No Eyed Bird

9 of 12 tracks remixed from the group’s 1996 Songs of Love and Hate album. This vinyl is a 2008 re-release/ re-master of the 1997 Earache Records original album. Inspired by the UK band Killing Joke, England’s Godflesh began in 1988 as a duo with guitarist/ singer/ electronic programmer Justin Broadrick (currently in Jesu) and bassist Ben Green. Later they added live drums with member Ted Parsons (Swans, Prong, Jesu). Drummer Bryan Mantia (Primus, El Stew, G’n’R, Buckethead) is the credited drummer for this album only, and first studio drummer on a Godflesh release. Robotically precise industrial drumming style, barkingly livid vocals, trance like looped bass lines, lo-fi at times recording, & infinite dub layers shredded through keyboards and your choice of favorite mid-90’s pedal effects. Exploding bass drum heads and bang on a can cymbals live drumming from Bryan Mantia rescue the album.

-johnny darko

Re-release of the 1983 cassette comp under Iham Products and FOPI. The album features shorts clips, most under a minute with clips like a 39 second Frank Zappa interview to to a piece by Charles Manson called Charlie and his MAM. Compiled by David Tibet (of Current 93), many are looped, foreign language and mostly of Throbbing Gristle material. This stands as the missing piece of the jigsaw between Coum Transmissions, Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV including rehearsals, radio bytes, phone calls, unreleased demos, interviews and ultra nonsense. The original release was issued in February 1983 as the fourth, and final issue of the Nanavesh magazine (The tape was the issue and didn’t include a written publication with it). The magazine concentrated initially on Throbbing Gristle and with its demise it moved onto Psychic TV. 23 Drifts To Guestling is a retrospective tape of Throbbing Gristle & basically a magazine on tape. It contains an interesting insight into TG with messages from their ansaphone, some material, an interview with Genesis following the ‘Prostitution’ exhibition at the ICA, an interview with American spree killer Gary Gilmore, a chat between Genesis and Monte Cazazza, bits and pieces of songs and a few death threats over the phone. It makes compulsive listening because it’s so strangely put together and it’s a good insight into the character of Mr P-Orridge.

-johnny darko

Bitcrush is a solo project of Mike Cadoo, focusing upon rock-based musical elements. Shimmer And Fade is a remastered reissue of the 2005 digital release of the same name (this time out on CD, limited to 1000 copies) and it includes 4 bonus tracks. The art references the original, but it is slightly different, being a bit cleaner.

Moving on to the music, the CD begins with dissonant, droney guitars layered over each other, signaling the album’s mood, austere and introspective, and set over sludgy, spacey rhythms. Distant and melodic, Cadoo’s music slowly explores harmonies and textures without making the music too experimental and unforgiving. Reminiscent of rock/metal-based shoegaze projects such as Jesu, Cadoo favors instrumentals over vocals, and makes sure that guitars don’t overpower the sound, using them only as a way to layer smooth, complex polyphonies over each other. The tracks also incorporate Cadoo’s previously honed skills and know-how of breakbeat rhythms and glitchy production. While most of the tracks are Warp-worthy, the real gems are (surprisingly) the tracks that sound a lot more rock than electronic. Warm and optimistic, they are listenable and easy to follow. For example, track 3 “No Bridge No Water” is a five-minute exposition of brightly melodic synths and strong alternative rock guitar riffs. More pop-structured than the other tracks, the song unabashedly skirts the line between accessibility and sophistication. Track 10 “When Swallowing Becomes Difficult” sounds like something off Ghostly International, being cute yet introspective, with a touch of bittersweet euphoria. These two tracks stand out from the others and bring to the album a bit of avant-pop energy from within a much more downtempo sound.

Bitcrush - When Swallowing Becomes Difficult (30s clip)

This album is a German import re-release (Brain Records) of Epitaph’s first self-titled album from 1971 on Polydor, containing 5 bonus tracks from their first singe, their 1973 single and 2 early demos. The liner notes (in German and English) are informative and give a solid background as to why this Prog. heavy kraut-rock band failed. They were influenced by some of the best of the time, like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Uriah Heep. The band had a British singer and lots of potential, but everything went bad for them. They tried to do a US tour, but signed with the US label Billingsgate who went bankrupt and caused the band to pack up mid-tour and go underground for a few years. Some tracks are straight up 70’s ridiculousness like the bonus track ‘Are You Ready’ featuring a barrage of wah-wah pedal. The demo ‘I’m Trying’ has a cool raw guitar sound and also some shitty live drumming however made up for with nice guitar solos. Both ‘Little Maggie’ and ‘Moving to the Country’ have country rock sounds, and ‘Visions’ is their softer Pink Floyd ethereal track. ‘Hopelessly’ nearly kills the whole album with its dated sound, but the instrumental parts work to help save it. By far the most interesting track is the 10 minute ending track to the original album ‘Early Morning’ which is mostly Prog Rock. The album had its problems technically, but shows the potential which the band could never fully live up to. They released albums until the early 1980’s and also did a reunion show in 2000.