Burnt Ends by Hot Sauce Pony reviewed by John Robbins

As Wiley mockingly asked in his hilarious, pigeonholer-mocking song of the same name.... 'Wot U Call It?!'

Well, that's not an easy one. A quick listen to 'Burnt Ends' – and at one minute, ten seconds, a quick listen truly is the only way to hear this song –reveals the following... A distorted bass intro that could be Lemmy in a particularly grumpy mood. A lurching groove that's so implausibly heavy it makes a good case for being included in the periodic table of elements. A rising wall of feedback fed through an array of mysterious pedals, and splintered guitar notes that sound like glass shattering. It's way too weird to be metal, too clever to be punk and it would have the average wimpy indie kid involuntarily evacuating their bowels in fear.

And above this amorphous explosion of sound, arrives the voice of Caroline Gilchirst, as pure and heavenly as her accompaniment is grimy and hellish. Just to add to the lovely confusion, you understand. 'Burnt Ends' is a teaser for this South London four piece's self-titled debut album, and in many ways it raises more questions than it answers, not least 'when can we have some more?!' Whatever it contains, we can only really be certain that it will be like nothing we've ever heard before.

On closer inspection, their promotional bumph reveals that the band themselves have created a name for it – avant hard. It makes total sense, even if you're unlikely to find a section devoted to it in Rough Trade. So take up their challenge and immerse yourself in the sonic equivalent of a star collapsing on itself or the atom being very violently split Go on – come and have a go if you think you're avant hard enough.

'Burnt Ends' is out on Brixton Hillbilly on June 22. 

Text by John Robbins May 2018

PAUL SCHUTZE - The Sky Torn Apart reviewed by Ben Willmott

Paul Schütze has worked for over thirty years on the fringes of the field of experimental music – alongside parallel work in photography, video and installation – and he shows no signs of selling out yet.

Hailing from Australia and a founding member of cult bands Laughing Hands and of Phantom City, he’s worked with everyone from Bill Laswell and Lol Coxhill to Max Eastley, Jah Wobble and David Toop.  His latest offering has an environmental theme, apparently drawing on the Nordic myths of Ragnarök in which the earth is subsumed by water as a consequence of divine conflict, which although is an anoient tale seems to have much relevance to the planet’s plight as the global warming catastrophe begins to take hold.

There’s only one, epic 56-minute track, and, as you might expect from someone whose label is called Glacial Movements, it moves almost imperceptibly along with its narrative while being eerie listening throughout.  Using sound to paint pictures, Schütze seems to have confined us to a claustrophobic jungle cave at first, where water drips down the walls and noises of great foreboding happen at sudden intervals.  Eventually it moves into more wide open territory, but even then, the long, searing synthesiser notes – there are echoes of Vangelis’ ‘Bladerunner’ score here – seem to have a note of discord and imminent jeopardy.  Trouble in paradise, for sure.

It’s what you might call ambient music except that far from being sonic wallpaper or even a reassuring, calming presence, this unnerving symphony creeps into your consciousness and twists your mood without mercy.  Play it in a chill out room and you’ll have the casualties running for the St John’s Ambulance!

Paul Schütze might be a strange cause to champion on a site devoted to more punk rock sensibilities, but ‘The Sky Torn Apart’ is far from hippy dippy thinking.  It’s sharp and undiluted, and all too easy to get sucked into.  Uneasy listening anybody?!

Cover photo by Bjarne Riesto

 Sleeve design by Rutger Zuydervelt

Text by Ben Willmott

The 30th Anniversary of R.E.M's best album Green by Denni Rusking

Micheal Stipe: "The buzz words for Green were 'crunchy' and 'angular'; anything jangly or comfortable was out."

Music journalist: "A lot of people would say that you are mad"

Micheal Stipe: "A lot of people eat bacon and crisps for breakfast."

I never thought R.E.M was a great name for a band and when I was told R.E.M stood for "Rapid Eye Movement" (a physiological term for the stage of the sleep cycle at which dreaming begins) I liked it slightly less. I think the band have made more bad albums than good ones and I wasn't sad when they split up. And yet, credit where it's due... 30 years ago R.E.M (who were nearly called "Slut Bank") released a fucking fantastic record called "Green". I've been listening to "Green" a lot recently and I've decided it's the band at their absolute peak and I agree with both Kurt Cobain and The Times newspaper that "Green" is one of the best albums of all time.

"Green" was the band's 6th studio album and their first for a major label. 
Peter Buck: "R.E.M is part lies, part heart, part truth and part garbage". 
"Pop Song 89" and "Stand" are Big, dumb pop songs. They're so dumb they're kind of smart.
Orange Crush is probably about the Agent Orange chemical warfare programme in Vietnam

41:01 (11 tracks) first release on a major, Singer Michael Stipe had reportedly told his bandmates to "not write any more R.E.M.-type songs". Larry Graham 5 star review in Q The Times included it in their list of 100 best albums of all time

 “Run a carbon-black test on my jaw/ And you will find it’s all been said before” — “Hairshirt”

"World Leader Pretend" is one of the great R.E.M. songs.

 “It was the first song I felt so confident about that we printed the lyric on the sleeve, allowing people to read it before they heard it,” Stipe tells me a few days later, in a London hotel. “I realised it was my take on Leonard Cohen. I was trying to be as smart as he was in his lyric writing.” The band had formed in 1980, “so you could say it was eight years in the making”, he adds.

Text by Denni Rusking 2018