Swindon band Tin Spirits return with their second album to the introductory slowed down sound of a match being struck and then burning, an aural image that is repeated in the visual of the cover artwork. Carnivore then lumbers in…
View More Tin Spirits – ScorchAuthor: Roger Trenwith
A Celebration Of Lindsay Cooper
Barbican Hall, London 21st November 2014 An unfortunate combination of our navigational failings and a signal failure on the Circle Line meant we arrived at this plush central London venue about half-way through Henry Cow’s first number Half The Sky,…
View More A Celebration Of Lindsay CooperThe Mercury Tree – Countenance
Ben Spees, guitarist and keyboard player and vocalist with eclectic Portland, Oregon band The Mercury Tree describes Countenance as being “stylistically all over the map” and he is right. Being “all over the map” might often be a phrase used…
View More The Mercury Tree – CountenanceYes – Relayer | Remixed & Expanded by Steven Wilson (2014)
This will be a brief review of the album as there are already far too many words out there about Yes’s most progressive work. Ah, I see the old trick of starting off with a mildly controversial statement worked, you’re…
View More Yes – Relayer | Remixed & Expanded by Steven Wilson (2014)Pearls Of Swines – Pearls Of Swines
The last album I reviewed that involved the ever-busy and highly talented eclectic bass wrangler Frederick Galiay was Apokálupsis by Big (drum&bass), but Pearls Of Swines could not be more different. Apokálupsis was a strange and hard to like “deeply…
View More Pearls Of Swines – Pearls Of SwinesWrupk Urei – Kõik Saab Korda
In a departure for AltrOck, a label normally associated with the more avant end of the progressive spectrum, Estonian band Wrupk Urei have crafted a highly individual instrumental palette that dips its brush into space rock, or possibly inner-space rock,…
View More Wrupk Urei – Kõik Saab KordaHelp Yourself – Reaffirmation: An Anthology 1971-1973
Esoteric Recordings have come up trumps with this delightful career-spanning retrospective of English band Help Yourself. Featuring tracks from all four of the group’s studio albums issued during the band’s short lifespan, plus singles and rare live cuts, Reaffirmation does…
View More Help Yourself – Reaffirmation: An Anthology 1971-1973Moraine – Groundswell
I would imagine if you were one of a mere 297 souls living on a tiny island group whose main and probably only claim to fame is that it is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, being some…
View More Moraine – GroundswellMarcus O’Dair – Robert Wyatt Biography
Marcus O’Dair is the writer of an authorised biography of Robert Wyatt, Different Every Time, which is out at the end of the month. He is also one half of esoteric electronica duo Grasscut, who have a new single out,…
View More Marcus O’Dair – Robert Wyatt BiographyTrojan Horse – World Turned Upside Down
There are some bands that only properly make sense at volume eleven in a state of altered consciousness, and Salford lads Trojan Horse are one of them. They are a new band to me, but this is their second album.…
View More Trojan Horse – World Turned Upside Down