When I was Official Shitworker on Lemon, we christened the review round “dogshit patrol,” after the regular Arlo cleanup. I promise I’ll stop before I start thinking of it that way here.
Elektroklänge: Mechanische Tänze Nos. 1-4 EP (2016).
The entire point of Elektroklänge is wanting to be Kraftwerk when they grow up. Not an uncommon aspiration, but not a bad one if you can pull it off, and they do okay.
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The ultimate hold music.
I’ve spent thirty years listening out for the most obnoxious and intolerable sounds available. The music that will ruin your world in thirty seconds. I like to think I know a thing or two about this general field of endeavour, if you will. I’d mark this as a contender.
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Shriekback: Without Real String or Fish (2015).
For a band formed in 1981, Shriekback have certainly had a couple of notable breaks in their productive career.
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George Matzkov’s tracks from lost 1980s Perth alternative bands.
George Matzkov, Perth scenester, Stems roadie and founder of Zero Hour Records, is putting out a book, to be released soonish: Way Out West: The West Australian Alternative Music Scene 1976-1989. To accompany it, he’s got a Soundcloud of tracks from cassettes and records of the day. If you’re from those times you’ll delight in this.
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I threw up on Lux Interior.
It was mid-1986, at the Red Parrot in Perth (name and logo blatantly nicked from the New York club of the same name) in Perth. I was nineteen and had been going out to see bands and drinking in earnest for six months. The Cramps had played (the Canterbury Court Friday 22 August 1986 show, I think) and went there for after-show drinks.
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Jesus and Mary Chain “Psychocandy” 30th Anniversary
It is rather frightening to think that it’s now over thirty years since Psychocandy by The Jesus and Mary Chain graced the airwaves. Well, frightening to people of a certain age such as this reviewer.
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Godzilla Black: Press The Flesh (2016).
“Formed by two frustrated drummers” tells you about sixty percent of what you need to know. The rest is descended (through similarly-influenced ’80s indie rock, then the stuff that was left after grunge imploded) from the heavier ’60s psychedelic rock, rather than prog.
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The fall of The Fall
This review has been sitting in the ‘to post’ box for a while, for reasons that will become evident.
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Records that have not stood the test of time: Models: Out Of Mind, Out Of Sight (1985).
This album, which I played a few days ago for the first time in thirty years, is what the kids these days describe as a “hot mess”. A pile of good ideas mashed in with a pile of terrible ones; the result desperately pretends to work.
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The Charlatans: Modern Nature (2015).
As one of the great British indie synth-rock bands (hey, just call it “Madchester”) of the 90s, The Charlatans, left an indelible impression on
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Last Words (EP) by Muzzle
“Last Words” (2014), is the debut EP for young Fremantle independent rock band, Muzzle, with three-piece Daniel Panizza on bass, Daniel Prince on drums,
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“Air On A G-String” played on actual G-strings.
For science! Apparently, underwear has a four-octave range. (yes I thought this was hilarious when I was ten as well) (baby got bach)
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Today’s links.
“Happy Birthday” is finally acknowledged as being public domain. Probably. The history of the hidden track. Format-shifting music you’ve bought in the UK is
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Doctor Who goes disco. Delia, we are so very sorry.
The Doctor Who theme has of course been done in every possible style. Today we have disco versions from Space Disco and Mankind. But
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Reissues, past subcultures and the dead foot of the market.
Amanda Petrusich at the New Yorker writes a ramble on the reissue market. It’s not clear, but she seems upset these previously-unavailable classics are available again, because they’re available again for the wrong reasons.
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Alvin and the Chipmunks at 16rpm.
Retrospectively obvious, but this is what Alvin and the Chipmunks sound like at 16rpm: normal vocals with GRIND CORE DEATH SLUDGE DRONE music. That being how they were actually recorded. I think we’ve uncovered Sunn O)))’s secret past.
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Access denied: The media in a world where they aren’t the gatekeepers.
John Herrman at The Awl laments the difficulties of the media in a world where they are no longer the gatekeepers of social knowledge.
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Links.
A Swedish black metal band who studied Catholicism so intensely for more efficient blasphemy that they wound up converting to Catholicism. The pioneering women
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The Music Theory Song!
Just in case you forgot all this stuff, here it is doing everything the words say as they say it. By David Swenson. The
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How to cook squid ink calamari risotto the Blixa Bargeld way.
From ’80s German TV show Alfredissimo. The other dude is Alfred Biolek. You can tell how old it is by them quoting prices in
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Imogen Heap doesn’t make the blockchain hype make sense either.
The big name in recent “blockchain” (Bitcoin) hype is Imogen Heap. As far as I can tell, it’s still the case that nothing about this is going to work.
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LA punk zines Slash and NoMag scanned, courtesy Circulation Zero.
Ryan Richardson has put up lots of old archival material before, and his latest is Circulation Zero, on which he plans to make available the complete runs (or, at worst, the complete interesting runs) of ancient punk rock history.
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I don’t want to shock you or anything, but pop music is an industry.
The Atlantic is perturbed and depressed that pop music is created by an industrial process and wants you to be too.
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Dammit Yahoo, stop giving the game away.
Yahoo posted their writeup on Rihanna’s Anti just a little early.
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Baron: Torpor (2015).
Torpor is squarely an attempt to recapture early ’70s English folky progressive rock. With vaguely sci-fi lyrics.
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If you’re gonna do martial industrial music, at least make it really gay. Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft.
DAF were a Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave) band, covering the time from when NDW meant hideous post-punk noise to when it meant cheesy pop. Funnily enough covering a similar arc themselves.
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Links: Rod Stewart took cocaine up his arse to protect his nose.
Yes, really. Also, psychedelic glasses. And caffeine.
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More on the blockchain-music hype: what PeerTracks thinks it’s doing.
After the amazingly terrible Berklee white paper on how to make all musicians rich using magic beans, today we have a breathless piece of content marketing in Billboard hyping the notion, devoid of useful detail and promising the moon on a stick fueled by very complicated computer wizard magick.
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Classical links: In which classical is hampered by iTunes.
iTunes and streaming in general. Not one, but two cases. The problem is that (a) ID3 is crappy (b) particularly for classical (c) and
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