Cassette
See also Akti Zine Vol. 2
Double dose of vital subterranean action from Juho Toivonen's Akti label just in.First up is a 72 page zine that goes all in on a lot of the things we hold to be dear - multiple interviews with the likes of Roy Montgomery, Bill Orcutt, Arv & Miljo, P. Wits and so forth, alongside a raft of succinct reviews of a lot of crucial underground and margin-walking noise. Much to learn and/or affirm in here, sharply presented in that classic c&p style. Up with this kind of thing. Second on the slate is a year old but new to me Antony Milton cassette that finds our man In NZ digging around in the murkier realms of the forgotten 80s, mixing up haunting synth lines, linear drum machines and vaguely ecstatic guitar drones in his trademark epiphanous manner. Beautiful songs as ever, dragged forward here in a haunting grey fog, songs, lines, melodies blooming then disappearing with mysterious purpose. Not exactly like any other Milton I've heard and yet somehow solely his own work. Sold out at source.
"Synth-heavy and rhythmically sliced with sharp electronic percussion, Antony Milton`s "Off-White" exhibits no shyness in its ethos. With one foot shamelessly planted in a sentimental nostalgia for 1980's cry-yourself-to-sleep pop music and the other firmly remaining shin deep in the New Zealand underground "Off-White" raises its arms in salute to brainy romantics everywhere. Needless to say there are also extended sections of synapse distorting guitar and ecstatic drones aplenty as usually is the case when it comes down to the veteran New Zealand experimentalist."
