// Category Archive for: Music Reviews

Music Review: Sophie Auster, Red Weather EP

By Chelsea Spear

From the first notes of her debut EP Red Weather, Sophie Auster creates a compelling mise e scene. The angular piano riff and cacophonous arrangement that propel the first song, “Run Run Run,” invest the song with a palpable sense of urgency. Auster sketches out a minimal narrative that deepens this mood, and you feel her voice in the pit of your stomach as surely as you hear it.

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Music Review: Wazu, Robobo

By Less Lee Moore

Being old enough to have lived through and enjoyed the fecundity of post punk and new wave music when it originally blossomed in the 1980s has advantages and disadvantages. I feel lucky to have experienced the excitement of those years first hand. On the other hand, I often find myself eyeing with suspicion new bands that fell in love with those same sounds decades later. Hearing “Councillor,” the first single from Wazu‘s new album Robobo provided mixed feelings along those lines.

The song is so obviously influenced by Depeche Mode it’s almost cute: chord changes, heavy guitar, chiming keyboards, buzzing industrial sounds. Still, it’s a fine song and quite good at paying tribute to the originators of the sound.

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Music Review: Majeure, Solar Maximum

By Less Lee Moore

The musical entity known as Majeure is A.E. Paterra, also known as the drummer for prog rock band Zombi (also one of the coolest band names in recent history). Solar Maximum, Majeure’s second album, is proof positive that all those ignorant cranks who think synth-based music isn’t “real” music are just that: ignorant cranks. The depth of emotion conveyed on Solar Maximum is quite real indeed.

Paterra, according to a review in AQ, has mastered an impressive array of analog synths and instruments on Solar Maximum. Score another point in the “synth music is real” camp. In all seriousness, though, Solar Maximum is a seriously good album.

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Music Review: ESP, ESP EP

By Less Lee Moore

My introduction to ESP was via the eye-popping video for their song “Serenade,” directed by Alexandra Pelly, and described as an homage to Yellow Magic Orchestra. As a fan of WTUL’s Techno 2000 radio show in the ’80s, I am familiar with YMO’s music, particularly that of member Ryuichi Sakamoto, who also worked with Japan and David Sylvian. Naturally my interest was piqued.

According to their press materials, “ESP is a new Los Angeles-based trio whose primary interest is, as their name implies, Extra Sensory Perception.” Apparently they seek to explore this phenomenon through their music. It’s a fitting title; their music is psychedelic but not beholden to the 1960s sonic palette normally associated with that word. Their lyrics are more about creating a mood than telling a story.

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Graveyard Smash: John Zacherle, Monster Mash/Scary Tales

By Cait Brennan

Ever since the creeping dawn of that undead-zombification machine known as television, monster movies and horror hosts have been joined at the hip, like a mad scientist and his freakishly deformed sidekick, like Jan and her pan, like Rosie Grier and Ray Milland’s racist head. From Vampira and Ghoulardi to Dr. San Guinary and Morgus the Magnificent, horror hosts were an indelible part of pop culture in the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

But nowhere is there a horror host whose career—and life—has lasted as long as John Zacherle. The rockingest of horror icons, Zach got his start as Roland (pronounced “Roland“) on Philadelphia’s WCAU before pulling up stakes to New York and becoming “Zacherley” (same ghoul, different name). Now 94, the eternal Cool Ghoul is almost certainly the last survivor of the golden age of horror hosts, and he still looks as good . . . he still looks as . . . he still looks like Zacherle, and he’s still out there making convention appearances and delighting generations of horror fans.

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Music Review: Matmos, The Ganzfeld EP