Category Progressive
BARRON PLANET
What links Shakespeare, composer John Cage and actor Leslie Nielsen? What, for that matter, do robots, tape loops, and the invention of the micro dress have in common? Still scratching the old cranium? How about this: A connection between electric tonalities, Anne Francis, and monsters from the unconscious mind. Loosely based on The Tempest, Shakespeare’s […]
SPACEMILLS OF YOUR MIND
It is late. The television is the only light in the room. You slouch, alone, on the couch. The movie you’ve been determinedly watching through to the endless final credits has been disappointing. What were people raving about? Unfulfilled, you surf a few channels, hoping for…what? Something to prod you out of this torpor; a […]
SPACE TRUCKIN’
Well into the second decade of the 21st Century, it is wonderfully anachronistic that bands are still twisting the kaleidoscope of psychedelia. One such is Toronto’s Comet Control. Based around the songwriting partnership of guitarists Chad Ross and Andrew Moszynski (whose relationship pre-existed musically in the psych-metal band Quest For Fire), Comet Control released their […]
HIGH CONTRAST
With a morning to myself and a pile of chores, I sat with the start-me-up coffee and pondered what to spin. What would get me going for a few hours of productive office work? How was I feeling today? Pretty heavy, actually. A chesty cough and a bit distracted by a knotty work issue. Something […]
PERFECTION OF CIRCUMLOCUTION
What do we make of a new release by a rock veteran? As stars drop from the sky with numbing regularity, do we celebrate the simple act of survival inherent in creating new music? Perhaps triumph is tempered by a niggling disquiet. What if, Bowie-like, this is a last hurrah; a pre-planned final chapter for […]
THE BOURNE SYNTHESIS
Pianist / composer Matthew Bourne has been working in the area of improvised jazz for a number of years, but on acquiring an original Lintronics Advanced Memory Moog he became enamoured with the possibilities offered by this vintage analogue synthesiser. After having the device painstakingly restored, Bourne used the Memory Moog in performance and later […]
Dear Herr Froese
I met you soon after Tangerine Dream turned five albums old. Colleagues Chris Franke and Peter Bauman helped you craft the timeless Phaedra for new label Virgin. Purchased by instalments from my Friday/Saturday Record Store job, I took the album home one mid-winter night to a bedroom warmed by the faint splutter of a kerosene heater, […]
TRANS GILMOUR EXPRESS
Imagine a smooth, well-engineered train ride. You glide along, half-watching the countryside slip past the window, awake but not really focussed on anything in particular, enjoying a comfortable rhythmic ambience that rarely intrudes upon whatever reverie colours your mind. Such is the seamless swish of Metallic Spheres. The Orb mapped this journey, laying down tracks […]
WAHNSINN
Tarot by Walter Wegmüller is one of those wonderful, dotty follies of vinyl packaging that transcend normal expectations with bravura wackiness. Released on the Cosmic Couriers label ((Die Kosmischen Kuriere, for those who do Deutsch) in 1973, it hovers near the very peak of my LP Grail list. I’ve never held a copy, never even […]
REGA-L AFFIRMATION
Imagine the excitement. First turntable purchase in over twenty years. Frown at the brain-bending decision: what to get? Stagger under the swirling weight of unanswerable questions. What will suit the rest of the system best? How does a Hi-Fi shop audition translate to a suburban lounge-room? Quiver at the realisation this is the biggest purchase—after […]
SHORTS
Three brief reviews of albums newly acquired or recently revisited * GARY WRIGHT—THE DREAM WEAVER [Warner Brothers 1975] The truth is, I bought this as part of an Op Shop haul simply because it was in good nick and I have a soft spot for the cheesy 1975 radio hit, ‘Dream Weaver’. But it’s actually […]
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