Monday, March 02, 2009

Playlist ~ 2nd March 2009

Magma ~ Studio Zund
Magma along with Henry Cow and Univers Zero produced some of the most uncompromising rock music to come out of the 70’s. This 12 disc box set comprises all of the bands studio albums plus a 2 CD set which includes various archive recordings. No remastering has been carried out, but the sound is pretty good anyway. Each digipacked album comes with its own booklet which includes archival photographs and notes, some of which is actually in English of a kind! You can get this box for around £50 which is a real bargain for anyone wanting a quick way into the world of Zeuhl.

Richard Pinhas and Merzbow ~ Keio Line
Pinhas seems to be going through quite a fertile period at the moment. His last 2 CD set “Metatron” included some of his best work since the golden days of Heldon. This time around he has teamed up with noise pioneer Merzbow to produce something more sedate. It may be termed dark ambient and utilises Pinhas’s own variant of Frippertronics but the results are taught and electrically tense.

Ultravox ~ Quartet
The second batch of EMI remasters includes this, the third Midge Ure fronted album with the band. I think a lot of people will be surprised how non-poppy this album is and how good a guitarist Midge is.

Dr Strangely Strange ~ Kip of the Senses
I new about this strange, obscure band via Mark Powells Island box set which was named after a song from this album. They seem to be mentioned in the same breadth as the Incredible String Band and do travel a similar acid folk path. I recently read an account of the release of this album in the latest Record Collector mag and was intrigued to search out this excellent re-issue on Hux records. This is another superb example of how to properly re-issue long out of print recordings. The amount of love and attention given to the remastering and packaging is highly impressive. Hux have also levelled the same attention to detail on recently released archival collections by Dr Strangely Strange and the Incredible String Band. The latter got me on to a recent acid folk kick. But that’s another story!

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