In a culture obsessed with content, saturation, and continual exposure, it's rare to find artists who prefer to lurk outside of the public eye. Thomas Pynchon is perhaps the most notable contemporary recluse'a virtually faceless figure who occasionally creeps out of hiding to offer up an elaborate novel steeped in history and warped by imagination'but for the crate digging audiophiles, guitar mystics, and third-eye visionaries, Sweden's enigmatic rock outfit GOAT may qualify as the greatest modern pop-culture mystery. Who are these masked musicians? Are they truly members of a remote tribe in the Arctic community of Korpilombolo? Are their songs actually a part of their communal heritage, passed down through generations in their isolated homeland? Their third studio full-length, Requiem, offers more questions than answers, but much like any of Pynchon's knotty yarns, the reward is not in the untangling but in the journey through the labyrinth.
Western exports may have dominated the consciousness of international rock fans for the entirety of the 20th century, but our increasing global awareness has unearthed a treasure trove of transcendental grooves and spellbinding riffage from exotic and remote corners of the planet. GOAT's previous albums World Music and Commune were perfect testaments to this heightened awareness, with Silk Road psychedelia, desert blues, and Third World pop all serving as governing forces within the band's sound. But GOAT's strange amalgam isn't some cheap game of cultural appropriation'it's nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact origins of the elusive group's sound. Whether or not the enigmatic collective truly claims Korpilombolo as their home, the fact that they pledge allegiance to a spot on the periphery of our maps'a spot so distant and off the grid that it feels fictitious'bolsters the nomadic quality of their sonic explorations. With Requiem, GOAT continue to rock and writhe to a beat beholden to no nation, no state.
GOAT's only outright declaration for Requiem is that it is their 'folk' album. For the initiated, such a proclamation seems almost unnecessary'GOAT has always vacillated between electrified exuberance and unplugged tribalist hymns. But Requiem does find GOAT focusing more on their subdued bucolic ritualism than on the psilocybin freakouts. Opening tracks 'Djorolen/Union of Sun and Moon' and 'I Sing in Silence' both set the stage for GOAT's rustic approach, with the guitars laying down simple chord progressions and pan flute providing the primary hooks. From those very first notes, the piper leads us down a path where GOAT relies less on acidic guitar lines and more on sun-bleached psych-pop. 'Trouble in the Streets' carries all the jubilance of classic African highlife. 'Try My Robe' bares the group's signature ceremonial hip-shaking rhythms, but eschews guitar for a mandolin line that would make John Paul Jones proud. But GOAT hasn't completely foregone their fiery charms'tracks like 'All-Seeing Eye' and 'Goatfuzz' conjure the sultry heathen pulsations that ensnared us on their previous albums.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of Requiem comes with the closing track 'Ubuntu'. The song is little more than a melodic delay-driven electric piano line, until we hear the refrain from 'Diarabi''the first song on their first album'sneak into the mix. It creates a kind of musical ouroboros'an infinite cycle of reflection and rejuvenation, death and rebirth. Much like fellow recluse Pynchon, GOAT doesn't offer up any explanations for their strange trajectories. But like Pynchon, they have managed to create a world of their own where the line between truth and fiction is so obscured that all you can do is bask in their cryptic genius.
Tracklisting: 1. DjOrOlen / Union of Sun and Moon 2. I Sing in Silence 3. Temple Rhythms 4. Alarms 5. Trouble in the Streets 6. Psychedelic Lover 7. Goatband 8. Try My Robe 9. It's Not Me 10. All-Seeing Eye 11. Goatfuzz 12. Goodbye 13. Ubuntu
Whether inhabiting the realm of dreams or nightmares, the primordial drive of Pigs PigsPigsPigsPigsPigsPigs is more powerful than ever and ‘Land Of Sleeper’, their fifth record in a decade of rancour and revelation is testimony to this.
Arguably the most potent and assured record of their storied life so far, it’s the product of a band energised and fortified by their individual passions to incendiary effect. After the travails of the two and a half years since 2020’s ‘Viscerals’, ‘Land Of Sleeper’ sees the Newcastle-based quintet not so much reinvigorated as channelling a furious drive which only appears to gather momentum as the band’s surroundings spins on their axis.
For all that the last few years have seen Pigs’ stature rise in the wake of triumphant festival slots and sold-out venues like, this remains a band fundamentally incapable of tailoring their sound to a prospective audience, rather standing alone and impervious as a monument of catharsis.
“Certainly for me, writing and playing music is often surprising and revealing, it can be like holding up a mirror and seeing things you didn’t expect to see” reckons drummer Ewan Mackenzie, whose return to the Pigs fray after two albums away marked another big influence on the new record.
“For me, the darker tracks on the record hold in common a determination not to lose faith, despite the odds” The better to unite slumber and waking, ‘Land Of Sleeper’ is no less than an act of transcendence for Pigs PigsPigsPigsPigsPigsPigs - new anthems to elucidate a world sleepwalking to oblivion.
Tracklisting: 1. Ultimate Hammer 2. Terror's Pillow 3. Big Rig 4. The Weatherman 5. Mr Medicine 6. Pipe Down! 7. Atlas Stone 8. Ball Lightning
Arriving via a triangulation of Athens, Crete and London, yet existing at a psychic intersection between the ruins of crumbling infrastructure and an intimidating future dystopia Kooba Tercu have seen fit to take arms as only they see fit. Proto Tekno'is their mission statement writ large - a potent and pulverising collection of incendiary jams fuelled by the modern age yet transcending it with vicious style.
Equal parts groove-driven mantra, red blooded freakout and experimetnal onslaught, this is the sound of a fearless band raging against the dying of the light. Confident that all formulas are fundamentally there to be mercilessly rearranged, and that a sheer force of will can easily transform the ridiculous into the sublime.
Proto Tekno'seamlessly travels from a fuzz-bass headbanger like the opener Benzoberry'to the mantric blowout of Qasan'(assaulting CAN-esque dimensions equal parts caustic and cinematic) and from the sleazy swagger of Cemento Mori'(redolent of the suave machinations of Girls Against Boys) to the polyrhythmic drive of the ceremonial centrepiece Fair Game', while maintaining their unique full-throttle intensity and generosity of character. There's Melvins-style groove to be had on Proto Tekno'(Kamehameha') just as much as Beta Band-style songcraft (Puppy Pile') yet these disparate influences coalesce vividly into an invigorating and intimidatingly confident assault on the senses.
Inhabiting a modern era in which creating art, as the Fluxus group originally proposed, is more than ever a revolutionary act in itself, Proto Tekno'stands as much as formidable monument to insurrectionary spirit as it does the furious clanguour of six heads in an overheated rehearsal room. It's a weapon of psychic defence just as much as a love letter to the three R's of repetition, repetition and repetition. Yet as the ongoing battle against adversity gathers momentum, one thing is for certain - you'll want Kooba Tercu on your side.
Since their foundation in 2014, this malevolent rogues gallery of luminaries of the UK underground have consistently proven to be capable of projecting vibrations that transcend and usurp any idea of the sum of their component parts.
It is true that they've clocked up notable experience sparking tinnitus with everyone from Mugstar and Bonnacons Of Doom (bassist Jason Stoll) to Dethscalator (vocalist Dan Chandler and drummer Stuart Bell) and from Earth (guitarist Jodie Cox, who also introduced keyboard player Ollie Knowles to the melee) to a dizzying variety of endeavours from the paint-stripping skronk of Dead Neanderthals to the righteous ire of Idles (all via saxophonist Colin Webster).
Yet Sex Swing represents less a group of disparate musicians pooling their resources, and more a peculiar spark of collective chemistry, with all forces gravitating towards the pursuit of the same dissolute and mysterious goal. Type II 'is that goal reached in effortless style and amplified to intimidating aural vistas.
This mighty monument of swagger and malice also sees fit to add a certain amount of glitter to the trademark gri t this time around. Just as the artwork from long-term collaborator Alex Bunn boasts a luminous sheen absent from the unsettling abjection of the sleeve of their 2016 debut, so the rolling grooves and mantric hypnosis here boast a new-found structure and a feline sleekness fresh and unusual for this pugilistic outfit.
Nonetheless, this remains a band fundamentally obsessed with the expression of decadence and wrongdoing through the mediums of repetition and overloaded frequencies. Type II 'is more than the mere machinations of a rock band - it's a howl of malfunction rendered terrifyingly visceral.
It's the lightning flash and unearthly roar of the primeval battle between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla that provokes awe and disquiet in the realm of fantasy, It's the haunted clangour of the faullty air conditioning unit that lurks in the anonymous office building yet lends it eerie ambience.
It's man vs machine where discord becomes harmony, and it's a fearsomely invigorating spectacle to behold.
Tracklisting: 1. The Passover 2. Skimmington Ride 3. Valentine's Day At The Gym 4. Betting Shop 5. Need Battery 6. La Riconada 7. Garden Of Eden / 2000 AD
‘In The Silence Electric’, the latest record in Julie’s Haircut’s long history of sonic otherworldliness is notable for its deft balance between hypnotic radiance and extrasensory intensity, between beatific calm and palpable anger.
Yet it’s also a record which has arrived through a strange process of osmosis from a band confident enough to let subconscious and metaphysical aspects steer them in the appropriate directions.
“We embraced the incidents, letting the songs guide us to their final form rather than trying to force them in a precise direction” confirms the band’s Luca Giovanardi. For all its divings, this is a collection of supremely confident and cohesive ditties that sees the deep-end diabolism and mantric intensity of the Italian-based band’s Rocket debut, 2017’s ‘Invocation And Ritual Dance Of My Demon Twin’ expanded into a righteous fury and incandescent splendour.
Whether it’s the heavy-lidded rapture of ‘Lord Help Me Find The Way’ (like Spiritualized transposed to 1970s Berlin), the menacing dream-state of ‘In Return’ or the Suicide-damaged psychic assault that is ‘Sorcerer’, all is subsumed by a bold singularity of intent, amidst a colourful firestorm of electronic monomania, jazz-tinged atonality and indelibly memorable vocal hooks.
“There’s a theme springing from the title of the record and the (cover) photos of Annegret Soltau that deliver some sense of helplessness, suffocation, difficulty in communication” notes the band’s Luca Giovanardi.
Yet for all this - and paradoxically enough - ‘In The Silence Electric’ is both this mysterious and rebellious band’s most adventurous and most direct record to date - not to mention an ever more compelling transmission from renowned experts in altered states.
Tracklisting: 1. Anticipation Of The Night 2. Emerald Kiss 3. Until The Lights Go Out 4. Lord Help Me Find The Way 5. Sorcerer 6. Darlings Of The Sun 7. In Return 8. Pharaoh’s Dream 9. For The Seven Lakes