October on my iPod!

*NEW FEATURE!!*

Hello, my non-existent readers! This is my latest scheme for this most redundant of websites: every month, I will give a little overview of the music I have been listening to thus far that month. I can't really claim any credit for originality, of course - Julian Cope's been doing it in his monthly "Drudions" for years now!

But hey, it wouldn't be a good idea if it wasn't worth nicking, so I'll claim it's me paying homage to the great Arch-Drude.

As with every month, October 09 has seen me swallowing up ever more music, and some of it -nay, most- has been downright amazing. Whether I've been saturating my senses with high-octane noise, or settling down on a rainy autumn day to the soothing tones of some vintage ambient, the thrills and chills and excitements have been numerous. So, um, here goes!

First up, let's pursue the Cope kissing and shout out to the immense Elegy for Native Tongues (Subvalent) by new Japanese outfit Tetragrammaton. Cope has made it his album of the month and as often his judgment proves impeccable. The man has a great word for good music: he calls it "useful", and it definitely applies to Elegy for Native Tongues. This album will take you on journeys, fuck up your system and have you yelping with surprised delight with every shift and turn of its improbable evolution, from experimental and rock-ish on the first studio disc, to the wonderful melding of pagan drone and scattered free-form fire music on the live CD. I'm sure there have already been albums that mixed free jazz and drone, but I have yet to hear one do it this convincingly. The live CD is the clincher. Tracks start out like early Taj Mahal Travellers psych-drone, before manic chanting, rabid percussion and blasted white noise seep in to fuck things up in the most beautiful way imaginable.

Two bands I've grown very keen on also released new stuff in October. I was most keenly looking forward to Fuck Buttons' follow-up to their superb Street Horrrsing album from last year. On first listen, barring the stunning opener "Surf Solar", I wasn't that taken with Tarot Sport (ATP Recordings). The harsh and distorted vocals that defined tracks like "Sweet love planet Earth" and "Ribs Out" on the debut are completely absent to be replaced by a greater emphasis on highly compressed electronics and trance-like grooves. And it has to be said, Tarot Sport isn't as good as Street Horrrsing. But it grew on me, and now I find I'm listening to it pretty much every day. "Surf Solar" is literally amazing, a seriously groovy psychedelic techno monster, whilst the middle two tracks "The Lisbon Maru" and "Olympians" display a soaring, fragile grace close to that of Shoegaze masters My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive, with the same inherent sense of melancholy. The rest is less arresting, but "Olympians" in particular is amazing.

I was not quite as excited by the release of Tortoise's new album Beacons of Ancestorship (Thrill Jockey), mainly because you can never be sure what you're gonna get with this most unpredictable of American bands rather foolishly lumped under the banner "post-rock". Actually, scrap that - few other bands have gone so far beyond traditional "rock" as Tortoise, so maybe they, as opposed to Explosions in the Sky, are the true embodiment of post-rock. Beacons is a weird little album, not as immediately stupendous and radical as their magnum opus Millions Now Living Will Never Die, but it does present a bad in constant evolution, completely unafraid of pushing themselves and taking their music into new places, in this case, a strange, pent-up hybridization of rock, kraut-funk and buzzing electronica.

People who know me will tell you that I'm rarely up-to-date with new releases, preferring in general to scour the annals of popular musical history to unearth gems from decades past (or more recent, but still old releases). This month is gonna be no exception, although the first non-October 09 release I'm gonna now talk about only dates back to 2008! A Silver Mt Zion (here named Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band to add some confusion) are one of the most-loved and also most-criticized of the numerous Godspeed You! Black Emperor offshoots. And 13 Blues for 13 Moons (Constellation, March 25 2008) was particularly vilified. But as I was never massively taken by their earlier, mostly acoustic chamber music sound, the fierce energy of 13 Blues for 13 Moons was a very pleasant surprise. Sure, it's pretentious and overblown at times, but unlike most, I like Ephrim Menuck's ragged voice, it adds a sense of high drama to the band's already fierce vibe. This is a weird and hard-to-classify mix of metal and post-rock, and it's actually very effective.

But, quite weirdly, the focus of most of my musical consumption has been a country that I rarely find very good at providing the world with useful and mind-bending rock: France. But then again, that may be because when it does, no-one, especially in France it appears, seems to take notice. So imagine my shock upon discovering that two amazing artists recently discovered, Dashiell Hedayat and Catherine Ribeiro both hail from the land of frogs' legs and camembert.

In Hedayat's case, I should have known better than to be suspicious. After all, his backing band is fucking Gong! I don't get the bad press Gong get. I would have thought the likes of Julian Cope (him again!) would love their primeval psych jamming, but apparently they get strapped with an unfair "silly" tag, whereas I see them more as a wigged out, slightly untamed garage-psych gang. Differences in perception, maybe. Either way, on Obsolete (Shandar Records, 1971), Gong lay down a series of psychedelic blues grooves and wild jamming over which Hedayat intones weird spoken-word lyrics. Influenced by William Burroughs' cut-up writing technique, Hedayat's words are odd, funny, even creepy, making him the perfect foil for Gong, a band I've always found to perfectly balance wackiness and edge. Closer "Cielo Drive" is 21 minutes of molten freak-out that would make Acid Mothers Temple proud. Probably my album of the month.

Catherine Ribeiro, with her fantastic backing band Alpes, provided a similar melding of psychedelic rock (albeit of a folkier vein) and metronomic rhythms inherited from German bands such as Can, Neu! and Ash Ra Tempel. But, where Hedayat delivered his lyrics in a clipped spoken word style, Ribeiro was blessed with what may be one of the most powerful voices in rock music history! Her first steps came in the folkier Catherine Ribeiro + 2Bis, whose self-titled debut (Disques Festival, 1969) was at times fierce and expansive, but more often owed too much to the prevailing folk-pop French music style called "Ye Ye" (and which is majoritarily vile).
However, when the slightly sprawling +2Bis was disbanded and the core retained as Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes, a huge sea change occurred in Ribeiro's sound. Her voice was pushed forwards, the sound was stripped down to a vicious garage-psych-kraut thunder and her lyrics became more intense and profound. Their first record, N.2 (Disques Festival, 1970) was a huge leap forwards from Catherine Ribeiro + 2Bis, and one of the most powerful French albums of the early seventies, rivalling Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson in sheer intensity. Some of the guitar rivals Edgar Froese's mental slide bursts on Tangerine Dream's debut Electronic Meditation and Ribeiro's gothic wail is simply stunning, particularly on the 18-minute monsterpiece "Poeme Non-Epique". Only the rather vacuous instrumental "Preludes" stop this album from being a true classic. But no worries - Ribeiro and co. got it absolutely right on their third album Paix (Phillips, 1972), a four-track epic of almost titanic proportions. It's a genre-defying, unpredictable and overpowering album, where repetitive rhythms (the drums sound like a drum rhythm machine) and fiery droning folk-rock melodies create a huge canvas for Ribeiro to scream out her manic lyrics like a truly fucked-up opera singer. It's punk before punk, much in the same way Yoko Ono or Neu! were.

Speaking of fiery and intense music, I also heavily recommend Joe McPhee's wonderful Nation Time (CjR, 1971 - superbly re-released by Atavistic in 2000), a 3-track live album I recently discovered thanks to Philippe Robert, a French author who writes awesome books tracing seminal underground, black music and experimental albums. Joe McPhee is a little-known free-jazz saxophonist who here uses his intuitive meld of hard-bop and free-form experimentalism to mirror the recent civil rights struggles that had been gripping America. And "gripping" is a good word for this tight, powerful and inventive jazz masterpiece that has managed as quickly as Art Ensemble of Chicago's Les Stances a Sophie (Pathe, 1970, recently remastered by Soul Jazz) to hoist itself into my top 10 jazz albums of all time. And if you can get Les Stances a Sophie as well, you'll be truly blessed, because it is also a classic display of super-competent musicians mixing fire music into catchy jazz and delivering pure gold. Pluss, you get to hear soulful Fontella Bass howling "Your eyes are two blind eagles/That kill what they can't seeeeeee!". Wild.

But, for all my love of jazz and weird French folk-rock, I have to admit that what has mostly been assaulting my ears in October was post-punk, that most nebulous and far-flung of musical genres. First I gorged on the magnificent -and mind-bogglingly extensive- compilations of No-Wave acts DNA and Mars. I'm not usually a fan of comps, but neither of these two manic bands ever left a fully-fledged album behind them. Which is a real shame, as both were perfect examples of this short-lived late-seventies fusion of extreme noise, avant-garde and fiery post-punk. In both cases DNA on DNA (No More, 2004) and 78+ (Atavistic, 1996) showcase just about everything these two hard-edged, arty acts laid to tape, and for every "What the fuck???" track there are three or fours masterpieces of dark, untidy and fantastic adrenalin rock. DNA were something of a no-wave power trio, with either spongy bass or pounding (and pounded) keyboard lines thudding away behind Art Lindsay's razor-sharp guitar riffs and howling vocals. Mars, though, remain my favourites from the movement. Their primeval riffs and driving percussion make them some sort of perverse blues band, the nastiest bluesmen (should say women -3/4s of them were female!) ever to lay their chops (if they can be called that!) on vinyl. A much welcome collection.

My other post-punk obsession these days has been the lesser-known acts that graced Manchester's uber-famous label Factory, home to Joy Division and New Order. After A Certain Ratio and The Durutti Column, the next most important band on Factory's roster was Section 25, an outfit from Blackpool centered around the Cassidy brothers, Larry and Vincent. On their excellent debut Always Now (August 1981), they channeled a similar dark vibe that their buddies Joy Division had, but with a more stripped-down, funk-tinted sound and, if possible, even more detached vocals. Of course, the Cassidys didn't have the songwriting talent of Ian Curtis, but tracks like "Friendly Fires" and "Dirty Disco" join the dots between cold wave and PiL's dark experimentalism, making Always Now an essential album.

Crispy Ambulance were also unjustly compared to Joy Division, despite not actually sounding much liek Curtis and co. Their debut, The Plateau Phase (1982) actually owes more to Van Der Graaf Generator and other experimental prog outfits, except that Crispy Ambulance also inject throbbing cold wave bass and Eno-esque dark ambience. They probably lacked a truly great singer, a la Curtis or Devoto, but The Plateau Phase remains seriously underrated.

But perhaps trumping them both was The Temple of the 13th Tribe (November 1984) by least-known Factory act The Royal Family and The Poor. Essentially a one-man band centered around esoteric singer Mike Keane, TRFATP was influenced by the writing of Aleister Crowley and occultism, as well as Durutti Column minimalism and Joy Division's dark meanderings. Opener "I Love You (Restrained in a Moment)" is gentle and mysterious, but tracks like "Voices" and "Radio Egypt crackle with moody tension and dark fantasies. Meanwhile, "Discipline" is a great dance-punk track, like Eurythmics jamming with New Order.

And, lest we forget, let me highlight Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's superb debut, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980) also released on Factory (complete with a lovely Peter Saville cover), which remains to this day one of the defining synth-pop albums, a bubbling, effervescent and experimental triumph that perfectly melds punkish energy and futuristic wistfulness. "Electricity" and "Julia's Song" are electronic classics, hoisting this debut to the rank of one of the most underrated early synth-based pop albums, alongside Japan's Quiet Life and The Human League's Travelogue.

Just quickly before I give this rambling a rest, just a quick note on a trio of movies that have also graced my grateful consciousness over the last 30 days (you can watch movies on iPods, now, apparently, so this is not quite off-topic). First up, in theatres. In the lovely Curzon Soho cinema on Shaftesbury Avenue, I was given a lovely treat in the form of Andrea Arnold's hard-hitting and bittersweet sophomore film Fish Tank. Featuring a superb central performance by newcomer (and bona fide estate lass) Katie Jarvis, it's a biting, harsh, but ultimately humane and uplifting look at one girl's struggles to deal with her upbringing in run-down Dagenham. Arnold confirms the talent she already displayed on Red Road and sets herself as one of Britain's best ever directors.

No less gritty, but much more fanciful, was George A Romero's Martin (1977), which I acquired on DVD on a whim. Damn - if only all my whims were so reliable! Martin is a dark and urban take on the vampire myth, turning the whole thing on its head by injecting more than a little doubt as to whether or not the anti-hero is truly a vampire. He certainly thinks so as does his uncle, and he likes to kill women and drink their blood, but he can go out in the day, doesn't have fangs and is indifferent to crosses and garlic. A smart and disturbing exploration of illusion and psychology, Martin is actually one of the best horror movies ever made.

And again, I then made a rather radical leap, turning from creepy gore horror to one of the most celebrated gay-themed movies of recent years - Sebastien Lifshitz's Presque Rien (2000), an intense love story focusing on two very different teens who fall into a steamy romance whilst on holiday. The premise is simple, and allows Lifshitz to focus on the chemistry between his two excellent leads (Jeremie Elkaim and Stephane Rideau). It's very sexy and uncompromising, and as far removed from the cliches of queer cinema as you can get.


Well, so ends my first monthly blether. So far, as November has got underway, I've been indulging my industrial and psych tendencies, so expect to hear about Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Einsturzende Neubauten, Zappa and Soft Machine next month!

"Life's a game where they're bound to beat you"

(Almost) a year in concerts

Pain Jerk + Emeralds - The Luminaire, London, January 24th 2009

I walked into this one more than a little bit innocently, having never heard anything by either band. But I'm a lover of drone and noise, and The Luminaire is in my neighbourhood, so it seemed like an opportunity worth seizing.

I wasn't disappointed by Pain Jerk. You have to hand it to them - the Japanese are masters of noise! From Les Rallizes Denudes to Merzbow, Fushitsusha to Mainliner, they have become experts at distilling ferocious guitar and computer saturation and vicious sound patterns. Pain Jerk, a forty-something longhair who uses a weird metal plate and his laptop to create a massive wall of unfettered, brutal noise, deserves his place alongside these greats. I have never been so grateful for ear plugs, and I'm pretty sure this was the loudest gig I'd ever been to. Bludgeoning, unrelenting, vicious - and only one sodding track! It all seemed a mess at first, but by letting the noise roll over me, I became aware of shifts and tempos in the miasma, and I am pretty sure that Pain Jerk's compositions require as much skill and expertise as the most virtuoso free-jazz.

As such, the more tranquil ambient-drone of Emeralds seemed a bit tame by comparison. They only had 40 minutes or so, and decided to dedicate them to one track as well, one that built up wave-upon-wave of keyboard drones and synth washes, punctuated by some rather ill-fitting guitar noodlings. Sadly, just as they seemed to get locked into some sort of Tim Hecker-ish groove, the track was over, leaving me, and my friend John Paul, feeling a bit deflated. After the sheer brutal power of Pain Jerk, Emeralds felt like an anti-climax. Not bad, per se (though, seriously guys, lose the Santana guitar), just a bit generic.

Still, the experience of Pain Jerk left me buzzing, and the Luminaire is a fantastic location, one of the best joints in London, despite an apparent curfew. Makes me proud to live in Kilburn.


The Equinox Festival - Conway Hall, London, June 13th 2009

A serendipitous find this, as I'd never heard of this festival until I perused a copy of The Wire magazine in Sister Ray (one of the best record stores in London, by the way). Discovering that a very recently-reformed Comus were going to headline the saturday, I immediately grabbed a ticket, although could only push to the one day, meaning I sadly missed John Zorn, Aethenor and Arktau Eos. Dammit!!

The Equinox Festival is a weird one. As well as music, there are screenings of bonkers movies, and talks given by people well-versed in subjects like magic, the occult, alternative sciences and heathen cultures. It's all very long-haired, platform-booted and chant-y, with some very curious characters, including real-life druids and "sorcerers". I even saw a guy with feathers in his hair wandering around barefoot clutchin an ornate walking stick. All very intriguing, but I did feel a tad out-of-place.

After the disappointment of not being able to watch Alejandro Jodorowsky's Holy Mountain due to a DVD failure, I got my first blast of heathen magic through a performance art, um, performance by Equinox organiser Raymond Salvatore Harmon, who improvised weird multi-coloured video projections whilst a buddy blasted out distorted free-jazz trumpet solos. A real first in my live music experiences, the closest being the afore-mentioned wild noise gig by Japanese freak Pain Jerk in January.

But the music remained the highlight of the day. First up was Italian noise/drone artist K11 (aka Pietro Riparbelli) who uses radio signals to create drawn-out drone opuses that seemed to seep out over the audience like black sludge. His distorted vocals and weird sounds were meant to evoke the ghosts of Alistair Crawley (K11's -excellent- album was recorded in the famous "satanist"'s former house in Italy) and it was a deeply fascinating and unnerving performance. Sadly for him, though, he was outdone by Jex Thoth's occasional backing musician Burial Hex, who came over from his native Wisconsin to saturate our senses with heathen noise and warped vocals. His use of upright piano added a sense of melancholy to his unholy screams and fucked up computer sounds, making him one of the highlights of the whole evening. A nice change after the unmemorable Yan-gant-y-tan who preceded him. Shame he wasn't given more time, as he was replaced after 30 minutes or so by the slightly peculiar, and ultimately unsatisfying Kinit Her, who had some good ideas, and a decent mix of dark folk and angular rock, but ultimately failed to capture an audience by now crying out for Comus.

And the veterans didn't disappoint! It helps that chanteuse Bobbie Watson's looks and voice are still impeccable, even at 50+. And their sound is still as vital and arresting as ever, as they blasted their way through a complete rendition of seminal album First Utterance. All were in fine voice, their twisted, evil psych-folk songs sending the audience into raptures, despite the occasional sound problems. Lead singer Roger Wootton howled away like a man possessed, whilst guitarist Glenn Goring showed he has lost none of his virtuoso touch. The stand-outs were the heavily percussive freak-out "Drip Drip", "Diana" wherein Wootton and Watson's voices blended to tunning effect, and the desperately beautiful "The Herald" that showcased Bobbie Watson's uniquely ethereal voice. It was all over too soon, and I have never seen a bad so delighted -and surprised!- by an applause than these guys were as they basked in the rapturous adulation of a packed Conway Hall.

All in all, The Equinox Festival was an odd experience, one I'll definitely repeat and one that more people such as Julian Cope need to tune in to and promote. It stands as a real alternative to the morass of crappy mainstream junk out there.


Hard Rock Calling - Hyde Park, London, June 27th 2009

Of course, I was there for Neil Young. The great man was appearing in London yet again, and there was no chance I would miss it, despite a raging hangover and no-one to go with. I don't need to go on about how much I love Neil Young. I've already waxed lyrical about his Hop Farm Festival gig (still the best one I've ever seen) and lauded his underrated Year of the Horse album. And if I'm honest, the rest of this day of Hard Rock Calling was a bit, well, shit.

The Pretenders, led by the ever-sexy Chrissie Hynde tried their best with their souped-up boogie, but it was too early in the afternoon and my head felt like my eyeballs were trying to force their way out of their sockets. A big yawn for Ben Harper, who was energetic but really needs someone to tell him his songs are forgettable. And fuck off with the Jesus bollocks! Fleet Foxes were cruelly unsuited to the venue. I can't say I've been swayed by the hysteria surrounding these guys, but even I could tell that their mostly-acoustic folk-rock was never going to be pacy or energetic enough to capture an audience of what? 10000? So they tanked. Aside from Neil, in fact, only The Magic Numbers, headlining the second stage, really shone thanks to an honest and high-energy set that was as endearing as it was fun.

So, mildly nonplussed, I pressed my way towards the main stage, constantly reminded via shoves, insults and flying beer that mainstream London audiences are basically made up of cunts. But Neil didn't disappoint. Part of me thinks this gig may even have been better than the Hop Farm one, and that I just couldn't properly appreciate due to the dickheads that were bulldozing their way through the crowd (almost causing a riot) and the fact that I was still suffering from my self-inflicted ailment.

But Young balefully smashed through his set, blasting out all the greats: "Cinnamon Girl", "Down By The River" (yet another monstrously long version - I never get tired of it), "Hey Hey, My My", "Fuckin' Up" and more. I felt for the people staying in the numerous adjacent hotels, as surely the wailing and screaming of The Loner's faithful Old Black must have had their rooms shaking. The band was as tight as ever, the acoustic interlude mercifully brief (in my condition, I needed NOISE!) and his transcendent riffs and liquid solos made my irritation towards my fellow festival-goers seem miles away.

And, after pummeling a molten version of "Rockin' In the Free World" into the ground (you had to be there, it was hilarious - every time we thought the song was up, he'd launch right back into the chorus like a belligerent child), he was off. But not for long. He came back on, talked mysteriously to someone in the wings, then launched into current favourite encore song "A Day In The Life" (by the Beatles, for all the morons out there). And mid-way through, who the fuck should bound on-stage? Of course, his royal tweeness himself, Paul McCartney! I've been a big fan of Beatle Paul, but his appearance sent the audience into raptures and I have to admit I was one of them. It was a delirious moment, made even more so when Neil started wigging out on guitar and Macca himself prosternated himself before the Great Canadian. Seems everyone that night was aware who is the greatest singer in the world. And no, it wasn't Beatle Paul!


Oneida + Teeth of the Sea + Mugstar - The Garage, London, August 18th 2009

OK, admission time. I didn't fork out my £10 to go and see the headliners on August 18. I went for Teeth of the Sea, whose debut album, Orphaned by the Ocean, may just be the best album of 2009. I'd already seen them once, in January, when they'd be waaaay down the billing at The Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen behind some crappy Horrors wannabes and shitty indy-pop bands. TOTS had blown me away to the point that I was booing the other acts who had forced these minor geniuses off after just twenty minutes.

So there was no way I was going to miss the chance to see a bit of a longer gig. Their appearances are too seldom to justify that. And they would be opening for Oneida, a band I knew little about and couldn't wait to discover.

Both were awesome. My friends and I did have to sit through the tiresome metal-psych wobblings of Mugstar, distracting ourselves with lashes of beer at the bar, but once TOTS came on, I was running straight down to the front to take in their sound.

It's a hard sound to describe. Taking their cues from Fuck Buttons, TOTS are great at creating mind-numbingly loud noise-fests, the kind that batter you to the ground and warp your senses. But they're also subtle and emotional, with jittery, nervously angular guitar, washes of synth, krautrocky percussion and, weirdest of all, trumpet all bursting through the noise to take the listener into some sort of weird modern psych or prog, the true definition of modern music!

Again, the performance was awesome, all four guys standing in a line bashing out the most outlandish art-punk-prog heard since the heyday of Krautrock. But again - too short! They were off after only 4 (admittedly amazing) songs! I know good things are supposed to come in small doses, but come on!

So, I retired to the bar to drown my disappointment, and it was from this vantage point that I was able to watch Oneida blow the place away with their raucous heavy-psych. Personally, as much as I liked their drum-heavy, driving rock, I felt TOTS still had the edge in terms of inventivity and innovation. But, it's hard not to like Oneida, with their swirling light show and literally amazing drumming (think Klaus Dinger meets Bill Ward). And I've since gone out and bought their very excellent Pre-teen Weaponry album, and it's great!

But again, I cannot recommend Teeth of the Sea enough. if you have a chance to go see them, don't pass it up. I know I won't. Roll on November the 20th!


Jesu + Kayo Dot + Caina - The Luminaire, London, September 18 2009

And so, back to Kilburn's immortal Luminaire (I'm praying the rent doesn't go up on the place, especially with Grouper still to appear this year) for a concert I'd waiting seemingly years for. JESU!!! Former Godflesh overlord Justin K Broadrick has made Jesu his main platform these days, taking in heavy-metal of the doomiest kind and adding elements of ambient, psych and shoegaze for a seriously heady cocktail. His latest album, Infinity, is a 50-minute one-track opus, and I was keen to see how he would translate this very studio-minded approach to the stage, especially as he would only be joined by trusty bassist Diarmuid Dalton. What, no drums??

First up was the very forgettable Caina, who by their own admission were crap and had hardly ever played any gigs. 'Nuff said, really.

I was excited to see Kayo Dot, who have made a name for themselves as a very intelligent and well-crafted blender of post-rock and seething metal. Sadly, two out of five of them had failed to be allowed into Britain, meaning their sound was more than a little stripped down as a result. The guy from Caina helped out briefly on drums, but fans of a bit of crunch (and I could tell there were many, it's a fucking Jesu gig after all) would have been very disappointed. Kayo Dot's sound was more akin to jazz or experimental music, with snaky guitar, gentle percussion and very dominant keyboards and violin. An excellent sound, that I was enjoying mightily from my little perch at the edge of the stage, but one probably more suited to the Purcell Room or Cafe Oto than the Luminaire on a night one of modern metal's darlings is performing. The guys with their long hair, scraggly beards and Godflesh t-shirts seemed mightily bemused!

And then -bang on time- the main man was there, setting up his own gear to rapturous applause. JBK is an imposing chap, with his crew-cut hair, massive Dr Martens and baggy jeans. And that's even before he brings out his monstrous seven-string guitar and humungous pedal box!

What followed was awe-inspiring. Using a computer to generate any missing sounds, including drums, JBK stormed his way through a monumental set, lifting classics from his first two albums and lesser-known lights from his EPs. "Conqueror" and "Friends Are Evil" were my highlights, the sheer volume adding extra weight to his mournful tunes and saturated guitar. JBK proved his class on the axe all night, extricating a whirlwind of distorted solos and thundering riffs from his axe like a latter-day Jimi Hendrix, stomping back and forth on the stage and banging his head away as he mauled the strings. Even technical issues with one of the monitors didn't stop him thrashing, growling and roaring, watched by the stoical gaze of Dalton. At the end, the latter left the stage, leaving Broadrick to blast out the rippling, saturated excess that is "Infinity", in a shortened version. It's a guitar masterpiece, ever-shifting, ever-unpredictable and a great way to end a rip-roaring gig.

Thanks for reading...


What I'm currently listening to:

• Kayo Dot: Choirs of the Eye (2003, Tzadik) - Inspired by the gig, I thought I'd give this much-lauded debut a whirl. Very experimental and wistful, I'd rate it a 4/5
• Serpentina Satelite: Nothing to Say (2008) - Wonderfully dark and hard psychedelia. The shorter songs don't really do it for me, but the three long ones are as good as at-their-peak Ash ra Tempel, I kid you not! Surely a 5/5
  
• The Wake: Here Comes Everybody (1985, Factory) Melancholy synth-post-punk that doesn't ever reach the heights of Joy Division, Section 25 or New Order, but does include the marvellous "O Pamela". 4/5
• Kousokuya: 1st (1991, remastered 2003, PSF) Hugely underrated Japanese freak-metal, in the vein of Fushitsusha and Mainliner, and easily as good as both. A definite 5/5
• Sergius Golowin: Lord Krishna Von Golocka (1973, Kosmische) Typically spacey, blissed-out kraut-folk with weird spoken word passage and fucking Klaus Schulze on keyboards!! 4/5

Plus: A Silver Mt Zion, Tortoise, Fuck Buttons, Ascend, CAN, AR & Machines, Kaoru Abe, Love Live Life + 1, Greymachine, Wild Beasts, The Heads, The Royal Family and The Poor, Crispy Ambulance, KTL and Oneida!! Get'em all!!!

Great Underappreciated or Obscure albums 8: JESU by Jesu (2005)

Heavier than a death in the family...

Metal music has been around the houses in the decades since Tony Iommi first rumbled out the iconic opening riff of "Black Sabbath" against a back-drop of rain and thunder as Ozzy muttered those dark, murderous lines: "What is this that stands before me?". And yeah, sorry Led Zeppelin fans, but Sabbath were the founders of metal. Your guys only came close on IV, and always remained a heavy blues act rather than proper hard rock heathens.

Since those glory days of 1970, metal music has got spacier and psychedelicised, with guys like Hawkwind, UFO and High Tide; it's been bluesed up by Free, Groundhogs and the Edgar Broughton Band; it was propelled through the outlandish Eastern filters of Flower Travellin' Band and Speed, Glue and Shinki; sped up and pummeled into the ground by Motorhead and their followers Metallica; commercialised and commodified by the hair metallists and America's hardcore; adopted by the darker edges of American roots music by EyehateGod and Alice in Chains; it's been industrialised, slowed down, gone all doom and gloom, been married to folk and drone and electronica. It's basically the most manipulated and adaptable rock genre out there, to the point that it manages to encompass slow, atmospheric, drum-less experimentalists like Sunn O))) and Oren Ambarchi just as much as it covers the sturm-und-drang thrashing of Godflesh and Pantera.

But, despite all the changes, shifts and new sub-genres, metal continues to progress and to throw up new surprises. Justin K Broadwick has become a bit of a master at this. He was once a member of seminal extreme metal band Napalm Death, before pioneering industrial metal with Godflesh. But Jesu may be his most successful and startling project yet.

First off, Jesu is heavy. Take Sabbath's "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", then multiply the heaviness by 20. Then turn the volume up. Then hit the drums even harder. That's the sound of Jesu. Oh, and slow things down even more. Jesu is sloooooowwww. Plodding, thunderous, insistent drums push each song forwards with brain-dead determination, the musical incarnation of Lurch from the Adams Family, or that giant moron who goes "Yarp!" in Hot Fuzz. The bass is basically one long rumble, like a flat-lining heartbeat amplified by Thor.

But the heartbeat of this music is Justin K Broadrick. Not content to play most instruments, he also produces, writes and sings everything. But his approach is a far cry from that of most other metallists out there (bar perhaps Nadja and Boris). Taking his cues from My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive and other shoegazers, he drowns his voice in layers of feedback and effects-laden sheets of guitar, effectively transforming his crunching slabs of metal into ethereal hazes of sound.

So, Godflesh fans pretty much reviled this debut, and would be even harsher towards the more pop-like follow-up Conqueror. Not being particularly familiar with Godflesh myself, I couldn't give a toss, really. Because the music on Jesu is beautiful. It's hard and heavy, but in a graceful, heart-rending way, with JKB's emotions pushed into the spotlight (ironic given the muted vocals). Where Godflesh (and his more recent Greymachine project) spewed bile and hatred over audiences, Jesu opts for a sense of pain and loss, the tracks stretching over a minimum of seven minutes, subdued vocals competing for space with the storm of guitars and omnipresent rhythm section.

But, metal-heads, fear not! I repeat, Jesu is HEAVY! For all its shoegazery grace and wistfulness, it still thunders, crunches and bangs at full volume like a motherfucker. Songs like "Your Path to Divinity" and "Sun Day" are as heavy as anything ever heard in metal, like Motorhead slowed down improbably, with only the shimmering vocals and occasional graceful guitar riff drawing a hint of a shoegaze comparison. And on "Man/Woman", JKB completely reverts to hardcore mode, with a rough, aggressive vocal worthy of Agalloch. It is the album's only true stinker, though, so I prefer to stick to the album's 4-pronged high water mark. It starts with the crunching and merciless opening riff of "Friends are Evil", which quickly collapses into a dreamy haze of ravaged guitars and ghostly electronics. Follow-up "Tired of Me" is the album's masterpiece, a beautiful metalgaze beauty that features the haunting refrain "You're/so tired of me/I'm too tired/to disagree" delivered in a ruined, distorted vocal. Broadrick sounds like he's ready to collapse, and I am yet to hear a metal song with such pathos and anguish.

"We all faulter" (methinks the spelling mistake is deliberate) continues the pain and self-flagellation with more of the same power and drive, before this "central suite" concludes with the epic 11+ minutes of "Walk on Water", where JKB's themes of strife, pain and spiritualism collide in an overwhelming morass of noise and thunder. That the rest of the album doesn't quite match the intensity of these four songs is a shame, but this is such a suckerpunch that I hardly care. It doesn't stop Jesu being one of the most powerful and staggering metal albums of the last ten years.

The music of Jesu is ultimately a reflection of its beautiful album cover: a lonely lost soul wanders aimlessly through a barren wasteland of urban desolation and industrial ruin. Hemmed in, abandoned, lonely, but defiant, Broadrick rails against this isolation with a stirring combination of heavy force and desperate pain. It is metal music for the modern world.

Sadly, most Jesu follow-ups haven't matched the magic of this album, not that it's going to stop me going to see them in September. But JKB has recently teamed up with Aaron Turner of Isis, and the other two Jesu guys in yet another band, the aforementioned Greymachine and delivered one of his best albums in ages on their debut, Disconnected. It will certainly delight all the Godflesh fans out there as it's mixture of extreme electronics, hardcore heavy metal and raw vocals does evoke memories of Broadrick's previous industrial band. But, by continuing to bury his world-weary voice deep in the mix, and his obsession with oh-so-slow rhythms and waves of distorted guitar drone, JBK also preserves the spirit of the first Jesu album, making Disconnected both one of the heaviest and the most elegiac heavy metal albums of the new millenium. His output may be so frequent that it's hard to separate the good from the bad, but when JBK gets it right, few people can match his talents.

Music That Will Swallow All Misery Whole

Give me noise and feel the drone!

This has been a labour of love. I've been wanting to write up a tribute to drone music for ages, but have never been sure of how to go about it. Drone is so vast, so unpredictable and so out-there as to defy definition and categorisation. But fuck me, the world needs to hear more of it! It's actually been on the rise in the musical underground, and you can even get albums by the likes of Emeralds at HMV on London's Oxford Street. So, drone is on the up, and the more innocent ears are introduced to this strange and difficult latter-day psychedelia, the better.

I don't want to go through a massive history of drone music. That's for other, more scholarly, people to do. Suffice to say that it has existed since the dawn of music itself, whether through Tibetan chanting, Indian traditional music, Japanese tam-tams or Celtic bagpipes. The sheer immensity of the sounds produced imbued drone with a sense of the spiritual, as if the music was channeling the souls of dead ancestors and wrathful gods.

By the time the 20th century rocked up, all this was a thing of the past. Generations of opera, concertos, folk, rock and jazz had superseded the primeval allure of drone, and it would take such controversial pioneers as LaMonte Young, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Tony Conrad (pictured below) to re-establish drone in contemporary music. Theses composers were looking to expand the boundaries of what was deemed "music", and were fascinated by notions of minimalism, repetition and distortion. This led to the creation of some of the most vital and fascinating pieces of contemporary music ever created, to which we can also add the works of Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley and Charlemagne Palestine.

But these artists remained entrenched in the avant-garde scenes of New York, Berlin and Tokyo, loved by the Warholian elites and the intellectuals, misunderstood or ignored by the mainstream public. It's telling that the most famous avant-garde composer/singer remains Yoko Ono, and -sadly- not for her music.

Ono is actually a good reference point, for she was one of a number of these avant-garde artist/composers -along with Conrad, Takehisa Kosugi or John Cale- to see the potential in rock music and, working with John Lennon, would take great strides in marrying the two. Above all, the exploratory music of the avant-garde (which in addition to drone took in elements of found sounds, tape loops, electronic manipulation and noise) touched a cord with the intellectuals and students of the West who were simultaneously (we are now in the mid- to late-sixties) embracing hippie culture and rock'n'roll. Out of this potent brew would come drone's great renaissance, as a separate genre unto itself within rock and pop music.

Perhaps the most famous art-rock act of all time, The Velvet Underground (right), were born in the midst of New York's effervescent art and avant-garde scene. They were the proteges of maverick art superstar Andy Warhol, and included in their midst none other than John Cale, a Welsh violinist, guitarist and experimentalist who had previously featured in LaMonte Young's Theatre of Eternal Music/Dream Syndicate experimental supergroup (which also featured Tony Conrad and Marian Zazeela, among many others), one of the forerunner bands of electronic drone.

The VU would get zero recognition during their "lifetime", but quickly rose to cult superstardom as their influence extended beyond their arty origins and into mainstream pop and rock. They were never a drone band per se, but Cale's influence is keenly felt across their first two albums (The Velvet Underground & Nico and White Light/White Heat), as repetitive guitar riffs and motorik drum beats act as the blankest of canvases for the arcane and twisted lyrics of singer Lou Reed. This is no more keenly felt than on their magnum opus 'Sister Ray', a 17-minute thumping drone-rock masterpiece in which drummer Mo Tucker keeps up a relentlessly simplistic and monotonous drum rhythm whilst Cale and Reed buzz along discordantly on their axes. This track, which would have a massive influence on a generation of refuseniks, punks and garage rockers, lays the foundation of drone in rock music, for it never once deviates from its repetitive path, keeping up the implacable rhythm and stark melody without altering, colouring or embellishing it with solos, flourishes or texture. Not drone, but surely the essence of it.

Interestingly, the band's former "chanteuse", German model Nico, would go on to have a fascinating solo career in which her instrument of choice would be the harmonium, a particularly powerful pump organ keyboard often used in traditional Indian music. Indian music regularly features drone as a key element (sitars, sarods, sarangi, etc). Indeed, whilst drone instruments like the bagpipes became obsolete in Europe, Asian musicians continued to embrace their traditional roots and tools. Following The Beatles' very public embracing of all things Indian, the West was introduced to the country's many musical delights, another element that facilitated the revival of drone in popular music.

But, typically, it would be away from the musical hubs that were America and the UK that a genre as difficult as drone would flourish. Whilst it would only appear sporadically in those countries' pop music (usually in psychedelic, fusion and underground music), it was becoming a staple in two other territories: Japan and Germany.

For a proper and comprehensive overview of the cultural and musical context of these two countries in the sixties and seventies, I cannot recommend Julian Cope's two books Krautrocksampler and Japrocksampler highly enough. There were definite similarities between both territories, as the radical youth and student bodies rejected the imperialism and intolerance of their parents' generations, that had led to war and genocide, instead projecting further back into the past to the traditional music and culture of their forefathers. They also more often than not showed a reluctance to embrace the "new cultural imperialism" of America and -to a lesser extent- Britain, quite often motivated by Communist ideals. Add to this the fact that both countries were havens for free jazz and experimental / avant-garde music (Stockhausen was a German, whilst Japan was home to some of the world's most vibrant Fluxus artists), and you got a strange mix of modernism and traditionalism, one that embraced "rock" as a form of revolt against the squares whilst also trying to take it in new directions, well removed from what was going on in the US or the UK. The result was that the underground music scenes of Japan and Germany from '68 to '75 were quite probably the most fertile and innovative in the world. And this was the ideal context for Drone music to thrive.

And even at this early stage (we're talking 1970, here), the two basic strands of modern drone (or dronology, as we're apparently supposed to call it) were becoming apparent.

On the one hand, drone would be a music of projected futurism, the vast aural soundscapes used to evoke 21st century cities and machinery. This would become even more frequent in later years, as synthesizers and computers became the norm, to the extent that drone has become blended with ambient music and electronica. On the other hand, drone was connected to traditional music and even folk, with its proponents obsessed with long-forgotten Gods and pagan religions, much in the way heavy metal bands and folk artists would be from Black Sabbath, Comus and Led Zeppelin right up to modern acts like Agalloch and Tenhi. Dark ambience and drone, usually created with electric guitars, deep bass and subdued percussion, would become another way for neo-Wodenists and wannabe shamen to re-connect with their ancestral roots.

In Germany, the greatest exponents of modernist drone were undoubtedly Berlin duo Cluster. They evolved out of the German capital's fervent underground scene, one that also included Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel and Conrad Schnitzler (who was a member of pre-Cluster act Kluster before going solo), all of whom also added elements of drone into their works. Indeed ART's importance as a precursor to drone is almost as substantial as The Velvet Underground's, as guitarist Manuel Gottsching was a master of the sustained one-note solo, whilst drummer Klaus Schulze (also an ex-Tangerine Dream member) alternated his octopus-like skins-pounding with electronic exploration on organ and synth, creating vast, shimmering ambient/drone epics that would take whole sides of ART's albums before taking things even further as a solo artist (see below).

Cluster seen with Michael Rother as part of seminal motorik act Harmonia

Between them, all these bands and artists helped launch a strand of what would later be dubbed in the UK as "krautrock" known as kosmische, and it was distinctive in its spacey, psychedelic approach to music (quite removed from the experimental free-jazz-inspired rock of West Germany's Can and Faust, or the robotic funk of Neu! and early Kraftwerk). In this, drone was fundemental, thanks to its expansiveness and slow pace. In this, Berlin's drone was a truly unique form of psychedelic music.

With Ash Ra Tempel and Schnitzler's Eruption having tentatively shown the way, the first great German drone opus would be Cluster's Cluster 71, released in January of that year. Although it completely bombed and would later spend decades unreleased in any format, there can be no denying the impact Cluster 71 had. It has only 3 tracks, one taking up and entire side of vinyl (ah, the good old days), and none dipping under 7 minutes in length! All this performed by just three individuals - Cluster's main duo Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius, and producer Conny Plank, who would go on to greater success as Kraftwerk's producer.

Describing Cluster 71 is tough, to be honest. None of the reviews I'd read of it, be they by Cope or no less than Wire magazine, prepared me for the sounds that emanated from my speakers after I pressed "play" the first time.

The music of Cluster is immense, planet-sized, titanic. Huge swathes of buzzing electronics rumble and shudder over you, cold and mechanical, like being caught inside the circuitry of some gigantic futuristic super-computer (intriguingly, for such serious music, the one I immediately think of is the computer from Douglas Adams' Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which perhaps highlights the subtle humour and sense of humanity hidden under Cluster's immense robotic sound).

Yet, for all its modernism and futurism, Cluster 71 intriguingly features not one synthesizer! It's all done through saturated guitars, distorted organs and bank upon bank of oscillators and sine-wave generators. That it sounds so ahead of its time is testament to the visionary talents of Roedelius, Moebius and Plank. Cluster would go on to release a spate of amazing electro-drone albums over the next decade or so, even collaborating with Brian Eno and performing with Neu! guitarist Michael Rother as part of the much under-appreciated Harmonia (whose Deluxe album is a masterpiece of motorik electronic pop-rock), and are even still going today. Theire recent epic live drone-a-thon Berlin 07 is well worth checking out to show how well these absolute pioneers have weathered the storms of age.

Cluster 71, already itself influenced by early Tangerine Dream and Eruption (plus their own work as Kluster), led the charge, and were quickly followed. Not to say everyone copied them, but rather that the ferile cultural climate in Germany at the time saw great ideas come to the fore simultaneously.

Tangerine Dream had already dabbled in elements of drone through leader Edgar Froese's buzzing guitar style and Conny Schnitzler's cello and violin on their debut, Electronic Meditation, and expanded into electronic ambience on the follow-up, 1971's Alpha Centauri (displaying the space/futurist concepts more fully). They really went to town, however, on 1972's Zeit, a four-track double-album so huge it remains hard to approach even today. The opener, 'Birth of Liquid Plejades' is a moog masterpiece, whilst elsewhere shimmering synths, distorted organ and moody cello helped set a tone of dark sci-fi gloominess, making Zeit their only full drone opus. They'd deliver some more drone/psych on 73's Atem, before moving into pulsating electro-ambience with the smash-hit Phaedra.

Meanwhile, former TD drummer Klaus Schulze had topped his previous comrades by unleashing his first solo album, Irrlicht, the same year as Zeit. It's a more concise, atmospheric record, featuring just Klaus on a titanic organ, and a stripped-down orchestra who apparently flipped out at the sounds they were being asked to create by the Berlin maverick. Irrlicht is massive and terrifying, two 20-minute-plus tracks of sheer cosmic drone, and as dark and twisted as the nastiest black metal. Indeed, Irrlicht sees drone going the second way I mentioned, as the title is German for 'Will-o'-the-wisp', those ghostly lights that sometimes appear over foggy marshes, anchoring it in a tradition of German folk and mythology (ghosts, pagan gods and magic, etc.) rather than futuristic sci-fi. As such, it is probably the darkest and most unsettling of all the German drone albums.

Schulze, like TD, would go on to produce a series of odd and beguiling albums that crossed over from pure drone to ambient electronica, eventually ending up in trance, techno and acid house. The follow-up to Irrlicht, however, was Cyborg, like TD's Zeit a massive double album featuring four tracks of pulsating electronics and buzzing futuristic organ. The arrival of more modern synths would deliver such forward-thinking electro albums as Blackdance, Timewind, Moondawn and X, but he'd only rarely return to the cathedral-sized drone of Irrlicht.

Drone wasn't, however, solely the domain of Berlin kosmische acts. In the remote area of Wumme in Northern Germany, wild and mysterious experimental band Faust, who had already released two bizarre albums to high critical praise (to the point that they'd soon be signed by Richard Branson's nascent Virgin label), teamed up with no less than premier New York avant-garde violinist Tony Conrad and recorded what may just be my favourite drone album of all time, Outside the Dream Syndicate. It was a match made in heaven, with bassist Jean-Herve Peron, drummer Werner Diermaier and guitarist/keyboardist Rudolf Sosna (3/4 of Faust) providing a solid, repetitive, relentless groove over which Conrad is able to unleash subtly-shifting, hypnotic treated viola. It's a single-minded album, the changes are barely perceptible or non-existant, to the point of autism. Most people I play it for go spare at the lack of clear dynamics. But therein lies the sheer, ground-breaking force of Outside the Dream Syndicate. Where albums like Irrlicht or LaMonte Young's Dream House 78'17" countered the monotony of drone by gradually cranking up the volume and/or shifting the tempos, Conrad and Faust make no such concessions to consumer sensitivities. Outside the Dream Syndicate barely moves, yet keeps going, a graceful, insistent force that is unlike 90% of anything else I've ever heard in modern music. That it remained a glorious one-off until a couple of recent live performances only adds to its aura.

Whilst Germany was embracing drone so emphatically, something similar was happening on the other side of the world in Japan. By the mid-60s, the Land of the Rising Sun had developped a vibrant underground and experimental scene, where jazz and performance art ruled supreme. At the same time, Japan's radicalised youth embraced several traditional art forms such as Kabuki and No theatre and gagaku music, whilst simultaneously rejecting the authoritarian traits that had characterized their parents' imperialist Japan. This led to new and fresh forms of art and music, where Fluxus flourished and free-jazz and avant-garde music soon replaced the be-bop and eleki surf music of the previous decade-and-a-half.

Integral to traditional Japanese music has always been the influence of Buddhist chanting, whilst instruments such as tam-tams often served to create sustained, droning textures. As these influences filtered down to Japanese youth, drone music soon became a frequent component of the underground music scene.

At the forefront of this development was a former Fluxus artist and performer called Takehisa Kosugi, who had been a founder of radical music collective Group Ongaku. At the end of the sixties, and after a stint as a TV composer, he formed the Taj Mahal Travellers, a bizarre and singularly Japanese psychedelic group who combined Kosugi's modulated violin and modern synths with traditional flutes, shamisens, harmonicas and chanting to create massive, ever-shifting soundscapes that mirrored the droning cathedral sound of Klaus Schulze's Irrlicht, without ever sounding like the German maetro's record. Instead, Taj Mahal's Travellers' music -immortalised on their July 15, 1972 and August 1974 albums- creates a mystical, ancient vibe, evoking wind-swept hills, bleak cold mountain tops and grey beaches. It's music for crumbling temples and forgotten citadels, and it takes time (luckily all their tracks hover around the 15-25' mark) to absorb all the subtle sound effects and instrumental flourishes that creep in to the main mix of Kosugi's modulated violin and his band-mates' chanting. Unlike Schulze's masterwork, or Outside the Dream Syndicate, there's a lot going on in TMT's music, and a lot of people improvising (for it's all imprvised), creating drone that is densely-layered, unpredictable and complex. So it's most interesting to note that so much time is given over to silence on the band's albums, surely a nod to John Cage's concept of "performed silence".

Taj Mahal Travellers

Parallel to his adventures with Taj Mahal Travellers -who would go on a semi-constant world tour, performing in art galleries, performance halls and natural spaces across the globe, from Sweden to America to the steps of the Taj Mahal itself- Takehisa Kosugi recorded a solo work of even greater achievement, a two-track monster drone-a-thon called Catch-Wave (released between July 15, 1972 and August 1974 in 1975). The first is an immense freak-out on violin, whilst the second track features a superimposition of Kosugi's voice as he howls a wordless chant in call-and-response fashion. It's very hard to get hold of, but I strongly urge anyone reading (all those millions of you, of course) to track it down.

Whilst Kosugi and TMT were creating all this spaced-out drone, other Japanese artists were turning to a different form of musical minimalism, inspired by The Velvet Underground and -oddly- future MOR rockers Chicago, whose first album featured a wild freak-out called "Free-form guitar".

NOISE!!! The first to succumb to the allure of rampant noise were free-jazzers like Masayuki Takayanagi and Kaoru Abe (check out the latter's superb Jazz Bed if you get the chance - it's mad! Easily equal to Peter Brotzmann's supreme noise-fest Machine Gun), before supreme underground refusenik Takashi Mizutani (below) took things to their most extreme level via his ever-changing, never-officially-recorded uber-rebel band Les Rallizes Denudes. Waves of distorted guitar over basic rhythm would become Les Rallizes' modus operandi, that and Mizutani's refusal to enter a studio, refusal to release any "official" albums and refusal to court any form of publicity, becoming rock's most obscure hermit. That Les Rallizes somehow managed to gain cult status through an avalanche of bootlegs speaks volumes (no pun intended, though this is fucking loud music) for the allure of their singular noise-rock. Beyond drone, beyond rock, even, the free-form noise of Takayanagi, Abe, Les Rallizes Denudes and Keiji Haino's much-later band Fushitsusha is not for everyone, but I find it both hugely arresting and strangely soothing.

To be honest, though, even I find noise music hard to deal with. It's not meant to be enjoyable. Free-jazz noise, of the kind espoused by Abe, Takayanagi, Brotzmann and others such as Sonny Sharrock and Evan Parker, at least sticks to typically jazz sense of modality and rhythm. It's never "easy-listening" but, Abe and Takayanagi's dual album Kaitaiteki Koukan aside, it does have structure. By the time Fushitsusha, and computer/synth noisemakers Merzbow, Pain Jerk or KK Null started their sonic assaults in the eighties and nineties, all structure was thrown out the window. Taking their cues from British and American industrial pioneers like Throbbing Gristle and Factrix, they generated harsh, atonal sonic miasmas destined to not so much be listened to, as subjected to. But there is evidently an audience for this, and whilst my main concern will be drone music, it's good to use this aside to highlight some important noise music from Japan and elsewhere.

Whilst Mizutani was exploring saturation and distortion through primordial r'n'r (the definitive bootleg record of this is the not-so-rare Live '77), one of his idols, former Velvet Underground singer/guitarist/songwriter Lou Reed decided to send the ultimate "fuck you" to his listeners and released Metal Machine Music, an hour-long, four-track double album of feedbacking guitar. Coming on the back of his massively successful Sally Can't Dance and Rock'n'Roll Animal albums, it was hard to tell if this was a terrible joke, or a work of challenging avant-garde daring. The truth is probably somewhere in-between, and critics loathed Metal Machine Music, spewing vitriol and bile over the man who created it. Typically, Reed just shrugged and moved on to something else. Over in Japan, though, rebellious refusenik Keiji Haino was taking note and would launch Fushitsusha, a band that melded Les Rallizes Denudes love for saturated riffs and warped vocals with MMM's extremism, something best encapsulated on 1994's Hisou (Pathetique).

Meanwhile, former fine art student Masami Akita started experimenting with tape loops and metal percussion, and changed his name to Merzbow (performing live, left). Before long, he'd moved into digitally-produced noise using computers, incidentally reconnecting the dots with drone music, ironically. A solo Merzbow release is heavy going, with buzzing, unchanging electronic noise filling your ears, only occasionally punctuated by bursts of feedback or metallic percussion. Personally, I have more affection for his recent collaborations with drone/doom metallers Boris (Sun Baked Snow Cave from 2005 and Rock Dream from 2007), NYC grunge emperimentalists Sonic Youth (on the excellent live collaboration Andre Sider Af Sonic Youth, which also featured free-jazz saxophonist Mats Gustafson) and 2008's electro-drone leviathan Keio Line with Richard Pinhas. Indeed, the way Merzbow has re-connected the harsh noise of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music with the seminal drone of, say, Takehisa Kosugi or Cluster is what makes him such an important artist.

So, back to drone. If its first heyday was in the early 60s, under the guidance of LaMonte Young, Pauline Oliveros and Charlemagne Palestine, and its second was a decade later thanks to the Germans, Japanese and occasional Anglo-Saxon musicians such as Brian Eno (check out the classic drone joint album with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp (No Pussyfooting)), Harold Budd or Steve Reich. But it's incredible to witness the extent to which it is prevalent across underground and indy music today, and this since the early 90s, making this the most sustained period of drone popularity since, well, God knows. Culloden? The Ming dynasty days?

As popular music increasingly became a business, and the major labels moved towards MOR trash from the mid-seventies onwards (apart from a slight punk and post-punk blip), drone slowly moved back to the fringes (let's not forget that Cluster's first album came out on Philips records and that (No Pussyfooting) was released on Island), becoming most frequently an element among others in industrial rock (check out Throbbing Gristle's drone-and-punk-heavy 1977 album The Second Annual Report of Throbbing Gristle) or noise music, both of which were pretty underground, where drone would flourish.

Music has undergone a lot of change in the last two-and-a-half decades. As the mainstream became more homogenised, the underground has diverisfied. The fact is that there was only a certain extent to which every metal band, for example, could keep sticking to a Sabbath/Zeppelin/Kiss/Judas Priest/Purple formula. The arrival of punk in America gave rise to hardcore -fast-paced, urban and gritty- but even that quickly became formulaic. But, far from the gaze of the labels and media moguls, the spirit of the first Black Sabbath albums, those weird, folk-tinged heavy metal crunchers that were steeped in heathen British traditions and culture, continued to thrive. So, with common roots involved, it's no wonder a lot of indy metal owes so much to drone.

In 1993, this meeting of metal and drone was given one of its most lasting voices with the release of Seattle band Earth's second album, Earth 2. Earth were lead by a fucked-up grunge guitarist named Dylan Carlson, a friend of Kurt Cobain's, whose depressingly slow riffing style and taste for minimalism (the only other Earth member at this point was bassist Dave Harwell) created a sub-genre of doom metal called, you guessed it, drone doom. It's impact was considerable, with world-famous robed doom droners Sunn O))) actually starting up as a tribute to Earth!

Today, most of the drone I listen to follows the Earth formula: slow, impossibly long tracks usually featuring heavy, heavy guitar and bass and the odd smattering of barely-interested drums or keyboards. It's music for shaking your head to VERY slowly, preferably when stoned. Some flesh things out a bit. Philadelphia-based quintet Bardo Pond have two guitarists and a full-time drummer, but above all add the airy pipes and blissful flute of Isobel Sollenberger to their sound, best witnessed on 1995's 29-minute stomper "Amen" off their immense first album. Drone metal has therefore become the new true psychedelia (seriously, fuck The Dandy Warhols! They're nothing but vacant poseurs when placed next to the extreme stoners of Bardo Pond or the more psych-metal Acid Mothers Temple), as also evidenced by Japanese heavyweights Boris, quite possibly the best metal band still going today.

If you're a volume-freak (as I am), Japan remains the best place to go. Seriously, I went to a live gig by noise artist Pain Jerk, and I'm sure he rearranged my organs using volume alone! Mainliner, High Rise, Aube, Acid Mothers Temple, Melt Banana... the list of infinitely loud Japanese bands, be they metal, psych, drone or noise, is impressive. And Boris may just top them all. Regardless of whether they're doing "sturm und drang" speed metal, psychedelic post-metal (see their masterpiece Flood, one of the best albums of all time) or going for all out drone-a-thons, they're always killer, never more so than on At Last - Feedbacker, their droniest album ever. Like the best music of Earth, Nadja or Sunn O))), it's as heavy as fuck, a big, crunching mix of pounding drums, fuzzed-out guitar and warped vocals, but it never picks up any speed, the trio preferring to plod along, getting louder and louder until all you can feel are those guitars, those limitless guitars. I played it for a colleague who's very into Yoga and New Age stuff, and she loved it, such was its slow, all-encompassing, primordial power. She compared it to an intense yoga session. And see how we draw full-circle to the reference points in traditional Asian culture that first inspired Takehisa Kosugi and the Taj Mahal Travellers? Even when cranked up to full volume and chock full of electric instruments, drone retains its ancestral power, its foundations having been first laid down milennia ago.

Nadja live

Which is not to say that the Cluster/Tangerine Dream electronic futurist side of drone has now become obsolete. Far from it. In 1995, seminal shoegaze band Slowdive released their best album, Pygmalion, to universal indifference. Today, it stands as quite possibly the best album of the 90s. Tired of the shoegaze noise-guitar formula (very drony unto itself, it should be noted, check out "Sometimes" on My Bloody Valentine's Loveless for proof), the Slowdive gang immersed themselves in electronic music: trance, techno and ambient, then mixed in their guitar-centric approach and stoned out vocals to deliver an album that, for all its funereal pace, use of tape loops and slow electronic ambience, still today comes across as one of the most modern and forward-reaching albums ever. Dare I say it, it sounds post-modernist, futurist. It's the ghostly music of a heroin come-down, or the slow recovery in the early morning hours after a royal bender. It's hazy, druggy, mechanical, the soundtrack to a hungover train ride through a deserted city at 7am. The word is timeless.

But where Slowdive, betraying their more traditional rock background, stuck to vocals and guitars, others rushed headlong into the world of electronics. Austrian artist Fennesz's (left) Black Sea, from 2008, may contain his trademark saturated guitar drones, but its basis remains a carpet of buzzing electronica, computer-generated glitches and subtle ambience. Like the likes of Stars of the Lid and Eluvium (I strongly recommend the latter's Talk Amongst the Trees), Fennesz drone has as much in common with Music For Airports-era Eno and 90s trance music as it does with ghostly, ancient-sounding rock drone a la Nadja, Boris or Sunn O))). Kudos also to the massive dark sounds of Dutch musician Machinefabriek, Merzbow and Pinhas' urban guerilla electro-drone on Keio Line, and the spulchral ambience-and-tam tams droning of A Secret Life, a weird collaboration between former synth-poppers John Foxx and Steve Jansen, along with producer Steve D'Agostino.

The sheer number of bands and artists I've mentioned these last few paragraphs, who all started out in the 90s and 00s, shows one thing: that drone is perhaps more prevalent in rock music than ever before - despite the lack of support for drone bands from mainstream rock labels and press. In fact, if you look at this wee list I created on http://www.rateyourmusic.com/: http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Phimister/the_best_of_drone, 19 of the 43 albums were made after 2000! Obviously, said list only reflects my personal tastes, but it says a lot that such a large proportion of quality drone albums should have been made only in the last 9 years.

Part of it is ease. Drone does not require any sort of musical virtuosity to be made. Two chords on a heavily-saturated guitar at full volume can suffice to make an hour-long track that can, despite this simplicity, be challenging and unpredictable. So drone is cheap and easy to make. It's also a perfect form of musical rebellion these days. With so much popular music being of the bland Britney/Snoop/Libertines/Klaxons variety, bands are turning to extreme forms such as drone, noise or minimalism. Some are gently easing it into more mainstream rock and pop (Battles, Tortoise, Godspeed You! Black Emperor...), others are remaining resolutely absolutist, and are pleasingly getting bigger and bigger audiences, people tired of the afore-mentioned mainstream and flocking to their new sounds (it's all relative of course, no-one's gonna book the O2 Arena for Nadja, but the Pain Jerk gig I went to was packed, albeit in a small venue - and that was pure noise music!).

Most famous of these newer bands is surely Sunn O))) (right), a duo of robe-wearing guitar freaks who've taken the Earth template, pushed up the volume and the darkness, and delivered a terrifying mix of deep, deep drone and pure black metal. Vocals are few, but generally provided by creepy monster singers like Attila Csihar and Xasthur who howl and scream like the living dead. It's not always successful -I struggle to enjoy Black One- but on 2004's White2, I was enraptured. Three long, doom-laden tracks, the first an Earth-like guitar dirge, the second a weird droning experiment in deep, deep bass ambience and the last a weird experimental track that has to be heard to really be appreciated. All are long, all are dark and scary, but the sheer talent of the Sunn O))) guys and their various collaborators (over the years, they've worked with Oren Ambarchi, Dylan Carlson, Jesse Sykes, Boris and Julian Cope, among others) takes the music beyond puerile scare metal and makes it some of the most challenging and forward-thinking drone around.
And, I can't stress it enough, this music is dark. More than Schulze or the Taj Mahal Travellers, many modern drone artists are interested in exploring the relationship between their music and things like esoteric studies, ancient religions, shamanism and long-dead civilizations. The music channels notions of tarot, witchcraft, lost Gods and mythology, whilst, through the ability to create drone through a wide variety of means and instruments, always sounding fresh and modern. So the possibilities are boundless, and drone acts can increasingly be found at alternative and counter-cultural festivals, and not just experimental or metal ones. At the year's Equinox festival in London, I had the pelasure of viewing drone artist K11 and noise wizard Burial Hex, alongside such weird folk heathens as Kinit Her and Comus.

And the list is lengthy. As well as those robed legends of Sunn O))), and the increasingly primeval style Earth has been espousing (especially on 2005's Hex, or Printing in the Infernal Method, a windswept album of rhythmic drone metal that taps into America's deep dark well of far west occultism), we've had the likes of Robedoor (a sort of Sunn O)))-sounding metal/drone outfit), Pocahaunted (shamanic female duo mixing lethargic drumming, fuzzy guitars and ghostly chanting), massive doom-metal husband and wife duo Nadja (check out their titanic albums Skin Turns to Glass and Radiance of Shadows, the latter's sound being brilliantly evoked by the cover picture of gigantic snow-capped trees), Double Leopards (another dark and creepy duo whose Native American vibe evokes a sense of creepy marshes and dank forests, again demonstrating a link with dark-folk and occultism) or gloomy black metal-tinged slow rockers like Monno, TenHornedBeast and To Blacken The Pages (I recommend their A Semblance of Something Apertaining to Destruction most highly - it's a stirring slice of death music unequalled in darkness, emotion and beauty). All are dark, all love their drone, and explore its possibilities in very different ways (loud and heavy for Nadja, slow and gloomy for To Blacken the Pages, ghostly and folk-tinged for Double Leopards). And all have a deep understanding of drone's ability to evoke troubled internal emotions and a sense of long-lost esoteric culture.

A very recent act encapsulates the singular mix of modernity, ancestral power and raw power that makes up drone music: Urthona. Urthona is an enigmatic guitarist named Neil Mortimer based out in the wilds of England's Dartmoor, where he conjures up forceful drone on just a heavily treated electric guitar. The volume is insane, and at times has me thinking of some of the loudest and most brutal metal, noise or industrial music, all screaming machinery and modern detachment. But then he kicks in the deep end of his guitar buzz, going from scream to rumble, and suddenly your eyes are drawn to his album covers (he has two so far -in 6 months- "I Refute it Thus", released on Julian Cope's HeadHeritage label and this year's Amind Devonia's Alps). On them, our man poses in the distance, axe (that's guitar for the non-musical) in hand, surrounded by immense rock formations, be they man-made (on "I Refute it Thus") or natural (Amid Devonia's Alps). Machine, mankind, history and nature - all brought together by the drone. Surely that is the secret of this weird genre's enduring attraction and timeless allure.

Phew! What a slab! And I only barely touched on noise music! If that wasn't all too dull, here's a list of ten essential drone albums I think everyone should listen to if they have even a menial interest in the genre. I am sure you won't regret it. But what do I know?

1 - Cluster - Cluster 71 (1971)
2 - Tony Conrad and Faust - Outside the Dream Syndicate (1972)
3 - Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht (1972)
4 - LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela - Dream House 78:17 (1974)
5 - Takehisa Kosugi - Catch-Wave (1975)
6 - Earth - Earth 2: Special Low Frequency Version (1993)
7 - Boris - Boris At Last - Feedbacker (2003)
8 - Sunn O))) - White2 (2004)
9 - Robedoor and Pocahaunted - Hunted Gathering (2007)
10 - To Blacken the Pages - A Semblance of Something Appertaining to Destruction (2008)

And some random noise albums for those of a less sensitive disposition:

1- Kaoru Abe / Yamazaki Hiroki Duo - Jazz Bed (1972)
2 - Lou Reed - Metal Machine Music (1975)
3 - Les Rallizes Denudes - Live 77 (recorded 77, released 1991)
4 - Nurse With Wound - Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella (1979)
5 - Fushitsusha - Hisou (Pathetique) (1994)
6 - Mainliner - Mellow Out (1995)
7 - Wolf Eyes - Human Animal (2006)
8 - Burial Hex - Initiations (2008)
9 - Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing (2008)
10 - Sonic Youth featuring Mats Gustafson and Merzbow - Andre Sider Af Sonic Youth (2008)

Enjoy!!!! Come on people feel the noise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the drone, of course.

The Good, The Weird and The Fabulous - more movie magic!!

1) Salo o le 120 Giornate de Sodom / Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom - Pier Paolo Pasolini (Italy, 1975)

Salo is probably the nastiest, most revolting and controversial film ever made. Seriously, it's horrible. Vile. Cruel. Contemptuous of human sensitivity and emotions. A raging, seething polemic that appear to have only one purpose, which is to offend and alarm its audience.

Buuuuut, it's also a very -nay, amazingly- brave film, precisely for the reasons cited above. Pasolini had a beef with the established order of society, and by God was he gonna let society know. The premise, based on the writings of notorious French author Le Marquis de Sade, is simple: during the fall of Mussolini's Fascist Italy, a judge, a bishop, a politician and a duke -all symbols of the Old Authority- abduct 9 young men and 9 young women and take them to a grand old palace somewhere in the short-lived rump state of Salo. They hold them there and then proceed to inflict all manner of tortures on them, according to the rites of sex, shit and blood, as described in de Sade's writings and Dante's Inferno.

The scatology scenes were, for me, hardest to take. Watching all those young people being force-fed excrement and urine was beyond stomach-turning. In comparison, the sex scenes were almost amusing (though at no point erotic), and even the brutal final scenes of death and torture failed to quite shock my senses in the same way. But make no mistake, Salo is a harrowing and difficult experience. It is not a film I could really recommend to anyone.

But that's the thing: Salo is not there to be enjoyed. It's not "entertainment". Much like Haneke's Funny Games, it's a treatise, an essay. An attempt to look unflinchingly at what lies at the basic core of fascism: social dominance, violence and contempt for humanity. Pasolini depicts these traits with brutal honesty, because that was the best way to get the message across. And it was an important message for him, at a time when that dark shadow of Italy's recent past appeared to be looming again. He never saw the film's release: he was savagely murdered shortly before it came out. Some even think he was killed because of the film. I doubt it, but given the sheer audacity of Pasolini's cinematographic black sheep, it could almost be plausible.

2) The Brown Bunny - Vincent Gallo (USA, 2004)

I seem to be kicking off with a taste for the controversial. But if Salo was decried for the violence and depravity of its content, indie fave Vincent Gallo's second movie, The Brown Bunny, was loudly booed and jeered at its first screening at the Cannes Film Festival -reducing actress Chloe Sevigny to tears, reportedly- simply because it was a bad, pretentious film. Esteemed critic Roger Ebert even went so far as to call it the worst movie in the Festival's history. Ouch.

But, as Ebert himself acknowledged, when Gallo then went away and re-edited his film, he succeeded in transforming it, a gesture of humility quite startling in such an ego-driven industry. The result is a shorter, sharper and therefore more touching movie (having said that, I never saw the original, but I have heard descriptions of the missing footage, usually accompanied by the words "dull" and "empty").

It has to be said, though, that a lot of the criticisms directed at The Brown Bunny are deserved. It's pretentious. Self-indulgent and self-absorbed, with Gallo (writer, producer, editor, cameraman, director and main actor, no less) seemingly wallowing in his role as American indie cinema's romantic, troubled maverick. His obsession with trying to be "real" or "heartfelt" or whatever seems forced. Yet, somehow, the film works. The beautiful photography helps, as does the slow, mournful pace. The melancholic denouement -unexpected, harsh and touching- is a winner, and it had me staring blankly at my screen for a while after the credits had finished rolling. And, much as I dislike him, there is something stirring about Gallo's performance and those bright, intense blue eyes.

And the film is peppered with great scenes, little moments and touches that ultimately make the pretentious vanity project a cinematic gem. There are silences that mean everything, intense exchanges of stares and gazes between fellow lost souls, and one of the most riveting -and graphic- sex scenes I've ever scene, completely un-erotic, but traversed by a sense of raw urgency and barely suppressed violence that had me glued to the screen (no pun intended). Few films explore with such candour the ins and outs and contradictions of male heterosexual sexuality. Gallo may be vain, but he should be applauded for making such a brave, and ultimately honest, film.


3) Metropolis - Fritz Lang (Germany, 1927)

Quite possibly the greatest film of the silent age, Fritz Lang's Metropolis is flawless in so many ways. I'm not sure that I could ever do justic to its depth, scope, intensity and above all, to the breathtaking images that assault the senses at every turn.

It has to be said: we made our films pretty in them days. The absence of sound meant that directors had to compensate with elaborate props and visual effects to capture the minds of audiences and inspire them both mentally and emotionally. Examples like The Phantom of the Opera or The Phantom Carriage literally overflow with visual treats, such as ciaroscuro lighting or outlandish sets. And nowhere did they refine the art of visual poetry with such expertise as in Weimar Germany. With the shadows of World War I, and an increasingly desperate economic situation, looming long and hard over the German populace, directors externalized the nation's fears and doubts in ever more terrifying horror masterpieces, from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920) to Nosferatu, Eine Symphonie des Grauens (Friedrich Murnau, 1922), both cult and horror gems that will deserve my coming back to them at some point.

Metropolis topped them all, though. Inspired by Lang's visit to the towering skyscrapers of New York, it is the first true sci-fi movie, with breathtakingly inventive (and realistic, remember this is 1927 we're talking about - yet it honestly hasn't aged) sets, and a back-drop of class struggle, industrial monstrosity and fantastical horror. Metropolis is testament to Lang's vision, skill and artistry, and the fact that it has resonated so powerfully down the ages (even getting remade in cartoon fashion by Japanese Manga artist Rintaro) surely proves it deserves its place among the true masterpieces of the cinema.


4) Priscilla, Queen of the Desert - Stephan Elliott (Australia, 1994)

Soooo, a bit of fabulousness (is that even a word?) after all that depravity, raw sex and silence! Priscilla is the epitomy of the fun, heart-warming, outrageous cult comedies that are often staples of gay cinema, loved by straight audiences, but rarely done this well.

I mean, it's a film that couldn't possibly fail. Three drag queens (including one transexual) drive a bus overflowing with frocks, tiaras and boa scarves across the Australian desert en route to a show in Alice Springs. If you haven't already seen it, well, I'm sure you can still imagine the kind of scrapes, japes and adventures they get up to and into, form arguing with local rednecks, to dancing with Aborigenes, to watching a Thai "wife" launch ping pong balls from her nether regions.

Of course, it's camp, silly, over-the-top and chockablock with the kind of girly tunes that only us queers can love. I guess the word is "loveable", and after watching it the first time, I was very close to telling my parents that I intended to become a drag queen once I'd reached adulthood. But, beyond the costumes and the tunes, the main attraction of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is the star turn by veteran hardman Terence Stamp as Bernadette, the aforementioned tranny. He's simply astounding, stealing every scene with his/her dry witticisms and unflappable personality. Highlights include "Stop flexing your muscles, you useless sack of budgie turd!", "What are you telling me? This is an Abba turd?" and "Why don't you light your tampon and blow your box apart? 'Cos it's the only bang you're ever gonna get, sweetheart!" Simply hilarious, all the more so because you wouldn't expect cockney Tel to be interested in such a role. Instead, he carries every subtlety, every nuance across with perfect grace and poise, and he and his two (also straight) co-stars, the equally superb Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce, give extra depth and poignancy to characters that could have been mere caricatures.

So, if ever you fancy a laugh and a dance, there is no better way (apart from the Rocky Horror Picture Show) to glam up your cinematographic taste buds than Priscilla.


5) Blue Velvet - David Lynch (USA, 1986)

David Lynch is America's most enigmatic and curious director, and if I'm honest, one of the best. His output has been prodigious, and nearly every film he's delivered deserves "classic" status. They're usually odd, always troubling and never dull. Indeed, part of the entertainment value often comes from trying to figure out what the fuck is going on!

From Eraserhead to Lost Highway, Elephant Man to Mulholland Drive, all the way up to his most recent opus, Inland Empire, this visionary director, whose unique visual style surely owes much to his background as a painter, has beguiled, confused and enraptured audiences across the world, as testified by his continued success at festivals like Cannes. But, whilst all those films (and I would like to add the Palme d'Or-winning Wild at Heart to the list of Lynch treasures) are "must-sees", the ultimate laurel for best Lynch film has to go to Blue Velvet.

For one thing, it's hilarious, which is not an adjective one thinks of usually when assessing a David Lynch movie. Wild at Heart was also funny at times, but mostly Lynch's films are sober, grim and dark. And Blue Velvet is no exception, except that at times the director injects scenes with an almost Coen-esque sense of detached humour, whilst Dennis Hopper's portrayal as deranged psycho Frank is so over-the-top and insane as to elicit both fear and laughter.

And this dychotomy is at the centre of Blue Velvet's dynamic: it's a sly unveiling of the hidden shadows and dark corners that lurk under the pristine veneer of suburban America. The lawns may be immaculate, the houses bright and colourful, but deep underneath it all lies violence, corruption and sex. So Lynch toys with his all-American "heroes", clean-cut Kyle McLachlan and blonde beauty Laura Dern, before pitching them into the nightmarish underworld inhabited by Frank and his main victim, the stunning Isabella Rosselini.

Like all Lynch movies, Blue Velvet is hard to describe and impossible to summarise. But it's a sensory treasure and indeed assault, propelled by hallucinatory images and a deft use of sound, typical of this most esoteric and crafty of directors.


6) The Ascent - Larisa Shepitko (USSR, 1976)

Larisa Shepitko is now almost forgotten by most cinephiles, her untimely death in 1979 in a car wreck depriving the world of one of its greatest emerging directorial talents. As it is, we have The Ascent, a subtle and stirring masterpiece that won no less than The Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1977.

Recently, America's excellent Criterion DVD collection has re-released The Ascent, so this is an ideal opportunity for audiences to get acquainted with Shepitko's superb film. It is certainly long overdue, as, in my humble opinion, The Ascent is quite possibily the greatest Soviet film since The Battleship Potemkin, certainly at least as good as anything by the more lauded Tarkovsky (in fairness, though, I haven't seen all his films). It's depiction of two peasant soldiers who are captured and tortured by Nazi forces at the end of the Second World War is simple and understated, but from this basic storyline, Shepitko extracts a moving tale of betrayal and fear, but ultimately also of salvation and redemption. It may toe the Party line (as all Soviet films were expected to back then), but it does so subtly and intelligently, whilst never letting such preoccupations interfere with the profound and nuanced study of her character's psyches and frailties.

And all this is set to superb imagery. Shepitko's flawed heroes stumble through a bitter landscape of vast white snow and twisted black trees, ruined villages and dank, dark jails. As such, it is much more than an essay on human bravery and fragility, but also one of the most affecting war movies of all time. I recommend you snap this one up, as it would be a shame to see it go missing again.


7) Naked - Mike Leigh (UK, 1993)

Mike Leigh has delivered some of the most important and distinctive British films of recent years. His incomparable wit, dry sense of humour and dedication to exploring the subtle conflicts and challenges that pepper the daily lives of Britain's middle- and lower-classes are unique, whilst his penchant for letting his actors improvise their parts creates a strong atmosphere of unease and tension that simple visual tricks could never hope to replicate.

In this, Naked stands out even more than other triumphs such as Secrets and Lies or All or Nothing. It is dark, even by Leigh's standards, bleak even, with at its centre a sneering, almost-nihilistic, yet curiously eloquent Mancunien anti-hero named Johnny who pitches up at his ex-girlfriend's flat in London to spread a little chaos, and a massive dollop of sombre philosophy. Other characters slide in and out of the plot, as Johnny wanders the capital's dark and unwelcoming streets spouting his dubious wisdom, but he remains the core, the nexus of this strange and captivating film.

As such, Naked is essentially plotless. We follow Johnny's strange adventures and oblique conversations, none of which really "lead" anywhere. But don't let that make you think the film is dull. Far from it. It's a fascinating look into the minds and hearts of this world's lost souls, propelled by fantastic dialogue and deeply emotional character studies. Of course, the big star is David Thewlis as Johnny, whose mostly improvised ramblings and manic, disturbing energy had me hooked in every scene. I'm not aware of a more-deserved actor's prize at Cannes and am always stunned at the intensity of his performance. And credit to Leigh for letting it out, and for creating such an intelligent, thought-provoking and moving film, seemingly out of nowhere.


8) Elephant - Gus Van Sant (USA, 2003)

I will quite readily launch into massive hyperbole when discussing Elephant. It has the distinction of being a film that I was awaiting with baited breath long before its eventual release - and that didn't disappoint. In fact, it was yards, kilometres, miles, acres better than I could have ever hoped. I had long been a fan of Van Sant (despite the saccharine Good Will Hunting and the dubious Psycho remake), largely through my love of the seminal gay-themed indie, My Own Private Idaho, still one of my fave cult movies of all time.

And the premise behind Elephant hooked me from the moment I read a synopsis. An exploration of gun violence in Amercian schools, the film charts the gradual build-up towards a shooting in a vast Portland high school, seen through the eyes of a series of diverse teenagers, all of whom will be immeasurably affected by the upcoming tragedy.

Knowing the ending in this way imbues the entire project with an overwhelming sense of anxiety and fear. Which of these characters will survive? Why are these two boys so determined to commit such an atrocious crime? Van Sant refuses an analytical or over-dramatised approach. French magazine 'Les Cahiers du Cinema' described Elephant as "light", and the word is apt. The first two-thirds of the movie drift like the leaves that gather on the playground grass, or like the clouds that move across the Oregon sky above. We see Eli taking photos, John dealing with his drunk of a father, a gay-straight alliance meeting, a fat and ugly girl dealing with bullies, and a trio of skittish prom queens gossiping. Another guy meets his girlfriend for lunch. It's banal, but with Van Sant's permanently gliding camera, the improvised dialogue and eerie soundtrack, it takes on a dream-like, almost ghostly atmosphere. Knowing what we do about the ending, we end feeling like we're peering in at a building full of ghosts. It's a truly disquieting, and utterly unique, cinematographic experience. Van Sant would come close to replicating it in Last Days and Paranoid Park, but Elephant still stands alone as his greatest achievement to date.

Above all, his deliberate decision to not draw conclusions on why events unfold as they do is what gives the film its singular force. Van Sant touches on the reasons for the two boys' actions: detached, absent parents; loneliness; bullying; repressed sexuality; a violent culture; video games; Nazism - all theories put forwards after massacres like Columbine, but none ever feeling satisfactory. So we are left to contemplate the true reality - the loss, the fear and the pain. And the ultimate finality of what happens when teenagers run amok in their schools. It's troubling, and brave, and makes Elephant one of the greatest films ever made.


9) Reservoir Dogs - Quentin Tarantino (USA, 1992)

He's the coolest filmmaker on the planet, revered by millions, probably, and almost guaranteed to get tongues wagging and temperatures rising every time he announces a new film release. He's the king of geek movies, of video rental addicts, of cinephilia and cult references. And yet for all, there is always something that makes me pause for thought whenever I think of Quentin Tarantino. See, I can't shake the feeling that his first movie remains by far and away the best he's done so far. So, unless his latest offering -and darling of the current Cannes Film Festival- Inglorious Basterds proves to be a masterpiece, I think I'll stick to Reservoir Dogs. It's his grittiest, smartest and above all simplest film.

For, as great as Pulp Fiction et al were, there were just too many references, too many smart in-jokes or nods to Tarantino's vast cinematographic knowledge. So, despite the stunning dialogue and knack for hell-raising action scenes that he masters so well, I sometimes am left feeling a bit put off. Like he's trying too hard to be, well, cool.

Reservoir Dogs is cool without trying. It's gritty and basic and violent. It has the witty, irreverent and funny dialogue (see the opening diner scene where our Dogs discuss Madonna and tipping - pure genius). It has loads of bloody violence, so much so that it caused one hell of a stir upon release. And it has some of the most arresting screen performances ever scene in an American gangster flick, with Harvey Keitel, Steve Buscemi and Michael Madsen all shining. This is cinema at its stripped-down best: no frills, but lots of balls and attitude. And a razor-sharp script to boot. So, yeah, sue me. Reservoir Dogs is better than Pulp Fiction, better than Jackie Brown, better than Kill Bill. Both volumes. It's a landmark film, and I for one would love it if Quentin Tarantino revisited the sharp, brutal and hysterical simplicity he had in 1992.


10) Peppermint Candy - Leed Chang-Dong (South Korea, 2000)

Korean cinema has now become the thing to like in order to be a proper, middle-class trend-setter (or rather follower), so much so that French singer Renaud immortalised its influence in his song 'Les Bobos' (a massive crock of shit, but for other reasons than for his mockery of wannabe intellectuals like meself). Kim Ki-Duk and Park Chan-Wook have benefited most from this recent Western fervour, whilst Hong Sang-soo and Im Kwon-Taek have also toured the festival circuit.

A lot of this has to do with Korea's very Gallic approach to cultural preservation and promotion, with successive governments stipulating that a proportion of the national cinema industry's income had to go towards financing other Korean films. Likewise, cinemas were encouraged to screen as many locally-made movies as possible. This has created a fertile atmosphere for cinematographic creativity, as demonstrated by recent classics such as Old Boy, A Good Lawyer's Wife, 3-Iron and Woman is the Future of Man (all worth checking out).

And though he has been less prolific than the quartet mentioned above, Lee Chang-Dong deserves special mention in Korean cinema's recent revival, as he was, in the early "noughties", Minister for Culture in the Korean government, and was an aggressive promoter of this "cultural exception". And in Peppermint Candy, he has made the most moving and powerful contribution to his country's recent output.

Its scope is brilliant: a man's suicide sees us travelling further and further back through time, exploring the man's past, from his recent travails all the way back to the wide-eyed naivety of youth and young love. Yong-ho's life is intrinsically linked and intertwined with that of his country, so Peppermint Candy, as well as being a depply moving emotional journey, is also a grim and profound study of Korea's not-so-glorious recent past. War, police brutality and massacres slice into Yong-ho's life, turning it on its head, whilst he, like all Koreans, has to deal with the fall-out from the separation of the peninsula in two, and the subsequent isolation of North Korea. That event had a profound effect on the Korean psyche and although Peppermint Candy does not really address the separation directly, its shadow still hangs over all the event like a dark cloud.

Peppermint Candy is fascinating, sad, wistful and ultimately beautiful, the kind of mature, intelligent and ambitious film that we just don't see enough of these days, especially in the West. Lee Chang-Dong has returned to movie-making recently and on this evidence, we're very lucky!


11) The Innocents - Jack Clayton (UK, 1961)

Old-school horror at its brilliant best, Jack Clayton's The Innocents is a chill-lover's wet dream, a creepy and atmospheric black-and-white masterpiece, all repressed tension, dark shadows and hinted-at malice.

The Innocents is a far cry from the over-the-top violence, melodrama and rampant sexuality that characterised Britain's horror mainstay of the time, Hammer Films. Like most of their output, though, it's set in bygone days (Victorian England) and features a tried and tested horror archetype - the creepy old haunted house.

But The Innocents owes much more to the subdued, suggestive style of that most fruitful of 40s horror partnerships: producer Val lewton and director Jacques Tourneur. Together, they developped a deceptive, suspenseful style focusing on the clever use of shadow, off-screen violence and sound to create such bona fide horror classics such as Cat People, I walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man. All were big hits, especially the former, and left an indelible mark on horror history, influencing such greats as The Haunting and, more recently, The Others. And of course, The Innocents, in which the excellent Deborah Kerr plays a naive young governess who becomes convinced that the two angelic children in her care have been possessed by ghosts, as a terrifying man appears in a window and a shadowy figure walks the house and grounds.

But are these visions for real, or merely a figment of our governess' imagination? The film constantly plays on this ambiguity, with shadows and off-putting lighting heightening the sense of unreality and unease. Meanwhile, the governess' sexual frustration bubbles away under the surface, masterfully suggested by the devilish script and Clayton's adept direction.

That The Innocents continues to chill and frighten even 45+ years on demonstrates the power of Clayton's film. It's beautiful (kudos to Freddie Francis' stunning photography), sad and sombre, and it's suggestive atmosphere and shadowy sense of menace still function greater than a thousand shocks and groy outbursts ever could.

12) Chungking Express - Wong Kar-Wai (Hong Kong, 1994)

When Chungking Express first exploded onto the art-movie scene in 1994, it caused quite a stir, with Quentin Tarantino in particular singing Wong's praises to all who would listen. Though perhaps not a revolutionary step forwards in the same way that The Cabinet of Dr Caligari or Birth of a Nation or Gone with the Wind or A Bout de Souffle were, it certainly was a head-turner, and perhaps the first time since the French Nouvelle Vague that style and substance were married with such delirious panache.

"Delirious" is completely the right word, as Chungking Express is beyond frenetic, a neon head-rush that melds superb photography, a groovy soundtrack and sexy actors into a heady cocktail of modern, trendy cinema. It's script is simple and goes straight for the emotions, as a quartet of Hong Kong's cutest and hippest actors explore love, yearning and loss to the eerie back-drop of Hong Kong's never-resting activity.

Wong is famous for his rushed style, with the scripts using amounting to a mere paragraph and actors therefore encouraged to improvise around sets of ideas that change more or less every day. To make up for this "bare bones" approach, Wong roped in his favourite cinematographer, Australian Christopher Doyle, whose eclectic palette and stylish visual approach are at the core of this film. That and the music add bright, sensual flourishes to Wong's wistful script, so Chungking Express becomes not only a visually compelling experience, but a strangely touching one as well.

Wong would go on to refine and improve on his style with films like Fallen Angels and Happy Together (his masterpiece, in my book), but the starting point for one of modern cinema's most unique voices begins here.

13) Grey Gardens - Albert and David Maysles (USA, 1976)

A bit of a change here, as we delve into the world of feature documentaries. In this realm, the Maysles brothers have few peers, with their quiet, restrained approach and flawless respect for their subject matters paying massive dividends here in this touching portrait of two most peculiar women.

Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (aka "Big Edie") and her daughter "Little Edie" were relatives of one of the most prestigious and respected families in America, the Bouviers (of Jackie Kennedy fame). But, whilst her famous cousin earned adulation around the world, Big Edie ended up, for various reasons, secluding herself in her big East Hampton home with her daughter -a one-time wannabe dancer and actress who gave up her career to care for her aging mother- as her only real companion (apart from a rarely-appearing gardener and hoards of near-feral cats).

The Maysles brothers went to great lengths to get access to these two odd women after a news report highlighted the squalor that they were living, quite a scandal given their background. And their relationship is the most enlightening and impressive feature of this otherwise understated film, as decades of conflict, tension and love are exposed to the camera's discreet but omnipresent lens. Little Edie is particularly open, lamenting the career she gave up whilst preening and prancing for the camera and showing a begrudging love for her slightly loony mother. Big Edie, in comparison, is more guarded, but her moments of madness and her tantrums are cinema gold dust, and the pair's arguments swing from alarming to hilarious with speed.

Ultimately though, whilst the Beale women are infuriating, funny and perplexing, above all they are endearing. For all their arguments and bickering, their affection for one another is touching, and is given great room to be noticed by the brothers' quiet direction, with Albert and David deliberately keeping away from the camera's gaze to give full attention to their hostesses. It's a wonderfully honest and warm piece of cinema verite, and one worth re-discovering for any fans of slightly offbeat, weird cinema.

14) Wild Tigers I Have Known - Cam Archer (USA, 2006)

A decidedly odd and refreshing little-known gem here, from (then-) 25-year-old first-time director Cam Archer and based on his previous short. Youngster Malcolm Stumpf plays a lonely 13-year-old outsider who escapes from the bullying he receives and the indifference of his mother by delving into a fantasy world and by developing a quiet crush on an older, more self-confident boy.

Pretty standard fare for a gay-themed movie, really. Coming of age, unrequited love, raw sexuality, blah blah fucking blah... Except that Cam Archer's dreamlike style and his taste for the surreal take Wild Tigers... into quite different territory to your average Edge of Seventeen lookalike. It helps that Malcolm Stumpf is riveting as our "hero", Logan, convincingly by turns awkward, aloof and emotionally conflicted. With such a graceful central presence, Archer and his cinematographer Aaron Platt are able to weave a beautiful, oniric tapestry, as we dip in and out of Logan's reveries and feverish desires. The wild forests behind Logan's home, the swimming pool, his room: all become back-drops for some quite startling imagery, in a bold move by such a young director.

The boldest turn of all is the way Archer depicts Logan's furtive phone calls to Joey, his love interest. In order not to alarm or put off the older boy, Logan takes on a woman's voice, actually played by a woman (Logan's face is always obscured when he talks), as if to suggest that either all this is occuring in Logan's head or that, perhaps, Joey is equally attracted to him, but is surpressing the attraction by imagining he is dealing with an actual woman. It's a clever ambiguity that Archer handles masterfully, making the ending all the more effective.

Wild Tigers I have Known will never attract widespread attention and will remain a gay niche film. But if you are willing to overlook it's slight flaws and give it a go, it's well worth tracking down. With a great soundtrack, superb performances and beautiful cinematography, it's a great advert for American independent films.

15) Punishment Park - Peter Watkins (UK/USA, 1971)

Let's end on a political, hard-hitting note. Because, although Barack Obama has sailed into the White House bringing hope for a better, fairer future for the entire planet, the shadows of the Bush years, with their tentative totalitarianism echoing the worst aspects of the Nixon administration, still linger menacingly. As such, whilst Paranoid Park should be an archival film, relevant only to historians and collectors, it instead still seems frighteningly important and cautionary, nearly 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War that served as its back-drop ended.

British director Peter Watkins depicts an alternative 1970, in which anti-war protestors are, instead of going to jail, offered the chance to race unarmed through the desert (in a military zone known as "Punishment Park") to an American flag. If they get there, they can go free. If the army catches them, they go to jail. Watkins features as a documentary crew leader who follows a group of prisoners as they attempt to make it to the flag. Quickly, however, they realise that the army have no intention of letting them reach the flag, instead unleashing a series of harrowing attacks on the protestor, made all the more troubling by the film's faux-documentary style.

Watkins' agenda is clear from the off, as the protestors are pitted against a heartless conservative machine in the form of dummy trials and intimidation. Then they are sent into the 45-degree desert heat with no food or water, as tensions bubble to the surface and the army closes in. At the end of the film, another trial is underway and another set of young people are faced with a choice between prison and the Punishment Park. It's fiercely political, hard-hitting and sobering. Predictably, it was massively controversial on release, especially in America.

Watkins' political pamphleteering will probably not be to everyone's taste, but there can be no denying the force and intensity of Punishment Park. It's brutal, gritty and harsh, and whilst it can be construed as exaggerated or hyperbolic, the truth is that, with the Kent State Massacre occuring just prior to its filming, and with the unpleasant realities of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo bay fresh in our modern-day minds, it's actually not that far from reality, even in 2009. Scary stuff...

The Goody Sideshow

I surprised myself recently. When my boyfriend told me that, after months of tiresome media exposure of her battle with cervical cancer, TV reality "star" Jade Goody had actually passed away, I was sad. Confused by it, but sad nonetheless. For all my long-standing criticism of reality television in general, and Goody in particular, no-one could really, humanely, feel otherwise when a 27-year-old woman dies in such pain, leaving two young boys motherless. There is no denying - it's sad.

You know what's coming though - a "but". And there is one. Because my sadness rapidly turned to disgust as my TV and newsagents' stands were inundated by front cover stories and video ads all dedicated to the passing of Jade. We had tacky music and faux-sentimental voice overs to help boost an advert for Ok! magazine. And heading in to Sainsbury's for my lunch, there she was, on the cover of every gossip rag, every tabloid. Her family are being hounded, the press and paparazzis trying to milk every tear for as much as they can get. Before long, my sympathy had turned to annoyance, even repulsion, as the life and death of a relatively insignificant woman was shoved down my throat at every commercial break and whenever I went to purchase a newspaper and a bag of sodding Monster Munch.

And then came the clincher. On the 24th of March, just after Goody's passing, columnist Johann Hari of The Independent wrote a piece called "Jade showed the brutal reality of Britain" (http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1468). I am an avowed admirer of Hari, yet it has to be one of the most monumental piles of drivel I've read in a while. In his article, Hari lambasts the snobbishness of Britain's press, media and public who insulted and derided Goody when she was on Big Brother, intimating that the hostility amounted to little more than middle class prejudice, and even racism because she was mixed race. Now, I will readily agree that the British press has displayed mindless hypocrisy over Goody, as the very rags that are encouraging us to weep over her death even as we hand them our pennies are the same ones who were calling her a "pig" 9 or so years ago. Stop the press, Johann, our tabloids are hypocrites. What a scoop...

But to assume that the antipathy Goody generated was simply down to her being working class is silly, and short-sighted. I do not hate poor people. But I hated Jade Goody, and will readily admit it. But to assume that it's because I want to sneer at people less well off than me, or worse, that it is due to some ingrained racial prejudice, is ridiculous. In many ways, it's not even Jade I hated. Jade became a symbol of the "dumbing down" that has become a feature in this country. She was uneducated, vulgar and rude, yet we held her up as some sort of "chav" heroine ("Britain's favourite chav"). I resented that I was being told that she was someone worth emulating, an example to follow. And I resent Hari perpetuating this idea now. I do not consider it "class prejudice" or "sneering" to express the feeling that young Britons should not be told to be like Jade Goody. I would rather my kids -should I ever have any- aspire to be like, say, Patrick Wolf or Kanye West - smart, educated, inquisitive and well-spoken. And the fact that she came from a poor background is no excuse, as Hari again -somewhat patronisingly- intimates. There have been quite a few celebrities who have come to be known despite coming from run-down areas or cash-strapped families, and who achieved their fame through talent and hard work, as opposed to sitting on their arses in front of TV cameras guzzling booze, vomiting and talking incoherently.

In last night's London Paper, a journalist was reviewing a latest BBC 2 X Factor-like reality show called The Speaker where, instead of singing, contestants -aged 14 to 18- were judged on their public speaking skills, with an emphasis on eloquence, wit and intelligence. The journo derided the concept, and even went so far as to have a pop at one of the judges for his silly hair and at fellow judge Jo Brand for being a "poor man's Cheryl Cole" (there's your class prejudice, Johann!). So, in dumbed-down Britain, a vacant fashion victim WAG who has been loading bland generic pop on the nation is deemed preferable to a witty, funny and intelligent comedienne, simply because the WAG is hot and the comedienne is fat. Is this really where we're going? Stupidity and "attitude" as primers over clarity of thought and education? Thank God for Stephen Fry, although it's telling that more people will gather around their TVs to watch Britain's Got Talent than anything the Norfolk-based genius could come up with.

The connection? Well, I think this shows just how pervasive the dumbing-down culture is here. We'd rather a vapid, crude illiterate yob with a big mouth and limited vocabulary than a smart, eloquent intellectual. To say otherwise is to be a snob or even prejudiced, apparently. And Goody, like this journo, was a prime example of this mindset.

In his article, Hari even goes so far as to whitewash Goody for her part in the racist bullying of fellow Celebrity Big Brother contestant Shilpa Shetty two years ago. Despite much footage of Goody screaming and jabbing her finger at the Bollywood star, and the blatantly racist terms she used such as "Shilpa poppadum", he claims she basically did no such thing, and apparently Jade couldn't have been racist as she herself was mixed race - convoluted logic if ever there was. Has he not heard of Robert Mugabe?
He even seems to suggest that Shetty brought it on herself by being a rich, pampered "princess" whose lack of exposure to the real world understandably offended the hard-working inner city lass Goody. Oh, well that's alright then. Bollocks. Goody had precedence of such bullying on another piece of celebrity reality dross, Celebrity Fit Club, when she poured scorn and hatred on overweight singer Rick Waller. But maybe that was his fault for affronting her with his fatness...

The fact is, Jade Goody was being racist, and was rightly condemned for it. She was a bully, she was ignorant and she was vulgar, and yet was held up as a role-model. And this is the crux. Most people who denounced Jade did not hate her, not really. They hate the trend in this country to cast education, erudition and eloquence to one side and to instead promote the Jade Goodys of this world as examples to follow. Is it any wonder that smart kids in inner city schools are getting bullied, if their peers are being told a Jade Goody is a worthy role model by The Sun, Heat, Hari and Max Clifford? Is it any surprise we have so much bullying in our schools, if hers is downplayed to such an extent? Jade Goody was not a heroine, not a saint, not an angel. She was an ordinary woman who got famous via the cheapest and least meritous of means. And with fame comes exposure. Hari thinks Jade Goody exposed an ugly trend of class elitism and snobbery. I think she symbolises the "lowest common denominator" culture that is only getting worse as the years roll by. It's a shame she died, especially for her kids. It's also a bloody shame that we can't find a more deserving person to weep so many tears over.



As an aside, and by way of making up for critiquing him so much in this article, it's worth reading Johann Hari's recent expose on Dubai. Quite an eye opener: http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1475

Could we be faced with a culture war?

It seems like such an odd -and unfortunate- question to have to ask. My brother, a law student and therefore very particular about how language is used, would scold me, and indeed already has. But I feel there is some merit to it nonetheless. Perhaps, though, it should in fact be altered: are we being dragged into a culture war?

Of course, there's no such thing as a culture war. It's hard to imagine university scholars taking up kalashnikovs and uzis for a battle to the death over who is the finer artist, Rembrandt or Caravaggio. Wars are fought over resources, territory and ideology. But there is the crux - ideology. "Culture" may not be the right term (although I use it in reference to famed -and [ob]noxious- conservative American pundit Bill O'Reilly's book title), but there is a growing schism in our society (by "our", I do in this case mean British, although this does apply, in slightly different terms and circumstances, to other countries such as the USA, France, Germany and The Netherlands). It's a schism between those of us who believe in secularism, and those who wish to impose religion on society as a whole.

To be honest, I'm no Richard Dawkins or Johann Hari. For yonks, this kind of thing passed me by (I was only a nipper when the whole Salman Rushdie farce kicked off), despite being a lifelong atheist and secularist. But slowly, the conflicts between the religious and the secularists began to rear their heads into my life.

First up was the "no veils" scandal that swept France a few years back. The French government caused much outrage and accusations of racism by banning the wearing of veils in schools and for civil servants. The scandal even meant that for a while France overtook London as a potential terrorist target. At first, I was rather ambivalent about the matter. It seemed a bit insensitive on the part of then-interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy to target what is deemed by many muslims (including women) to be an integral part of their faith. Much as I feel perturbed by the idea that woman should cover themselves up to please backwards-thinking men, the full-out banning of veils seemed over-the-top. A burka, fine. But a simple veil?

But after much heated debate with friends and colleagues, and a little investigation, I found out that this was not a simple case of anti-Islam bigotry. The principle of secularism ("la laïcité" in French) is deeply ingrained in the constitution of France. The state and religion are completely separate, and no religion shall be given precedence over others. If crosses and kippahs are not allowed in public schools, then why should veils be given special treatment? And, ultimately, French society acquiesced to this view. The Republic is an almost sacrosanct institution in France, ideally viewed as a system where all are equal and no-one gets placed ahead of someone else except on merit. Of course, this is more utopia than reality, but for the most part, France's ethnic and religious minorities (and even the Catholic religious majority) are happy to put the values of the Republic before their own, for the sake of national unity.

However, just months after this relatively storm-in-a-teacup-ish incident, there came the much more horrifying murder (fuck it, I think the word "slaughter" applies more) of controversial Dutch director Theo Van Gogh. We could debate until we're blue in the face about the merits (or lack thereof) of his film. I personally feel that, as simplistic as it was, it would be a travesty to suppress his views (and those of writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose suffering at the hands of extremist Islam was terrible, including genital mutiliation). Those views are there to be debated, and if they prove to be erroneous or false, then surely that can be demonstrated. Suppressing them through violence and hatred is the way of the weak and cowardly. I have read enough of the Koran to know that it contains much beauty. The people who objected to Van Gogh's films would have best served Islam by highlighting these elements in a civilised manner to the director, rather than resorting to the heinous violence they ultimately unleashed.
But what ultimately shocked me, perhaps even more than the violence of the crime itself, was the way the world reacted. Of course, there was the usual outpouring of anger and disgust at the killer and those who incited him. But, in several liberal circles, not to mention among some extremist (and even moderate) muslims, there was sense that Van Gogh had gone too far with his film and that he had ultimately provoked the reaction he got. Taken to the extreme, it basically sounded like these people were saying he got what he deserved! How can this be possible? A man deserves to be murdered, because his views were extreme? Extremist violence as an answer to extreme thoughts? Am I the only one to see a disparity here? Thoughts, or words, don't kill. There is no justification for the murder of Van Gogh, and it should be resoundedly condemned as an assault on free speech, regardless of what anyone thought of his film.

At this stage, I must point to whoever may be reading this -let's face it, not many people- that I am not, in any way, shape or form, anti-Islam. It is unfortunate that the two incidents that awakened my awareness of the assaults on secularism and free speech by religions should involve radical islamism. I want it on the record right now that I have friends, colleagues and acquaintances who are Muslims, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for them. But this respect does not insulate them (or indeed, my Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Hindu friends) from criticism of the tenets of their faith. Indeed, some of the most eye-opening, tolerant, interesting and rewarding discussions I have ever had have been with Muslims on the subject of Islam. The mutual respect we have is that neither feels the need to shout down or suppress the views of the other. They respect my right to criticise some of the ideas expressed in the Koran, and I respect their right to live their faith, and express their thoughts on it freely. The idea that we all could be sentenced to death, just for having said conversations, is deeply abhorrent for me. Yet is this not what happened to Van Gogh? Or those editors and caricaturists in Denmark? For me, such violent intolerance is not at the core of what I have learned about Islam, and yet it is so vocal. The aim of this blog is not to bash any religion, but to call for all moderate Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc. to stand up for free speech and the basic principle of democracy that is the free exchange of ideas.

In fairness, I'm not expecting this blog to be even remotely important enough to warrant any persecution. But you never know...

In the last few days, I have to say, my secularist self has been bristling considerably at recent news. There was the incident involving yet another Dutch polemicist, Geert Wilders, who was refused entry to the UK on the grounds that his controversial film (again! What is it with the Dutch and films condemning Islam?) Fitna could provoke the local Muslim population into violence. I've seen the film. It's crap. Absolute incendiary tripe. But he should not have been banned. The only way to address bigotry and stupidity like Wilders' is to let it out into the open, and then slam it down by exposing its emptiness. Instead, fearing riots and violence, Jacqui Smith made a stupid decision, one that has hit free speech in this country smack-bang in the face.

There was also the Palestinian appeal, that the BBC stupidly decided not to air, on the basis of "neutrality" in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Have we got so afraid of angering people (in this case, the Jewish lobby) that an appeal to save lives is deemed unacceptable? Okay, granted, that had little to do with religion and more to do with the vocal belligerence of Israel, but the principle remains the same. Still, at least Britain's jews would not threaten to firebomb the Beeb had the appeal gone to air, as was the risk for the House of Lords in the Wilders case. But in both cases, it stinks of free speech and the right to differing opinions being slapped down by vocal and aggressive minorities or lobbies.

But the crux for me has come in the last two weeks. A few weeks back, respected (and excellent) Independent journalist Johann Hari wrote an article defending the value of free speech in the wake of growing pressure on no less a body than the UN to not only defend religion, but ultimately to condemn all forms of criticism of religion, specifically Islam. The driving forces behind this pressure, which included Saudi Arabia, The Vatican and the Christian Right in America, basically ended with the Pakistani UN delegate demanding that UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights' job description be, in Haris' words "changed so he can seek out and condemn 'abuses of free expression' including 'defamation of religions and prophets'.
Hari was justifiably outraged, and put it succinctly this way: "The council agreed – so the job has been turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself." You can read the whole article here: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-why-should-i-respect-these-oppressive-religions-1517789.html.
This is a serious assault on our civil liberties. Now, religious extremists can actually go to the UN and demand that the likes of Rushdie, or Hari himself (fuck, even me, if I were more significant) be condemned under international law for whatever offences they perceive as being inflicted on them. And it got worse. In his article, Hari demonstrated just why this ruling is an abhorrence by highlighting passages in all three major monotheist religions that are ugly, repugnant and unsound, yet which pretty soon we may not be allowed to condemn. The response? When his article was reproduced in an Indian newspaper, extremist Muslims in Calcutta, objecting to a passage about Mohammed's rape of a 9-year-old he chose to be his bride, rioted, called for the death of Hari and the editors and ultimately succeeded in getting the latter arrested. This in the world's largest democracy! http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1448

How can this be possible? How can the governing bodies of the entire world be bowing down to such hysterical pressure? I repeat, I am all for the freedom of every individual to express his or her religious faith. But NOT if this expression curbs or assaults the basic freedoms of others. That is what being a secularist is all about (please do not confuse it with militant atheism - I know quite a few religious secularists). And amongst the many backlashes against this insanity (read messages of support for Hari and the Indian editors here: http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=1451), we are also now seeing a resurgence (did it ever leave?) of Christian hysteria in the UK, one that is increasingly matching the virulence of America's Christian Right and the extremism of radical Islam.

The big one was the nurse. Caroline Petrie was suspended from her hospital for offering to pray for a sick patient. This turned out to be a breach of hospital practice, and Petrie was duly sanctioned. Yet, the increasingly vociferous Christian Institute (that ultimately preaches a BNP-style mantra of restoring Britain's Christian roots at the centre of our society) caused a right stink, backed by those foul-crying harpies of our gutter press: The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The Telegraph. They all equally screamed and stamped and cried "discrimination" at the tops of their voices when a school receptionist was reprimanded for sending an e-mail to friends during work hours asking for them to pray for her daughter who had been scolded in class for, in the CI's words "referring to Jesus and God".
Turns out, that's bullshit. The little five-year-old had been telling one of her school chums that, as a non-Christian, she would be going to Hell. The other child was frightened by this and a teacher intervened to tell the receptionist's daughter that scaring other children was not acceptable. The mother got the wrong end of the stick, sent a disparaging and unprofessional e-mail to her friends, one of whom happened to be married a school governor, who, noting the impropriety of this behaviour, duly informed the headteacher. Hence the reprimand. You can find out the full truth, and that behind other such "anti-Christian" stories as that of BA employee Nadia Eweida here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/24/religion-christianity-atheism. Unlike the Mail or the Telegraph, Guardian reporter Terry Sanderson has actually bothered to check the facts before spouting off. And he does it with much more eloquence. Funny that...
The CI and its allies have not bothered to check anything, instead trying to whip up conflict, scandal and hysteria by claiming Christians are being systematically discriminated against in the UK. Hell, it worked in the USA.

At the centre of all these situations is the central belief by many religious people that somehow their faiths deserve to be protected from criticism and debate. So, they take employers, journalists, authors to court, demonstrate outside embassies or newspaper offices and in the worst cases resort to violence or murder. And increasingly, our governing bodies are all too eager (because they're scared?) to play along. Surely these people's beliefs are not so fragile as to warrant such behaviour? Surely the words of secularists or free-thinking moderates are not so threatening? They're just words after all.
Above all, religions are based on ideas, in the same way philosophies and scientific theories are. Ideas should not be protected and shielded in the same way we protect ethnic or sexual minorities from racism or prejudice. They should be discussed, debated and critiqued, as a way of developping our societies as a whole. Otherwise, we will be one step away from getting our very own religious thought police. And that is the path to the death of democracy.

Maybe we are in a culture war after all. And freedom of expression could be the ultimate loser...


For anyone interested in promoting and upholding secularism, here's a great website: http://www.secularism.org.uk/

Got Live If You Want It!

Ah, the live album. Unpredictable little bastards, live albums. Some of the most reliable and successful studio bands have failed to ever deliver a decent one, despite their positive reputations as live acts (I'm thinking Led Zeppelin, Eagles, The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Fleetwood Mac, Funkadelic, The Stooges, Radiohead - you may not like all these bands, but there's no denying their popularity or the fact that people who have seen them live tend to wax lyrical about the experience). Shit, The Clash's posthumous live was an absolute stinker!

But, if a band or artist is good live, then for music-heads there will never be a better experience than seeing said band in the flesh. It's tantamount to a pilgrimage, a religious or spiritual experience that subsumes your whole being and takes you to places that no studio album could ever manage. After seeing Neil Young last year (twice), I felt my soul melt and tears leap to my eyes, such was the hold he had on me, such were the emotions that raced through my body with every line and every guitar solo. The same thing happened when I went to see Wilco at the Elysee Montmartre in Paris. Something about the charisma of lead singer Jeff Tweedy, coupled with the beauty of his songs and the reckless abandon of the band's playing reached deep into my heart and left me breathless. Even their immense A Ghost Is Born album could not mimic the effect the gig had on me, and I've been dying to see them again ever since.

And, rest assured, there have been more than a few live albums that have succeeded where The Zep's How The West Was Won or Yes' Yessongs failed, managing to capture on vinyl or CD the energy, sense of communion and spirit of the band or artist on stage. The most famous are well renowned: The Who's Live at Leeds (possibly the best live album ever), MC5's Kick out the Jams, The Rolling Stones' Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out, The Allman Brothers Band's At Fillmore East, not to mention classics by Deep Purple, King Curtis, Aretha Franklin, The Grateful Dead and Lou Reed.

But this blog is not for such much-lauded fair. I'm going by the assumption that you already are familiar with Hendrix's Band of Gypsies and Reed's Rock'n'Roll Animal. But there are quite a few other stunning live gems out there, and here is a smattering of my personal faves.

1) King Crimson: Earthbound (1972)

Few bands' own fans have hated one of their idol's albums with quite as much venom as King Crimson's when confronted with the messy slab of dysfunction that is Earthbound. There is no denying how atonal, violent and ramshackle this, the band's first live album, is. It sounds, well, awful, as it was recorded straight to a cassette deck. No 8-track, remote studio cleanliness here. The instruments all blend together, the saturation is vicious and there are only five tracks. This is a brutal, brutal album, and the closest Crimson ever came to producing a metal opus. In volume and intensity, it rivals anything Led Zep, Sabbath or Free ever did. And in terms of reckless abandon, it's akin to the best of The Stooges, The MC5 or Neu!.

Earthbound came along at one of many crossroads for King Crimson. It remains an unanswered question as to just how many masterpieces Crimson could have created if they'd managed to get a stable lineup. As it is, they delivered a classic, must-have debut and several amazing, if inconsistent follow-ups, and this cow-pat in the poppy field. By Earthbound, that stunning debut album from '69 seemed a lifetime away, with only genius guitarist Robert Fripp remaining from the original lineup, and with tensions running at all-time high. Indeed, by the time the album was released, it seemed Crimson was gone for good, and that this was Fripp's last big "fuck you" to the world and to his ex-band members. Few albums have been born out of so much spite.

Gosh, I'm probably not selling this very well. Truth is, Earthbound is a "yes, but" album. Yes, the sound is messy. Yes, the band members hated each other. Yes, Fripp disliked the funky direction bassist/singer Boz Burrell and drummer Ian Wallace were taking the band. But, my God, it's a fucking slap in the gob from the word go. A good live album makes you want to have been in the audience at the moment of recording. I can confidently say that I have rarely wished I was somewhere with more vigor than in the mosh pit for the opening thunderstorm version of "21st Century Schizoid Man". It has to be one of the most intense moments in rock history. The crowd's cheering is immediately subsumed by an almighty burst of drums, sax and guitar and the guys are off, pummeling this prog classic into the ground with sheer reckless abandon. They basically wipe the floor with the original studio version, which sounds almost limp in comparison. Boz was never as good a vocalist as Greg Lake, but here his voice is filtered deliriously through a VCS3 synth, making him sound robotic and even more deranged than Lake ever did. Then the band launches into a transcendent jam. Fripp may have been all miserable by this stage, but you wouldn't guess it as he pours a pure molten solo, followed by Mel Collins' barnstorming sax break. The whole piece careers along at freight-train speed, before collapsing in on itself and shuddering to a grateful and chaotic halt, leaving the listener breathless.

The rest of the album was always going to struggle to maintain such energy, but they give it a fantastic shot. Do not expect a greatest hits live package. Two of the four remaining tracks are unique-to-this-album improvisations that showcase Wallace and Boz's taste for funk and scatting. Not outstanding, although "Earthbound" does feature some truly monumental guitar work from Fripp, who also lets rips on a screaming, free-jazz overload version of "The Sailor's Tale". Sadly, it's the shortest track here, and the audience is silent (I'd have been roaring my head off at such masterful playing) or obliterated, but it features some gorgeous Mellotron from Collins and one of Fripp's greatest solos. But the cherry on this bloated, sinister cake remains closer "Groon", expanded here (from it's origins as a non-album single) into a 15-minute mess that starts off normally enough, with some cool jazzy interplay, before each member sets about tearing it to bits, the culminating moment being when Wallace's drum solo is filtered into the VCS3. It's an almost disturbingly fraught cacophony, sounding so ragged and raw, as if they practically stopped caring, before Fripp swoops in with yet another screaming solo and the whole thing burns out before the piece is even over!

Like I say, the whole album is a mess: roughly recorded, incoherently edited, loud, raw and saturated to buggery. The anti-prog live album. But I am so grateful it's out there, permeating the stale atmosphere of 70s prog-rock with its proto-black-metal stench. For "21st Century Schizoid Man" and "Groon" alone this is a masterpiece of rampant rock and definitely worth tracking down. Fuck, it's cover was even aped by those masters of heavy psych, Acid Mothers Temple. Surely that's a guarantee of underground credibility?

2 - Jefferson Airplane - Bless Its Pointed Little Head - 1969

Live albums really sprung to the fore at the tail-end of the 1960s, in the wake of Bob Dylan's seminal 1966 Tour with The Band, when The Rock Bard unleashed his Highway 61-era songs to the anger and revulsion of many in the audience. Gone were the days of packed clubs or stadia where screaming kids emptied their lungs at the feet of The Beatles and their two-minute wonders. Dylan's actions ushered in the days of ROCK, and extended jams and ear-splitting amp volume became the norm. And pretty soon, all the major acts of the late '60s had hopped on the bandwagon, leading to the defining era of live single- and double-albums, with such classics as The Allmans' At Fillmore East, The Dead's Live/Dead and Hendrix's Band of Gypsies, all mentioned above.

In this morass, Jefferson Airplane's contribution, the immense Bless It's Pointed Little Head, seems to have gone oddly un-heralded, despite being one of the very best of the period. Jefferson Airplane were -and remain- legends of the hippy counter-culture that sprung up in the mid-sixties in San Francisco. Their politically-charged and drug-tinged anthems touched a deep chord in the hearts and minds of California's youth, whilst the charisma and beauty of singer Grace Slick made them perhaps the most media-friendly of all the West Coast bands bar The Byrds. Their 1967 hits "Somebody to Love" and "White Rabbit" became staples and signatures foran entire generation of American refuseniks.

But all that only tells a small part of the story of this singular band. They may have had hits and media exposure, which probably caused them to burn out and become rapidly obsolete as the starry-eyed sixties gave way to the cynical seventies, but at their height, they were so much more than simple poster children for fashionable -and dispensable- hippyness. Jefferson Airplane was in fact perhaps the hardest-hitting acid band in Frisco, capable of belting out a raw and ragged sound that even the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Silver, in all their jamming, couldn't equal. By 1969, Jefferson Airplane had an edge to rival the Doors and Iron Butterfly, which sat up nicely alongside their anthemic singles.

And Bless Its Pointed Little Head captured that edge and energy on vinyl. It's a proper, unfettered, warts-and-all live masterpiece that showcases not only the band's knack for anthemic tunes and the neat vocal interplay of Slick and fellow singer Marty Balin, but also their ability to let loose, to improvise and to rave it up. Everyone's a hero on Bless It's Pointed Little Head. Slick is at her best, taking her staple "Somebody to Love", for example, and turning it inside out as the band funks it up behind her, belting out some delirious rapping vocalisations like a crazed Southern gospel singer. The song is revved up, white hot, yet tight and crisp, and the band delivers similar punchy moments of brilliance on Balin's staples "The Other Side of This Life", "It's No Secret" and "3/5's of a Mile in 10 Seconds". The 'Plane's other singer demonstrates just how underrated he is, particularly on an almost punkish version of "Plastic Fantastic Lover", where he shouts himself roar above a fierce garage beat.

But, as was often the case with '60s bands, the best moments are reserved for when the band sheds its shackles and rears its improvisational head. First up comes "Fat Angel", a Donovan cover that the band completely reworks, turning it into a seven-minute psych-drone epic given over to warbling guitar solos and Paul Kantner's stoned vocals. Then the reins are handed over to guitarist Jorma Kaukonen (a truly underrated axe master, in my opinion) and superb bassist Jack Casady, who basically showcase what would become their Hot Tuna side-project with a blisffully psyched-out blues called "Rock Me Baby". Kaukonen is of course the star here, unleashing molten guitar solos that are equal parts Muddy Waters and Happy Trails-era John Cippolina.

But it's the final psych-sludge landslide improv, "Bear Melt", that seals this album as one of the truly great live albums. Slick returns to the forefront to remind us all who's boss as, over a slow, heavy blues riff, she begins rapping again, her voice hurtling skywards as she reels off bizarre lyrics and Kaukonen rips up a storm behind her. Then the band takes over, unleashing a furious, mind-melting (see what I did there?) jam that stretches out for the best part of 10 minutes before Slick takes over again to bring it all to a shuddering, growling halt. Then, ever the slick customer (man, I am an a roll here!), she drolly quips to the delirious audience, "You can move your rear ends now" before strolling off.

Raw and rampant, Bless Its Pointed Little Head is a classic live album, brilliantly displaying the Ariplane's talents for improvisation and jamming whilst also providing enough punchy, jagged rock bursts to satisfy anyone out there gagging for a little MC5-ish raw power. At times, I swear, they move into proto-metal territory, with "Bear Melt" sitting alongside the best of The Doors' and Velvet Underground's output as some sort of precursor to nineties doom, albeit with a cleaner, more innocent vibe. Check it out if you like a bit of high-octane psych joy. I would defy anyone to say that, at their height, the Airplane weren't the best in the business.

Oh, and the sound is gorgeous throughout, for those of you who hated Earthbound.

3 - Townes Van Zandt - Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas - 1977

There's a lot to say for a bit of the above-mentioned sturm-und-drang. However, at the other end of the spectrum, you have those live albums that gain their force not from pumped-up amp volume and wild guitar thrashing, but rather from their artists' ability to capitivate an audience with more rudimentary and intimate means.

In this respect, Townes Van Zandt had few peers. Steve Earle once declared that he would stand up on Bob Dylan's coffee table to praise Van Zandt as the greatest singer-songwriter in America. Quite a compliment and one I'm afraid I share ("I'm afraid" - how British of me). For those of you who haven't turned away in shocked horror at my blasphemy, maybe your curiosity is piqued. Or, more likely, you have experienced the genius of Townes Van Zandt and know that there is almost certainly some merit to these lines.

Townes' strength was his hurt, and I don't think any other American singer-songwriter, maybe apart from Skip Spence and Neil Young (and in the latter's case not always, plus he's Canadian) who poured out such anguish, despair and loss into his songs, certainly with such regularity. But Townes' other strength was his sense of humour, even in the darkest of times. Which means that a Townes Van Zandt song, such as "Pancho and Lefty" or "Lungs" veers from witty to sad to wistful to droll to sardonic to melancholic in the space of just a few minutes. And Live at The Old Quarter contains just about the greatest collection of all his best tracks, making it something of a greatest hits compilation, as well as a demonstration of his unique acoustic guitar playing, wry humour and depth of emotion.

Old Quarter is intimate, with possibly one of the smallest crowds ever to feature on a major live album, a couple of hundred at best. It's so intimate, you can hear glasses smashing, the sound of boots on the floor and murmurs of conversation as Townes is introduced and begins getting ready. When I first popped it into my machine and heard this, I was worried that the noise would distract from the music. Silly me. Barely have the first few notes of "Pancho and Lefty" kicked in and that warm, drawling voice begun wafting across the packed bar than the punters are transfixed, caught by his stirring narration and gentle pathos. It's a great intro, with a great song, and above all it demonstrates just how great a performer Townes Van Zandt was. He didn't need guitar pyrotechnics, stacks of Marshall amps or to leap around a stage in order to captivate his audience. Just that voice, those lyrics, those tunes. And from "Pancho" onwards, he holds his audience like a snake charmer does a cobra. He intersperses tracks with hilarious jokes if the mood gets too intense, raps quietly (and perhaps a tad drunkenly) about this and that, before getting down to the core of the task by reeling out such superb tracks as "To Live is to Fly", "If I Needed You", "Tower Song", "Waiting Around to Die" and "Rex's Blues" (perhaps the highlight of the whole set for me). Some of these are heartbreaking, some, such as "Fraternity Blues", are rib-crackingly funny, and he even demonstrates a stomping gift to let loose and boogie on just his acoustic guitar with real pounders like "White Freight Liner Blues" and "Who Do You Love". To really get the full impact of this unique live show, the latest CD edition, which includes every track played on the night, is a must, and a real boon for any fan of the great man.

But, from the number of tracks with the word "Blues" in the title, you'll have gathered that Van Zandt was above all a man who had inexorably tapped into the darkest reaches of the human soul, and was not afraid to share what he found there with his audience. Townes didn't patronise or simplify: he shot from the hip, delivering his sombre truths and bittersweet musings in elegant prose and poetic turns of phrase, but without ever shying away from harshness, despair or fear. And Live Quarter displays this in the most intimate, up-close and personal way: one man laying his soul at to a lucky, and rapturous crowd. For me, this album is a rare and beautiful treasure.

4 - Cabaret Voltaire - Live at the Y.M.C.A., 27-10-79 - 1980

This is quite possibly the least-known of the live albums presented here. It doesn't even have the benefit of being notorious and hated like Earthbound. After all, Cabaret Voltaire fans were used to the low-fi, harsh sound their idols dispensed, so anything as "controversial" as industrial noise, electronic beats and snarling, inaudible voices was just par-for-the-course.

But the punk and post-punk ages were not great for fans of live albums. Most groups were simply too short-lived to ever get to the live album stage. A whole lot more simply weren't that great live, due to being too messy, disorganised and drunk. Most gigs were short, and the sound quality wasn't great, as tight, packed clubs didn't always allow for the kind of instrument separation that massive venues like the Fillmores and Lyceums of this world did. And indeed, the main criticism that Live at the YMCA receives is that it sounds like shit.

It's not actually that bad, but it does have a very bootleggish sort of vibe going on. Whoever recorded this obviously was towards the back of the crowd with some pretty rudimentary equipment indeed. But to bitch about that is to completely miss the point. Cabaret Voltaire were a cash-strapped, underground, industrial, electro-punk outfit from harsh post-industrial Sheffield. How anyone can then expect one of their live albums to sound like a Queen or Pink Floyd live album is beyond. For me, taking an audience-tape recording and releasing it officially is the ultimate pied-de-nez to the world, a true punk gesture. In fact, the feeling you ultimately get is one of actually being there, more than on any other live album I've heard, except perhaps Live at the Old Quarter. You are rapidly swallowed up by the stomping percussion and twisted synth noise as it rumbles away from the stage, drowning out the crowd buzz around you and submerging all before it. It may be low-fi, but Live at the YMCA does not lack power at all.

By 1979, The Cabs were smack-dab in the middle of their creative peak. Personally, I'm not such a fan of their post-Chris Watson phase, much as I respect and admire their contribution to acid-house and techno music. For me, though, the music produced from their seminal debut Mix-Up all the way to 1982's 2x45 remains some of the best electronica ever made, right up there with more celebrated acts such as The Human League, OMD and The Normal. The Cabs, though, remain more obscure, sadly, mostly a name people have heard without hearing the music. Yet, for me, they today sound less dated, and more futuristic than 90% of their contemporaries, distilling a timeless electronica-meets-rock-meets-funk groove that I can quite easily picture future generations of humans, androids and robots swaying their hips to. 

This is beyond doubt due to The Cabs relentless non-conformism and dedication to their sound. Never having had to conform to studio demands for hits and massive tours, they were able to continually push their boundaries, with saturated noise, waves of distortion, sound samples and processed rhythm patterns all being meshed together, then added to oblique lyrics that referenced Burroughs, Burgess, Dick and Ballard that all pointed to a stark dystopian future that, for all our progress as a race, has never seemed to recede or get less likely. As we face economic meltdown and the threat of ecological apocalypse, the harsh, robotic and cold sound of Cabaret Voltaire becomes more and more relevant, and oddly more and more danceable.

And what I wouldn't do to get a chance to seem them perform these songs live. Personally, I'm not that bothered that there are no unique tracks on here. No-one complains when Bob Dylan or Led Zeppelin do that. And this collection of tracks gives a near-perfect cliche of what The Cabs were doing at this time. Their motto may have been "no dancing" at one point, but here the mixture of repetitive electronic beats and sweeping analogue synth noise creates a bizarre mixture of funk and noise that can't fail to have you swaying even as your senses are assaulted. Whether this is on the insistent pounding opener "Untitled" or the industrial dance of signature tune "Nag Nag Nag", the effect is disconcerting, like hearing robots trying to tackle disco or something. Stephen Mallinder's nasty, seething vocals only add to the disquiet, as, submerged in the wall of sound, they come out more like an extra mechanical instrument than an actual voice.

But this not all about proto-dance music played by obnoxious futurists with no sense of humour. The Cabs, for all, their musical devolution and messy sense of harmonics, were not just rabble-rousers or sloppy belligerents. These fuckers could play, and they demonstrate it hear on the slower, less instantly rhythmical tracks such as "The Set up" (the jewel in this live set), "On Every Other Street" and their distorted, barely-recognizable cover of The Velvet Underground's classic "Here She Comes Now". Here, the synths and slashes of saturated guitar and bass noise compete, dipping and diving in around each other as Mallinder sneers incoherently into his mic, the whole pieces dripping with pathos, anger and barely contained violence. Live at the YMCA is intense, in a way only really rivaled by Bob Dylan's live '66 bootleg and the 30 Minutes Over Brussels EP by Suicide. Although the audience is more appreciative here than on either of those, there is a sense of menace and bile that few artists have ever looked to release as a live album. And to end the album on the experimental noisefest that is "Baader Meinhof", a tribute to or comment on the German terrorists from the 70s, took some guts, in my book. 

So, whilst not confrontational -the at first quite quiet (disconcerted, maybe?) audience seems to quickly succumb to the dark charms of Cabaret Voltaire- Live at the YMCA is dark and aggressive, uncompromising and sullen like the artists themselves were. It wasn't put out to please or get you head-banging (hence the sound quality), but rather hit its audience in the gut and demonstrate the full, snarling fury of an average Cabs gig. These aren't showmen, they're fiercely anti-rock, anti-frills. But it is powerful, pulsating with suppressed energy and hidden menace. And, it is also one of the very few live albums to document the post punk period and the omnipresent anti-rock, anti-showbiz, pro-experimentation mentality that was streaking across Britain at the time. Seeing as PiL, Joy Division and Throbbing Gristle all missed the boat when it came to live albums (PiL's post-everyone except Lydon one was a disaster), thank God Cabaret Voltaire were out there letting us know the abuse they were heaping on their audiences. Who seemed to enjoy it and I bet were actually dancing.

Other great, and often under-appreciated live albums worth checking out (and that I'll certainly come back to) include Grand Funk's Live Album, Van der Graaf Generator's Vital and Humble Pie's Performance. Not to mention the already-reviewed Year of the Horse by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. But it's time to move on, as I'd like to mention the recent Pian Jerk / Emeralds gig I just went to, and the sumptuous masterpieces that are Simon Finn's Pass The Distance and Takehisa Kosugi's Catch-Wave. That's the great thing about blogs, you can always come back to posts you feel need elaborating on!

Great Underappreciated or Obscure Albums 7: Y by The Pop Group (1979)

It may be a cliche, but the moment Punk rock crept into my life completely set my world on its head. Up until then, my music exploration was still -albeit less and less- in thrall to those three God-bands of student idleness: The Doors, Led Zeppelin and, most hackneyed of all, Pink Floyd. In fairness, I had always been more Jefferson Airplane and Love-centric than Jim and co, whilst I always held more admiration for Black Sabbath than for the Zep (much to the chagrin of my Page-loving pals); plus, I had long since become a devotee of Neil Young and David Bowie (all periods), so I guess I can say I was moving away from those student staples, at least slightly.

But Punk slammed into this like someone taking a dump in a Regent's Park lake next to the swans (Sid Vicious, maybe?). It was through a Rock & Folk anthology. Now, that magazine may be France's putrid answer to the UK's NME, with all the sycophantic Doherty-loving to boot, but at least they know their punk (at least of the seventies and eighties, sadly Blink 182 then seems to swindle them). The magazine blew my mind, as I trawled through the history of the UK's most controversial rock genre, with a rest-stop in NYC, taking in -like some musico-literary sponge- The Damned's first New York gig (all capes and gobbing), The Pistols' McClaren-devised publicity stunts, Suicide's literally knife-edged encounter with UK audiences, Siouxsie's first ramshackle gig, Rock against Racism and all the rest. It vibrated unrest, sexual deviance, rebellion and disdain, and I was hooked. I ripped up some of my t-shirts, turned my nose up at my friends' Floyd-and-Morrison adulations and turned from pot to pills and booze. I was never going to be a real punk, but my record collection would. Out went the prog, the classic rock (though I maintained a weird affection for Frampton Comes Alive - should I admit to that??) and the country, in came a list of names that still remain legendary for me, long after I put my dogmatism away and re-expanded my tastes: Buzzcocks, The Stranglers, The Slits, Television, Magazine, The Clash, The Jam, Patti Smith, The Undertones, The Damned, The Saints, PiL...

Of course, Punk would never last, and much of it proved to be a facade. The Pistols, The Clash, The Jam and Buzzcocks all signed to major record labels. The most forward-thinking bands of the first punk wave were met with disdain and hatred (Suicide, Throbbing Gristle, even Television and the Ramones). Ultimately, we all should have paid more attention to Johnny Rotten than to Sid Vicious. For whilst the former ditched the crass commercialism of McClaren's Pistols and turned to more challenging straights with PiL, name-checking Van Der Graaf Generator and Neil Young along the way, the latter burned out in a blaze of silly excess and cheap sensationalism. And Punk died, leading the way for tacky imitations such as Blink, Sum 41, Green Day and The Libertines.

But, what a lot of those who lament Punk's broken promises neglect to notice or concentrate upon, is that, from those halcyon years of 1977 to 1982, we have, despite all I've just written, been left with some of the most sensational music ever made. No less. Typically, the best of it came from 78 (symbolically, the year the Pistols split up)-onwards, and by that time, Punk in its purest, most incompetent, snotty-nosed and brutal form, had made way for bands that were eager to experiment, broaden their horizons and go beyond the confines of three-chord thrashing. Think Siouxsie and the Banshees, the aforementioned PiL, Talking Heads, This Heat, Throbbing Gristle, Magazine, Joy Division, and many others.

What Punk did is wipe the slate clean. The significance of Rotten's praise for Van der Graaf Generator is great. They were the black sheep of that most hated (by Punks) of genres: progressive rock. They were smart, intellectual, long-winded. But Rotten (by then back to being John Lydon) also could see that they were aggressive, nihilistic and violent, propelled by the dark visions of their screaming lead singer, Peter Hammill. In 1977, VdGG played at Punk's signature venue, The Marquee. They played long songs, full of odd time shifts, arcane lyrics (no political sloganeering here!) and lyrical musical breaks. Yet the Punks loved them. Because they had the very same passion, intelligence and sense of adventure that characterised the Blank Generation, and had become the undoing of the moral establishment and the rock aristocracy. Punk was about ripping down complacency and prejudice. Whether it was a singer-songwriter (Young), Glam Rocker (Marc Bolan, who played with The Damned), a prog band (VdGG) or a fast'n'loud punk quartet, if you had the balls, energy and bile, you could play ball.

And play ball they did. In the wake of Punk's first wave, Goth, New Wave, Post Punk, Electro-pop, Industrial and No Wave all sprang up, taking rock music to new heights. And, barely noticed among all this creative euphoria, but creating enough of a stir in their own little way, was a snarling, virulent quintet from the nondescript British town of Bristol. In the ultimate Punk move, they insolently called themselves The Pop Group.

The Pop Group were quite the flash in the pan. They appeared in 1978 and had split just three years later. They only managed two official albums, of which Y was the first, and the only one of much note. But it was a blazing flash, I can assure you. Y sounds like little else in Punk, let alone mainstream rock. Put succinctly, it is one of the greatest of all post-punk albums, easily matching PiL's first two, anything by Joy Division and Magazine's Real Life on all levels. And of the lot, it is the one that maintains the Punk spirit the most, despite being unbelievably forward-thinking and challenging.

Bristol has long had a history of leftist activism (something maintained by the likes of Massive Attack in recent years), and The Pop Group were no exceptions. Y is highly-charges, taught and angry. the perfect railing letter against Thatcherite Britain. The artwork presents gripping and disturbing images, from the creepy pygmies on the cover to the bold red lettering, via pictures of prisoner camps, shady political figures and charnel houses. The lyrics were similarly bold: "I admit my crime/I'm a thief of fire!" screams singer Mark Stewart on opener "Thief of Fire", his voice interspersed by recordings of political speeches. "But who to trust/When you're stealing from a nation of killers" he rails a bit later on. On "Blood Money" he eructs: "Money's a weapon of terror", topical words in this day and age. Other songs mention totalitarianism, torture and colonialism, the whole being so potent it's hard to imagine anything similar ever getting released today. It's just too heavy.

And that's before we get to the music. The sound of The Pop Group borders on the indefinable, which is why it's so memorable, for all it's occasional flaws (some of the more experimental bits feel fumbled, noise for noise's sake). These guys saw no boundaries, and so met none. Produced by reggae stalwart Dennis Bovell, they took in his background of fat bass and stuttered rhythm, threw in some ragged punk guitar and screams, and a fair dollop of rigid funk, and got a sound like no other. Tracks like "Thief of Fire" and "We Are Time" groove like few other punk tracks, scattered through with sax bursts, nutty effects, echoed vocals and stunning bass hooks that would almost sound perfect in a disco or in a Jamaican dance hall. Equally stunning is "Snowgirl", slower (their attempt at a ballad maybe?), but no less weird and strangely catchy, with cabaret piano (!) sneaking out of the weird vocal mixes and juddering percussion/guitar/bass explosions.

And I already mentioned the experimentation. Despite probably not having the required chops, The Pop Group were fearless, and looked to the avant-garde at all times. On "Thief of Fire", for example, this adds even more edge to the dance grooves, with even jazz touches through the saxophone breaks. It's a sensual overload of sorts, and a precursor to the sort of twisted funk the likes of The Streets and !!! would attempt two decades later, only with more convention and much less balls. On "Blood Money", "Savage Sea" "Don't Call Me Pain", it becomes full-blown experiment, with stop-start rhythm, overloads of effects and some crazy scatty vocal eructations. It doesn't always work, but when it does it's stunning, and I will always be in awe of these guys for throwing themselves at their art and their vision with such vicious abandon. All of them are great, be it Gareth Sager with his staccato bursts of distorted guitar or his Brotzmann-esque sax wails; the roaring, crooning or howling Mark Stewart; or soulful, funkadelicised bassman Simon Underwood, the beating heart of the whole thing. And special mention to Bovell for letting his charges run amok like this, whilst somehow also tying them to such a strong reggae/funk/punk vibe.

The Pop Group fell apart quite quickly after Y, managing only a mediocre follow-up and some gigs before Stewart ended up splitting to go solo, staying true to the vibe he helped launch on this masterpiece. Post-punk would continue to evolve in new and fascinating directions, but few albums released afterwards would reach such heights of bonkers fury and innovation. Luckily, the CD format has seen Y get a gorgeous sonic facelift, whilst tacking seminal p-funk single "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" to the beginning of the track-list. The album sounds all the more cohesive for it, and even 29 years on, few records can produce such a heady mix of vicious bile, musical exploration and leg-shaking grooves.

Great Underappreciated or Obscure Albums 6: BAIKAL by Baikal (2007)

If I'm honest and blunt, there is very little of any merit in today's mainstream music scene. Easily 90% is utter contemptible dross. There was a time when a musical event was the arrival of the Fab Four in a country, or the release of an emphatic and relevant protest song, or the Sex Pistol creating mayhem on the TV. The 2008 equivalent is the "comeback" performance on X Factor (obviously it always involves TV these days) of a deluded, drug-addled, white trash bint who doesn't even write her own songs, lip-synching and dancing like a drunken old lady in front of millions of sychophantic viewers and self-proclaimed "experts".

Nowadays, in lieu of truly transcendant rock (not that this is going to be a nostalgia piece. After all, previous decades gave us the Bay City Rollers and Showaddywaddy), we're subjected to album after album of mostly bland, lyrically unadventurous tripe by The Killers, Kings of Leon and Kaiser Chiefs. Nothing intrinsically wrong with those guys, I guess (the first Killers albums is a gem), but nothing special either, yet we are regularly treated to swathes of hyperbole and drivveling praise about said bands in Britain's once-great music press. And I won't even get started on Amy Winehouse...
The fact is that modern mainstream pop and rock music increasingly resembles a decrepit, influenza-riddled old man, whose occasional flashes of brilliance (Arcade Fire's flawed but essential debut, M83, Ladytron, Sigur Ros) are not so much par for the course but rather infrequent consumptive gasps for rapidly-decreasing air. To paraphrase David Bowie circa 1977, "music has become a disgusting toothless old lady", with very little of the life-affirming quality it should have. Not so much music as muzak.

In such dire and dull circumstances, it's nice to know Bardo Pond are out there. The Philadelphia heavy psych masters have been plugging away in the shadows since the early 90s, taking a bludgeoning Krautrock groove but filtering it through the influence of punk, grunge and shoegaze to leave us some of the most heroic and righteous rock this side of Japan.

Baikal is one of their many side projects (flautist and singer Isobel Sollenberger and synth player Aaron Igler are missing -the latter only from one track-, leaving guitarist brothers John and Michael Gibbons, bassist Clint Takeda and drummer Jason Kourkonis). In the past, they've also recorded a couple of stunning albums with Roy Montgomery as Hash Jar Tempo and did splits with guitarist Tom Carter and even Mogwai. Nearly everything they do is brilliant. Slow, heavy, druggy and hypnotic, Bardo Pond's music is the stuff I live for. It's like heroin. Which is probably the effect they're looking for.

At first listen, Baikal doesn't seem massively different. It's psychedelic, but with a bit of grunge and lashings of shoegazery guitar saturation and fuzzed-out bass. But it's also heavy. Much heavier than anything these guys have done before. Don't mean to go on, but this motherfucker is heavy! It seems Kourkonis, Takeda and the Gibbons brothers have been worshipping at the altar of some of rock's most gloriously heathen demi-Gods. Think Vincebus Eruptum-era Blue Cheer, the electric guitar overloads of Ash Ra Tempel's "Amboss" or early Neil Young and Crazy Horse. But heavier even than all of those. And longer. There are only two tracks, yet the album lasts more than an hour! You do the math. More than anything else, Baikal is influenced by those Japanese psych-freak outlaws, Acid Mothers Temple, even down to the Japanese words that Takeda spits out Damo Suzuki-like throughout the 36-odd minutes of opener "I Forgot" (interspersed with some English).

"I Forgot" is a slow-burner. Fuck, at nearly 40 minutes, it'd have to be. This is not Comets on Fire heavy psych. This is pulled from a deep, dark, growling well, ancient and formidable. The cover art featuring a skeleton in shamanic garb tells it all. This is truly pagan rock, the stuff Julian Cope writes about with such glee. It feels, for all it's crackling electricity and volume, like something ancient, primordial. It starts quietly, a smattering of drums, a low bass riff, some guitar noodling that segues in and out. But before long, the volume starts to clamber, Takeda begins his stoned incantations and Kourkonis and the Gibbons brothers start to unleash some of the most righteous arcane noise you'll ever hear. The guitars scissor and shoot aroung each other. Whilst one of the brothers keeps up a marathon of unfettered soloing, channeling the twins spirits of Manuel Göttsching and Tony McPhee, the other bursts in and out of the mix, sputing out some random saturated guitar noise, as if trying to use his guitar to duet with the equally spasmodic Takeda. The whole piece continues like this, a contantly shifting, growling, incandescant miasma of noise, rythm and beauty. Never dull, always surprising. Oh, and did I mention heavy??

The next track, "Hanafuda" was probably never going to match the intensity of "I Forgot". It does bring synths (courtesy of Igler) and extra percussion, showing more of an affinity therefore with Amon Düül II (to keep with the Krautrock references) than Ash Ra Tempel, but still keeping with the Acid Mothers Temple freakout vibe throughout. It's messy and almost jazzy, at times as elegiacally beautiful, haunting and mystical as its predecessor, but at others getting too experimental and freeform to really keep channeling the shamanistic spirit in quite the same way. But it does show just how good these guys really are. Kourkonis is a revelation throughout this album. He can do hard'n'loud. But he is also sensitive, propelling the tracks with heavy jazz grooves and shifting patterns, keeping the other three on the improvisational toes.

Like I said, this is the kind of music I'm most used to hearing from Japanese bands. Not just Acid Mothers Temple (although I do see Baikal as a slower, more Native American twin of the Mothers' recent tantric freakout metal opus Recurring Dream and Apocalypse of Darkness), but also Mainliner, Fushitsusha or Les Rallizes Dénudés. That's the company these guys, whether as Baikal or Bardo Pond, keep. And to return to my opening rant, it's nice to know that an album as dark, heathen, uncompromising and transcendant as Baikal is out there (special thanks to the excellent Important Records label. I owe them, and other labels such as Hydra Head, Southern Lord, Kranky,Fargo and Sub Pop a debt of grattitude for the level of quality they tirelessly put out despite meanial exposure and probably cash). It's a comfort to know that such guys will keep ploughing that furrow, and that I can turn to them when the current mire gets me down. Can I get an Amen?

And here's some irony - "Amen" is the title of one of Bardo Pond's greatest tracks! Must be a sign...