Articles
dartsplayerswives has written the following articles:
Faun Fables - Light of a Vaster Dark
Perhaps the highest compliment you can pay the latest Faun Fables album is that neither its ‘tuneful’ or ‘creepy’ parts sound more naturally achieved than the other, and that they sound like they’ve sprung from the well of a woman with a unique creative – and literal – voice.»
Apparat - DJ Kicks
DJ-Kicks is fundamentally pleasing to the ear and the work of a man unwilling to let complacency strike in his thirties.»
islet - Wimmy
You can look at Wimmy as an example of how 2010’s musical climate can facilitate rad noise, or just as a sweet slab from a band who are walking to, basically, their own step.»
Never Again - Year One
There’s no real suggestion that Never Again were mindful of trying out anything but ballistic, forehead-vein rage. Fortunately, they were exceptionally good at it.»
Afrirampo - We Are Ucho No Ko
One hopes it is not blithely orientalist to suggest that Japanese bands’ take on far-left guitar music has frequently come with an heroic lack of convention, with Afrirampo one of the many fine examples of such.»
Rustie - Sunburst
It may prove tough to dance to, should you hear it played out, but the sound Rustie has arrived at over the last three years is hellishly infectious, and fun without ever being dumb.»
Matthew Herbert - One Club
At some point, though, you have to ponder what purchasers will actually get from this album, once they’ve enjoyed the idle sport of identifying the sample source and chewed on all the parts which sound like a ‘regular’ dance record.»
Swans - My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky sounds more like the essence of Michael Gira than the Angels Of Light ever did, and ought to also serve as another broadside to the idea of reformations being inherently grubby and uncreative ventures.»
Drop the Lime - Fabriclive.53
There are several legit bangers here which you’d have to be a bit miserable or dead not to enjoy, but Drop The Lime hasn’t asserted himself especially greatly across these 67 minutes.»
DJ Nate - Da Trak Genious
One of the reasons Nate’s productions sound so extraordinary is that they take influence from so many strains of music, each in near-imperceptibly small amounts – the end result being that Da Trak Genious barely sounds like anything else out there. »
The Heads - Relaxing With the Heads (reissue)
The fact that this has lain in purgatory for years and has scads of scorching, slightly scrambled psychedelic heavy rock tunes that most people have never heard is more than enough reason for it to exist.»
Trumans Water - O Zeta Zunis
If you are a crazed and longterm fan, this does the Trumans Water thing with a kind of aplomb. The world at large doesn’t need it, although it’d be swell if a few of those sockless kids who’ve formed Pavementy, willfully lo-fi bands in the last year or two skronked themselves up in this manner and stopped writing songs about going to the beach.»
Abe Duque - Live and on Acid
Abe Duque has never lost his hardcore during almost 20 years in the game, and who has scattered his muse across two highly entertaining CDs.»
Mr G - Still Here
A solid if unrevolutionary opus.»
Various - Fabric 53: Surgeon
Assuming you approve of Surgeon’s latter-day DJing efforts to operate outside of the genre he’s prominently been associated with, there’s little to dislike about Fabric 53.»
Sabbath Assembly - Restored to One
Perhaps the most impressive thing about Sabbath Assembly is the manner in which they walk a tightrope between being thuddingly rockist and legitimately hymnal. »
Jammer - Jahmanji
This probably isn’t going to get played from beginning to end too often, though, and not just because of the ADD-addled iPod generation.»
Africa HiTech - Hitecherous
Circa summer 2010, this is only ‘pretty good’, but it’s very easy to see how Africa HiTech might assert themselves among the bass legions. »
Chris Leo's Vague Angels - The Sunny Day I Caught Tintarella di Luna for a Picnic at the Cemetery
As awkward and unmarketable as Chris Leo is, it's still great that he is tapping his own creative well, whatever the audience may or may not be. »
Robyn - Body Talk (Part 1)
It would be a shame to abandon her essence, but at this point she could probably cast aside chart-topping thoughts and go for it.»
Harvey Milk - A Small Turn of Human Kindness
A Small Turn Of Human Kindness really does sound like some bad shit has gone down. »
The Melvins - The Bride Screamed Murder
The Melvins' reputation for following up albums made of commonly understandable song structures and catchy riffs with ones that feature little or none of such fripperies is pretty much deserved. It isn't precisely what they've done on The Bride Screamed Murder, their fifteenth studio album (disclaimer for the nitpick posse: not counting mini-albums, collaborations or comps here), but this album is palpably stepping away from the slow, near-anthemic rumblers that made up the bulk of (A) Senile Animal and Nude With Boots, their previous pair. »
Trash Talk - Eyes & Nines
Eyes & Nines will probably not make legit stars of Trash Talk; more likely it will cement their status as a hardcore band for people who tend to listen to indie rock or metal rather than hardcore. »
Harvestman - Trinity
Steve Von Till has given more to metal in the last two decades than almost anyone else working in the genre, and is more than entitled to embark on deviations like this, especially when they turn out to be wholly worthy.»
Various - Fabric 52 - Optimo (Espacio)
This mix CD, the first by the Optimo twosome of JD Twitch and JG Wilkes for the now-venerable Fabric series, drops one week after Optimo the club night retires for, apparently, ever. Active in Glasgow since 1997, the unusual tactic of operating on a Sunday night helped to forge their identity, to the point where it resulted in hundreds of Weegies calling in sick every Monday. Yet a greater factor in the near-unconditional love these cats enjoy (seriously, I can’t remember anyone having much bad to say about Optimo) is the records they play. »
Conan - Horseback Battle Hammer
For a band operating in an intentionally limited stylistic space, though, there is a truly impressive individuality to Horseback Battle Hammer.»
Lair of the Minotaur - Evil Power
It is, of course, perfectly possible for metal to make with the funny and still be great, and from time to time on Evil Power Lair Of The Minotaur hit a spot sweet enough to suggest they might make a legit banger of an album one day. »
Starkey - Ear Drums and Black Holes
Paul ‘Starkey’ Geissinger goes against the grain of American dance producers by cribbing from the last decade of British invention. Rest assured this is a bit more substantial than Snoop Dogg sniffing round Chase & Status, and other such unlikely linkage.»
Extra Life - Made Flesh
Its crashing appropriations of metal are probably going to be a bit much for your Uncut-subscribing End Of The Road-attending sort. It deserves every bit of acclaim it gets, though.»
Yrsel - Requiem for the Three Kharites
They don’t so much loathe the listener, you feel, as wish to disquiet and unsettle him, and in this respect they compare favourably to Coil or Nurse With Wound – outfits that cast a pretty big shadow over any bands attempting this kind of magickal ambience. »