“There's a sad sort of clanking from the clock in the hall/And the bells in the steeple, too. And up in the nursery an absurd little bird/is popping out to say ‘cuckoo’” - Rodgers/Hammerstein
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| Horns up |
New Horizons
Public Enemy – Black Skies Over the Projects: Apartment 2025
Five years on from the excellent, if somewhat self-celebratory, ‘What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down?’, Chuck D and Flava Flav are back with another fine record to their name. While they’re never going to be as incendiary sounding as they were in 1987, it’s heartening that they’re still putting out LP’s with humour, anger and groove.
The album can be streamed and purchased here.
Cathedral – Society’s Pact with Satan
Apparently recorded at the same time as the underwhelming ‘The Last Spire’ and recently rediscovered, one would have to question how this was allowed to be forgotten as it is an utter belter. A 30-minute track that encompasses what made Cathedral such a legendary band, the blend of psych, folk, stoner and doom is revitalising.
The album can be streamed and purchased here.
ShitNoise – Charades
I thoroughly enjoyed last year’s ‘I Cocked My Gun and Shot My Best Friend’ from this Monte Carlo collective so this was always going to be interesting to me. Touted as their most eclectic to date, it blends bro-step, alt-rock, noise, metal, pop and electronica in such a cohesive manner that it is genuinely breath taking. More of this sort of thing please.
The album can be streamed and purchased here
Golden Oldies
Laibach – The Sound of Music
Released not long after their trip to North Korea, this reinterpretation of the world-renowned musical manages to be pretty, melancholic, sinister and political all at once. Don’t believe me? Check out ‘Climb Ev’ry Mountain’ which now sounds like totalitarian propaganda. Or ‘So Long, Farewell’ set in the context of the Goebbels murder/suicide pact (see the video as proof).
D.A.F – Alles Ist Gut
Once dubbed the grandfathers of techno by John Peel, this release from 1981 remains a seminal industrial/techno record. Aside from it having ‘Der Mussolini’ (an iconic dancefloor number that still feels subversive despite saying nothing of substance), the whole album just oozes dirt, decadence and subversion. Highly recommended.
ESG – Come Away with ESG
I don’t care what your tastes are re. music, everyone needs to hear this record at least once. An astonishing mesh of funk, post-punk and minimalism that is rich in atmosphere and heavy on the groove, this debut LP from the South Bronx trio of the Scroggins family is a stone-cold classic that proves that less is indeed more.
Dead Can Dance – Into the Labyrinth
Released in 1993, this masterpiece was the first DCD album recorded by themselves, yet it has the same epic grandeur of a Hollywood movie. Although something of a goth staple these days, Lisa Gerrard’s version of ‘The Wind That Shakes the Barley’ still has the ability to stop time and closer ‘How Fortunate the Man With None’ is Brendan Perry at his most haunting.
⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.
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