– these are the things that have been in our ears this week, please explore and if it sounds interesting then hit the links and make your own minds up, our reviews and thoughts are mere signposts designed to guide you to the things you might like to feast on yourselves... don’t you just love the www. 

John on the phone...

"Next Saturday (October 27th) is the annual Anarchist Bookfair. It's been turning the pages of history since 1983 and has been getting steadily bigger every year. This year will be another bonanza - in a new, bigger venue - of talks, meetings, screenings, cabaret as well as stalls flogging books, t-shirts, DVDs and obscure pamphlets from the 19th Century. SchNEWS will be handing out prizes for "Most black ink used in an anarchist publication", "Most impenetrable tome", "Least inspiring discussion session", "Dryest pamphlet", with special bonus points for 'A' symbols. All the weird and wonderful factions of anarchy will be there - syndicalists reminiscing about the failed Spanish revolution, primitivists hunting for pot noodle in Tescos, decadent lifestyle-ists, (middle) class-warriors, post-modern anarcho carnivalistas being absurd in the face of rationality and disillusioned communists who've finally realised Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot were murdering scumbags!" * Anarchist Bookfair: 27th Oct, 10am-7pm, Queen Mary and Westfield College, Mile End Road, London. www.anarchistbookfair.co.uk * There will be a bookfair after-party at Rampart Social Centre, saving you having to meet in a pub. A benefit for Rampart and Noborders which features DJ Rubbish, Drowning Dog, Malatesta and others. Sugg. £5, opens 6pm with films, acts from 9pm. 15 Rampart St, London, E1 2LA, off Commercial Rd near New Rd Junc - short bus-ride from bookfair. This slice of news is brought to you by the ever informative www.schnews.org.uk

ORGAN TV?

This coming Sunday we have the following videos...

ODD SHAPED HEAD - Egomatic Annie
TIM ARNOLD - Another World
AARON MCMULLEN - Blue From Black 
LILY GREEN - Patience
EMIGRATE - My World
ASSDROIDS - Daft Crunk 
THE ICARUS LINE - Gets Paid
CULT OF LUNA - Leave Me Here 

Next Wednesday and Sunday we have...

ODD SHAPED HEAD - Egomatic Annie 
65DAYSOFSTATIC - Don't Go Down To Sorrow
CARDIACS - Day is Gone 
THE KEITH JOHN ADAMS - The Other Side Of The Road 
THE HUMAN VALUE - Give Me 
YIP YIP - Candy Dinner 
EPHEL DUATH - The Passage 
MUNICIPAL WASTE - Headbanger Face Rip 
 

What's it all about? Simple, just good music, and the art of good video making...  Same musical policy as we've always had with Organ - the labels are just handy signposts, as long as the music and video making has that X factor - expect a healthy eye/earboiling mix of metal, punk, prog, beats, post rock, post punk, post man pat, hardcore, indie, alternative, pronk, whatever..... music and creativity for the open minded 
 

DEMO OF THE WEEK
COUNTRYSIDE – Click.Submit.Send: Demo #2 - Music to fall in love with, we adored this from the very first note, we played three tracks on our radio show last week, we’ll play more next week (and the week after) – we can’t stop playing it – this CD is now a treasured possession (to be kept that box over there that houses the very best, the rescue first box when the fire happens where the Ring tapes and the Webcore bootlegs live). A wonderful mix of warm inviting delicate substantial lo-fi indie alt.rock and textured found field sound. Clever songs laced with clever unassuming detail – buzzing gentle feedback, humming electronica, beautiful songs, beautiful voices, euphoric – this really is something special. I think they’re from Bristol. Estuary is like watching the stars with Grandaddy and Sea Nymphs (yes, Sea Nymphs – that good!)  – no really, it is that special, that perfect - this eight track CD is a treasure, an absolute delight, this really is the best thing ever. A beautiful soothing seductive voice, the lo-fi d.i.y messy home-made production is spot on, the textures, the radiance, the shafts of sunlight. Dreamy tiny epics and radio hiss and gentle warmth and backward guitar and pastoral melodies and hazy summer warmth – Sea Nymphs and Flaming Lips and My Bloody Valantine and Guided By Voices and a delicate fragile lo-fo star touching Grandaddy – most of all Countryside are unique – music to absolutely fall in love with – www.myspace.com/countrysideland

ALSO CHECK OUT
THE PEPPER BOX – New band from Northampton, a very English pop band in the best traditions of Early Bowie (Hunky Dory) and spiced with a healthy hint of Syd Barrett/Canterbury flavoured brit pop. Singer sounds very Bowie, the songs are infectious, the recording quality is excellent (nice artwork as well) – strong impressive demo. www.myspace.com/thepepperbox

 Last week's demo of the week - BASTARDS OF THE SKIES / MEHE

Previous demo's of the week - THE PRETTY YOUNG THINGS / HAPPY PENGUIN HUNGRY BEAR / SOMEBODY’S MIND / INSTRUMENTS / DEATH QUNT / OAKWOOD / EPSTEIN SUPERFLU / THE FURIOUS SLEEP / FUNERAL CRASHERS / THUMPERMONKEY LIVES! / HELLFIRE / MR PHORMULA and LEWS TEWNS

DEMO REVIEW ARCHIVES

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
BY THE END OF TONIGHT / TERA MELOS split  - Complex Full Of Phantoms (Temporary Residence) - Spectacular from the start! Two bands delivering absolutely top notch avant/math rock, redeeming the genre in every way.  Six tracks from By The End Of Tonight, and five from Tera Melos.  Fizzing with energy, the bands are different in style yet have a lot in common: stupendous, gratuitous complexity for a start and most importantly an infectious joy, a wild delight in what they're doing. 
        Tera Melos are jaw-dropping.  If I'd heard this blind I would have assumed it was some kind of supercharged Hella/Rob Crow collaboration, Holy Smokes with the hyperspeed madness knob turned to eleven. Tera Melos come from Sacramento, California - maybe they've picked up a few tips? If they have then they've refined them and taken them to a new level of perfection, tightened it up and mellowed it out a bit too.  Outrageously complex as each song is - imagine entire Yes albums in one song - the sound has clarity, emotional purpose and strong, bright melodies, frilled and punctuated with glitch and keyboard flourishes and beautiful harmonies. Upsilon Acrux are an obvious comparison, but Upsilon keep it cool and cerebral and hint their emotion - Tera Melos humanise the cutting edge in a way few have yet done. An exquisite atmospheric, ambient track (Melody 9) is a gentle respite from the pyrotechnics.  Final track Last Smile For Jaron revels in a kaleidoscope of dynamics; starts progtastic, sprints off on a few bars of Thingy/PEE style groove, stopping for some guitar/drums fireworks, sitting down for some sweet mellow vocals, winding up into moments of Pixies-esque glory, and what an ending - mellotronised 65daysofstatic and a melodic jazzy flourish that I have to keep playing over and over again.  Despite the hyperdetailing, it's surprisingly easier to 'get' on first listen: must be all those tunes.
            By The End Of Tonight are actually up first on this fine split album. They're probably one of the few bands anywhere who could follow Tera Melos and not be annihilated – probably a good thing they're up first though.  They make superb, heavy, chunky, agile math metal - loads of tempo and melodic changes that are far easier to listen to than many others of that persuasion. Completely instrumental, reminiscent of the F***ing Champs, like their friends Tera Melos they have a humanising deftness of touch and strong strong, upbeat tunes.  Big clear-cut arrangements, with melodic changes well-defined - that's the secret of making complex music digestible.  By The End Of Tonight's sound comes from American heavy alt and bands like Helmet, Melvins and Jesus Lizard as much as anything, cut up and rearranged. It's fast and furious, stopping for breath occasionally - and despite the grit, those riffs just can't help giving away the impression that they're grinning all over their faces as they somersault through each number.  By The End Of Tonight are glad to be alive, and you feel it.  What an album - some kind of cultural peak, feeding out of an underground happening of itself right now, it could only have been made this year, at this time.  A privilege to hear. 
www.myspace.com/teramelos or www.myspace.com/bytheendoftonight or www.temporaryresidence.com  available in the UK via www.cargorecords.co.uk

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 2

RUBENS – Carnivalesque (Herb) – perfect 4.00am come down music – emotional post night before electronica from deepest Glasgow. Reubens are a duo – Mark Flanagan and Gordon MacDermid – classic come down electronic mellowness that has a little more organicness and rewarding soul to it. An organic welcoming euphoric sun-up reality, timeless mellow glitching and graceful hi-tech programming, lush heartfelt crafted understated warmth. Brilliant actually - perfect electronic post-rock glitching mellow instrumental organic warmth  - you don’t  need a long wordy review from us, this is perfect - www.herbrecordings.com or www.myspace.com/herbrecordings
x

ALSO CHECK OUT OCTOBER FILE – Holy Armour From The Jaws Of God (Candlelight) – Second raging relentless crusading assault of an album from England’s October File. Musically and lyrically they’re very positively Killing Joke flavoured  - no clones though, October File are far more than that – Pulkas-heavy at times (that’s meant as a big compliment), relentlessly intense – raging against the machines of war and corruption, the wrongs of religion, climate change, human disappointment – no time for shallow love songs here then. Jaz Coleman makes an appearance (now he’s not going to sell himself short is he? His appearance is clearly a testament to the quality). Another impressive set of angry bombs and crawling over eggshells from the relentlessly good October File – www.octoberfile.com

LONG DISTANCE CALLING – Satellite Bay (Viva Hate) – Germany’s rather graceful Long Distance Calling with a beautifully refined set on smoldering post-rock instrumental epics – “music does not need to be divided into five minute long chapters, verse-chorus-verse. Music needs room – not rules. It needs freedom, not boundaries” – Long Distance Calling create graceful ambitious grandiose sonic landscapes. Dramatically quiet powerful epics that explode in glorious (and not to obvious) a Godspeed/Isis manner. Refined rewarding instrumental post rock goodness. www.myspace.com/longdistancecalling

THE PINE HILL HAINTS – Ghost  Dance (K) – Fine blend of edgy stripped back easy country skiffle and American folk tunes recorded partly by Calvin Johnson in the Dub Narcotic studio and party by Lynn Bridges (Devendra Banhart, Immortal Lee County Killers). Country skiffle and Cherokee nation Irish gypsy pirate music  (from a place where things catch fire after midnight). Train jumping Choctaw music for siting on porches and playing the blues and everything is right and Lonnie Donegan and bible classes and good good good  – they have that Dub Narcotic vibe – www.krecs.com

THE FORESHADOWING – Days Of Nothing (Candlelight) – Dark mellow restrained moody (classy) brooding tuneful goth, they have a certain uplifting quality to their darkness – all doomy and slow and rather heavy yet uplifting and warm and very very tuneful and all very soothing. Down-tempo songs - slow, epic - progressive in a very melodic apocalyptic way, flowing in a dark sea of brooding tragedy and alienation and solitude and refined guitar riffs and extremely pleasant and easy and relaxing – one for fans of HIM, Type O Negative, My Dying Bride – if those bands are your kind of things then this is highly recommended  - www.theforeshadowing.com or www.candlelightrecords.co.uk

UNGDOMSKULEN - Cry-Baby (Ever) - Using dirty guitars to make clean, clear statements, Ungdomskulen blaze with confidence right from the start of this debut album.  This three-piece from Norway sound like they've absorbed all kinds of American underground rock, taking avant influences and taming them, going for tunes and compelling listenability.  The falsetto singing at the start hints at Liars, the songs shift in strong but easy-going angles.  It's an extremely hard-to-define sound, standing at the cusp of lots of things, maybe a bit of Flaming Lips and Les Savy Fav, not really stretching boundaries but coming up with flashes of brilliance.  The vocals, from guitarist Kristian Stockhaus, are good, often venturing fearlessly into a distinctive rough diamond falsetto wail - the combination of high vocals and strong guitar melody is reminiscent of Rob Crow (Thingy, Heavy Vegetable). And, again, Liars, especially in their most recent straight-up no messing incarnation. Final track Witches Mate In The Underground builds of cracking guitar riffs with a sniff of Talking Heads and new wave angularity in there, oddly right up against an early Yes guitar glimpse, a slab of Sabbath and Gossip's driving disco rhythm section, all snappy drumming and tough, funk bass... Chrome Hoof are going for the same kind of thing, but this is edgier and heavier.  No, it's not easy to put a finger on Ungdomskulen - it should be all over the place, but its good, there's a distinctive personality emerging that makes it work.   www.everrecords.com

HELLOWEEN – Gambling With Devil (SPV) Another Helloween album and that trademark melodic trash’n chug through their completely over the top Euro-metal histrionics. Actually they seem to have more of an epic/melodic AOR edge now – a preposterously bombastic prog metal Journey for Iron Maiden fans – could well be a guilty pleasure.  www.spv.de / www.helloween.org

NOVEMBRE – The Blue (Peaceville) – More of that heavy, thick-cut (not very subtle, rather obvious despite the ambition) melodic, brooding, technically perfect, clean, dark doomy prog metal thing for follows of those expansive epic rock bands like Opeth, Porcupine Tree or Katatonia – you know if you want it or not, not really exciting these ears much but then neither do any of the other bands I just name dropped, each to their own, here’s a link -  www.peaceville.co.uk

RAY DAVIES – Working Man’s Cafe (V2) – In which the Kinks man tells us how everything is rubbish now and nowhere near as good as it was back then in the greasy Spoon when we had an empire and the working man still had a factory to go to or something like that. Yep, Ray thinks modern life is rubbish – but then you still have hints of that classic Kinks songwriting and rinky dinky Brit pop things and HP Sauce and what a moaning old.... hang on is that someone at the door? 
 

Last week's album of the week - RASHOMON Previous album's of the week - SAMARA LUBELSKI / EFTERKLANG / TAINT / AMERICAN STEEL / ATHLETIC AUTOMATON / YOU AND THE ATOM BOMB / GALLHAMMER / MEWITHOUTYOU / PRE / LOU REED & ZEITKRATZER / SCRAPS OF TAPE / EVERY TIME I DIE / SOHODOLLS / LIARS / UPSILON ACRUX / MIKROKOSMOS / ODD NOSDAM / MENENDEZ /  GEORGE WASHINGTON BROWN x

ALBUM REVIEW ARCHIVES

LIVE REVIEW ARCHIVES

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
ODD SHAPED HEAD – In The Kitchen (Construction) - Things are coming together really nicely for Odd Shaped Head now , the once ugly ducking has now blossomed in to a glorious spiky springy exciting new wave swan. This is a fine fine follow up to Egomatic Annie and another couple of slices of “infectiously clever catchy slice of impressive bouncy energetic jerky new wave English pop” (to quote our last review that they now quote on their press release). Driving punchy urgent poppy angular Devo flavoured flowing awkward poisoned electric heads with vampire robot girl issues – her head goes rusty if she stands too close to water,  spot on new wave pop – www.myspace.com/oddshapedhead

ALSO CHECK OUT

THE PATTY WINTERS SHOW – You Are Wrong (Vacuous Pop) – A slightly angular c-86 affair that rattles and scuttles and shambles in a self loathing poppy monotone male vocal/uplifting poppy female vocal kind of way.  For fans of The Fall and Wedding Present and Beatnik Filmstars and misanthropic bites of clever chorus and You Can’t Force People To Care is a rather fine b-sided slice of angelic Englishness and yes, I do think I like it. www.myspace.com/thepattywintersshow or www.myspace.com/vpop

NO KILTER – Galore Nation (Lockjaw) – One of those emo/screamo/post hardcore yellping singers yapping and squawking (and demanding a slap) while he makes a horrible noise all over a slightly mathy semi-clever post-hardcore thing. They’re from Glasgow and if they weren’t all so damn obvious about it all, if their moves weren’t so predictable, then they’d have the potential to maybe be something rather good. Right now they’re sounding far too obvious. They’re clearly fans of Don Cab and Dillinger Escape Plan and Drive Like Jehu, they clearly can play and one day soon when they find the courage to throw out the cliches they may well make a record that we rave about, right now they’re content to have thirty seconds that pays homage to Don Caballero followed by the bit that sounds like the At The Drive In  – and yes we are being hyper critical and harsh because there clearly is a good band threatening to break out here, a band worth bothering with - all depends on how brave they want to be next time around, right now this isn’t enough  – www.nokilter.tk or www.myspace.com/nokiltermusic

Last week's single of the week - VESSELS / 4 OR 5 MAGICIANS / TIME.SPACE.REPEAT / WE START FIRES

Previously - LOVE AND A .45 / BLUE STATES / EFTERKLANG / NATO / TINY MASTERS OF TODAY / AND THEIR EYES WERE BLOODSHOT / BRENDA / CHAUFFEUR DRIVEN AVIATOR / FIGHT LIKE APES / THE SOUND MOVEMENT / THE CULT / LIARS / DAN DEACON / TWIN THOUSANDS

SINGLE REVIEW ARCHIVES

PREVIOUSLY - WALLS OF JERICHO / CARTER USM / THE HOUSE OF LOVE / MONO / DEEP PURPLE / NUB / ANTHRAX / OMD

PREVIOUSLY - BATH BOMB / NEMESIS TO GO #4 / DVD: MIGHTY ROBOT: SLEEP WHEN YOU ARE DEAD / DVD: GLASTONBURY - THE MOVIE / BOOK: THE LANGUAGE OF THE BLUES – Debra De Salvo / BOOK: BERNARD SUMNER – CONFUSION / ZINE: NOISY No5 / DVD: SAMMY AND THE WABOS – LIVING IT UP IN ST.LOUIS / DVD - NAZARETH – FROM THE BEGINNING

That's it for this week -  IF YOU'VE GOT ANYTHING TO SAY then say it - response

THE ORGAN MAILING LIST -  If you want to be on the ORGAN/ORG Records e.mail list then you need to get in touch E.MAIL HERE.

PAST ISSUES -

ORGAN 226

ORGAN 225 -

ORGAN 224 -

ORGAN 223 -

ORGAN 222 - 

ORGAN 221 - 

ORGAN 220 - PRE, LOU REED/ZEITKRATZER, DEATH QUNT, BRENDA, CHAUFFEUR DRIVEN AVIATOR, VENICE IS SINKING, THE FLATLINERS, MONO, GLASTONBURY - THE MOVIE, CHRISTOPHER REES, KNIGHT AREA, THRUSHES, VOODOOSHOCK, SENDELICA,  W.A.K.O, BEEHOOVER, MINUS THE BEAR, EMIGRATE, EVILE, THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA, ZEBEDY RAYS, THE BROKEN HEARTS, BLACK LIGHT THEATRE, BLESSTHEFALL, THE HOPE AVENUE, CAMDEN STABLES MARKET

ORGAN 219 - SCRAPS OF TAPE, WAR FROM A HARLOT’S MOUTH, HEAVEN AND HELL, CAREER SUICIDE, LINED UP VOL 1, MONSTERS BUILD MEAN ROBOTS, SEVENYEARSDEAD, FIGHTSTAR, LUNATIC, FIGHT LIKE APES, THE DOMINO STATE, EPSTEIN SUPERFLU, OAKWOOD, HERZOGA 

ORGAN 218 - JOHN ADAMS / BBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, VILE VILE CREATURES, EVERY TIME I DIE, SOHODOLLS, WHITE HILLS, MUNICIPAL WASTE, HOPE IS NOISE, THE BLACKOUT ARGUMENT, TIMO RAISANEN, PATRICK WATSON, THE CONDORS, THE FURIOUS SLEEP, FUNERAL CRASHERS, FIRESUITE, CODA, KUBICHEK, THE SOUND MOVEMENT, WEASEL WALTER, RADIOHEAD, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, HENRY ROLLINS, DOWN, DEEP PURPLE, THE LANGUAGE OF THE BLUES – Debra De Salvo 

ORGAN 217 - LIARS, UPSILON ACRUX, TED MAUL, GUTWORM, BLACK BONZO, ALLFLAWS, NUB, THE CULT, ODD SHAPED HEAD, THUMPERMONKEY LIVES!, ARTY KARATE, I KILLED PHAROAH, SUPERJIMENEZ , TONY WILSON, VILE VILE CREATURES, RADIOHEAD, WINTERS, HERZOGA, SCARLETT JOHANSSON, TV ON THE RADIO, CRITICAL MASS... 

ORGAN 216 - MIKROKOSMOS, ODD NOSDAM, MENENDEZ, ANTHRAX(uk). AKERCOCKE, MOHA!, THE BDI’s, HANOI ROCKS, SPIKE, LIARS, HELLFIRE, TIME.SPACE.REPEAT, SISTER, JOHN & JEHN, BEARSUIT, BERNARD SUMNER biography, The LONDON FETISH FAIR, DIABLESSE SCREAMING EAGLE, HIGH ON FIRE, TO THE BONES, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE, OTTO VON SHIRACH, CHROME HOOF and more....