Henceforth those that read it will be regaled by my doings on the podcast I host.
That's Bullets From the Belfry, by the way. We're up to episode 8, after a wee break due to technical problems on the German side.....
This cast has only 4 artists, but good ones indeed..First up on the show is a band called Apteka, from Chicago...not to be confused with a Polish group a few years ago with the same name. This Apteka describes themselves as psychedelic rock, I would compare them with Serena Maneesh on one side, perhaps a more spikey early My Bloody Valentine on the other. excellent tunage ranging from the rocky The Sheet to a more winsome If You Were Here (both featured on the podcast and downloadable from their site). They have a furious touring schedule and this polish shows on their tunage. Oddly enough they haven't an album out yet....get a move on lads!!Next up on Bullets 8 is a young chap from Pretoria, AnDroidgeny is his projects name and as the name suggests, expect a sleazily robotic techno-fused sound. There's a lot of ebm/idm/techno originating in Pretoria at the moment, projects like Cyvergence and Nul for example, are certainly a help getting me over my disdain for most things 4x4 beat driven and dance-floor orientated. Bullets 8 features two tracks from AnDroidGeny, Little Girls Are Evil and Blood Addiction , both designed around a Pied Piper call to the kind of sweaty hedonism The Henkie (AnDroidGeny) likes to create in his club events.
The Funeral and The Twilight are more my style, infusing a post-punk sound with heavy dollops of American Gothic, the vocals snaking through the songs, snarling and shrieking in places, telling tales of despair, society..well, life really. The vocals bring to mind the late Jeffrey Lee Pierce of Gun Club fame and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds as does the music, a howling swampy brew best served with the moonshine of your choice. The two tracks on Bullets 8 are the rocking Down By the Sea and the (deceptably- till the howling starts ;-p) mellower I Have Returned To You. Again, nothing relaesed as yet but all their songs are downloadable from their Myspace site.
Last up on Bullets From the Belfry 8 is an industrial project from Switzerland, Blue Screams of Death. Now I have a beef with 'industrial', or rather what passes for the genre today (dance floor fodder-blah). Blue Screams revives my interest in industrial by making it experimental, innovative, thinking music as opposed to lets-get-the-kids-on-the-floor with monotonous beats and gutteral German lyrics (ooh, sooo daaaangerous!). Blue Screams of Death use found objects, drones, musical intruments (in interesting ways) and voice to build soundscapes dark and massive, brooding and moody.Involved in the project is one Martin Jacklin, poet, singer and writer. Martin is involved in several musical projects, some of which I hope to feature on future episodes of Bullets. I've included The Great Machine is Dead and Farewell to Your Arms as a mere sample of what Blue Screams of Death is about.
