All posts in Electronic

Odd as it may seem for a guitar-toting wordsmith to release a collaborative album of electronica in which he never opens his mouth or so much as brushes past a guitar, Lloyd Cole actually has a bit of form in this respect.

Yes, that Lloyd Cole, of The Commotions and Rattlesnakes fame, now collaborating with Roedelius, ambient pioneer and co-founder of the krautrock groups Cluster and Harmonia, and very much in Roedelius’ …

Anyone approaching this album expecting a straight mash-up of Lloyd Cole’s darkly literate indie-pop and the far-out krautrock of Hans-Joachim Roedelius’s Cluster and Harmonia days will be vastly disappointed. Cole …

Overall, Cole and Roedelius may be onto something as a partnership, with Cole no doubt feeding off Roedelius’ vast experience in this field: compared to Plastic Wood, this is a far more accomplished and consistent record with some real memorable moments.

Yes, that Lloyd Cole. College pin up of the 80s, briefly pop star in the 90s, and then into country in his more mature years. He’s now grey and plays …

How exactly does a highly regarded British singer-songwriter ditch the polish and pathos and get it on with a noted practitioner of avant-garde electronic music without failing miserably?

I’ll confess to raising an eyebrow or two when I read about this as a forthcoming project but, after a swift glance through Lloyd Cole’s solo works, in particular his Plastic Wood material on the Recordings box-set over a decade ago, it’s easy to hear the connection

A little clumsy effort to translate nuances from Swedish

This is an album firmly embedded in Roedelius’s world. There are no vocals, nothing that resembles a guitar sound, no devotion to pop or rock structure. It’s not clear who did what, although it’s tempting to cast Cole as a student learning from a master of the genre.

(Are You) Ready to Be Heartbroken? (Or, Don’t Get Weird on Me Babe)

On paper, the pairing of Lloyd Cole and Hans-Joachim Roedelius might strike one as, well, odd. Cole, of …