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ORGAN #239> JAN 24th '08 - new issue on line every Thursday afternoon
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with what seems like effortless ease they embrace us completely
Sophie Trudeau DIEBOLD (photo Geoff Allen)Keeping up with the racing rats and the atrocity exhibits and the quantum of solace and a whole other Abandoned Language... too busy for introductions this week, what on earth gives you the idea that we have time, dive right in please... 

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. 

IS THIS WHY YOU BOOKMARKED ME?
HOWL FEST – what’s that then? A rather good looking all dayer that’s what: “Hi Sean, here’s the details of Howl Fest below. Thank you so much for helping plug it.Daisy” : Howl fest – Alldayer: Sunday February 3rd - 4pm to 1am. First band 4.30pm all happening at Catch 22, Kingsland Road, London E2 - adv tickets £8 @ seetickets.com - Bands: Pre, Trencher, Notorious Hi-fi Killers, Invasion, Cutting Pink With Knives, Please, Ack Ack Ack, Vile Imbeciles, Family Battle Snake, Jon Jones & the Beatniks Movement plus loads of DJs, merch stalls and such – www.myspace.com/daisyhowl
THINGS TO GET SHOUTING  ABOUT? 
DÄLEK @ LONDON BORDERLINE, 2008 (Organart)Sooooooo let me see, how about a damp shiny Thursday evening in deepest Soho, we were in search of a quiet bar to talk to powerfully dark avant hip-hop maker DÄLEK, before his gig at London’s Borderline. We finally claimed an aromatic corner of Garlic and Shotts and put a recorder on the table (thanks once more Garlic and Shotts!) – the place is relatively quiet - still early evening and the usual G&S debauchery hasn’t kicked in yet.... 

"At the base level I don't give a f*ck if you just grab that oil can and start beating on it - if you make something that sounds ill, that just works... that's what music's about".

"I think Timbaland might be one of the illest producers regardless of genre - I mean, I hear him doing brand new things that haven't been done before: I mean you don't hear new things when you listen to commercial mainstream emo rock or...! You know what I mean - there's nothing brand new going on in that - that rock music is just rehashing the same shit out over and over again!" 

the interview is here
 
John on the phone... 
ORGAN ON YOUR RADIO - WEEKLY on SUNDAYS AT 9.00pm via RESONANCE 104.4FM in London and worldwide via www.resonancefm.com  - this week we have Marina and the decks with her OTHER ROCK SHOW and an hour exploring rock music that goes beyond the convention of 4/4.... more details here
ORGAN TV?

ORGAN TV  is on your screens in the UK right now. Every Wednesday evening, NOW AT THE NEW TIME OF 9.30pm on the OPEN ACCESS 2 Channel on SKY160. And now due to the fine response, repeated every Sunday on SKY883 at 9.30pm.

This coming Sunday we have the following videos...

1: EFTERKLANG - Mirador 
2: EL-P - Smithereens 
3: IMPERIAL LEASURE - In A Letter 
4: TIME.SPACE.REPEAT. - Joy 
5: HELMET - Monochrome 
6: PURE REASON REVOLUTION - Intention Craft 
6: GALLHAMMER - World To Be Ashes 

Next Wednesday and Sunday we have...

AARON MCMULLEN - Blue From Black 
CHAUFFER DRIVEN AVIATOR - Leather Jacket 
65DAYSOFSTATIC - Don't Go Down To Sorrow
IMPERIAL LEASURE - In A Letter
ODD SHAPED HEAD - Egomatic Annie
SILVERY - Devil In The Detail
THE BLACK KEYS - Your Touch
THE ICARUS LINE - Gets Paid 

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 
 


Want to get your video on? Well all you need to do is make us aware of what you have, send us a link to your video on MySpace or You Tube or wherever, or a VHS or a DVD and if you have something that we want to broadcast then we'll chase you for a master broadcast format and wallop, sorted 
  DEMO TIME
Like we already said - we shall no longer be reviewing a million demos, we're just going to tell you about the very very best once a week, no more time for the average, only the most exciting - we're very very selective, when we tell you it's goood then it really is goooooooood

DEMO OF THE WEEK
THE ATROCITY EXHIBIT – Six slices of blastic – blastic? What the hell kind of word is blastic? That’s a typo! I like it, The Atrocity Exhibit are blastic! This is scathing blasting screaming bloody mutilating grindcore from the Midlands of England. Relentlessly intense gore-ripping old school thrashing dooming sludging fast/slow grindcore yelling and guttural puss-bursting and speed riffing. I like it! The body count is four - four people with a really well recorded six track demo. Extreme metal, no messing – wholesome and good for you, a recommended proper old school extreme metal demo. The Atrocity Exhibit are blastic! (I want that on a t-shirt!)  –  www.myspace.com/theatrocityexhibit

ALSO CHECK OUT
THE HYENAS -  A trashy bluesy garagey rocky dirty-edged three piece; two boys, one girl – they’re from Camden. Actually she’s really from Norway, plays guitar and sings, they’re really from Essex, one of them hits drums, the other plays bass and handles lead vocals (we do like to dish out the facts).  Three tracks and an energetic urgent edgy mix that kind of feels like they’re influenced by a healthy Damned, Stokes, Cramps mix of earfood. They’re apparently building a following in London – go investigate via www.myspace.com/thehyenas

ENDORPHINS – Out Of The Pond And Into The Jungle – They’re from Bolton Lancashire and they deal in that now quite old school indie/alt-rock sound from the 90’s, kind of energized Sonic Youth, Pixies, Silverfish flavoured alt/grunge rock thing – they get their hooks right in to your head after a couple of plays, kind of catchy in a bite-size edgy kind of way – www.myspace.com/endorphinsuk

Last week's demo of the week - 2 OUT OF 3 RULE

Previous demo's of the week - THE JACKPOT GOLDEN BOYS / FANTAPLASTIC / YONATAN NIV / INNER RAGE / NAVEL / FILTHY HABITS / LITTLE TROPHY / THE ORIENTALISTS / HOUSEHOLD / THE JELAS / COUNTRYSIDE / BASTARDS OF THE SKIES / MEHE / THE PRETTY YOUNG THINGS / HAPPY PENGUIN HUNGRY BEAR / SOMEBODY’S MIND

DEMO REVIEW ARCHIVES

NEW ALBUMS WE’RE LISTENING TO THIS WEEK
TIME OF ORCHIDSThis week the best new things we’ve been listening to were... 

ALBUM OF THE WEEK
TIME OF ORCHIDS - Namesake Caution (Cuneiform) - These times. Here is bewilderingly maximalist, staggeringly rich sonic cinema from a four-piece rock band in New York called Time Of Orchids.  Just because there's now a modest army of magical, high-end avant progressive bands out there, doesn't mean that you've heard everything yet.  Time Of Orchids certainly revel in complex rhythm - songs time-shift relentlessly, outrageously - but they're also masters of sliding, shifting, disturbing harmony.  It's overwhelming.  The high, sweet barber-shop vocals, reminiscent of Sparks or Beach Boys, never stay sweet for long, twisting into anxiety, delicately salted with discord over and over again, finally bursting into disturbed euphoria. It's a voice and mind desperate for the romantic, for a higher ideal, in a world that engulfs and distorts them in a myriad different ways.  Ten dense, massively detailed tracks, hardly a melody or an idea repeated, unraveling their secrets with repeated listens - though the coruscating majesty of Darling Abandon builds in a nearly logical way to a stellar high as delivered by Yes at their absolute peak.  It's the elegant strangeness of Morricone, filtered by Gentle Giant cut-ups, Todd Rundgren at his most experimental and Mr Bungle at their most hallucinatory. And hearing Gem, I wonder if these guys ever listened to UK band England and their rather fine album Garden Shed... then there's all those contemporary wunderkinds they're hanging out with - they're fans of Cheer-Accident (legendary but hopelessly obscure Chicago band, and of Thinking Plague, which is really all you need for inspiration. Surely that's Voivod's jarring tension chords, and manic X-Legged Sally in there with Cheer-Accident's melancholy prog aesthetic... then again, the David Lynch does Pet Sounds vocals are glorious pop... if only it would stay still. Parade of Seasons is, alone, the double album Gentle Giant would have made if they'd had the balls to keep on their original creative trajectory, compressed into four and a half insane minutes.  The most delicious tunes surface out of the mayhem and pass by like remembered happiness - others would repeat times four, and take all the impact from the moment (whilst writing a classic pop song...).  Then there's the influences taken for granted: the stripped-down, upfront guitar of indie Americana - Pavement, Pixies, Neutral Milk Hotel, Rob Crow of course.  And then they go into a woozy sludge world that hovers between... oh, I don't know, Sunn0))) and Sigur Ros?  That's the ending of Windswept Spectacle.. Writing about this music makes the reviewer sound ridiculous... but it's true, it's all true, honest
     A little background: Time Of Orchids are founder member, vocal/keyboardist Chuck Stern, who has been writing strange, 'creepy, cinematic' music since childhood; Eric Fitzgerald on vocals and guitar, who joined the band early on; drummer Bodie, previously worked with Bill Brovold's avant-prog outfit, and bassist Jesse Krakow who's worked with Doctor Nerve, Julee Cruise, people from Shudder To Think and Ruins amongst others.  They've been gigging with Dysrhythmia, Orthrelm, Arab On Radar, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Negativeland, the Flying Luttenbachers and Cheer-Accident... and are at time of writing doing shows in the US and Europe with Upsilon Acrux (gulp.). Namesake Caution has more in common with the work of contemporary classical composers - John Adams' everything-goes maximalism, Messiaen's ecstatic melodic chaos math - than even the likes of Upsilon Acrux.  It's possibly one of the most intense albums you'll ever hear. It's such an extreme expression of 'prog' it's almost an alien language in itself.  It takes forever for the, er, songs to sink into the brain, but those repeated listens teases out gems of sound, visionary glimpses like watching a lifetime on fast forward - so much going on, and the strangest things stick in your memory. It ends with  Entertainment Woes' final release from frenzy into tremulous open ambience, beautiful in itself and all the more powerful for the contrast. More info: www.cuneiformrecords.com, www.timeoforchids.com or myspace.com/timeoforchids
 
ALSO CHECK OUT

ATLAS SOUND – Let The Blind lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel (Kranky) – File under ‘psychedelic ambient punk’ reads the helpful piece of paper that comes with this fine album; if only it was that easy. This is Bradford Cox from the excellent Deerhunter with a solo/side project. “One of the latest ‘true queer art punks’ to emerge from the cracked pavements of the southern suburban sprawl of Atlanta Georgia” continues the piece of paper. This new Atlas Sound album is just as out-there as anyone who got lost in the last Deerhunter album would expect it to be. Deerhunter’s way-out-there ambient side, less claustrophobic though, less of the dark head-messing mindf**king set of drones and a lot more uplifting – well no, Deerhunter are uplifting, this is just a different mindset of mood trips, uplifting in a brighter and altogether more alive way  - challengingly pleasant, ambient melancholy and left-field textured colours, the up side of zingy psychedelia (without ever getting anywhere near being a twee hippyshit thing). Cohesive, seamless, kind of feminine, different – ambient electronic garage rock, a college of mixed sounds, loops and textures that somehow form in to a set of coherent structured almost conventional and wonderfully vibrant and rather alive songs. Rewarding music and songs  that taste of things somewhere near Sigur Ros, My Bloody Valentine, Liars, Psychic TV without really sounding like anything you could easily put your finger on. Psychedelic ambient punk? Far far more than just that. www.kranky.net available in the UK via www.southern.net
 

PLASTIC TOYS – For Tonight Only (Hill Valley) – Some fine people on the run from the wreckage of Karmic Jera and DNA Doll with a healthy mix of flamboyant confident modern dirty-edged glam rock and dark freak-whipped electro goth pop metal. They do with a certain style, one for you Disciples of Marilyn Manson, My Ruin, and the beautiful people who know how to love these things - go investigate: www.myspace.com/plastictoys or www.plastictoys.co.uk

EVANGELICALS – The Evening Descends (Dead Oceans) – Clever breezy impressive U.S alt.pop psych-rock sensibilities, ambitious arrangements and a warm kaleidoscope of sound that’s somewhere near something that may just taste of Beachwood Sparks or Flaming Lips or The Bunnymen or maybe a more psychedelic, not so harsh and far more soft-voiced Cure. Clever uplifting joyous songs, rather different, some impressive understated and rather original guitar from Josh Jones. They’re from Oklahoma, they’re carefree and slightly kitsch in a positive kind of way. A softer sounding Flaming lips with far more affects – mountains more – echoes and delightful synth doodles and bright voices and bright stars and something enjoyably different this way comes. www.myspace.com/evangelicals or www.deadoceans.com

DRIVE BY TRUCKERS – Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (New West) – Just really good alternative country rock from the deep South of the USA. Sometimes alt. flavoured, sometimes delightfully traditional, sometimes rocking out a little in a Crazy Horse, Lynyrd Skynyrd way, sometimes just classically good in a Gram Parsons, Wilco, Big Star way. They originate from Muscle Shoals, Alabama and their latest album slides perfectly through sprawling moments, beautiful moments, moments of heartbreak, expansive country rock moments, moments that rock out just a little – and all in jut the right way – and all beautifully voiced male-female harmonies and steal guitars and banjos and strings and lyrics that you don’t quite catch on to until you really start to pay attention (and stay focused and on their righteous path) . Pithy country ballads, dirty edged country boogie, hound dogs that don’t fight with cats too much  – all played with such dedicated clarity and nailed down beauty. Alt.country southern rock that does exactly what you want it to, just what you need to scratch that itch – righteous is the word, righteously good for you – things don’t get much finer than a good Drive By Truckers album and this as fine as anything they’ve done. www.drivebytruckers.com

ROTTEN SOUND – Cycles (Spinefarm) – Relentless grindcore onslaught from Finland’s rather influential Rotten Sound. The quartet have been around for over ten years now, no sign of any kind of mellowing yet. No let up in the raw edged brutal intensity, a band sticking to their guns and a firm hold on their staunch underground roots. Rotten Sound have a little edge of their own, a violent raw edge that adds a little x factor and a hint of colour to their abrasive Slayer, Napalm Death, Nasum, ENT flavour and their relentless ferocity. Eighteen tracks and thirty-four blistering minutes of grindcore metal. It isn’t that they’re radically different or revolutionary, they’re not pushing boundaries, and yes there a million and one extreme grindcore metal bands, they just have that little edge of their own, that an attitude that’s right – little things that put them a little more out there and ahead of the crowd. www.rottensound.com

LOS SALVADORES – Attack Of The Clones (Corndog) - Raw energetic folk-punk of a Levellers nature, little let down by the dull production, sound like they’d kick up a storm live though – especially the Drinking Song. Good positive outlook, lyrics and musicianship -  there’s only one way of life and that’s your own. www.lossalvadores.co.uk

BEYOND THE VOID – Gloom Is A Trip For Two (Endzeit Elegies) – Slick gothy dark purple deep-voiced love metal thing – you know that none more love metal thing Him do. Third album from the German outfit, very slick, very Him, very good at their chosen thing, here’s the link – www.beyondthevoid.com
 
Last week's album of the week - DIEBOLD

Previous album's of the week - HOLLER, WILD ROSE! / BLACK MOUNTAIN / YESAN DAMEN / CLUB 8 / OUR OWN DEVICES / DIMENSION X / THAO With THE GET DOWN STAY DOWN / AHLEUCHATISTAS / AIRBOURNE / KINDER SCOUT / 4 BONJOUR’S PARTIES / VERNON ELLIOTT AND THE VERNON ELLIOTT ENSEMBLE
x

ALBUM REVIEW ARCHIVES

  LIVE 
Guapo & The Borderline, Jan 08 (Marina Organ)DäLEK / DESTRUCTO STORMBOTS / GUAPO – London Borderline Jan 19th 2008 - Complementing headliners Dälek perfectly, whatever the cultural differences, London’s own Guapo build brooding, slightly Slavic instrumental monoliths of sound.  A four piece of drums, keyboards, guitar and bass, all uniformed in black sequined leotards and now including James Sedwards of Nought and Kavus of Cardiacs, Guapo moved into more structured, melodic epics from a noisier origin.  With a classic distorted electric piano sound driving them, they create film-soundtrack tension with a scratched 16mm feel, often sounding like the edgier side of Egg or Francis (Long Good Friday) Monkman... of course, an obvious comparison would be the one  with Godspeed! You Black Emperor - the Guapo sound is more internalised though, less about landscape, more claustrophobic, with an eastern European flavour to the tunes that's something quite distinctive. Guapo have their own delicate, shimmering moments of piano and e-bowed guitar, and galloping build-ups into sweeping energy. They also plain old rock-out more. That edge of anxiety, the creative neuroses explored by Jan Svankmeyer and David Lynch - it's what they have in common with Dalek.  They might be coming from a progressive /avant rock tradition, and Dalek might be hailing from the motherlode of hip-hop, but the sonic menace is the same... a sense of teeth-grinding pressure from an overcrowded world where the humans are the scariest things. 

        Dälek gives his/their sonic menace a direction - Will Brooks (aka dälek) and co-producer Oktopus (Alap Momin), I’ve never worked out if he’s Dälek or they both are. He's angry - it's controlled, pressurised anger.  It's that restraint that gives the beats so much power: the holding fire, the build that reaches out and grasps the audience and makes them move. First things first though Dälek are directly preceded by Destructo Swarmbots – tonight Destructo are a duo (sometimes there’s three or more of them, sometimes there isn’t), kind of slightly awkward looking menacing long-haired man in the dark-light, bent over guitar, looking like he should be in Neurosis or Godflesh some such band, man hunched over keyboards and things on the other side of the stage, together they’re firing up a sonic mountain of refined restrained left-field ambient texture and restrained considered mood-building sonic instrumental brooding. A swirling churning morass of treacle-thick ambient guitar atmosphere - and then, almost unnoticed, the two turn in to four and seamlessly, magically, there they are – Dälek on stage with their pure alchemy and their rhyming questioning blasphemy. Tonight Dälek will be a four-sided collaboration, half of them will be Destructo Swarmbots (they’ve collaborated before on vinyl) – and with no real hint that is was about to happen, we’re off and flying (and almost in slow motion) with those dark menacing hypnotic textures – we’re all swaying, we feel like we’re all walking on the spot with the isolated stares on a million excited eyes – it feels like we’re one whole body, an army rather than audience, everything is locked on, everything is right. Slowly moving to the industrio-ambient brooding and the unyielding avant noise – supple, adaptable, flowing arithmetic, the Oktopus wall of sound is the prefect canvas for Dälek’s rhymes and words, for the relentless phrasing. A dark and malevolent, textured seam – expansive filmoid hip-hop that’s right out there on the very edge - beats-based experimentalism and with what seems like effortless ease they embrace us completely with the sound and then almost suffocate us, in just the way they’ve declared they want to, with those caustic lines. This should be really intimidating – it isn’t, its a warm powerful eerie embrace, a seductive hypnotic sound, an awesome inviting wall of dark ambient noise and rolling words, this is up a whole other level – tonight is something very special indeed – Tonight Dälek ignited some kind of magic, we feel privileged to have been here... Tonight was one of those nights

Live previously - MOLLOY / CREEDLE / GOBSAUSAGE / THE BRIAN JACKET LETDOWN / CARDIACS / BEE STINGS /HAPPY PENGUIN HUNGRY BEAR / OURLIVES / DRUGDEALER CHEERLEADER / EMILY BREEZE  / IMPERIAL LEISURE / HERZOGA / JOHN ADAMS / BBC SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA / VILE VILE CREATURES / TIME.SPACE.REPEAT / SISTER / JOHN & JHEN

LIVE REVIEW ARCHIVES

  SINGLES
Single time...

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
THE DROPKICK MURPHYS – The State of Massachusetts (Cooking Vinyl) – New four tracker from the Irish American punks and more thick skin of defiance. Laced with all the driving old school Celtic folk bite you’d expect along with plenty of healthy pogue mahone attitude. They’re getting better and better every time. There’s a beautifully impressive slice of restrained and fine-lined Irish folk called Forever as a fourth track that’s more like a wholesome slice of Dubliners of Fureys  - www.dropkickmurphys.com

ALSO CHECK OUT
INTERVURT – Limited Edition EP (Dead Planet) – Four new smoldering indie rock tracks from the English band. Dark music for people who like the slickness of recent Foo Fighters or Queens Of The Stoneage via the moody drama of Placebo or Muse – which we don’t really, but hey, if you do then they’re doing it very well. Good to see a band sticking to their guns and if you like those bands we just politely mentioned I think you’ll be rather impressed – www.intervurt.com or www.myspace.com/intervurtrocks

Last week's single of the week - ONE MORE GRAIN

Previously - PLAAYDOH / HELLO WEMBLEY / UNDERWORLD / WAX AUDIO vs GEORGE BUSH / HAZEL MILLS / DEERHOOF / F*CK BUTTONS / IMPERIAL LEISURE / CLUB 8 / TURBO NEGRO / CANDY PANDY ATTACK / SUNS OF THUNDER

SINGLE REVIEW ARCHIVES

'RE-ISSUE/best of OF THE WEEK
Not this week...

PREVIOUSLY - N.W.A  / STRIBORG / 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

  MEDIA, VIDEO, PRINT AND....
SPIRITWO videoeyesNot this week, we've been busy in other places with other things...

PREVIOUSLY - GIANT PAW / AURAL INNOVATIONS  / 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

THE END BIT...
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
MORE NEXT WEEK, SAME TIME, SAME PLACE FOR NUMBER 240? 

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

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