ALTER.NATION #110
Little Barrie, Malcolm Catto,King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Mamalarky, Landshapes, The Bug / Dis Fig, Cabaret Voltaire,Public Memory, Rob Mazurek
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"Rest in Blue"
Malcolm Catto is an English musician and record producer. He is the co-founder and producer of the London psych'/jazz/experimental outfit The Heliocentrics. They have so far released four of their own albums but have also issued collaborations with DJ Shadow, Mulatu Astatke, Lloyd Miller, Orlando Julius and Melvin Van Peebles.
Little Barrie, Malcolm Catto - Quatermass Seven / Rest in BlueAfter the release of their 2017 album Death Express, Little Barrie suffered the tragic loss of drummer Virgil Howe, and the remaining two members of the group, guitarist Barrie Cadogan and bassist Lewis Wharton, took some time deciding whether they wanted to keep the band going. When they did choose to make more music together, they called in drummer Malcom Catto of the London jazz group Heliocentrics. The trio began jamming in the drummer's basement studio, liked what they came up with, and turned their ideas into a set of songs...
Australian psychedelic collective with an intense work ethic and a wildly experimental outlook that reaches from synth prog to folk rock.
An inventive bicoastal indie rock quartet who combine elements of dream pop and noise rock with flourishes of psychedelia.
The more-experimental successor of London's Lulu & the Lampshades makes exuberant, rhythmically complex indie rock with vintage-pop components.
Upon the arrival of Tapping the Conversation (1997), the Bug appeared to be a one-off concept from Kevin Martin, the prolific British producer known then for his work with God, Ice, and Techno Animal, among other collaborative guises willfully deforming styles ranging from free jazz and hip-hop to noise and dub.
Experimental, innovative English outfit that formed in the 1970s, standing as major pioneers of industrial and dance music.
King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard's sense of unfettered sonic exploration makes it easy to mistake them for a long-forgotten relic of the psych explosion of the '60s.
Little Barrie are a London-based trio led by ace guitarist Barrie Cadogan, whose sound is an exciting blend of hard rock, blues, soul, and funk that calls to mind classic bands of the '60s like Traffic and Cream.
The dreamy electronic project of former ERAAS frontman Robert Toher. The moody electronic project of Robert Toher, Public Memory explores loss, dreams, and illusions of nostalgia with dense collages of dub, Krautrock, and trip-hop.
Electronic innovator, multi-instrumentalist and avant-garde force who worked in jazz, classical, and experimental. Originally rooted in the tradition of hard bop jazz, prolific cornetist and visual artist Rob Mazurek developed into one of the most consistently exciting pure improvisers of his time.
Little Barrie, Malcolm Catto,King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Mamalarky, Landshapes, The Bug / Dis Fig, Cabaret Voltaire,Public Memory, Rob Mazurek
Over a ten-year span spent releasing an album every few weeks (or so it seemed) King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard never repeated themselves, always pushing forward and trying new things whether it was lengthy jazz excursions, gloom-and-doom synth prog, or thundering thrash metal. That changed some on 2020's K.G., where the band revisit the approach used on Flying Microtonal Banana, the group's 2017 album built around the avant-garde sounds of their custom-made guitars and altered instruments. Stuck in their various homes during the global pandemic, the band gravitated toward the unique instruments and built a batch of songs using their non-Western tunings and tones....
Fronted by ex-Cherry Glazerr bassist Livvy Bennet, Mamalarky fuse a multitude of influences to create a unique prog-indie rock sound. With the rest of the band members having their own musical backgrounds – keyboard and synth bass player Michael Hunter plays with White Denim, and drummer Dylan Hill with Big Wy’s brass band – there is no shortage of inspiration on their eponymous debut... Despite this mixture of such disparate influences, Mamalarky achieve a cohesive, well-realised sound that will be exciting to watch develop with future releases.
You know what you need right now? Uncertainty. Landshapes’ brilliant new album Contact reminds you how fun it is to listen to a project when you have no idea where it’s going next. The London band’s first release in five years captures the kinetic energy of their live shows and wrings it out for all it’s worth as they to-and-fro between vocalists and boldly explore multiple genres, resulting in this collage of beautiful ideas... The album’s title is its north star, as it considers every aspect of connection and intimacy in a way that feels rather prescient, with well-worn tropes approached in refreshing ways... ‘Drama’ is a breakup song, but it’s about the growing need to have The Talk rather than pretending you’re okay, the weightlessness of the spacey instrumentation contrasting with the despond of the lyrics... It’s the kind of sound that’s used to signify a dream in a movie, begging the question of whether this is the band’s truth, what they really think. That’s Contact in a nutshell. How do we know what we mean to each other? We don’t. Good album.
Dis Fig is DJ Felicia Chen. She released her debut cassette album PURGE in 2019.
... In Blue is another duo recording. In a sense, the album picks up where the first half of Angels & Devils left off, splaying its fusion of narcotized vocals, threatening atmospheres, and entrancing riddims. The material originates in instrumentals Martin made for a 2018 Solid Steel radio program. Post-transmission, the producer was seeking a vocalist for the tracks and met his match when Dis Fig asked for his consent to use KMS' "On My Mind" in a DJ mix. Martin obliged and was seduced in turn by Dis Fig's Purge, which led to the pair working over a two-year period on the shaping of the sixth Bug album...
Cabaret Voltaire - Shadow of Fear / What's Goin' On
...Shadow of Fear is the first CV album in 26 years, and the first to be solely created by Kirk, although by the end of the influential group's run in the mid-'90s, their music had evolved into a mixture of dub, techno, and house much more in line with Kirk's myriad solo ventures, like Sandoz and Electronic Eye, than the band's earlier incarnations. Without Stephen Mallinder's cyberpunk vocals, Shadow of Fear still feels more like a Kirk solo album, but its primitive drum machines, caustic distortion, and gritty samples recall his stellar output for Industrial Records and Rough Trade during the 1980s...
...Listening to them tread a little bit of water is still better than listening to the fresh ideas of 99.9 percent of other groups, especially when it's done with the energy and passion the band exhibit here.
Malcolm Catto is an English musician and record producer. He is the co-founder and producer of the London psych'/jazz/experimental outfit The Heliocentrics. They have so far released four of their own albums but have also issued collaborations with DJ Shadow, Mulatu Astatke, Lloyd Miller, Orlando Julius and Melvin Van Peebles.
Little Barrie, Malcolm Catto - Quatermass Seven / After, AfterAfter the release of their 2017 album Death Express, Little Barrie suffered the tragic loss of drummer Virgil Howe, and the remaining two members of the group, guitarist Barrie Cadogan and bassist Lewis Wharton, took some time deciding whether they wanted to keep the band going. When they did choose to make more music together, they called in drummer Malcom Catto of the London jazz group Heliocentrics. The trio began jamming in the drummer's basement studio, liked what they came up with, and turned their ideas into a set of songs... and the supercool "After After" strut like the Meters fed through a buzzsaw, with Cadogan coaxing huge chunks of inspired noise from his guitar, Wharton rolling like a ship at sea, and Catto simultaneously holding down the beat and sending it spinning off into space... The record is a fitting comeback for the band, one that honors the sound that Howe helped create while giving it an impressive update.
With Ripped Apparition, Public Memory's Robert Toher continues to craft music that burrows deep into listeners' psyches. Though Toher used a host of new synthesizers that transformed his creative process, the project's third album is still very much on brand... As detailed as his productions are, Ripped Apparition is often most compelling when Toher makes his androgynous, anguished vocals the focus. "Butcher" is a standout that suggests Public Memory is one of the few acts capable of continuing the haunting, blunted moods of Portishead...
Dimensional Stardust from Rob Mazurek's evolutionary Exploding Star Orchestra is easily his most complex, ambitious, and detailed offering in a nearly three-decade career. It defies easy categorization as it weaves through contrapuntal episodes in avant-garde jazz and contemporary classical music, engaging tenets from electronic and pop musics, spoken word, and contemporary art... This version of ESO includes flutist Nicole Mitchell, guitarist Jeff Parker, vibraphonist Joel Ross, drummers/percussionists Chad Taylor and Mikel Patrick Avery, cellist Tomeka Reid, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, trumpeter Jaimie Branch, violinist Macie Stewart, pianist Angelica Sanchez, and Damon Locks, who wrote lyrics and provided narration... the electronic keys, sweeping strings, trumpets, flutes, and vibes in "Galaxy 1000" offer a mutant impression of a pop tune... Mazurek's music is a labyrinth that reveals canny perceptions of sound and meaning via expert compositional technique and relational trust among musicians...
Little Barrie, Malcolm Catto,King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Mamalarky, Landshapes, The Bug / Dis Fig, Cabaret Voltaire,Public Memory, Rob Mazurek
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