Eyvind Kang - Alastor - Book Of Angels Vol.21 (Tzadik 2014)

Masada Book Two.

With Masada Book Three unleashed on the World(Well NYC at least) in March, I thought that the Book of Angels must be complete after 20 volumes. Alas, here it is, Vol.21, with Vol 22 also done and dusted and hopeful released in the near future, it's gotta be a good thing.

  Having already heard Eyvind Kang via his last Tzadik release from 2012, I wasn't overly excited about this new volume. The new CD duly arrived in the Mailbox and on first casual listen while doing some chores it sounded OK but nothing to rave about. Later on some tracks started to really get my attention and in the early evening I had the opportunity to sit down and really have a listen.

  With a large list of musicians playing a collection of strangely named instruments we get presented with a quite an exotic collection of interpretations covering a wide range of styles in the most impressive manner. I am very very impressed with the width and breadth of the music presented here and have been enjoying this set far more than I anticipated. This release had shot to very near the top of the list for quality for this series and the quality of the Book of Angels just keeps on impressing.Rating 4.5/5.

Throbbing Gristle - First Annual Report (UK 1975?)

Hot out of the mailbox.

Apparently, according to the liner notes above, this is the great lost TG album, supposedly recorded in studio sometime in 1975 but never released by the band. This could possibly be a bootleg although Thirsty Ear is a legitimate  label as far as I know. It was most disappointing for me though, when this arrived, after spending a not to small sum buying it second hand(its out of print), I discovered that I already have all the music included herein on a budget Cd I picked up locally some time back called Final Muzak.

 Overall, this is not a greatly arresting set, but has plenty of sonic peculiarities amongst the drones to keep it interesting. It kicks of with the epic 18 minute "Very Friendly", A quite graphic monologue from Genesis P Orridge describing the Murder of Edward Evans by Ian Brady and Mira Hindley in October 1965. The Monologue is set to a very distorted bass line that starts off impressively enough but gets a bit tedious after 15 minutes, but the piece finishes a prolonged epitaph of quite superb and impressive sound effects in the last three minute giving us a taste of some of the brilliance yet to come from TG.

"Dead Bait" is a very minimal Synth type of thing that is interesting for a start but really goes nowhere but is a piece of quiet relief before the next slab of industrial noise. The rest of the album kinda follows along like the opening track, several not all that inspiring dirges, but interspersed with some pretty good sound effects that keep one interested. The sound id mistakenly TG, but a group still finding their feet. Rating 2.5/5.