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Pictures from some recent gigs we've hosted:

29 March 2013 - Brixton, London

Viv Albertine, VuVuVultures, Left Leg, Mickey Gloss, Big Wave, No Cars, Arthur Gunn, Simon Love (Pictures)

8 March 2013 - Lexington, London

R.Ring, Golden Grrrls, Slushy Guts and Equinox (Pictures)

On Our iPod

Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (album)

Antony Harding - Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear (album)

Black Angels - Indigo Meadow (album)

Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin (album)

Still Corners - Strange Pleasures (album)

Savages - Silence Yourself (album)

Mikal Cronin - MC II (album)

Can’s Ege Bamyasi played by Stephen Malkmus and Friends(album)

Victoria and Jacob - Festival 7"

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City (album)

Sauna Youth - False Jesii Part II 7”

Lightning Bolt - Oblivion Hunter

Robyn Hitchcock - There Goes The Ice (2x 12")

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Album Review

Mountains
Centralia Thrill Jockey

Article written by Michael H - Jan 3, 2013

‘Centralia’ acts as an interesting companion piece to another Thrill Jockey release from last year, Golden Retriever’s ‘Sympathy for the Unspoken’. Both groups employ an interesting combination of modular synth electronics and acoustic instrumentation.

Opening track ‘Sand’ recalls Stars of the Lid in its unhurried grace and calm; it stills the listener entirely. Soft whirls of liquid gurgle fly across the sound-field over a juddering phased hum before fading away into droning ambience and a beautiful scraping cello buries the track in achingly sad bass. Such a simple addition adds so much; the sound of something human is touching after a long duration of machine process.

The rest of the album is no less wonderful. ‘Identical Ship’ pairs finger picked folk guitar with hissing pixelated sweeps of static. ‘Circular C’ combines endlessly repetitive ringing piano chords, acoustic guitar and a thickly claustrophobic mass of drones and filtered feedback whistles. ‘Liana’ is a bubbling pool of rippled tones and rapidly cycling glassy sighs that are eventually crushed by a surprise black metal intervention.
The highlight, for me, is ‘Propeller’. It is completely absorbing; every moment of its twenty minute running time is full of sound and drama. Its first half is lushly kosmiche, a thickening drone pushes a mandolin-like tentative guitar picking into a haze of pysch-mirage. It feels like a landscape emerging from fog; a gust of noise at the ten minute mark evacuating the last remaining wisps and revealing a precipitous chasm. An enormous series of bass tones open up and envelop the listener in a rapture of room-filling, window-shaking noise that manages to be as emotionally affecting as it is thunderously loud.

This is a transformative album; I listened to it once on a winter woodland stroll and found everything enhanced and heightened. Its grain and melancholy beauty infused the surroundings with a clarity and sharpness.

Links:
http://www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/Mountains/Centralia
http://www.thrilljockey.com