Reviews

They’re back. No Not The Muppets. Sessions albums. Back dividing opinion, back bridging the divides but never dividing the tracks. The first Sessions album of 2007 sees the hardy perennial Ministry melding and morphing, wheelin’ and dealin’, blurrin’ and bodgin’, tweakin’ and twatin’, beepin’ and bloopin’ and generally enjoying the kind of handsome new look that only folks like David and Victoria Beckham can usually meet the expense of. And there’s still no breaks between songs. Like one big lost Continue Reading

Released at the back end of 2006, Brainfood is the work of young man with old head on his shoulders hip-hop dude, DJ IQ. Just 20 years old and with a loyal following already attached to his credible discography, Brainfood is a smoky old brew of lo-fi jazzy cocktail minimalism, itchy and scratchy beats, Get Carter guitar capers and general woozy nonchalance; the mean and moody gansgtas having kicked off their Reeboks, rolled up a couple of fat ones and Continue Reading

There has already been reference to my deadline-tardiness on the front-page of Crudmusic in the past month. And yes, yes, I’m aware that ‘Let Me Introduce My Friends’ already did the pleasantries last September when it was released. But bearing all that in mind, and considering I have only had the record in my possession since yesterday, such eager efficiency should tell you an awful lot about how special it is. There are two notable points that can’t help but Continue Reading

Apparently Scion is the newest line of vehicles from Toyota in the US aimed at the less than coveted youth market. And what you have here is a retail process as innovative and consumer-driven as the cars themselves. And whilst not quite as easy to handle at speeds over 75mph, it’s an album that’s just as squarely aimed at the Generation X-Y market. And for this read some of the more cutting-edge, underground hip-hop artists stacked up as rolled out Continue Reading

Kamehameha by Ponytail is the musical equivalent of a pile of bricks at the Tate. It’s all punk and freakshow, aggression and harmless fun with the ten songs falling into some weird midpoint between the Slits and Napalm Death. They have a spunky, fuck-you sound whose charm is undermined by claims that the band is a ‘conceptual art experiment’ which suddenly makes everything seem a lot less fun. No matter. They probably make a great live act – tight, ferocious Continue Reading

A world of arson, moonshine, loves lost and others found, fishing boats, liver failure, troubled families and dark nights spent in the embrace of a single malt. Gigs alongside equally humble pantheists, British Sea Power, the skulduggerous Brakes and the woozy Walkmen culminates in an album that sits somewhere between the wicked, confessional narratives of Nick Cave and the bookish, folkish quietude of fellow miserablist, James Yorkston. Imagine an offshore party of fishermen and artists drowning in a barrel of Continue Reading

Yup, I too thought a ‘Supergroup’ had to be comprised three-parts Superpeople to one-part anonymous bass-player, and I too thought they had to be famous. But times they are a-changin. The success of Brakes and Babyshambles should tell you that. So what is it that makes Dallas-based ‘Supergroup’ that super? Well, even taking into account the fact that none of them were ever really that famous (with the exception of some of them having shared a stage with the likes Continue Reading

At the back of a warehouse in Berlin there is a place that is forever eighties. A waxwork figure of Vince Clarke holds court on a dance floor that fizzes and bangs with all manner of static-charged beats set against a super white background as a glitterball explodes in glorious slow-motion, splintering the ghostly make-up of the crowd, grazing their fashionably astonished faces and tearing to shreds their solarized leather bondage gear, just at the point Steve Strange in a Continue Reading

A preposterously sunny pop vibe defines the latest offering from sadly neglected hip-hop outfit, Arrested Development, the guitar strumming, booty shaking candyfloss of the sharp and friendly chart seeking missile, ‘Down and Dirty’ (Clap Your Hands) filling in all the gaps between 2004’s ‘Hey Ya’ and last year’s Lily Allen. And whilst Since The Last Time is unlikely to reclaim former glories, or recover a market long since lost to Gangsta Rap and the Republic of Diss, it does build Continue Reading

I’m not usually much taken with press releases, but I have to say Emancipator’s list of achievements is quite impressive ‘Emancipator escaped from the Underground Railroad Chain Gang in the 11th century. He invented the hot air balloon, with which he chartered the Amazon River. He invented wine. Emancipator found the formula for the crystallization of ice during a quiet Japanese winter. He perfected the art of agriculture. He can climb trees faster than you.’ And not least amongst his Continue Reading