Posted in audiObelisk on June 30th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
I was especially eager to see Bongripper at the Afterburner at this year’s Roadburn. They had played a couple nights before as well (that set is streaming here), performing their 2014 album, Miserable (review here), in its entirety, but I’d had to miss that set and knew going into the fest that I wanted to see them one way or another follow-up on the performance they gave in 2012, which had been chest-shakingly heavy.
No regrets, of course. They proved to be devastating and I’m anxious to revisit the set today via the newly released live stream. Also included in this latest of the four-so-far batches is a bunch of stuff I missed, including two of the most-talked-about bands of the entirety of Roadburn 2015: SubRosa and Thou. The former outfit played the first day and I continued to hear about them through to Sunday, while Thou‘s atmosludge devastated the crowd at Het Patronaat and were bandied about as one of the highlights of the whole fest.
Along with performances by Acid Witch, Death Hawks, Mugstar (another one whose name I kept hearing), Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, Der Weg Einer Freiheit, and KEN mode, this makes for a pretty diverse round of streams. If you get to dig into any or all of them, I hope you enjoy:
Acid Witch – Live at Roadburn 2015
Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell – Live at Roadburn 2015
Bongripper – Live at Roadburn 2015 (Afterburner)
Death Hawks – Live at Roadburn 2015
Der Weg Einer Freiheit – Live at Roadburn 2015
Kenmode – Live at Roadburn 2015
Mugstar- Live at Roadburn 2015
Subrosa – Live at Roadburn 2015
Thou – Live at Roadburn 2015
Special thanks to Walter as always for letting me host the streams. To read all of this year’s Roadburn coverage, click here. For the first, second and third batches of streams, click here and then click here and then click here.
Posted in Whathaveyou on January 29th, 2015 by JJ Koczan
Holy shit, Roadburn. Where the hell are you putting all these bands?
I knew there were a few more adds to come from Roadburn 2015, but to get another 20-plus in a single shot is something of a surprise. Take it as a reminder of the scale of this thing and of the beast that Roadburn 2015 has become and how, with five stages across three venues, it seems ever more on the march to consume the whole town center of Tilburg in the Netherlands. To call it astounding feels like underselling it.
Today, in addition to posting this massive round of adds to Roadburn 2015, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be covering the festival for the seventh time and, for the second year in a row, serving as editor of the in-fest ‘zine, the Weirdo Canyon Dispatch, working with The Sleeping Shaman’s Lee Edwards as in 2014 to bring a daily publication to life for each day of the fest. I’m thrilled to be involved in the Roadburn crew in this small way again and can’t wait to get to work again with Lee and a host of writers way more talented than myself at putting this thing together. In fact, I think I’ll get started now.
While I do that, here’s the latest from Roadburn. If you’re wondering why I grabbed the Moaning Cities Bandcamp stream for the bottom of the post out of all the bands added today — Abrahma, BardSpec, Death Penalty, Robert Hampson of Loop, the entire nation of Belgium, etc. — it’s because every year there’s one band at Roadburn that I wind up kicking myself in the ass for missing, and going by what I’ve checked out so far of Moaning Cities‘ Pathways through the Sail, I don’t want it to be them. Call it a reminder to myself.
Okay, here’s that info:
New additions announced including ‘Roadburn Festival Introduces’ act, and artists for curated event
Roadburn Festival is pleased to announce new additions to the 20th edition of the festival. The festival will take place April 9th-12th in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Both day tickets and weekend tickets are currently on sale.
More details confirmed for curated event
Roadburn 2015’s curators Wardruna’s Einar “Kvitrafn” Selvik and Enslaved’s Ivar Bjørnson have almost completed the line up for their event on Friday April 10. Loop main man, Robert Hampson and Swedish psych heroes, Agusa will both perform alongside Focus, Death Hawks, Sólstafir and others. BardSpec – the Ambient project/band from Enslaved composer/guitarist Ivar – will also perform at the event. Einar will present a workshop which will delve into his approach to music and the extensive creative concept behind Wardruna´s ongoing ‘Runaljod’ trilogy as well as his approach and study of the runes and other Norse esoteric arts. He will demonstrate a selection of the oldest Nordic instruments, play fully accoustic Wardruna music and there will also be time for questions from the audience.
For information on Robert Hampson,CLICK HERE For information on Agusa,CLICK HERE For information on BardSpec,CLICK HERE For information on Einar Selvik,CLICK HERE
‘Roadburn Festival Introduces’ & Belgium focus
This year, ‘Roadburn Festival Introduces’ will focus on Belgium. Over the years, Belgium has become a hotbed of musical creativity, ranging from indie to garage rock, and virtually everything in between. Whether it’s a dark, psychedelic slant, an insatiable need to worship thee riff, or even developing a cult of their own, only to lure us into their spiraling-netherworld… there’s something about these bands that embodies the spirit of Roadburn. The mysterious and yet bizarre Belgian band, Briqueville, will connect with the Roadburn community at the 013 on Saturday, April 11th.
In keeping with the Belgian theme, Brussels-based Moaning Cities, will bring their fuzzed-out, and sitar-driven psychedelia to Stage01 on Thursday, April 9th. In collaboration with one of Belgium’s foremost bookings agencies, RuffStuffMusic, we offer Your Highness, King Hiss, Tangled Horns, Ashtoreth, and Miava an outlet in front of the receptive and open-minded Roadburn crowd on Saturday, April 11th at Cul de Sac. These up and coming talents richly deserve their place in the Roadburn line up and we’re thrilled to host such exciting, cutting edge bands as these alongside Roadburn’s established acts.
For more information on Briqueville,CLICK HERE For more information on Moaning Cities,CLICK HERE For more information on RuffStuffMusic: Your Highness, King Hiss, Tangled Horns, Ashtoreth, and Miava,CLICK HERE
New Additions to Line Up
The lineup for for Cul de Sac, the intimate music cafe, and Roadburn’s official fifth stage, located across from the 013 venue, is shaping up very nicely. We’re aiming to present four to five bands on each of the four days, Thursday through Sunday.
It is with enormous pride that Roadburn gets to announce a truly unique performance as Gnaw Their Tongues will bring their groundbreaking noise/doom/black metal assault to the festival on Sunday April 12th. Joining them will be torchbearers of French heavy rock, Paris-based Abrahma, Tilburg’s very own IZAH, and high octane Swedish rockers, Hypnos.
Today, we’re also excited to report that Verbum Verus, the Dutch black metal band, known for their intense live performances, will shroud Roadburn Festival in darkness with their hymns of praise on Thursday, April 9. We’re very pleased to announce that Big Naturals, Salope, City of Ships and Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell will complete the Friday lineup at Cul de Sac. And, given how fond we are of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, we’ve invited them to do two performances; they will also play the Green Room on Sunday, April 12.
Back over at the 013, we will have the riff-heavy Death Penalty playing on Saturday, April 11th – featuring ex-members of Cathedral and Serpentcult, this is going to be one show you don’t want to miss.
For more information on Gnaw Their Tongues,CLICK HERE For more information on Abrahma, IZAH & Hypnos,CLICK HERE For more information on Verbum Verus,CLICK HERE For more information on City of Ships, Big Naturals etc,CLICK HERE For more information on Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell,CLICK HERE For more information on Death Penalty,CLICK HERE
Posted in Reviews on September 12th, 2012 by JJ Koczan
After a lauded 7″ and much YouTube embedding leading to retro-rock hyperbole, the Britisher-than-thou trio Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell emerge with their cheekily-titled Rise Above (Metal Blade in the States) debut full-length, Don’t Hear it… Fear it!Flourishes of blown-out analog psychedelia persist, and their vintage aesthetique runs (mop-)top to (bell-)bottom, but whether it’s the motor-groove of “Mark of the Beast” or the brash fuzz of “The Last Run,” the Hastings threesome of Louis Comfort-Wiggett (bass/backing vocals), Bill Darlington (drums; also of Gorilla) and Johnny Gorilla (guitar/vocals; also of Gorilla) show there’s more to them than charm and fancy pants.
Liken the album to Atomic Rooster‘s proto-prog, Sir Lord Baltimore‘s ballsy brew or the MC5‘s nigh-on-stunted recklessness — you won’t be wrong; there’s room for all inDon’t Hear it… Fear It!‘s 54-minute course — what I find infinitely more fascinating is that Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell aren’t merely content to pretend that the 40 years between 1972 and now didn’t happen. “Red Admiral Black Sunrise” works in a Melvins-type guitar chug along with Johnny Gorilla‘s brash, almost arrogant, lead work. You can hear a bit of it underscoring the freakout in “iDeath” as well, and even the vocals take on a snotty post-Buzzo cadence in “Scratchin’ & Sniffin’,” so even if the trio’s predominant vibe is vinyl, there’s a bit of cassette tape in there as well.
Of particular note is Comfort-Wigget‘s stellar performance on bass, which makes for an excellent response to Gorilla‘s many shredding solos and renders the Sabbath-ian war pigsery of “Devil’s Island” all the more accurate. The record builds up some considerable momentum and never really relents in terms of pace, so while “The Last Run” and “Killer Kane” don’t bring anything new, they’re shorter than the earlier songs and the performances carry them, particularly in the case of “Killer Kane,” which comes four tracks after the “Killer Kane (Reprise).” Oh, Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. So unpredictable!
They round out with seven minutes of quiet that give way to the potent stomp ‘n’ groove of “Bean Stew,” a Buffalo cover that makes their roots even plainer to see. Their name may be awkward (though historically accurate) and the hype around their album may be overblown, but there’s some meat to Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell‘s Don’t Hear it… Fear it!that proves worthy of the suggestion that yeah, you should probably do the first part and actually listen to the damn thing. Whether or not you fear it afterwards depends I suppose on the natural levels of terror that classic heavy rock inspires in you.
