Jon Buckland

Ultracrepidarian

Music Criticism

The Quietus •

Thurston Moore – Flow Critical Lucidity | The Quietus

The former Sonic Youth guitarist invites us into his own dreamworld of grinding guitars and dappled lightIn 1988 the artist Jamie Nares painted an image titled Samurai Walkman which featured multiple tuning forks sticking out of a helmet. That same year Sonic Youth released the double album Daydream Nation with Gerhard Richter’s painting Kerze (‘Candle’) on the front cover. Thirty-six years later Samurai Walkman has been realised as a physical sculpture for the album artwork of Flow Critical Lucidity, Thurston Moore's ninth solo record.
The Quietus •

Seefeel – Everything Squared | The Quietus

Seefeel sprung up in 1993 with the release of their debut album off the back of a series of glittering EPs. With each record their style and sound shifted, confounding journalists and record labels alike. They were initially lumped in with shoegaze, post rock, and then IDM, largely due to their Warp and Rephlex associations. Yet none of that quite captures the truly engrossing blend of ambient electronics, pop-adjacent melodies, and mangled but uplifting guitar-slinging that Seefeel were creating.
Bandcamp Daily •

Bandcamp Album of the Day - The None 'Matter'

The None have history. 'Matter' might be their first release, but each member of the quartet is well-seasoned in the machinations of music making: Between them they’ve played in Bloc Party, Blue Ruth, Cassels, Youth Man, and Frauds. Based on that, you might think you have an inkling as to what they sound like. You’d be wrong. Without intending a slight on any of those earlier projects, The None are far greater than the sum of their parts.
The Quietus •

Brian Gibson – Thrasher

In the early 2000s, whilst I was inhaling silly quantities of cannabis and playing music-related video games such as Frequency and Guitar Hero, Brian Gibson was working for Harmonix as the lead artist on those exact games.

The Lightning Bolt bassist quit the computer game industry back in 2015, yet he hasn’t been able to stay away entirely. In 2016 he recorded the soundtrack for cult rhythm-violence video game THUMPER and, more recently, the spatial audio score for VR assault THRASHER.
The Quietus •

µ-Ziq – Grush

After thirty years in the game, Mike Paradinas is clearly still having a heck of a time, finds Jon Buckland

µ-Ziq aka Mike Paradinas has been in the game long enough to see styles and fashions come and go. Hell, in his career spent carving out glitchy, emotive electronics with crackling beats, the Planet Mu man has even invented the odd genre along the way. For his new record, Grush, however, he’s opted to take a trip down memory lane.

‘Metaphonk’, the penultimate cut on the record, is a case
The Quietus •

British Murder Boys – Active Agents & House Boys

A dozen years since their 'final show', the duo of Regis and Surgeon prove they can still tear it up

British Murder Boys went out with a bang in 2012. Performing their “final show” to a rapt Tokyo audience eager for industrial thumps, ear-shredding guitar feedback, and a shamanistic performance by robe clad beguilers. And, whilst the duo of Surgeon (Anthony Childs) and Regis (Karl O’Connor) only managed to stay away for three years, it’s taken until now to raise their heads above the parapets and commit their bolshy electronic belligerence to a full-length release.
The Quietus •

Kee Avil – Spine

Within Spine’s forty minute run-time, Kee Avil scampers across myriad references points from a broad array of modern musical masters. There’s the quiet exploration of Keeley Forsyth, Coil’s unsettling esotericism, and Lucrecia Dalt’s sensuality. We get creaking sounds akin to Gazelle Twin’s straining electronics, the delicate leanings of HTRK, Ronce-like ASMR, elements of Björk’s vulnerability, and, impressively, she hops between these various styles and approaches, whilst restricting herself to just four sound sources per song.
Bandcamp Daily •

Steep Gloss - The Tape Label Report, March 2024

Welcome to The Tape Label Report, where we introduce you to five cassette-focused labels you should know about, and highlight key releases from each.

Steep Gloss, the brainchild of Ross Scott-Buccleuch, is home to cassette-based experimental musical collaborations. Based in the northwest UK, the label arrived in the world just prior to the pandemic with distorted mulch and harsh blasts from Andrew Sharpley & Romain Perrot (aka Vomir) and Earth Trumpet & Midwich’s abstract, psychedelic spree.
The Quietus •

Reviews | Container

As anyone who has found themselves whispering sweet nothings into a porcelain bowl after miscalculating their consumption levels will know, the urge to be sick (or “yack”) rises and falls, ebbs and flows, looping like an internal tide forever on the turn. This is perhaps best illustrated by Stewart Lee’s ode to barley wine and the gaping anus of Christ. If you’ve spent nights into mornings seeking oblivion to repetitive soundtracks, you may well know it all too well.
Bandcamp Daily •

The Trilogy Tapes - The Tape Label Report, February 2024

Welcome to The Tape Label Report, where we introduce you to five cassette-focused labels you should know about, and highlight key releases from each.

Will Bankhead is a busy man: graphic designer, photographer, skateboarder, DJ, and label head. It’s hard to know how he fits it all in. Initially a one-man operation, Bankhead’s London-based The Trilogy Tapes label is now a family-run affair with his daughter helping out on mail order a few days a week. Skate brand Palace also assist with clothing production and distribution. “Kit at Palace is a diamond, he helps me a lot,” says Bankhead. “There’s so much more to organize than it might seem.”
The Quietus •

Reviews | Pissed Jeans

Pissed Jeans have always elevated their Jesus Lizard leanings and Flipper-worship into a self-deprecating yet oddly assured vein of rock and lurch. This, their sixth album, does little to buck that trend. However, where recent releases have found them peddling sludgey doom trudges (with the occasional dabble in breakneck pyrotechnics), Half Divorced is packed full of pep. They’ve stomped on the gas and it burns along like a raging forest fire.
Bandcamp Daily •

Industrial Coast - The Tape Label Report, January 2024

Welcome to The Tape Label Report, where we introduce you to five cassette-focused labels you should know about, and highlight key releases from each.

Industrial Coast is a fiercely independent, proudly Northern, and socially conscious noise and experimental label run by Steve Kirby out of Middlesbrough in the UK. His releases regularly raise money and awareness for people in dire situations. “Poverty, homelessness, human rights, domestic violence: I reckon that’s above politics, it’s just about trying to help people less fortunate than yourself,” says Kirby.
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