Numero present ’90s shoegaze band Should’s ’98 debut ‘Feed Like Fishes’ + 10 period bonus tracks.
The folks in Phoenix’s Half String talked up this trio when they were Austin, TX’s shiFt (before they moved north to various universities and gave up their name because of another band called Shift). And it’s easy to see why: Should would have fit perfectly into Arizona’s former “beautiful noise,” post-dream pop scene.
Even without the interestingly sedate but grasping cover of the Wedding Present’s “Spangle” (and, on another record, 18th Dye’s “Merger”), their sound makes it apparent that they can match the English in pairing inventive, modern guitars to lulling tunes for nighttime singing. You could see “Sarah Missing” appearing on a Slowdive…
Category: *editions*
Live at Nelsonica & Clothworkers Hall – this is the first ever released recording of this unique trio comprising of: Bill Nelson (Be Bop Deluxe/Red Noise), Theo Travis (Soft Machine/Robert Fripp/Steven Wilson), Dave Sturt (Gong/Jade Warrior).
The trio performed various concerts between 2009 and 2019 often as part of Bill Nelson’s ‘Nelsonica’ conventions. Following years of planning and preparation, this album consists of live recordings made by the trio in 2011, 2012 and 2018 from 3 concerts in Leeds and York.
The music, a broad sound palette from ambient soundscapes, to rocky workouts and ethereal mood painting was improvised over loosely prepared structures. with occasional use of backing…
…This expanded reissue adds 8 songs recorded at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA, a few months after the album sessions. These sessions provided playfully experimental B sides to the album’s singles, two cover songs (the New Order cover “Your Silent Face,” and a Beach Boys cover) for a single on Merge Records, and a compilation track.
The problem with Copacetic was the dingy production, so for Simpatico, Velocity Girl hooks up with the Smiths’ first LP producer John Porter. Flaw corrected. Perhaps too much? Some have expressed the opinion that Porter has neutered them somewhat, and indeed, the rawer edges have largely been relinquished, but so what? They sound great now, much tighter, more convincing, more together. Constant touring has…
For a few minutes in 1976 – America’s bicentennial year and the 15th anniversary of California-sun ambassadors The Beach Boys – the hype was right: Brian Wilson was back. On November 27th, the group’s resident, troubled genius was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. And he was solo, his first TV appearance without brothers Dennis and Carl, Mike Love and Al Jardine since a legendary recital of Surf’s Up in the 1967 documentary Inside Pop. Brian’s three SNL songs included an eerie ‘Good Vibrations’ – alone and skittish at a piano in a faux-sandbox set – and ‘Back Home’, a jaunty original from the Beach Boys’ latest LP, 15 Big Ones, with the SNL band even though the former were in town selling out Madison Square Garden.
Brian also performed ‘Love Is a Woman’, a new…
Backtracking a bit from previously issued volumes of the series, Musik Music Musique 1979: The Roots of Synth Pop functions as a sort of prequel, mapping out the blueprint of the new wave revolution of the ’80s, from synth-heavy post-punk and art rock to some of synth pop’s earliest chart-toppers. It’s not as if electronic instruments weren’t prominent in popular music before 1979, but synthesizers were clearly well on their way to being a defining characteristic of the musical landscape. The set starts with the Buggles’ “Technopop,” proposing a name for the music of the future — Kraftwerk would later give a song a similar title on 1986’s Electric Café, which originally had the working title Techno Pop as well, and decades later, a reissue retroactively bore…
In 2024, Georgia-based guitarist, composer, and improviser Shane Parish released Repertoire, an album of 14 covers on solo acoustic guitar. The songs were mostly from forward-thinking jazz composers – Ornette Coleman, Charles Mingus, Alice Coltrane, Sun Ra, among others – along with interpretations of songs by the likes of the Minutemen, Captain Beefheart, and Aphex Twin thrown in for good measure. The result is a gorgeous puzzle of acoustic recordings that brought together unique compositions interpreted by a fearless soloist.
Now, with Solo at Café OTO, Parish has created something of a companion piece, swapping out the acoustic guitar for a Squier Telecaster electric, and covering a variety of compositions…
…The long-standing duo of percussionist George Barton and pianist Siwan Rhys, hereafter GBSR and augmented here by flautist Taylor MacLennan, offers Morton Feldman’s homage to his erstwhile artistic comrade Guston, along with Why Patterns? (1978) and Crippled Symmetry (1983) in a wonderfully annotated six-disc set commensurate with the label’s other Feldman and Cage boxes, for which all involved have been justly lauded. The label has made a specialty of these two composers who are, clumsily and too often, still associated with the New York School, a designation that does the individuality of their work no justice. It is, however, music for which performance traditions are still in formation, making these sets doubly important for the deep dives…
Spectralism is a type of composition that is organized by taking as its basis aspects of the harmonic series, or the overtones resulting from a sounding pitch. From the ’70s onward, composers, many of them residing in France or Romania, have looked at spectrograms of sounds to plot out the harmonies that they will deploy over time in a piece. This may sound rarified, but it is also one of the oldest traditions in music. Early humans listened for resonances, particularly in caves, some even using conch shells (brought in from many miles away) to create loud enough sounds to hear lots of reverberating overtones. Throat singers manipulate their voices to sound more than a single pitch at a time. If you have ever heard a bunch of higher sounds…
Kenny Reichert‘s a terrific guitarist, but the Chicagoan also has a knack for writing catchy tunes and insidious melodies. Look no further than this latest set’s opening number, “Poppy Seed,” whose slinky theme burrows quickly under the skin. On his first live album, recorded in October 2024 before a small but appreciative gathering at the city’s Pro Musica, the guitarist partners with alto saxophonist Lenard Simpson, upright bassist Ethan Philion, and drummer Devin Drobka, reputable players in their own right and much sought after when not leading their own projects. Each excels in a free milieu and helps midwife Reichert’s five originals into being, and a clear impression of group identity forms as the album plays.
Live in Chicago is looser and more open-ended…
…remastered 40th Anniversary Edition originally recorded and mixed by the lauded British sound engineer Ian Burgess.
One of the first major bands on the Chicago punk scene, the Effigies arrived as first-era punk was being supplanted by hardcore, but their sound reflected little of either. The band was less interested in speed than impact: their songs were simple but intelligently constructed, their lyrics were angry but artful meditations on urban alienation with shout-along choruses, and their performances were muscular and made clever use of dynamics with the guitars grinding and slashing. The Effigies’ influence in the Midwest (especially in their hometown) was significant, and one can hear the faint echo of their early work…
The latest volume in Bulbous Monocle’s Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 reissue campaign vaults over the Matador years back to the band’s earliest LP. Tangle was released in 1989, prior to TFUL282’s years of rigorous touring.
It’s a first album; you can hear styles engaged and influences acknowledged in a partially digested manner that differs from their later years, when, if they wanted to sound like something, they just covered the song.
There’s a deep vein of blues and western guitar, most evident on the slow, sinister groove of “Cold Cold Ground,” but also audible on the twangy lead guitar of “Sister Hell” and the languid slide intro to “Choke.” The band works a few Sonic Youth moves into the mix as well, like…
The Go! Team celebrated 20 years of their debut album Thunder, Lightning, Strike with a sold out Roundhouse show in February 2024. Capturing a band still at the height of their powers, this limited edition contains all the kaleidoscopic chaos and energy that make The Go! Team live such a unique experience.
Kicking off the performance with “Panther Dash,” an instrumental track from Thunder, Lightning, Strike, The Go! Team showcased a blend of influences ranging from indie, funk, hip-hop, folk, and mysticism. The track’s glorious trumpets elevated it to a status reminiscent of Beck’s “Sexx Laws.” Following this opener was the iconic “Ladyflash,” the song that introduced the world to The Go! Team. Reflecting on the setlist, one couldn’t…
Prog superstar Steven Wilson has released a new album, Impossible Tightrope: Live in Madrid. It’s the first release to arrive via Wilson’s new audiophile platform, Headphone Dust.
“For some time I’ve been planning to have an online platform where I can focus on making audiophile versions of the things I work on,” says Wilson. “I love (and am still committed to) the Blu-ray format, but not everyone has the capacity to play these discs, not to mention that these releases need to be limited and tend to go out of print quickly, meaning the audio becomes unavailable. “So I’m happy to announce that a brand new Headphone Dust high-res audio resource has now launched and will provide a permanent home for my work to be downloaded in high resolution, 5.1…
Originally released through Relapse Records, the album has been remastered by long time Unsane collaborator and engineer Andrew Schneider. Include the extra track “No Soul” which was originally released on Frank Kozik’s infamous Man’s Ruin label as a limited edition vinyl only release. Additionally the band has made available digitally this release’s original 6 song demo session recorded at AmRep Studios in Minneapolis.
New York City’s Unsane assisted in pioneering a more aggressive, less studied version of noise rock, one that blended the scum/art industrial sturm und drang of Foetus, the Swans, Einstürzende Neubauten, and Sonic Youth with the decidedly more straightforward hardcore idiom favored by acts like Sick of It All.
This release unearths a previously unreleased live recording from Boris’s 2019 US tour, captured shortly after the release of the single tears e.p and the album LΦVE & EVΦL.
Released in 2019, LΦVE & EVΦL is a conceptual work consisting of two contrasting yet intertwined albums. Following the heavy yet catchy Noise (2014) and the organic deepening of Dear (2017), the 2019 single tears e.p arrived as a pendulum swing toward pure popness, featuring collaborations with Narasaki (Coaltar Of The Deepers) and Shinobu Narita. Subsequently, the album LΦVE & EVΦL peered into the abyss of “heavy” even further-manifesting a world of saturated contours and gridless, intoxicating soundscapes that redefined…
With Live Archive Vol. 1: Going to Princeton 10/20/24, The Mountain Goats open the doors to what feels less like a conventional live album and more like a curated moment in their long-running relationship with their audience. Recorded at the McCarter Theatre Center in Princeton, the set captures John Darnielle and company in sharp, confident form—relaxed enough to let songs breathe, but focused enough to give each one its emotional weight. The sound is clear and unforced, preserving the intimacy that has always defined the band’s best live performances.
The 21-song setlist spans multiple eras, moving effortlessly from deep cuts like “Idylls of the King” and “Raja Vocative” to live staples such as “This Year,” “No Children,” and “Heretic Pride.”