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| ORGAN
#239> JAN 24th '08 - new issue on line every Thursday afternoon |
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what seems like effortless ease they embrace us completely |
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? |
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
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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 |
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NEW ALBUMS WE’RE LISTENING TO THIS WEEK |
This
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
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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
ALBUM
REVIEW ARCHIVES |
LIVE |
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 |
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