Soon: Fotoform and The Homesick
Seattle’s Fotoform released their eponymous debut LP in April. The band is an incarnation of a previous act called C’est La Mort, in which several of the band members did their apprenticeship recording a promising album and a couple of fairly faithful covers of Pale Saints and Smiths songs. The new record is still firmly […]
Untitled, 2017
In an article on contemporary art I came across an evocative sentence, alluding to art works that “seem to re-immerse the tangibility of memory in processes of erasure and abstraction”. The idea seemed intriguing because we often think about art as doing the exact opposite – making memory tangible by summoning and highlighting it and […]
How We Stayed Individuated
An associative journey into the world of the heavy, hooky, hypnotising guitar riff. Protomartyr, “Uncle Mother’s”, from Agent Intellect, 2015 This intricate song marks the point where the Detroit band’s album metamorphoses into a weird and truly wonderful creature. Fittingly, the riff itself undergoes various transmutations, as if intent on presenting the plentiful array of […]
Soon: Ought
My brother once gave me a mixed tape entitled “opera for people who don’t like opera”. I was reminded of that title when I heard the Montreal-based band Ought. For the diehard guitar-loving veteran indie kid, the band’s keyboardist Matt may be said to be playing “keyboards for people who don’t like keyboards”. He actually sounds […]
11:26
Here’s another outstanding contemporary post-punk record from North America. When I first heard the Calgary band Preoccupations’ eponymous second album, I was simultaneously so impressed and so bewildered that I had to do some background research. I just couldn’t understand where they were coming from, and how they managed to hold together and irradiate such […]
Side Chains
A friend of mine recently claimed that the more significant creative force in the Smiths must have been Morrissey rather than Johnny Marr, since Morrissey’s solo output has been a lot better than anything Marr has been involved in since the band’s demise. I agree that Marr’s post-Smiths musical efforts have been extremely disappointing, but I […]