Luxuria - Beat Box (1990)

Luxuria was a duo consisting of former Buzzcocks and Magazine singer/songwriter Howard Devoto and Noko. Devoto began working with the Liverpool musician a few years after the release of his solo album, Jerky Versions of the Dream. The duo eventually released two albums on Beggars Banquet, which ranged from sparse acoustic accompaniment to involved dance beats. Unanswerable Lust was released in 1988 to lukewarm reception, followed two years later by the improved Beast Box. A number of singles were released off each record to little effect on the U.K. charts.

Andy Kellman - Allmusic.com

Anywhen - The Opiates (2001)

The Opiates, Anywhen's second album, surfaces almost as a faultless record, a classical collection of pure and inspiring melodies delivered with elaborate instrumentation. Vocalist and songwriter Thomas Feiner springs out as the main creator in the Swedish trio, responsible for most of the disc's words and tunes. Delivering their themes inspired by alternative pop/rock's pickings and adjoining to it classical music marks, they end up drifting in composite song structures supported by beautiful and duskily inspired lyrics. "The Siren Songs," the record's opening track, clearly identifies Anywhen's poetic purpose: to create dark and moody musically crafted atmospheres which are at the same time flowing both musically and lyrically on their own simplicity. The Opiates' classical marks are better revealed through the flute and horn performances of elements of the Warsaw Radio Symphony Orchestra, on "Dinah and the Beautiful Blue," "Toy," and "Betty Caine," again subliming the disc's exquisite soundings.

Mario Mesquita Borges - All Music Guide

V.A. - Non Peut Etre!? (1988)

Compilação para os Estados Unidos de apresentação do catálogo Les Disques du Crepuscule.

Inclui Isabelle Antena, Sevine/Statton, Anna Domino, Jane Kelly, Evan Lurie, Wim Mertens e Jazz Passengers.

Rollerskate Skinny - Horsedrawn Wishes (1996)

Formed in Dublin in 1992, Rollerskate Skinny (named for a line in Catcher in the Rye) recorded its first album as a quartet, with Jimi Shields (brother of My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields) adding guitar, voice and drums to the manifold abilities of unrelated founders Ken Griffin (vocals/guitar/keyboards), Ger Griffin (guitar) and Stephen Murray (bass/guitar). A bit like Sloan's Smeared in its derivative variety, Shoulder Voices is a fascinating and delightful debut that jumps easily from intimate indie tunefulness (the vocals sound like Pavement) to free-fire pop noise, with plenty of wild and wonderful textures along the continuum. The constant gear-shifting makes its nigh on impossible to get a handle on the group's intentions, but the balance of strong, engaging songwriting (see especially "Bow Hitch-Hiker," "Bella" and the Beach Boysish "Shallow Thunder"), alluring atmospheres ("Miss Leader," "Violence to Violence") and raw sensual abandon (just about every song has some liberating blast of distortion, but the Robyn Hitchcock-like "Some Give Birth" bears a resemblance to MBV) obviates the need for such concerns. A great, imaginative beginning.
Shields didn't stick around (or get asked back; he instead formed a group called Lotus Crown) for the band's follow-up/swan song, but Horsedrawn Wishes — recorded with a hired drummer and a major reliance on keyboards and "orchestration" — is no less impressive in its riot of excellent ideas supporting, not disguising, worthy songs. If anything, the madly ambitious production raises the band's creative vision higher, making Rollerskate Skinny that much more considerable in its achievement. If the Beatles had reached psychedelic cruising altitude around 1995, this might be their kind of album: vivid, self-confident, innovative, too involuted to easily master and thoroughly entertaining. Very well done.

Ira Robbins

The Gist - Embrace The Herd (1983 Reed.1999)

Stuart Moxham was a driving force in the critically worshipped lo-fi, low-volume pioneering Welsh cult band Young Marble Giants. When they fell apart in 1980, his next project, The Gist, was widely perceived as a disaster. Indeed, even Moxham himself professes an abiding dislike of Embrace the Herd. “It’s a symbol of my misery and lack of direction at that time. There’s very few lyrics on it, for example, because I had nothing to say.”
Even so, tucked away among a sequence of Eno-esque instrumentals resembling spaced-out indicental music for The Magic Roundabout, are a fistful of treasures that could hardly be more ripe for rediscovery.
While mainstream pop taste had descended as far as Renee & Rentao, Kajagoogoo and Duran Duran, The Gist took YMG as a foundation on which to build a new house, offering oblique snapshots of an altogether more intriguing and infinitely more British alternative pop universe, where the mannered folk whimsy of Jake Thackray collided with the intellect of Brian Eno in George Clinton’s back garden.
“It was a time of huge changes for me,” points out Moxham now. “In YMG we’d functioned on cups of tea and fags, but after the split I moved into a really grim Stoke Newington squat where I spent my time permanently stoned, never seeing daylight, and listening to reggae dub really loud. I didn’t know it, but I was heading for four years of clinical depression.”
En route to his girlfriend’s house in Nottingham, he crashed his motorbike and suffered multiple injuries which left him in plaster and on crutches for a year. “I now went into a heavy acid-taking period. Walkmans had just come on the market, and I spent a lot of time hobbling around the streets of Nottingham, wearing headphones, with the microphone from an Aiwa recording Walkman clipped to my lapel and the gain turned up so high that I could only hear what came in through the mic.
Inspired by dub, LSD, the new soundscape revealed by the Aiwa mic, and a love of Brian Eno, Moxham laid down some demos at home “using a four-track recorded as a substitute for the band,” then went into Cold Storage in Brixton with producer Phil Legg and large quantities of grass. “It was the classic mistake of thinking I could do better than the demos but, in fact, you lose the spontaneity when you do it again.”
Whatever Moxham’s misgivings, his outrageously eclectic finished album sounded unlike anything available at the time and pointed to a number of routes to the future. With the 20/20 vision of hindsight, it’s clear that whatever it lacks in coherence, it more than compensates for in unabashed eclecticism and quirky tunefulness.
“Love at First Sight” is the kind of yearning love song that Everything But the Girl would later build an entire career around. “Clean Bridges,” with its single line of lyric and uncluttered linear development, is a more distinctively English take on Kraftwerk than any Human League chart-topper. The loping “Long Run” sounds like a Jamaican Depeche Mode serving time as an easy-listening lounge band.
By the time it was finished, although unhappy with what he’d achieved, Moxham had recovered sufficient composure to realize that the arrogance which had fueled his split from YMG could no longer be allowed to dominate his thinking. “When I called it Embrace the Herd, I was talking to myself, telling myself what I had to do to start putting things right.”
Producer Phil Legg, whose contributions Moxham valued highly, subsequently went on to work with Terence Trent D’Arby, The Pasadenas and others, while the discouraged Moxham returned to a life of relative obscurity from which he is only now re-emerging. “I’ve been writing a lot of strong material just lately,” he says, “and I’m thinking it’s maybe time to get involved with a major label. I don’t think I’d make the same mistakes again.”
Then again, when you could an album as lovable as Embrace the Herd among your mistakes, maybe it’s best to take note of Robert Fripp’s observation that truly creative artists should honor their mistakes as hidden intentions.

Johnny Black

Dome - 1&2 (1980&1981) + 3&4 (1981&1982)

Just as Colin Newman followed his hard-edged pop ideals once free of Wire, Graham Lewis and Bruce Gilbert also followed their own musical concepts, if one can call it music. Their passion for repetition, sound-loops and making a piece that can stand in isolation, were able to flourish, no longer stemmed by Colin Newman and Mike Thorne's more commercial leanings.
One had seen hints of what was to come with the Wire tracks Former Airline and The Other Window, both more-or-less made up of organised noise with narratives over the top, but little could have prepared the average listener for Dome.
Dome 1 was the first release and begins in a slightly mediocre fashion but at least highlights the duo's intentions in the narrative: 'Change the menu, a different revenue/A glorious change, refining the focus'. Things quickly pick up with the haunting and mesmerising Cruel when Complete and Rolling Upon my Day, a track that begins with busy rhythms and a wonderful guitar loop before mixing into a heavily echoed drum pattern and subtle vocals. Elsewhere, melodies and beats occasionally appear from under a barrage of mechanical noises and treated tapes.
Dome 2 continues experimentation with rhythm, noise and minimalism. It begins with the stunning Red Tent 1&2, which moves from quiet, soothing chords to a chaotic and harsh beat. An exhausted sounding Lewis vocal—'Quiet, the breath is crystal-clear/The red tent is our tomb'—adds to the claustrophobic feel. The narratives all seem to focus on the theme of exploration and loneliness, and the album seems more complete than Dome 1, ending with the chilling Keep it.
Dome certainly isn't easy listening but it was never meant to be. There is beauty within the noise and the harrowing narratives of Dome 2, along with the sheer variety of sound and noise in every piece, makes for an intriguing, interesting and disconcerting listening experience all at once.
Craig Grannell (1998)

Correct links for 3&4 (PT1 - PT2) Sorry...
Dome 3 is more musically structured than previous Dome work, often borrowing rhythms and sounds from other cultures and mixing them with abstract noise. The idea of cut-up vocals is taken to the extreme until all that's left is fragments of words, ramblings, nonsense and vocal noises. It begins well with the hypnotic rhythms of Jasz and Ar-Gu, but substance is sometimes lacking. Although there are standout tracks, such as Na-drm and the incredible Roos-an, this is probably the weakest of all the Dome LPs.
The final de-facto Dome release from the '80s—Will you Speak this Word: Dome 4—brings together the minimalism of earlier works and a more ethnic leaning. To Speak is built around the repetition of the words 'To sleep and let my words come round again,' backed by textured violins and saxophones that are arranged to give an almost Arabic feel. This evolves into a rhythmic mix of hard drumbeats and guitar that abruptly stops. The final part of the track offers tiny echoes of what appeared earlier in amongst slowly shifting and ghostly electronics.
The remainder of the album is made of much shorter tracks, most of which seem to highlight one of the ideas within To Speak. The best of these is This, which is a bizarre mix of shifting vocals and disjointed rhythms.
The suite-like To Speak would be worth the asking price alone. The rhythmical qualities of Roos-an rather overshadow the remainder of the sometimes-weak Dome 3, but this collection is still worthy of consideration.
Craig Grannell (1998)

The Band Of Holy Joy - Positively Spooked (1990)

The rough-and-tumble British acoustic unit Band of Holy Joy formed in the New Cross area of London in 1984. Led by singer Johny Brown, the group -- which also included trombonist Adrian Bailey, drummer Bill Lewington, keyboardist/banjoist Big John, violinist Karel Van Bergen, accordionist Alf Thomas and double-bassist Mark Cavener -- created a uniquely English urban folk sound, free of guitars, which brought frequent comparisions to their Irish counterparts the Pogues; while steeped in the grit and grime of London street life, Brown's songs were uplifting and optimistic, a call-to-arms against the oppressions of Thatcherism.Upon signing to the small indie label Flim Flam, the Band of Holy Joy debuted in 1986 with the EP The Big Ship Sails, followed in 1987 by the full-length More Tales From the City. The group signed to Rough Trade for 1988's "Tactless" single; the next year's Manic, Magic, Majestic won widespread critical acclaim, but the commercial breakthrough projected for 1990's Positively Spooked -- an LP backed by a promotional tour of the U.S.S.R. -- never materialized. The 1991 collapse of Rough Trade further derailed the group's momentum, and 1992's Tracksuit Vendetta -- recorded as simply Holy Joy -- quickly disappeared from sight; after a final single, "It's Lovebite City," the group disbanded in 1993. Brown later became a freelance journalist, and in 1995 he and Bill Lewington formed Superdrug.
Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

As ever, the manic-depressive Holy Joy sing tales of love, drink, and loss. Unlike the claustrophobic feel of the previous albums, Positively Spooked is far more optimistic, something the band attributed to touring the former Soviet republics. Written in the so-called second Summer of Love, songs such as "Real Beauty Passed Through" and "Evening World Holiday Show," whilst not exactly rave music, reflect the upbeat dance culture of the time. The "up" mood of the album is best reflected by "Freda Cunningham," where the happy-go-lucky heroine is revealed to be the same tragic single mother in the single Rosemary Smith. According to the NME, Positively Spooked contains the greatest Band of Holy Joy song, "Bitten Lips" -- a song dedicated to Kay Kent, the deceased Marilyn Monroe lookalike. Although the distorted fairground element is still prevalent, a definite dance element is apparent, or as the song says, "Look Who's Changed With the Times."

Christian Smillie, All Music Guide

Someone told me that there's a problem with track 11. Here it is. LINK

Sukia - Contacto Espacial Con El Tercer Sexo (1996)

Quando observamos a história recente da música popular, deparamo-nos muitas vezes com fenómenos meteóricos, os chamados one-hit wonders. Ou porque são cirurgicamente fabricados com esse objectivo ou, mais frequentemente, porque grandes multinacionais da música assim o desejam, obrigando distribidores e media a impingir esse produto ininterruptamente, são temas que isoladamente atacam de forma impiedosa as tabelas de vendas e inundam as ondas hertzianas até à náusea - pobre daquele que ouse sequer ligar o botão do rádio ou da televisão sem saber que estação está sintonizada - apenas para, umas semanas depois, se evaporarem tão rapidamente como surgiram. Nalguns casos, os autores aparecem e desaparecem tão depressa como a sua música, noutros vislumbra-se claramente um golpe de sorte do infeliz artista que após o big bang se arrasta moribundo, de forma clownesca, sem perceber que um raio não cai duas vezes no mesmo microfone.
Citando dois exemplos coincidentemente do ano de 1993, quem não se lembra (infelizmente, a memória só se perde para as coisas que realmente importam) de What’s Up? daquelas criaturas com uns chapéus gigantes e disformes a esconder cabelos com ar de quem não vê shampoo desde que Copérnico descobriu a teoria heliocêntrica, as 4-Non Blondes (perdão, os 4-Non Blondes, pois o colectivo inclui um senhor de apelido Rocha - chegará a portugalidade também aos confins do aberrante?); ou a Macarena, o êxito que elevou grandemente o estatuto da já nobre profissão de polícia sinaleiro, usando os gestos do controlo do trânsito para pôr a população deste planeta a tremer tão massivamente os seus tecidos adiposos que só me espanta os fabricantes de gelatina não terem usado a ideia para uma campanha publicitária. Se bem se lembram, a canção era interpretada por um duo de senhores com pinta de angariadores de seguros na reforma, daqueles que ao fim do dia se sentam na marisqueira a devorar gambas e imperiais, os decrépitos Los del Río. Poderia ainda referir dezenas de outros exemplos, como o Aserejé/The Ketchup Song das cordovesas Las Ketchup, mas vou-me abster de mais comentários, até porque as moças espanholas têm um ar simpático e já não têm mãos a medir com as acusações de - pasme-se - satanismo e invocação de forças malignas em Aserejé (a-ser-herege).
Tudo isto vem a (des)propósito dos Sukia, a banda que, não tendo sido uma one-hit wonder, tem um percurso que se aproxima muito da trajectória meteórica destas, motivo pelo qual me ocorreu a introdução deste texto. Os Sukia lançaram um primeiro álbum daquilo que prometia vir a ser uma interessantíssima carreira musical sob vários pontos de vista, mas acima de tudo com um experimentalismo singular que procurava fundir várias proveniências musicais e sonoras. Mas Contacto Espacial con el Tercer Sexo, afinal, não viria a ter sucessor e o quarteto formado por Sasha Fuentes, Ross Harris, Grace Marks, e Craig Borrell não mais voltaria a dar que falar deixando para além deste álbum, apenas mais dois singles retirados dele, Gary Super Macho (em CD e vinil 12'') e The Dream Machine (apenas em vinil 12'').
Os Sukia foram buscar o seu nome à vampira lésbica protagonista da série de banda-desenhada para adultos com o mesmo nome, e surgiram em Los Angeles, em 1996, no contexto da célebre cena musical de Silverlake, a mesma comunidade musical por onde se moviam Beck, os Beastie Boys ou os Dust Brothers (sendo estes últimos os produtores de Contacto Espacial...). Qualquer um dos quatro elementos principais do colectivo se aventura por distintos instrumentos, e esta facilidade multi-instrumental ajuda a configurar o ecléctico mosaico que forma a música dos Sukia. E quando se fala em instrumentos, é necessário encarar a palavra no seu sentido mais lato, pois as fontes sonoras estendem-se por uma vasta colecção de sons encontrados (como transmissões da NASA ou discos de hipnose) que é conjugada com vocalizações ora ritmadas, ora fantasmagóricas, assentes sobre uma colagem pairante de teclados (onde o moog domina), caixas de ritmos primitivas ou sopros que nos remetem para estéticas mais orquestrais, entre outras sonoridades.
O ambiente criado é, portanto, multi-facetado, e encontramos elementos que oscilam entre o glamour nostálgico da space age pop e da exotica, misturados com o som lo-fi dos equipamentos e samples retro, e características que remetem mais para um lounge de vanguarda futurista. Tudo isto contribui para uma recriação instrumental fascinante e cuja estranheza inicial se transforma rapidamente numa atracção ao mesmo hipnotizante e alienante, carregada também de um sentido de humor necessário à confirmação de um carácter mais lúdico e despretensioso.
Com um resultado tão atraente e uma crítica extremamente positiva na recepção do álbum, seria, pois, de esperar uma continuação do projecto, mas entretanto passaram dez anos e... nada, nem um sinal! Sukia, onde estão vocês?
brown-paper.blogspot.com

Baader Mainhof - s/t (1996)

With Baader Meinhof, Luke Haines, frontman of The Auteurs, experimented with a more aggressive, political style of music. The tone of the music, with fuzzy yet harsh guitars and assaulting keyboards, is at once crude-sounding, over-produced (in the best way), and decidedly pop-oriented. It's hard to say exactly what Haines is protesting, but rest assured that it's something quite artsy. One thing that's certain is that he has some fascination with the German terrorist group from which the band, the album, and two songs herein take their names. Like Haines' work with Black Box Recorder, there is a pretentious quality to most of the songs, which actually ends up being quite endearing. Singing leftist lyrics over perpetually distorted instruments on "Meet Me at the Airport" and "Theme From 'Burn Warehouse Burn,'," Haines and company have created confused sociopolitical statements that are never less than keenly interesting. "There's Gonna Be an Accident" mixes strings with breathy vocals and more terrorist lyrics towards a fun, funky goal. The overall feel of the album is of a crunchy, finely arranged series of art attacks. As a side project of The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof seems to work as a minimal, pop ode to free will, whether the socialist views are simply affections or truly felt. Though Haines is sometimes criticized as being a lightweight because of his pop leanings, these ten appealing songs clearly promote the artist as an accomplished, underrated songwriter. Invoking alternative worldviews instead of the ennui of Black Box Recorder, this piece is quite accessible and full of pop gems, despite or because of the politics inside the tunes.
Tim DiGravina - Allmusic.com