Avant Music News

From Musique Machine:

Kasumi Trio – Oh! Gimme You
‘Oh! Gimme You’ is the second chaming, approachable yet experimental album from Japanese three piece Kasumi Trio. The album sits in laid-back, quirky & at times off-kilter place between folk pop wonderings ‘n’ haphazard strums. Bluesy, jazzed & at times tuneful improv guitar nodding, quiet psychedelic folk/rock tinges and the odd hint of wayward stripped electronics & subtle /quirky noise matter.

808 State – EX:EL
It’s difficult to under play the relevance & influence of EX:EL the 5th album from the British electronic collective 808 State. Firstly it was one of the first dance or electronic albums to have really commercial success with out losing it’s underground or creative edge. Secondly it was the first dance record to use guest vocalist which is of course now is common practice. But ultimately EX:EL is an album that mangers to be approachable, yet highly creative, dense & varied through-out.

An Innocent Young Throat-Cutter – Gli Occhi Dentro
Gli occhi dentro(Eyes With Out A Face) is a sonic tribute by this USA/ Italian HNW duo to the 1994 film of the same name by Italian sleazy & exploitation director Bruno Mattei.

Jono El Grande – Neo Dada
Jono El Grande would certainly have you believe him to be some sort of mad comedic musical magician, summoning up an exciting and entertaining quirky compositional style involving rapid changes of instrumentation and musical genre, incorporating influences from a truly extensive variety of cultural influences. In other words, the musical territory occupied by such bands as Estradasphere and Mr. Bungle, and Naked City. I find there to be nothing ‘dada’ about it.

Brown – Dying of the Light
Based in Portland, Oregon, Brown is the work of Jeremy Long, also guitarist for local drone metal band Tecumseh. The title shared by this, his third self-released album and its final track comes from the poem ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ where the poet Dylan Thomas appeals to his infirm father to “rage against the dying of the light” as part of his reflections on grief and death. Brown’s cacophonic soundscapes wrought from recordings of improvised guitar, violin and DIY electronics do not so much portend the challenge of death as portray decay as a living process that thrives throughout its inevitable entropic decline.

N.Strahl.N/Metek – Drowning Devices
My familiarity with Metek starts and ends with my having heard a few of his releases – all collaborations – in addition to a sort of bewildered intimacy with the eponymous threads on various noise boards dedicated to his person, filled to the brim with love, hate, anger, what-not – virtually every emotion on the spectrum.

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