Monthly Archives: May 2009
Balmorhea – All Is Wild, All Is Silent
This collection of folksy post-rock is something of a paint-by-numbers affair, but well-crafted and engaging enough as a background soundtrack that its more obvious faults can be overlooked. All Is Wild, All Is Silent isn’t a terrible album, but it … Continue reading
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Bonnie Prince Billy – Live @ The Apollo, May 21, 2009
The highlight of this evening was a deeply intimate version of “Blood Embrace” for which Matt Sweeney came out to play some guitar and sing a bit. Mr. Oldham paced, gestured, scowled and delivered in full a deeply moving performance, … Continue reading
People Really Seem To Hate The Dickens Out Of Wavves
Having no investment in the lo-fi noisey pop thing I can’t tell you where the authentic stuff begins and inauthentic stuff ends. Authenticity is a great game for idiots to play but those of us outside of the kiddie pool … Continue reading
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Squarepusher – Numbers Lucent
Whether intended to be a cute reimagining of the mid-90s intersection of acid and jungle or merely a nostalgia trip, Numbers Lucent is unfortunately another documentation of how the mighty have fallen into less-mighty ways. For all of the bright … Continue reading
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Coil – Black Antlers
“I will be all right if you hold me” repeats Jhon Balance in “Sex With Sun Ra”. One dead man singing about another dead man. While not quite the eerie moment of “Tattooed Man” on The Ape of Naples, it … Continue reading
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A Completely Convenient Truth
Otherwise, is there anything more embarrassing than a pack of liberal blogger types sharing microbrews and enthusing over The Decembrists, the single worst musical group in all history, the nadir of human aesthetic achievement, the final proof that human cognition … Continue reading
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Agoraphobic Nosebleed – Agorapocalypse
You can (legitimately) listen to the whole album at the appropriately-named agorapocalypse.com. I think something is lost in their transition from absurdist drum machine HATEHATEHATE to a more band-like experience, particularly the expansion out to two and three minute long … Continue reading
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Charles Atlas – To The Dust: From Man You Came And To Man You Shall Return
Though I am indeed big into The Orb – I’ll be at the Friday show in July at the Music Hall of Williamsburg – the genre “chill out” is generally just fucking terrible. The name is an awful anachronism – … Continue reading
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Michael Gira Is Not An Idiot
He sees people paying 30 bucks to see Throbbing Gristle.
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Fire on Fire – The Orchard
Some of the more interesting current music fads include MBV reconfigurations, usually with several ladies in the mix; the emergence of “hipster metal”; and lo-fi quirk-rock, of which there has been a steady underground that is righteously pissed at the … Continue reading
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