Music on Riverbed

Various - Modernists 2 LP

Tue, 23 Sep 2025 22:12:20 +0300

Artist: Various
Title: Modernists 2
Year: 2011

Putting the bass in Drum & Bass, Modernists 2 LP, a compilation album featuring various artists published by Modern Urban Jazz, is a dark, oppressive yet deceptively comforting electronic eartickler.

Water drips from slimy rooftiles in a dystopic perversion of the present masquerading as the future by wearing a skinsuit of the past. There is no continuity here. This is not the growth of a healthy old elm but a sick branch that has been grafted onto a dying tree. Stark red lights rave madly in the valleys of the cobblestone street. A neon flood.

You grab onto a steel handrail to stay afloat, the cool wet metal feels refreshing and you get a little excited as you jump over it. No time to glance behind. They could be anywhere. But it doesn’t matter. Five minutes and you can be inside, safe and warm in some backroom ready to jack in to the wire–and then you’ll be everywhere.

The world is a blank. You’re flowing through the wire. Nothing ever goes without a hitch but you barely notice. This is not the time and place: this is a house of prayer where bonds come unloosed.

Ninety minutes and you’re out. Nobody knows who came or who left. All they know is that it was a friend: every free individual is an ally.

Buckethead - Hold Me Forever

Sun, 21 Sep 2025 09:49:45 +0300

Artist: Buckethead
Title: Hold Me Forever (Pike 65)
Year: 2014

Composed in commemoration of his mother’s death, this is a classic Pike and a great introduction for newbies to Buckethead’s immense and (sometimes) impressive oeuvre.

A common but fair criticism of Buckethead is that he can at times be formulaic and repetitive. That’s not the case here even if it may seem so at first.

At the start of the Pike Buckethead seems to want to keep moving forward while mourning in his own quiet way, but his guitar has a few words to say. So he picks it up and for the first fifteen minutes gives it space to say its piece and shed a few tears while he keeps marching on. But then halfway through when the guitar is coming to the end of its oration Buckethead gets more into the playing and starts shredding his heart out as the incomprehensibility of death progressively dawns on him.

In the last few minutes the guitar is completely silent and we only hear Buckethead’s raw emotion. Not sorrow or anger. Just determination to keep playing, keep playing, keep playing; to hold the guitar forever and not let go while knowing he must.

After 27 minutes of buildup, all of which is essential to the whole, the Pike ends with a final cry, an optimistic galloping into a fade-out where it is still probably playing inaudibly; the only way a tribute like this can and should end.

Buckethead - Angel Wings

Sat, 20 Sep 2025 09:40:25 +0300

Artist: Buckethead
Title: Angel Wings (Pike 316)
Year: 2022

Probably my favourite Buckethead Pike, although I haven’t kept up with his new releases in the last few years.

This one’s very experimental and chaotic but somehow it remains cohesive and I’ve listened to it so many times I’ve memorized all the sudden changes and on repeat listenings the satisfaction I get from anticipating them is immeasurable.

Rude and distorted, calm and serene the next moment, at times almost funny and constantly relentless in its ~~forward~~ multi-layered circular momentum. I’ve got to admit sometimes it’s a bit too much even for me but when I’m in the right headspace to appreciate it this is a euphoric album.