Scorn - Yozza

So far, all of the reviews I've done have been favourable so I thought it was about time to write one that is less so. I don't know anything about Scorn but I got hold of the Yozza EP after being recommended it by a friend. I have to say that I really am not impressed with it at all. I first saw the artwork and was excited as it looked very cool, just my taste in art. However, my excitement soon ended when I listened to it. I suppose the artwork is a good representation of the music; cold, dark, industrial, bleak. These are usually qualities I like in music but not so much with Scorn. I'm not even sure what kind of music it is. There is an element...

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Jackson C. Frank - Jackson C. Frank

Although certainly not a new album, Jackson C. Frank's self titled album is a fairly recent discovery for me. I have heard his songs for a number of years though, as will many other Nick Drake fans.  Nick Drake, undoubtedly a fan Drake recorded some cover versions of Jackson's songs which, in some ways, became more famous than the originals after the Drake family started to hand out copies to fans which and subsequently made their way on to numerous bootleg releases.  There is good reason for Nick Drake to record the covers. You can hear Jackson's influence on all of Drake's album, and they share a very similar style. Jackson,...

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Ghazal - The Rain

Ghazal is quite an unusual group. Not only because of the style of music that they play but also because of who the members are. Shujaat Khan is part of a musical dynasty. His legendary family has produced a line of seven generations of musical geniuses. His father, Vilayat Khan, is one of the most highly regarded sitar players ever, a giant in Hindustani music. As far as I know, Shujaat is the first member of this family to break away from the confines of ragas to explore other genres of music. This is not the first non-raga music that he has made but it could well be the most impressive. His partner in this project is Kayhan Kalhor, a Kurdish...

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Ozric Tentacles - Yum Yum Tree

The Ozric Tentacles have been around for years and years. They have only one remaining original member since they formed two decades ago but have released twenty eight albums in that time. They are one of the most prolific and original bands of the past fifty years yet they have never achieved mainstream fame.  You could be forgiven for never having heard of Ozric Tentacles. Although giants at an underground level, they are barely known by the majority of people. That said, they are a legendary band and you will almost have heard an artist or group that have taken inspiration from them.  When I heard that Ozrics were playing in the...

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New Design

I've been playing with some templates and the design of the blog. I think it looks a bit better but I'd love to hear your comments about it. There will be a new review later, I haven't decided what yet thou...

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Liquid Stranger - The Arcane Terrain

I've been a fan of Liquid Stranger for a while. He is quite a mysterious character. hailing from Sweden, he claims to have little interest in listening to music, aside from his own presumably, and that his main influence is the music from early computer games. In his early works you could hear this clearly but his albums managed to cram in styles such as ambient, jazz, dubstep, psychedelica, reggae, dub, and dancehall. The Private Riot His previous two albums, The Private Riot and Mechanoid Meltdown, were almost masterclasses in dubstep. They were both powerful, clean and very tightly produced albums that set very high standards for other...

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Murcof - La Sangre Iluminada

Mexican producer Murcof produces ambient electronic music that is rich in textures and imagery. This is his sixth album and is a little bit more spacial and ambient than his usual offerings. The last album I heard from him was Remembranza, which was excellent, full of glitchy, orchestral and almost dubstep pieces, many of which went on for seven or eight minutes. This album has a very similar sound except without the glitchy dubstepness. The album is made of twenty tracks, generally only a minute or two long. There are more textural sounds and more of a focus on the ambient element, the result being a rather well put together, thought...

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Back To Normal!

After a slight technical hitch I've managed to get the blog back to normal so go ahead and read my latest review of the Venetian Snares EP, Cubist Reggae...

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Venetian Snares - Cubist Reggae

I can't say I'm a huge fan of Venetian Snares, I've heard couple of albums but a lot of it is a bit too intense for me. Reggae is the last thing you (or I at least) would expect them to do. But sure enough, they have made some reggae. Well, of a sort. I doubt very much that many die hard reggae fans would even call it reggae as it is actually more like electro dub than anything else. I suppose it is exactly what you would expect if Venetian Snares listened to a lot of dub and used it as an influence. It is not even straightforward electro dub. The first track is the only one that really resembles reggae but it is like some futuristic computer-gone-crazy...

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Late - Phantom Papers

There's something about Scandinavian music. It seems to almost have an inherent cold beauty, often composed of delicate and floating melodies. Finnish dubstep producer Late is no different. This isn't the usual kind of style that most people think of when they hear the word 'dubstep'. This four track EP doesn't sound like it's trying to compete a Most Aggressive Bassline award. There is none of what often gets termed brostep. In fact, it couldn't be much gentler while remaining danceable. Sounds Familiar... There are a fairly obvious comparison to early Burial that has to be made. Although it's not likely that you would hear this EP and mistake...

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The Third Eye Foundation - The Dark

It's been a while since I've heard anything from Third Eye Foundation. The last I heard was excellent Little Lost Soul and although I have taken a keen interest in the solo/side project of Matt Elliot, it's not been the same without Third Eye Foundation around. The Third Eye Foundation produce something quite unusual. It is primarily dark drum and bass but it could be said that it is more IDM but it is more than either of those genres, sometimes bordering on ambient, sometimes almost classical. A common theme to the sound is the haunting operatic vocals that are warped and twisted, swirling around the complicated and dissected beats. And this...

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Nought - self titled

Where do I start with Nought? I doubt many people reading this blog will have ever heard of them. The band formed in Oxford, UK in 1996. They were loved by John Peel and apparently they toured for a while in Russia. They've never become very widely known, which is a shame because they are an extremely talented bunch of individuals. I'm not even sure quite how to describe their music. The sound is experimental, noisy, has elements of prog-rock, math-rock, post-rock, jazz, industrial, modern classical, and is very avant-garde. They have been compared to likes of Miles Davis, Steve Reich, Sonic Youth, Philip Glass, Stravinsky, Glenn Branca, Nation...

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Calle 13 - Entren Los Que Quieran

If you've never heard of Calle 13, there may be a good reason. They are a Puerto Rican group who make rap/hip hop/reggaeton and their songs are only in Spanish. They are huge in Latin America though and almost a super-group, it could be said. The tag of reggaeton often puts a lot of people off and actually gives the wrong impression of the band, they are so much more than reggaeton but there are influences of the genre in their music. However, only in a good way. This is their last album, released in 2010. The album marks a distinct change of direction for the band, although not an unexpected one. Calle 13 (street 13 in English) have always...

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Kode9 & The Spaceape - Black Sun

I, like a lot of people, have been waiting what feels like a very long time for Kode9's follow up to the hugely influential Memories Of The Future album. It was always going to be difficult to make a come back album after an album regarded as a true classic in the dubstep world, which is perhaps the reason for it taking so long to arrive.  Many people will listen to Black Sun and think that it is not as strong as Memories, or even that it hardly sounds like the same artist. The latter is true enough, it does sound very different. Is it as strong as the previous release? I would have to say yes it is, I can't deny that it took...

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No review today

No review today, should be back with one tomorrow though. The reason I'm not posting one today is that I've just finished a new tune which I thought I would post here. This is a bit of a different style from what I normally do. Winter Me feat Asher Dust by Meef Chaloin...

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Groundation feat Don Carlos and Congos - Hebron Gate

Firstly, this Hebron Gate is not new and I have not just discovered it but it is one of my most favourite albums of all time so I thought I would write a review for it. If you ask a dedicated reggae fan about this album he will probably think it's a mainstream album but at the same time he will most likely hold it close to his heart, while casual reggae listeners may not have discovered this beauty yet. From seeing the names featuring on this you know that you're in for something special; reggae giants Don Carlos and Congos. Groundation is no small name either and mix them all up together and you create a behemoth of a super-group. The album...

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Rodrigo y Gabriela - self titled

Rodrigo and Gabriela are two guitarists from Mexico who started out playing thrash metal but got bored and moved to Europe. While in Europe they decided to start busking and touring, except they dropped the metal and started to play something entirely different. Something one hundred percent acoustic. Their style is extremely varied but unmistakeably Latin yet thrashy, jazzy, and even Middle Eastern at times. Sounds intriguing? It is! There is no question that these two guitarists are virtuosos, the playing is ferocious, incredibly fast and sometimes aggressive but it is perfect and extremely complex at all times. They often play without a...

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Meef Chaloin & Asher Dust - Revolution Solution

This is an free album that in collaboration with Asher Dust. We did this a couple of years ago but it is still up for free download and now I am writing blogs I thought that I would post it on here. You can get it for free here - Meef Chaloin & Asher Dust - Revolution Solution - Free Album Downloa...

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Max Richter - Infra

This is another favourite of mine. Max Richter is a German-born British composer who has worked with a broad range of artists such as Roni Size (on the In The Mode album), Future Sound Of London, he produced Vashti Bunyan's Lookaftering album, and has had his music featured in various tv programmes and films, such as Stranger Than Fiction and Shutter Island. So while you have probably heard his music before, you might not know it. Infra is his latest, and fifth, solo album. It starts of with morse code (I'm not sure what it says though) and some old radio sounds before a beautiful slow piece of music fades in and blossoms. This track reminds...

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Debashish Bhattacharya and Bob Brozman - Mahima

As a student of sitar I listen to a lot of Indian classical music so, for me, coming across Mahima wasn't too surprising. What was surprising, however, was the content of the album. I had heard of Bob Brozman many times and had always been slightly intrigued by him; a slide guitar musician who has collaborated with many artists from around the world in a variety of different styles. The first thing to say about Mahima is that it is one crazy album. I mean crazy in the sense that I have heard nothing else like it and that it is so full of influences that it is just astonishing that it comes together. Of course, there is a bit of a blues...

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