Records, design and thoughts. Simon Minter is a freelance designer from Oxford, UK.
As so often happens, here is a record that I have no recollection of buying. But buy it I did, and probably on the basis that Oren Ambarchi (“composer, multi-instrumentalist and musical polymath” – thanks, orenambarchi.com) is one of many oft-cited names in the complex world of experimental music, and therefore, one that somebody like […]
The second mention so far here of Shit And Shine, despite my record collection being inordinately weighted in their direction, due to them being not only an endlessly entertaining and fascinating it, but also to them being ridiculously productive in terms of their vinyl output. Full disclosure: for this website I like to use a […]
Thurston Moore was, of course, the frontman of my all-time favourite band, Sonic Youth. He – and they – are therefore responsible for a hefty wedge of records in my collection. As a band, their output is pretty huge and varied in style; as a solo artist, even more so. This album was released in […]
Nestling down at the far end of the alphabet – in between Young Knives and The Zodiac – it’s the heftily-named You’re Smiling Now But We’ll All Turn Into Demons. This is a band that’s hovered around my radar for quite some time; I seem to remember that they once sent a demo and asked […]
The lot of a small-time reviewer is an odd one. I reached merely moderate levels of coverage and/or influence with a series of fanzines – and an associated cassette tape label – back in the early/mid 1990s, selling fanzines to people around the world and maintaining an enjoyable and rich amount of postal-based correspondence with huge […]
Charles Hayward was a founding member of This Heat, who released some of the best and most inventive records of the late 1970s and early 1980s – which is saying something, as there was a lot of inventive, good stuff going on at that time. I first heard This Heat when their track ’24 Track Loop’ turned […]
Thurston Moore isn’t backwards in coming forwards when it comes to releasing records. As a die-hard Sonic Youth fan, I do what I can to keep up with the ever-expanding circle of music that surrounds both the band and its members’ diverse array of side projects and current activities; but it can be a time-consuming, […]
“Good old Riot Season…”, to paraphrase an old Yellow Pages television advert. “They’re not just there for the bad things in life”. They are there, though, as a relatively frequent, always reliable source of all things noisy, heavy and ‘out there’, with a previous release list that includes names like Hey Colossus, Shit And Shine, Aufgehoben and Acid […]
Reading about a record that’s a limited edition, has handmade elements to its packaging, and that is somehow unique as an artefact, is always a way to find my interest piqued. So, my first record from Blank Editions, but the sixth in their ‘The Solo Series’ of releases that has also included records by Charles […]
As seems befitting for a release by the “influential, yet reclusive Japanese avant-garde band” Les Rallizes Dénudés, this double album – the first from the band in my collection – provides few hints in its packaging to what it is, who released it, when it was released or what it contains. Indeed, except for a series of […]