Squarepusher Budakhan Mindphone Nothing/Warp By: Eric Greenwood Squarepusher follows up last year’s fusion-jazz-based Music Is Rotted One Note with another weird foray into live instrumentation. Budakhan Mindphone is less jazzy and more experimental. Ambient electronics replace the relentless snare and fretless bass, but this is still a far cry from Squarepusher’s unique strain of frenetic […]

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Stereolab Cobra And Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night Elektra By: Eric Greenwood Stereolab somehow made the leap from noodling indie-rockers to retro-avant-guardists in a matter of a few well-timed and challenging records. The progression from Transient Random Noisebursts With Announcements (the band’s first proper American release) to Cobra And Phases… is remarkable. […]

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Subdebs She's So Control K By: Eric Greenwood This Olympia, Washington trio brings an unadulterated DIY aesthetic back to indie rock. Inspired by early eighties punk/new wave icons like The Go Go’s and X-Ray Spex as well as nineties underground luminaries like Slant 6 and Heavens To Betsy, the Subdebs play minimalistic indie punk with […]

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Suede Head Music Columbia/Nude By: Eric Greenwood Suede has only been around for six years but what a drama it’s been. The band stormed onto the scene in 1993 heralded as the flavor of the week by the British press and sold piles and piles of records with a sound very reminiscent of glam period […]

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Tarwater Silur Mute By: Eric Greenwood Tarwater is another fine German export featuring Ronald Lippok of To Rococo Rot that blends rock oriented sounds with repeated loops, breakbeats, simulated vinyl hiss, and a dark soulfulness, creating a serene and expansive soundscape in the vein of a less accessible Tricky or Portishead. Silur is the band’s […]

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The Creatures Anima Animus Sioux Records By: Eric Greenwood After Siouxsie and the Banshees vanished with a whisper in 1995 after almost twenty years of bucking the system and producing music that was above and beyond the stigmatic tag of goth, Siouxsie and her husband, Banshee drummer Budgie, return with their ongoing alter-ego The Creatures. […]

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Pushing Tin Directed By Mike Newell 20th Century Fox By: Eric Greenwood Pushing Tin is a confusing and emotionally disjointed film that isn’t sure if it wants to be a comedy or a drama and ends up just missing at both. Even John Cusack’s self-deprecating charm that made movies like The Sure Thing and Grosse […]

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