As you all know by now, I’m barely alphabetized (un). The first clues I click to here is the word »Chicago« ( not the Band), then wandering through the credits it seems like this a new album plus some reissues from a previous 2004 EP of the same. Great, let’s hear It! Tight Post-Indie Rock…

German Pop Blues Metal Band (or what should I say? Texas-Core-Bristol-Finland-Heavy-Bottom). That’s a very serious band, really tight shit, really together, well shaped and sized (short songs, but packed with ideas and arrangments). I can’t decide where it belongs really cause their really swoop sound references (not their playing just the sound), every four bars….

Electro Tango Sauced Pop NuJazz. Or Sade in Buenos Aires? These sort of mixes are always at very high risk to me. I’ll tell you why, because the original style fans will totally reject it (pure/impure), and the less definite audience might get bored precisely by the too orientated style of it. I give it…

CSS are what I guess you still call a Girlband today. It’s bright electro-ish pop (although and old analog synth might the only electronic involved in here). For the first time in this long journey through reviews, do I start to play attention to lyrics, here is something going on: Come With us, We’ll Make…

Chet? Did you really had to go when you did? It was a Friday 13th (of course), May 1988. I will never forget it, I had seen you the week before with Philip and Riccardo in Paris (Oliver and Micheline were there too). »In Chicago« is an unreleased Studio Recording, but I think this appellation…

A »Pro-Bama« move your ass and your vote will follow soundtrack? What’s this? A Foonky Strudel? Featuring Erykah Badu and Honey – I really don’t know – maybe the Greatful Dead meet George Clinton? What about better Prince (the man known as) meets Snoop Dog featuring Carlos Santana (and Antonio Banderas on Cow Bell).I don’t…

So it\’s James Lavelle here, and the previous album s called »War Stories«, and we re galored with a huge list of features (Josh Homme, Chris Gross, Gavin Clark, Joel Cadbury, James Petralli, etc.). So far the approach and mixes got much to do with Coldplay or Sigur Ros meets New-Wave-in-Pop-Charts. Is it all a…

Micky Green has been heavily working out her looks and concept. If you don’t catch the album just from its cover, she would have missed something already. So did I, […]

From the way they sound I immediately look for places and particularly origins. This only happens in the States, you don’t get that sort of deep fried fat rockin‘ shuffling […]

Got that one obviously too late: »The Kick« celebrates 2008’s Euro Football thing, that already happened now. Lyrics are juicy like hell, and suddenly flashes you back to the long-long […]

I feel a bit like arriving in the middle of a familly dinner, while I play that album. First I have no clue to the »Vol. 1«, not much more […]

A Miracle Reissued Today.

»Acoustic guitar and live electronics« says the CD, but this time from Istanbul (rather than Linz , Manchester , Berlin or Toyko). While entering this series of seven solo guitar compositions I try to forget about previous things I may naturally link this album with. All is very open and often melodical here, more of…

« La merde au cul en trois couleurs ! » ou comment pendant que j’étais parti j’ai plus eu de président mais autre chose qu’il semble improbable depouvoir définir tout à fait sauf á compter les points, les pertes et autres dommages collatèraux. Petit par l’esprit, grand par la démagogie et l’envie d’être irrésistible. Un peu á la manière dont chantait jadis la princesse Stéphanie de Monaco, mais sans pour autant se douter qu’un jour « L’Irrésistible » (« L’irrésistible ascension …» Brecht y avait pensé aussi.) deviendrait bel et bien cet « Ouragan ». – Dis moi, camarade, elle n’aurait pas comme un drôle de gout dans la bouche ta Marseillaise ces temps ? Allons-enfants …

Remember 1985: In the 2000’s a lot of art forms have been facing a liftingin order to hide the fact that they weren’t anything esle but a revivalism and a merchandise. To return is not somthing you partcularly want to do unless you have exciting places to depart to.

Forgive me this one, but almost inconsciously, the first thing to come in my mind while listening to this album is the early Chico Hamilton quintet. Of course it isnt without any reasons. First the instrumentation is the same here : Hans Koch ( Bass Clarinet and saxophones), Michael Moser ( Cello), Martin Siewert (Guitar…

Where and who is Manuel Mota in 2007 ? I’m not talking about finding his email adress or website or trying to locate him on a map. No map will do, he is his own. He is a presence, a passion, a source of light and inteligence, an evidence. – Two discs : one says…

100 Q&A avec SebastiAn (Ed Banger Records)

La papesse du vide integral. L’avant garde comme jamais.

Five new releases from the Grand Label of Brighton, that I’ve somehow failed to review in time. Let’s try to rescue the clock’s damage, but when it‘ good it remains there so: # 1 – AMANDINE, »Waiting For The Light To find Us« ( CD Fat053). Swedish pop with angles and some soft sugar-acid colours…

Is there a life before, and therefore after too, such a group as »Passport«? Is German tenor saxophone fame Doldinger the Dave Sanborn, Jan Garbarek or Wayne Shorter or else […]

Live aufgenommen im Jahr 2004 in der Queen Elizabeth Hall und sowohl Thomas Stöwsand (einem der wichtigsten und engagiertesten Jazz-Promoter, der seit Jahrzehnten die Agentur »Saudades« betreibt und dessen gesundheitliches Befinden sich in den letzten Jahren leider verschlechtert hat) als auch dem verstorbenen Schlagzeuger Tony Williams gewidmet, wird mit dieser Doppel-CD und dem klassischen Line-up…

Dieses Album kommt mit Bonustracks (enhanced CD), unter anderem dem Video »Six Minutes With Stacie Rose«, und in unserem Fall auch mit einer dicken Pressemappe inklusive Dutzender Photokopien von Artikeln, Reviews und Konzertberichten. Das Cover ist ein bemühter Versuch, Pink und Schwarz in ein harmonisch-dynamisches Design zu fassen, aber noch fragwürdiger kommt mir das Schwarzweißfoto…

Nouveau label Franco-Libanais de musiques improvisées dirige par Sharif Sehnaoui et Mazen Kerbaj. Paris – Beyrouth Aller-Retour – www.almaslakh.org

»The Legendary Prestige Sessions«: Réédition de l’ensemble des séances qui changèrent la face du Jazz dans le milieu des années 50. L’arrivée de Coltrane, d’un
nouveau jeu de contrebasse aussi avec Chambers et d’un Miles Davis toujours
plus a la pointe de son temps et de son art.

Klar, der Zaubertrick ist nicht gerade neu, und dennoch … Ich jedenfalls habe Nina Hagen immer schon für eine Cabaret-Künstlerin oder Entertainerin gehalten. Hier präsentiert sie wunderbare Standards, wie »Deep In A Dream«, »But Not For Me«, »Der Wind hat mir ein Lied erzählt«, »Bei mir bist du schön«, »Day In – Day Out«, und…

A »Nice masterclass« … Something sounds wrong here but I can’t quite tell you what yet. I mean the line up is very nice (Brazil, France, USA, etc.), very diverse and mixed, the project seems to have taken place over long periods of mutual respect and exchange and has also been recorded in various studios…

A classic piano trio (bass & drums) melting with pop and electronics, songs and looped grooves. I don’t mind a certain dose of fusion and easy music so that I’m […]

The cover shows you a Les Paul guitar more or less vintage and supposed to get you into the whole idea via references (from Jimmy Page to Michael Bloomfield and […]