missive 200(k)
27-04-2009
singled out –
‘surrounded in sound’
http://www.myspace.com/forrestwilson – a filing under the my space category ‘tropical / surf’ with the added tag line ‘the future’s so bright (I gotta wear shades)’ was always going to guarantee a mention in these pages, Forrest Wilson – not the author or at least we assume not – is a London based musician who it appears can’t pass by a sound making device without quickly cobbling together a pristinely drilled slice of ear candy. Here accompanied by four such cute blighters alas not surf like or indeed of a tropical variety instead decidedly distractive lightly toned prickling pop gems sweetly glazed in all manner of beat boxes, rickety keyboards no doubt salvaged from Sunday morning car boot sales and positively pulsating with the kind of wide eyed effervescence that had us here much recalling both Star Fighter Pilot and Stephen ‘Tintin’ Duffy though mind you that said we could more than equally throw in the Busy Signals’ name in that reference mix (especially on ‘tonight I‘m a camera‘). Its all gorgeously drilled and delightfully distractive stuff, feel good lo-fi electro folk from which we much admit ’thunder rain and music’ bended our admiring ear somewhat not least because it has a rather all at sea shanty like demeanour much reminiscent it has to be said of some of the more reclined moments from Tex La Homa’s ’dazzle me with transience’ set whilst not forgetting the debut self titled appearance of Toshack Highway. All said and done though we suggest you plug into the audaciously perky ’dig a fortnight’ which aside its sun glazed chirpiness is dimpled with a kind of early 80’s Atari meets early days Channel 4 ’Brookside’ type sound that quite frankly had us coming over quite misty eyed.
http://www.myspace.com/commodospace – one of life’s considerable irks for me is that we don’t get to hear enough stuff from Spain, there was a time when we’d get all types of stuff from the likes of Butterfly and Elefant, not anymore I have to say with much crestfallen disappointment. So you can imagine our joy when we were contacted via a friend request by Madrid based musician Paco Salazar better known to the in tuned record loving community as Commodo. To date he’s released just one EP in the shape of ‘Raymond’ which we here must endeavour to nail as soon as possible because the sounds revealed here on his showcasing my space player reveal a hitherto tender and mercurial talent at work. Five cuts feature within with ‘Raymond’ opening the musical account – a sleepy headed music box cortege lulls the senses framed amid a dinky rustic calibration that’s fleshed out by all manner of library toned halos and strangely appealing light headed cosmic whirrs that have the curious appeal of being both playfully enchanting and impishly eerie in a Broadcast meets Grails type way. Likewise the forlorn promenade like ’intro’ has a porcelain styled retro feel about it that suggests at times a Joe Meek like application at work certainly one for those of you who love your Trunk record curios we feel while similarly appealing to fans of the silken electro orbits crafted out by a youthful Air. More up tempo in delivery ‘waterresistant’ balances a happy divide between a latter career fortdax and a Vince Clarke era Depeche Mode, a bracing slice of celestial traversing candy pop dimpled in all manner of excitably skewiff dynamics. Reducing the pace to a bare murmur the arresting noir shimmer of ‘little line’ teasingly brief at just 1.40 engages in some daintily delivered Erik Satie like sereneness though frankly it cowers shyly when sat next to what for us is the sets finest moment by some distance – the parting ’about me’. Adorned within a emotion rupturing classicism this beauty opens to the tear stained cortege of tumbling haunting arpeggio spectres that without warning erupt from their moorings and fracture into jagged bathing halos of jet streamed shoe gaze grandeur that unless our ears don’t deceive sounds not unlike the wide screen texture and opulent majesty as you’d probably expect to hear had Godspeed and Sigur Ros sought to swap studio notes under the presiding eye of Ennio Morricone.
And here’s the video for ‘Raymond’ all done with mirrors don’t you know……
http://www.myspace.com/the_dash – ah the Dash, been way too long since they featured in these pages – in fact the last time was via missive 132 when we hooked up and furiously jotted down a shed load of reasons as to why you needed their as then debut release ‘broom house road’ via Weekender records on your hi-fi and doing serious damage. Edging it somewhere between the Clash and the Ruts, the aforementioned debuts likeness to the Parkinsons wasn’t lost on us. Not sure what the work shy fops have been up to since then and now but we’ve noted that their tour diary is beginning to get a little busy. Anyway you can download for gratis that aforementioned single by navigating through this here page to the relevant links while found looming it large on their my space player you’ll find two new cuts ‘you can’t please everyone’ and ‘alone no more’ the former a scousedelic delta beauty pissing in a pool frequented by a young Coral while the latter is particularly recommended mainly for the fact it sounds like a 60’s drilled soulfully spiked mod blues belter laced up with riff struts aplenty all braided by some killer key accoutrements and riddled with an up and at you frantic frenzy that suggests to us someone in the camp has been wiling away the wee hours pouring over early Who gems.
Here’s a bit of a ropey video of the band doing ‘cinnamon junkie’ – well smart…
http://www.myspace.com/danielland – hailing from Manchester and numbering six in the ranks, Daniel Land and the Modern Painters have been the subject of much swoon chatter amid certain dream pop circles. To date they’ve silently dispatched under the cover of a starry darkness three releases – ‘voss’, ‘imagining October’ and the latest via the Sonic Cathedral imprint ‘within the boundaries’ as well as appearing on the latter’s ‘Sonic Cathedral Classic Volume 1’ a set collating together the labels first eleven releases and boasting a set list made up of such notables as School of Seven Bells, Dean and Britta, Mark Gardner and the Japancakes. For their part Daniel Land and the Modern Painters sculpture tenderly surrendering figurines of breathlessly hollowed celestial chime pools of sensitively slick and sophisticated vapour trailed beauty, measured and elegant and straying on the side of hurting these quietly divine heavenly heralds lilt and swoon with the shy eyed radiance of Chapterhouse (especially on the spectral lilt of ‘off your face again’) as though re-animated by the hand of Durutti Column, all at once lonesome, longing and lushly cradled these dream weaving mirages pulsate and purr with a reflective recoiling glow. From the statuesque frost bound timbres of the regretful cavernous caresses of ’lostening’ with its star glazed opining overtures to the chiming elegiac jubilance of the Cocteau Twins (who are similarly referenced on the homely snow dripped and tear stained ‘locust’) like sun bursting streamlined symphonics of ’within the boundaries’, Daniel Land and Co dimple the air waves with a deeply seductively glazed and hazed hymnal reverence which we here must admit to being more than a tad smitten by, none more so is the case than on the pedal steel stirred cruise controlled and countrified ‘smiling in slow motion’ a sighing beauty of such crestfallen bruised elegance that you feel hopelessly obliged to smother it in a re-assuring embrace. Mind you that said ‘codeine’ is no slouch and be something of a transistor tease given its subtly invested with elements of Chris Isaak’s ‘wicked game’ albeit as though envisaged and tweaked by Guy Chadwick. We need to hear more.
Additional update – both ‘codeine’ and ‘smiling in slow motion’ are culled from the bands forthcoming debut full length ‘love songs for the chemical generation’ due Autumn time.
Claire from Tayside Mental Health has been in touch – a parcel of cd’s is winging its way as I write – so expect plenty of fond words in a forthcoming missive – for now here’s something vaguely worrying by them – we here are thinking very Bronnt Industries Kapital like…..anyway its called ‘black magic robot’ – creepy stuff…..
Library Tapes ‘bourghesia’ (Secret Furry Hole). Debut outing for the Secret Furry Hole imprint and a bit of a cute at that though be mindful that it comes in an ultra limited issue of only 100 copies with word reaching us that numbers are low to near sold out. Anyway the Library Tapes should be no strangers to readers of these musings given they appeared on the much marvelled over ‘dream frequencies’ compilation put out by the Antennae imprint a year or so ago. In addition there have been quietly acclaimed releases for the likes of Make Mine Music, Resonant, Kning Disc and Home Normal to name just a few. Four tracks feature on this limited cdr which finds Library Tapes heading up a cast of contributors Machinefabriek, die stadt der romantische punks and Fabio orsi each rendering to tape their own on a variation interpretation of Henryk Gorecki’s ‘symphony no 3. Titled ‘bourgeoisie in Swedish’ Library Tapes serve up a six minute slice of chilled ambience metered out by the delicate undulation of dronal swathes, finitely solemn in texture yet reflective and regal, their spectral monochrome air brushings seemingly saturating and bathing the listening space with its elegantly Cathedral like majesty. Machinefabriek appear to take what seems like a small age to get going with their ‘bourgeoisie in Dutch‘, the opening minutes apparent silence softly crackling in life with an aching pulsing tenderness that soon begins to channel out hypnotic sheens of frequency bending white noise transmissions. Choosing to opt for the middle ground between Library Tapes and Machinefabriek, Die Stadt der Romantische Punks’ ‘Borghesia’ is awash with a gorgeously numbed and tear stained effecting hollowing introspective beauty, all opining glacial swathes, orbiting cycles and a sense of something truly treasured lost which leaves Fabio Orsi to bring the set to a close and in whose capable hands ’Borghesia’ is tendered with an enchanting almost celestial gracefulness, agreed its sparse and fragile but an ethereal beauty all the same though what those ghostly conversations piercing through the ether are all about is anyone’s guess – still it gives it a strangely eerie focus.
Additional Secret Furry Hole releases come courtesy of Ottawan resident His Clancyness with ’hissometer’ – an ultra limited 25 – 50 (no exactly certain of the pressing number) c-25 cassette type thing which we will try to nail in the coming weeks.
And our thanks go out to Mojo who after putting in a few rum issues of late have this month come up with the goodies – though more about that a little later – for now check out this smart link which we found while nosing through this months issue – well to be more exact it was when we were perusing the Ask Fred section and eyed something of a Cramps tribute site at http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/02/lux-and-ivys-favorites-mp3s.html wherein aside an interview with Lux and Ivy for Rex Doane’s Fool’s Paradise show via the New York located WFMU radio station from a few years ago – which you can hear in all its un-edited glory – there are eleven volumes of vault robbing bopping groove entitled Lux and Ivy’s Favorites all neatly teased up in to downloadable zip files – we’re downloading the blighters as we write – volume one safely nailed and playing right now – the treats inside including stuff by the tornadoes, the forbidden five, vern pullen and the blonde bomber Ronnie Dawson whose ‘Action Packed’ is still a lost nugget from the late 50’s which I remember Peelie dusting down for a rare play every few years or so.
Floorian
More fiend
Drigh
‘more fiend’.
we here are suspecting that’s some kind of wee pun or play on words – ‘more fiend‘ – morphine(d) – okay maybe its down to the fact then that we’ve had too much sun today – and yes you read right – I said sun – yellow thing, sits in the sky, kinda warm, a bit bright – you know the thing though to be honest with you over here in dear old Blighty such is it a rare occurrence that when it does come out people think it’s a UFO.
Anyhow ‘more fiend’ is the second full length from the Ohio based trio following the re-issue of 2002’s ’what’s the buzzing’ in 2004 – the band I believe being one of the last acts to be signed by the late Greg Shaw of Bomp fame. Between then and now – far from being work shy fops (although between you and me I’m of the belief that they are) they’ve appeared on a few by all accounts well heeled compilations put out by the likes of Ogetti Volanti, Columbus Alive and the much loved here first two volumes of Northern Star’s excellent ’pyschedelica’ sets (the third which we’ve had an absolute age – will get an extended review in a few days – honest).
Floorian craft out a deeply attractive and compulsive brand of psyche, not psyche of your usual frazzled sun hugging lysergic kind but rather more something bordering between frequenting the voids of hypnosis inducing space rock and out of it stoned styled bliss grooved drug mirages. Braided with a subtle line of supernatural / occultist symbolism (the six part mind flipping odyssey beginning with ’Samadhi’ and ending with ’Edenic’ that pretty much accounts for most of the set spells out ’SÉANCE’), these apocalyptic mojo tooting preacher men trip wire a darkly beset landscape that reveals them as possessed of a kinship to the Black Angels dust ridden Vietcong sound (none more so is this the case than on ‘the lower room’ where the shade adorned laid back and smoked road blues dialects shimmer and glow with the dulled opulence of a star sucking black hole as it assumes depth and stature taking to its bosom loosely translated Arabesque dialects and wah wah’s aplenty). Add in some finitely honed elements of Brian Jonestown Massacre, Spacemen 3 and Sunray into the mix and in some small respects a pinch or two of Cheval Sombre. But then its equal to say that there are nodding moments within the grooves of this brooding and dislocated ten track feast that suggest a passing working knowledge of 13th Floor Elevators, Grateful Dead and most notably Floyd especially on the parched and wasted ‘how far, how fast‘ with its swampy doom like foreboding monolithic austerity which aside kicking Wooden Shjips into touch also manages to pull of neat line in Porcupine Tree compliments.
Opening ominously to the chilled introductions of ’never even’ you’re immediately left wondering what you’ve stumbled into, a disembodied childlike conversation peeled as were straight from a Lewis Carroll script ripples through the ether its inviting first impression like lilt soon being replaced by something unnatural and macabre before the onset of the eerily chugging riffs begin to fracture, mooch and howl like a Lynchian nightmarish take of the Pixies ’bone machine’. ’missed’ on the other hand is awash with fuzzy drone overtures and mystical mantras seemingly carried across the voids by transcendental mistrals. That said the defining moment of the set comes in the shape of the terra forming six part ’SÉANCE’ – taking up the best of 23 minutes this head tripping beauty begins with the desolate and side winding arid and sun baked ’Samadhi’ a sprawling Tibetan styled ceremonial beast pitched with a monastic reverence and cut with a maddening claustrophobic and sultry charm clanging spiritualist splendour. The Eastern meditative effect is continued throughout until mid way through ‘Namaste‘ wherein the almost sedate and lethargic dronal tonalities give way to a dream weaving like resonance which by the parting ‘Edenic‘ manifests magnificently into something that veers into psych prog territories once ventured by Porcupine Tree’s ’radioactive toy’. Essential fringe parting ear candy for psychedelicised space cadets. Any questions?
Key tracks –
Edenic
Never even
How far, how fast
the sunday experience 