Nice solo femme noise/drone here from Denver's Brittney Gould, who I believe has some sort of association with Inca Ore. Sounds here are basic layered echoed vox over sparse melodic minimal lines and effects. There's a middle ground here between the new school Pocahaunted style chants and the noisier/weirder east coast Fursaxa/Zaimph...
continue reading "Married In Berdichev - 7" (Gilgongo Records)"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 9/11/2009


Nice Face is another entry into the new school home recorded synth rock underground. Their recent 7” for the Sacred Bones label was a resoundingly worthy slice of bored club lo-fi bangers. Their follow-up cassette on the other hand is not up to par. There’s several clunky guitar solos that are not good enough to justify being up front and center in the mix. The songs are...
continue reading "Nice Face - Can I Fuck It? (Jerkwave Tapes)"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 9/30/2008


Alessandro Pessoli,
Alessandro Pessoli, "Nudo Cartoccio" (2007). Gouache, spray paint on paper, 39" x 53". Courtesy Marc Foxx.
Experiencing the new work of Milan-based artist Alessandro Pessoli is a hallucinatory, otherworldly one. The artist’s first major solo show on the west coast consists of twelve large works on paper and one sculptural piece. The figures seem to be wandering, sifting and sorting their way through an undefined space of dreams that lingers for days afterward.

Pessoli rapidly brushes and stains with oil, gouache, acrylic and spray paint onto paper as thick as cardboard. A process of layering and revealing is achieved by cutting and collaging the paper. The sewn stitch is both used as a drawing tool, and as a means to attach the paper, resulting in an unexpected exploitation of materials. This is not fussy or belabored work. The effect of the mixed media, the drips, scribbles, sprayed paint and sewing comes off as vital, expressive energy. It is as if the artist physically tackles his subjects, hoping to capture the images before they escape him, sewing them down, grounding the ephemeral.
continue reading "Pessoli's Gypsy Bunker"

by ALEXA GERRITY on 8/15/2008




If there’s going to be a No Wave book then for sure Byron Coley and Thurston Moore are the guys to do it. Released last month on Abrahms the book features tons of newly unearthed photos and flyers as well as new interviews with the major participants of the No Wave scene. While the post-apocalyptic warzone that was the Lower East Side of Manhattan no longer exists its shockwaves live on some decades later. The authors of this gracefully designed and informative journey into the nihilistic philosophies and primitive restructuring of this endemic scene graced us with their thoughts in this Swingset exclusive.

continue reading "No Wave"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 7/15/2008


One tape I just can’t get enough of is this new Mark McGuire cassette entitled Tidings. McGuire is the guitar player in the new-school drone MVP’s Emeralds whose rise as a group continues to grow wildly. Isolated from the wall of synth, McGuire shows craft and melodic assurance throughout the tape. Once the more drone layered...
continue reading "Mark McGuire - Tidings"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 7/15/2008


Ecstatic Peace has been an increasingly prolific label in the last few years. Their releases can sometimes be staggeringly diverse; The Rita is putting out harsh “wall noise” cassettes, MV/EE do their Neil Young thing on the CDs while teen pop punks and Emil fucking Beaulieau are...
continue reading "Okkyung Lee - I saw the Ghost of an Unknown Soul and it Said... (Ecstatic Peace)"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 7/15/2008


In the great trilogy of the new guitar movement in America in the 1960's, three names immediately come to mind: John Fahey, Leo Kottke and Robbie Basho. The extreme short of it is that Fahey was the deepest, Kottke was the craftsman and Basho was the mystic. If these narrow definitions ring ...
continue reading "Robbie Basho - Bonn Ist Suprem (Bo'Weevil)"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 9/11/2009


Early Worm is a transfixingly lo-fi recording of the first to tape experiments by Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV figurehead Genesis P-Orridge. Recorded in his parents attic in 1968 in suburban England, P-Orridge and his group of local teenage freaks, weaned on a...
continue reading "Early Worm - Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and Thee Early Worm (Dias)"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 7/15/2008


When it comes down to it the New Blockaders are the most absurd of all the original U.K. noise artists. Led by Richard Rupenus, what exactly the New Blockaders are remains a bit of a mystery. Often times he sends source sounds to others to manipulate...
continue reading "The New Blockaders and Das Synthetische Mischgewebe - The Monosyllabic Bicycles (Equation)"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 7/15/2008


Not Not Fun has certainly come up as a label in the last few years and this LP seems to be the pinnacle of their work thus far. Christina Carter (of Charalambides fame) has always been a personal favorite of mine. Her voice has a depth and wisdom that transcends the trappings of the “psyche/folk” genre...
continue reading "Christina Carter/Pocahaunted - LP (Not Not Fun)"

by STEVE LOWENTHAL on 7/15/2008


About Swingset Magazine

Features

Mount Carmel interview
Stellar OM Source interview
Dry-Rot interview
In Memory of Jack Rose
Cold Cave interview
RRR 1000
Matt Krefting interview

Reviews

Glenn Jones - Barbeque Bob in Fishtown (Strange Attractors Audio House)
Faust / Nurse With Wound - Disconnected (Dirtier Promotions)
Sic Alps / Magik Markers – Split 12
Jimmy Campbell - Son of Anastasia CD; Half Baked CD; Jimmy Campbells Album CD (Esoteric)
Tor Lundvall - Sleeping and Hiding (Dais)

Recent Postings

Mount Carmel interview
Stellar OM Source interview
Glenn Jones - Barbeque Bob in Fishtown (Strange Attractors Audio House)
Dry-Rot interview
Faust / Nurse With Wound - Disconnected (Dirtier Promotions)
Sic Alps / Magik Markers – Split 12
In Memory of Jack Rose
Cold Cave interview
RRR 1000
Jimmy Campbell - Son of Anastasia CD; Half Baked CD; Jimmy Campbells Album CD (Esoteric)


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