November Vice Record Reviews

November Vice Reviews

Pinch
Underwater Dancehall
Tectonic

8 Although dubstep has rapidly morphed into ’03 clownstep drum&bass all is not totally lost. Here Pinch rolls out ten measured, glacial pieces of 130bpm perfectness. He’s even been kind enough to include a second disc of instrumentals in case all the yelling about burning down Babylon or whatever gets a bit much.

Boxcutter
Glyphic
Planet Mu

4 The guys on the cover of this one look like that funny little Cyclops thing Ed Templeton used to draw all over old Toy Machine videos. Shame the stuff inside sounds like being trapped in Bristol at 7am regretting that last bump of ketamine.

The Warlocks
Heavy Deavy Skull Lover
Tee Pee

0 Have you read the title of this album? I don’t even care that it’s on Tee Pee. When did being a stoned BRMC rip off band become acceptable anyway? One of the guys from Klaxons once told me that it’s really just apple juice in the BRMC guys Jack Daniels bottles onstage.

Bobb Trimble
Iron Curtain Innocence
Secretly Canadian

10 Could this lost gem be any better? Nobody knows about it, on the cover you get the lost child of Arthur Lee and Tim Buckley smiling at you with an SG in one hand and a Tommy Gun in the other and on the back you get this: “Dear John, Paul, George and Ringo, if I am a good boy and work real hard, may I please be the 5th Beatle someday. Your friend, Bobb”.

Six Organs Of Admittance
Shelter From The Ash
Drag City

8 Ben Chasny has become the anti-Banhart. For every stupid, belly-dancing, boat-top photo call Devandra pulls Ben pops up like some free-folk Jack Bauer out of nowhere with another wonderful, dream-like trip through electro-acoustic niceness to make everything OK again and banish the urge to kill all hippies on sight. Thanks Ben!

Talibam!
Ordination Of The Globetrotting Conscripts
AZD

7 This is either the most joyous, good times, noise freakout since ‘Vision Creation Newsun’ or a big mess that sounds like Ornette Coleman leading the Magic Band while they play saxophones out of their asses like those Monty Python cartoon guys. Either way it is pretty good.

Moving Units
Hexes For Exes
Metropolis

2 The punk-funk party was dead on arrival in 2003. Now it’s so bad that even the jumpy up and down guy from !!! has quit. What chance do these guys have? They only had two songs on the last one and nothing whatsoever going on here. Better than Foals though I guess. Those guys look as though they could so with some Imodium.

Mooken & Keswickelmon
Ono Achew!
Ono

9 Mix CD’s are a tricky one. Unless you have a great concept like the Villalobos thing where all the tracks have never been heard on the planet anywhere before then for a mix to shine it has to consist of a pretty special selection that makes the whole a sum greater than its parts. Yawn. This one does just that though. I bet you a Chomp you’ll never see the Human League successfully shacked up with Terry Riley and Maurizio anywhere else ever again.

Oren Ambarchi
In The Pendulum’s Embrace
Type

8 The only Australian to ever get into one of Sunn O)))’s cowls rumbles out three shimmering low-end drones that don’t go anywhere too fast. Which is sort of the whole point.

Electric Wizard
Witchcult Today
Rise Above

7 I went see Pagan Altar the other day. Electric Wizard aren’t quite the South London Sabbath but they are as close as we’ve got so it’s nice of them to release something every now and again just to remind everybody that they are still here.

Soul Jazz Records
Singles
2006-2007

5 The record collectors record label rounds up another year’s worth of 12” releases. If you are the sort of person interested in this kind of thing then you probably have them all already. If not you get ‘Conference’ by Digital Mystikz and you can now legitimately claim to own something by the guys who are on the back cover of the Wire every month. Which is handy if you end up at ATP with a bunch of strangers or something.


Yeasayer
All Hour Cymbals
We Are Free

7 Something from Brooklyn that makes you happy. Like Gang Gang Dance or little old people saying “Fugheddaboudit”. But with more major key bits.

Shy Child
Drop The Phone
Wall of Sound

7 Guess what? Shy Child are still making fun party music that you can dance to and all the girls will love and the guys will secretly love too. Even if they won’t admit it and just go on about only being at the show because the guy used to be in El Guapo.

Celebration
The Modern Tribe
4AD

5 Half of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s and all of TVOTR go cross keys with ex members of Birdland and Lovelife. It basically sounds like all of those things played out under a dreamy 4AD gauze of shimmer. Which sounds very exciting. Except that they did it all already two years ago.

Mlle Carro & Franck Garcia
Always You EP
Buzzin Fly

7 While the woozy, melancholy original cut skips and meanders along pleasantly enough the secret winner hidden on this tidy 12” for Buzzin Fly is the Ewan Peason refix which dips the sadness in amber and crystalises sorrow in a minimal space capsule of joy.