sounds before Christmas hits, even though we’re pretty much in the thick of festive mayhem already … no-one REALLY spends time digging brand new music two days before Christmas, do they? But these tunes have been lurking a wee while and are way too good to miss so let’s just get-the-f**k on with it and keep them on a low-lit back burner, eh?
LORD OF THE ISLE (feat Ellen Renton) – For a Burning World
Lapping waves and luscious Boards of Canada ambience form the hypnotic backdrop for Scottish poet Ellen Renton to speak her words and pull you in. It’s a gentle start but gradually, the beats emerge – nothing manic – and start to break. Electronica washes surge then retreat while a darker keyboard riff makes the hook. Could be a mood piece for the season, as remote or intimate as you want (or don’t want) it to be. Winter explorations abound.
SQURL – Funnel of Love
Hazy, supernatural Western vibes here (not a brand new track either), venturing way out west Americana-style with an unwavering boom-rat-tat beat anchoring satellite guitar fragments. With Jim Jarmusch at the helm, would you expect anything less than exquisite production? No. Check the deft distortion touches and all-round movement and orchestration. The spirit of Dylan Carlson passes by early on but really, Funnel is all about the lightly intoxicating space in which to create your own pictures.
CHELSEA WOLFE – Whispers in the Echo Chamber
Nine Inch Nails always did a good whisper. So does Chelsea Wolfe in this subzero hiss ‘n clank of midwinter gloom. Delicate yet far from broken, it’s a ghostly creep-crawl through Portishead’s emotional machinery while the bent riff, corroded piano and rhythm pick-up are pure Reznor and by the end, Whispers in the Echo Chamber threatens to collapse under the weight of its own distortion. Unfestive but very seasonal.
DON’T THANK ME, SPANK ME! – Sandy
With a taut, garage pop-funk strut grooving over fat bass and pure-funk chords, this infectious jam for Grease character Sandy Newton (yep, that’s what they said) never forgets that space has its place – a !!!-meets-Chaka-Like-Sugar hit with a lick of dirt in the knocked-back guitar fuzz. Can you resist the Sandy strut? Surely no.
THE SCRATCH – Blaggard
Oh yeah, this is it. Tune of the month. A twisting, churning noise-punk riff tangled tight with tom-driven beats whipped through a noise-rock blender, Blaggard’s signature is a piledriving wall of rhythm that threatens mania yet stops just short of falling apart. There are light touches too, it’s not all shout and rage – but a fair slab really, really is.
SEPTEMBER REWIND: PROG CHAOS, SUBLIME BRISTOL BEATS, GOTH/POST PUNK COLLABORATIONS AND A DRONE METAL ANNIVERSARY
THE HAPPY FAMILY ‒ Rodrigo
Zeuhl music? That’s a new one on me – blame it on the lack of Magma in my life.
But if zeuhl translates to a heavy, scrambled splatter of maniac prog like this awesome blowout from The Happy Family, sign us up. Rodrigo isn’t new – it came out in 2014 ‒ but the impact on virgin ears is immense. Chunky metallic riffs, quintessentially 70s keys, blazing short solos, awkwardly-crammed-in time sig changes and chaotic, almost disco-driven beats make for a deliciously demented instrumental. And the unbelievable crunch on the riffs serves the Metal Realm very well, even though jazz un-sensibility and genre-chopping hyper prog are the bigger drivers. NoMeansNo come to mind in the harder bits, as do Faith No More in places (you could definitely imagine Mike Patton losing his shit all over this).
GET THE BLESSING – Oscillation Ochre
Sticking with the instrumentals for a minute, this is another brand new exposure to a band who’ve been around a bit. Less crazoid than The Happy Family but absolutely no less inventive with the beats, it’s the stripped bass and deft, light-touch skitter that pulls you in. How so magnetic? Well, Clive Deamer’s behind the kit and those Bristolian waters run deep. You can hear where Radiohead/The Smile like to splash around. Great track for the headphones, every instrument slides in and out just when it needs to. Taken from upcoming album Pallett.
BRIAN ENO – Cutting Room I
If Eno did blues jazz film noir … hang on, stop right there. What are we thinking, trying to put Brian Eno’s music into words? How very dare we. There’ll be a depth of engineering, detail, creativity and process that’s beyond the oafish scope of the barely literate scribe. And, being the thoughtful, precise writer that Eno is, you can bet he’s already crafted an exemplary few words that render your own effort to be as eloquent as battered sausage leftovers. From last week.
So, back to (BATTERED SAUSAGE ALERT) ‘blues jazz film noir’ … Cutting Room I, a soundtrack to Top Boy, grinds mild menace from a low bass that moves with the slightest of struts down underlit back streets. Piano suspense too. Could definitely hear a big band ensemble pulling this off.
LOL TOLHURST x BUDGIE x JACKNIFE LEE – Ghosted at Home
How many legends can you cram in a project title? Here’s another one: Bobby Gillespie, because he’s the voice of Ghosted and maybe that’s why it circles back to Primal Scream’s more inventive soundscapes – a loping, looping Vanishing Point pulse is the centrepoint to this kaleidoscopic inner-city trip. Get up and dance to it. No, scratch that. Groove to it. These beats are introspective.
EARTH – Angels
Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version – the seminal Earth 2, as many write-ups will no doubt repeat – gets a 30th anniversary reissue next month. Cannot argue against its landmark status as a monolithic statement, but whether you find it listenable let alone enjoyable is a different question – am much more in the Hex camp meself. Anyway, the Earth 2.23 Special Lower Frequency Mix EP that’s out with the reissue gives us a different way into the source, starting with Angels getting grimy via The Bug and Flowdan. Check it here.
JULY REWIND: QOTSA STORM WORTHY FARM, HEY COLOSSUS GET BLOODY, ZAMILSKA CHANNELS REZNOR
Right-o, where are we? July … no, it just left dammit, another sign of not getting any writing done. But before we scrape together a handful of ace new noises from the past couple of months, we can’t let Glastonbury go unmentioned, even at this late post-Worthy Farm hour, because
Queens of the Stone Age: is this as good as live rock music gets?
Of course, it’s the TV version we’re talking about – no chance of actually being there – and even though the ever-expanding BBC TV/radio ubiquity of GLAS-TON-BERRRYYYY often easily grates, this year it didn’t. Seeing Glastonbury through the media means it’s very much a headliner-centric prism but, for rock fans of a certain vintage, the nostalgia-meets-car-crash potential of Guns N’ Roses was impossible to resist. Non-nostalgic sparks flew with, er, Sparks (sorry), Nova Twins, Working Men’s Club and more, but it was the Sunday night Other Stage headliner that promised a special moment.
One of our bands, in the big slot. And it feels like a big deal because although they’re obviously popular, there’s still something a little cult-y about QOTSA – something not quite mainstream. A little bit outside, singular, defiant.
In an interview with Mary Anne Hobbs for 6 Music, Josh Homme quipped that when it comes to Glastonbury, they get asked to do the slot no-one else wants. Last time, it was when Beyonce took the Pyramid Stage. This year, the small matter of Elton John’s Last Ever UK Show was the same-time competition.
The resulting gig was a badass statement in how to step up and own a festival gig. Apologies for the vacuous state of these few words, they don’t add up to a review and definitely offer zero news or insight. They’re just a fumbling attempt to express how exceptional QOTSA are live … a drilled unit with gang attitude who’ve got the chops to do exactly what they want. Stunning show, can’t get enough. Last year, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss turned in a spiritual set that touched on the divine. This year, Queens do the same but with devilish, high-energy relish.
All of this means the QOTSA love-in continues round here, no doubt helped by the heat of In Times New Roman, but the occasional new sound still managed to creak on through.
Shall we?
HEY COLOSSUS – My Name In Blood
Having only got two Hey Colossus albums meself – In Black and Gold and Happy Birthday – and not really getting on with the latter while bloody loving the former, we’ve got no choice but to dodge the Hey Colossus backstory and take this tune entirely on its own terms.
And those terms go something like this: sticky dank crawling spidery Slint-y trudgy hypnosis, all via the medium of RIFF. Never has an ascending sequence sounded less positive (disclaimer: I have no actual evidence for that) and those vulnerable shoegazer-esque vocals make a neat juxtaposition. Intricately, gothically doomy and very nearly uplifting, give it a shot and wallow in its dank.
MEMORIALS – Boudicaaa
Matthew Simms, guitarist in Wire. Verity Susman on vocals. Sprightly, catchy post-punk shapes that you might expect but given extra crunch you might not quite expect with an ultra-satisfying heavy low-end oomph that resolvethe main hook. Boudicaaa doesn’t last long and even then, Susman’s vocals disappear long before this already-short track fades away, making it less a song than a sketch that happens to be complete. Neat headbang and no excess.
ZAMILSKA – Better Off
In trying to create something that captured the trip hop and heavier guitar sounds she listened to growing up, Polish electronica artist Zamilska has conjured a little magic here – a stark beat utilising Nine Inch Nails’ signature sonic decay and Massive Attack’s Mezzanine black-hole teetering. Whether Better Off is typical of Zamilska’s sound or a guitar-enhanced one-off, I don’t know, but it’s a darkly seductive electro strip.
HEAVY LUNGS – All Gas No Brakes
Jerky shouting with a near-funk punk stab to match, All Gas No Brakes hits you like a rough, rowdy, non-digital guitar-band version of a Working Men’s Club track, an incessant one-note bass pulse that judders, lurches and agitates more than it grooves. Wakey wakey, losers.
And there we go – a long overdue round-up, must try harder.
MAY REWIND: GODSPEED MAKES LIGHT, BORIS CUTS LOOSE AND TAMAR APHEK ROCKS HARD
Queens of the Stone Age have been on the playlist a fair bit these past few weeks. Must be the time of year. Or the appearance of new single Emotion Sickness and their fresh announcement as Glastonbury headliners. Or the Homme-sized wormhole started by a couple of top-drawer Kyuss reactions (NASTY!!! FLY!!!) from the groove-loving Lost in Vegas fellas Ryan and George. Or all of the above. Anyway, if Glastonbury is anything like their 2018 Finsbury Park show, QOTSA will surely win over the world.
Let’s start with a couple of typographic opposites. Just because, for one month only, we can.
First is the upper-case underscoring of ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT, aka Efrim Manuel Menucke and Ariel Engle, whose Waiting for the Light to Quit‘s drones-and-violin (is it?) shimmer teases a huge motorik explosion that never arrives, leaving you suspended in rays instead. Beautifully orchestrated, as you’d expect from a GY!BE/Silver Mt Zion spirit.
Second in this desperate, horribly contrived typo pairing is the lower-case/no-spaces charm of West Yorkshire favourites worriedaboutsatan. New album The Pivot takes a more varied detour from the consistently ambient/twilight electronica routes sometimes followed, and that’s mykindaworriedabouts – see the icy, metronomic pulse of Stop the Car for evidence. Go check The Pivot right here.
OK, a couple more awesome discoveries before we shut this dribbling tap of words OFF.
BORIS & UNIFORM – You Are The Beginning
Confession: after following them pretty devoutly for a few years in the noughties, I’ve dropped all Boris balls. Haven’t bought a new album of theirs since D.E.A.R. because that album continued a sequence that just didn’t quite land in the way that Feedbacker, Akuma No Uta, Altar, Smile and the like did. But this is part of the Boris trip because, as we know, there are very many Borises. It all depends which version(s) push your buttons.
Given all that, You Are The Beginning may well be the sound of a door re-opening – and if so, it’s a noisy, ripped-off-its-hinges door because this track starts like an uptempo kicker with harsh vocals and then loses its shit, winding up to a pummelling, chaotic clatter. Carnage from the neck up.
TAMAR APHEK – Crossbow
Primitive, repetitive bass and ultra-taut drums build the hyperactive motor behind Crossbow’s urgent, twitchy rhythm – until, that is, Tamar Aphek’s guitar howls voodoo across the joint. On this track she channels the free-thinking spirit of Savages and Fugazi, meaning space is the place – and it’s between the instruments. Not quite new, this tune and album came out in 2021 but it’s easily the most arresting new encounter from last week. And that’s why we’re talking about Crossbow.
APRIL REWIND: NOISE SUPERGROUPS, A LEGEND’S RETURN AND A BUBBLE-SWEET POP
Busy month, April. Record Store Day went back to its regular slot, Oxford stalwarts Desert Storm released Death Rattle and launched it with a gig (OK, that was March 31st but it’s close enough) and there was the tiny morsel of news that METALLICA DROPPED 72 SEASONS ON US.
But Metallica is too big a deal to blog share so they’ll get their own post another time.
Until then, some ugly beauties.
Like Empire State Bastard.
EMPIRE STATE BASTARD – Harvest
Let’s take a moment or ten to revel in the sheer class of that band name because it’s surely the best of the year, if not the decade. The track itself is pure Dead Cross on first listen – punk metal hardcore, jammed with tempo shifts and grinding riffs at pace.
But who’s driving Empire State Bastard? Only Mr Dead Cross Driver himself, Dave Lombardo. How good is that? He’s not the only big name either because Biffy Clyro and Oceansize are feeders for the rest of the line-up – Simon Neil and Mike Vennart do vox and guitar, just way harder than you’d imagine. Ace. Harvest video this way.
While we’re in a Lombardo state of mind, don’t forget his new solo album Rites of Percussion, just released on Ipecac.
JAAW – Rot
Lurching noise rock for subterraneans, Rot sounds like the slow decay its title suggests. Driven by the kind of monstrous bass that the late Caleb Scofield laid down for Cave In and Zozobra, Rot neither needs, wants nor gives a fuck about air, daylight and all that other lovely stuff. Nope, it’s a grimy beating of infernal industrial sludge decomposed by assorted guys from Three Trapped Tigers, Sex Swing and, get this, Therapy? – Andy Cairns lends a buried howl. Jaaw Rot: yours if you want it.
KILLING JOKE – Full Spectrum Dominance
Released in March ahead of Killing Joke’s Royal Albert Hall gig, Full Spectrum Dominance is both exactly like any other recent KJ track and somehow new sounding. Don’t know how they keep pulling off this sleight of hand but they do. There IS nothing new. But it sounds so great. Dark arts indeed.
So, Full Spectrum Dominance churns that dense, deceptively heavy power we love so much and adds just a little more mid 80s throwback with ghost-ish keyboards and softer vocals in the verse. And though it’s a headphones track for sure – check that bass separation when you’re plugged in – the chorus is built for a slamming live audience. Is this the most pure distillation of modern-day Killing Joke into a single track? It might just be.
SILVER MOTH – Mother Tongue
Psych folk and fuzz guitar combine with piano, sax and multi-layered voices to lay painterly textures brushed with squall. Hints of Espers, perhaps? There’s a menacing edge to one of the guitars as it moves in and out of Mother Tongue’s intricate web and it all feels timeless/ageless, perhaps drawing on the Isle of Lewis spirit where it was recorded.
And though it doesn’t make you think of Mogwai – not this track at least, it’s much more in the electrified folk sphere – Stuart Braithwaite is in the band. Go check it out.
DAWN RICHARDS – Bubblegum
Something completely different to finish with – an infectious, exuberant electro-dance soundclash that namechecks Beyonce and Prince with enough sex and attitude to outdo both. Reminds me of MIA’s Bird Flu but really, I have no frame of reference for this. Bubblegum bursts with filth-o perfection and unshakeable groove. As Richards says, POP IT. Or not…
JANUARY REWIND: KOREABRINGSTHENOISE, ELLINGPUSHESTHEFUNK
Bit slow off the mark with new sounds because, honestly, the post-Christmas deep winter hibernation is still going strong which means…loads of old stuff, over and over and over. 80s hair rock heroics, trad-metal excavations, 70s guitar excess, you get the idea. Might share a bit about these old-school revelations in another post but, in the meantime, three actual current tunes
to get going in 2023.
KURT ELLING – Wrap It Up
Jazz FUNKED. Those who know stuff know Kurt Elling to be a pre-eminent jazz vocalist and a Grammy-winning legend.
But some of us don’t know that. Some of us don’t know shit. Some of us first heard Elling by chance last week but felt the juice in Wrap It Up‘s squelchy, sinewy, ultra funk muso grooves that we drank it up fast. Every note, beat and break is a mini explosion and the whole thing POPS. No idea if the Guilty Pleasures EP will be equally sticky when it comes out but let’s see.
SOFTCULT – Someone2Me
Dreamgaze drift and guitar shimmer, cloaked in thick, voluminous fuzz. If you like the idea of early Smashing Pumpkins being pushed through a goth-ified grunge filter, check Someone2Me by Phoenix and Mercedes, aka Softcult. Music with a message too, listen up.
JAMBINAI – Once More From That Frozen Bottom
A cacophonous GY!BE/Thee Silver Mt Zion climax – and that’s just the beginning. From there we get swept into a softer break and multi-tracked voices before hurling back to harshville and the screams of a soul tormented. Who Jambinai? A South Korean collective mixing electrified rock and noise with Korean instrumentation to create colossal waves of beauty and destruction, if Once More From That Frozen Bottom is anything to go by.
What else this month? Bristol oddrock merchants Franklin Mint put new album Hoo-Ha out yesterday and multi-media firebrands Algiers announced new album Shook, out later this month. Check the pulsing urgency of Irreversible Damage with Zack de la Rocha for an incendiary sample…as ever, Algiers don’t mess about.
NOVEMBER REWIND:IGGY, PIGSx7 AND F.U. MAKE RAUCOUS ROCKS AFOREFESTIVENICETIES
Cramming a few blinders into a November Rewind before the end-of-year madness kicks off (like it hasn’t already) but … we can’t get straight into it because of some very late, very huge news.
Metallica.
They dropped a brand new single on us yesterday, which you’ve surely checked and got giddy with its old-school speed – very much a Garage Inc cover vibe – like the rest of the world. New album announced, too. Who knew??? This is way too much excitement for one day. But, having fallen into yet another Metallica phase my very self last week, it’s strangely timely.
Right then, back to the Rewind with some brand new beasters to see November OUT.
FUCKED UP – Strix
This is nasty. Like, demonic nasty. There’s something un-right at the ruptured heart of Strix and, not knowing much about Fucked Up beyond a few distant spins of The Chemistry of Modern Life, it’s a total head-turner. Metallic punk yes, but charred, blackened metallic punk. Hardcore diabolus. Check it right here.
PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS – Mr Medicine
Did anyone else not quite feel it for 2020’s Viscerals as much as King of Cowards and Feed the Rats? Was it the concise tunes, shorn of sprawling damaged excess? If so then Mr Medicine won’t really change things as it’s at the bouncier end of All Things Pigs and has no length, but let’s see. It’s still a mighty slab and Pigsx7 always punch big. New album Land of Sleeper due out in February.
IGGY POP – Frenzy
More tales of the unexpected – new Iggy Pop tune, new album due in the new year. This one’s a filthy throwback to the Beat ‘Em Up/Skull Ring days, all pissed off attitude with music to match. Raging and unsophisticated, Frenzy hits like a cathartic vent from a guy who’s got the fidgets for a fight after a few years of respectability. Pop at full tilt.
CATHERINE GRAINDORGE – Iggy
More Iggy? YES. And no. At the same time. Composer and violinist Catherine Graindorge made a four-track EP The Dictator with Mr Osterberg and this is the closing track. But Iggy’s not on it. Iggy is instrumental – and it’s a beguiling, seductive mix of emergent drones, strings and ascendant swirls. Stunning.
CROSSES – Vivien
They’re called Crosses but how do you type the name out in symbols, as it’s meant to be? The best I can do is +++ , but that would be Pluses, which is shite. Anyway, in contrast to this month’s mostly grubby expulsions, we have Chino Moreno’s electro euphorics in Vivien. It’s all very catchy and clean and, if we’re honest, a bit too reminiscent of The Matrix BUT… it’s a slick mood shift, it climbs like a club anthem and Moreno’s yearning vocals fit those fulsome beats pretty well.
LEATHERETTE – Dead Well
Dead Well lurches like a jazz-punk sax-topped dirt-fuzz goblin, luring you towards carnivalesque madness where bad things happen … messy and low-budget hallucinogenic, this is Leatherette from Bologna. A wayward trip for sure.
MAY REWIND: JOHN PAUL JONES ON A REBUILD OF LED ZEP’S LEVEE.
Been a while since we did a little Rewind (hello again! Anyone there? No? OK…. ) so a couple of these tracks are merely quite new instead of shiny sparkly new.
Like that matters. Let’s dig.
DELVING – Delving
Much like Motorhead, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and the daren’t-look-it-up Cock and Ball Torture (thanks to Dan or Danny’s list at rateyourmusic.com for that gem), Delving have done a song named after themselves. Nice. Delving’s the solo project of Nick DiSalvo from Elder. Haven’t heard Elder either till now, which is probably a chunky oversight, but if they’re half as awesome as the track Delving by the band Delving then they’re going on the Must Check list because this is everything you need from a guitar instrumental IF …heavy prog-tinged rock shakes your beans. You get a bit of taut, non-quirk Tortoise pushing hypnotic rhythms on repeat and some Porcupine Tree clean/heavy duality. But with fatter, groovier wheels.
That would probably be enough but Delving says no. How about a subtle but crushing post-metal drop near the end??? ‘kin ‘ell, YES. Shades of Isis, just for a sec. Monu-bloody-mental and highly addictive, check Delving here.
AQUARIAN – Death, Taxes and Hanger
Drum’ n’ bass backbone. Airy textures. High-speed motion. Fierce yet uplifting. Yep, I have no musical references to write about this stuff, but Death, Taxes and Hanger is a hell of a ride and if you’re of a certain vintage it’ll take you right back to 1997. Maybe. Aquarian himself, when he introduced the track to Mary Anne Hobbs, said: “Death, Taxes and Hanger is probably what you could consider atmospheric drum ‘n’ bass but with a bit of cheeky 90s tech step breakdown stuffed in for good measure … and classic progressive classic trance probably imprinted itself on there too.” There you go.
PLAYING FOR CHANGE – When The Levee Breaks
Change of pace now with a Zep-faithful rendition by a global cast of many for the Playing for Change Foundation, which aims ‘to connect the world through music’. Watch it and feel the optimism: music, beauty and good vibrations pour out of every performer on this clip. It transcends borders. And the bass being in the originator’s hands – a lean, lithe John Paul Jones – is the Levee cake’s icing as you can see.
Anything else? Downtuned nu-metal filth adds extra drag to the crawling beats of Tether by SCALPING. Dense subway darkness and pulsing momentum make strange euphoria in War Priests by The Allegorist.
NOVEMBER REWIND: Attention-worthy sounds from the last month or so, spanning noise rock, ice pop (?), machine punk and full-throttle jazz.
ILL CONSIDERED – Dervish
Full-flowing fast-flowing freewheeling jazz action with a shitload of rock attitude, Dervish explodes with energy. It’s the kind of thing that pricks the ears of uninformed non-jazzers like me because of its vaguely Comet is Coming intro, but then ups the thrills by dismantling all brakes and going for the burn. Never-resting drums promise a sweaty, over-extended jam in a packed room (one day). Don’t yet know if Dervish is typical of this fiercely prolific band, but it’s more than enough to warrant a look-in.
M(H)AOL – GenderStudies
It’s pronounced MALE. They’re from Dublin. Gender Studies is from their debut EP. Songs about misogyny and violence against women. There’s a hard, machine-like intensity about the rhythm … Send-era Wire, maybe. Words spoken, not shouted. ‘Why don’t you study my gender?’ – a challenge more than an invitation. Heavy broken bass. Head nod groove. Post patriarch punk?
AGABAS – Children of Adam
Noise rock with hardcore vox and thrash ‘n’ roll pace. You might think it’s some kind of Entombed-Huntsmen-Cave In face peeler – and it is. But Agabas call it death jazz and sure enough, buried in the tumult, there IS wind instrumentation. Check the breakdown then wait for a bigger blowout while beaster chords pound the background. Noisy non-4/4 from Trondheim, Norway.
DORCHA – Honey Badger
It’s not the moto-rific intro and freaky oscillations that hypnotise (great though they are). It’s the cool, swirling avant-pop perfection of the switched-up second half. This is where Honey Badger ascends from earthly form into something icy yet warm. Resist? You won’t. Sublime cold weather listening, it’s over here.
amplifier wordsmith 