World-class violinist. Fashion icon. Famously bipolar. Vegetarian turned vegan. Identifies herself as asexual, freak for some, idol for others, Emilie Autumn is one artist you may love or you may hate, but definitively hard to stay indifferent. And even further, listing – and living – through “F.L.A.G.” – her third installment – you may love one song and hate the next one while this is another tumultuous journey from glossy cabaret to Industrial chaos, from burlesque to Glam Rock and back to psychotic Steampunk, while she often labels her music and style as “Victoriandustrial”.
Her vocal work has been compared to Tori Amos and Kate Bush, while her music encompasses a wide range of styles, it was labeled “new age chamber music, trip-hop baroque, and experimental space pop”, as well as “cabaret, electronic, symphonic, new age, and rock & roll”. Things did not changed with “F.L.A.G.”, Emilie cry one moment and laugh the next one and the music follows her ever changing flow of mood. Not an easy walk through a sunny park Sunday at the noon, but a dark, fractured, fever burned trip on the wild side. For real and for delusion. Read more Emilie Autumn – Fight Like A Girl (2012)
avant-garde
Laibach – Monumental Retro-Avant-Garde, Live at Tate Modern (2012)
On the 14th April 2012, Laibach presented a unique show at the prestigious Tate Modern Turbine Hall, with an overview of their history, from 1980 to the future, with music from their latest release, the “Iron Sky” soundtrack. This historical event has been recorded and is now available to order as a double CD Limited Edition or download released by Mute and Abbey Road Live Here Now.
Laibach is history. The Slovenian avant-garde music group was formed on June 1, 1980 in Trbovlje, Slovenia, at the time SFR Yugoslavia. They represents the music wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) art collective, of which they was founding members in 1984. The name “Laibach” is the German name for Slovenia’s capital city, Ljubljana.
The band’s first work was a multimedia project called “Rdeči revirji” (“Red District”), but the performance was banned even before its opening due to its “improper and irresponsible” usage of Malevich’s black crosses as symbols on the posters. The first live appearance and an exhibition entitled “Žrtve letalske nesreće” (“Victims of an Air Accindent”) the group had in January 1982 at the Ljubljana club FV, followed by some now legendary performances in Belgrade and Zagreb. At that point, the group’s musical style was characterized by the critics as “Industrial Rock”, and Read more Laibach – Monumental Retro-Avant-Garde, Live at Tate Modern (2012)
Echancrure – Discours sur le colonialisme, EP (2012)
Aimé Fernand David Césaire (26 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique, being “one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature”. In 1945, with the support of the French Communist Party, Césaire was elected mayor of Fort-de-France and deputy to the French National Assembly for Martinique. He was one of the principal drafters of the 1946 law on departmentalizing former colonies, a role for which independentist politicians have often criticized him.
Like many left intellectuals in France, Césaire looked in the 1930s and 1940s toward the Soviet Union as a source of human progress, virtue, and human rights, but Césaire later grew disillusioned with Communism. In 1956, after the Soviet Union’s suppression of the Hungarian revolution, Aimé Césaire announced his resignation from the PCF in a text entitled “Lettre à Maurice Thorez”. In 1958 he founded the Parti Progressiste Martiniquais.
His writings during this period reflect his passion for civic and social engagement. He wrote “Discours sur le colonialisme” (Discourse on Colonialism) in 1950, a denunciation of European colonial racism, decadence, and hypocrisy that was republished in the French review Présence Africaine in 1955.
This work inspired Antoine from Echancrure to build up this 20 minutes long musical incursion into modern capitalist decadence. Read more Echancrure – Discours sur le colonialisme, EP (2012)
Atomik Clocks – Magdan in Charleroi (2011)
Literally mind-blowing Funk, some pumping Punk energy and pounding Rock attitude, Atomik Clocks delivering a quite refreshing mixture of Jazz, Funk and Rock, merging the spirit of free, improvised music with the power and weight of experimental spiced, Progressive Rock, eventually reminds me of Morphine.
“Magdan in Charleroi”, their first full-length release is available as digital download for only €3 on their official Bandcamp page, and definitively it worth every single penny of it!!
We’ve got 10 groovy, sometimes pretty Psychedelic taste-like, experimental, but not pointlessly abstract songs, an exciting mixture of styles and approaches, the saxophone playing the main role, but the killer funky bass is equally present while the drums offers the solid bases for these sonic jams. Read more Atomik Clocks – Magdan in Charleroi (2011)
Serj Tankian – Harakiri (2012)
Although to put together a Rock album seems a quite simple thing, to be honest, it’s been a while since I didn’t heard a good Rock album. Maybe because everybody pretend to be somebody else, maybe because music isn’t art anymore, but business and industry, or because everything became patterned, excessively target oriented, predictable and plastic taste-like. Tankian – once again – seems to put his thoughts and his soul on the table, while he’s completely cut off any ties to any particular genre, style and expectations and focused on the music and his message. “Harakiri” isn’t a “complicated” album, but a honest one. And “Harakiri” isn’t a classic Rock album in its pure conservative sense, but a colorful, tripping, searching and experimenting material, each and every song have its own soul and style while all together is absolutely and unmistakably Serj Tankian. Read more Serj Tankian – Harakiri (2012)
Dead Can Dance – Anastasis (2012)
Formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981, relocated to London in May 1982, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top World Music Albums Chart with their seventh, 1996 album “Spiritchaser” which also charted on Billboard 200, disbanded in 1998, reunited 7 years later in 2005, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry are path openers with their unique mixture of genres and styles, merging African polyrhythms with Gothic Rock, Gaelic folk with Post-Punk, Gregorian chants with New Age and Dark Wave, or Middle Eastern mantras with ethereal and Dream Pop.
“Anastasis”, the long awaited, upcoming eight studio album by the band is not different then the previous ones. It’s an exciting and colorful mixture of dark and Oriental vibes, minimalism and subtle, polyphonic build-ups, hypnotic mantras and addictive rhythms, Dead can Dance are once again a secret doorway to a lost and find universe of subconscious and superconscious. It’s a journey and an intimate, unique, mystical experience for each and every listener. Read more Dead Can Dance – Anastasis (2012)
Mission Of Burma – Unsound (2012)
In the good tradition and vein of such truly seminal artists as the Velvet Underground, The Stooges and Dead Kennedys, Mission Of Burma delivered their own flavored Post-Punk/Indie Rock and “Unsound” is their sixth and upcoming album filled with experimental explorations and paths back to the 70’s without being retro at all.
Formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979. The band was formed by Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums) and Martin Swope (tape manipulator/sound engineer), over the course of their brief first four-year career (1979-1983), Mission Of Burma has laid the foundation for a movement in Post-Punk Rock which remains vital today and inspired several generations. Their bracing mixture of Punk, Pop, Art Rock, and Avant-garde experimentation as they play it strident and powerful, gave them an unique flavor which remains fresh and an unmistakable trademark of the band. Read more Mission Of Burma – Unsound (2012)
Process of Guilt – Faemin (2012)
With strong roots back to Doom and Dark Metal, formed in 2002, Process Of Guilt bring darkness and contorted heaviness from the sunny Portugal.
After self-releasing two demos, “Portraits of Regret”, respectively “Demising Grace”, in 2006 they delivered their own-flavored debut album entitled “Renounce”.
Their second full-length “Erosion” was released in 2008 followed by performances while sharing the stage with acts as diverse as The Ocean, Intronaut, Minsk, A Storm Of Light, Katatonia, Napalm Death and Rotten Sound.
3 years after the release of “Erosion” the band release their third – and deadly – album. For only €5 you can download the digital album, five epic and grinding songs, revealing a new level of darkness, contortion and heaviness which will definitively nail you down. Be prepered for the collision! Read more Process of Guilt – Faemin (2012)
Dementio13 – El Lissitzky (2012)
“Sick”, “dope” and FREE (name your price) !! Exactly as the people expect to be nowadays. Still, as I often said, art and artists need to be supported, otherwise it will fade out and we will only have the mainstream plastic BS, perfectly packed, consumer-friendly, but meaningless and tasteless. I’m kind of dependent of independent music, too old to expect or believe in “revolutions”, but still willing to take the hard way and prefer to explore the unknown and unexpected, then accept the comfortable. And Dementio13 it’s definitively genderless, experimental, boundaries breaker music ready for open minds and ears.
So, if you’re not afraid to take a trip into the wide open unknown without having a clue where it’s gonna take you, “El Lissitzky” is your ticket to ride – and get free. Read more Dementio13 – El Lissitzky (2012)
Neneh Cherry and The Thing – The Cherry Thing (2012)
Do you remember “7 Seconds”? It was a hit single back in 1996 and received a Grammy nomination, won the Best Song title at the MTV Europe Music Awards. The album was entitled “Man”, “7 Seconds” featuring Youssou N’Dour, the track “Woman” is Neneh Cherry take on James Brown’s 1966 track “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World”, “Trouble Man” a cover of a Marvin Gaye track, while another track, “Together Now”, featured Tricky.
In 2006, Cherry announced the formation of a new band, cirKus, releasing two albums “Laylow” in 2006, respectively “Medicine” in 2009.
Mats Gustafsson (saxophones), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (double bass), and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums), knowned as The Thing, are one of the most incisive experimental/free Jazz bands of the contemporary Jazz scene.
This four artist together delivering the eight tracks of “The Cherry Thing”. Album will be released in June 2012. Read more Neneh Cherry and The Thing – The Cherry Thing (2012)
