Sean Kitching

Deadpan: Jim Jarmusch’s Political Take On The Zombie Film

Jim Jarmusch’s late entry into the zombie genre may first appear to be a restrained retreading of anti-consumerist tropes and fears of humanity’s auto-obliteration. But, Sean Kitching asks, if such warnings are obsolete, then why do we still fail to heed them?

Pere Ubu

The Long Goodbye

In the dense, ‘techno-rock’ soundscapes of Pere Ubu’s new album, Sean Kitching finds the long-running cult band have found yet another angle from which to depict their ever evolving, yet always eternal ‘avant-garage’ ethos

The Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy By Robert Anton Wilson At 40

Revisiting the work of the American futurist and self-described agnostic mystic, Robert Anton Wilson, forty years since the publication of his Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy, Sean Kitching finds the author’s questing vision more vital and necessary today than it has ever been

Doubts Evaporate: Black Midi Live At EartH Hackney

Feted four piece play large London show in run up to release of debut album but how are they faring on the big stage, asks Sean Kitching

North Sea Radio Orchestra with John Greaves & Annie Barbazza

Folly Bololey (Songs from Robery Wyatt's Rock Bottom)

With the addition of Henry Cow bassist, John Greaves, ex-Cardiac William D Drake and vocalist Annie Barbazza, the quintessentially English chamber ensemble, North Sea Radio Orchestra, are perfectly suited for a haunting reimagining of one of Robert Wyatt’s best loved solo albums, Rock Bottom

The Strange World Of… Gong

Prior to the release of their second post-Daevid Allen album, The Universe Also Collapses, Sean Kitching talks to Dave Sturt and Kavus Torabi of Gong about ten points of entry into a bewilderingly large back catalogue

In Space No-One Can Hear You Think: Claire Denis’s High Life

Whatever you might be expecting from the latest film by Claire (Beau Travail, Trouble Every Day) Denis, High Life ain't it

Guided By Voices

Warp and Woof

Pollard and co. rein it in with a mere twenty-four tracks on this, the twenty-eighth Guided By Voices studio album. It's up there with some of their best, finds Sean Kitching

LIVE REPORT: Michael Rother In London

Sean Kitching catches Neu! pioneer Michael Rother in typically great form

The Olivia Tremor Control’s Black Foliage Revisited

Sean Kitching talks to Olivia Tremor Control co-founder, Will Cullen Hart, about re-injecting the psychedelic into 60s psych pop and the less immediately apparent influences that inspired The Olivia Tremor Control’s 1999 magnum opus, Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One

Radical Conversion: Snapped Ankles Live

Sean Kitching is a late arrival when it comes to Snapped Ankles but he leaves with the zealotry of the recent convert

Live Report: Yo La Tengo At Earth

Sean Kitching goes to see the "little band" who have been around for 35 years and experiences the yin and the yang of their sound

Spratley Japs For Show At London’s The Garage

Cardiacs' Tim Smith and vocalist Jo Spratley's band the Spratleys Japs will end the year with a London show tomorrow night

Dub Stab In Duck Housing: The Residents ‘Break Through’ In 78

Sean Kitching argues that 1978s two most idiosyncratic releases, the Residents’ Duck Stab/Buster & Glen and Pere Ubu’s Dub Housing, both released on November 30 of that year, represent a pinnacle of individualism at the outer periphery of American art rock

INTERVIEW: Cardiacs’ Tim Smith

Sean Kitching talks to Tim Smith about the conferring of an honorary PhD on the much loved cult musician, and gauges reaction to the news from some of his fellow musicians and advocates

The Idea Vs. The Real: Devo Discuss Their New Book

With the publication of new book DEVO: The Brand/DEVO: Unmasked by Rocket88, it is time to revisit the theory of De-Evolution. Sean Kitching talks to Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale

LIVE REPORT: Anthony Braxton At Cafe Oto

Sean Kitching takes a voyage to the far side of composition at Anthony Braxton's recent Cafe Oto residency, and comes back with a sense of warmth & humour among the innovation. Photo by StarLynn Jacobs

The Strange World Of… Charles Hayward

Cologne had Can and Jaki Liebezeit, South London had This Heat and Charles Hayward. Sean Kitching talks to the THINTH, Camberwell Now, Massacre and Monkey Puzzle Trio, drummer, singer and songwriter ahead of his performance at this weekend's Supersonic Festival in Birmingham

The Strange World Of… Idris Ackamoor

The director of spiritual jazz group The Pyramids, Idris Ackamoor, talks to Sean Kitching and provides ten points of entry into his formidable body of work

A Protest Against Bullshit: Irmin Schmidt On All Gates Open – The Story Of Can

With the publication this weekend of Rob Young’s book All Gates Open: The Story Of Can, Sean Kitching chats to Irmin Schmidt about the development of the book, the origins of the band, and the surprising tenderness of Mark E. Smith

Before And After Bandits: Marc Hollander Of Aksak Maboul & Crammed Discs

Marc Hollander of Aksak Maboul and Crammed Discs talks to Sean Kitching about the consistent thread running through the different chapters of his band, the progress of their forthcoming fourth album, Rock In Opposition and cultural cross-pollination

Paranoia Springs Eternal: The Twilight Zone at The Almeida

Decades before Black Mirror, Rod Serling was exploring the uneasy side of western civilisation in his hokey-but-endearing morality tales, says Sean Kitching

Tim Smith Of Cardiacs Talks About His Illness

A campaign to help fund Tim Smiths' health care for the next year has passed the halfway mark. Here, the revered musician talks to Sean Kitching about the frustrations caused by his severe illness

Perfect Pandemonium: The Art Ensemble Of Chicago At Cafe Oto

Roscoe Mitchell, Famoudou Don Moye and co explore possibilities, celebrate collaboration, create ferocity, blow minds.

If You Go Down To The Woods: The Ritual Reviewed

Sean Kitching ventures into the forest to observe the first ever adaptation of a novel by Quietus favourite Adam Nevill

Return To The Dark Valley: Santiago Gamboa Interviewed

Internationally acclaimed Colombian novelist, philologist, journalist and former diplomat Santiago Gamboa talks to Sean Kitching about the paradox of evil, Michel Houellebecq and the question of the afterlife

King Of The Wild Front-ARRRRRGH: IT Reviewed

Sean Kitching on the latest adaptation of Stephen King's much loved IT, out in cinemas today

The Fightback: Rob Crow Interviewed

Sean Kitching talks to the cult Pinback, Heavy Vegetable, Thingy, Optiganally Yours and Goblin Cock musician Rob Crow about returning to the fray

LIVE REPORT: Thurston Moore Group

Sean Kitching witnesses the ongoing evolution of the Thurston Moore Group sound at Scala, Kings Cross, London

LIVE REPORT: The Can Project At The Barbican

Sean Kitching attends a worthy celebration of one of the all-time great bands; The Can Project held at the Barbican. All pictures, Mark Allan/Barbican

LIVE REPORT: Slapp Happy At Cafe Oto

On only their third UK outing since forming in 1972, Sean Kitching embraces the chaos and collision of ideas that Slapp Happy bring to London's Cafe Oto. (Photograph of Dagmar Krause courtesy of Alan Bolger)

The Sea Nymphs

On The Dry Land & Self-Titled