03 Jul 2013 — Henry Schiller
Hockeysmith are two young sisters who weave medleys of idiosyncratic guitar and ethereal vocals into taught, Brueghelian landscapes. Rather than occupy some majestic dreamworld, the Hockeysmith sisters live in a caravan park in Cornwall, England. This makes perfect sense; there is certainly something very grounded and very quaint about their otherwise mystifying music. The duo's first track, "Now I Want To" sounds like the ultimate degeneration of Cocteau Twins-style dream pop. Something inchoate and charming in a sinister, even nightmarish way.
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03 Jul 2013 — Henning Lahmann
The fine folks over at the city's most exciting new project, Berlin Community Radio, are about to occupy the courtyard of Kreuzberg's Prince Charles for the second time this Sunday. Starting at a summer sunshine-friendly 4pm, Hyperdub mainstay Cooly G, RVNG Intl.'s Maxmillion Dunbar, JM Moser, Creamcake, and BCR's own Anastasia Filipovna will provide you with all the beats and bass necessary to spend a lush Berlin Sunday afternoon. For further event details go here and stay tunes for more news on BCR soon.
We're giving away 2x2 tickets for the event. Just write a mail to henning@nofearofpop.net with the subject Berlin Community Radio before Friday, 12pm.
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03 Jul 2013 — Tonje Thilesen
One of my all-time favourite EPs, Boat Club's timeless Caught The Breeze, will finally receive the proper vinyl release it has deserved for so long, after seeing the light of day via Luxury back in 2007. This is most likely the last thing we will ever hear from the band, so while at it, you may as well pour your entire heart into it. Our best buddies over Cascine stands for the re-issue of the EP, due to July 23rd on limited edition white vinyl, re-mastered and re-packaged with a beautiful new artwork. In the meantime, let's all shred a tear for the Swedish pop bands who once seduced us with their perfect, escaping essence of pop music, for only to entirely disappear from the spotlight and leave us secluded and heartbroken (yes, I do take it personal).
Listen to the absconding "Memories" below, and don't forget to pre-order the beauty via Insound.
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03 Jul 2013 — Henry Schiller
Julian Lynch's Lines has been one of my favorite releases of this year so far, and the new video for album track "North Line" might summarize my feelings more succinctly than words ever could. In the video, we find dogs with their heads and paws draped out of car windows, panting gleefully in the wind. It's a simple, colloquial image, but one that director Richard Law presents with remarkable gravity. On the song "North Line," too, Lynch performs a slide guitar-based acoustic song as though it were a composition for a chamber orchestra. Neither Lynch, nor the dogs in the video, need words to telegraph exactly how they're feeling.
Lines is out via Underwater Peoples and is available for purchase on their website.
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02 Jul 2013 — Henning Lahmann
Already around for roughly two years now, Portland, Maine-based project Afraid seems to have flown mostly under the radar until now, a fact that could and should change with the group's latest effort, a digital 7" dropped a few weeks ago, not least as the a-side features vocal contributions by Jarboe La Salle Devereaux or simply Jarboe, best known for her work with seminal NYC outfit Swans – check out the incredible result below. Today however we're delighted to premiere the brand new video for the single's equally remarkable b-side, "Your Dealer In Heaven", a noirish and brooding hybrid of post punk-indebted patterns underlying incisive electronic loops, restrained yet poignant beats, and male/female vocals that are as elaborate as they feel subtly vulnerable, at least until they submerge into a surge of effects that mark the track's finale. The visuals themselves are appropriately haunting, a series of occult images that underline the scenery's inescapable bleakness.
Sisters Forever b/w Your Dealer In Heaven is out digitally on Everything Is Chemical and available for free via bandcamp.
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02 Jul 2013 — Andrew Wagner
Cassette fetishists rejoice: Zach Phillips, member of highly prolific Vermont outsider pop group Blanche Blanche Blanche, has a new tape out full of beautiful and brilliant melodies. With most of Recorded in Heaven’s songs clocking in at two minutes, the tape is short, sweet, and to the point. Compared to the typical chaotic antics of Blanche Blanche Blanche, Recorded in Heaven is a toned down affair, with Phillips mostly sticking to no more instrumentation than a keyboard and vocals. The move is welcome, revealing that at the core of both Phillips and Blanche Blanche Blanche’s success is an incredible knack for crafting moments of utter pop bliss. Songs like “Etiquette” are at once sweetly innocent and strangely tragic, bearing a slight resemblance to the eerily beautiful songs of one of the all-time outsider music greats, The Shaggs. With just enough odd details (occasional unidentifiable sounds and bursts of noise) to bring a delightfully off-kilter vibe to the whole cassette, Recorded in Heaven is a wonderful slice of melodic jams.
Stream Recorded In Heaven below. Recorded in Heaven can be ordered as a cassette or downloaded digitally from Lillerne Tapes.
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01 Jul 2013 — Henning Lahmann
Originally founded in 1982 by local subcultural mainstay Dimitri Hegemann, initially staged at Kreuzberg's infamous punk club SO36 and subsequently running annually until its closing in 1990, this year will see legendary music festival Berlin Atonal's resurrection after a remarkable 23-year hiatus. From July 25 to 31, the abandoned power plant on Mitte's Köpenicker Straße will host six nights packed with performances of some of the finest contemporary electronic musicians, whose connecting feature is a shared, fiercely forward-looking approach to sound and production. While the festival's extensive lineup might reveal many rather familiar names, the curators' stated purpose is to take established artists but to exempt "them from their usual contexts, and [to allow] them the space to develop new performances or projects and pioneer styles of communication".
The premiere revival edition's overarching concept is delineated by the theme "Forming Space", a nod to both the festival's astonishing new home and to "the desire to give form to the void" which is, in the words of the organisers, "the basic and vital impulse of all art". The overall musical program (see for the complete lineup below) – which will be accompanied by readings, seminars, master-classes and workshops as well as installations and exhibitions for the duration of the festival – looks thoroughly exciting, and we sincerely hope that Berlin Atonal will manage to establish itself (again) as one of the city's leading events where avant-garde and adventurous modern music as well as the essential discourse about it and the cultural context within which it is situated may find a proper home, in addition to February's CTM Festival.
Get tickets now via the event's website.
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Lineup
Thursday, July 25
Frieder Butzmann
The Glenn Branca Ensemble
Roly Porter
Paul Jebanasam
Eric Holm
Lucy Benson & Marcel Weber (MFO)
Friday, July 26
Jon Hassell Quartet
Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald
Vladislav Delay
Kangding Ray
Saturday, July 27
Voices From The Lake
Murcof + Simon Geilfus
Dadub
Grün
Sunday, July 28
Raime
Vatican Shadow
Cut Hands
Ancient Methods
Russell Haswell
Violetshaped
Rashad Becker
Grischa Lichtenberger
Samuel Kerridge
Positive Centre
Lower Order Ethics
Zan Lyons
Tuesday, July 30
Actress
Francesco Tristano
Kassem Mosse
Anstam
Wednesday, July 31
The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble
Jacaszek
Z'ev
30 Jun 2013 — Tonje Thilesen
Now here's something to keep your eyes peeled on for all you balearic pop fans out there. The East London based imprint Above Machine, run by Steve Lee of The Project Club, collects the kind of music that falls in between many associated genres; severely mixed up with the sunkissed, scandinavian pop, but both on the very edge of nu-disco or ambient, or the blithe chillfulness of psych disco heads Seahawks. The Italian smalltown duo Almunia seems to be the imprint's most recent obsession, perfectly fitting into their sound catalogue, and we're (too!) absolutely hooked from the very first moments of "One Time", an utter gem of tropical escapism.
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