“New myspace bands for you to love kids!”
“New myspace bands for you to love kids!”
Okay, whats grabbed my attention this month?
Well, for starters please go and listen to the fabulous Ulrich Schnauss, whose atmospheric, ambient-inclined dance music has been a staple Incendiary choice this past fortnight. Leaning heavily on textures and that were last seen in My Bloody Valentine (indeed, I’m sure there’s a snippet of MBV’s Glider EP in his fabulous track, On My Own) Schnauss creates a very rich interplay of diverse musical strands, all the while underpinned by some full on almost precision-Krautrock tub thumping. A Strangely Isolated Place, his first release, sounds an essential purchase.
http://www.myspace.com/ulrichschnauss
You could do a lot worse than listen to The Witch and the Robot, who are, frankly, strange. You should try reading their biographical notes. But their music is rather addictive. They are very much country lads with very little to do other than look out at the stunning Lakes scenery and go slightly bonkers. God is a Chemical is a warped, atmospheric take on that mid-seventies High California sound. Sorry for another Krautrock reference this month, but this track sounds like Amon Duul2 rehearsing (no bad thing in my books). Cattle Call is another intense pastoral outing, a mournful procession to the high pastures offset by some baffling electronic twiddling. Still there is, to my mind, something very interesting at work here.
http://www.myspace.com/thewitchandtherobot
Elsewhere Jim Noir continues to entertain in the way only he knows how… A very sharp musical intelligence is at work here; stylistically I suppose you could compare his music to that of Money Mark, but that would only be a very lazy judgement as the tracks have a much more vaudeville quality to them, a certain romantic yearning and earthy, dapper humour found only in the North West of England.cabaret that is at odds with Money Mark’s smug vignettes. Key of C is utterly brilliant, a bubblegum advert shown between films at Rochdale Odeon (or summat)
http://www1.myspace.com/jimnoir
For something more esoteric, may I humbly suggest Hans Fjellestad, who makes one unholy racket with his Moog. There is a DAF-like sensibility about his music, noticable in the track Kylling; dependant as it is on atonal rhythms and sounds. The music has an air of menace and black humour; listen to Abominatron or the unravelling of Pacifico and tell me that you don’t feel uneasy… no I won’t believe you. Still, this challenging, interesting stuff.
http://www.myspace.com/hansfjellestad
Finally we couldn’t exclude Jason Forrest, whose My 36 Favourite Punk Tracks has (in this excited reviewer’s ears) to be the greatest punk track ever created. The title gives it away really. It’s genius… He describes his music as Cock Rock Disco, and he’s not far wrong. Lady Fantasy is another ecclectic jumble of sound that somehow manages to eschew a formidable intelligence and sharpness. It’s very funny in a German way, reminiscent of Faust at their most trickster-ish. Check him out.
http://www.myspace.com/jason_forrest
Words Richard Foster.