Review of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – 21 LP at Starburst Magazine

bbc 21

In terms of musicality, BBC Radiophonic Workshop – 21 isn’t likely to be the sort of thing one puts on for groovy background tunes at a party. Honestly, the 21 record is really more of a historical document than an album, featuring as it does a vaguely chronological collection of pieces from the first 21 years of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s history on the a-side. Given that the majority of the Workshop’s early work wasn’t so much musical as background effects, what you have here is far more experimental tones. It’s musique concrete, rather than concrete melodies.

Read the complete review of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop – 21 LP at Starburst Magazine. Published on 7/18/16

The Night Terrors, “Pavor Nocturnus” LP

cover - night terrors pavor nocurnusCombining the best of two worlds of classic cinema scores, the Night TerrorsPavor Nocturnus is an absolute blast. Working in tandem as it does with sci-fi theremin and a huge pipe organ, all of this album sounds akin to modern rescore of something like Mario Bava’s Planet of the Vampires — horror in space, essentially.

Recorded on the largest pipe organ in the western hemisphere, which stands an astonishing 32 feet high and uses two motors to power the whole thing, one at 15 horsepower, and the other at 20. The sound this thing is far more powerful than any synthesizer could ever hope to be. There’s just a deep resonance to Pavor Nocturnus I’ve not heard in a recording before. The grandiosity of the pipe organ actually allows for quite a study in contrasts.
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Ray Creature, “Ray Creature” LP

cover - ray creatureRay Creature, the new project from Leg’s John Booth, has an interesting record out now on Sister Cylinder. While I’m not really into the whole post-punk aesthetic, I’ve gotten a little further into the synthwave / darkwave / et cetera sets of bands because of my growing obsession with ’80s horror flicks.

However, while I really dig the synths on this record, the vocals turn me off. The whole demon Elvis croon pretty much peaked with Glenn Danzig, and everyone else is aping him. Find your own voice, folks. “Threat” and “Burning Alive” (especially the latter) are the only really egregious examples extant on Ray Creature’s LP, but they’re particularly glaring.
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Espectrostatic releases “Phantominom VGS” as benefit

phantoninom
Good news: Hex Dispensers‘ Alex Cuervo has finally followed up his debut Espectrostatic LP on Trouble in Mind!

Bad news: it’s to benefit the medical expenses of the Hex Dispensers’ Rebecca Whitley. She had to have a 23-pound ovarian cyst removed from her. You can see the VERY uncomfortable images of that here (not recommended if you’re planning on eating anything involving tomatoes for the next few days).
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AL_X, “Shunt” CD

booklet [Converted]I really want to look at AL_X‘sShunt as a solid work, akin to an imaginary film score or concept album. Enough of the tracks work well together — “Takk (En Sens)” followed by “Into the Trees” followed by “Shunt (Part I),” especially — but the vocal tracks, working in standard song structures, just lose me.

It may be that I’m not particularly a fan of the Antony and the Johnsons school of falsetto, but frankly, the tracks that follow this pattern (“Too Late, Too Far,” “Faux,” et al) work like those really awful tracks that run over the end credits after the main title reprise or whatever has run, while they’re listing the second unit key grips and catering providers.
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Potpourri of Pearls, “We Went to Heaven”

cover - potpourri of pearls we went to heavenPotpourri of PearlsWe Went to Heaven has been playing down here in the basement, in the living room, at work, and various places over the past week. I’ve been trying to figure out if my initial impressions of it being amazing and weird have held up to repeated listens.

Honestly, the first time I listened to We Went to Heaven, the whole ’80s worship thing was a fun angle — especially the fact they were lifting Erasure, making this a refreshing switch from bands who’ve been swiping New Order’s sound for the better part of two decades.
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Disparition’s Jon Bernstein on Welcome to Night Vale, his influences, and future plans

jon bernsteinThe name Jon Bernstein might not mean much to you, but his nom de musique, Disparition, is surely familiar to anyone who listens to the wildly-successful Welcome to Night Vale podcast. His compositions bookend each and every episode of the program, and his music can be found throughout, as well. However, many may not know that much of his music is composed independently of the program, and that he’s been working for years making ambient soundscapes. Bernstein was kind enough to answer some questions in advance of Night Vale‘s next episode, which releases tomorrow.
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Stream Slack Armada’s self-titled EP

slack armada
Sitting in my inbox this morning was this lovely gem of an EP from Chiacgo’s Slack Armada. This project from James Hrabak shows a lot of potential. It manages to cover a lot of cinematic-inspired territory in its four songs — it flows from quiet introspection to stunningly loud — but does so naturally and fluidly. That said, dial your volume down when “Looper” pops up, because that guitar will damn near blow your head off. If you like what you hear, it’s a name-your-price download on Bandcamp. Personally, I like the first two cuts, which stick more towards the Boards of Canada / Four Tet side of things, as opposed to the latter two, which veer toward Nine Inch Nails / My Bloddy Valentine. but there’s really something for all instrumental electronic tastes.

https://soundcloud.com/slack_armada/sets/slack-armada-ep

The Hex Dispensers’ Alex Cuervo on his electronic project, Espectrostatic

alex cuervoAlex Cuervo is best known as the frontman and guitarist for Austin’s fine purveyors of garage rock ‘n’ roll, the Hex Dispensers. However, his new project might throw you for a loop. Espectrostatic‘s self-titled LP, out today through Trouble in Mind, is 13 tracks of Carpenter-inspired electronic creepiness. I enjoyed the preview on Bloody Disgusting so much that I bought all three of Trouble in Mind’s newest releases to get the limited color version of Cuervo’s album.

Cuervo (legal name: Alex Sargent) spoke with us via e-mail about the difference between Espectrostatic and the Hex Dispensers, and why it’s not as much of a change as you might think.
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Giallo Disco’s label heads talk horror, their influences, and upcoming plans

logo - giallo disco
The scads of reissue labels which have appeared over the last few years all seem to have their focus — Death Waltz has a John Carpenter / Fabio Frizzi thing going on, focusing on grimy, creepy things; One Way Static is tackling Wes Craven’s exploitation years; and Waxwork appears to have the ’80s splatter genre tied up. Giallo Disco might be the only label putting out music that fits that soundtrack niche, yet it differs in one notable aspect — these albums aren’t soundtracking anything other than a great dance party.

Situated out of Berlin and Vienna, and respectively ran by Anton Maiof and Gianni Vercetti Balopitas (aka Vercetti Technicolor), Giallo Disco rocks your socks with creepy, yet totally danceable tracks that hearken back to late ’70s and early ’80s analog synth soundtracks. There’s heaps of Moroder here, but everything is still unique. Maiof and Balopitas were both kind enough to answer questions via e-mail about the label and its future plans.
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