Tuxedomoon
“Blue Velvet Revisited”, by Tuxedomoon and Cult With No Name. The legendary soundtrack of Blue Velvet, the David Lynch film that turns thirty next year, is associated in memory with three songs that appeared there, but which were much older: the Bobby Vinton song that gave the film its title;…
Akira Sakata, Merzbow, Chikamorachi and Jim O’Rourke
«Flying Basket», by Akira Sakata, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke and Chikamorachi. For the militant follower of alternative rock, the most “well-known” of the creators of this album is Jim O’Rourke, for his time with Gastr del Sol and Sonic Youth. For noise fans and Sonar fans, the one who sounds familiar…
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
«Loin des hommes. OST», by N. Cave & W. Ellis. Since Ghosts of the Civil Dead, Nick Cave has composed numerous soundtracks, the latest of which – for the past ten years – have been in the company of his partner (in The Bad Seeds and Grinderman) Warren Ellis. They…
Pascal Comelade
“El Steinway a la guillotina”, by P. Comelade. To the crisis, imagination. If they don’t sell CDs, they “give them away” with a comic… El piano rojo is a comic by Max in which characters from the Catalan musical underground appear: Pau Riba, Sisa, Victor Nubla and… Pascal Comelade. The…
Anna von Hausswolff
“Ceremony”, by Anna von Hausswolff. It is challenging to start with a church organ as the main instrument on a record: its sound is resounding and determines a very strong personality (Emerson, Lake & Palmer demonstrated this in the early seventies). This young Swedish composer is also brave and determined….
X-TG Throbbing Gristle / Nico
“Desertshore/The Final Report”, by X-TG. X-TG? In 2007 the four founding members of Throbbing Gristle (Genesis P. Orridge, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti), reunited for a series of performances at the ICA in London to reinterpret Nico’s album Desertshore. In 2010 Sleazy revisited that idea to…
Qluster
“Antworten”, by Qluster. Kluster was one of the basic German krautrock bands of the 1970s. One of its members, Hans Joachim Roedelius, without entrusting himself to the other members, has been changing the name over the last forty years for his own projects. First it was Cluster (with Dieter Moebius,…
Carter Tutti Void
“Transverse”, by Carter Tutti Void. Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, founders of Throbbing Gristle in the 1970s, continued their musical career on the fringes of the noise avant-garde under the name Chris & Cosey and became Carter Tutti at the turn of the 21st century. Nik Void, meanwhile, is…
Brian Eno
“Drums Between the Bells”, by Brian Eno. Brian Eno, the ex-Roxy Music, the creator of ambient music (he called it “discreet”), the mega-producer (from U2 to Talking Heads, via Coldplay), Bowie’s avant-garde friend, Robert Fripp’s partner in multiple projects…, now returns to set to music a series of texts by…
“SERIES OF ANDS. Immediate givens”, by Wim Mertens
“SERIES OF ANDS. Immediate givens”, by Wim Mertens. The Belgian composer and pianist Wim Mertens emerged in the eighties as the most popular voice in continental Europe in the field of the minimalist current of contemporary music (Glass, Reich, Nyman…) With the passage of time he has not managed to…
Cluster
“Cluster ’71”, by Cluster. After Konrad Schnitzler’s departure from Kluster, the two remaining members, Dieter Moebius and Hans Joachim Roedelius continued under the name Cluster. And with their eponymous first album – now reissued – they created in 1971 one of the emblematic albums of krautrock (which was then called…
Balago
“Extractes d’un diari”, by Balago. The fourth album by the Spanish band Balago is not only their personal peak, their most melodic and rhythmic work, but also one of the most serious works of the Spanish musical avant-garde: “the Abbey Road of the drone”. Its twenty-one tracks show a wide…