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      Freq has been running in various forms since 1998, and this iteration has been around since 2010, with an archive of older material available too. Please scroll down and on for the most recent reviews; see also the archives index for 1998-2009 below while there is also an A-Z index of everything posted so far. The bulk of the record reviews 1998-2008 are in the following pages: Thrill Jockey
By now listeners knew what to expect from Tortoise, and indeed the opening track “TNT” delivered their trademark sound. Relatively upbeat, pretty serious and muso, it opens with jazzy drum frills which give way to a guitar riff straight from the band’s workbook. Dubby effects and muted horn riffs come into play in what Continue reading Tortoise re-release series, part 3 – TNT [...]
Thrill Jockey
This debate seems a little perplexing now, especially when one remembers that Tortoise started operations in the early to mid 90s. However, it’s important to remember that the year Millions Now Living Will Never Die was released, 1996, was just a year after Julian Cope released the Krautrocksampler book; and it had become de rigueur for rock albums with a leftfield bent to be compared to the radical music that hailed from Germany during the late 60s and early 70s. It seemed that much underground Continue reading Tortoise re-release series, part 2 – Millions Now Living Will Never Die [...]
Thrill Jockey
Supposedly coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds, the term appeared to be much maligned at the time. Deemed as po-faced, as was much of the music which fell under the banner, it shared space in the musical room of shame alongside IDM (intelligent dance music); surely the most irritating of all genre titles. Reynolds first used this term when reviewing the Bark Psychosis album Hex for The Wire; and indeed post-rock was initially attributed to the British underground as a Continue reading Tortoise re-release series, part 1 – Tortoise [...]
Ritual Productions
Bong have had number of releases over the past couple of years, many of them in limited editions; this is their second release on Ritual Productions and consists of two tracks that last about 46 minutes in total. Track 1 “Dreams of Mana Yood Sushai” starts with a low sitar like drone like a voice humming from the Himalayas calling people to prayer. A heavy bass riff begins to take over; this is joined by a clattering of drums, all keeping a funeral procession pace swathed in reverb Continue reading Bong – Mana-Yood-Sushai [...]
Exotic Pylon
Maria and The Mirrors have been described by Johnny as “two girls and Continue reading Maria And The Mirrors – Gemini Enjoy My Life [...]
Light In The Attic
This collection of solos and duets (the latter with Ann-Margret, Continue reading Lee Hazlewood – The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes & Backsides (1966-71) [...]
Rise Above (12″)/Coptic Cat (CD)
Before the decade was out, though, the landscape around the forest had changed beyond all recognition, whether through the angry thunderhead of Punk ripping apart Rock’s progressive trajectory, or the emergence of Chaos Magick leading away from the old Continue reading Comus – Out of the Coma [...]
Mute
“B-Mashina,” here recast as the film’s prequel having originally appeared on the WAT album, always had a cinematic aspect to it which demanded a visual interpretation, its impeccable SF credentials complete as the track builds into a clangorous operatic takeoff for a new life in the stars. Except of course in Iron Sky Continue reading Laibach – Iron Sky OST [...]
Mordant Music
This is the latest monster release from the ever-prolific Ekoplekz, this time seeing him flip cassettes from selected live bits and bobs (more bobs than bits, judging from his live performances) to studio improvisations and back again. There’s a wealth of material here, unformed and fruity, mangled like he likes it (like we like it) Echo dominates, nothing goes unmodulated, sounds screwed out of wires, savaged by electrics and misfires (and miswires). It’s perhaps superfluous to focus on individual tracks because these work best in bunches of three to five, like fingers in a fist, with knuckles knotted by knob-twists (the boy’s gonna have arthritis at this rate). To my ears, a lot of this sounds like a return to Continue reading Ekoplekz – Scalectrikz [...]
Clouds Hill
Continue reading Gallon Drunk – The Road Gets Darker From Here [...]
Rocket Girl
Continue reading Füxa – Electric Sounds Of Summer [...]
Baskaru
There Continue reading Francisco López – Untitled [2009] [...]
The Borderline, London 29 April 2012
As I entered The Borderline the place was already beginning to fill out early. The word was out that Purson were hot and people gathered to see what the fuss was about. I had already heard them as I had managed to find a copy of their limited single on Rise Above and was looking forward to finally seeing the band live, and they didn’t disappoint.
Hydra Head
Continue reading Circle – Manner [...]
The Tate Modern, London 14 April 2012
Continue reading Laibach (live at The Tate Modern) [...]
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When TNT came out, some of the band members mentioned whilst interviewed that using Pro Tools had given them too many options, and that they had feared at one point that the album would lack direction. Lacking direction would be a harsh criticism for TNT, however it could definitely be said that it’s a sprawling album, and can become aimless and like something akin to sonic wallpaper from time to time.
By the time the second Tortoise album appeared on the scene, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of time dedicated to the discussion as to whether they were in the spirit of Prog, or Krautrock.
The arrival of Tortoise brought along a discussion surrounding the widespread use of a new genre term that described a supposedly emerging musical genre. The term was ‘post-rock’ and, at the time, seemed to be the focus for as much debate as the band were themselves.
The drone is king, it calls from the high mountain tops, it echoes in the valleys, it is the sound of ancient ritual or the smell of incense from temples, long may the drone exist.
Jonny Mugwump’s label is throwing up some breathless oddbits. Every release is a tabula rasa, a slash and burn policy. Exotic Pylon is as fidgety as the radio show, a spastic in space and time and genre (never truly separated). He’s releasing stuff like a psychedelic squid. So far (and this is just the stuff I’ve managed to keep up with) there’s been the sweetly benevolent soaring of Gentleforce, the ‘kangaroos loose in top paddock’ hip-slop of Infinite Livez, the mental jungle concrete of Ronny Juzzle, a resurgent Band Of Holy Joy (he kept hearing them when others turned away; and he was right) and now… this.
The Seventies’ favourite candy-coloured California cowboy, Lee Hazlewood stands alongside the likes of Leonard Cohen and Serge Gainsbourg in his stature (if not physically) as one of those perennially louche raconteurs of the counterculture whose influence has accumulated and expanded over the passing decades. The throaty baritone, the whiskey and tear-stained sheets, the twang and strum of a full-spectrum pop sound which still managed to be imbued with a quintessence of the stories which the American pop-cultural elite (and they were an elite) told to and about themselves and spread across the wing-collared, bead-fringed world until it became the accepted face of what the Seventies meant to the popular imagination.
It was 1974 when Comus, after two truly blood-curdling albums (1971’s First Utterance and 1974’s To Keep From Crying), retreated to his woodland bower, lay down in a mossy hollow and went to sleep. Those recordings had been barely understood at the time, their power and strange attraction undeniable, yet somehow they remained too demonic, too priapic, to be embraced by those frightened of the twisted, leering face and the danse macabre melodies. The time of Comus had not yet come.
If someone had the bright idea of making a low-budget, crowdsourced skiffy film about Nazis found on the dark side of the moon, which artists should be asked to provide the soundtrack? Laibach, of course – who could be better suited to orchestrate the sound of fucked-up futurist fascism, the SS in space, of the ultimate Nazi holdout story – and so much the better if it’s the darkest of comedies.
The sound of two hands not clapping.
I must admit that the thought of a new release from Gallon Drunk was a bit exciting. Lead singer, guitarist and organist, James Johnston has been a revelation to experience in recent years with Faust, though mostly creating fantastic sounds and noises with his guitar and organ. Terry Edwards comes along as a guest with his saxophone occasionally, creating additional depth to whatever is happening on stage. Gallon Drunk did tour with Lydia Lunch for some time as Big Sexy Noise, and it was as that I saw them live in Germany a couple of years ago. Appearing as a steady rock act, and of course with Lydia Lunch, much is focused on her doings. That aside, Gallon Drunk also
I listened to this without looking at, without even seeing the title and it was still the first chimes of Summer. This is Spacemen 3 warm, a kind of druggy depth that might almost be twee if it wasn’t so headstrong, so sure of where it was going. I feel like I’ve spent over a year listening to Autumn and Winter records. The Tory/Lib Dem coalition doesn’t do Summer. Artists have been almost uniformly dragging themselves along the grey, downcast days, making more of geist than zeit, letting music drift away into the dark, into (mere) hauntings and echoes. The best psych folk album of the year (Alexander Tucker’s Third Mouth) mostly turns away from summer hues and even the cleaner, sharper
Snoring into view, Francisco López‘ umpteen-hundredth record (many of them untitled, and here each track is unnamed and numbered instead) crepitates and crunches, rustles, whistles and sussurates with the close-mic’d presence of musique concrète, up close and present in the ears. López’ attention to detail is almost disturbingly intimate, sound sidling, shuffling and creeping around the stereo image. Across two discs of supremely directed environmental manipulations and software arrangements, the overall effect is one which is replete with moments of intensity, a full-fat repast of sonic flavours which tickle the palette and satisfy cravings for the sort of sounds found lurking at the back of the fridge (in the machinery, crackling, and in the ice box, squeezing) before hissing flatulently into overloaded, satiated oblivion.
It had been raining solid for 24 hours. The streets of London were filled with a babbling brook of water that the sodden masses had to navigate to stop them from getting drenched further and all the while more fell from the sky to dampen peoples Saturday night.
Continue reading 
Twenty plus years and albums into the long strange trip that is Circle, Manner confirms that they are still a seriously out there band, whose œuvre can encompass punky noise and proggish metal with equal dexterity, a group who are never less than tight and whose playfulness is as convincing as their steely-eyed commitment to the very meaning of rock. This is the band who spearheaded the ever so slightly sardonically-yet-righly-named New Wave of Finnish Heavy Metal, who keep their faces poker straight even while ramming tongue firmly into cheek. Yes, singer/keyboardist/occasional ballet stooge Mika Rättö does dress as leatherman’s wet dream of a Rob Halford wannabe while singing like a demented cross between Ronnie James Dio and Freddy Mercury at his most operatic, but
In the days following the Laibach “We Come in Peace” show at The Tate Modern it is Mina Špiler’s singing of “Across the Universe” that stays on permanent replay in my head. Such a beautiful nearly acapella lullaby she made of the ominous lyrics, both promise and threat that nothing is ever going to change in this or any universe. Her clear little voice a fantastic bell ringing softly in contrast to the super power sound of the rest of this gig; she so delicately poised over her little keyboard and slightly trembling. Not one other Laibach song of the evening impressed itself upon me so, or equalled the nervous tension, the fragility of music, life as we know it