katie gately

Those among with long memories stretching back to say – ooh – September – one of the three pronged tales from the attic adventures that was the exhaustive Volume XII edition – might well recall us mentioning ever so briefly Katie Gately and a track we happened across entitle ‘pipes’ via the ever so small but perfect Blue Tapes imprint. For those asleep at the back there where comparisons to Sadier, Duby and Minekawa, talk off over layered vocal harmonies dream dipped in celestial carousels and dissipating wooziness – in short has to be heard to be believed. Well we return with Ms Gately because the label kindly sent over full downloads to ’pipes’ (blue tapes 8th release) – incidentally available as a 200 only cassette replete with download codes and other such like – which gave us an excuse to run the ruler over the ’bonus b-side’ cut entitled ’acahella’. in such the freakiest thing we’ve heard all year, distorted jazz ju-ju’s, arabesque mirages and wonky Raymond Scott symphonics and that’s just the first two minutes. Best described as a screwball musical fantasia this kooky kaleidoscopic slice of warping weirdness manages to touch base all at once with the kind of stuff being issued a while back by labels such as tigerbeat6 and frank wobbly and sons whilst craftily weaving into the terraforming tapestry elements of Cornelius, Radiophonic Workshop and Residents – I kid you not – its like a musical travelogue pic n’ mixing its way through torch noir, down tempo, dub and music hall organ recitals and hiccupping said DNA strains into an at times a cappella Stereolab hybrid.