In a recondite corner of the Galaxy through which Mario bounces in his latest adventures hides a diminutive planet the colour of infinite tonalities of sand, small and forlorn trees populate its surface surrounding a lonely looking cabin which, as you descend, you realise encircle it in the shape of a childishly scribbled heart.

U.S. Girls’ title track on her forthcoming 7” you can pre-order from Atelier Ciseaux is the lovely slow motion ballad of a thousand aeons of solitude sequestered in this minuscule sphere where it is neither night or day, but both, the darkness enveloping it broken by the rays that close stars project, bouncing in other worlds, some of which are dreams, other, memories.

Which the inhabitant of the cabin gropes for in occasions, like other pixelated inhabitants of this Galaxy she’s endowed with the power to, with but a leap, escape from the arms of a gravity which is more the weight of the past than physics, and stroll the universe like it was a collection of platform, what she lacks for in agility she makes up for with obstinacy.

Like a glacier, but burning inside.

U.S. Girls- Lunar Life

I am sure every other cat with an Internet connection out there has already written about Pocahaunted’s very excellent new album, ‘Make it Real’, in Not Not Fun, but I don’t care, we don’t trade on novelty but on power.

And this has power- after years drawing us into spectral landscapes where grimacing skeletons step to the oscillation of an all-encompassing dub drone & beknived siren chanting, they have decided to raid the same cathedral where Can paid homage to the humongous gods of Funk- this was perhaps to be expected after the wah wah shrieks lashing the dusty grooves of their Vibes spin off, and not any less rewarding because of that. Say, the title track we are wacking you with today sounds like block rocking beats that Big Daddy Kane could have freestyled over as delivered by the Shaggs’ feral skull faced reverse. Which is some way to roll.

Pocahaunted- Make it Real

Popul Vuh need the barest of introductions on these pages that have held so many electronic love letters to a certain period of Germanic Rock.  Their euphoric, transcendent soundtracks for the incomparable Werner Herzog have in many ways overshadowed their own independent musical output.  The melding of Herzogs desperate, often primal imagery to Popol Vuh’s grand, synthesis of primal forces – forces for which their music often served as tributes – has wedded them to a cultural subconscious as Herzog’s movies have been repackaged, disseminated and eventually ascended to the background radiation of counter-cultural cinema.

Blätter aus dem Buch der Kühnheit was written (but not used) for Herzog’s 1976 film Heart of Glass, set in 18th Century Bavaria.  While the film remains notable for having most of the cast perform hypnotised this composition from Popol Vuh surges in with a’most ecstatic force.  A caffeinated attention grabbing celebration of light, competing sounds and melodies rushing in every direction at once, a melodic nod to it’s historical setting before an electric guitar wails into view upsetting the almost baroque mood.  Surging, assured, a crypto-religious exercise in historical evocation.

Popol Vuh – Blätter aus dem Buch der Kühnheit

Stephen Eicher recorded the tapes that would go on to be released on 7″ as Speilt Noise Boys around the same time he was playing with seminal Swiss synth-wave band Grauzone.  French label Born Bad have collected that single and two other tracks and recently reissued it on vinyl and CD.  Beginning with the hum of early electronics Miniminiminiminijupe’s simple drum machine builds into view before switching up with the vocal and becoming the driving synth-punk rush it seems destined to be.

Stephen Eicher – Miniminiminiminijupe

Thanks to James Hines for leading me to the door of Eyeless in Gaza.  Taking their name from an Aldous Huxley novel which in turn referenced Milton’s Samson Agonistes – so not a Muslimgauze style bit of agit-prop then – the band had a great run of synth-wave records on Cherry Red in the 80′s before reforming in the 90s.

Invisibility is from the 1981 album Photographs As Memories.  Channelling the conspicuously working class growl of a post-punk vocal over a incongruously ethereal guitar line and Eno-aping synth wash, we’re sucked into something that becomes increasingly beautiful as the angst gets drawn beneath layers of optimistic electronics.

Eyeless in Gaza – Invisibility

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Strange to think it was over two years ago that U.S. Girls first graced the pages of this webzine.  Here’s some 20JFG.tv of what I’m led to believe was her first visit to Brighton on Monday.

And the dam broke with a mighty crack, and the water precipitated free like crazy horses, and a thousand birds took flight covering the land with shadows, and a sound as if the gasp of a thousand hearts had melded into one, or as if God had gasped at hearing the mighty crack, look at those columns of white water running furious over everything that was in the valley. And this way it ended, houses and churches and schoolyards and barns and fences and hills and forests sitting strange and uncomfortable in the turbulent green like polite hosts to an unexpected guest, while the possessions of a thousand spiralled to the white surface like the apparel of ghostly pilgrims, I look into the murky shadows and I see a closed room in a house standing where all these things remained trapped, sepia portraits in the walls staring blind at the water dripping through cracks in the yellow walls, and the dented floorboards, a bed unmade, a girl trapped inside singing a song that has haunted ever since the hearts of those that, on that day, stood by the emerging shores of the nascent lake.

U.S. Girls- Prove it all Night

We are ever so happy that U.S. Girls eerily beautiful incantations are finally embedded in the black vinyl of her ‘Introducing’ album released by mighty Siltbreeze (we heart). There was a soul to the music of the Shaggs, one perhaps taught by the ghosts of the prairie, it does shine strong in U.S. Girls heart, and her heart beats strong in her songs, and we listen enthralled because we can’t ask for more.

And the other night I couldn’t sleep so I sat in my bed by the window smoking a cigarette, staring outside into a shining fresco unreal in its silent stillness, all shades of blue merging into black interrupted by the stealthy silhouette of a cat jumping the fence precise with murder in its refulgent eyes, then, all quiet again save for that red firefly crashing capricious into the mound of ashes perched on the windowsill, then a cadence approaching slow but steady in the distance, turn towards the gaudy clock ticking and tacking indifferent by my bed, do trains run at this time of the night? Because my window looks, past the green- then blue- foliage into the tracks approaching the station, the cadence growing louder, carrying with it a mournful something I had never heard before, it could be that in the small hours every sound produced resonates deeper into the pit of loneliness of one awake and expectant, sitting by the window, and then a train crashes through this reverie obstinate in a mystery destination, surely trains don’t run this late, perhaps this is the way the dead travel, through empty tracks past closed stations, staring from their own windows into a world of shadows where the living sleep.

Arch M- 21st Union

You could imagine ghosts slender and sad performing elaborate ballet pieces full of drama across empty architectures while Arch M’s otherwordly music plays in the background, like dolls at the beginning of a Kitano film. Which would take your breath away rightfully.

And if you walk down a smooth path of stones polished by the wind, long after a hint of a footprint could last be read, and find yourself confronted by a dark crack just about the longest you ever jumped, maybe a couple of feet longer, tired and weary, the explorer inside you wiping his sweaty brow doubtful while the voices of your friends call your name in the distance, or is that their echoes chasing each other in the blue sky between the shapes of squeaking seagulls, and you half turn around, and then back, stare beyond the crack where the air shimmers uncertain, ionised particles dancing with a mischievous smile like they were about to tell you a secret, and then you mutter something, hold your breath and jump as long as you ever jumped to land precarious on the other side, and stare down steep rocky cliffs where a little beach lays curled calm past the echoes of your friends’ voices, descend. Because from there, you shall behold a majestic palace of gilded domes floating over the placid blue sea, the sun reflected almost blinding but not quite in its mighty spirals, around which the birds play their game eternal and free.

El Guincho- Jugadores de Juegos

Excellent gentleman Cristian from Discos Compulsivos/LUV LUV sent us today the very sold-out Folias CD-R by our favouritest tropical trovadour Pablo aka El Guincho, and seriously, while listening to it the sun has finally decided to shine through the merciless battlements of clouds under which we have toiled morose for so long, might the guitar strings gently plucked by Pablo’s fingers open up those heavy and grey curtains for good, so that we might behold into a blue sky smiling, the summer is here.

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Arch M’s Corey Reid shall be DJing at Brighton’s Ocean Room on Friday night, and New Look will be playing live. Good stuff, we’ll be there.

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Our friend George Quartz has a very nice blog called La Maladie Tropicale, go and say hi. Enjoy the colours and fonts. Classy.

A ghost has been haunting DJ Rick’s radio show, bewitching us with otherwordly melodies we might have dreamed of if we had dreamt of an abandoned farm in the midst of the ochre prairie in whose entrance the old porch swing creaks, ever so subtly in the absolute absence of wind or weight, silver under the light of the moon, covered with scribblings of love and magic carved by a small but strong hand and an old blade which in its time drew blood, we chased the ghost and the ghost opened up its cloak of crimson and silver, and gave us some music we are conveying to you today.

U.S. Girls- Days

In her cover version of The Kinks melancholy anthem ‘Days’ U.S. Girls sticks to Albert Einstein’s wise maxim ‘Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler’, the dirgey clatter of the drums brings to mind images of old steam machines advancing through vast fields where things grow slow and women sing folk songs which are eternal because they are sung from the heart and nothing else, U.S. Girls’ voice does this, free from decoration, frills or pretence, mapping the country of the soul with a burning honesty strange in this reality, something we also find in the ballads of Acid Mothers Temple sorceress Cotton Casino.

U.S. Girls will be releasing a record later on this year, now that is something we do look forward to feel.

It is of veritabyll report, and attested of so many that there be nowe of wyse and learned none to gainsaye it, that ye serpente hys eye hath a magnetick propertie that whosoe falleth into its svasion is drawn forwards in despite of its wille, and perisheth miserabyll by ye creature his byte.

Now for some black magick.

We have been drawn inside Salem’s pentagram of seduction like victims of the spell of iridiscent reptilian eyes, and there go our souls spinning in a irresistible vortex, trapped, burning in awe, don’t worry, you’ll joins us soon, just listen on.

Salem have mastered the arts of the dark, their music rises like refulgent will o’ the wisps at the end of a cul de sac in the heart of the city, they marshal the mystery essence of the night with a dexterity one finds in very few chosen spirits, of course Chromatics, be bewitched by their astounding take on Bruce Springsteen’s Streets of Philadelphia, it sounds like abandoned black and white photos of empty haunted streets sprawled over the pavement of empty haunted streets, its incandescent iciness makes us feel in a very special and strange way baby, baby, might it be we’re on fire.

Salem- BruStreet

Inside their envelope of distortion distance and closeness fold upon each other in a gentle collapse of all structures such as you find in the My Bloody Valentine’s engulfing drone or the tectonic shifts of enigma and corrupted love created by The Knife, Salem’s music is the eerie sonic equivalent of one of Hawksmoor’s churches as described in From Hell, a lightless beacon whence we step spellbound, this is the beginning of romance kids, I think we are in love.

Salem- Dirt

13 Monsters comes back on SATURDAY: An indie dance party for people who care

Barfly 11-3

£5/4 NUS/3 cheap list (drop us a line here)

We are having the after-party for the awesome Municipal Waste/Abandon Ship show taking place at the Barfly before, so if you are coming to see the kings of trash metal wrecking the moshpit & presenting their new album ‘the Art of Partying’ stick around to check out 13 Monsters showing off the craft of partying.

And if you just want to come to the club, you know what to expect, check out our playlist for the last one and get impatient:

Black Flag Fuck Buttons Stephen Malkmus Christian Falk feat Robyn Blood Red Shoes Marnie Stern The Fucking Champs Striplight Pylon Bolt Action Five John Cale Animal Collective David E Sugar Von Sudenfed Metronomy Rado Ladio 10Lec6 Ninja High School Prince The Units Sexual Harassment Late of the Pier Rodion Daft Punk Boom Bip Samim Surkin M.I.A Telespazio Joakim Black Mustang Vs Kerrier District Jurgen Paape Indeep Tomboy J-Kwon Dizzee Rascal Souja Boy Crystal Castles Ebony Bones Chromeo Gay Against You Yeah Yeah Yeahs Jenny Wilson Black Kids 50 Cent & Justin Timberlake Andrew WK Marilyn Manson The Knife Jay-Z Amerie M.I.A. Van Halen Les Savy Fav Glass Candy Dan Deacon Devo Blood Brothers Beastie Boys Bruce Springsteen Talking Heads Vampire Weekend Poni Hoax Slayer Lightning Bolt

Which is a party. We care, & LOVE