In a fashion that would better suit the Tin-Man, Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion in Victor Fleming’s, The Wizard Of Oz, New York-based funk-rock !!! are left clutching at straws on second release proper ‘Louden Up Now’. True, the club-friendly epic punksters pulled something out of the bag with last year’s 12 inch release, ‘Me and Giuliani Down by the School Yard (A True Story)’ but in the words of one gentle and ever so lovely Harriet Wheeler; here’s where Continue Reading

So what to make of this then? Ethically, if in no other way. Posthumous collections of this, that and the other are commonplace, in some cases acceptable and occasionally laudable for their unearthing of hidden gems it would be have been cruel to leave concealed. Take a look at Jeff Buckley’s ever increasing back-catalogue care-of his mother for extensive arguments to support most sides. But where to place the decision by a major label to release the debut single from Continue Reading

The last album arrived like a rusty bullet train runaway in the dead of night, in an electrical storm, ripping out of the static fog with its halogen lamps overloading. It was the filth and the fury and its bastard love child. They tore around the globe in a discordant blaze of red and black. They seemed like a band who knew that and nothing else and they’d ride it till the wheels ground off. It was never really expected Continue Reading

A confident sick flow. I had no idea what it meant before this album, and I’ve barley a grasp of it now. In fact I’m pretty awkward when it comes to trading parlance with genres like this. A bit of a Jerry Lewis/Nutty Professor kind of figure stumbling through a corridor of beautiful women, none of which I could ever realistically approach with any real kind of assurance. But confident and sick this Chicago MC’s flow is. It’s also culturally Continue Reading

Bowie’s ninth studio album and an album that sees the departure of Mick Ronson and the launch of a loosely directive concept addressing the Orwellian prediction of an oppressive, authoritarian society controlled by the Ministry of Truth. In fact Bowie had sought permission to rehearse a full-blown ‘1984’ project some time before in 1973 but has been refused permission by the late author’s widow. Although bridging the gap between the ‘plastic soul’ direction of ‘Young Americans’, ‘Diamond Dogs’ is still Continue Reading

You might know Miss Kittin from her kitsch, camp and religiously Eurotrash dalliance with The Hacker on 2002’s ‘First Album’ and subsequent ‘The Beach’ 12” release. You might know her from her guest slots on records by The Chicks On Speed, Felix Da Housecat or Berlin´s Shitkatapult label boss T.Raumschmiere. But however you know her, know one thing: Miss Kittin is not a DJ; she is a ‘record pusher’. Born in 1973 in Grenoble, a medium town in the Alps, Continue Reading

This is the best record that you will hear all year. So there you have it. Of that we’re pretty convinced. We’d be doing you a disservice and forming false impressions on your behalf if we beat about the bush in reaching that as a conclusion. It’s looking remarkably difficult to build a case against it, we hardly think we’d be stepping out of line by taking it as fact. It will make most other things you’ve heard so far Continue Reading

A fifteen-year plus career has done little to lift the spirits of Canadian alt-country rockers, the Cowboy Junkies. Although capable of stirring an fine old industry buzz on occasions, the slow, moody and frankly depressing Junkies, sometimes fail to really ignite. Louder and more guttural than their gentle gossamer origins would have ever suggested, their ninth studio album, One Soul Now might pass for a Courtney Love produced Emmylou Harris. And if Jack White can do it with Loretta Lynn, why Continue Reading

So what were you expecting Ikara Colt to turn out like two albums in? Of course this is pretty much an innovation free zone. Of course there are precious few actual surprises. Of course they’ve not really changed, not one little bit. Naturally this is still exactly the place to come for blunt damaging guitars, achingly distracted vocals and beats that will make a forceful entry through your ear-canals without negotiation and pulp your throbbing brain into a gasping mush Continue Reading

Think of Limp Bizkit. Now take away the whining self-pity of ‘My Way or the Highway’, the unconvincing bravado of ‘Rollin’, and you have El Jefe – altogether more chilled, more thoughtful yet equally passionate purveyors of grunge-hop. ‘Amorphous Phormula’, their debut album on Zip Records, is a rattlebag of beat poetry, hip-hop/grunge crossover, reggae beats and mariachi-infused horn playing that combines to create an album of muscular beauty – with tough guy vocals that aspire to something more substantial Continue Reading