The first reviews page of the new year, nothing particularly awful this time, the Mumford album’s not out yet. I give you the ‘The ‘punk-rooted/death-metal trio’ Spesimin. The soundtrack for a fictional musical from Coventry’s Duke Keats/ Teelowe. The stark electronic tracks that pull from punk, industrial and club music of Torba. The exciting hybrid sound of Sweden’s Morlocks. The Pan- conceptual ideas linked to Alchemy,Psycho-sexual Theory’s and psychological concepts of The Anti Group (TAGC). The wonderful sound creations of Bobby Previte & Knox Chandler and the brilliant new album from Margate’s AUTOHAUs.
Spesimin- Spesimin
Strange Mono
The grandslaming of metal and the concrete to the face of hardcore punk, this is great. A gravelly pissed off vocal and a masterful array of riffs and beats make this an exhilarating ride through Spesimin’s releases so far. Some great slow chugging makes it cement into your head before it spins off into thrash again. This is nice and loose too, the groove may be nasty and hard but it’s definitely there. Decent.
DUKE KEATS / TEELOWE – This California Dreaming
This is a delicate sad slow ode to dreaming about endless sunshine when outside the dirty window pane it’s pouring with freezing rain. It’s plaintive and hopeful. The voice is the star on the four tracks, it’s high pitched but laid right back, concentrated but feather soft, it’s a contradiction and it works beautifully. Delta boy moves more into a weird blues electronic sound, imagine if you were describing The Blues to someone from the outer galaxies and this is what they thought it sounded like, weird. A great EP but wait until you see them live.
Torba – II
Numeronove
I’m not sure about this, on the one hand it’s an ace slice of darkwave industrial menacing grooviness and on the other, it’s another slice of darkwave industrial menacing grooviness. I mean, it’s great for what it is but it’s not quite what I want or need, which isn’t to say that someone out there in oversized boots won’t discover this and think it’s the best album in the world. So yes, conflicted.
Morlocks – Amor, Monstra Et Horrore Profundi
Metropolis Records
Starts with a news broadcast about the end of the world and then soundbites over fast synths and guitars, very industrial poppy punky and could be immense fun down the front at a gig if I was twenty years younger. They also do slow, epic and grandiose. Not my cup of tea really.
The Anti Group (TAGC) – Iso-Erotic Calibration
Cold Spring
The notes on Bandcamp read ‘Recorded in Florence throughout 1994 by Adi Newton.A collection of material based on Pan- conceptual ideas linked to Alchemy,Psycho-sexual Theory’s and psychological concepts.Originally released on Anterior Research / Musica Maxima Magnetica 1994.’ I think it’s weird spaced out alien electronic soundtracks with strange chittering and movement all around. It’s disorientating and just plain warped in places. I like it a lot.
Bobby Previte & Knox Chandler – Previte/Chandler
Subsound Records
Now this record is something really special, anything that can transport me to otherworldly landscapes and make me describe the sound as ‘strange hedgehog like creatures sniffling through alien hedgerows’ has got to be worth a listen. It’s electronic soundscapes mixed up with jazz drenched percussion and noises from strange new worlds dropped all the way through. It’s wonderful.
AUTOHAUs – We have such sights to show you
This is dense and volatile, it feels like the mass of sound will either explode or just merge into something else and it’s the drums that mash it together into a great big Krautrock psychedelic psychotic groove. You know how free jazz spirals off into the void with a mass of sound, well that is exactly what AUTOHAUs have achieved and it is joyous. It’s a mass of tarnished smiling teeth spinning on and on until it’s just a thrashing messy groove. The last track takes it up another notch too. It’s twenty three minutes long, starts with howling and small noises and then you realise that you are walking down the tunnel to the gates of hell, gibbering, chains and weirdness echo in the walls, disturbing and slow. Pared down dub from the netherworlds, dripping with mist, fog and body fluids, it’s creepy and horrible in the extreme and it just doesn’t stop, it shifts but it doesn’t deviate from its path downwards, ever downwards, away from light and hope and then it slowly ends and fades as we reach the end of the road. A brilliant, essential release.
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Spesimin are on Bandcamp.
DUKE KEATS / TEELOWE are on Instagram and Facebook.
Torba are on Bandcamp.
Morlocks are on Facebook and Instagram.
The Anti Group (TAGC) have a website.
Bobby Previte & Knox Chandler are on Bandcamp.
AUTOHAUs are on Instagram and Facebook.
All words by Adrian Bloxham
