Black Flowers - I Grew Up From A Stone To A Statue

First album from this quartet from Glasgow formed by musicians who have been wandering through different projects and now coincide in this kind of "superband" called Black Flowers. Led by English drummer Alexander Neilson, the quartet delivers "I Grew Up From A Stone To A Statue", a brief record , just over 30 minutes, in which the band offer 5 pieces that evoke English folk and medieval music, specially the vocals parts, combined with sixties psychedelia and a strong tendency to improvisation. While the opener "Calvary Cross" goes from total softness, with delicate and subtle vocals, to moments of wildness in which guitar and organ build intense passage of psychedelic jamming, other songs such as "Hot Crosses" or "And Words Fell Like The Malting Blossom" offer amazing moments with ethereal vocals barely accompanied by chaotic percussion or electro guitars. The record ends with Lavinia Blackwall singing "Sweets Rivers Of Redeeming Love" a sweet folk ballad. While not extraordinary “I Grew Up From A Stone To A Statue" is an interesting effort, although, due to the nature of the band, with a certain ephemeral smell. -CORANNIEIT-

Black Flowers, I Grew Up From A Stone To A Statue
Bo Weavil Recordings, 2009

Links:
Bo Weavil Recordings Official Site

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