Music Box

Sometimes people release music that doesn't make me want to vomit.  In fact lots of people release music nowadays that doesn't make me want to vomit. I spent a rather long time in an indie hellhole so my natural response to new music was to reach for an icepick and go stab-mental. And I never had an icepack handy and so a vast swathe of terrible landfill guitar bands were free to roam free and leave their musical droppings all over the place. A terrible tragedy that could have so easily been averted with a bit of foresight. Oh well.

But enough of what could have been. Let's see what is.

April Larson - You Stand in a Valley Between Dunes




There's been quite a few albums inspired by Dune, Bernard Szajner's Visions of Dune probably the best I've heard, but it's got a bit of competition from April Larson's new album. It's a bit less ominous than some of her other work, in fact I'd probably even call it rather beautiful at times. Sometimes. Other times it sounds like something nasty is ready to nip out of an impossible angle and rip reality apart, so there's that. I'd buy it if I were you, best to be prepared.

Severed Heads - Donut



Fun though it was to see Severed Heads play the "hits" last year, it's good to see something new from them. Nostalgia can only power a reanimated corpse for so long. You need something new to give it true new life, otherwise it'll just collapse into a pile of goo. And between this and Beautiful Arabic Surface / Cheerio Inner Moon from last year, they've very much been moving forward. Donut is about as far removed from the previous single as you can get, a borderline demented jaunt into easy listening. I have no idea what they'll do next. Long may that be the case.

Trespassers W - Tenderness



More people should talk of Cor Gout, he doesn't seem to be known much outside of the Netherlands, which is a pity as he's very, very (very) good. He's been involved with all sorts, but his work as part of the band Trespassers W is what we're looking at here. I don't actually know all that much about him, I've just been picking up various Trespassers records over the last few years and they grew on me slowly but surely until I realised that I've become a pretty big Trespassers W fan almost by mistake. I do like it when that happens. Mécanique Populaire have been doing a fine job in re-issuing his back catalogue, and I think this song is my favourite.