– these are the things that have been in our ears this week, please explore and if it sounds interesting then justhit 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 instant hit of the www. 

John on the phone...

John Peel's legendary Festive 50 continues again this year on Dandelion Radio - play your part in by voting for your three favourite tracks of 2007, here.

ORGAN TV?

This coming Sunday we have the following videos...

EFTERKLANG - Mirador 
AARON MCMULLEN - Blue From Black 
BEE STINGS - Pressure (Running Away) 
ODD SHAPED HEAD - Egomatic Annie 
DRESDEN DOLLS - Backstabber 
TITS OF DEATH - Iron Nipples 
SLIPKNOT - The Heretic 
MUNICIPAL WASTE - Headbanger Face Rip 

Next Wednesday and Sunday we have...

TIM ARNOLD - Another World 
PURE REASON REVOLUTION - Intention Craft 
EFTERKLANG - Mirador 
HAFDIS HULD - Tomoko 
TITS OF DEATH - Iron Nipples 
BLEEDING THROUGH - Kill To Believe 
AKERCOCKE - Axiom 

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
Nothing quite made enough of an impression this chaotically busy gig filled week 

ALSO CHECK OUT

GRAVANZA – Doom To The Doom Men - More dark prog/space flavoured brooding psychedelia from the ever good London heads Gravanza. Stream of consciousness moody dark space-prog and they’ve finally got their recording quality sorted out, sounds like they’ve got themselves a decent album here. One for you pilots from planet Gongwind  - www.myspace.com/gravanzia

THE DISPLAY TEAM – Two track demo handed to us outside a Cardiacs gig last week. Oh dear, some of those lyrics are dangerously “wacky”- I really do have a violent aversion to look-at-us-aren’t-we-wacky type bands and poking fun at the old really isn’t that big or cleaver – kind of makes this a little hard to stomach. And that’s a shame because musically they’re threatening to be potentially interesting with their rush of tight skanking and phones ringing off the hook. When they’re good The Display Team are a knot of ska-hints and jerky brass and yes, bits of awkwardly poppy/punky obtuse Mr Bungle-ish riffs that vaguely taste of a poppy early Cardiacs. The first of two tracks here – Worry Sponge - is really rather good. If only they didn’t then go and ruin it all with that loathsome second track called I Smell Like An Old Man  - probably one of the most annoyingly punchable violence-inducing things we’ve been unfortunate enough to hear in a long long time. If only The Display Team had the guts to cut the crap and the hiding behind the wacky bulshit and the unfunny (offensively insulting and rather pathetic) lyrics then there just might be a good band in here somewhere. For now, despite the musical adventure and the tight pronkish ska of the first track, this is a little difficult to recommend. Frustrating. www.thedisplayteam.com

TINY TIGERS – three feisty slices of nearly formed girl/boy fronted catchy britpop of a spiky Elastica/Echobelly nature and an indie pop band making their positive first moves – www.myspace.com/tinytigers

A CRIME CALLED... Burn – Full album’s worth of demo material, we assume this is just a demo? Nothing in the not very informative PR blurb or indeed the rather bland and badly photocopied artwork that comes with the CDr to hint at any kind  of official release – I have a suspicion that they may be from Italy, I guess we could go on line and find out – guess we would if they were inspiring us enough to do so. A Crime Called are an alternative hard rock Pearl Jam kind of thing, I guess they’re not bad if uninspiring bands like Incubus are your chosen thing. We’ll give them a semi-deserved mention, you can hit the link if you’re a curious appreciator of Pearl Jam influenced bands, I’m not - and I really hope they didn’t pay this PR company too much to send out this shoddy package and piss-poor press release! “Influenced by Motley Crew” (sic)?! They don’t the least bit like the Crue! www.myspace.com/acrimecalled

Last week's demo of the week - THE ORIENTALISTS

Previous demo's of the week - HOUSEHOLD / THE JELAS / COUNTRYSIDE / BASTARDS OF THE SKIES / MEHE / THE PRETTY YOUNG THINGS / HAPPY PENGUIN HUNGRY BEAR / SOMEBODY’S MIND / INSTRUMENTS / DEATH QUNT / OAKWOOD / EPSTEIN SUPERFLU / THE FURIOUS SLEEP / FUNERAL CRASHERS

DEMO REVIEW ARCHIVES

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 
JOHANN JOHANNSSON – Englaborn (4AD) – Johannsson’s exquisite first solo album Englaborn, originally released on the respected Touch label back in 2002, is about to be re-issued on the acclaimed Icelander’s current label 4AD. Founder member of the rather fine Apparat Organ Quartet and composer of a rather delicious soundtrack or two - as well as a creator of installations, music for theatre, documentary and an influential producer/collaborator/artist, the man has rightly earned a healthy reputation and a growing cult status. Englaborn is warm, quiet, powerful meticulous set of graceful soundscapes that shimmer and haunt rather than crash – lush compositions, rich, enveloping. Originally written for an Icelandic play of the same name, the album and the original string quartet/piano/percussion arrangements are enhanced by the delicate hum of unassuming and beautifully detailed electronica – detail that adds so much, in such an understated way, to the original acoustic instrumentation/composition. Englaborn really is a delightful album, a quite graceful majestic album, a simple album, a masterpiece and a warm easy to listen to album that really has passed the test of time. If you missed it first time around then you’ll be more than pleased that Johannsson’s growing cult status has allowed for this re-issue – this really is one of those albums to have on your shelf for those times when nothing else will do, pretty much everything he does is worth exploring and this is as fine as any starting point – www.4ad.com or www.johannjohannsson.com

(yes we know this is are-issue and technically it should be further down this page, it isn’t though – this is album of the week, rules are rules and there are no rules) 
x

ALSO CHECK OUT NOFX – They’ve Actually Gotten Worse Live (Fat Wreck) – I heard they suck live but hey they made another live album anyway and of course they haven’t got worse and of course they don’t suck live. So the Californian punkers have released another five albums and a slew of singles since 1995’s I Heard They Suck Live live album and twelve years on seems the time has come around again. Twenty four songs recorded over three nights on (almost) home turf in San Francisco and an album full of lewd drunken good time fast melodic messy punk-pop, politically charged songs/rants and lots and lots of fun. This is a proper live album, mistakes, warts and everything else you want from Fat Mike and his tag team – happy drunk pop-punx Californian style... just the way you want it, happy drunk punk will save the world, pass me another beer and put it on repeat, we’ll go shoot some politicians later  - www.nofx.org or www.fatwreck.com

THE DRIFT – Ceiling Sky (Temporary Residence) – A refined and whispered jazz-rock/post-rock hybrid. Miles Davis for Godspeed fans who like their music intelligent and considered. They really do drift – they drift in to the quieter darker regions of jazz, dub, ambient post/math rock in a most heartwarming atmospheric way. Ceiling Sky collects tracks previously only available on vinyl, including the rather impressive remixes from Four Tet and Sybarite. Enchanting, challenging, soothing and something to bathe in again and again – www.thedriftmusic.com or www.temporaryresidence.com - available in the UK via www.cargorecords.co.uk

DENNIS HOPPER CHOPPERS – Chop-LP (D Wink) – One man band Ben Nicholls and his warm clever baritone rockabilly-tinged Nick Cave/David Lynch/Michael J Sheehy/Blues Explosion flavoured garage songs. Song so rich and they do actually sound like Dennis Hopper movies – slightly psychedelic in a slightly dark Easy Rider kind of way – high plain drifting via East London and just left of alt.country country music/redemption to cure your messed up head. An album that will grab you by the hair and fling you in the chair. Dennis Hopper Choppers (or Ben Nicholls) is a man with a growing reputation and this album will more than tell you why that is – www.dennishopperchoppers.com

THIS IS HELL – Sundowning (Trustkill) – Released in their US homeland back in 2006 and officially release in the UK this very week – good things come to those who wait said the man in the pointy hat.  Modern sounding colourful hardcore flavoured crunch-metal from Long Island, New York. They know how to turn a slice or two of light and shade to inject a little extra in there with their fast hard-hitting explosions, nothing ground-breakingly different but hey, sometimes it doesn’t need to be   - www.myspace.com/thisishell

EMBER AFTER – Grasping At Straws (A Darkling Venture) – Heavy electro-soaked brooding swirling darkwave metal from California. Dreamginding swirling sound that takes as much time as it needs to slowly coil. Interesting version of Sabbath’s Paranoid that sounds more like Hawkwind playing at being Sisters Of Mercy. Apparently Ember After feature members of cult 90’s Goth band Darkling Thrush - www.emberafter.com

OPETH - The Roundhouse Tapes (Peaceville) - There are many bands out there making growl-covered classical-infused metal of varying levels of heavyness and Blackness - so many, in fact, that a trawl through them can turn into one long brain-melting woooooaaaaaaarrrgh. Opeth are different. Their heavier moments are subordinate to mood, tunes, and sweet reason.  Too many of their peers plaster the snarling gutturals all over the perfectly decent, often imaginative heavy classical/progressive rock that they secretly prefer, resulting in absurd recordings that will have future generations scratching their heads.  Opeth on the other hand write big, sweeping epics that roll happily from dark, chugging verge-of-Death Metal to delicate guitar moodiness, via bleak and windswept rock landscapes.  They're not a million miles away from Porcupine Tree in those slower passages, and lace some songs with properly proggy flourishes.  This is a live double album recorded at the Roundhouse, London, recorded during their "Ghost Reveries" tour. I wonder if the warm, big sound is courtesy of the famed venue or a clever producer - either way, it's very easy on the ear, and sounding like a great gig.  A worthy offering for Opeth fans and not a bad intro for newbies.  www.peaceville.com or www.opeth.com

CANOLA TENDERFOOT – Winning Is For Losers (Malicious Gossip) –  An inviting collection of easy-flowing warm refreshing ambient uplifting come-down chill-out songs guided by mellow electronics and Orb-esque trance-like gliding  - soothing, blissful, brought to life by ‘real’ instruments and the warm delicate uplifting voice of Viki. Viki is half the duo who alongside Owen has done time on the Bristol Trip-hop, dub-dance, festival scene. This rather fine debut album is a refined collection of soulful cleansing melodic grooves, words and uplifting blissed-out very mellow tunes – www.maliciousdamage.co.uk or www.canolatenderfoot.co.uk

GAMMA RAY – Land Of The Free Part 2 (Steamhammer/SPV) – Eleventh album from the melodic German power metal/hard rock band and a follow up to 1995’s Land Of The Free. Back on form with some classic/positive melodic (and slightly epic) power metal. www.gamma-ray.com

ANAL VOMIT – Depravation (Displeased) – Now you see, I’ll stand my metal credentials up next to anyone’s, I can stomp Rip Cruncher in my best Tank t-shirt anytime you want. What I really don’t need right now is more of this tedious parade of undercooked identical extreme metal albums that are forever turning up here from all corners of the world. All in the same artwork, all with the tediously unreadable logos that are beyond funny now and all with the silly photos of the bands. I’d already hurled four of them at the wall this evening before the new offering from Anal Vomit made it to the top of the pile – oh hell, why bother? This is going to be dreadful as well. I’d already endured some horrendously bad death-goth roses-in-the-graveyard woooooooaaaaaaaghhhhhhh thrash metal from Poland, some tediously putrid half formed death-warned-up badly played awfully and produced nonsense from Holland - a bout of Anal Vomit was about as welcome as, well about as welcome as another bout of anal vomit. Hang on though, hang on! This is gooooooood! This is the raw blistering punk-as-f old school real deal! Haven’t these people been about for years, how come this is only the second album? Slow to near putrefaction or what? Never mind the history, we’re here to deal with the new. The appropriately named Anal Vomit are from Lima, Peru and Depravation is a raw blistering old school outpouring of extreme growling roaring guttural hardcore garage punk black metal violence. Blistering thrashing slicing extreme metal delivered with a dark raw hardcore punk attitude – think early Venom, the very early first moves of Sepultura or Sarcofago stomping on some raw and seriously heavy black satanic Slayer regurgitation via tany one of those millions of metal crossover bands who would mutate halfway down the bill at every hardcore gig ever at the Birmingham Mermaid or the  Hammersmith Clarendon back in best days of Civilised Society, Discharge and Napalm Death (when Napalm were selling their demo tapes for 50p next to copies of Phoenix Militia) . No idea what Anal Vomit are singing about, probably nothing to do with flowers and the beauty of live and more likely some kind of relentless desecrated speed metal blur of growling Cookie Monster whirling dervish induced tale of depraved possession and perverted bestiality. Ah yes, raw bleeding pus-bursting spew-hurling extreme death/black metal, one of those rare extreme metal albums that, without doing anything that’s anywhere near radically different, demands your attention and is worth your time – www.analvomit.tk or www.displeasedrecords.com

Footnoot: if you type Anal Vomit in to Google then the first site that comes up is titled “Ask Boots For Advise” 
 

Last week's album of the week - LAZARUS Previous album's of the week - FRIGHTENED RABBIT / DEERHUNTER / KMFDM / BY THE END OF TONIGHT / TERA MELOS / RUBENS / RASHOMON / SAMARA LUBELSKI / EFTERKLANG / TAINT / AMERICAN STEEL / ATHLETIC AUTOMATON / YOU AND THE ATOM BOMB / GALLHAMMER / MEWITHOUTYOU / PRE x

ALBUM REVIEW ARCHIVES

LIVE REVIEW ARCHIVES

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
CLUB 8 – Heaven/Whatever You Want (Fortuna Pop) – Perfect heavenly indie bliss-pop from the much loved cult Swedish band. An early taste of the forthcoming sixth album and some just about prefect pop for fans of St Etienne, Sarah Records and gently breezy bossa nova fused daydream sunshine and melancholy. Karolina Kornstedt has such a blissful voice, Johan Angergard’s joyful baselines and euphoric jangling guitars illuminate her so so well – just perfect perfect perfect. – treat yourself, available as a free download via www.club-8.org

SINGLE OF THE WEEK 2
TURBO NEGRO – No, I’m Alpha Male (Cooking Vinyl) - More public manimal four leg Caucasian two legged German shepherd turbo charged death rock mayhem-strutting and another single of the Retox album. Liberated and yes indeed, oblivious to its own consequence.  Sounding bigger better and more more more than ever – surely the best full on motor-heading rock’n roll band in the whole of the world right now 

ALSO CHECK OUT
WINTERMUTE – Gambling Or Playing Cards? (Children No More) – Debut single proper from the already impressive Leeds outfit Wintermute. More of that now very popular amalgamation of emo/math/post/indie rock. It just maybe a sound that we’ve heard a few too many times in the last couple of years now and as good as this is, we’re just crying out for a little bit of something different in there with the Youthmovies/Cats And Cats flavours/textures. Let’s move things on sings one of the voices and yes, as fine as this is and as much as we do like it, they do need to move things on just a little bit so that they don’t sound quite so much like all the others. One of those voices sounds a little Pere Ubu/Tiny Ultrasound, there are suggestions here that they are more than capable of adding a little X factor to their already worthy sound. We like this. www.myspace.com/wintermuteband or www.myspace.com/childrennomorerecords

ELECTRIC SOFT PARADE – Appropriate Ending EP (Truck) – Sophisticated pastoral indie-pop and an uplifting lead track from this year’s rather acclaimed No Need To Be Downhearted album. Electric Soft Parade on back on top form. The interest here will focus on the Elliot Smith and Amy Linton covers to be found as b-sides. www.thisistruck.com

Last week's single of the week - CANDY PANDY ATTACK / SUNS OF THUNDER

Previously - DEPARTMENT S / TERRY EDWARDS & THE SCAPEGOATS / THAT F*CKING TANK / ODD SHAPED HEAD / VESSELS/ 4 OR 5 MAGICIANS / TIME.SPACE.REPEAT / WE START FIRES / LOVE AND A .45 / BLUE STATES / EFTERKLANG / NATO

SINGLE REVIEW ARCHIVES

PREVIOUSLY - GREASY TRUCKERS PARTY / HERE AND NOW / WALLS OF JERICHO / CARTER USM / THE HOUSE OF LOVE / MONO / DEEP PURPLE / NUB / ANTHRAX / OMD

PREVIOUSLY - THE ZINE DIRECTORY / 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

What's On? Check out the Party and Protest guide at SchNEWS, an excellent place for alternative news bulletins and a different slice on things - www.schnews.org.uk

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

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