Category: Links

Saw You In A Mag, Kissing A Man

64 Quartets is already nine posts deep into the ninth quartet of his sixty-four, Wire, presenting an idiosyncratic, discursive lexicon of Wire’s initial run on Harvest. The ninth post only gets us as far as Bowie, David, with further lexicons promised covering Wire’s subsequent incarnations on Mute and under their own aegis, so settle in for the long haul. Hard to imagine any band more deserving of a full-length critical biography, and these posts might be as close as we’re getting. Start here.

Be Mine Tonight

Chasing Mailboxes announces the 14th annual Coffeeneuring Challenge. Last year I failed ignominiously after disappearing off to Le Guess Who with only five rides in the bag, and coming home too hungover to contemplate getting on the bike to finish it off. This year I will brook no failure.

Dean Roberts died a few months ago, far too young. He never seemed to receive the attention that his music deserved, despite releases on labels as storied as Mille Plateaux, Kranky, and Erstwhile. He probably tired of the comparisons with Mark Hollis and Talk Talk, but I can think of few artists who could bear the comparison so well, whose music matched that taut-nerved tension and haunted beauty.

And the Black Moths Play the Grand Cinema by Dean Roberts

Philip Sherburne’s comprehensive retrospective at Futurism Restated has disappeared behind the paywall, but Tone Glow and the Wire have reposted old interviews.

Afterbirth of the Cool

A highly entertaining interview with Kramer, stuffed with scurrilous detail on his time with Gong and the Butthole Surfers. Rick Moody (a name that hasn’t crossed my mind in two decades–plus) asks the questions. Hat tip to Rory for this one.

While we’re on the subject of the Butthole Surfers, Tone Glow offers up an equally exhaustive conversation with their guitarist, Paul Leary.

The Thin Line between Interesting and Boring

Over at Tone Glow, a typically in-depth interview with David Lance Callahan, formerly of the Wolfhounds and Moonshake. As Callahan comments, Moonshake were a schizophrenic band, the sneering edge of his songs rubbing up awkwardly against the breathy sensuality of Margaret Fiedler’s. For me, Moonshake were always outshone by the brilliance of her subsequent work with Laika, but listening to the songs laced through the interview reminded me that even if Moonshake weren’t the easiest band to listen to, they were consistently inventive, never dull. Stacks of interesting detail in the interview, the remastered Eva Luna went straight to the top of my shopping list.

Burning Ambulance runs the ruler over Sonic Youth’s first decade. It can hardly be controversial to suggest that their early work is far and away Sonic Youth’s best, a dislocating, psychedelic collision of noise, dissonance and rock. The further they travelled from their roots in no wave and Glenn Branca–esque drang, the more musicianly they became, the less individual they sounded, until the last reminders of their former abrasiveness and darkness were Kim Gordon’s vocals. The decision to hive off their experimental and improvisatory tendencies into the SYR series probably did much to keep Geffen on side, but surrendered the essential tension between pop and avant-garde that fired their eighties work. You could argue that the arrival of Steve Shelley was as much a curse as a blessing: without his power and fluidity, Sonic Youth could never have rocked like they did on Sister and Daydream Nation, but it’s hard to imagine they would have gone on to become so mature and assimilable with Bob Bert still on drums. In 1990, Sonic Youth were my favourite band by a country mile; does anyone say that about the Sonic Youth of ten or twenty years later?

Island Universe

A fascinating, in depth report on the DIY music scene in Cork, by Mariana Timoney. It’s hard to imagine that there’ll be many more like this on Bandcamp Daily, since Songtradr sacked nearly all the staff writers immediately after acquiring Bandcamp, but credit where credit is due—few other sites would have commissioned it in the first place.

The Quietus were unusually restrained this year, letting three whole days of December pass before publishing their Albums of the 2023 list. It’s as dementedly eclectic and esoteric as ever—I doubt I’ve even heard of two-thirds of the albums listed, much less listened to them.

Exploring the Parameter Space

Mammoth interview with Autechre in advance of their Vicar Street gig tomorrow night. I’m not usually gone on interviews that just present the unedited transcript of the conversation, but it seems appropriate here, given the multi-hour scale of some Autechre releases. There’s something of the same sense of wandering aimlessly in their world and unexpectedly happening on something really interesting.

If you’d asked me thirty years ago which bands of the day were likely to go down the Grateful Dead route of massive documentation of their live work, I might have guessed Sonic Youth, but Autechre wouldn’t have been anywhere on my radar. Nor Fugazi, for that matter.

Chasing Mailboxes lays down the law for the Coffeneuring Challenge 2023. The challenge is straightforward (ride your bike and drink coffee seven times in seven weeks) but in keeping with the grand tradition of randonneuring established by Audax Club Parisien, there is an elaborate set of rules, some honoured more in the breach than the observance.

Burning Ambulance runs down the oeuvre of Hedvig Mollestad. I only know Black Stabat Mater (and fully endorse Phil’s praise) but this video of Ekhidna covering “Red” convinces me that I need to dig deeper.

Tone Glow top their hefty A.R. Kane interview with an even chunkier one with Hal Hartley. Last year I rewatched the video shop classics of my youth — The Unbelievable Truth, Trust, Simple Men, and Amateur — and they still hold up for me. Judging from the interview, I have a lot of catching up to do.

Up Home!

“When you grow up in the East End of London in the 1970s, you wanna believe in evolution, I’m telling you. You don’t wanna believe that this is the end game.”

Hefty interview with Rudy Tambala of A.R. Kane over at Tone Glow.

I’ve listened to the Up Home! EP a few times in recent weeks, A.R. Kane on my mind since the review of the box set in the Wire. Filleted from the Complete Singles Collection, the EP sounds more striking than ever, almost incomprehensibly accomplished for a band only on their third single, and a quantum leap on from their debut, “When You’re Sad”. The lacerating distortion, the cavernous dub spaciousness, the rough sutures between the musical ideas left defiantly exposed…even in the febrile milieu of early UK post-rock, there weren’t many bands who sounded so individual, so unexpected. Maybe My Bloody Valentine (the jagged stop-start noise of Isn’t Anything more than the amniotic wash of Loveless) or Disco Inferno. It surprises me that several times in the interview Rudy mentions Slowdive, who I always thought of as being irremediably obvious and plodding, but perhaps I underrate them.

Elsewhere:

Keith Leblanc (Tackhead, Sugarhill Gang etc.) talks to Burning Ambulance.

Aquarium Drunkard explores guitar/drum duos, talking to Steve Gunn, Jim White, and Rick Brown of 75 Dollar Bill (who played two transcendental sets at the Workman’s Cellar last Saturday).