Ballister is a hard hitting trio having one foot at Chicago and the other one at Oslo and it’s comprised of Dave Rempis (Saxophones) Fred Lonberg-Holm (Cello & Electronics) and Paal Nilssen-Love (Percussion). Dave Rempis was a member of The Vandermark Five, and has developed many Chicago-based groups for which he is currently known. These include The Rempis Percussion Quartet, The Engines, The Rempis/Rosaly Duo, The Outskirts,The Rempis/Daisy Duo, Bishop/Rempis/Kessler/Zerang, and Wheelhouse. Past working groups include Triage, and the Dave Rempis Quartet. Many of these groups have been documented on the Okkadisk, 482 Music, Not Two, Solitaire, and Utech record labels. Rempis also performs and tours with Ken Vandermark’s Territory Band and Resonance.
Chicago based cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm has played and studied music in a variety of situations from the Juilliard School to the gutter. A former student of Anthony Braxton, Morton Feldman, Bunita Marcus and Pauline Oliveros, his primary projects are his Valentine Trio and The Lightbox Orchestra. He is also a member of a number of ongoing collective projects (The Boxhead Ensemble, The Friction Brothers with Michaels Zerang and Colligan, The Flatlands Collective, Keefe Jackson’s Fast Citizens) He also currently plays in groups led by Joe McPhee Peter Brotzmann, and Ken Vandermark. He has contributed cello sounds to numerous recording projects by rock groups including Califone, Freakwater, God-is-my-co-pilot, L’altra, Smog, Super Chunk, US Maple, Wilco and many others.
Paal Nilssen-Love has stated his position as one of the most profiled drummers in Europe today, he has made numberless performances at festivals and clubs in Europe and USA and participated on more than 50 recordings. He plays in several bands and project such as Atomic, Element, The Thing, Scorch Trio, School Days, Territory Band and collaborate with artists such as Pat Metheny, Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, Joe McPhee, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, Terrie Ex (The Ex), John Butcher, Lasse Marhaug – along many others. He runs his own annual festival – All Ears – for improvised music in Oslo. Read more Ballister – Mechanisms (2012)
Reviews
maQLu – Futureghosts, EP (2012)
Dark and strange, noisy and contorted, but with a secretly pulsing taste of mystery, Vancouver based noise-electro creep maQLu [aka Pyra Draculea] has just released her fourth EP, “Futureghosts”, on April 30, 2012, available through her Bandcamp page for free download (name your price). In the same location and on the same bases you can also grab two other previous releases, “The Maqlu Tarot” and “blood.black.haze”, a CD album which incorporates her first three EP’s.
maQLu named as her influences bands and artists such as Skinny Puppy, Chris & Cosey, ohGr, Nine Inch Nails, and Revolting Cocks, she reminded me mainly of Diamanda Galás and her dark, liturgical trips, she have that experimental thirst of Shikhee of Android Lust, but also she have roots back to minimalist No Wave and even further, back to Kraftwerk-like electro experiments and the nerve of The Stranglers. This music is about atmosphere and feelings, rather then about rhythms and dance, this go to your brain and soul, rather then driven your feet. Read more maQLu – Futureghosts, EP (2012)
John Zorn – Nosferatu (2012)
Over one hour of genius and madness. Zorn strikes again and by his side are guys like Bill Laswell on bass, Kevin Norton playing vibraphone, drums, orchestral bells, tibetan prayer bowls, Rob Burger on piano and organ, while Zorn killing his piano, alto saxophone, Fender Rhodes, and build some dark electronic layers.
Always full of surprises, Zorn delivered another masterpiece, “Nosferatu” is a pearl, a rare diamond, dark, deep, still shining and colorful album, I do my best to avoid to stick to it any label, although this is definitively Jazz, but it’s blended with million subtle shades of sound kicking off from furious Metal hurricanes (as in “The Battle of Good and Evil”) to mystic, charmingly strange and abstract moments of silence and disturbing noises (as in “Hypnosis”). Read more John Zorn – Nosferatu (2012)
Public Image Ltd. – This is PiL (2012)
Horrible cover! Intentionally, I think, I know can not judge a book by its cover, didn’t lost my sense of humor, but still… On the other (bloody) hand, this is PiL!
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten, and just for the kids, ex-Sex Pistols) never or rarely is mentioned as a genius, eventually a madman. Odd how people attach the genius label quite easily to guys (or gays?) like Rufus Wainwright, or considering morons like Dildo, sorry, Diplo as “influential music tastemakers”, while really valuable creations are constantly and totally marginalized by the almighty media. This is the Hell we’re in? Not really, not yet anyway, this is only a Lollipop Opera we’re living…. 😆
Their early work is often regarded as some of the most challenging and innovative music of the post-punk era. Their 1979 album “Metal Box” was ranked number 469 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The NME described PiL as “arguably the first post-rock group”.
Formed in 1978 by vocalist Lydon, guitarist Keith Levene and bassist Jah Wobble, with frequent subsequent personnel changes, the list of PiL contributors include among many others names such as Martin Atkins, Bill Laswell – producer and bass guitarist (Album), Steve Vai – guitar (Album), Ginger Baker – drums (Album), L. Shankar – electric violin (Album), etc. “Album”, the fifth studio album was released in 1986 and Lydon said that Miles Davis came into the studio while the album was being recorded and commented that Lydon sang like Davis played the trumpet. Lydon later said it was “still the best thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Read more Public Image Ltd. – This is PiL (2012)
Trioscapes – Separate Realities (2012)
Trioscapes started in the summer of 2011 when Dan Briggs(Between the Buried and Me) contacted Walter Fancourt (Casual Curious, Brand New Life) and Matt Lynch (Eyris) about working up a rendition of the Mahavishnu Orchestra classic “Celestial Terrestrial Commuters” and messing around with a few original ideas with the intent of playing a one-off show. “Blast Off,” the first song released a few months back impressed both the media and the fans and the expectation of the promised debut album raised to boiling high. Released on 08th May, 2012, by Metal Blade Records, “Separate Realities” will blow your head off. Read more Trioscapes – Separate Realities (2012)
Don’t Believe The Hype Pt. 2 – Sostanze Records Free Download!
If you have a party coming up, we have the soundtrack that will slaughter your neighbors. Download it now. For free.
“Don’t believe the hype (part 1)” by Sostanze Records made platinum record with over 40.000 downloads on the web, so, they are back with the follow up and their devouring energy.
The compilation offered is a mix of electro, dubstep and drum’n’bass, ready to burn your stereos and give you the right music for a night among friends, through the different approaches to the electronic music proposed by the several artists, each of them with his unmistakable style. Read more Don’t Believe The Hype Pt. 2 – Sostanze Records Free Download!
Destroy Nate Allen – With Our Powers Combined (2012)
Nate Allen sounds pissed off. I said pissed off? Very pissed off. “Emergency” is a killer track, and not the only one out of 15 brand new genuine Punk anthems. And I would accentuate the word genuine. This is absolutely honest and breathing music, nothing sounds fake, prefabricated, predictable and tasteless, empty. They put lot of soul and energy into this. This time Nate and Tessa are backed-up by a full band and this definitively gave a plus energy to this songs. And not at least in this dark times, this is fun. What the hell, we talk occasionally On the Internet, don’t we?
Destroy Nate Allen started as the solo/quiet acoustic musings of Nate Allen and has evolved and twisted into a two piece Rock’N’Roll attack, sharply focused on showing people a good time.
Combining Tessa’s impulsive theatrical urges with Nate’s love for early 90′s Pop Punk, DNA play Folk music like Punk Rock and definitively they make you sing, laugh and dance, buy another beer down in the club, and eventually buy their CD. Read more Destroy Nate Allen – With Our Powers Combined (2012)
Garbage – Not Your Kind of People (2012)
Getting older, stupider, dunno, but this is my kind of music. I was impressed by Garbage back in the mid 90’s, God knows how six years has been gone for good since Garbage’s last studio album, 2005’s “Bleed Like Me”, and almost out of the blue, “Not Your Kind of People” is like a fresh breath of air after spending too much time under the water, it sounds just like… Garbage.
Label it “Alternative Rock” or throw it in any other drawer or box, this is actually a quite genre-less music, Pop and Rock elements are perfectly melted into something new, charming, groovy, catchy music, designed for mainstream, but definitively not the fancy, usual, tasteless, predictable and forgettable plastic. If I would have to say only a very few words, I would say it feels good, sounds great and leave you with the taste of a thing well done. Read more Garbage – Not Your Kind of People (2012)
Grand Duchy – Let the People Speak (2012)
Cooking Vinyl, home of artist such as The Prodigy, The Cult, The Proclaimers, The Enemy, The Cranberries, Asian Dub Foundation, Art Brut, Pop Will Eat Itself, more recently Marilyn Manson – among many others – on April 9th, 2012 released the second album by Grand Duchy. The band was formed in 2008 by Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV aka Black Francis aka Frank Black famous for being the primary songwriter and singer of Pixies, and his wife Violet Clark. Their debut effort, “Petits Fours”, was released in February 2009, the duo now seems even more creative and “Let the People Speak” sounds twice as good as their previous album.
Although this is an experiment, a journey to quite different moods and vibes and without being tightly tied or related to any particular musical genre. Read more Grand Duchy – Let the People Speak (2012)
Equal Minds Theory – Equal Minds Theory (2011)
Free download, this is the debut, self-titled album released last year by the Russian band from Norilsk/Moscow.
Anton – Guitar, Andrey – Guitar, Vlad – Bass, Evgeny – Drums, and Vitaly – Vocal, created a murderous mixture of Death Metal, Grindcore and modern Metal with some experimental, progressive resonances and turns, reminding me of The Dillinger Escape Plan. The “Intro” sounds almost sweet only that the following “Oceanbound” can blow in your face ten tons harder.
Sick and intense, almost not human. Read more Equal Minds Theory – Equal Minds Theory (2011)
