The Indie Anthology 70: essential songs

We're back from holidays & ready to propose you some more eternal songs (in our humble opinion) at our anthology section! It's about two geniuses today, Mark E. Smith and Damo Suzuki... or, more precisely, two of the weirdest, evasive, unreachable and underrated geniuses music has ever had. One of the greatest and most particular music tributes ever written or, at the very least, just a hell of a song!

Song: I Am Damo Suzuki
Artist: The Fall
Year: 1985

A couple of songs ago in this section, I was writing about The Wedding Present, The Posies and The Fall's early mixtapes made by a long lost friend with obvious great music taste. Of course, the less immediate of the trio were The Fall's compilation of tunes and albums. But there was something that always kept me listening. And still does. A funny and/or grotesque lyric, a mysterious bass line, an occasional pop hook hidden into the apparent reigning chaos. And the perennial sense of threat and surprise. It was post-punk, but also krautrock, literature, cinema, politics, vaudeville... Anything could happen while Mark E. Smith was singing (or reciting, or shouting, or spitting?). A whole universe packed in a tape. And then there was 'I Am Damo Suzuki', epitomizing the aforementioned "Fall's sound" while, at the same time, inviting me to discover another strange band (from Germany and fronted by a Japanese!). A decomposed riff arriving to the listener in semitones, the atmosphere of a horror movie, a drum beat between the frantic and the somber, and a singer making collide each of his words into the angles of the music lines, howling the chorus?, which still sounds like a mad mantra summoning the spirit of the Can's one-of-a-kind vocalist. I would learn later that lyrics and sound were an incredible marriage, the perfect blend of shape and content in the form of a music tribute. What a trip! Vitamin C for the ears and the soul!

Discoverer 136: new indie findings

Today we offer a discoverer series focused in the most experimental side of music. Kraut, Stereloabesque and soundtrack sounds. Do not fear and let yourself go, There's a lot to enjoy!

Cavern of Anti-Matter. Behind this sci-fi name lies the latest, Berlin-based project of (stand up please) Stereolab & McCarthy Tim Gane, alongside Joe Dilworth, also from the much revered experimental band, and German electronic master Holger Zapf. Launched in 2013, the trio came out with debut album 'Blood-Drums' that same year, followed by some very limited 7" and 12" releases within 2014 and 2015. Now they are back with sophomore record 'Void Beats / Invocation Trex', out now via Duophonic. The trio of sonic explorers, with the help of some illustrious collaborators like Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox, Spacemen 3’s Sonic Boom, and Mouse on Mars’ Jan St. Werner, have delivered an intoxicating collection of driving, motorik rhythms and synth drones. A familiar, yet intricate and hazy future, abstract, hypnotic and surprisingly organic. Dive into the cavern.

LNZNDRF. Pronounced Lanzerdorf, behinds this impossible name lies another experimental trio, formed by Ben Lanz of Beirut and (stand up again, please) brothers Bryan and Scott Devendorf from The National. Formed around 2011 in New Zealand (out of a need for a supporting act last minute), the project acquired full shape when they recorded the eight-track LP over two and half days in a church in Cincinnati, Ohio. The songs, edited down from expansive jams, evoke the essence of their expansive, largely improvised live shows, are now gathered in their self-titled debut album, out now via 4AD. Forged around their common love for Neu! and the Krautrock original legion and propelled by the galloping pulse of our favourite drummer, LNZNDRF tunes are energetic, relentless, widescreen, yet delicate and atmospheric. Breathtaking debut.

Paolo Spaccamonti. Hailing from Torino, Italy, comes this experimental composer and guitarist, who debuted in 2009 with album 'Undici Pezzi Facili', that made him being celebrated as one of the most promising acts of the Italian experimental scene. Sophomore LP 'Buone Notizie' arrived in 2011, being followed a year later with Spaccamombu, his collaboration with the Rome-based band Mombu, starting a series of exciting parallel projects for an incredibly active and adventurous musician. To name just a few, in February 2013 he took part at the first edition of the Musica 90 Sessions, along with Julia Kent, Ivan Bert and Paolo Dellapiana (Larsen). He has played live with Damo Suzuki of legendary Can, Nick Cave, St. Vincent, Ana Calvi, Xiu Xiu and, more recently, provided a live accompaniment to the documentary 'Drifters' alongside Ben Chasny of Six Organs Of Admittance for Turin's Museo del Cinema. Near the end of 2015 he released his latest solo effort to date, the LP 'Rumors', out via Escape from Today & Santeria Records. A slowly-burned craftsmanship affair of shocking intensity and über appealing cinematic quality, Spaccamonti's music sounds like the perfect soundtrack for these dreamy, mysterious and haunting nights where the darkness seems to know all your secrets.