Thurston Moore - Trees Outside the Academy

Thurston Moore is now 49 years old. This album is one of my favourites of 2007. Dig in.

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Here he is performing with Tom and Christina Carter of Charalambides at SXSW last March. Christina joins him on vocals here and there on "Trees Outside the Academy".



^^The album is nothing like that, btw. It's got acoustic guitars and violins n' stuff. I shit you not. It's lovely.

EDIT; Hell, here he is playing "The Shape is in a Trance"...




Thurston Moore plays Tripod in Dublin, next Tuesday Dec 4th with a full band including Steve Shelley and Mark Ibold.

Devastations - Yes, U

Been impressed with Australian three-piece Devastations' latest album, "Yes, U". They've moved to first London and then Berlin in the last couple of years and signed to Beggars Banquet for this album. There has been a major progression from the Nick Cave/Tindersticks-derived sound of their earlier material to the Can/Kraftwerk/80's Bowie echoes on this album. A indefinably Berlinesque (you'll know it when you hear it) electonic neon sheen complements the lean, dark pulses of the rhythm section.

Devastations are notable for the presence of two excellent songwriters, Tom Carlyon (guitar, vocals), and Conrad Standish (bass, vocals). On their two earlier albums, Standish provided the vocals but on this one Carlyon steps forward for about half the tracks. There is nothing between them, both have fantastic, expressive voices and know how to pen a tune.


They play the Ballroom of Romance in Dublin tonight, Friday, if any of you locals are at a loose end. Can't make it myself but I predict an excellent night.

hccp://www.mediafire.com/?7cwz2yitbzx

The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet

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The Byrds - Fifth Dimension

(1996 remastered and expanded version)

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To be honest, The Byrds' third album is fairly patchy owing to the void left by the departure of main songwriter Gene Clark. There's four covers and two instrumentals, but this is the point where the remaining members started realising their lofty ambitions and tapped into something extraordinary.

Though there are some leaps forward for the band in intricate proto-psychedelic songs like "I See You" and "5D", the centrepiece (and reason I'm upping this album here) is the monumental achievement that is "Eight Miles High".

Clark wrote the bones of the song, but Roger McGuinn's Coltrane-inspired drips and blotches took it into the stratosphere and practically redrew the boundaries of what hands can do with an electric guitar. The sudden force of the musical breakthrough is staggering really - it was recorded on January 25th 1966, months before The Beatles had even started working on "Revolver", and the song is basically the definitive psychedelic statement.


This edition also has the legendary "RCA Studios" version of "Eight Miles High" which was recorded a month before the released version. It's interesting to hear McGuinn's earlier, more Eastern-influenced guitar sketches for the song.

Polvo Reform for ATP!!

Speak of the devil! That's a bit mad.

ATP myspace blog

If somehow I don't see them, I will cause mayhem. This is massive news in my little world.

It's a good time if you're a Polvo nut...some kind soul has recently stuck up live footage of the band from 1996 on Youtube. It's great to finally see them in action, wringing the noise.


"Fast Canoe"




"Every Holy Shroud"



"Fractured (Like Chandeliers)/ Solitary Set"



Maybe see you down the front in May!

Polvo - Cor-Crane Secret

Polvo were true artists. Master craftsmen. The name means dust in Spanish, and sadly the band has long since returned to dust. Their swansong, "Shapes" came out on Touch and Go in 1997. They made their mark without ever making much dough from their glorious noise. To me, this band is up there with Sonic Youth, Slint and Television in the pantheon. May the guitar gods strike me down for this, but at times I feel they even edge Sonic Youth.

"Cor-crane Secret" arrived with a discordant clang in the grungy days of 1992. Even on this, their debut album, it was obvious that the four-piece, with their traditional two guitars, bass and drums configuration, had somehow stumbled upon their own bizarre musical language.

I can't even begin to describe it. Let's just say it involves alternate slack-string tunings and time-signatures that are not just out of left-field but several jagged miles beyond left-field.

The amount of practice they must have done boggles my tiny rudimentary mind. But don't let that put you off. Even though they know exactly what they are at, they make it sound like the whole shebang could all fall apart at any minute as they lurch up and down through the gears of their songs.

If you haven't heard of them before go to their Myspace page and have a listen to "Vibracobra". It's on this album and will give you a taste. Befriend them as well...my fecking band has nearly as many profile views as these legends - it's embarrassing how overlooked they are by the world at large.

People will be talking about Polvo in a hundred years time.

Please buy their stuff. Their other albums are even better.

hxxp://www.mediafire.com/?yu1vmdwmymn

http://www.touchandgorecords.com/bands/band.php?id=61