Ulrika Spacek: All The Time

I had a close friend over from Australia the other week so I missed London five-piece Ulrika Spacek make their return to their hometown. Which was a shame, because I really dig their sludgy, psych-and-no-wave-tinged monochrome growl. They aren't in the same abrasive bracket as Spectres, but there are shades of similarities in the blown-out motorik blasts and discombobulated vocals soaring above the black void. The latest offering from them is this 7" through Tough Love Records (get it here). The A Side is 'Everything: All The Time', a Kraut soarer that winds you in and spools out, the rhythms etched into your mind ad infinitum. And although I haven't linked it here, you can listen to their excellent take on VU classic 'Lady Godiva's Operation' that takes up the B Side here.

Triple Bardo Pond Record Store Re-Treat

Record Store Day Trilogy is the new offering from Bardo Pond, an amalgam of their last three RSD EPs (2013's Rise Above It All, 2014's Looking For Another Place, and this year's Is There A Heaven?) that Fire Records is collating for us all. Rise Above It All was a two-hander, featuring covers of Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain' and Pharaoh Sanders' 'The Creator Has A Master Plan.' Apart from loving Bardo Pond for years, and their set a couple years ago in Brisbane blowing my psych-addled mind, this EP is monumental for me for finally making me indulge in Sanders' work. An article in The Wire on him not long after this had me delving into the free jazz genius' back catalogue, and I've been lost ever since. And the version of 'Maggot Brain' sees the band drift off into the stratosphere for 22 glorious minutes. Looking For Another Place saw the Philly five-piece turn their attention to Eno (a harsh squall rendition of 'Here Come The Warm Jets' that with Isobel Sollenberger's vocals plays out like a dream pop song stretched to sixteen minutes) and Velvet Underground ('Ride Into The Sun', which is wonderfully messed up). And then the triptych was completed back in April when Is There A Heaven? - and for me their best cover yet, Bryan Ferry's 'In Every Dream Home A Heartache'. I am a closet Roxy Music fan already, but the devastating 14-and-a-half version here slays me with its slowburn menace - it's almost unhinged but not quite (one thing about this band - they let go but are always in control). The other offering is Albert Ayler's 'Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe' which is even further in the bottom end of the psych doom spectrum.

If you haven't heard these songs, you must. Check out 'In Every Dream Home A Heartache' below, and pre-order Record Store Day Trilogy here.

Desperate For Food

A bit late to the party on the anarchic mess that is Don't Believe In Time, the mind melt 12" from Italians For Food. (it came out mid last year). It's got that squat-house dynamic that mirrors as disparate locales as Amsterdam in the 80s, France in the 00s (think especially of Looks Like Miaou), or even the VU collectivism of the 60s/70s. Even New Zealand has its own kinship in the form of Girls Pissing On Girls Pissing. It's like when civilisations around the globe develop something technological totally independent of each other - or how Volcano and Dante's Peak came out the same time. For Food. continue to strip all genres of their base tropes, going beyond atonal punk to deconstruct and resuscitate tribal drones, pop immolation, industrial noise, naive art, spoken drivel, cathartic experimentation and found instrument demolition. Grab this impressive record here.