– these are the things that have been in our ears this week, please explore and if it sounds interesting then just 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 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. MEANWHILE WE'VE MOVED AGAIN, NOW WE'RE ON AIR AN HOUR EARLIER THE OTHER ROCKSHOW and THE ORGAN SHOW from SEAN ORGAN @ RESONANCE 104.4fm with MARINA ORGAN one week and SEAN O the next. 9.00pm every Sunday night... RESONANCE BROADCASTS ALL OVER LONDON ON 104.4FM OR WORLDWIDE VIA THE WEB  The Other Rock Show is presented by Marina O, The Other Rock Show is about exploring 'other' time signatures within structures of rock and filtering out the conventions of the 4/4 time easy option in favour of something a little more challenging. Meanwhile on the ORGAN RADIO SHOW Sean Owill be bringing you an eclectic mix of diverse left-field things from all points in between and beyond - the best new releases and demos that are circulating around the underground fanzine channels and landing here in the Organ office, along with news of forthcoming events and general alternative music news and goings on in and around London.  Expect an hour of challenging alternative music each week, the kind you don’t often get on ‘normal’ music radio shows and stations, expect special guests, expect who knows what... expect to find links and details so you can explore all that you hear on www.organart.com after each show

ORGAN TV?

This coming Sunday we have the following videos...

EFTERKLANG - Mirador
ODD SHAPED HEAD - Egomatic Annie
DAN DEACON - The Crystal Cat
TITS OF DEATH - Iron Nipples
ASSDROIDS - Daft Crunk 
CULT OF LUNA - Back To Chapel Town 
TANGAROA - Vietnamese Killing Queens
MUNICIPAL WASTE - Headbanger Face Rip 

Next Wednesday and Sunday we have...
 
 
 

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
NAVEL – Raw blistering electric blues, grunge ‘n garage bluster with an edge of their own. Screaming tension and beautiful broken glassed jagged edge feedback. They’re from Switzerland and these four songs swaggered in here on a messy CDr full of raw attitude.  They can deal out a little restraint as well – more Sonic Youth or Neil Young’s way of doing things than the obvious routes, all kinds of good manners and healthy philosophies.... . www.myspace.com/navelofswitzerland

Last week's demo of the week - FILTHY HABITS

Previous demo's of the week -LITTLE TROPHY / THE ORIENTALISTS / 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

DEMO REVIEW ARCHIVES

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 
AHLEUCHATISTAS - Even In The Midst... (Cuneiform) - Wow. This is Ahleuchatistas' fourth album, following hard on their breathtaking 2006 release 'WhatYou Will' - and it's even better.  More than ever, Ahleuchatistas are a contradiction: a fiddly name that rolls off the tongue with practice, and super-complex instrumental music made easy.  A simple, relatively unadorned guitar-bass-drums arrangement, yet endless variety of texture and feel. The production is just right, natural, clean and live - the result sounds like three very, very talented guys playing right there in the room with you. This natural warmth somehow rounds the harsh edges of all those twists and turns, makes it easy to live with.  There's enough tunes and riffs and contrasting textures in the first track, '...Of All This', to match the contents of most record collections - yet something about the Ahleuchatistas' approach makes it, well, approachable.  It should feel remote and intellectual - instead, it's personal and physical. The sound and pace and melodic changes are not there to show off to other musicians, but to tell a story. One moment, you're in the midst of a riot, the next, living with the consequences... I guess if it was possible to put these things into words, Ahleuchatistas would have lyrics. 
  The band are based in Asheville, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Carolina, bassist Derek Poteat and guitarist Shane Perlowin drawn together by a mutual love of things like John Zorn's Naked City, Frank Zappa, Coltrane, King Crimson, eventually recruiting young drummer Sean Dail, who'd started at an early age in agit-punk bands despite discovering the delights of Gong and Univers Zero. Between them their tastes cover progressive rock, hardcore punk, jazz psych and metal and avant classical - and it shows. Since forming in 2003 they've gigged relentlessly across the USA and Canada, starting on the underground punk circuits, recently playing all kinds of festivals (somebody at SXSW wrote that their playing "made Mars Volta a band to yawn at"). 
   There's a couple of handfuls of bands around the world making this rarified high-end intricate rock now - you could list Hella, Ruins, Koenjihyakkei, X-Legged Sally, (early) Dillinger Escape Plan, Farquhar, Tera Melos, Upsilon Acrux and Ahleuchatistas as the standard-bearers.  What makes Ahleuchatistas stand out from any 'normal' band, let alone this kind of malarky, is the unforced ease of their playing, the warmth, the immediacy: even when they're hammering through some weirdass counterpoint with ninety-degree turn at the end.  Everything they do is about communicating with other humans, whether it's each other (the long-awaited evidence of telepathy, by the sound of it) or with the world at large through their compositions.  Ahleuchatistas' particular combination of emotional maturity, imagination and stratospheric musicianship is unique.   And whilst their previous album was jaw-dropping good, 'Even In The Midst...' takes the good stuff a little further. There are more passages of straight tunefulness breaking through tension and darkness, more moments of stillness and delicacy up against their furious rock-outs. There are little surprises and joyful twists and a quite brilliant way of balancing a 'predictable' riff with an unexpected flourish. The whole has the best qualities of a good soundtrack, a musical journey that's vivid in itself. There's a coherent purpose underlying the sound, another quality that sets Ahleuchatistas apart from their peers: their overt political and world-aware references in the artwork and song titles are more than a garnish. Take the album and the first track's title as a statement of intent and hear it throughout the music: even in the midst of all this... violence, chaos, fear... of these times... there is beauty.  It's an outlook similar to that of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, despite their sound being very different. Ultimately, its all about fragile humans and their trials and joys. Contemporary classical composer John Adams put it best when describing the first part of his Naive and Sentimental Music: there's a melody, and it goes out into the world where all kinds of horrible and nice things happen to it.  The gorgeous Where We Left Off is a perfect example of this, lifting gently and relentlessly with spiraling guitar melodies from meditative flowing to buffets of ensemble fake cd-skipping, drifting off into violined-guitar nervousness... a hopeful, beautiful bass melody beneath... running into the tremendous hyper-rhythmic fest of 'Swimming Underwater With a Cat On Your Back' like the next chapter of a novel you can't put down.
  Ahleuchatistas really have something. It's not their obvious skill at playing, but what they do with it. 'Even In The Midst...' might dazzle technically, but ultimately it's the emotion and empathy radiating from every moment, and the sheer delight at what they're creating, that makes this 'difficult' music so accessible.
www.ahleuchatistas.com / www.cuneiformrecords.com
 

ALBUM OF THE WEEK 2 AIRBOURNE – Runnin’ Wild (Roadrunner) - How much more DC could it be? The Answer is none, none more AC/DC!!! Hang on though! Just hang on to everydamnthing! You don’t get to be Organ album of the week, month or the goddamn album of the next goddamn year if you’re just some dumb second rate clone band - and lets be frank here, the mighty DC have been pretty damn depressingly average since the brilliance of Back In Black. This is Back In Black part two! This is pure sonic rock airbourne airbombs of musical physical adrenaline. this is lean mean and hungry. This is Rose Tatfuggintoo dance and sing, rock ‘n roll is king, cool as F, big riff, we don’t give a damn rock! This is metal! This is so AC/DC it may as well be AC/DC! Hang on, they’re Australian, must be yer actually bastard offspring of Bon Scott made it to band forming age - they look like they could be! Eleven slices of it and you won’t get enough of these diamonds in the rough! When Cruncher gets his filthy mitts on this he’ll throw the rest of his scratched up beer stained record collection right out of his broken window – this is mainlining Jack Daniels, this is if you want more blood then you damn well got it! Every bit of it, every track – cheap wine, fat city, heartbreaker the whole nine yards. Don’t bother with one off downloads and trying to catch a half-arsed slice on My Space, just go buy the album the minute it comes out here (Jan28th 2008 is the UK release date), pile the volume up to eleven, lock your doors, open all your windows and play it non-stop for the whole of next year  - www.airbournerock.com or www.myspace.com/airbourne "They're cocky motherf*ckers, it's great. One of them came up to me with a bottle of Jack Daniels and said, 'Mother's milk?. Inspired."  Lemmy (Motorhead)

ALSO CHECK OUT

BIONIC – Black Blood (Signed By Force) – Seriously seriously good! Aggressive rocked-out driving hard-edged alt-blues with a healthy line in swerving off line and down an awkward side road or two – no, hang on! They’re actually flying way over the line and all over the place! Some kind of cool as f*** 70’s hard rock band who suddenly, here and there in the middle of a song, feel the need to want to be Devo or The Go Team and all without ever losing focus. It all makes perfect sense and let Black Blood run around your head for a night and day and you’ll find more and more detail to grab hold of your attention. Hard driving psychedelic blues rock, Mudhoney going all 70’s hard rock with a bath full of scorpions and road-racing the devil’s black limo while still finding the time to get all prog on his evil horns.  This rocks!  This seriously rocks! Old school hard rock that still manages to push the envelope. They’re from Canada, they were formed in 1998 by one time Doughboys guitarist Jonathan Cummings, and this hits all the spots in all the right gasoline drinking hard rocking ways. www.bionicland.com or www.myspace.com/bionic or www.signedbyforce.com

REBSIE FAIRHOLM – Mind The Gap – An absolutely wonderful album’s worth or entrancing whispered glowing heart-warming Celtic/old English (Pagan?) folk, embroided  with cleverly delicate instrumentation. Lush golden strings and seductive woodwind, haunting glowing beauty and Rebsie has the most beguiling of voices – she really is something special. Just beautiful, uncluttered, refreshing. Delicately arranged folk familiars (and a beautiful version of Pink Floyd’s Julia Dream). Calming, uplifting, ethereal and a slightly new feel on something very traditional and unashamedly rooted in very old ways – for fans, followers and lovers of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, the leaves turning golden orange and the Albion spirit that can still be found (beautiful artwork as well) – www.rebsiefairholm.co.uk

ALUK TODOLO – Descension (Riot Season) - You know that paranoid feeling when your washing machine switches from over-baring violent noise to a sinister threat in the dark corner? No, maybe something less mechanical and a little more organic than an off hinge killer washing machine in the dark? Organic clanging out there in the burial grounds? Metal leaves moving in the mechanical wind? A saucer full of clanking buzzing humming menacing secrets? Disease in a wooden church? Menacing instrumental pieces that kind of soothe and hypnotise once you give in to whatever’s out there. www.riotseason.com

MORAL DILEMMA – Right To Remain Silent (Madman) – Hundred mile an hour blister-punk, proper oldschool ranting hardcore speed punk. Their country is the world and their god is their mind. Ten raw and live slices of frontline punk rock attitude and energy – male/female voiced three piece, they may be raw and messy, they can play though, they deliver things with a just the right amount of focussed clarity and positive conviction – and nothing that comes anywhere near hinting at compromise – good for your soul wholesome London punk rock, go join in..   www.myspace.com/moraldilemmalondon

URSULA POINTS – Light Up A Galaxy (Trap) – Dreamy creamy floaty alt.shoegazer mellowness from outer space (somewhere Brooklyn). Slowly uncoiling female-voiced laments and nobody gets killed with kindness and broken heated things like that. Even mellower male/female duets, ambient scapes detailed with strummed electric guitar and a mix of classic Slowdive, Mazzy Star, Galaxie 500 and early Red House Painters – intimate, plaintive and delicately expansive and rather beautiful – www.traprecordings.com

BREW RECORDS VOL 1 – Out this week and well worth the fiver it will set you back. Sixteen slies,16tracks, seventy-six minutes of music from Yorkshire – a healthy mix of alt.rock, post-rock, math, the more intelligent side of metal/rock/indie. Things are off to an impressive start with THE BUTTERFLY and their attention grabbing Faith No Bungle flavours, I CONCUR follow with their Editors-ish indie drama and the standards are set. You need one main thing from a compilation album – you need it to flow as one whole listenable body of music, this open shot from Brew Records does just that. THE PLIGHT kick in with some aggressive hardcore, YEAR OF THE MAN rage and growl in a left field way that demands more investigation – and on we journey through BILGE PUMP, VESSELS, THESE MONSTERS, HUMANFLY and more – SOLUS LOCUS weigh in with a rather heroic Explosions In The Sky feel, THE PATTERN THEORY delivery some interesting instrumental math rock that has us rather curious, COWTOWN and their flowing awkward instrumental rubber band fluidity demand you get on line and fine them straight away...and onward we go with MUCKYSAILOR, IMMUNE and more  This is a fine fine compilation that does just what you need it to do on several levels. This is rather recommended, nice one Brew team, we look forward to more – www.myspace.com/brewrecords
 

Last week's album of the week - KINDER SCOUT / 4 BONJOUR’S PARTIES Previous album's of the week -VERNON ELLIOTT AND THE VERNON ELLIOTT ENSEMBLE / JOHANN JOHANNSSON / LAZARUS / 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 x

ALBUM REVIEW ARCHIVES

www.myspace.com/gobsausage
www.myspace.com/diablessemusic
www.londonfetishfair.co.uk

LIVE REVIEW ARCHIVES

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
WAX AUDIO/GEORGE BUSH – Merry Christmas War Is Over (Metal Postcard) – The 43rd president of the United States Of America and his heartfelt uranium enriched version on the John Lennon’s Christmas message of hope and joy – war is over if you want it, thank you George.  Cut, paste, run and down load it for free from here – merry Christmas – www.waxaudio.com.au

ALSO CHECK OUT
THE LOYALTIES / RADIO DEAD ONES – Black Jimmy / Jimmy Does (Not On Your Radio) –  Split single, two tracks from each band and two well matched outfits. The Loyalties are from London, they’re people who’ve done time in the Yo-Yo’s, Dogs D’Amour, Black Halos and such – that rough edged, wildhearted gravel-throat low slung barroom punk pop sound. Berlin’s Radio Dead Ones sound like a leaner sharper slightly more hungry, slightly brighter and slightly better version of The Loyalties. www.notonyourradio.com or www.myspace.com/theloyalties or www.myspace.com/radiodeadones

THE DRONES – Custom Made (ATP/R) – Wired up, on the edge, urgent fractured garage blues, and somewhere through the edgy feeling of who knows what come songs and dirty electric iggy Cave and the junky Saint Silas Birthday Stooges Libertine Blues Explosion Party for Crazy Horse disciples of change who don’t ever want to change...wired up alt.garage blues and not as obvious as any of that made it sound and ambition frustrated and drink to alland take innocent-hearted satisfaction and oblivion will claim the disgrace of this lazy review  . www.atpfestival.com

Last week's single of the week - HAZEL MILLS

Previously - DEERHOOF / F*CK BUTTONS / IMPERIAL LEISURE / CLUB 8 / TURBO NEGRO / CANDY PANDY ATTACK / SUNS OF THUNDER / 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 - THE WEIRDOS / THE MOB / ARSONISTS GET ALL THE GIRLS / THE VERVE / KHAYA / GREASY TRUCKERS PARTY / HERE AND NOW / WALLS OF JERICHO / CARTER USM / THE HOUSE OF LOVE / MONO / DEEP PURPLE / NUB / ANTHRAX / OMD

PREVIOUSLY - PARALLEL WORLDS, PARALLEL LIVES TV documentary / NEVER MIND THE SEX PISTOLS: AN ALTERNATIVE HISTORY – DVD / 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

After a man who worked at Sellafield nuclear processing plant was nicked this week - when police found a homemade bomb at his home – you might have expected to see his grainy mugshot in the newspapers under headlines such as "Worker at Nuclear Power Station Had Bomb", "A-Bomb Terror Plot" or "Nuclear Nut-job." 

You might have thought that the tabloids running short of yet more speculation about Princess Di, would love to try to scare us into buying a paper. The problem is that the guy in question isn't a Muslim or even dark skinned, so he doesn't fit the government's, polices' or newspapers' stereotype of a "dangerous terrorist". 

Darren Morris was arrested on suspicion of possessing an explosive substance with intent to endanger life. He's already been released on bail - what, not banged up for 28 days without charge? The police said without a hint of irony that there was "no risk to the general public" - er, why did you nick him then??? 

This is similar to the case of Robert Cottage, a member of the BNP, who had the largest amount of chemical explosives of its type ever found in the country, which barely registered in the mainstream media (see SchNEWS 564) - he only got two and a half years in prison and never got close to being referred to as a terrorist! 

* Look out for the 2008 Oxford dictionary's revised definition of 'terrorism': (noun) an act of political violence carried out by swarthy looking people, preferably Islamic ones with exotic sounding names...

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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