Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing

How Mogwai (or even Sigur Rós) sounds like if they play electronic music? Maybe it would be something like "Street Horrsing" the first album of British duo Fuck Buttons, recorded, by the way, with the collaboration of John Cummings, one of the Mogwai guitarists. Frequently crossing the border to noise and experimental music, this guys from Bristol deliver, in just 6 pieces, over 50 minutes of intense and quite cerebral electronic music, in which, perhaps in some kind of conceptual album, the songs are not only linked but almost all of them revolve over the same musical idea using the same elements, structures and sounds that makes us feel like the whole album is just one song executed cyclically with different nuances. Music that comes in waves, with dreamy beginnings that rising gradually until reach epic climaxes in which we are overwhelmed by uncontained loops, deranged screams and distorted voices. Despite its repetitive and mechanical nature, the music from "Street Horrrsing" flows so playful and somehow, behind laptops, keyboards and other toys we can feel the "human" touch of Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power. First class electronic music, barely suited for the dance floor and absolutely freaky. -CORANNIEIT-

Fuck Buttons, Street Horrrsing
ATP Records, 2008

Links:
Official Website
My Space Website

Soap&Skin - Lovetune For Vacuum

In some kind of Antony and the Johsons meets Devil Doll, the surprising Austrian girl, Anja Plaschg, better know as Soap&Skin, deliver her debut album "Lovetune For Vacuum" a record rather than depressive, dark and slightly macabre but also full of beauty and emotiveness. 13 songs with a truly dark sound, without chorus nor melodies, in majority of which this young lady, just 19 years old, is accompanied only by her piano played almost all the time in a disturbing and sinister low pitch, occasionally supplemented with electronic effects and strings arrangements. With a pretendedly fragile and delicate voice, Plaschg shapes her interpretations making them sometimes atmospheric and ethereal, barely whispering her desolate lyrics, while in other pieces she sounds openly passionate and theatrical. With songs like "Sleep" or "Marche Funébre", "Lovetune For Vacuum" is a record with a permanent dark and melancholic tone sprinkled with just a few moments of "brightness" in songs like "Cry Wolf" or "Brother Of Sleep." Tense and sometimes distressfully music but with a sensibility as dark as delicious. An excellent debut for this girl. -CORANNIEIT-

Soap&Skin, Lovetune For Vaccum
Play It Again Sam Records, 2009

Links:
Official Site
My Space Site

Heartless Bastards - The Mountain

Featuring a new lineup, in which guitarist/singer Erika Wennerstrom, seems to be the only permanent member of the band, the American trio Heartless Bastards presents their third album "The Mountain" playing music without ornaments or elaborate arrangements, powerfully rocker but with high doses of country and folk. Wennerstrom has a strong voice, with a deep tone and a style that sometimes recalls Linda Perry, and manages her interpretations to fit perfectly with the sound of each song whether pieces like "Early In The Morning" or "Out Of The Sea" in which the band sounds like a real power-trio with the strong and vibrant Wennerstrom guitar in front of, or in quieter songs such as "Had To Go", a dark folk/country theme with banjo and violin, or pleasant acoustic blues "Could Be So Happy" that this band from Ohio executed flawlessly. However, the best moments of "The Mountain" are achieved when the impetuous Wennerstrom guitar is wrapped in the country spirit that dominated throughout the album by delivering songs like "The Mountain", with a delicious steel guitar sliding over the distorted Wennerstrom guitar, "Witchy Poo" or "Sway" both with a southern sound, hard and evocative at the same time. From beginning to end, "The Mountain" is a vigorous and easy to enjoy record. A refreshing back to the basics. -CORANNIEIT-

Heartless Bastards, The Mountain
Fat Possum Records, 2009

Links:
Official Site
My Space Site

Iggy Pop - Préliminaires

People says "Change or die". Perhaps affected by the recent death of his old buddy Ron Asheton, the venerable Iggy Pop appeared taken this words seriously or at least that is the impression this leaves us after listening to his most recent material "Préliminaires" an amazing album in which except for a couple of timid, very timid attempts (for example "Nice To Be Dead"), Iggy forgets almost completly about rock, not to say punk or hard rock, and delivers 12 tracks ranging from jazz! to french chanson and from bossa-nova to the New Orleans sound. Yeah, at this point of his life and after survive for over 40 years in the most crude and wild side of rock, Iggy does not have to prove that he is a rude guy; in fact, he does not have to prove anything to anyone. Anyway hear Iggy sing, in rigorous french, "Les Fuilles Mortes", a french jazz standard, or "How Insensitive," a original bossa-nova from Antonio Carlos Jobim seem to be an excess ... even for Iggy. Disconcerting to the first listening, even repellent to those who expect the Iggy from "Skull Ring" or "Brick By Brick" (not to mention those waiting for The Stooges), "Préliminaires" is an album that demands multiple listenings to discover, occult under all that apparent "softness", to the darker and most rebel Iggy in recent years. The Iggy that gives us exactly the opposite of what we expect. Thus, when we expect rawness and fury, we get the beauty and sensitivity of "I Want To Go To The Beach" or "Spanish Coast", when we expect the distortion and the clangor we get the funk and the "electronic" from "Party Time" or the blussy and acoustic guitars of "He's Dead, She's Alive ", when we expect Iggy Pop we receive ..."Préliminiaires". A dark, intense, slummy beautiful album, and yes: an Iggy Pop album. -CORANNIEIT-

Iggy Pop, Préliminaires
Astralwerks, 2009

Links:
Official Website
My Space Website

Heaven & Hell - The Devil You Know

After having met in 2006 to record 3 songs to be included in the compilation "Black Sabbath: The Dio Years", this old metal masters decided to return for their old glory and met again to record "The Devil You Know" first studio album that they sign as Heaven & Hell and with wich they break the silence that the band have mantain since 1992 when recorded "Dehumanizer" still like Black Sabbath. There is not much new that can be said about the music of these veterans: the Butler-Appice duo is the solid and strong base on which is mounted the slow, very slow and crushing guitar of Tony Iommi, the unique and original "Lord Of The Riffs, to deliver the crushing chords and nice solos that give the crude and primitive element of the music while, in the other hand, the impeccables performances of Ronnie James Dio, who in his nearly 67 years shows that still have voice for a while, give it the melodic and theatrical touch. Combining the classic Sab sound, slow and dark, of themes such as "Atom and Evil" or "Follow The Tears", with the melodic and energetic sound of songs such as "Bible Black" and "Neverwhere", this venerable quartet deliver an excellent classic metal album demonstrating that the devil knows more because he is old than because he is the devil. -CORANNIEIT-

Heaven & Hell, The Devil You Know

Rhino, 2009

Links:

Official Wesite

My Space Website