Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping…..part 9
revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind…
and more…..
Latest batch of Polytechnic Youth happenings come housed in uniformly crafted in house die cut sleeves with classic Fontana-esque label designs, not your ultra – limited blink and they’re gone pressing numbers on this occasion, these beauties arrive hand numbered and 250 strong.
First up Middex make a return to the PY sound labs, this particular release coming accompanied by a huge poster insert. Of course the keen eyed among you will have noted that we cast an affectionate ear over its flip cut ‘Sirrius’ last week, now it’s the turn of the superior ‘brick wall takes to air’ – future world dystopian Dadaist electronics observing from afar, from a bunker no doubt, the bleakly nullified landscapes of a controlled thinking environment littered in cold war surveillance and the readings of ‘a clockwork orange’ – cold, cooled and clinical, robo vocals utter streams of consciousness in wearisome flat lining tones cuing the sterile ice framed logica of Numan’s ‘pleasure principle’ and the auto suggestive mundane grimness of a mark 1 Human League. Beauty in bleakness indeed.
Second up on polytechnic youth, the much anticipated debut wax appearance of Kehrschliefe. Featured here previously, and indeed much admired, the back story to these recordings is something of a Berlin flea market find by Allan Murphy – he who is Midwich Youth Club – unearthing a stash of cassettes dating back to the late 70’s, the information about their author / creator was scant, some digging revealed Kehrschliefe to be a sonic pseudonym for Wolgang Tilner-Barlow who alas had long since died in 1984. Eight short cuts are gathered on this 250 only hand numbered release, primarily of interest to those adoring of the Ghost Box label, there’s a nostalgic minimalist vintage coursing through these curios that’s primed in a misty eyed sepia draped fondness hinted of an era steeled in primitive electronic gaming and Betamax cult b-movies, portraits if you will of a pre technological obsessed society where analogue synths where the domain of bearded and hairy progressive dinosaurs and geeky university drop outs in bedrooms pouring over sun scorched dusted copies of practical electronics and wireless. Upon these waxen grooves a magical world of the kooky, the crooked and the kitschy await with the ominous chill toned doomy future warning of the arabesque like ‘leonid brezhnev’ serving as its greeting welcome. From there on in matters are flavoured in lighter tones with ‘umbreien wieder ein wieder’ assuming a playful lunar carousel made up of the fusing of Isan and FortDax body parts while ‘jizz roboten’ – as the title might hint is pure scat grooved mech porn that manages to wig itself out to ecstacy as through a critical ‘tron’ – esque breakdown is afoot whilst being under siege and bombarded by schizoid prognian Atari sniper attacks. Sitting dutifully and on its best behaviour somewhere between Belbury Poly and the Advisor Circle, you suspect that ‘auf der strasse’ secretly harbours thoughts of cranking it up in true Magazine style while the briefly visiting ‘albeit heute’ is spun in cosmic rays of oriental kosmiche which suggest a lost moment shared between the yellow magic orchestra and a certain Jean Michel Jarre. Sore thumb of the set is the gloopy ‘auf patrouille’ – a kind of unrealised Godfather of Nickelodeon kookiness, either that or a distractively crooked slice of robotised discoid pop. Those admiring of sounds that emanate within the sphere of influence of ‘blade runner’ might do well to seek out ‘zerstorer der nacht’ while parting opus ‘die show der nicht’ apes gameshow and educational resource idents of the day to craft out what might be best described as a loose take on Lipps Inc’s ‘funkytown’ albeit as though after it had been fed through the Vision On scrambler.
https://kehrschleife.bandcamp.com/album/polytechnic-youth-kehrschleife-ep-1
previous mentions – incorrectly spelt I’ll have you know…..
https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/kehrschleife/
https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/04/03/kehrschleife-2/
over at Great Pop Supplement, a corking 400 only nugget from what is essentially the Trembling Bells has been hatched – here found operating under the pseudonym Youth of America, these dudes have been likened to ‘Big Star with gurls’ which is as good a description as you can get, certainly one for the Ugly Things aficionados with ‘Navigator’ fondly draped in west coast dialects that are seductively honey rushed in country sighs and sparkled in a tasty hip shimmying power pop purred effervescence that hints of a collective party of Go Go’s and Bangles types running the gauntlet through the back catalogue of the Motors and the dB’s. All said the gem here sits over on the flip with ‘night of the comet’ – an adoring homage of the classic cult zombie teen flick of the early 80’s, straight out of the Bomp shed this all honeyed harmonies and 50’s bubble grooves swirled into starry sparkly sci-fi power pop gala jumpsuit all lushly cosy toed in a classic 70’s MOR vibing that in all honesty at times has a Carpenters meets Supersister feel about its wares albeit as though the two where swooning whilst gathered around the dansette playing an assortmentt of Brinzley Schwarz and Flamin’ Groovies nuggets.
Staying with great pop supplement a little while longer, like me you probably missed this ‘un, initially prepped as a single release but what with the RSD timing and demands on pressing plants to prioritise those all in important Alan Partridge picture discs, it ended up being sneaked out a free to download digital outing, this is the adorable Lake Ruth. Already having served up one of key notes debut singles of the year so far with the irresistible ‘the inconsolable Jean-Claude’, the band shift the bar a little higher in expectation of an album to come with the release of ‘through the lychgates’ – in short just over two minutes of pop purred perfection all brightly braided and shimmered in caressing cascades of crystalline riff chimes all haloed in silken 60’s summer breezes to quick step, swoon and swerve daintily across a soft psych sonic seduction that nods to everything from Camera Obscura to the Soundcarriers with the occasional shy eyed hi-five to classic era French pop. https://lakeruth.bandcamp.com/track/through-the-lychgates
And in case you missed it first time of asking, here’s the video adoring their debut release via GPS….
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/155874599″>Lake Ruth – The Inconsolable Jean-Claude</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/paulcordeswilm”>Paul Cordes Wilm</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Fancy something a little chilling and seemingly from the beyond, then it probably won’t surprise you to note that Buried Treasure – those dudes who dally in vintage radiophonics, strange Quatermass-ian collages and sonic séance’s – might well at some point go a little beyond in their quest to strange you out in an attempt to cater for your turn-tabling night terrors. So with this in mind they’ve unearthed an ultra-limited rare original stash of a release that originally appeared in 1971. This chilling scientific experiment conducted by Konstantin Raudive focused on mysterious ghost traces found on tape recordings to which we now know as EVP – Electronic Voice Phenomenon – basically communications with the dead, these recordings appearing on a flexi disc issued with the first issue of ‘the explained’ – all very strange and curiously creepy not to mention limited with only 200 copies in circulation all with original inserts, sleeve and new liner notes giving a historical background the recordings – which as it happens we think we may have sourced on that there you tube thingy. . http://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/breakthrough
Rather mellowing don’t you find, softly draped in Oriental frost flecks and playfully chimed and chirped in lullaby mosaics, this is ‘the king tree’ taken from a forthcoming Bearsuit records release entitled ‘Ideeit’ by Harold Nono, had us in mind of Gulliver a tad who in case you might have missed it put out a release or two via Pickled Egg records many moons ago, but we do love the lightly floral dreamy collages as they snooze, yawn, stretch and fall which I’ll admit grow abundantly overcast mid-way through to usher in a momentary sinister presence to the proceedings only to scatter to a lull once the brief hyperactivity passes. https://soundcloud.com/bearsuitrecords/harold-nono-the-king-tree
Over at deep distance, well they’ve been overseeing an archive dig unearthing and lovingly pressing upon vinyl some rare and long out of print releases by Colin Potter. It’s a series that specifically hones in on a creative period dating from the late 70’s to the early 80’s, these vinyl expansions dovetailing perfectly with Mr Potter’s own cassette re-issue campaign via his ICR imprint. ‘the Scythe’ his fifth album is a double vinyl affair bolstered variously by out-takes, alternate mixes and cuts lifted from the ‘chainsaw’ tape release. Described in passing as an imagining of John Foxx heading up Chrome, good call, this is ‘another day’ taken from the aforementioned ‘the scythe’ – which in truth ought to be high on the listening list of those much taken by a certain Edward Ka-Spel, the sounds within strangely refusing to age in the passing years and something which those of you subscribing to Adam Leonard’s recent archival dig might do well to hook up given its dislocating sparsely grooved primitive industrial angularity circles around a very youthful Magazine. Now if only we could get our hands on that six set cassette re-issue we’d be laughing.
Okay we used to drape these lost sound finds in a super duper musical interlude heading, which alas no one took notice of – indeed we are pulling your leg – just call it laziness but we did unearth this little obscure dandy – apparently released in 1982 – this is Andi Arroganti – no doubt hugely influenced by the Berlin crowd Steve Strange, Robot Roy – we made that one up and Billy Currie – blimey that was his real name, this is ‘benzin in berlin’ which we suspect Sigue Sigue Sputnik must surely has cast an ear over for ‘Love Missile F1-11’ – very much sounding of the day, no bad thing there especially if you lain awake at night in your max factor eye squiggles cobbling together fantasy electro bands cobbled together of DAF and early career Depeche Mode types – I suspect a re-issue campaign is long overdue….
And it’s back with Beautify Junkyards with a link kindly sent over by Joao Branco. I must confess we’ve had this for a while, so apologies first up for arriving late to the party. Herewith a live session version of ‘rainbow garland’ recorded recently for national TV station Antena 3, the track taken from the acclaimed second full length ‘the beast shouted love’ released last year via mega dodo was one of the sets centrepiece moments here delicately draped in all its spectral finery and lushly trimmed in an adoringly caressing cascade of enchanted hazes beautifully ghosting in mirages of baroque psyche seduction.
There’s times when I swear I might have to employ an extra set of eyes for fear that we miss little nuggets that go sneaking out from under the covers, in fact it was only on a spot of facebook scrolling during a break in the boredom of 9 to 5 hell whereupon we sneaked out for a bifta or two – purely a medicinally head clearing happening – that we ventured happily upon this quite corking compilation. All fees going to the trussell trust who do some sterling work in tackling poverty across these unfair isles, this is ‘freaks for foodbanks’ – a humungous gathering of talents set across twenty-one tracks which due to time constraints we may well be revisiting several times during the course of the coming week. Apparently there’s a CD version somewhere which alas foer now we can’t cast our beady eye upon, however featured among this celebrated charity collective you’ll encounter the silvery shimmers of Melmoth the Wanderer’s ghost light ‘mourning missed’ which for the best part glowers to a shadowy chill traced hypnotic pulsars of the type oft ventured by the Revenant Sea albeit here eerily grimed by a Gerry / Sylvia Anderson gathering of UFO pulsars and Mysteron styled mind wipes. Somewhat more playful in stature, Midwich Youth Club’s mooching mech-pop ‘f&l enterprises limited’ offers up a slice of screw balling schizoid oscillatory funk struck boogie which through our ears we do detect a impishly zonked out and zany Add N to X scrambling your head space with the accompanying Casino Vs. Japan and 4tReck getting in their tuppence worth upon the bonkers hijinks afoot here. Those of you familiar with classic releases emanating from out of the much missed frequent sea imprint a feew years ago – and here we are talking about the insect explosion and al qaeda – might do well to hook up to cheesy nirvosa’s sun scorched ‘assume to assuage’ – shards of droning white noise halos are the order of the day all bearing down in dream machine formations like some ethereal hulking Astral Social Club piloted hypercraft. Elsewhere regulars the blue giant zeta puppies stump up ’40 million miles to earth’ – a twang-a-rella nuggets cooly strutted in sci-fi-tronic b-movie echoes and Meek-esque montages, in truth a nifty slab of the shadowy men on a shadowy planet shape cutting to the solar surf sounds of Man or Astro Man – nuff said. Sounding very regal and full of bewitchment, the ceremonial spell craft attaching to ‘cruel henry’ is graced in gravitas and heraldic glory, though sparse and minimal in detail, its epically effecting and beguiled in execution, dare we say the hare and the moon at their finest and most dark hearted. Somewhere else, again much adored around these here parts and previously featured I’ll have you know, Topos Locos cut an acutely swaggering and swooning dash through the psychedelicised backwaters of the late 60’s lost and forgotten with a killer cover of Big bird and the steam shovel’s ‘(what’s happening at) the psychciatrist?’ while rounding out matters for this first visitation Emily Jones’ ‘wintersong’ is what it says on the tin, an autumnal mysterio seductively twisted and turned, bathed in Drake-esque motifs and moored upon the brooding forlorn beauty of a youthful porcupine tree. https://freaksforfoodbanks.bandcamp.com/releases
Been far too long since we featured the wares of the Sound in Silence imprint, but the Athens based label currently have two quite impeccable releases about to hit the streets. Both limited to just 150 CD copies – all typically tailored in their trademark eye catching packaging, we’ll for now just cast a brief ear over the happenings, first up on the inspection block being ‘forgiveness’ by Ben Rath. Following appearances on Cathedral Transmissions and triple moon, this Manchester based sound alchemist makes his debut Sound in Silence outing with a frankly consuming set that’s both deceptively touching and elegant, beneath the haloing sunburst rushes that fire through ‘a moment (reconsidered)’ a forlorn neo classicist noir suite is yearned and murmured in melancholic introspection, droning ripples once thawed of their frost kissed chill usher in and out in euphoric waveforms to bathe the would be listener in a bliss kissed unworldliness. On ‘second self’ amid the dream draped shimmer tones and glassy whispers, a transcendental aura folds delicately around the listening space hermetically sealing you in within its spectral ghost light to provide for a meditative safe haven giving you the uncanny sense that you’ve been blessed by an ethereal visitation. https://soundinsilencerecords.bandcamp.com/album/forgiveness
Second up from the latest batch of Sound in Silence releases, ‘glass permanent’ from Plurals’ man Daniel W J MacKenzie is a monumental exercise in both poise and atmospheric grandeur with these six extended suites doffing a cap to the finest moments to be found on both the Kranky and Beta Lactam Ring imprints. For now, may we draw your attention to ‘missing aura II’ – amid its overt sense of lonesome detachment and melancholy, the delicate ebb and flow of the achingly slow turned orchestrations and the micro detailing throughout accentuate a sense of stilled elegance to the proceedings, its desert dry echoes and monastic ghostings glower with an end game finality as though a fading epitaph marking the stars going out. https://soundinsilencerecords.bandcamp.com/album/glass-permanent
I must admit we are quite smitten by this split release. Heading out of the Japan based Noble imprint, it features Serph on one side and N-qia on the other with all proceeds from the release going to assist and support the recovery of victims of the Kumamoto earthquake. Serph seduce with ‘arigatou for surviving’ – a gorgeously pristine pop morsel that flickers, radiates and purrs to a trip hopping starry eyed orbital, occasionally apt to shape shift without warning one minute sweetly seducing like some chill tipped Oriental Go Team, the next flightily lost in the moment amid arcing symphonics sweetly swooning amid lounge lulled dialects that hints towards the lighter tonalities of a certain Cornelius. As to n-qia – previously mentioned on occasion here – they are essentially Serph with the addition of vocalist Nozomi whose ‘resurrection’ featured here provides for a slice of demurring twinkle toned dream draped vapour trailing pop whose angel sighed pop acuteness cuts a dainty dash that joins hands as were with Dollar, the Lover Speaks and the Cocteau Twins, something we suggest, for those among you adoring of Ummagma. http://noble-label.bandcamp.com/album/little-helper
Some fine things afoot at the mega dodo camp, we mentioned octopus syng in brief – new album arriving summer time which might just blow a few psych heads away. There’s also the singles club future specials from which will see a seven inch from the luck of eden hall tailing their forthcoming album. Of course there’s also this, a recent killer 10 inch from Le Super Homer – the label found recently sneaking up videos of a live session recording for Radio Campus Avignon featuring two cuts ‘bituminized’ and ‘maple key’ – certainly something worth checking out if you adore ‘sound dust’ / ‘cobras’ era Stereolab not to mention Le Bleu / L’Augmentation for this beautified brace comes sweetly seduced in subtle 60’s lounge flotillas exuding softly psyched florals with the latter of the twinset swooning with the ethereal ghosting of a would be gathering of Fugu and Double Francoise types.
Not quite what the world was waiting for and indeed perhaps not quite the second coming (reprised), there was an expectant fear even among even the most die-hard Stone Roses fans that their new single might flatter to deceive. But age and absence are great levellers ‘All for one’ marks the recorded return of the Stone Roses, their first single in over two decades, a new album follows in quick succession. Arguably it doesn’t push the envelope, it’s not a drop everything and just stand there, jaw dropped moment – rather more it’s cautious, almost on auto pilot but most importantly – its familiar. One thing you do immediately notice is that within seconds of it erupting into bliss grooved life, that those passing years magically dissolve and disappear for ‘all for one’ finds them picking up the threads just before everything started unravelling, an era where basked in the afterglow of their debut album both ‘fool’s gold’ and ‘what the world is waiting for’ seduced a dance / indie / psych crossover consciousness. ‘all for one’ is cut from a similar cloth, more in tune with their superior flip sides from back in the day, comes radiantly kissed with a lock grooving lysergic murmured motif atop of which Brown’s trademark hushed lilts freewheel, add in the overtly teased summer festival mellowed crowd surfing strut and that all too apparent Roses-esque swooning off centred catchiness, not a game charger all said but a satisfying and relieved welcoming back to the fold, whether it’s a rewriting their history – only time will tell.
Now I swear we’ve featured this lot in passing previously, can I find links or authorities to substantiate – can I hell as like. Anyway this is Umberto with the quite frankly perfect ‘awakenings’ which comes ripped from a forthcoming set for Not Not Fun entitled ‘Alienation’. Everything about this just screams divine, its monochromatic dappling, its ice formed shimmers and its arrest setting softly demurring kosmiche pulsars momentarily dared in euphoric raptures all converging to shyly reverberate to a mournfully beautiful shadowy toning that hints of a bruised Broadcast in a would love locked embrace with Add N to X, scarcely a dry eye in the gaff.
Bad boogie from Saint Agnes, been a while since they last featured here, but ‘Sister Electric’ – incidentally pressed up on limited numbers of clear lathe vinyl – the first as it happens in a series of similarly cut outings via the death or glory gang imprint – comes ripped amid a sleazily seething psychosis purred grizzled glam garage gouging bleached in prowling psyched out stoner blues motifs and shredded riff ruptures that has you imagining Suzi Q’s evil twin cooking up a bitchin brew made up of Sabbathian and T-Rexian left overs. Howling stuff. https://soundcloud.com/saintagnes/sister-electric
Do quite adore the lazy eyed lying down staring at the sky watching the clouds trip by vibe smoking from this cutely off centred slice of hazily glazed wooziness. Swearing that they must have a loose connection to the once vibrantly ultra-hip Elephant 6 collective of Georgia, Athens (in fact they hail from Stockholm), ‘jelly’ really does sound as though its time tunnelled its way from some lost, now found, overlooked studio tape capturing a recording love in featuring a youthful gathering of Olivia Tremor Control and Of Montreal types crookedly crooning their way through a Pavement homage whilst blissing out on the softly reclined sounds of Thunders and Palladin’s ‘copy cats’. Anyhow this is the latest from Magic Potion via PNKSLM just ahead of the release of their debut album ‘pink gum’ shortly – and it is quite adorable. https://soundcloud.com/pnkslm/magic-potion-jelly
Talking of love in’s which we loosely where just a second ago, here’s something that’s sure to appeal to those of you floppy fringed types still tuned in the early 90’s indie scene. Not sure whose putting this out, chanced upon it as it happens, by accident, following as it did, the previous Magic Potion cut on the sound cloud player. This is Brisbane combo the Creases with the criminally catchy ‘impact’ with an exhilarating slice of coolly cute 60’s fanfare flavoured hip wiggling sassiness that cuts nifty shapes somewhere between the Paris Angels, Jesus Jones and world of twist. https://soundcloud.com/thecreases/impact
Having a nostalgic moment…….gone but never forgotten, flowered up with the ridiculously effervescent ‘it’s on’ from back in the day, try not tapping your foot for the next five minutes, bet ya can’t….
A message from Brian Bordellos drawing our attention to a release we erroneously missed on its initial appearance on RSD, this is, if you like, the more intimate foundation stones of Vukovar (who incidentally will be appearing here in their own right soon with the frankly immense ‘voyeurism’ album through the ever adored Small Bear imprint). A hectic schedule underway for Dan Shea, he who is essentially Neurotic Wreck, with commitments to the aforementioned Vukovar appearing to overshadow and cast his NW project into the back ground, this release comes ahead of two planned outings between now and Autumn time – ‘glow ghosts in subspace’ and ‘sandalphon’ (for Marilyn roxie’s vulpiano small bear imprints respectively). As said previously, thematically in his neurotic wreck persona, Mr Shea traverses a more intimate landscape weaved from hope hushed love notes, wounded affairs of the heart (‘life in sepia’) and an incitement to dream, moreover an open view of a soul exposed at close proximity warts n’ all. ‘priceless bloody priceless’ collects together five melodic arrows, much like a workbook perhaps a diary, as such they are prone to be personal, solitary and courted with lo-fi closeness which in terms of reference markers is navigated upon a song craft spectrum that subtly chimes and rings of Robert Forster. Creatively it provides for a mixed bag wherein the wonderfully minimalist shadow playing chill of ‘when the clocks start to melt’ with its ‘movement’ era New Order isolationism sitting in a direct adversarial path to the impacting full blooded seductively maturing smoker ‘let’s make hate’ which in truth sounds as though it’s been sneaked from the sonic note book of a certain Jon DeRosa – indeed – that classy. Elsewhere prepare to be bruised and drop kicked by the jaw dropped and touching spectral that is ‘lost in cleansing fire’ whose criminally brief fire fly like appearance is kissed with the ghostly intimacy of the Buckley’s Jeff and Tim and just when you think the emotional well is truly emptied and dried the irresistible cruel crush of ‘never learn’ comes to haunt, harrow and hurt the frightened and frail in love’s unforgiving wars with callous calculating devastation. https://neuroticwreck.bandcamp.com/album/priceless-bloody-priceless
More nostalgic trips, this time the quite perfect World of Twist with the wiggy trip-a-delic happening that was the solar flaring ‘sons of the stage’…..
Do love the sound of a well-toned didgeridoo, on this occasion accompanied by an ebow, its eerily earthy primitive tonality accentuated to such a degree that it appears to swathe the listening space in a ghostly ceremonial primordial mist. These are, according to the liner jotting, the initial first sound etchings utilising both instruments by [owt kri] and damn fine too on first listen. https://soundcloud.com/owtkri/study-didgeridoo-ebow
Ah Robert Forster, were we not musing of he just a review or two ago. New record, oh alright we’ll rephrase and elucidate on that, a new single but an old song, I say old, it emerged last year on his ‘songs to play’ album for the Tapete imprint, which unless I’ve since acquired several bangs to the head rendering memory defunct, then disappointingly we must have blinked momentarily as it flew by. ‘love is where it is’ is getting the download only treatment next month, quirky and crooked, a strangely casual affair whose less than obvious immediacy has you imagining the passing of a stranger in the street, who just to be friendly you’ve nodded to in a courteous moment only to find the blighter kicking you up the backside mere seconds later. Such is its delayed infectious punch that even the harmonies bizarrely waiver in out of sync, still it’s engaging, ridiculously off centred and somewhat flighty if not lazy eyed and lolloping as it casually lolls along to a kind of out of step 60’s styled cosmopolitan shuffle trimmed in bossa nova mosaics and a French-y suave, in truth a bit like Leonard Cohen pretending at being Serge Gainsbourg.
Those keen eyed among you might well recall us mentioning the Harrow way back in the midst of time when they appeared courtesy of the digitised Everything is Chemical imprint – a label who’ve somewhat fallen off our radar in recent times – with ‘ringing in the changes’ being if I recall rightly, if not our favourite song / single that year then very much certainly in the top 3. Since then, and much like the aforementioned Everything is Chemical label, we’ve lost touch with respect to recent progress, no doubt feted by the dream popping / chill wave cognoscenti, they’ve recently reappeared in our affections by way of an uber limited – and sold out on pre-order alone (another that we’ll have to source on inflation busting auction sites – ah well) – split lathe seven inch with another ensemble once regular visitors to these pages, Dead Leaf Echo. With its crystalline contouring and vapour waving minimalist sonic facia, ‘dirty minds’ evokes a parallel dream pop re-telling where comes fused the shimmering isolationist purrs of the Cure’s ‘pornography’ with the glacially spectral kiss of the Cocteau Twins ‘garlands’ set to the cold beauty of Pink Industry from out of which a seductive ghost light emerges and fades in a passing moment. Dead Leaf Echo’s ‘Child. Glass. Heart.’ follows a similar sonic trajectory, exerting a less is more dynamic, the detailing is stripped back to the barest of bones, traced in atmospheric poise with its ethereal setting cranked to maxima, its mystical soft psych angel sighs and twinkling shimmers exact a tenderness of touch beguiled in enchantment, mystery and desire. http://moonsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/child-glass-heart-dirty-minds
More waifs and strays we picked up on variously posted updates, these flop fringed cadets hail from Turin which last time we checked was in Italy, they do shoegaze – and damn well it seems if their new EP ‘Spleen’ is anything to judge by. A trio by the name Jambox who excel in the craft of fuzz flared feedback hazed dream draped pop possessed of the crystalline bite of the once celebrated Wilde Club / Creation shoe gaze scene of the late 80’s / early 90’s and here I’m thinking Catherine Wheel and Ride who snow blind the grooving of cuts ‘waikiki 513’ and the muscularly beset ‘from my window’ with the former swoon gliding into ‘jack’ era Moose territories and the latter straying hazily in to the tripping realms of the hookworms. Still for our money we suggest you head over to the parting brace of shots for both ‘fruit salad’ and ‘you are not me’ both come cut in the kind of ear candy swagger that suggests the likes of Sonic Cathedral may call shortly given the first mentioned is adored by a Vacant Lots like aura albeit that’ll be the Vacant Lots plundering at will to cherry pick the best of the Pale Saints back catalogue. https://soundcloud.com/jamboxtheband/sets/spleen-ep
Apologies to all concerned, but we appear to have lost all the informative gubbins about this particular release. Incoming on Eilean records, this is ‘rite de passage’ from a forthcoming set ‘the path’ by saeninvey, with its minimalist mystic tones and eerily cinematic chill it provides for a sparsely brooding primordial atmospheric found swirling from out of a thickening prehistoric fog like some biblical foretelling.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/166685080″>eilean rec. 21 : saenïnvey – rite de passage (06.06.16)</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/mathiasvaneecloo”>M.V / EILEAN REC.</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
According to the liner jottings attaching to this free to download track, the recently re-activated and re-energised Whimsical recorded this originally in 2002 only to dust it down and revisit it again for an album of covers and lost selections from their sonic vault. ‘dagger’ originally by Slowdive where it appeared on their celebrated ‘souvlaki’ set, is here revised with a readily more muscular texturing, that’s not to say it strays any great deal from the original template just that the emotional currency is honed upon, its circular riff radiant spirals casting hushed hypnotic inclines that spray the listening landscape in bruised bitter sweet wells of euphoria that sting all at once to a tear stained mournful framing. The duo’s new album ‘sleep to dream’ is imminent via Saint Marie any day now. https://whimsical1.bandcamp.com/album/brought-to-light
this is the forthcoming Static Caravan gem that you might have caught Phil Pio of 345rpm waxing lyrically about earlier today on the facebook – ultra limited lathe cut release pressed up by hand by the man himself – the return of the Art of the Memory Palace with the celebrated Scottish author James Robertson – for the next nine minute allow your inner self to drift and wander on an altogether ethereally divine trip in search of the eternal question…… . https://soundcloud.com/artofthememorypalace/art-of-the-memory-palace-your-soul-is-not-a-bird
Oh incidentally…..originally mentioned here……. https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/04/21/art-of-the-memory-palace-3/
Tense, taught, touched in the eerie and grace fallen in elegance, arriving soon as an official CD release, alas no vinyl just yet, this is Bear McCreary’s sonic shifting shadow back dropping the survivalist come isolationist paranoia and deceit of JJ Abram’s recent ’10 Cloverfield Lane’ – a clash of titans that see saws to the empirical turbulence of Jerry Goldsmith’s epic soundtracks and the dark noir beauty of Bernard Hermann’s emotion heightening swirling string seductions.
With its murmured tonalities and spectral yearns, there’s a ghostly beauty attaching to the faintly forlorn ethereal dreamscape that is ‘into the sparks’, its weightlessness, pause and poise bathing all in a serene enchantment as though a love noted visitation all framed upon a cavernous haloing that arcs and sighs in demurring formations all the time housed in an orbiting hermetically sealed shelling. It marks a twilight happening perhaps rather more a shared moment maybe a journey embarked upon by a chance meeting between Kramies and Alma Forrer, he providing the delicately drawn sonic ghost lights, she the tenderly fragile and trembling hymnal phrasing. However, for us it’s the acoustic version of the same track that ushered itself into our affections, where the celestial unworldliness of the ‘full version’ is somewhat lassoed and drawn earthbound whereupon the love note coding succulently shimmer with a mystical folk beguilement that hints of a thoughtful lost in the moment Linda Perhacs. https://kramies.bandcamp.com/album/into-the-sparks-by-kramies-alma-forrer
We actually tripped over whilst looking for something entirely different on the web, truth is we were trying to catch up with a little known cult dream pop tape label called Best Kept Secret who we used feature on a regular basis in a former long since gone – including the files – review spot called singled out for the sadly vacated losing today site. Now if the dates are to be believed on the scant liner notes attaching to this, then this may well be wyrd folk before the term wyrd folk was dreamt up by a pencil chewing pre bedroom blog era music scribe before being lifted wholesale by certain quarters of a once fine musical inkie and used and claimed as their own. You know who you are. Anyway we were mooching around on the links and up popped this, recorded in 1987 this is Timothy Gilbert and something of a mystical madrigal entitled ‘come and see’ – initially a cassette release digitised for you listening pleasure by Don Campau who we believe to be a sonic alchemist in his own right as well as a one-time dream pop blogger (whose site features an interview with the best kept secret dudes- hence how we come to be here in the first place), Anyway after a few years spent releasing the occasional limited run tape, Mr Gilbert downed musical tools to follow the circus – an acting career as it happens. ‘come and see’ as mentioned previously was sneaked out in ’87 and certainly comes branded upon the kind of bearded braiding that we feel admirers of Fruits de Mer’s more out there loving cognoscenti might do well to check out – here I’m thinking your Sendelica’s, Earthling Society’s, Cranium Pie’s et al. Okay sure enough some of the arrows might miss their mark / target, but there’s still enough of a free spirited spraying of influences here that might attract the psych folk (‘byron’s dead’ is a close approximation of Paul Roland while ‘lonesome promenade’ hints ever so subtly to the mighty Bevis Frond0. However, fall a little deeper and hints of the nascent NZ noise scene come flickering in and out of view while only a fool would dismiss the obvious influence of Loren Connors casting its lengthening shadow over the creative proceedings. All said there’s some great wigged out moments such as the fracturing ‘babe’ that surely make side 2’s listening a tad hairy and psychos stirred wherein everything from Beefheart, Russell – as in Bruce- to NWW appear to weave and weird their way through the tripped out chin stroking grooves. https://archive.org/details/TimothyGilbertComeAndSee_201601
Another release we happily hooked up to courtesy of Mr Campau’s ‘tape of the month’ section of his living archive site was the acutely fried head trip that the Screaming Popeyes’ ‘save the brain forest’ – follow the links and there’s a back story to the releases recording by one of its co-authors Jeff Olsen that’s as strange and bizarre as the actual sounds manifesting on this rare as hen’s teeth cassette release. We must agree with Campau’s assessment of this having Zappian qualities in so much as there’s a sense of attempting to achieve a filmic theatrical dialogue albeit here as though fed at times through some impish Cardiacs overseen blender for between the overt prog overtures – clearly under the influence of Gong – there are detours into 80’s b-movie psyche that endows the set with distinct moments that have you feeling as though you are in the midst of a Cronenberg trailer, that said there are times of pure perky pop lucidity flashing through the tripped out hallucinogenia, itself nodding to a distantly coming Elephant 6 collective scene whilst ghosting its way through a road crook’d in the nightmaring afterglows of the Beatles’ animated lysergia, throw in some schizoid Devo-esque dialects, trace elements of the ‘remain light’ era Talking Heads not to mention a few dollops of Thomas Dolby albeit rewired by Was (not was) and you have yourself a comfortably numbing though clearly freaked listening treat. https://archive.org/details/ScreaminPopeyesSaveTheBrainforest
Here’s some nifty ear candy acutely cooled in the finest garage soul beat heading out of NYC courtesy of the Mystery Lights. Set for release shortly, their debuting self-titled full length comes grooved and fashioned in a vintage likeness that echoes to elements of the Seeds, Chocolate Watchband and the mighty Wimple Winch not to mention nodding ever so subtly in sonic terms to the retro fuzz hazed swagger of Bad Afro’s considerable roster – see Baby Woodrose. This bad boy peeled from that aforementioned set is titled ‘follow me home’ – a lo-fi glazed strut gouged sassy mamma digged in lysergic trip-a-delics and smoked in soul kissed bliss kisses – the set as said is arriving soon via Daptone sub imprint Wick – fill ya winkle pickers. https://soundcloud.com/wickrecords/the-mystery-lights-follow-me-home
Tempted to wax lyrical about this, but frankly I feel as though I’d fail miserably in doing it justice, so for once we’ll just let the sounds do the talking……immense by the way……this is Charles Bradley…..it will blow you away….,
Sorry but I’m still in vintage mode, been listening to this lot a fair bit these last few days – blame Vukovar – they may be their natural heirs, this oft overlooked silently majestic humbler is ‘lonesome tonight’ which achieved a remarkable feat in our gaff of out playing its quite perfect A side ‘thieves like us’ back in the day mainly for a moment of sonic divinity that stirs at the 2.57 mark where the silken synth swathes softly ascend in celestial formations…
If last year’s debuting ‘emperor’ set by Vukovar was darkly prettified and emblazed in ambition and an acute isolationist chill that see sawed precariously with one foot in the past and its mind, determination and other foot squarely charging to the future, then its follow up screams of an indignation and a coming of age that suggests that those who churlishly ignore them will sooner or later find themselves sitting up, taking note and listening whether that be voluntarily or down to the fact that this lot will be the last band standing. But that you don’t listen is part of the indignation and frustration that finds itself occasionally seething and bleeding to stain the grooves within.
‘voyeurism’ stares intensely, it’s glare locked, a glare so intense in fact you can feel it burrowing and burning into your very psyche. For the best part an album that’s brutally unforgiving in its cold, clinical and cutting sparseness, distracted upon an angular muse, its square peg irregularity refuses to fit your comfort zone round hole categorization, its distractive malaise chimes awkwardly zig zagging across a post punk landscape that skirts to an edgy mix tape indelibly included of a choice littering of ‘heaven up here’ and ‘movement’ moments. That its scabbing and brooding are its charms, its tautness and tenseness of effect are an added bonus.
Destined to be championed and applauded by the underground cognoscenti and no doubt a regular feature on end of year postings – and rightly so – ‘Voyeurism’ is a plentiful field of squirming and snaking sore thumbs which like its debuting elder sibling is quick to the mark in posting its austere intentions with the Left Hand like disquiet of ‘you’re not alone’ opening proceedings before the needling no wave Dadaism of the spidery ‘masterpiece’ makes its first cut and so doing tuning itself into the wiry wavelength of stranger son of WB. Elsewhere cloaked in a shadowy noir, the off-beat nocturnal moocher ‘quiet’ superbly encroaches on Tom Waits terrains, its fracturing unease and jazz toned time signatures are cast of a tongue that wires and glowers with the stricken jazz dinked blues ghosting of an early Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds with a side serving dash of forgotten latter career Bauhaus flips and David J solo oddities not forgetting to mention informed by Terry Edwards’ Sartorial imprint.
The hymnal calm stooping to descend over ‘the fog’ apart from being exquisite, is tortured by the fact that its criminally brief in its duration, goes without saying a lengthier examination is much required, that said from its sketching visitation something attaching to the ghosts of Arab Strap and the very much missed Swimmer One stirs with reflective introspection.
It’s at this point that a sea change occurs in the mood, a fork in the road where this formidable and mercurial collection begins to come into its own. Rightly pared down of hullaballoo and flag waving with both the band and label keeping matters tight lipped and the track leaks to a minimum with just a solitary trailer track ‘the blood garden’ being let out on short term parole. ‘the blood garden’ is equipped in the cool craft of a youthful variant of the Earlies (mentioned in earlier despatches loitering around this site), much like all classic bands in recent memory – the Bunnymen, the Smiths, the Teardrops, the Weddoes and your New Order, in Shea, Vukovar are blessed with a songwriter who has that rare craft of pen to whittle out love songs that hiss and purr of the fatality, the beauty and the rush of affection / adoration – not so much your boy meets girl yarn here, but the underlying chemistry, the explicit open incision revealing its mechanical traits and the resulting emotional euphoria sparked therein. In short a jaw dropper which we suspect that, where by the careful adoption of sleigh bells and some accentuating of the homely harmonics not to mention a yuletide re-appearance into affections that this might just catch the wearisome attention of the most casual curmudgeon Christmas dismissive passer-by and cast the band into the big league. Determined to take you off your new found high, the scabbing deathly blues swing of ‘irreversible’ returns reference wise to the bruising codas of the Bad Seeds, a howling dark mass spiked, spited and gouged in a psychosis shelling garrotted by a withering corkscrewed hackles heightening withering brutality that lunges precariously into youthful Clinic quarters leaving ‘little k’s final reflection’ to pick up the pieces. Just when you thought they’d extracted all the wow there was to find about your person, as the grooves edge ever closer to the end credits they roll out to peel off the covers of the sets best moment, dwelling on Pulp’s dark seduction and prowling with sleaze smoked soul, this monochromatic beauty comes kissed in the spectral echoes of lost moments from a studio cutting of the Pixies ‘doolittle’ to curdle a strangely twisted pop motif that recalls the criminally neglected The Crimea. All said, disturbingly essential.
I’ll stick with my original assessment of the Stone Roses track, agreed like I said, it wasn’t packed with wow but at least it was not the stinker that ‘the second coming’ was, and still is. And really, did you honestly expect a bunch of – how old are they now – in their 50’s – or coming up close, to connect with their former youthful selves. The weight that drags the Stone Roses, is their legacy, that debut full length is still perhaps the finest debut ever, it was perfectly timed and perfectly toned to a degree that it just captured the mood of the time, perfect for any age, it stood alone disconnected and detached from fashion – generic style and of course time. Alas the same cannot be said for its successor, twenty odd years passing has in some respects dimmed the memory of the pitifully out of step and off the mark ‘second coming’ – but only slightly. For a band so on message five years earlier, it was as despondent and as disconnected from that debut as you could get. In defence of the band you could argue that the intervening years had been marred by protracted legal wrangles and a fall out with their guiding producer – John Leckie – in truth though the second album became a monkey on their back, its eventual arrival was tired and revealing of a band labouring beneath the burden of expectancy and a little too casual in their own creativity and ability to connect. So as said, cruise controlled it might be, but ‘all for one’ isn’t the false prophet many have accused it of being. Why am I mentioning all this, well it seems that favoured curmudgeons around these parts, the Bordellos have been so incensed by said singles lack of oomph that they decided to pen a kind of un-homage to it entitled ‘what the world isn’t waiting for’ – a souring and withering glum graced dismissive missive if you like that won’t get them a support slot any day soon on the great Roses money printing tour schedule and really does take to task the whole notion of your idols taking you for granted all typically arched and framed in the biting playfulness of an angst riddled lo-fi-ying slacker toned tuneage deliberately missing its target and going a tad off road on the discordant highway much as though Daniel Johnston had hooked up with a bunch of cool indie loving college kids sporting pooh sticks t-shirts and guided by voices badges, very bitchy but lovable all the same. https://bordellos.bandcamp.com/album/what-the-world-isnt-waiting-for
Initially appearing on a set which we promised to feature at the tail end of last year via Venus Aeon entitled ‘earth’, which, due to all release traffic at the time, got somewhat overlooked (a belated mention may be in the offing – who knows) – this is the mercurial and mysterious sound of Rasplyn. Been an age since last featuring here in these musings, ‘scarlets of the sand’ is possessed of an intoxicating alchemy borne of the gathering sultry haze of mystical imaginings, middle eastern ghost lights and dream draped mirages all set to a cinematic storyboard hushed in the ways of the ancients and pressed upon an alluring sonic tongues whose seduction is phrased in the ethereal and the eerie and whose timeless tapestry revolves ever so subtly in the unworldly realms of Dead Can Dance. Surely a second album is long overdue.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/166080497″>Rasplyn – Scarlets of the Sand</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user10981326″>Rasplyn</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Not sure at present whether this is being prepped as a future release, no matter though for now for what is certain is that this is a most compelling collaboration between John 3:16 and I, Symptom entitled ‘am I nobody’. with the whispering ice formed arrangements kept to a minimalist brief to such an extent in fact that they have the effect of ghosting in and out of consciousness almost dream-like with the existence questioning dialogue seemingly fracturing through the ethereal void casting a solitary and mournful aura to the proceedings that much recalls a more thoughtfully isolated Edward Ka-Spel. https://soundcloud.com/isymptom/i-symptom-john-316-am-i-nobody
The long overdue return of the Eccentronic Research Council with the superbly grim grinning ‘there’s a war on people going on’. This bleak account comes sparsely honed in apocalyptic clockwork chimes that imagine the disturbed future visions of Burgess, Orwell, Bradbury, Moore et al being played out for real by totalitarian governments and corrupting hierarchies masquerading as free democracy whose watchwords are fear, incitement and control. To the solemn grind of the tick tock waking call, Maxine Peake’s withering dialogue is delivered with dead headed humourist disquiet, its withering scorn a solitary dissenting voice in the fog as her disconnected disbelieving droned recital call out its reality check upon those who we entrust to guide our nation’s needs / prosperities. Only this isn’t an imagined bleak future world, this is now (migrants, religious ideology wars, the curbing of free expression). On a lighter note perfect for those attuned to the sounds of Duke St. Workshop and Concretism. https://soundcloud.com/the_e_r_c/theres-a-war-on-people-going-on-eccentronic-research-council-ft-maxine-peake
Now you won’t be altogether too surprised to hear that the press release gubbins that came attached to this strange sortie somewhat managed to wrestle itself free, so while we set about getting you fab information about the whereabouts, wherewithal and all round general happenings surrounding duo Coims we’ll leave you to ponder the merits of ‘the anericam’ – I like that fractured play on ‘the american’. Not quite the old Simple Minds tracks retuned anew, this sore thumb is grimly gloaming amid what sounds for all the world like some primitive funereal retelling. Shunning any means of light, this shadowy curio arches and lunges to a mosaic of free spirited groans brought to bear by the intricate toning of sound manipulations carved of fretted instruments and various percussive objects, through the thickening primordial fog voices of ancient civilisations howl in ceremonial procession, its dark and dark tonalities not I hasten to add your happy shiny Sunday afternoon pick of the pops listening, rather more it should guarantee the quick exit of unwanted household visitors that is assuming that their usual ear candy doesn’t veer in the kind of sonic spectrums that have you imagining elements of a very youthful Black Heart Procession and Set Fire to Flames being choreographed by a particularly impish Blue Sabbath Black Cheer. We should and need to hear more I hear you hark…..all in good time my patient pretties. https://soundcloud.com/grolf-self/coims-the-anericam
Happened across this quite beautiful oddity on a recent rummage around posting sites, one for those much loving of altered timelines and secret villages and places removed from common day realities not to mention founded, or so you would think, straight from the pages of Nigel Kneale or John Wyndham novel. This eerie intermission arrives from sinister setting that is Scarfolk, by way of permission from the town council, secret research tapes have been unearthed and released for public consumption, this being a field recording taken from the stone circle resting site where lie the gathered collection of souvenir artefacts broken up from the standing stone inside of which was mysteriously encased music teacher Mrs Payne. How she came to be there is still to this day a mystery, however the stone was broken up and sold off as trinkets by the name ‘Payne’s pain’. However, even by the unusually strange constitution of the town folk, following numerous reports from patrons who had purchased said ‘gifts’ that they heard ghostly sounds of music in their homes, the items were recalled by way of a local council edict, this being a recording of that music from their new home at the centre of the stone circle. https://soundcloud.com/scarfolk-council/scarfolk-council-the-ghost-of
Further reading / research / holiday bookings….those wishing to find out more about Scarfolk should go to http://scarfolk.blogspot.co.uk/ – happy visiting.
You can expect more polypores happenings around these here pages in the coming days courtesy of a few well-heeled compilation appearances on the quite excellent – and sadly for now – overlooked by us – a year in the country imprint as well as mentions for a new album and a long promised visit on polytechnic youth. For now though this, a quite beautifully disturbing rephrasing of Hole House’s ‘another side of despair’ from their excellent – dare I say – much featured release on the aetheric imprint. This re-visioning draws the original mix from out of its creep fest claustrophobia and repositions it into the kosmiche honed mind altering innards of a hermetically sealed dream machine matrix unto which the ghostly pulsars and the shape shifting spectres spirit about their way deep in the neuron sphere. https://soundcloud.com/polypores/hole-house-another-side-of-despair-polypores-remix
Since we mentioned Concretism earlier we decided to unearth this little gem, mentioned this a little while back in previous dispatches, correctly or incorrectly I’m sure we’ve read that a vinyl artefact is currently being prepped – don’t quote me on that though. This is the rather delightful and dreamy ‘telex ghosts’ – a beautifully lovelorn lunar lullaby demurred in solar spectral lights transmitting love noted opines from the far reaches of the cosmic realm all prettily stationed upon a pirouetting ice crystal trimmed carousel allured in murmur toning mosaics drawn from lost fort dax and isan echoes. https://soundcloud.com/concretism/telex-ghosts?in=concretism%2Fsets%2Fplacespast
Here’s a spot of essential ear gear from the ever loved small bear imprint, the post punk psych purred happening that is ‘sonic rabbit hole’ by reptilians from Andromeda which we strongly recommend you get your lobes around at your earliest convenience not least because these folk culture an ice cooled chic that shimmers to an echoing of Banshees, strawberry switchblade, kull and native hipsters types as lead out track ‘physic girl’ so indelibly proves…..
In case you missed our original mention of this killer set……then go here….. https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/reptilians-from-andromeda/
A message from Chris Concretism to say that ‘telex ghosts’ is in fact the opening cut of a forthcoming vinyl offering. More pressing though is that typical of these things, trip over one concretism cut and another falls out of the sonic woodwork, this would you believe has been made available as a free download and deemed by its author as ‘not fitting in with the overall theme’ of the new album. ‘filia diaboli’ may well be his most realised outing to date in so much as it succinctly manages to draw on an ever widening spectrum of reference markers that range principally from the shadowy wastelands of 80’s sci-fi-tronia to apply a rapture like cosmidelic palette traced in lushly layered symphonian prog overtures and krautrock ghost lights that whisper and weave meticulously with impacting surround sound cinematics across micro sonic universes once frequented by the likes of Tangerine Dream, Jarre, Zombi, fortdax and Magnetaphone. https://soundcloud.com/concretism/filia-diaboli
a few little treats from the art of the memory palace as we patiently countdown to release date of their ultra-limited static caravan issued lathe cut – see previous links dotted around here for further info……first up a short video of master lathe cutter supreme Phil Pio pressing up said release – all hand crafted individually don’t you know – after that the hitherto previously unheard – at least I’m sure we haven’t heard it thus far – ‘happy Finnish remix’ of Sun-blinded Memory Capsule Haze – words fail – just sublime, slinky and damn sexy – a euphoria spraying shape morphing cosmic mind trip to a place where mid 70’s electro dance docks with vintage era kosmiche – the closest thing to heaven in pop right now if that is you don’t count the forthcoming release…….
Fancy something a little crooked and kooky, yet disarming and hopelessly adorable. This is Mandy and a teaser track – well two as it happens – peeled from their forthcoming ‘universe’ full length. Beneath the hazily lazy eyed innocence of these little nuggets, a tragic tale tearfully tugs away in the shadows for ‘universe’ is a posthumous account by duo Mel and Andy Fung recorded and completed in the lead up to Mel’s tragic passing from cancer in 2014. Rather than an epitaph, ‘universe’ is a celebration of a lost creative spirit for ‘for now’ dreamily decamps dazed and demurred upon a magical pea green boat trippily serenaded by a blissfully serene Discordia and captained by a youthful Toshack Highway all adrift and venturing to the mystical lands of Summerisle. Comes trimmed in a floaty folk effervescence that coos and yawns from a secret unseen lair located somewhere between Lisa O Piu and Laura J Martin all sumptuously wood carved, radiant and lolloping to a lineage that strays and steers its way to memories of the much missed Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci. ‘Angela’ on the other hand is a totally differing beast, the first single taken from the album, is graced with a softly psych tweaked vintage fuzzy folk toning that curiously zig zags and orbits out of step and off pace as though a three way gathering of classic era Curved Air, Renaissance and Circulus types – indeed a very special release. Available via the bubblewrap collective. Artwork incidentally by Pete Fowler as though you needed further prods.
https://soundcloud.com/bubblewrapcollective/for-now
https://soundcloud.com/bubblewrapcollective/mandy-angela
imminent happening on polytechnic youth, a select gathering of out of print releases pressed upon twelve heavy duty inches of wax featuring a previously unreleased Detox Twins visitation along with side introducing in house idents – the set entitled ‘they make no say’ incidentally features both sides of PY1 and PY4 – those elusive outings from Volume Groop and Groupuscule. However, here’s a little dandy – mentioned in earlier despatches – that curiously missed the final cut….
Again we’ve lost the press release / information type gubbins that was posted to accompany this, something or other to do with a suite cobbled and crafted together several months ago by a certain Scott Causer of northern star records fame, this track in particular the theme for a forthcoming animated movie titled ‘space odyssey 2020’. Quite lovely to, all calming swathes of oceanic tidal formations and cosmic sprays attaining a kind of stately majesty that’s all at once simple, sparse and seductively dreamy whilst all framed upon a softly silken kosmiche kissed panoramic poise. https://soundcloud.com/northernstarrecords/theme-from-space-odyssey-2020-scott-causer
Leave the sound cloud link where you found Scott Causer’s previously mentioned ‘space odyssey 2020’ doing all things becalming and beguiled to tune into the Cult of Free Love’s rather mesmeric slice of third eye inducing enlightenment that is Guru Lover’s re-teaching of ‘love is all there is’ – by our reckoning a mind morphing mosaic tuned into the hypno grooving wavelength of the mighty Astralasia albeit that’ll be Astralasia on some mystical eastern retreat with Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart and a couple of Paterson and Cauty disciples along for the ride. Trippy and far, far out. https://soundcloud.com/thecultoffreelove/the-cult-of-free-love-love-is-all-there-is-guru-lover-remix
elegant and elegiac are descriptions so freely handed out these days that they somewhat lose a little in their meaning. Yet conversely, applied to Antonymes, they somewhat falter and fall short in truly unmasking or rather more, getting to the nub, of the eloquence and sensitivity of expression at play within his compositional craft. Tendered in a delicacy of touch and a sparseness of detail, the result of such a communion is far from slight and light, but fulsome and lush, ‘delicate power’ lifted from his recently released set for hidden shoal entitled ‘(for now we see) through a glass dimly’ is title alone very revealing of this. For here it’s were the coalescing calm of a pausing moment of isolation breathes a reflective sigh to mourn, romance and contemplate in solitude all the time its tenderness and poise tempered in symphonic gestures that backwardly glance to a timeless toning of tongue. As said the track heads up a new EP titled ‘delicate power (in the hands of others)’ that features reworked interpretations by Markus Mehr, Lymark and Marconi Union. https://soundcloud.com/hidden_shoal/antonymes-delicate-power
New through rocket a by all accounts dandy split 12 inch that pairs together Josefin Ohrn and the Liberation with Gnoomes in a psyched out face off with each mixing the other into the bargain, this being the locked grooving hyperdelic frontal lobe frying ‘take me beyond’ of the former as recalibrated by the latter, all bliss blown deeply dug cosmic psych funk tripped in meaty motorik pulsars and celestial waveforms all hypnotically honed to ensure that your mind is well and truly wiped clean leaving you wondering in its aftermath what, why, where and who you are as you troop along happy as a sand boy. Take it from us that prolonged exposure may alter realities, hell’s teeth we’ve played the blighter twice on the trot and we’re already forgetting what…..hang on what were we talking about again….. https://soundcloud.com/rocket-recordings/03-josefin-ohrn-the-liberation-take-me-beyond-gnoomes-remix
Pulled from their quite bewitching ‘Madrid’ EP debut via the perfectly formed trout imprint, this is the sets title track now adorned with its own visuals, in short a waltzing ghost light, very alluring by our reckoning….
Heading its way to these pages, probably later in the week, a new thing from isobel ccircle – who in case you don’t know are April Larson and Matt Bowers from Wizards tell Lies fame, out now via Arell, this is the promo trailer for the intensely eerie and mournfully beautiful ‘lullaby of the drowned’…..
time for a quick spot of toe dipping, those of you with lengthy memories might well recall us mentioning earlier volumes of this hugely essential series a few years back, well after a short hiatus Volume 8 of ‘Bedroom Cassette Masters 1980 – 89’ is about us. A hulking gathering of talent set across 27 tracks featuring rare moves by the likes of the pulselovers carrillion
Anton Barbeau channelling the spirit of Classic Nouveaux’s Sal Solo atop B-Movie synth flashings
Such a simple idea, can’t think of why they haven’t thus far collided on record previously. The first of two featured Numan collaborations where the common theme that becomes apparent is that these days, sit Numan anywhere near a recording console and immediately the mix becomes moulded in his likeness. Featured on a new retrospective by John Foxx and the Maths (Benge) entitled ‘21st c: a man, a woman and a city’ through metamatic, a new track ‘talk (are you listening to me?)’ finds the electronic worlds of these two icons colliding. Summoned up from a darker and more shadowy place than the most die-hard Foxx disciples are accustomed, built upon an eerily bleak stillness Benge’s micro minimalist glitch glared touch is apparent in the creating of the ghost light fracturing futuro vision fissures that ripple and rupture the realities to greet the opening moments. Its solitary toning only broken at the 2.02 mark where matters unexpectedly shape shift with a future echoing spectral Numan whispering from out of the void atop a vintage sounding sonic clash that to these ears appears cross wired of the DNA’s of both ‘the pleasure principle’ and ‘telekon’ moulding and forging a stirring post-apocalyptic future telling arabesque. https://soundcloud.com/metamatic-records/john-foxx-and-the-maths-featuring-gary-numan-talk-are-you-listening-to-me
‘here for you’ can be found on Jean Michel Jarre’s second ‘volume of his extensive ‘electronica’ series; a superb collection of releases that finds Jarre a central figure joining the dots and celebrating, as were, the beauty and variance of sonic styles by reaching out to some of the most celebrated players on the electronic sound spectrum from across the ages. the project, an involved labour of love, avoiding the mere simplicity of file sharing, Jarre’s keynote remit was to meet in person his collaborators and forge a true and real creative understanding. The real success of the ‘electronica’ project has been Jarre’s ability to connect, assimilate and set his opposite number a familiar sonic landscape whose orbit is tilted as such that new hybrid worlds are forged that locate the players ever so slightly out-side of their comfort zone. ‘here for you’ his collaboration with Numan plays to his opposites strength in so much as it taps into Numan’s want for rebranding and revisiting his classic era trilogy – ‘replicas’, ‘the pleasure principle’ and ‘telekon’ – dragging them from the late 70’s and early 80’s hinterland and upgrading them so that they fluently speak in the same sonic tongue as that of his his latter day industrial toned dystopian recordings. And so with ‘here for you’ are found the current day Numan blueprints and recurring themes – salvation and redemption – here re-forged from 80’s motifs Jarre cleverly relocates Numan now with all the spectral ice toned trappings face to face with the isolationist Numan then.
A short article in the Guardian – with an openly honest Jarre discussing the project and his career, quite insightful…..
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/oct/15/jean-michel-jarre-all-people-new-album-geeks
And finally. One of the annoying, okay disappointing aspects for us personally, resulting from the recent Record Store Day hullabaloo, was our pitiful failure in tracking down a copy of the limited 7 inch featuring Jean Michel Jarre’s collaboration with Edward Snowden. Again featured on Jarre’s second ‘electronica’ set, ‘Exit’ is a remarkable connection to the modern day symptom that is telling of an artist who at the age of 67 is still pushing the envelope and proving to be a vital forward thinking visionary, a socio – political commentary that centres and concerns itself with issues relating to personal liberties / privacy, the balance between what the state has a right to know and what the individual chooses to freely give up, surveillance and the overarching cloak of Big Brother that weighs freedoms against ease of access in a technological age. The floor thumping ‘exit’ is a street level buttoned up binary scrambling technoid head kick that translates into its matrix the speedy hysteria of the information highway and subsumes it into a ravenous call response overload that conversely plays out to classic era gaming principles, the time poor rush of modern day life and high octane espionage chase motifs, all the time like a spider at the centre of a web channelling the vibrations, the omnipresent droning pulse of a hive mind silently stirs.
Those of a dream pop persuasion might do well to hook up to a rather seductive and sublime set cobbled together by the folks at dream pop and shoe gaze daily at least that who we think it is. A delightful smattering of dream draped odyssey’s and hook laden power pop fuzziness is the order of the day on this 15 track bliss away mix tape. Among the roll call a veritable feast of grooves from the panic attacking siren sounding strut cooled call to arms cool kissed euphoric rush of Rhinosarepeopletoo whose ‘abbadon’ is a desirably affecting gem to the Stargazer Lillies drop dead gorgeous garage pop grooved lysergic hit that is ‘when with you’ – a kind of uber cooled dream ticket face-off between Kull and the Heart Throbs. Elsewhere there’s no denying that Swotlab have a fanciable attraction to all things My Bloody Valentine as evidenced on their rather dandy demo cut ‘you look so pale’ all of which should by rights have those still fondly mourning the passing of the Insect Guide skipping a heartbeat or three. Somewhere else there’s the shape cutting starry eyed space pop surge of Star Blood’s interstellar hyper voyaging ‘flower girl’ freefalling into the lunar lairs of the Fly and Slipstream while we here must admit to being mildly smitten by the vapour trailing chime chilled orbital that is the lovelorn rapture ‘infinite sunsets’ by the pink elephants while the dead mantras set parting ‘holy dawn’ initially acquits itself to sound as though it’s been cut from the same haloing murmur toning crush as that found loitering about releases bearing the name Dark Captain Light Captain before abruptly terra forming into a formidably radiant sonic storm to impact like a scalding variant of the Chameleons. Lest we forget the emerald down whose crystalline ‘caught a wave’ blissfully adores with forlorn fashioning that imagines some previously secret studio summit meeting between Chapterhouse and Slowdive. Presents for Sally – due to appear here later in the week with what promises to be a lilting listening treat in the shape of a split with 93millionmilesfromthesun via wrong way records – that is assuming we find the links – anyhow for now and from that aforementioned set comes ‘perfume boat’ – a deeply mellowing beauty trimmed and haloed in the softly bathed reflective swath of silvery shimmers of euphoric opines cosy toed upon seafaring trembles all bitter sweetly caressed and mournfully tugged and awash in the hazy rubbing of a post Hood Declining Winter in collusion with the Field Mice. https://soundcloud.com/dean-bromley/sets/shoegaze-dreampop-psych
If we were to say – Broadcast, Soundcarriers, le super homard, beautify junkyards and lake ruth – then I think you might guess where we are going with this. This is the galaxy electric with a cut pulled from their self-released ‘everything is light and sound’ set entitled ‘temporal’, a psychedelically hued dream tipping ethereal 60’s echo, a sonic séance if you must, connecting and grooving to a kaleidoscopic era artfully graced in a chic cosmopolitan crush whose free spirited axis tilts with a fond innocence dappled in west coast colourings and yet arrives dazed in a sense of unworldly mystery and futurist space age visions whilst teased in a hazy haloing of vintage woozily wired synth paraphernalia. Quite gorgeous if you ask me. https://soundcloud.com/noisyghostpr/the-galaxy-electric-temporal
Another release that’s been furiously adoring about in our sound space since appearing on our radar yesterday evening is this quite affectionately infectious four track treat from Pale Lights who I’m prone to adamantly swear we’ve featured in passing in previous postings, yet can we find the relevant credits. What we love about the ‘séance for something’ EP is that it appears to be singing from a different musical sheet from everyone else, at its core a smoking cool craft hued in hushed harmonies, the delicate deft ghosting of melodies fermented in a breezy countrified vintage and an ear candy radiance that nods to a song writing golden age. Peppered here in the honeycombed alchemy amid the sun fried chime of jangling riff chimes caresses an oddly familiar and timeless turn of pop phrasing that sparkles with subtle 60’s overtones that are bubble grooved in the feint likeness of MOR dialects and the subtle flash of soft psych washes evidence of such indelibly book ended by the opening ‘mother cries’ and the closing ‘sweetheart’ – the former draped and drenched in an effervescent west coast visioning all breezily purred in Byrds-esque motifs coolly kissed in Will Sergeant styled riff opines, the latter a Meek-esque strut cut beauty refined and flavoured in twanging flotillas that shimmer tones and echoes to the Pirates and Del Shannon. Elsewhere there’s the mournful ‘alone in this room’ that’s guaranteed to tug the heart strings spun as it is by the same mercurial out of step grooving of Rob Clarke and the Wooltones. All said favoured moment of the set is the Shannon-esque ‘girl in the park’ as it cuts to the quick tempered by smoking cool country purrs and the quivering glare of ghosting gunslingers shot down by the arrow of love. http://palelights.bandcamp.com/album/s-ance-for-something-ep
It’s fair to say that the forthcoming twin track from Hologram Teen through the happy robots imprint, incidentally dusted in a 300 only pink wax edition, isn’t quite equipped with the immediacy of her debuting Deep Distance offering from the tail end of last year. Yet while you might initially raise an eyebrow to this, there’s no escaping the fact that its cut so insidiously kooky and infectious, that you don’t immediately realise that just while you’ve been put under siege by its fried electro powerhouse motifs, that its managed to blind side you taking up residence in your headspace into the bargain decorating the gaff in vividly vibrant fluorescent swirly collages that impishly reveal differently with each passing glance, whereupon its delayed aftershocks only surface in an unguarded moment when you find yourself disturbed by its pinball ricochets pinging furiously within the grey matter. Hologram Teen, for the uninitiated among you, is the alter ego of former Stereolab-er Morgane Lhote who on occasion has come to describe her sound as techno krautrock citing motorik pop, 70’s horror, space prog and disco as its keynote drivers. Ridiculously trippy ‘Marsangst’ is an 80’s adoring Balearic binary bop pill that harvests elements of Moroder, Yello, Tom Tom Club and forgotten rapscallions the Cuban Boys into its thirsty mainframe and shocks them through the club cool grooving of an Arthur Baker terra-forming tumble dryer only to drop them into the surreally playful funk fused Dadaist dimpled game world of Nintendo and Game Boy all observed and mind controlled, as were, by the omnipresent hard wired hive mind of a ‘tour de France’ era Kraftwerk. Admittedly, for what it’s worth, our favoured side is the flip where looms ‘hex these rules’ which by rights should prove something of a Festival fanfare for the coming summer season and, unless our ears do deceive, takes its core ground template from a subtle toning of Ryan Paris’ 80’s hit ‘la dolce vita’ as it deliriously mutates across a shape shifting sound board that courts and chimes to the funk struck hybridisation of Agents aren’t Aeroplanes, classic era ZTT, Air and John Lurie and sumptuously distils said gathering into a subtle psychotropic lunar located floor thumping solar Studio 54 setting with a particularly playful Add N to X furiously scrambling about doing naughty things to the sound decks.
Isn’t this quite gorgeous, be honest if you tried to dream up in your mind’s ear the kind of sound that would hatch from a studio meeting between Broadcast and Stereolab, then I’m betting it wouldn’t be far off this quite beautifully ethereal gem. This is Wonder Room as re-phrased by the listening center with a track titled ‘little secret’ – pure sonic seduction delicately demurred and disconnected in an outer worldly haloing of 60’s mirages, celestial whispers and tripping weaves of woozy flotillas all wrapped in a beguiling star kissed symphonic euphoria. I’ve a feeling you’ll be hearing more of this lot in the coming months. https://soundcloud.com/wonderroom/little-secret-listening-center-remix
We were actually forwarded this with, what we suspect, was a degree of cautious air that it might be a ‘little too poppy’ for our palette. How little they know us. Agreeably crooked, slightly off road and oddly affecting, this is Foxtales with a track taken from a forthcoming self-entitled EP, this being the weirdly wonderful ‘Spider’. Leaving aside the sparse toning, the back to basics huddled around the campfire wood crafting and the overall resistance to melodic meter, ‘spider’ emerges from a rarefied sonic hidey hole whereupon if you’re quietly patient you might well encounter the shy eyed lair of Laura J Martin and Serafina Steer, it’s psych folk folly trimming made up of a dandified gathering of flea market instruments all chimed, tuned and turned to the craft of daintily dimpled village green fancies whose kooky strangeness is outweighed by its flighty fairy like enchantment.
And just to proof that this lot are equally likely to bite as they are to coo and charm here’s some footage ripped from an appearance at Manchester’s Castle Hotel last October proving adeptly that they can rumble, wire out and flip psych wigs with the best of them with this killer swamp dragged slab of shadowy soul psych blues…….
Essential listening time, one album eagerly anticipated around these here parts is the debuting full length from Lake Ruth through Great Pop Supplement entitled ‘actual entity’. Two well-heeled singles under their collective belts (one physical and one a free download), ‘the only one I know’ have been sent forth as a teaser taster as to what’s coming in terms of record store counter swoon. Bitter sweetly surfing a coalescing wave whose scatter gun reverb struts and forlorn faraway coos of Allison Brice trace an uber cooled lineage that counts and threads the likes of the Soundcarriers, the Manhattan Love Suicides, Belle and Sebastian and Double Francoise into its radiantly shying sunny 60’s tapestry with a subtle kiss of the Byrds for added impact. https://soundcloud.com/lakeruth/the-only-one-who-knows?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=https%3A%2F%2Fsoundcloud.com%2Flakeruth%2Fthe-only-one-who-knows
I’ll openly admit that this wasn’t planned or intentionally prepped for review, yet the blighter kept popping up on the sound cloud player and well, we’ve kind of grown very fond of it. This is ‘fayre’ by Dundee quintet Sinderins who on the evidence of this nugget appear adeptly artful in the craft of timeless tuneage whose archaic tongue speaks through the ages for this should appeal to those admiring of releases populating the esteemed Rise Above imprint whilst simultaneously crooking a nod to the extended family of hobby horse / rif mountain as was, in short a jubilant reverie of consuming earthy village green progressive folk pageantry which unless our ear lobes do deceive, sounds not unlike a tree shaded gathering of Rush and Jethro Tull types. https://soundcloud.com/sinderins/fayre-1
Third mention in as many days, couldn’t let this get away without a mention for Concretism has just posted a mammoth 57 track compilation on sound cloud entitled ‘places past’ comprised of recordings both familiar and found from 2010 to 2015, and well us being the awkward souls we are, have opted to single out the track with the least listening number – 429 last time we checked – ‘a moment’. An ever so brief moment of wave forming reflection that manages to unhook itself from the trademark cold war caricature’s and drift into the ethereal echelons adorned in a graceful flickering of majestic mournfulness and serene poise whose tenderly torn tempering and cavernously stately standing manages to build invisible sonic bridges between Vangelis and the regulars of an early Kranky imprint back catalogue. Simply put, tearful. https://soundcloud.com/concretism/sets/placespast
Call it a lazy moment, but we were trying to unearth our review of ‘1612 underture’ with which to post alongside this, distressingly though it appears to have disappeared – spooky eh….so instead – just cos we are like that – this is a quite hard to find outing by the Eccentronic Research Council featuring Maxine Peake with pye corner audio on t’other side that we mentioned many moons ago……oh and the accompanying video is the quite stunning ‘1612 underture’ in full……well worth a revisit me thinks…….
https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2013/09/18/eccentronic-research-council/
oh and they’ve disabled the embedded codes so you’ll have to do the copy and paste old school type thing…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgeU1OPJjjc
annoyingly there are just 5 copies of this, all heavy duty lathe cut treats pressed by the hand of 3.45 rpm dude Phil Pio, disturbingly – the blighters have all gone which is a shame really because this is a bit of a dandy. Hailing from Bristol, this is Son of Sentinel and ‘hannetts plannett’ and ‘fully’ which arrives loosely described as ‘experimental grime hip hop’ – now without getting into a bun fight our ears do detect a kind of ziggy zaggy minimalist funk bomb that might well perfectly compliment the forthcoming Hologram Teen release – more of which a little later – for the lunar bleep ‘hannetts plannett’ appears to skittishly navigate forgotten terrains once populated by Herbie Hancock, albeit that’ll be the maestro in a tussling head lock with a tri-party tag team made up of squarepusher, wagon Christ and aphex types all refereed by Arthur Baker. ‘fully’ over on the flip is an altogether more considered affair all noodling jazz dialects and strange beard forming blissed out woozy flotillas that we did suspect on first hearing was the result of a mind fried 70’s chemical flashback. I think the word we are looking for is er…groovy. http://universalmagneticradio.bandcamp.com/album/hannetts-plannett-fully
eyed this over on the moonbloom site and thought of you dear music lover. A little something from a few years ago entitled ‘persephone’ which superbly channels that whole late 80’s New Zealand noise scene – and here I’m thinking principally of Bruce Russell and Roy Montgomery with the stray essences of the much talented Loren Connors populating its sonic signatures.
You’ll have to forgive my little indulgences, but this track crept up on me today while the Spotify player was set to shuffle, immediately it’s my teen self speaking to me in disappointing tones while lying sprawled across the floor doodling fantasy album covers and never to be seen music fanzines. There was so much hope, it was the beginning, the journey now is in its final straight, there’s a sense of overwhelming. This is ‘statues’ from ‘Organisation’ an album by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark worthy of not only revisiting, but being held up as a true classic that aside being adored in a bleakly sparse ambient beauty was hushed in the fragile whispering of emotional aftermaths and regret, apologies for the video, which totally misses the point and somewhat ruins the majesty and message, what next Elvis doing ‘hot dog’ with a mosaic of hotdogs from around the world, ooops they did that in the film didn’t they.
Oft overlooked and underrated, The House of Love headed a list of a select number of bands that had us feverishly returning to the independent record stores following a short period of vinyl buying abstinence borne out of a boredom of the 80’s and a general stagnating malaise and market engineering that haunted the music market as a whole. A special breed, the house of love slipstreamed between the generic settings, call it aloofly, in reality is was coolly, detached from easy pop parcelling, indelibly iced with a 60’s shading and appreciably torn in a graceful crystalline majesty, their shimmer toning craft emotionally close, naked and prone to turbulence often scratched beneath the surface gloss of love and it wasn’t always pretty, it stung like hell – see ‘blind’ and ‘the loneliest girl in the world’. Brazil’s persistently wonderful the blog that celebrates itself have seen fit to gather a collection of souls to pay homage to this wilfully uncelebrated ensemble in the shape of ‘soft as fire in the house of love’. As ever time constraints deny full investigation, if we remember, there’ll be further visits in the coming days. Alas no ‘the loneliest girl in the world’ cover, a shame, though instead a truly stirring rendition of ‘blind’ by appeal to heaven’ who hoist the original’s hurtful wide open vulnerability into pacier pastures and daub upon it what is by its close a jubilant sense of hymnal celebration. ‘Christine’ appears twice courtesy of citrus clouds and 93millionmilesfromthesun, the former staying pristinely faithful to the original’s shade adorning haloes whilst simultaneously drenching it in a lysergic lacing of vapour trailing surges while the latter endow the proceedings with all manner of bliss kissed psychedelicised hazes that to an extent anchor to a trip-a-phonic toning not unlike that of Ultra Vivid Scene in a head lock with John Moore’s Expressway. Elsewhere sneaking out of the Small Bear records house Postcode gouge ‘crush me’ in a shadowy psych prog refitting whose heavily set riff snarls and disconnecting waywardness would, had we not known, had us thinking that this retooling was the work of Bickers’ post HOL combo Levitation in cahoots with Richard Green’s Somatics. On a final note for this particular mention, we suggest you also seek out Dulce Sky’s take on ‘yer eyes’ one of the great lost killer cuts from the Chadwick et al canon, here seduced and set to the kind of spectral stateliness that admirers of the Church will be all too familiar with. http://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/va-soft-as-fire-in-the-house-of-love
All the way from our favourite Indonesian imprint, not a hard honour to behold I should point out, given they are probably the only label out there who bother to reach out to us, a shame really because its location that’s bustling with sonic activity – notably of a shoegaze type. Anyhow before we go off road and forget what we were talking about, this is the latest from the Gerpfast Kolektif who despite several mentions in recent times, still seem a little reluctant and tight on actually sending complete downloads when requested, this being a split offering that collects both i and China’s plant cell on opposite sides of the grooves, the set entitled er – imaginatively – ‘split album’ features four gems apiece from the gathering players. Again time poor constraints mean we settle upon one nugget each with I’s choice picking being the mellowing and dreamy post rock-ian seduction that is the opening sweetie ‘dancing stargazer in the middle of warfare’. Bathed in luxuriant waves of stratospheric blissed out euphoria there’s something here that chimes with the reflective melancholia of an at the height of their powers Workhouse in so much as the eye or should that be ear for arcing orchestrations that in the passing of momentary phrasing surge through the gears from opining flotillas to high velocity showers of celestial radiance. Irresistibly mellowed and prone to dream dazed rapture fractures – in short – adoring. As to plant cell, it’s the heaviest of the quartet that arrested us for the parting ‘the end of winter and luculia’ arrives hazily glazed as a beautified star crushed vision whose caressing tonalities demur and dazzle with a dream pop vibrancy which to these ears had us imagining a secret sonic happening between bang bang machine and MBV. http://gerpfastkolektif.bandcamp.com/album/split-album-4
Sunday May 29th marks the gathering of the psych prog clans, the first of the season’s celebrated all dayer’s curated by the esteemed Fruits de Mer sees them morphing musical minds with the ridiculously cool Mega Dodo folk for a feasting gala of sound, sights, records and rarities not to mention the now legendary goodie bag. Attending this happening, incidentally with live performances from Sendelica, Magic Bus, Soft Hearted Scientists and the Honey Pot, gets you a gratis copy of a DVD games for May 4-disc box inside of which you’ll find an ‘introduction to’ CD apiece dedicated to each of the bands doing strange seduction on the stage, the first of which up for a mention here comes courtesy of the Magic Bus. Magic Bus clearly grew up pawing copies of Terrascope whilst rooting through the Freak Emporium mail outs in the 90’s and ordering in a strange sonic soiree of eye swirling fringe flopping grooves and no doubt found skulking in the school music room cobbling out all manner of wonky weirdness to which masters and tutors alike might well tut and hold up as an example as to how not to play whilst secretly stroking their chin in admiration. For their craft is a multi-faceted tapestry morphing through the sonic seasons all indelibly rubbed in what are essentially fairy folk fancies daubed in mind altering mosaics procured from progressive witlings, bearded jazz recitals, psychotropically floral mystics and hazily glazed tripped out soft psychedelics left out a little too long in the west coast sun so that they warp and bleach to form crookedly kooky theatrical freak outs. Likely to appeal in equal measure to admirers of Jethro tull, focus and gong as they are to circulus, the zombies, murmurs of Irma and giant paw, magic bus sit in a delightful secret spot still, one imagines, wired and zonked out after a ride on Ken Kesey’s celebrated ‘magic bus’ – now do you begin to connect the dots. Upon this CD you’ll be greeted, serenaded and no doubt wig flipped to six faraway follies fancied and flowing in a surreal timeless rustic airiness all prized from their two acclaimed full lengths ‘magic bus’ and ‘transmission from sogmore’s garden’ along with two exclusive previously unreleased live recordings of ‘three days’ and ‘holy road’. Freakily fried head music in short.
Here’s a track they issued as a single via fruits de mer a little while back, alas not on the CD …..
No sooner do we fondly despatch the forthcoming killer grooved Go!Zilla 7 inch that those acutely cool dudes over at Stolen Body records prep and prime another to die for nugget. ‘not everyone’ is something of a twang toned teaser heralding the July pencilled ‘stranger’ full length by Os Noctambulus, a dust ravaged slice of shade adorning shadow shimmered 60’s garage soul psyche coolly cut and fashioned in an authentic monochrome vintage that suggests it being a recently unearthed vault find from the mid 60’s all spirited upon a hazy ghosting of psych tipped keys and rumbling riffs upon whose shoulder sits Joe Meek whilst all in all imagining an all-star pairing of the Devastations and Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet putting to the spectral sonic sword the combined back catalogue of the Animals and the Misunderstood – only cool kids need apply.
Sleazed in a glam gouged fracturing, there’s something irresistibly dirty, decadent and disfiguring about Ty Segall’s ‘breakfast eggs’ as it pulses lustfully to a frazzled cocktailing of fuzzed out discordance and scuzzed up scalping riffs that struts, pouts and stalks like an impishly twisted and warping Bolan / Genesis Breyer P-Orridge hybrid.
Back with that Games for May goody bag – available at the forthcoming all dayer at the Half Moon in Putney this Sunday. Sendelica are in need of no introductions here, these cerebral psychedelicists love to play with your headspace, they are the full shilling in mind altering immersive groove drawing elements of space rock, motorik pop, prog, psych, ambience, cosmic dub and weird folk into their terraforming tapestry. A very special head tripping happening here with ‘project M (a consterdine re-imagined trip through time and space – the Sendelica megamix)’ – like it says on the tin lid an astral magic carpet ride into the very centre of the Sendelica hive mind, where the worlds of Ozric Tentacles, Magic Mushroom Band, Embryo and Hillage / Gong converge into a hulking bliss tripped odyssey that drops in and out of consciousness as the sounds plucked from their vast genre defying 10 year back catalogue dissipate, dissolve and disappear into the gaseous ether though not before colouring and tweaking your synapses in a heightening state of free spirited fringe flipping fluorescent far out fashioning. So for the next 52 minutes expect perceptions and realities to bend, blur and bow amid a blossoming bliss traced cornucopia of chill waving wooziness that invites you to switch off the phone, disconnect from the now, hook up your headphones, crank up the volume, buckle in and ready yourself for a lushly technicolour trip into the unchartered terrains of your inner head space to explore the ultimate dream space with the added promise of the experience out chilling even the Floyd at their most stoned. Beards are an optional extra.
In sound and visioning….
A little selection of tunes to get you through the day…..
The myrrors
Lumerians
Lamp of the universe
The cosmic dead
Nouvelle vague
Pulled this from a posting via Ian Hazeldine, better known to the music fraternity as Antonymes, and a good job to because this is bruising at its most beautiful and betraying. Alas sold out of its physical pressing, this is Glacis, the collective alter ego for Euan Alexander Millar-McMeekan and Ed Hamilton. ‘the world is a little lonelier without you’ concentrates itself on the moods, the feelings and the slowing of time following the period from his (Euan’s) father’s death to his funeral. Evoking the lengthening spectrum between celebration and finality it sublimely yet, hurtfully captures the volatile range of feelings one encounters when faced with such a close loss – the ache, the fondness, the regret and the happy reflections rush forth unguarded without invitation with the classicist melodies engaging to a brittle phrasing paused between the tender and the turbulent as the floodgates of the celestial epiphanies bend, break and fracture to the howling sense of helplessness and hopelessness. All said a most moving parting celebration cut to an arresting tear stained quick. https://soundcloud.com/fluid-radio/glacis-from-one-room-to-another-so-you-leave-me-now
And back with Hole House, following our unearthing of a Polypores remix of ‘the other side of despair’ we now manage to happily trip across April Larson (‘lullaby of the drowned’ write up’s coming soon folks) applying her own interpretation on the happenings within the eerily abandoned former VHS rental shop with the ‘mildew mix’. If polypores’ phrasings were seen to take the events into lighter terrains, then Ms Larson runs them back in the opposite direction to the safe refuge of their unholy shadowlands, both dark and ominous ‘mildew’ sucks out the light and suffocates all in a despairing tension whose supernatural eeriness is knocked up several notches decamping your listening space in the kind of chilling isolation whose sound motifs glower menacingly from the dark side of Mount Vernon Art Lab’s ‘the séance at hobs lane’. https://soundcloud.com/april-larson/the-other-side-of-despair-mildew-mix-for-aetheric-records
We really do need to hear more groove from the Russian Federation around these here parts, I truly believe we are missing a trick. Anyhow I’m certain we’ve mentioned these dudes in passing at one time or another, we’ve certainly had cause to feature both Kamille Saharapodinov’s other two ensembles Organic is Orgasmic and the Grand Astoria. This is the legendary flower punk with the mind warping cruise controlling cosmic coolness that is ‘party zen’ – essential listening adoration for those who prefer their sonic scrambled trance toned shade adorned psychedelics trimmed in the likeness of the type that once upon a time such souls as my jealous god and my electric affair woozed their grooves to, that is, after passing through the loose lysergic haze of green milk from the planet orange. https://thelegendaryflowerpunk.bandcamp.com/track/party-zen-2
And so we find ourselves gravitating back to that excellent Games for May 4-disc freebie being made available to all paying punters of this weekend’s Fruits de Mer and Mega Dodo double header at the Half Moon in Putney, this one an eleven track spectacular from the Honey Pot. A smorgasbord of fairy folk wig flipped psyched out trippiness primed with exclusives and live treats aplenty along with an ear candy adoring sneak peek teaser from Icarus Peel’s forthcoming ‘forget me not under pussy willow’ full length and a stray selection from Crystal Jacqueline’s ‘rainflower’. Honey Pot occupy a sun fried pastoral shade softly caressed in an anything goes sonic politick cross phrasing a richly hued harmonised and melodically high free spirited tapestry of west coast afterglows, delicately dazed psychedelics and smoked out bliss kissed dreamy pastorals sometimes metered in easy pop occasioned in strange mystiques. In Crystal Jacqueline they have an enchantress whose tones tune to an icy reserve that imagines Nico, Alison O’Donnell and Grace Slick as evidenced perfectly on the stately ‘Again…..dragonfly’ while in Icarus Peel a craftsman whose penning and turning of melodic phrase draws a subtle lineage to the likes of July, the zombies, the hollies, Traffic – none more so is this the case than on ‘psychedelic circles’ from the recently released full length ‘inside the while’ – and the Flamin Groovies whose indelible though distinct mark can be heard echoing within ‘Dave’s groove’ albeit off-set by an uber chilled tracing.
Here’s the band in full on live resplendence performing ‘tick tock’ – alas a track not on the CD set – messing with your head or what…..
Ah, Soft Hearted Scientists, the fourth and final ones to be mentioned courtesy of that quite superb ‘Games for May’ freebie set. These chaps hold a special place in our affections, it’s a place that was secured back in the early days of their initial trilogy of EP’s put out through the much missed My Kung Fu. In fact, our fondness extends to a prized hand written flyer for their debut album housed in a glass frame for posterity. All at once out of step and out of time, Soft Hearted Scientists occupy a strange magikal world far removed from the chasing pack of the contrary flag changing fashionistas idly whittling out surrealist pretties from beneath the shade of a mystic tree. It’s from here that they day dream a mellowing melodic mirage tweaked in vague suggestions of psychedelia oozed in a wonky eccentricity that’s softly faired in a lazy eyed pastoral wistfulness whose closest reference markers are hinted by way of a warped wooden sign pointing loosely towards Andy Partridge and XTC with several detours along the way to the sleepy sonic pastures of Murmurs of Irma and a ‘gigglegoo’ era the Freed Unit. ‘an introduction to….’ gathers a positive treasure trove of crookedly cooed peculiar posies, brief tastings of releases past along with three gems lifted from a forthcoming four side set entitled ‘golden omens’ which aside being prepped for fond mentions here soon has been laying siege to our in-house player and causing all to swoon with ‘people, cities and the silence’ included here arriving arrested in a picturesque rustic rubbing hinting of a certain Mr Fahey all sumptuously adrift a seafaring cloud watching serenely day dreaming motif.
Here’s a little video for ‘I wanted you’ – a track featured on the ‘an introduction to…..’ disc
Following our mention of that rather spiffing House of Love covers set from the blog that celebrates itself entitled ‘soft as fire in the house of love’ – see elsewhere here – here’s three certified classics from Chadwick and Co…..
‘Safe’ – an absolutely stunning nugget hidden on the flip of ‘never’ which if I recall rightly was the bands choice for their first lead out single for their new label but they were out voted by new paymasters Fontana – Terry Bickers would soon leave…
‘the girl with the loneliest eyes’ – criminally overlooked, the Love at their most mercurial, majestic and mysterious, still stands the test of time and still sounds gloriously unreal…..
‘you don’t understand’ – what can I say, another lost single from 1992, a year that saw the band in their creative ascendancy, alas the nations want for 60’s shimmered guitar bands and dream pop was at odds and at the height of the great grunge grab led from afore by anything sporting a Sub Pop tag ….
While we busy ourselves outside beneath the natural rays of the sun (as opposed to the coming nuclear one) feverishly cobbling together an underground bunker in the depressing eventuality of an apocalyptic end game that sees a blinkered population opting for a Trump presidency and a Johnson premiership, here’s a nifty little war cry of old rebranded anew that finds former Dead Kennedy’s frontman Jello Biafra joining Nepalm Death on stage for a ripping and rousing rephrasing of ‘Nazi punks fuck off’ here aptly retitled ‘Nazi trumps fuck off’….
Their recently released ‘on a silvery moon’ full length – incidentally now going into its second press – the Hanging Stars piled high the grooves of their debuting full length with so much ear candy tastiness that the vote call for favourite cut of the set was so close we had to enlist the services of a single rizla paper to separate them. That said ominously ever present in the affection stakes, ‘she never sleeps’ gets its own centre spot having been prepped for release this coming week. In some respect the album’s sore thumb if viewed from a certain angle or the cut where the mood of the set overall naturally gravitates if read under a different light, whatever the case there’s no denying that this lolloping lazy eyed lysergic laced grifter comes deliciously moored upon a dizzying honky tonk motif all subtly grooved in a west coast haziness and kissed with all manner of sighing honey cut harmonies which if we didn’t know better we’d have said was the handiwork of the Summer Hymns in cahoots with the Blue Rags re-trimming 70’s era Beach Boys beauties. Nearly forgot, out via great pop supplement.https://soundcloud.com/thehangingstars/she-never-sleeps-1
Shimmering and aglow in the blanketing moorland mists where the ghosts of an England lost and the never ceasing beautified disturbia of rural idyllic cross paths to collide, the spectre of the black meadow haunts and enchants in equal measure, herewith a superbly sourced sonic serenade populated in the something eerie and the often inviting, a drawing echo, perhaps rather more, an aural rabbit hole magically conferring a chance to behold hidden sights of forgotten ways, customs and practices. These folk ghost lights come carved in a vintage likeness received of shared memories evoked by the pre industrial / pre digital looming shadow of mother nature. All gathering in celebration of the recent Fruits de Mer / Mega Dodo hosted ‘Games for May’ soiree, this ghostly enchantment features visitations from the invited live guests at this happening all-dayer – those being Soft Hearted Scientists, Magic Bus, the Honey Pot and Sendelica who are here found woozily boogying out to tripping T-Rexian mind fracturing mosaics – all accompanied for a Spring time homage by an assembled crowd whose harvest is bountifully weighted by the sighting of Peter Gabriel, Simon and Garfunkel, the Floyd – with Syd of course, the hare and the moon weirding out with Alison O’Donnell, Keith Seatman – admittedly it should said, even out ghosting Ghost Box, some Kid Moxie, a little Winterberry and more. https://www.mixcloud.com/chris-lambert/games-for-may-2016/
Alas not the same Windmill who had a smattering of releases a few years for such esteemed imprints as Static Caravan and Melodic, nevertheless indelibly pressed upon a ghosting enchantment softly rubbed in demurring folk dimpled yearns this Windmill are to be found heading out of the Velvet records stable, this being a cut culled from a forthcoming full length debut entitled ‘wanderlust’ by the name ‘jenny’s gone’ – a beautifully ethereal dream weaving of shadowy 60’s laments and the exquisitely spun tingle of a timeless timbre that aches and echoes to evoke a secret sitting of Tunng and Go Betweens types murmuring ghostly mosaics in the likeness of Magnet. https://soundcloud.com/windmill-official/jennys-gone
Surely it’s about time that those palace of swords types emerged from their hibernation, this little sweetie released last year is a rather spiffing re-appraising by Joe Foster of ‘echoes from a distant star’ – a lunar carousel in momentary eclipse formations pirouetting upon vapour purred orbitals trimmed and powered by motorik pulsars which from their reverberating chassis dreaming showers of shimmer toned sereneness escape to arrest, very Ron Grainer if you ask me, albeit that’ll be Ron Grainer hooked up to a Sonic Boom styled mind morphing matrix.
My oh my, this bad boy is, I don’t mind admitting, pushing all our buttons. Heading out of fuzz club in a download variant ahead of an incoming debut full length ‘tau tau tau’ due to do damage this September, this is ‘mother’ by tau, a mind morphing magma sultrily kissed in dust swirled desert arabesques all grooved in mystic tongues and forgotten spell weaves fashioned upon an intoxicating smoky haze of head expanding psychedelic earth beat the type of which that to these ears sounds like a hypnotic slab of woozily fried peace pipe oompah.
https://soundcloud.com/tau-5/mother-single-edit/s-ZvkZs
Album trailer is here……
Hell’s teeth we’ve lost the accompanying groovy information reporting all manner of happenings in the presents for sally camp about this release, safe to say it’s from a rather limited swirly vinyl seven inch being put out by dream popping dandies Saint Marie which if I recall rightly – though possibly wrongly – is part of a spiffingly hip singles club type thing. Anyhow this is ‘smoke signals’ – a killer thing cutely cooed in kaleidoscopic noise pop rubbings revealing of a more muscularly toned presents for sally hooked upon a shoe gazing slipstream much adoring of 90’s dream pop boutique ultimate records and something which, if my ears don’t deceive, trips resplendently into the swoon crushed environs of a certain Ned’s Atomic Dustbin albeit here in alignment with the much missed Skywave, a little of which I’m sure you don’t need me telling you, is ridiculously essential. https://soundcloud.com/saintmarie-records/presents-for-sally-smoke
While we still try to pick ourselves up from the devastation of missing out on the ultra-limited Sendelica box set, you do know this might be a recurring theme over the coming weeks as we lick our wounds and mournfully try to fill the gap we set aside in our record collection for it to parade, here instead is a few tasty earworms filmed at the recent Games for May 2016 gathering at the Half Moon in Putney at the weekend as hosted by the assembled masses of Fruits de Mer and Mega Dodo, enjoy while we go in search of kerchiefs…….
Alas no Magic Bus….so here’s a treat…..
Don’t think we’ve featured the video to the latest Kramies / Alma Forrer collaboration yet, if we have then here it is again just for those who missed its ethereal majesty first time of asking – former mentions alluding to its spectral beauty can be found here – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/kramies-and-alma-forrer/
More moving picture goodness, this one accompanying the latest kool thang from arrows of love which we mentioned several beards ago at https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/04/07/arrows-of-love-2/ – very edgy, entitled ‘toad’ schizoid and fugazi all of which makes it essential listening – album looming in the shape of ‘product’….
Taking you to a world far beyond the realms of reality and yonder forth in places where dreams, memories acquired and the spirits of common customs long gone come swirled, confused and cocooned in a hazy ghost light that dislocates, dissipates and drowsily muses upon a spectral folk ghosting in unison with droning mosaics, this is Barrett Dottled Beauty (seriously don’t ask) with ‘featherless fools’ from a set entitled ‘living for the moment’ which had we not known better we’d have guessed was the handiwork of those collective Oggum styled drone druids Alphane Moon and Our Glassie Azoth. A not altogether happy and easy 32-minute head trip it should be said, for this takes you ever deeper into the fracturing voids of darkly tripping shadow land which by these ears has at times the distinct feeling of a frozen moment taken from Mr Harrison’s ‘blue jay way’ only then having it magnified for group discussion purposes by an assembled crowd of beardy folk such as the Sunburned hand of the man, Dodson and Fogg and Bardo Pond. We’ve not ventured upon the flip side yet – incidentally called – ‘sunlight bathed and golden glare’ – for fear our mind will be lost in the smoke. https://barrettsdottledbeauty.bandcamp.com/releases
There’s a moment in the original, and er – far superior – cinema interpretation of HG Wells ‘the time machine’ where George Wells – played by Rod Taylor, inquisitive and curious to discover how mankind had seemingly taken a step backwards in its evolutionary development, he is introduced by Weena of the Eloi to the ‘talking rings’ which recant lost histories and the near extinction of civilisation set upon a distinctly sepia torn ghostly distance. Listening to David Wrench’s re-tooling of the Manic Street Preachers’ iconic ‘a design for life’ impacts much the same way, a shimmering apparition silvered in a sparsely turned ethereal ghosting that casts itself fondly albeit obliquely to an undetermined future age viewing a past long since gone. https://soundcloud.com/david-wrench/design-for-life-david-wrench-remix
One of those great ‘we meant to mention it’ moments, this was sneaked out last year in a very scarce printed edition of just 100 – ‘a séance at Syd’s’ was a hardback book published and issued by Mega Dodo this time last year, an irresistibly eye catching and dazzled in colour work of modern musical art and a weighty tome gathering the thoughts, views and considerations of like-minded folk drawn from the outer circles of folk, freak folk, psych and hauntology all with a shared experience that they are oft ignored by the populist musical press and all seemingly find themselves gravitating towards the cracks of the ever expanding psych folk / hauntologist spectrum. With the hardback edition a superb 2 disc set accompanied the reading, a colossal 40 track happening featuring all manner of musical musings and weirdness from a vast unifying cast of strange sound alchemists which had we the time we’d dearly have loved to feature in greater detail, however for now – the compilation incidentally is available for streaming on the labels bandcamp site – we’ve opted for a cut by Mount Vernon Arts Lab-er Drew Mulholland whose ‘memory and mind’ is a real oddly shaped sore thumb that spookily shifts in and out of sonic focus / consciousness much like a musical photograph album with all the negatives jumbled, admirers schooled in Stockhausen will no doubt admire and wow at its irregular patterns and sense of the eerily surreal and suspense while some might be minded to dig through your collections to re-familiarise yourselves with those forgotten V/Vm treasures. https://megadodo.bandcamp.com/album/a-s-ance-at-syd-s
Talking of Drew Mulholland, something that we certainly missed and I’m suspecting you might have to have to, was a posting of four exclusive slabs of unreleased skree via the Wire website, these howling nuggets veer into the same riff rupturing discordant terrains that hint of elements of the late 80’s NZ noise scene a la Bruce Russell and Roy Montgomery, though it’s the white hot ‘soon your house will be haunted’ that blistered our earlobes not least for its ability to bend metal and turn wood to glass much like a scowling Bill Horist. http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/listen_drew-mulholland-tracks
may as well throw in a little V/Vm given we mentioned him in passing a little earlier, despairing to find that he’s pulled his website and extensive back catalogue, well to a degree that is – however a quick ramble over to brainwashed.com reveals that Mr Kirby has been busying away in the studio on all manner of projects the fruits of which are, hopefully, expected soon for now a free download and something quite special to lug your lobes around – the first being the decidedly primitive tonal tongue of ‘white death’ which across nine tracks manages to cover a vast array of moods and sonic disciplines, the high point being the tear stained epitaph that is ‘the death of nilsen’ whilst ‘eager to tear apart the stars’ – removed of his V/Vm guise and instead released under his own name – finds him ghosting into the kind of neo classical terrains so oft delved by the likes of hibernate / arell with the celestial arc light that is the quite immaculate ‘no longer distance than death’ and the parting ‘my dream contained a star’ both nodding and encroaching respectively to Guthrie / Schnauss and Antonymes.
http://leylandkirby.bandcamp.com/album/eager-to-tear-apart-the-stars
picked this up on the inter web, an excellent interview / critique feature with listening center man David Mason discussing the merits of Clara Mondshine’s 1981 full length ‘luna africana’ along with a brief potted history on LC among which are hints of a forthcoming re-issue of ‘example one’ and a new book / cassette collaborative release with poet Paolo Javier under the collective pseudonym Fel Santos. In addition, there’s a chance to hear both sides of his recent lathe outing for polytechnic youth, a release which we loving adored here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/listening-center-3/
http://www.adequacy.net/2016/06/artists-albums-aoa48-listening-centers-david-mason-luna-africana/
if April Larson’s superbly chill toned reworking of hole house’s ‘another side of despair’ tipped it teetering on the ledge of some unholy precipice, then a black_ops give it the treacherous final push into the dread headed psychotropic bleakness, for here haunting pulsars ridden by spectres dragged from beyond the darkening veil glower and gorge in unholy legion courting a macabre iciness to proceedings to usher in what appears to be a despairing hypnotic mind eraser thus removing your memory and more worryingly your will and fading determination to hope. https://soundcloud.com/black_ops-3/the-other-side-of-despair-a-black-ops-mix
again you might have to forgive the fading memory, but I’m certain we’ve mentioned this in brief in a recent missive, anyhow without splitting any more hairs on the matter, this is rhododendron from their recent – the dare I say rather fine – debut full length ‘one’ for the acutely hip deep distance imprint, another of those Oliver Cherer projects (he never sits still does he) here teamed up with Darren Morris and opting to traverse back in time in their hastily cobbled home made tardis on regulo 1982 for a spot of weird ear electroid funk courtesy of ‘a foreign language’ which unless our listening lobes do deceive is crookedly cooled with the playfully peculiar abstractness of Landscape albeit here as though retooled and tutored by a rather off the wall minded Thomas Dolby clearly under the influence of Herbie Hancock.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/154644149″>A Foreign Language – Rhododendron</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/olivercherer”>Oliver Cherer</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Heading out of the exquisitely formed dream pop factory that is Saint Marie, this is Star with the rash forming ‘cock swan’ – not altogether sure whether this comes peeled from the red vinyl re-issue of their 2007 ‘devastator’ but it’s a bit of sweetie all the same, softly crushed and adored in a shade wearing affectionately effervescing feedback bruising rush that might have you imagining some secret studio meeting happened upon by the primitives and the darling buds both in their youthful prime. Add in some seductive swoon trimmed 60’s Spector struts – kind of Shangri-La’s meets Shonen Knife with glittery glam pouts obsessing over prickly pop platters by the much missed Insect Guide and you’re roughly in the right ball park.
ttps://soundcloud.com/isleofright/star-cock-swan?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook
once upon a time in the dim and dark past we used to frequently feature the pods shows heading out from beneath the garage punk umbrella, these sonic happenings oft came adored in all manner of rarefied twang toasted melodic morsels from hep cats clearly tuned in and turned on to the kind of bad boogie that your mama quietly approved of. I mention all this because I suspect that among those well-heeled playlists that the name Sir Bald Diddley has been a frequent flyer in all his many guises, here with the Ripcurls for a super limited wig flipping 7-inch platter heading out of hipsville records entitled ‘wrong gorilla’. This hip wiggling bad boy comes sassily grooved in the most audaciously infectious array of vintage groomed mooching twang tweaked twisterella this side of a Link killer 45 whilst blessed with the kind of devilishly dinked shoe shuffling shade adorning strut that’s guaranteed to have you toe tapping till your foot drops off. Nuff said. Go buy.
More cool twangy things……
The phantom keys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anOxGhOabEk
Hipbone slim and the knee tremblers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sKubBEKejQ
The legs who feature the aforementioned Sir Bald Diddley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmk0BHuSyHw
An exceptional release in every respect, the packaging – what can I say – the photo doesn’t do it justice – simply one of the most thoughtful and well-made outings we’ve seen in a long time – a piece of art on its own that comes housed in a string tied box inside of which you’ll find a protective hemp cloth, a phial of found flora from Eastern Scotland, part of an antique map, label badges, a handmade clay token and of course the limited lathe cut twin set from Pefkin pressed upon 8 inches of clear wax housed in individually numbered sleeves. A real eye catching set of which there are only 57 copies which last time we checked only a handful were still awaiting loving homes. As to the sounds within, two tracks by Pefkin – a gathering of Kitchen Cynics and Electroscope talent – incidentally the same folk responsible for that rather spiffing barretts dottled beauty release we mentioned a day or three ago. An arresting twinset tamed in sparsely woven drone folk minimalism, ‘sanderlings’ a ghostly fog bound visitation reaching dreamily from out of the loch mists courts with an eerie enchantment, a wood crafted siren call oozed in a frosted mystique whilst graced in the kind of intricate rustic mountain folk murmurings that one might expect to find on a platter bearing the identifying marks of David A Jaycock whilst spirited away in an outer worldly aura that hints of the primitive majesty of both Virgin Passages and the more ethereal happenings escaping the Gizeh imprint these days. Over t’other side, ‘the last rays of summer’ is a bit of a snoozing beauty emerging from the twilight not unlike some primordial love note uttered in lost archaic tongues, essential listening for those with a thing for the second language imprint methinks whilst similarly crafted in a demurring dream drone induced shelling that imagines a hypnotic hallucinogen mantra concocted at half speed by a gathering of Spacemen 3, fuxa and cheval sombre type folk. Via sonido polifonico.
Hopeless souls that we are, we’ve somehow managed to lose our download copy of Autodrone’s ‘the sea is killing me’ full length in our hard drive, I kid you not. So while we try to resolve this technical tedium here’s something a little tasty from it entitled ‘le voleur’. Now these dudes where something of a regular feature back in the day, a well chipped set in the shape of ‘strike a match’ preceded by a handful of killer self-released EP’s all had us a swooning, and then kaput without warning they strayed off radar. Until now that is, after a long hiatus – 7 / 8 years I’m guessing – they are back with what promises to be their darkest affair to date, if that is ‘le voleur’ is anything to judge by. Autodrone occupy the outer sonic spheres bridging a gap between the dream weaving tonalities of shoegaze and the brooding shadow play of positive punk – or goth – as it would later mutate, for despite its 80’s tattooing wherein they freewheel and shimmer to absorb and usher elements of Ex Post Facto and March Violets into their melodic matrix, ‘le voleur’ on repeat listens proves to be a most curious hybrid that coils around its shapeshifting tapestry subtle psych overtones and a shade adorning 60’s mystique which skirts to the edgier personas of Add N to X and death and vanilla. https://soundcloud.com/autodrone/le-voleur-premaster
Where have you been all my life, this is the smoking cool new thang from the Orange Kyte who feature among their talent tooting collective various members of Strange Things and Dada Plan, this is the audaciously groovy ‘inside out n’ upside down’ a throbbing 60’s shimmering psychoramic flashback festooned in all manner of organs, flutes and saxophones all kissed in a subtle lysergic haloing of strut sassy west coast fuzziness albeit as though gently grilled on an Elephant 6 collective back burner to purr like a super chilled Sweet Apple as were re-tweaked by a studio gathering of Minders and Apples in Stereo types. One imagines sure to be kaleidoscopic ear candy for those Shindig and Ugly Things brethren.
Hooked up to this via a stray twitter communique, fortunate really given we rarely dip into the application, call it fate then that we offer up for your listening adoration the latest cut laid down by Cross Wires whose debut album is looming large on the Autumnal horizon. This is ‘pink dogs’ – a spiked angular babe revealing an ensemble growing ever more in confidence, maturity and voice parading in their wake a bracing gusto of riff raging turbulence and fist hammering frustration collectively howling in raging defiance all acutely cut to a searing crusading wave that literally sweeps you into its darkening claustrophobic cloaking, reference wise imagine Interpol translating anew a slew of lost Ellery Bop cassettes from the 80’s and your probably pissing in a nearby pool. https://soundcloud.com/cross-wires/pink-dogs
We here feel we’ve done a massive disservice of late to the small but beautifully formed blue tapes imprint, for this most eclectic forward thinking of labels have been furiously scanning the outer regions of pop’s vast cosmos to engage your headspace in the sounds of tomorrow. Time poverty has always been our failing in setting aside due time and deliberation to these souls, however we did eye and indeed cast an ear over their latest release – ever so briefly alas – but still it does give us a chance to revisit again in the course of the next few days. For now though this, blue 21 from Unfollow, who for the uninitiated among you is sound alchemist Tony Boggs, this being ‘all my rifles’ – a beautifully immersive technoid dream machine that finds itself skirting around the trance toned psychotropic subliminal mind messaging mirages oft crafted by Astral Social Club for what is essential a hypno-tronic head pill providing for an experience that’s not to unlike a multi layered wig flipper radiating jubilantly amid a full on tripping and pulsing surround sound sensory bliss kiss.
An overly affectionate message from the folks over at fixture records was abundant in fond adoration of a new album about to drop by brave radar stating it was a listening experience lush in b-52’s, cate le bon, chris cohen and broadcast. Now in the normal instance of things, press releases can be deceptive things, oft more creative than the releases they describe, they are prone to promise this that and the other only to disappoint in the proof of the playing. With this in mind you can imagine an air of caution on our part as we clicked upon the sound cloud link and with that the quick to change to swoon kissed gladness as the sounds within crackled into cutely crooked effervescent life. ‘earth control’ plucked from their forthcoming ‘lion head’ full length is insidiously infectious, curiously off track and off radar it playfully skips along oddly skewiff and seemingly out of tune almost day dreamily head in the clouds with its central players – a plaintive riff noodle (very David Cronenberg’s Wife it has to be said) and a lost in the moment female vocal – appearing to tug in opposing directions all blessed with a loveably twee aspect that coos fondly to a youthful Sarah records golden age, yet coolly coming across like a stripped to the bone Le Mans secretly sharing studio space with Monade and sneaking out lost lovelies on the much missed magic marker imprint. https://soundcloud.com/fixturerecords/earth-control-brave-radar
Happened across this today, haven’t heard it for years, a record player constant back in the day…..the quite wonderful Siddeleys….
Am I the only one who thinks it should be the law of the land that Darren Hayman should at least commit to releasing at least one record a week, that said no sooner do we fondly despatch his latest for Static Caravan – as the Hayman Kupa band – then along comes another that finds him stepping out from behind stick duties for Papernut Cambridge for a ridiculously limited 7 inch twin set for fortuna pop – and sporting a rather eye catching sleeve whilst pressed on purple wax no less – and found here covering Paul Jones’ ‘I’ve been a bad bad boy’. I don’t know about you but this little gem puts a little razzmatazz into an ailing pop currency that’s sadly bloated, non-descript and seemingly devoid of the notion of fun these days, indelibly festooned in a 70’s vintage and gorging itself on a panoramic bubble grooving showered in sepia trimmings with a distinct MOR / glam tinged oompah to its tapestry, this honey comes caressed and smoothed in an easy pop dusting that’s just the right side of cheesy (blimey that’ll get the Hefnet readership furiously scribbling letters of complaint). The video it should be said is a hoot – Mr Hayman dressed in a penguin onesie – really can it get any dafter we wonder. We’re off in search of the latest Papernut Cambridge album ‘Love the things your lover loves’ a corker by all accounts while Mr Hayman is shortly to release a no doubt turntable cranking beauty for the esteemed Static Caravan entitled ‘trains’ (a picture disc no less).
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/165035116″>I've Been a Bad Bad Boy – Darren Hayman and Papernut Cambridge</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user4274497″>Darren Hayman</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
With its darkly toned psychedelic accents and kaleidoscopic haloing there’s something woozily familiar about the hazy happening that is Purson’s ‘the window cleaner’ as it channels the mystical mind morphing shaded paths where once ventured the likes of Jefferson airplane, white noise and supersister for this slice of sonic spell craft comes adorned in fuzzy florals and intoxicating swirls of shade adorning head tripping bewitchment……
If the teaser snippets are anything to judge by, then Camera’s forthcoming ‘phantom of liberty’ set for bureau b looks like being a full on krautronik head trip of some measure. Estimated date of impact August time, it finds them setting their mind expansive controls for a widescreen journey back to the golden age of kosmiche on a survey mission, as were, revisiting a vibe guided by clear reference to the navigational sonic points set for ages by the likes of Harmonia, Cluster, Neu! and La Dusseldorf. Three short and brief to the point intermissions from a future’s past feature here, the furious warp driven hyper ride that is ‘affenfaust’ translates old school ‘assault on precinct 13’ era Carpenter collages in the Teutonic tongue of eat lights become lights while cosmic juggernaut ‘nevernine’ is your full throttle no nonsense heads down Tangerine Dream refitted with turbo boosters. All said though, with its purring planetary pastorals, we here are more than a little fond of the demurring dream dinked orbital that is ‘reindenken / raus’ which opts and serves up safe haven for a chance moment of starry eyed reflective bliss. https://soundcloud.com/bureau-1/sets/camera-phantom-of-liberty-album-snippets
Pulled this from a Hologram Teen mix tape type thing – very Zombi and damn fine with it,.this is Voyag3r and “Il Guanto Nero” – the rest of the HT playlist can be hooked up to here http://ihrtn.net/2016/06/guest-mix-hologram-teen/
Label double header time, cardinal fuzz and captcha in shock ultra-limited pink wax repress of glitter wizard’s blink and it went debut album ‘solar hit’ from 2011 – now this stone heads is the real ticket, a whacked out woozy mind tripping progressive psych stew done by a freak collective who we suspect pack in the kind of ‘herbal’ punch into their peace pipes that would frankly floor a rhinoceros and several large mammals who just happened to be passing, what you are listening to, while a beard is forming upon your chin and your legs are growing denims with patches to boot, is ‘warsawng’ which in truth sounds as though its stepped straight out of a primordial fog of ’69, ultra-heavy, dark, totally wasted, a sonic spell – call it what you like, one thing is for certain is that this baby comes from an era where bands knocked out riffs that become the foundation stones to religious cults or at the very least did brisk business in t-shirt sales. Total badness.
Described rather quaintly and by our reckoning self depreciatively as a collection of ‘electronic warbles’, this is a band camp only digital set by the celebrated Vic Mars entitled ‘plant life’, a serenely affectionate ten track gathering that finds itself rooting through the wild undergrowth hand picking a sonic posy twinkled in minimalist analogue murmurs pocket pressed in a lost electronic vintage all dreamily demurred in a vibrantly affectionate and perky peculiarity that tunes itself into the more playfully wheezing and woozy secret hidey holes of the expanding Ghost Box rural landscapes – see ‘life cycle’ – very Belbury Poly – while simultaneously drawing close comparison to the sparsely woven kookiness of ISAN’s rather wonderfully cute ‘digitalis’ set (while you are there also throw in a smattering of plone for good measure – as on ‘biomes’)– none more so is this evidenced than on the delight lunar orbital that is ‘ecotone’ . in short something that ought to equally engage those of you admiring of the fond Radiophonic idents from yesteryear (‘whorl 1 and 2’ very Delia / John Baker), those curious souls among you digging lounge kosmiche lilts (‘plastic trees’) as well as the kitsch retro / Trunk record enthusiasts (‘sprites’ – see midwich youth club). Essential as though you needed telling. http://vicmars.bandcamp.com/album/plant-life
You might have to bear with me on this one. Now I swear that buried deep in our ever expanding in box that we’ve an email about this, if not then we’ve accidentally tripped over it on a listing only for it to get lost in the traffic somewhere along the line. So it’s with thanks to Oliver Cherer / Dollboy et al for reminding me of its existence by way of a recent face book alert wherein he deemed said track as ‘my new favourite thing’. Who are we to argue. Alas information about Kanaan is scant, in fact I’ll go further, its non-existent. However, through a spot of shrewd digging we’ve discovered that she has connections with the new young pony collective and that ‘#1 voices’ is her first sonic showing, and a beauty it is to, a 17 minute fringe parting spell weave that manages to mutate and shapeshift amid a myriad of sonic disciplines that veer, weave and coalesce from elements of primitive folk to earth beat to subtronic funk to Dadaist dub and that’s just the first four minutes catered for and while it might be an obvious and perhaps considered a lazy comparison in thinking up a comparable female artist possessed of such creative verve that finds us mentioning a youthful Kate Bush, then Kate Bush it is that such reference markers fall to (especially from the 13 minute mark), for Kanaan weaves such a multi layered genre bending and terraforming tapestry within ‘voices’ that it’s not uncommon to one minute find yourself huddled in some forest dwelling enchantment while the next, without so much as a by your leave I should add, discovering the visual has changed to one where your seduced by sultry arabesque mantras. And then there’s that ‘voice’- the ranges she reaches and the shifts in style – soul, earth beat chants, a chill toned ethereal whispers et al – it’s dizzying to say the least not to mention the ability it has to always put you on the back foot. ‘voices’ is all at once beguiling, bewitching and beautiful, for the best part seductive yet sometimes frightening, intricate yet free flowing, darkly mesmeric and utterly other worldly, reference markers should you need them are nigh on impossible – blimey and now we have chamber operatics set upon kosmiche flurries hinting of a young Grimes being re-threaded by the hybrid sounds of Rainbow Arabia whilst under the ever watchful eye of Bats for Lashes. Absolutely stunning. https://soundcloud.com/iamkanaan/voices?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook
One ripe for head phonic love, this is the heavenly trip-hopula sound of Hood’s Chris Adams here operating under his Bracken guise for a new double disc set for the home assembly imprint entitled ‘high passes’ – this cut ‘invest in aquacar’ is a sumptuously svelte psychotropic dream weave trip wired in slick beats and bliss kissed pulsar flotillas which sound for all the world like a love noted SMS passing through a fracturing fault line in the time continuum sending chill toned messages of future happenings. https://soundcloud.com/home-assembly-music/bracken-invest-in-aquacar
How we love the European Championships, I’m talking football here in case you were oblivious to the fact erroneously thinking it’s a new hip band that the eNME haven’t quite got around to hailing as your new favourite band, that’’ll be the sound of their features / sub editor furiously scrambling around to redesign next week’s front cover. Call me a glutton for punishment but I admire the national team and the way they make the all too often brief visitation to such spectacles and disappear with equal gusto, much like a youthful wag turning up for school registration and then absconding for a day’s truancy playing to the notion that at least they attended, had a look around and frankly didn’t fancy it as it got in the way of more important things such as taking selfies whilst posing in front of their latest hard earned sports car acquisition. And so while we look forward to England’s week long campaign with a chance to book our holidays in far flung climes for the remaining part of this four yearly footballing high point whilst cheering on at least that our hopelessly unfancied raffle selection, attempt a Leicester moment here’s a little footie ditty by the Bordellos to cheer /commiserate you on your way. Of course not a patch on the immortal musical mullet greatness of Waddle n’ Hoddle or the forgotten ‘all the way’ by chart troubling trio of terror stock, Aitken and Stanley Matthews – sorry Waterman, yet ‘how we love to fail’ is a sobering comment on everything that is obliquely great about the English, a nation of Meldrew’s in reverse – too cold for hot weather, too hot for cold weather, too dry for wet weather and too wet for dry weather who damnably pride the mediocre and dismiss greatness, who get excited at the grand opening of lager can but can’t see through the bullshit rhetoric of a nation dividing referendum being run to the ground by a Tory party both sides intent on leaving Europe so they can take the working class man back to the dark ages. Oops a little political methinks. Anyhow back to the Bordellos who while they busy themselves printing up their season collection of ‘the nations saving disgrace’ t-shirts and scowls combination fashion accessories knock up another slice of curmudgeon cool that initially plays upon a slightly skewif coda nicked from wailing Bob’s ‘lay lady lay’ before going all skewif-ier and kaleidoscopically dreamy to harrumph its way through a resigned delight that sounds like a cheery Daniel Johnston fronting a misty eyed Freed Unit. https://bordellos.bandcamp.com/
Not since the days of when we dared dismiss Moz’s re-return to banality for the tosh that was the ‘you are the quarry’ has our mail bag bulged with complaints and cries from our eager readership in the light of our moderately favourable write up about the Stone – as in the Roses type and not the Rolling – first single since the last second coming – a groaning digital post bag that saw a record busting four, count ‘em, of you commenting in concern with some of you even spelling twit right, at least I think was twit. Ah well sharpen they scornful pens for lightning strikes twice in the great ‘Stone Roses good single shocker part 2’. Look let’s face it, the debut album was a one off, capturing a moment, a vibe, a summer – it’s gone, done, forget it. Vision, clarity, cruising a curve are all fleeting moments devoid of permanency, once you realise that then the seeming disappointment attaching – from what we can gather to the reaction of some – to their comeback single – is where the fine line between expectancy and reality disappears. ‘beautiful thing’ finds the Roses shifting delicately through the gears, we warned you last time out that ‘All for one’ was a cautious toe dipper, alright there’s no envelope pushing afoot here, at worst it’s the Roses by numbers at best this babe comes smoked and chill factored in hazily honeyed tripping wah wah’s and woozy soft psych happenings, timeline wise it’s in the afterglow of the debut album bliss kissed in the kind of locked groove that the likes of My Jealous God et al used to excel at….er summer single anyone or is the jury still out…..
Often overshadowed in the history of female electronic sound alchemists, Daphne Oram possessed one of those most rare qualities and talents that could rightly lay claim to being rightly and aptly considered a visionary. Long out of print, while still in its infancy (electronic music) was still in the realm of the quirky, the library, the prog and oft hidden in sheds masquerading as sound labs by boffins and DIY radio enthusiasts, ‘an individual note – of music, sound and electronics’ was published, it was a study / thesis which in its day was considered ahead of its time, it was her blueprint for the interaction and play of these three constituents. 45 years on and with original copies scarce, the Daphne Oram trust has set up a kick -starter campaign with the aim of re-publishing this insightful tome. Details as follows……
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/345013107/help-us-republish-daphne-orams-an-individual-note
Stirring amid the genteel calm of a snoozing rustic, Mr Gubby of Buried Treasure fame winds up the stereophonic time travelling turntable for a warping wax wander uncovering the strange, the forgotten and the eccentric among the thickening wild undergrowth of this nations secret sound hidey holes. Behind the quaint and quirky picture postcard posies, beyond the vintage crackle of Lonnie Donegan, Noel Coward and Ivor Cutler platters aboard a surreal sight-seeing open top, a curiously affectionate jaunt through England’s forgotten past tours the beautiful, the strange and the haunted in the company of a crooked assembly of players from reginald bosanquet, cabbage head, john baker, private eye et al. Through the apertures of time, the tranquil peace of chiming tea cups and forest nature sounds is disturbed by the shadowy gloaming of communications from beyond the veil the visitations of konstantin raudive, revbjelde and dolly dolly and the electronic kookiness of the radiophonic subliminals of Alan Sutcliffe whilst soothing the bucolic brow moments of the serene swirl in the arriving company of the fair land follies of Tristram Cary and Basil Kirchin, along the way some TV21 twang from Ted Taylor Four, an always welcoming appearance by Vini Reilly and Laura J Martin, this good folk is the latest oddness from Wyrd Britain in their acclaimed series of guest presenter headed infrequent transmissions. https://www.mixcloud.com/quietworld/wyrd-britain-10-alan-gubby-guest-mix-buried-treasures-albion/
Been an age since we featured anything by the front and follow crew, so much so that we half feared they’d hung up their head phones and called it a day. Therefore, you don’t need me telling you that interests were piqued in the Sunday experience record shed upon hearing new of the first release in a planned ongoing series of split adventures called ‘the blow’. A bit like Fat Cat’s own seminal split series of the late 90’s / early 00’s which was dusted down recently only to disappear again – mind I’ll have to check on that last point. This series pits two similarly minded artists on opposing wax sides to populate the grooves as they see fit and to then collaborate on a fusion piece or three. ‘volume 1’ finds Hoofus pitting their wits against IX Tab for a set that’s currently being showcased on ‘the Wire’. Hoofus appear to operate on the dark side of Ghost Box’s ever expanding sound universe crafting imaginary soundtrack idents disturbed by 70’s flashbacks and clearly absorbed within a mind-set assimilated to the BBC Radiophonic hive matrix, we here being a tad fond of the wonky lunar fisher price tech styled orbital lilts of ‘salvage and reclamation’ which has a distinct minimalist feel of plone being re-tweaked by Isan about its wares. IX Tab operate in more cinematic climes, the bruising grace applied to ‘the early owl’ is both touching and humbling, the atmospherics intimate and somewhat dreamy are ghosted by the immersive flow of spectral drone swathes interspersed with disembodied conversations. Paired together the two parties quickly hatch a middle ground to create something acutely playful and sparsely dinked in a gloopy psychotropic eeriness that might have some of you thinking it had headed out of the Frank and Wobbly sound shed, at least that’s how the head fracturing ‘street dreaming’ initially appears high on chemical reactions and clearly schooled in mid career Cabaret Voltaire listening. That said ‘dirty mushroom’ trickily navigates a mutant technoid mainframe that recalls a clearly zonked out and impish Wagon Christ being flung as were, into an Add N to X sonic spin dryer. http://www.thewire.co.uk/audio/tracks/listen-to-ix-tab-hoofus
i’m picking up Boards of Canada in a love in with Plaid happenings here and I’m cranking up the head phones and falling deep into wave forming wooziness, frankly it’s all too irresistible. This sound heads, is a teaser taste from a forthcoming Hidden Shoal lovely by Arc Lab entitled ‘through the burning glass’ – a single in fact culled from a planned ‘Anthem’ full length due sometime July end. To the emergence of oncoming pulsing shimmer tones, a stately alignment is forged whereby celestial fanfares tap out their love noted siren calls across the galactic voids much like a heavenly cavalry heading over the cosmic hills led from the fore by a bliss bathed Battles festooned in kosmiche kisses fired upon the hypnotic purr of motorik murmurs. https://soundcloud.com/hidden_shoal/arc-lab-through-the-burning-glass
Latest issue of the multi media sound art resource / publication ‘Wyrd Daze’ is ready for memory upload, this particular issue Lvl 2 issue 6 features a hive of creativity with guest feature spotlight duties being handed over the Implicit Order whilst there’s a lengthy interview with Philip Gerber – he who is head honcho over at Alrealon Musique when that is, he’s not reigning apocalyptic testament terrors upon your listening space as John 3:16. Elsewhere there’s a heartfelt dedication – 2 in fact – on the recent passing of Sylvia Anderson and her true place and visionary relevance in the whole TV Century 21 universe and of course all the usual pulse feeling peers into the future of underground sound along with the by now, customary WD EP, this particular edition made up of five disparate souls operating on the edges of the populist radar, the set opening to the star formed symphony that is the ghostly enchantment brought to bear by Oat Oaks, a forlorn chill toned lunar twinkle that had us much in mind of a futurist visitation of Clock DVA. Next up Douglas E Powell and the Rising Spirit step up to the plate with ‘good ol’ twine’ – reflective, intimate and daydreaming, Mr Powell’s delicately dinked country folk craft coming etched and stirred in a drifting melodic warmth honeyed in a bitter sweet cloaking that’s softly soured yet all the same tugged in the kind of sighing vulnerability recalling both stillman and the Katie winter. ‘so this is dubhop’ finds regular visitor around these here parts Black Saturn in lighter moods almost threatening to go over the top to sneak an ambitious peek into mainstream sound. Adored in a cutely affectious calypso grooving trimmed in summery detailing, there’s a kind of playfulness abound as Mr Jackson takes up the self-appointed role as jah preacher / watchman of the generation. Those preferring their sounds stilled grimly in apocalyptic groans and dead headed in the eerie unrest and ice gouged haunt of the underworld, in other words stuff best viewed trembling from behind the sofa preferably in daylight, might do well to take your chance with K. Finrir’s obliquely doomy ‘night gaunts’ which by these ears sounds not unlike a chance meeting at a purgatory pit stop between Soriah and blue Sabbath black cheer. Drawing matters to a close the implicit order sidles by with ‘will you take me all the way’ – a briefly passing shimmering orbital as were in eclipse formation, growing ever stately in dimension, depth and definition as it hovers ever closer showering all in celestial harmonics before drifting off into the darkening voids. https://wyrddaze.wordpress.com/
superbly abrasive and angular re-reading of the Ants immortal ‘zerox’ from prickly pop upstarts the Tuesday Club. Indeed we have taken the eye off the ball in recent times, our horror compounded by the fact that this lot have been kicking out releases at a furiously head turning rate of late – all of which we’ll seek to squeeze in on occasion here over the coming times. For now though this rather spiffingly spikey salvo, as said a cover of the Ants legendary ‘Zerox’ found here hooking upon the kind of day-glo grooving that was the trademark sound of their former incarnation the Scratch. Of course ‘Zerox’ ought to need no introduction. before the days of dandy highwaymen, apache ants and pantomime, Mr Goddard obsessed over the human condition dissecting its seedier incursions marrying his observations to a sound frenzied in schizoid art pop. Left in the hands of the Tuesday Club they faithfully fry the frenz quotient tightening up to ratchet the grip and pinch upon the psychosis levels to warp the senses appreciably like a seriously wired version of Spizz Energi. Class then. https://theperfectpopco-op.bandcamp.com/track/zerox
absolutely no info on these folk except to say they hail from Moseley and make the kind of warping musical collages that have the effect of making you think you’ve momentarily wandered into some surreal dream within a Lynch like psychorama for a momentary cameo only to exit stage left thinking ‘now what the hell was that’. In truth we’ve heard it twice and are still non the wiser what’s going on which on reflection I guess makes it all the more intriguing. Reference wise I think it would be fair to say that the latest twin set from Unhappy Shoppers unintentionally, a rather cleverly, joins together the invisible dots that separate the sound worlds of the polytechnic youth and ghost box imprints by way, crookedly of course, Andy Votel’s twisted nerve label. ‘man made fibres’ looms over on the lead side, Dadaist warbles, lounge motifs, subliminal messaging and the kind of industrial lock grooving that used to attach to platters put out by 70 Gwen Party, in truth an oddball sore thumb of the variety you’d expect from the truth about frank if ever they found themselves located on the surreal odd pop hipster label Bearsuit. However for us it’s the flip cut ‘lasers (detail)’that occupied our attentive ear lobes – a curious mutant funk offering ghosted in radiophonic spectral waves and crookedly cooed in dissipating dream draped lounge lilts that at times hint of a seriously wonky Emperor Penguin albeit as though recalibrated by an impishly minded Duke St. Workshop. Just in case you needed further prompts it’s a scarce limited lathe press housed in a 70’s knitting pattern cover, all very strange though suspiciously essential listening. https://unhappyshoppers.bandcamp.com/album/man-made-fibres
continuing our ongoing series of ‘albums no one told you about and you never knew existed’ parts 78 and 79, here’s two nuggets from the late 60’s and 70’s that you won’t find championed by the pedestrian pop press. We’ve said for years that you tube is becoming the digital equivalent of the older brother syndrome or the cool considerate behind the record store counter taste maker in so far as guiding ears to new found sonic discoveries – these two releases in particular ought to appeal to the record heads of the Fruits de Mer extended family – first up the wigged out improve lounge jazz psych strangeness of taste of blues with the wilfully oddball ‘schizofrenia’ – absolutely freaky stuff and then not to be outdone how about some jazz prog exotica courtesy of Osamu Kitajima with ‘benzaiten’ which in truth you might want to roll up a fat ‘un to truly benefit from dipping your headspace in, very stoned and mellowed.
New video for an old song from an old album, of course we forgive them especially when the sounds are of the order of a dream dazed delirium bliss blown is mind morphing lysergia, this folks, is Wand and ‘passage of the dream’ ripped from last years acclaimed ‘1000 days’ set for Drag City, a hallucinogenic head pill softly shimmered in psychedelic pools of coolly caressing trip tides laced in riff crushes that dive, dissipate and dissolve into formations of sighing seduction. Does it for us……
Oh Lordy, imminent on the mighty Easy Rider imprint, a label who for our sins we’ve been a tad ignoring of lately, looms the stoner grizzled overlords Monolord with a teaser cut – incidentally the title track – being dragged from a forthcoming 10-inch EP ‘Lord of suffering’. An unholy alliance that pairs doom gloomed apocalypsia with prowling slash attack riffola to forge a formidable and brutal front line aural artillery that feasts and gorges on the discarded left overs of Sabbath’s ‘iron man’ – total badness.
With all the email traffic around these here parts of late, I can’t rightly recall whether or not we’ve got download copies of the latest / recent Telstar Sound Drone album ‘magical solutions to everyday struggles’ out now via the ever essential Bad Afro who incidentally are on a year-long 20th birthday soiree. This ‘un though rounds off the A side of the aforementioned album, ‘your finger stirs the liquid moon’ with it’s shimmer toning kaleidoscopic halos and astral gliding orbital pulsars this purring honey is – well simply put – a grand gathering around a lunar high table of celestial space cadets among the invited the silver apples, fuxa, spacemen 3, sunray, eat lights become lights and slipstream – need I say more.
A bit of a heads up while we wait for the new polytechnic youth released polypores album to return safely from the sound factory, this is from his latest band camp release ‘suddenly emptied rooms, and the ghosts that live there’ which I’m seem to recall we promised – but forgot – to check out following his recalibration of Hole House. We’ve opted to single out ‘a voice from before’ given the fact that it’s the track that on initial listens tweaked our earlobes, now for reasons best known only to the haggled internal interface that connects messages and sounds in our ears being translated by our bonces innards, we are imagining a meeting on a cold damp Mancunian night sometime ’79 following a Factory records evening out observing Bowie from the audience, that Mr Wilson had locked prize assets Joy Division and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark in the press cupboard threatening not to let them out until that is they’d imbibed on the vibe of ‘Low’ to cobble out a spot of obliquely monochromatic brooding ice formed kraut majesty. https://polypores.bandcamp.com/album/suddenly-emptied-rooms-and-the-ghosts-that-live-there
More kaleidoscopic kool in the guise of a debuting outing for the Strange Things whose ranks are swelled by some of the fringe floppy folk responsible fort that recently reviewed and much adored, I should add, orange kyte happening. This dansette dandy incidentally titled ‘higher anxiety’ comes wired upon a beat tripping coda nicked from the Fab 4’s immortal ‘tomorrow never knows’ whilst heavily mainlining on the shadow lined soft seduction of shimmering 60’s tonalities clearly referenced in a love for the Stones and Doors albeit crookedly rephrased to a strut kissed grooving that to these ears sounds not unlike a lysergic love in between the Chocolate Watchband and the 13th Floor Elevators. Essential then. Any questions?
We were going leave this till later in the day, but the truth is it’s been burrowing deep beneath our skin and quite frankly we’d have a day of palatable irritation between 9 to 5 boredom we call day time work anxiously waiting to get home and recommence battle with it. This folks, is the latest from Makoto Kawabata which we think might be under the guise Human Shower – a little side project with long time Acid Mothers mucker Satoshima Nani. What can we say, daft, deranged and delightfully discordant not to mention erratic, wired and wilfully schizoid. Exactly 138 seconds of cranium compressing freak out mayhem done in a scorching no wave stylee that avoids the boring attentions of verse chorus verse constrictions and just goes hell for leather in flipping your wig after that is, setting it alight and kicking it around the room several times. https://soundcloud.com/makoto-kawabata-1/01-human-shower
Blimey you can feel the foreboding cloak of tension wrapping its pressure bearing suffocation upon this exacting end game. How we missed this on its original appearance on a Turkish compilation entitled ‘dark occult’ is quite beyond us, that said here’s a new reworked version of ‘sin purifying fire’ by John 3:16, easily filed under your darkening goth / industrial psych, this slab of biblical revelations is you’ll be happy to note can be found rebranded and rehoused on a new cassette collection entitled ‘phonic entrails’ put out by the newly formed sonic entrails imprint. As ever a hulking colossus cinematically coiled amid a fiery desert doomed landscape whose impacting sense of occasion and thunderous glower of impending threat freefalls into the apocalyptic gouging that oft heralded the ominous arrival of early career Godspeed releases. https://soundcloud.com/john316john/sin-purifying-fire
staying with the Sonic Entrails imprint a little while longer, seems they have a corker of a cassette flying out of their sound house courtesy of ‘there are those that kill with cuts’ which we assume is the collective title of the set and not the actual band. Anyway eleven sore thumbs feature within which ought to appeal to those who have occasion to scan the sonic waves rooting out releases by those impish souls the Mutant Beatniks. The set, a kind of protest voice from the streets decrying the ongoing austerity programme and its punishing effects on societies most vulnerable, veers musically on the side of abstract free noise forms with ‘shit and vaseline’ catching and indeed, corrupting our earlobes, not least because its psychotropic industrial gouging had us much in mind of fellow agitators the truth about frank in a headlock with 70 gwen party whilst mainlining on an early variation of SPK and Play Dead. https://sonicentrails.bandcamp.com/album/these-are-those-that-kill-with-cuts
nicked this off the ever excellent dangerous minds site – the entire run of legendary San Fran punk zine Damage available in pdf – along with Slash and No Mag……. http://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_entire_print_run_of_classic_sf_punk_magazine_damage_is_now_online
more texture and mood based than previous incarnations, this is the first transmission of the polymer cities the proposed next generation or rather more sonic upgrade of the expansive sound world of Allan Murphy as he rests operations on his Midwich Youth Club alter ego. This two track teaser collectively titled the ‘organic plastic single’ features ‘welcome to the polymer cities’ and ‘maglev’ – the former a bowed lullaby indelibly dinked in familiar minimalist pastures that eerily hint of fracturing parallel time lines crossing over to blur established memories and realities, its Oriental mosaics glazed in paused hushes endow it with a serene majesty that aside hinting heavily of Eno and Yellow Magic Orchestra also irrefutably ghosts the grooves much like a ‘tin drum’ era Japan set to work rephrasing the considerably stronger instrumental side of Mr Bowie’s ‘low’. Moving in opposite directions, the latter mentioned jiggly wiggles to the more playfully minded moments of the lounge funk quirkiness that crookedly caressed the grooves of ‘dots and loops’ era Stereolab flip sides. https://thepolymercities.bandcamp.com/album/organic-plastic-single
oh yes, just what the good boogie doctor ordered, sporting big hair, furry sideboards, loon pants, swirly patterned platforms and tie dyed cheese cloth shirts this time tripping head pill – the latest incidentally, from Baby Woodrose entitled ‘open doors’ – comes on like a psychedelic mirror ball cutely needled in boot cut 70’s shimmers of fuzzy funk flotillas whilst beaming effervescently to cook up a mind arranging loved up radiance showered in hallucinogenic hazes all wired up upon strut gouged 60’s garage psych shimmies to all at once touch hands with the likes of the Seeds, 13th Floor Elevators, the Move and PTV3. A seventh album ‘freedom’ looms large on the horizon. Via bad afro.
Much love around these parts for this, the forthcoming wig flipper heading out of the mighty fuzz club sound house, this is Tau with ‘mother’ which happened upon here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/05/31/tau-2/ a week or three ago……damn trippy blighter……
From a period when being in Sonic Youth was still a hobby and not a job, when their creative free spirit was allowed to shine rather than relying on a determination to procure puzzled looks from their major label paymasters, this revealing gem ripped from the vaults dates back to 1986 is a collection of demos with a view to sound tracking the film ‘made in USA’. These archive recordings – incidentally titled ‘spinhead sessions’ – are on limited wax release via goofin replete with liner notes from Thurston and Lee. By way of a teaser here’s ‘theme with noise’ finding them in mellow moods intricately crafting hazily hued atmospherically spectral bong induced bliss bound dream weaving pre post rock ghost lights, it’s all very woozy and floaty not to mention trippy with the dissolving desert dry textures assuming a storm stilling macabre at its close.
Clearly these chaps have unresolved issues. From the radio / t-shirt friendly named Khunnt this is the scarring ‘failures’ – well a four minute edit of ‘failures’ – for the full on scab forming stone gouged sledgehammer is forty minutes in length. A super group of sorts sporting members of pigs pigs pig pigs pigs pigs pigss, blown out and er – Richard Dawson – who is considered around the North East parts as the English Captain Beefheart – not that you’ll find any of his usual folk doodlings immediately apparent here given they’ve probably been buried deep under the considerable weight of the dread headed sacrificial trepanning that snarls amid the grooves here. Frankly this groaning slab of despair makes Earth and other such similarly minded folk sound like poppy west coast try outs for here is the infected malaise of a sonic swamp dragged carcass literally sucking out the light.
Staying with Riot Season, imminent arrivals should see new groove from the much loved around here Shit and Shine who after last year’s almost ‘poppy’ ’54 synth brass….’ outing for rocket – now it seems have reverted to type and into the bargain go happily in search of discordant ditties to melt your head with the label promising grindcore aplenty. The forthcoming slab of bad ass is titled ‘teardrops’ from which has been dragged and drop kicked the decidedly feral brutality that is ‘schecter omen extreme 6’ whose wilful waywardness should at least pop ears aplenty while likewise causing a considerable flocking to the turntable of melt banana and Atari teenage riot types…..
Rather lovely this, like a lovelorn tryst engaged upon by Sennen and Astronauts both sharing a burning affection for a dream draped pairing of My Bloody Valentine and Ride types, this is Air Formation’s Ben Pierce doing shimmer toning shoegaze silhouettes as I am your captain. This little sweetie (a duo plucked from the album ‘glower’) arriving home pressed upon an ultra-limited two track lathe pressing whereupon on whose grooves you’ll find the surrendering ‘almost’ (sheesh it was the cut that had us all a swoon) bathed in star lit sighs, bliss kissed crushes, adoring yearns and effervescent pulsars. Quite heavenly if you ask me. http://iamyourcaptain.bandcamp.com/
Sadly we’ve no sound links with which to blow you away, but take it from me a treat from the Bordellos looms with the coming arrival of ‘Signomi, Arketa!’ not least because it finds St Helens’ famous sore thumbs in strange and woozy terrains cobbling out musical mystics coded in middle Eastern spiritualism, after of course a few bracing toots on the third eye tweaking peace pipe. In short it is essentially, what some used to refer as, a nifty slab of wyrd psych folk trading in snake charming vibes, primitive earth beat mosaics and sitar seducing highs. This stoned acid tab is prepped to feature on a forthcoming CD tucked inside a future edition of the highly essential and acclaimed gew gaw magazine.
Promised a little earlier that we’d be back with John 3:16, this cut coming peeled from a forthcoming compilation set ‘elements Vol 2’ via the Venus Aeon imprint is entitled ‘destroying angels’ finds Mr Gerber shifting his sonic perspective into more cosmic climes. A deeply immersive stratospheric symphony gliding on vapour trailing blisses all kissed within the kind of free flowing sonic symmetry whose mercurial texturing recalls a likeness shimmered in the pristine porcelain purr of a cruise controlling Church as it arcs gracefully much like a lunar love note. https://soundcloud.com/john316john/destroying-angels
Be honest, what is there not to love about this, just so easy on the ear, it sneakily strays under the skin pouting and purring with its surrendering smoky genteel nature softly laid back in radiant whispers honeyed amid demurring country tones and sliding sighs that hint of an expectant burn yet rather more smoulder with a lolloping lackadaisical loveliness. Does it for us. Anyhow this is a new thing outta Saddle Creek by Sam Evian – a debut no less – entitled ‘sleep easy’ – irresistible in a word.
this has been haunting our headspace like no one’s business of late, the way it croons and wallows, a lonely bar bore rambling twisted love notes whilst stirring from out of the neglected smoky haze of a chewed cigar and a shot of bourbon. This is the creaking howl of ‘gray gardens’ the lead out track from a rather spiffing self-titled 10-inch EP by Lord Youth, a heart heavy noir set ghostly echo from a monochrome pop past all crystal tipped in a shadow lining parade of forgotten shanty-fied gospels and the shell piercing mournful classicism of a lost song craft, which all told gather conspiratorially in a huddle made up of tindersticks, the orson family and black heart procession types…..
Another little gem we managed to prise off band camp, this is LA based groovers Kauf with the rather seductively amorphous ‘a ruin’ – a lunar mirror ball honed in nocturnal night lights traced in spectral whispers all hushed in a heavenly convergence of slick disco demurs and hyper gliding glacial noir treatments of the type it has to be said, that once upon a time would rush out of the lo recordings / loaf sound house, that is if the blighters ever hit upon the idea of locking both dark captain light captain and seeland into an after-hours studio space. http://kauf.bandcamp.com/track/a-ruin
must admit to being a tad taken by the remoteness of this, something new heading out of the Swedish imprint repartiseraren who’ve a few well-heeled releases currently doing the rounds. This is electric sound bath and a track pulled from – what we assume is a set entitled ‘ljudkalendern III’ – called ‘entering the myth’ – as said it’s the remoteness, perhaps more so the distant nature of the porcelain bowed drone motifs that tweaked our affectionate ear, its mournful seafaring genteel nature bitter sweetly sighing out a lonesome grandeur traced upon a poise and precision that delicately exacts a tearful turn away from some hitherto deathly aftermath / occurrence. https://soundcloud.com/repartiseraren/ljudkalendern-iii-electric-sound-bath-entering-the-myth
staying just a while longer with the repartiseraren label, they’ve a limited 100 only CD compilation just out entitled ‘whoever am’ – a 5 artist 14 track extravaganza which sadly due to time poor constraints we’ve only thus far had the pleasure of tapping into the opening salvo from Cold Hell whose locked grooved club floor decimator ‘Swart’ veers resplendently into terrains once upon a time traversed by front 242 getting ever deeper and denser the longer it looms on your turn table with elements of Biosphere and Clock DVA invading the sound space. https://repartiseraren.bandcamp.com/album/volume-1-whoever-am-i
more macabre happenings from the other side of the veil, this being the latest sonic visitation to Hole House’s creepoid stone tape ‘the other side of despair’ as evidenced, experienced and recorded by white feather, this interpretation both brooding and glowering finds itself appearing from out of the dark side of a post-apocalyptic vision by the Revenant Sea albeit as though passing through the shimmering vortex of a bliss toned Astral Social Club. https://soundcloud.com/katom/the-other-side-of-despair-white-feather-re-interpretation
i feel my IQ doubling each time I listen to this in so much as it harks back to those Open University transmissions and boffin headed science programmes that used to fill the late night / early morning TV schedules of BBC2, for in a small corner of the isles of these green and fair isles where the clocks have mysteriously stopped, there’s a place locked in time, forever black and white and forever quaintly strange and eccentric not to mention indelibly British, no doubt skulking in a potting shed at the foot of a garden or a converted loft cobbling together alternative histories by all nylon and polyester biro chewing tank top wearing Magnus Pike, Raymond Baxter and James Burke types. This be Concretism, from a limited castles in space set – and on utilitarian grey wax – as though you needed prods – entitled ‘electricity’ – this being the very Fort Dax-ian sounding ‘of frisbees and pylons’ – expect more of this in future dispatches. https://soundcloud.com/concretism/of-frisbees-and-pylons
our day was buoyed several fold by news of a new Silver Apples full length. Arriving September time coinciding with tour and festival dates, the chicken coop imprint, Simeon’s in house label, will be releasing ‘clinging to a dream’ – first new album in nearly two decades no less. Alas no sound links with which to regale and radiate your listening space, safe to say a few treats here have already achieved adored status following limited outings on the enraptured imprint, one of which, the opening cut ‘the edge of wonder’ is a misty eyed future echo that’s ghosted in sepia trimmings beneath which the minimalist electronic warbles of their classic late 60’s selves are harvested amid a demurring lullaby lilt that hovers and pulses hypnotically upon a celestial sea faring mosaic of skewed west coast tonalities and spectral pastoral posies. Alas no sound cloud links just yet but here’s that Simeon dude performing said cut at last year’s Halloween festivities in Austin, Texas.
Been a fair old while since King Champion Sounds came along to ruffle our fringe and do considerably bad things to our turntable, but fear not a new set is incoming. From what we’ve heard thus far, a positively skewiff and schizoid corker spread across two slabs that apart from being ambitious also has the disarming knack of impishly playing with your head forever having you hopping and skipping on the back foot. Featuring a wealth of guest appearances, among the roll call Alasdair Roberts, J Mascis, Mike Watts, Tom Carter, Mike Derrick and more, ‘to awake in that heaven of freedom’ due September through excelsior, is a real shopping bag of sounds that freefalls between moments of angular art pop (as on the Fall meets Nightingales / Fire Engines post everything spidery squirreling of story stuck’), dreamy psych wooziness (of the disorientating ‘cool ‘trane’ – Coltrane perhaps – with it schizoid showers of arpeggio flotillas) and just plain old locked grooving post rock strangeness best evidenced on ‘last night I saw a poltergeist’. Sound clips as and when they go good to share.
Here’s a spot of ghostly folk with which to eerily spook your day breaking serene, not out placed for the time of day I would have thought for the hare and the moon’s ‘the erl king’ emerges shrouded in a twilight haziness from out of which is ushered a spectral visitation that creeps and creaks through the shadowy stillness weaving its timeless folk artistry into abandoned spell crafting enchantment, in a word – exquisite. https://soundcloud.com/thehareandthemoon/the-erl-king
feel my head erupting and showers of psychedelic flowers are tripping out whilst simultaneously finding myself, much like a beatnik Mr Ben transformed into a loon wearing hippy chic treading upon the mother of all beards that’s instantaneously sprouted the minute the first wah wah’d, guaranteed to make you all feel as though you’ve been drop kicked in to an acid fried pre decimalised 1970 without the apps or a Sat Nav get you back to normality, enjoy the moment. This is Wytch Pycknyck with an ultra–limited lathe lovely, they clearly do mushrooms of the magic kind and are dudes or is that druids.
please don’t ask me where we picked this one up from, I assume one of those face book postings that we regularly find ourselves tripping over of late, starts quietly as the late great Mr Peel would no doubt have remarked, yet once into the groove, there’s something majestic and poised afoot here that’s stilled in a graceful knowing that draws you like a moth to light to speak without words to your inner self. A ghosting, a passing celestial visitation or post-apocalyptic epitaph to an end game, call it what you will, what can’t be denied is the silken surround sound cinematics at work as the opining waveforms weave in mournful formation delicately caressing every inch of space in a momentary haze of heavenly radiance. From a cassette entitled ‘distant works II’ – this is Vancouver based sound alchemist secret pyramid with the mesmeric ‘VII’. https://secretpyramid.bandcamp.com/album/distant-works-ii
it’s been a fair old while since we featured any ear wax crackling, so I guess it’s okay to slip in a little extreme sonic butchery for your listening displeasure. This is the delightfully named Hemorrhoids with a little manipulated violence entitled ‘we are all’ via we assume, the imaginary archive imprint. Not for easy listening I can tell you, in fact bang this on and it’s a fair bet that it’ll strip your walls clean of paint, paper and plaster in nanoseconds. Safe to say not to be played while small animals are in the local fall out vicinity for this sand blasting slab of extreme scorched skree really does blaze through the entire sound spectrum shrieking out hostile low to high end density frequencies, kinda shifts the harsh notion up a notch or five not to mention perfect for those still mourning their face melting tolerances to platters by kylie minoise and the much missed Tayside mental health. http://theimaginaryarchive.bandcamp.com/album/we-are-all
hopeless as we are, we’ve managed to separate and lose sight of the press release email that came attaching to this, ho hum. Worse still, the grey cells and matter not being what they were, we’ve some hazy recollection that this little gem is currently the subject of a re-issue – but don’t quote me on that – when, if ever we do, track down said press rumbles, we will be back to lavish all manner of worldly words and ordering info in order to ensure such sonic feasts are adoring your turntable. Anyhow enough of the rambling, this is Manon Meurt with ‘to forget’ ripped from a limited outing that originally saw the light of day way back in 2014 in their Czech homeland. A demurring shoegaze love note that purrs with the same smoulder burn response time radiance that used to occasion the early recordings of Asobi Seksu, here all trimmed and replete in swirling haloes of dream dazed euphoric showers that spiral between moments of bliss bathed sighing stratospherics and hushed honeyed bitter sweet vocal mistiness to sky rupturing heads down full on crystalline crescendos. Phew.
How could I ever forget this lot. Folk Devils where at one time a much welcomed regular feature on the John Peel wing-ding in the early 80’s recording several, well three as a matter of fact, well-heeled sessions along with a plethora of singles that jarred superbly with an uncomfortable itch amid the oncoming sea surge of tra la la indie pop niceness. Sore thumbs who feasted on a gnarled and bloated blues carcass cooking up a bastardised brew of spikey and snarling edginess that channelled a molten mix of dead eyed rock-a-hula barb wired in the ghosts of primitive blues gouged by angular art pop which if anything where the cooler more out of it and chaotic half cousins of the birthday party, the inca babies and the gun club. Out sometime September via optic nerve, a singles anthology ‘beautiful monsters’ emerges to re-acquaint turntables with these dudes, the set comes pressed in limited quantities of wax replete with inserts as well as a CD variant – all formats include a bonus archive of demo recordings. Just to whet the appetite, so to speak, here’s the violent femmes meets Fall-esque in Captain Beefheart trims ‘hank turn blue’ – Gallon Drunk disciples eat ya heart out.
This baby is ultra-limited, comes pressed on wax housed in hand printed kraft sleeves with inserts, tis the latest from Whirling Hall of Knives, their seventh full length entitled ‘seacht’ and finds the Whirly ones immersing themselves ever deeper into sub-tropic sound spaces harvesting a mutant techno sonic world populated in floor throbbing pulsars and mind wiping locked grooving hypnosis inducing cerebral massages that dip between minimalist motorik murmurs to eerie dystopian future world echoes, for now there’s this sample edit to get your teeth into while we go on the scrounge for downloads. https://soundcloud.com/whirlinghallofknives
Is it just me that thinks the new teaser track heralding the shortly to arrive new full length platter from the Wedding Present, has a distinctly stepping back in time aura of ‘seamonsters’. Only Darren Hayman comes close proximity to astutely articulating the bruising of relationship fall outs, though even he’s managed to find alternate outlets by jumping in and out of bands with various folk whilst dressing up as a crotchety penguin and going off obsessing about trains. Gedge on the other hand, is the perpetually wounded, to him the scab that is boy meets girl / boys loses girl is an itch it seems, that he can’t stop scratching. And so with ‘Bear’ we freefall into familiar territories, though this time it’s a maturing Gedge we encounter who in past encounters, it might be fair to say, was prone to heart breaking resignation, here however, there’s evidence of a weary acceptance, the pain though distant is here haunted by a more intimately personalised dissection of loss, more so, a caught in a quiet moment casual reflection. As to the sound, typically spikey, caustic though irrefutably a bitter sweetly tanged slice of prickly pop of the type that’s been the hallmark signature of the Weddoes through the years, the riffs twist and tangle in mood swerving volatility to reach breaking point at the 3.42 wherein everything including the kitchen sink comes crashing in a final stormy crescendo, damn fine by our reckoning and before we forget ripped from a forthcoming ‘going, going…..’ set due September……. https://soundcloud.com/user-813309348/bear
To many the thought of an albums worth of drum improvisation, might well cause an audible response as to the ‘why’ variety, what – some bloke hitting things with a stick, where the fun and point in that. I’d be in total agreement had I been a younger self, nothing was deemed more preposterous or annoying in my own limited understanding than drum solos being performed on the Old Grey Whistle Test, it was an instant turn off to see some bloke hidden in the back getting the spotlight for what seemed like weeks, when in fact it was mere minutes, to batter hell out of pit of drums of various sizes. It was one of the primary reasons why for years that metal and progressive rock where a conspicuous absence in my listening tastes and why AOR is still the subject of occasional aversion therapy. In truth, and I’m sure there’s a snobbery and hierarchy amongst even drummers, the first drummers to ever impress where Budgie and Pete de Freitas, the latter because of that sense of majesty of the wasteland, the former through his Creatures work with Siouxsie. Both sticks-men, much like Stewart Copeland possessed a wide spectrum of percussive artistry that relayed its own musical vocabulary, for a youngster reared on the three-minute directness of punk, both musicians proved to be a learning curve in the appreciation of the effect, the atmosphere and pacing afforded by this sound spine. I mention all this, just in case you were wondering if there was a point or whether I just fancied rambling, because just yesterday we received a cassette. No ordinary cassette mind, there’s only 23 of them, well 22 now that I have one, from Andy Pyne, yep him from foolproof projects and erstwhile Brighton based tub thumper – see Map71, kellar, ugly animal et al. ‘eight forms of defense’ features an octet of furiously skedaddled improvisational workouts revealing a wide spectrum of textures, nuances and moods that veer neatly from moments of schizoid no wave impishness to full on freaky art jazz intricacies. What first occurs listening to this limited set is, though the medium might be sparse, it’s the variance of picture boards that readily call to mind, amid these foundation footings to song development, the patterns expressed / utilised within have in some way, a musical tongue of their own with Pyne behind the kit taking you on, I guess what might be considered, a musical travelogue / road trip. As said earlier eight track frequent this strictly limited set, sometimes feral often structured and disciplined, Pyne deftly swings the baton to craft a molten brew whose intricate patterns found on say, ‘the tripping point’ (a track incidentally enough to have beards sprouting among the on looking brethren as they stroke their chins whilst smoking their pipes and nodding in collectively affirmation) blends in sharp contrast to the humorous devices applied to ‘flea circus’ (a little anarchic fun that for some of a certain vintage might well recall the surreal televisual happenings brought to bear upon children’s after school TV hour by Michael Bentine’s ‘potty time’). At other points, ‘moment of last scattering’ does have the feel of a chase vibe from an arty noir early 70’s cosmopolitan experimental filmic quality about its wares while in direct consequence ‘reverse fault pt2’ comes tightly coiled, its minimalist detailing narrowing the confines making it feel as though the walls are closing in as it gouging with an astute tenseness. It’s a similar instruction that’s brought to bear by its sibling ‘pt 1’ where you feel the only thing that’s missing is the icing of Ornette Coleman. Elsewhere ‘call to undercliff’ with its rolling patterns is possessed of a timeless monastic sense of tribal occasion, an almost spiritual reverence ensues while ‘sandstorm’ mirrors the disquieting calm before the storm with its heavily set squirreling earth beat signatures. Now that’s what I call drumming. http://www.foolproofprojects.co.uk
While we are with foolproof projects here’s a few studio happenings from motorik / minimalist / post punk / no wave sore thumbs Map71……
And the superbly head freaking art jazz fused juggernaut that is the West Hill Blast Quartet – here melting heads at a recent appearance at the Verdict in Brighton……
Ever essential, Mega Dodo are fast carving an eclectic name for themselves crafting out an enviable back catalogue populated by psych and folk and all sonic variances lurking within. Latest outing sees them forging links with author / musician Chris Lambert for a very special re-release that’s limited to just 150 hand numbered copies with all profits going in aid of cancer research entitled ‘songs from the black meadow’. We could give you a potted history as to how this arrived and from where but safe to say we suggest you take yourself to Mr Lambert’s own blog space and fill your wellies with strangeness aplenty via http://blackmeadowtales.blogspot.co.uk/
‘the black meadow’ is a found fiction, a pathway to a forgotten past, a ghostly folklore attaching to the North York Moors, where amid the untroubled wild abandon of a nature let loose and exposed to a weather system that’s uniquely its own, a sense of time standing still, perhaps a moment frozen, hangs with perceptible eeriness. Beneath the undergrowth and the crude and twisted overhangs of the trees, the plant life and the localised foliage creeping shadows form to mask out the natural light to create an unnatural gloaming both beautiful and macabre. As inviting as this may first appear, mysterious tales have given this untouched spot a notoriety, for accounts through the ages of persons lost to the wilds are numerous, claimed as their own, their journey hindered by the fall of strange mists and the call and play of souls fallen before. ‘songs from the black meadow’ features these lost voices and souls telling their stories to a gathering of like-minded players operating on the shadowy periphery of the blurring borders that link the worlds of wyrd folk and hauntology.
A homage to olde musical ways, ‘songs of thee black meadow’ provides for a sometime surreal more often than not darkly toned journey into lost customs, fables and folk mythology where cosy outwardly quaint country fayres and festivities hide morbid undercurrents rooted in ritual, traditions of the land and the supernatural. The set comprised of 15 psych folk psalms, opens to eerie fog bound ghost light mantra that is the Hare and the Moon’s weird ear happening with Alison O’Donnell entitled ‘black meadow song’ – in essence a song of death, the passing through of which transports the listener through the veil, albeit here gravely gouged by a mythical macabre hinting of a Hades bound boat of dead across the River Styx by Charon. In contrast Wyrdstone opt for some mellowing pastoral demur for ‘the horsemen’ with the finger picked riff cascades tracing a stirring and richly vivid rustic posy trimmed as a beautified tapestry of evergreen lulling. Indelibly crafted in essences of classic Cambridge folk, the Rowan Amber Mill team up with Angeline Morrison for the quite enchanting twilight floral that is ‘the meadow’s call’ – irrefutably rooted in the artistry that ghosted through ‘the wicker man’ there’s a deftness of elegance here the mesmerises with a hushed hymnal grace fall. Similarly touched are Winterberry whose ‘the fruits of the moor’ comes dinked and chimed in a traditional roving village green jaunt that hints of Circulus. No stranger around these here parts,
Keith Seatman ventures ghostly fairgrounds and haunted carousels, rebooting weird eared 70’s children’s TV themes with a joyous fascination for the kind of 70’s sound vintage that finds him sharing a sonic space with the likes of midwich youth club and the assembled minds all of whom follow an alternative historical perspective that runs to a parallel time line to our own. I think it’s fair to say it’s been a while since the Implicit Order troubled our sound player, happy to say there’s something ominous stirring its way through the thickets of ‘blackberry eyes’ as it descends cloak like hauling in its wake spectres of the lost, quite unsettling I can tell you. Upon its delicate detailing a weary warning call wraps itself around the sparsely weaved and dare I say fleeting visitation by Elena Martin on ‘search the fields’ while ‘randomes’ by Soulless Party offers ghostly echoes of yesterdays as it momentarily shimmers into view apparition like before disappearing into the eerie wilderness. Fancy some horrorphonic hip hop that’s coiled tightly in a choking tense paranoia, may we suggest that Eastgreen’s ‘wealcome to the meadow’ might suitably scratch that itch not least that it loosely harks back to the Birthday Party’s ‘deep in the woods’ in terms of the roles of the prey and predator being macabrely switched though of course removed of incisive slashing brutality of Cave and Co. Again another who it seems have strayed for an age away from our sound space are Lost Trail who here enchant and spook in equal measure with the bruising celestial ghost light that is ‘we’ll go beyond the moor’ while Emily Jones’ ‘dark moss and cold heart’ is groomed with a spellcrafted kiss that’s chilled and caressed in the kind of hollowing soft psych shadow playing that treads between the petrified footings of Jefferson airplane albeit as re-visited by a seriously bewitched and out of it and glassy eyed Bardo Pond.
Those of you more than happy with listening to the sounds entrancing your sound space from the safe comfort afforded by hiding behind the sofa might well make plans to relocate there this instant for the oncoming doom tide that is Joseph Curwen’s chill toned ‘deep woods’ – a disquieting aural aperture opening in the blackening beyond and whose stilled light sucking solemnness uneasily haunts with suffocating menace. Perhaps, if forced with a hand up my back and told to choose my favourite moment of the set, then I’d have to throw my hat in for Kid Moxie’s alluringly seductive ‘song of the horseboy’ as it chimes and chirps with fairy dust draped ethereal like a shy eyed Sundays. Always heartening to hear some well-heeled chorals, and so it was with pleasure to encounter the welcoming warmth hued smoulder that is ‘our fair land’ by the Theale Green Senior School Choir with Mervyn Williams – very Polyphonic Spree. Rounding up matters that Melmoth the Wanderer dude steps into his Septimus Keen guise for ‘when the mist spreads’ – a freaky fracturing field recording guaranteed to ensure you’re suitably spooked and left uneasily looking over your shoulder as you venture towards the player to remove the CD and safely place it back in its sleeve. https://megadodo.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-the-black-meadow
New Shindig magazine about to grace the shelves of variously turned on outlets this week with, we believe, Mr Wilson gracing the cover, ahead of that here’s the latest shindig mix cloud chat in which features an extended feature with Fairport Convention-er Judy Dyble who joins Mr Mills and Mr Patterson to chat about the 60’s – of course Ms Dyble also has an autobiography ‘an accidental musician’ currently doing the rounds. Also featured a plethora of wig flipping sounds from the Shindig-ing duo, once that is, they get the hang of the faders that include wendy and bonnie, free design, we the people, the end, the blossom toes and the quite wonderful and much missed Trish Keenan / Broadcast. https://www.mixcloud.com/sohoradio/the-shindig-broadcast-16062016/
Absolutely smitten with this, the new thing from Let’s Eat Grandma who we happened across sometime last year in these musings when we were found swooning to their quite audacious ‘deep six text book’. An album just out titled ‘i. gemini’ a copy of which we really must grab at our earliest convenience from which the frankly surreally trippy ‘shiitake mushrooms’ has been ripped. This cute thing is guaranteed to work its way under your skin in a good way for what first appears like a spectral homage to Broadcast soon begins to blossom and dissolve into the kind of acutely crooked grooving that once upon a time used to adore early career platters by the knife to our turntable before back flipping into frank chickens terrains to go all woozy light headed and cutely kooky, not to mention crafted with an impish invention that sees them sharing affectionate ear space with Hologram Teen.
Articulate, expressive, measured and mercurial, for nearly two decades now as Yellow6, Jon Atwood has refined, confined and defined his sonic vocabulary into a finitely porcelain craft. Some might see this description as a narrowing of the creative corridor, far from it, for Atwood has micro engineered, developed and cultured a sound world that’s cooled and attuned to the very elements, as such arcing gracefully to their flows, moods and shifts in pace and space to the extent that he is now recognised rightly as one of the foremost sound alchemists of the drone / ambient discipline. These days finding safe haven over at the Silber imprint he has just released, as part of their spring collection, a new track opus that pairs together ‘springsun’ and ‘conrad #2’ – it’s to the latter that we turn first of all, for Atwood still has that ability to musically mesmerise the observer and simultaneously harvest beauty from a point of despairing desolation, none more than here whereupon a passing glacial vision of lilting introspection tearfully bruised by the sighing crush of lonely sunrises left abandoned to a svelte silently bitter sweet solemnness finds itself populated by an airless vapour kissed dance of free spirited milky white murmurs hovering and shimmering their effervescent play amid the stilled nothingness. By contrast ‘springsun’, at 15 minutes in length, offers a more considered palette for Atwood to work from, a timeless musical score for a TV script as were, so far unwritten by David Lynch perhaps, introducing a lone ranger / wolf putting rights to wrongs, a Marlowe for a modern age, flawed and bedevilled by his own ghosts. The sounds of this would be soundtrack come coiled in the soft sting of noir gouged shadow playing mosaics that opine, yearn and stir with defeated hope, their resonance and tempering of atmosphere serving to slowly colour in a would be personality e-fit of the protagonist while simultaneously drawing on a familiar brooding musical well that nods to a trademark sonic signature referencing the likes of Budd, Mancini, Barry and Montgomery albeit as though they’d all been relocated to wiles of Scandinavia. In short, breathless elegance. https://silbermedia.bandcamp.com/album/springsun
Ridiculously chipper and incurably addictive not to mention impossible to sit still during the playing of which without the need for nailing distracting limbs to the floor, this be the new thang from Astralasia on, from what we can gather, the recently dusted down Magick Eye imprint. A five track happy pill entitled the ‘Cheesy’ EP featuring songs old and new, some borrowed and none of them blue, in short more feel good radiant sun stolen loveliness here than the entire under the counter display of a local high street pharmacy, the blighters ought to consider bottling the blighter. Of course it’s all a bit tongue in cheek but then Astralasia and the whole Magic Mushroom Band collective never really went to script, they just went their own way and dragged you along permission or not for the ride. ‘happy song’ opens proceedings, does as it says on the tin craftily tweaking elements of the Seekers’ effervescently sun shiny swinging 60’s signature from ‘Georgy Girl’ into its mainframe and wrapping it up in a furiously freaky fun filled flotilla of floor flipping fizziness. Next up long time firm favourite ‘sul-e-stomp’ gets an upgrade, oh man am I having Cuban Boys flashbacks big time here, irrefutably daft and cute, like an e-tripping Sesame Street tag time on speed doing floor burning shape cuts to bonkers barn dance workouts – I blame McLaren. Another oldie, which if memory serves me right first reared up on a Fruits de Mer outing a little while ago, a cool as f*** lolloping hippy trippy trance toned take of Jonny Leyton’s immortal ‘johnny remember me’ with added Ghost Rider guest appearances which here appears twice in not only its original re-drill take but also as a galactic giddy up whereupon Swordfish and Co apply the dub plates for ‘Johnny in Space’ to get all astral arabesque on your ass not to mention a bit Joe 90-ish it should be said. Last and by no means, surely in tune ears will marvel at the rephrasing of Space’s classic ‘magic fly’ – originally out in the late 70’s, the Astral dudes go all hyperreal culturing a head expanding dream weave of kraut kooled euro disco chic – yes I know they were French d’oh – into the bargain welding to the celestial orbita,l milky flotillas of psychotronic baubles before calling in the Landscape boffins to work their warp drive woozy futuro engineering.
Here’s a little of ‘sul-e-stomp’ – prepare for head scrambling…….
Following news of a folk devils singles anthology, see earlier hep cats, optic nerve recordings have been rummaging around the basement for some more erstwhile forgotten ear gear and have pulled out of the hat a triple wax set by dance punk crossover sorts Medium Medium. ‘The Glitterhouse’ saw the light of day in 1981 via the ahead of the curve Cherry Red imprint and was rightly acclaimed in its day as a forward viewing experimental melting pot that fused together elements of angular art grooved post punk with white funk dub daubed dialects to acutely sit on a sonic map somewhere between the Gang of Four, Brilliant and A Certain Ratio. This formidable set, pressed incidentally on coloured wax and featuring various inserts, is bolstered by a smattering of cuts from their ‘hungry so angry ‘retrospective along with previously unreleased EP of recordings made in 2008 following a brief gathering together in 2004 prompted by a surge in interest in dance punk – see Radio 4, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party et al….here’s 1981’s Talking Heads like punk funk hybrid ‘hungry so angry’……
Still with Optic Nerve recordings, listeners and record buyers of a certain vintage will no doubt recall a Cherry Red set entitled ‘pillows and prayers’ becoming an ever present in the independent charts in that golden year 1983, one of the stand out tracks, and there where many, was Jane’s ‘a fine day’ – a wind torn frailly fragile haunting beauty whose eerie detached mystique was all at once prone to chill and charm in equal measure. The track, a poem written by Edward Barton and sung by his girlfriend Jane Lancaster was picked up by Peel, interest in pursuance leading to the duo being signed and releasing an album as Jane and Barton. Via optic nerve the album gets a repackaging where it’ll arrive pressed on white vinyl replete with an eight-page booklet. In the finest tradition of what did they do next – here some – well ten – facts about Edward Barton that you probably already knew but smugly kept to yourself awaiting an all important tie breaking pub quiz question……incidentally we plucked these directly from the press gubbins……
- Edward invented and patented a knitted woollen radiator cover that is designed to stop radiators looking cold.
- Edward wrote “It’s a Fine Day” (which long before it charted at number 4 for Opus 3 and subsequentlhatched a hundred versions) was an indie hit in 1983 Incidentally it still holds the record for the highest ever chart placing of an unaccompanied poem. The last line “we will have salad” is the only unsampled line left.
- Edward co-wrote Kylie Minogues “Confide in Me”.
- Edward has a room containing over 300 teddy bears: non of them worth anything, other than love. They were rescued from kerbs, skips and back alleys in the 1980’s when it seems the whole of Manchester chucked out it’s childhood.
He also has a large collection of childrens shoes, babies dummies and over a thousand mugs which he re-arranges instead of being a Buddhist.
- Edward appeared twice on “The Tube”. If you say the words “I’ve Got No Chickens but I’ve Got Five Wooden Chairs” to a boy over 40 there is a strong chance of a big smile.
Despite the lack of swearing or sexy stuff his performances attracted more complaints from the public than any other act.
He refused to appear a third time after being asked to emerge from a cake with Samantha Fox.
6.Edward was arrested for displaying his installation “Stolen”, a large cage containing household objects shop-lifted from various supermarkets.
As a result he is probably the only person to appear ( topless or otherwise) on page 3 of “The Sun”, and “The Star” and page 5 of “The Mirror”.The Sun described him amusingly as ‘Manchesters very own Leonardo Da Pinchi.’
Sadly his “Oblong Art Gallery” on the top floor of “Afflecks Palace” in Manchester was, also at the police’s request, shut down.
7.In the 90’s Edward was the unofficial “trance laureate” he wrote 6 top 30 tracks and many dance chart hits with among others Norman Cook as “Pizza Man”, Paul Oakenfold, ATB, LOST WITNESS, Justin Robertson, Way Out West and Orbital.
8.Edward played guitar on “Sowing the Seeds of Love” for Tears for Fears on the Wogan Show. It’s on you -Tube
- Probably because he was cheap, polite and didn’t mind sleeping the night in the back of a van parked on a hill, Edward was the tour support for many bands in the 80’s.He particularly enjoyed the company of Stump, Microdisney and James. Less fun were the The Proclaimers who refused to share a dressing room
10.Edward was strangely prominent during Manchester’s early rave years. He wrote “Born in the North” by a Guy Called Gerald which was one of the Hacienda’s biggest floor undulatory.
Now I’m consciously aware there was much grumbling as there was jubilation to had about this year’s Glastonbury festival, with postings going from one extreme to the other, however if you can, take a moment to rummage around to catch again the full set from Philip Glass’ Heroes Symphony it really was a most magnetic and captivating moment that shone in celebratory jubilance to its fallen author Mr Bowie, this being Glass’ elegantly floral rephrasing of ‘heroes’ – quite sublime if you ask me.
Perhaps it’s the bowed arrangements, the spared musicality or the feint spectral mystic touching, that together endow this excerpt from a new Linda Catlin Smith score for the another timbre imprint entitled ‘dirt road’, with a sense of eerie enchantment, the ghostly conversation shared between Mira Benjamin’s violin and Simon Limbrick’s parched percussive arrangements instilling a subtle oriental flavouring that’s rooted in the archaic and the spiritual.
We actually fell accidentally into this ‘un as it found itself cuing up on our sound cloud player immediately after the Ben Chatwin track, which all things being well, assuming we don’t forget, should find itself adorning a small space here a little later. Anyhow this is VATS from a forthcoming debuting full length entitled ‘green glass room’ via the end of time imprint, the title track I believe, which apart from catching our earlobes a little smartly, put us in mind of youthful classic era Wire that is after the greeting shot of fuzzing discordance clears. That said there’s more going on here than mere angular art post punk tropes, for clearly under the influence of the likes of delta 5 and the waitresses not to mention Devo, VATS’ spidery isolationist groove comes clearly gouged in a death disco dance / club floor astuteness whose chill toned icy stare down links the arms of the much missed controller controller with say, the PINS, ex hex and girlpool.
https://soundcloud.com/endoftimerecords/vats-green-glass-room
many thanks to Jon Yellow6 for sending over this, archive footage of an impact tv show from 1977 which more than justifies the entrance fee of your time and interest just to see a scarily youthful Generation X ripping it up through ‘your generation’ and ‘wild youth’ – we were all so very young then……sigh…..
Time to flip wigs folks for greeting our inbox this dawning morning sprouting hallucinogenic bouquets had coloured and covered the laptop screen in all manner of strange swirls, the chief culprit being an email from Mega Dodo central with news, sound links and pics of the forthcoming lovely from the Luck of Eden Hall. Just three hundred of these babies, some on coloured vinyl I’ll have you know, all headed up by lead out track ‘the end of the lane’ which we’ll visit later today along with ordering gubbins and such like. For now though, the all-important flip side – which I’m certain may be an oldie or at least something we’ve heard in passing – we will check in time for later. ‘blown to kingdom come’ is a bit like going on psychedelic carpet ride down a kaleidoscopic rabbit hole surreally finding yourself amid a swirly eye forming flip book turn of an insanely quick dissolving race through pop’s psych back history that flashes fast around a fizzing fanfare of Move mosaics emitting elements of classic Brit pop tones and glam struts while providing a head expanding whistle stop tour of 60’s freakbeat stopping momentarily to fill up on pretty things, tomorrow and the purple gang highs before hastily returning you to the land of norm in time for tea.
This has been the cause of all manner of admiring glances since arriving within our listening space this last day or so, new thing from the highly thought of SeaWitches through emerald eye (itself a nod to the classic open eye imprint). This be ‘tempest’ a prowling post punk sore thumb that had we not known better, might have suggested it’d had fallen from a forgotten early 80’s rain drenched mid-week Peel playlist, for this shadow playing slice of coolly fractured chill toned chic comes ghosted in the kind of darkly wiring isolationist psychedelia that hints of a lost Liverpool scene where the echoes of both Ex Post Facto and Pink Industry find themselves populating the overcasting northern night skies with search light distress call signs through a narrowing icy prism whose edgy and claustrophobic sonic landscape is pared and parched upon the minimalist mainlining of a pre ‘pornography’ Cure and a ‘movement’ era New Order. Quite essential if you ask me.
Ripped this from a latest posting by norman records, this being imminent on their ever essential in store imprint public house recordings. From what we can gather this ‘un originally appeared in cassette form via opal, all 50 copies long since have flown the coup and no doubt the object of feverish desire on online auction sites. By Karen Gwyer, ‘kiki the wormhole’ gets a once only strictly limited to 240 copies wax pressing, a mammoth psychotropic head trip that fuses drone draped dialects with hybrid techno tongues, one we suspect ripe for head phonic investigation in so much as that way you get to astral plane amid its subtle free spirited amorphous shape shifts. ‘you big’ as showcased here, is the case in point, a micro-lite immersive head tripping dream machine where the mind massaging mosaics flicker, flirt and form gently to the subtle shift of tonalities whereupon the locked grooved etchings and cosmic chorals assume a kind of kosmiche hymnal whose vintage minimalist patterns emerge from the dark side, as were, of the art of the memory palace while piloting into the kind of terrains populated by the motorik quarter of both the deep distance and blue tapes imprints, this is in essence Balearic grooved brain food for the binary age.
Staying with Karen Gwyer a little second longer, it might also be worth checking out, what initially appears from judging the excerpted sound clips, a killer split release via Aliens Jams whereupon she shares groove space with Beatrice Dillon, both these key note sonic alchemists operating ahead of the electronic sound curve go head to head with the latter ascribing to a more minimalist sound tangent trimmed in the sparse weave of Dadaist funk stomp clock working pulsars with the former sighing to the dreamy demur of Balearic grace falls. https://soundcloud.com/alien-jams/beatrice-dillon-karen-gwyer-sampler
Not like we need a reason to feature Elvis in these pages, but in a week when the latest ‘Elvis is alive’ reports buzzed around the social networks – he’s a gardener at Graceland’s – yep that works for me, obvious when you think about it, the smiling to turned to sadness at the news of the passing of Scotty Moore. With Elvis from the start, with the Jordanaires, Scotty forged the founding sound stones of rock n’ roll. For me personally though, it was ‘hound dog’ that always bit the hardest; listening to Peel in the early 80’s I remember him remarking about New Order’s ‘age of consent’ commenting upon a moment near its mid-way point where the jangling strum suddenly tightens for a moment and sighing that for him that ever so brief sequence was the finest he had heard in all his years of record listening, so likewise with me, ‘hound dog’ for all its feral grooving is immortalised by the detuned phrasing that occurs at the 1.21 mark – for one younger listener sitting close adoring of the sounds crackling out of my mum’s record player, this simple and subtle moment of angular defiance was for me, the birth of punk. Rest in Peace Mr Moore.
So here we are back as promised, with that corking limited edition release from the luck of eden hall. Not due for a few weeks, ‘the end of the lane’ offers a ghostly visioning of progressive psych and finds them shifting from a point of being mere classic to something approaching the sublime. With its dreamy dissipates and impeccably mellowed craft ‘the end of the lane’ is a hallucinogenic trip-a-delic overture, more so, an experience founded in the finest tapestries of English psych eccentricity. Morphing trademark tLoEH signatures of yore, ‘Lane’ free spirits its way through a lysergic sonic fracturing that’s haloed upon the elemental fusion of progressive / psychedelic dialects, its mind expanding journey proffering a kaleidoscopic palette daubed in colourised textures that subtly point with a hazy nod to the likes of ‘SF Sorrow’ era Pretty Things, Floyd, ELO and the Zombies albeit gathered exquisitely and spoken in an ‘on the Sunday of life’ era Porcupine Tree tongue. the release arrives in a strictly limited wax press in both blue and black variants and is the latest instalment of Mega Dodo’s acclaimed singles club. For further information and ordering details go to http://www.mega-dodo.co.uk/products/the-luck-of-eden-hall
Dropping the temperature several notches and descending upon our listening space an edgy shadow forming tension so thick and forbidding that for a moment we felt a distant connection to our younger self as we tuned in to be turned on by the ominous chill of an industrial sonic scene stilled and solemnly grooved in the sounds of SPK, Clock DVA, Play Dead, 1919 et al, this is the ice formed groove of Pure Ground. Ripped from a forthcoming set entitled ‘giftgarten’, this is the shadow playing ‘omission’ a delightfully darkening spell casting slab of austere vintage that ought to appeal first and foremost to those of you subscribing to the sounds of both NY’s Weird imprint and the esteemed minimalist sound house Polytechnic Youth. https://soundcloud.com/pureground/omission-from-the-forthcoming-giftgarten-lp
Don’t suppose you’ll be too surprised to hear that we’ve managed to momentarily lose sight of the press release that came attached to this beauty. Fear not we will be revisiting this in full at a later time whereupon we’ll populate words of fondness with oodles enough of information to cause your head to pop. Imminent on ba da bing – at the fall of July – will see the arrival of a new solo set from Queensferry, Scotland based sound alchemist Ben Chatwin entitled ‘heat and entropy’. These days found moving away from his Talvihorrus alter ego, ‘heat and entropy’ finds Chatwin evermore pushing the old ways of classical technique and appreciation into a modernist setting, utilising a dulcimer on the teaser track ‘inflexion’ he conjures up the familiar lilt of a music box charm, appearing both hypnotic and innocent, the melodic murmurs craft a child-like sound carousel of dancing patterns beneath which, a shadowy sinister stirring awakens whose eerie trickery creeps and creaks with clock working macabre as it groans and grows in density and definition. Something, we hasten to add, that ought to be of interest to those admiring of Goblin and Grails. https://soundcloud.com/badabingrecords/inflexion
Quite tasty and into the bargain catching us on the hop, this is a sneaky peek of a cut culled from a forthcoming planetarium records 10 inch by post rocking cosmic heads live footage. Entitled ‘moods of the desert’ this being ‘view from a desert helicopter’, live footage are Brooklyn based duo Mike Thies and Topu Lyo who together craft the kind of head expansive hypnotic grooving that, had you not known any better, would have no doubt suspected had been quietly germinating and mutating under specially incubated sound laboratory conditions in a basement in Berlin ready to be harvested to wax by those in tune Bureau B types. Recommended for head phonic seduction, ‘view from a desert helicopter’ provides for a gorgeously shimmery slice of expansive kosmiche, its bitter sweet reflection tempered tearfully by the sensitive slow phrasing of altering modulations whose effect, though spectral, carves and navigates a sumptuous and beautifully yearning surround sound cinematic vibe that’s all at once crushing and stately.
Mentioned these dudes briefly, was it, last week. Anyhow whatever the case, this is the first track to be lifted from the forthcoming King Champion Sounds set ‘to awake in that heaven of freedom’ – as said previously, aside providing for a head turning melting pot of sounds and styles, the album features a gathering of guests, one of which J Mascis graces the grooves of ‘mice, rats, roaches’ – a ferociously rumbling slab of road burning blues that taps directly into the head space of Captain Beefheart, albeit the tapping and rummaging being done by a scorching sonic scout party led from afore by Jello Biafra and Mojo Nixon. Face ripping stuff.
Okay so maybe it’s not the done thing to go posting bootleg videos of live performances, but this is John Carpenter captured in person performing recently in Los Angeles doing the landmark loving it from behind the sofa slash signature ‘Halloween’…..
It’s no coincidence that we previewed this particular release with John Carpenter’s ‘Halloween’, both emerge from a similar sparse space with each casting an eerie edginess to the listening space. This is a new 12 inch forthcoming / perhaps it’s out already, via latency recordings by Andrea Belfi. Entitled ‘cera persa’ – the track comes divided into two distinct parts, ‘part 1’ with its subtle Carpenter nuances albeit as rephrased through a Pimmon viewfinder, is oozed in the kind of detached trance-y subtronic busyness that once upon a time graced those essential ear gear happenings that occasioned the early back catalogue of Fat Cat’s forward thinking Split series. However, for us it’s ‘part 2’ that hugged our earlobes, readily more textured and, it should be said, a little more playful to the listening, this primitive echo is graced by a minimalist night light framing of demurring frost tipped glitch grooves that had us here imagining a particularly chilled minotaur shock crafting and carving ice sculptured mosaics from abandoned Mount Vernon Arts Lab works in forgotten progress. https://soundcloud.com/latency-recordings/andrea-belfi-cera-persa-ltnc008
don’t know about you, but with what appears to be the seams of the country fast unravelling what with political ineptness being the summers latest fashion accessory, sorry did I say summer, we can’t even get that right at the moment, which talking of the right, who in all honesty let the idiots take up the battle cry and the upper hand. And as for the football, really don’t get me started, let’s just recommend a quick reference to Danny Baker’s volcanic twitter feed and I’ll say no more. So in the space of a week we have gone from Great Britain to Little Britain yet without the gags, that said I do say ‘gags’ with a measure of bewilderment and a large side serving of tongue in cheek. Would it be right to say we need a bit of a mood lifter, something to make you beam with pride, a unifier, an anthem, a cavalry cry. Hello Slipstream, blighters have had this tucked away in the dark for a while waiting for the call from the subs bench, ‘what I want’ be its name, heading out from a forthcoming full length – date of contact to be arranged. A fist clenching, chest beating battle cry from the streets, hope for the disaffected wrapped in a searing strut gouged grooving tailored in the finest ear pinching Slipstream trademark trimming all scowled in a bracing blast of disbelieving, disenfranchised and seething tension from a forgotten and ignored populace whose pride and soul has been robbed stripped bare and fettered away by the greedy, the feckless and the upper classes. Sorry did I forget to say it was good. https://soundcloud.com/slipstreamuk/what-i-want
having left the sound player going through the motions while furiously typing up the previous review, this damn fine slab of post punk cool reared its head. Been out for a while, I guess a fair few of you are probably bored of it by now having played it to the point of destruction, but truth is we had to give it a quick double take for the similarity to Joy Division really is quite remarkable. Anyway it’s by the BHD and it’s called ‘into the shadow’ through the manic depression imprint. https://soundcloud.com/the-bhd-2/into-the-shadow-1
they were geeky, gnarled, goofy and grooved in greatness, the band your older brother hated but secretly taped and bragged to his friends behind your back of his adoration in an attempt to secure kool kudos; both discordant and desirably schizoid, Urusei Yatsura didn’t so much cut a dash through a bloated sixties obsessed 90’s indie landscape but rather more set the blighter ablaze kicking, scuffing and skewing the outer edges along the way, petulant sore thumbs who see sawed perilously upon a sonic axis that teetered closely to shambolic, a Scottish Sonic Youth who pricked the ears of a certain John Peel and became the first band since the Undertones to record a Peel session outside of the Maida Vale studios. Thought missing in action, Rocket Girl emerge from out of hibernation with a dandy neon pink wax set featuring a gathering of BBC radio sessions from Glasgow’s finest entitled ‘you are my Urusei Yatsura’ due for release this coming September – a little taster to get you swooning, here’s the gloriously prickly and perfect ‘plastic ashtray’ – just to add to the chaotic charm not the version found on the album this being a Radio Scotland take…… https://soundcloud.com/uruseiyatsuraband/plastic-ashtray
disorientating and distracting might be two words you’d use to describe this latest on the formidable Alrealon Musique imprint, a set no less by the Ephemeral Man who after a period of hibernation drops by with ‘it’s – the ephemeral man’, alas only one track on preview thus far, but enough evidence provided within – courtesy of ‘hari’ – to reveal he’s lost none of his inventiveness and impish want in creatively bending and blurring the generic lines of sound. Culturing sub-tronic textures with sparse tonalities, ‘Hari’ terraforms across an intricate sound board where arabesque motifs sultrily ghost and weave a dissolving dream like tapestry graced in operatic chorals, trip hop beats and woozy mystics the likes of which, shimmer around the outer edges of Muslim Gauze’s sonic universe crafting out what might be rightly categorized as Radiophonic dub. https://alrealonmusique.bandcamp.com/album/its-the-ephemeral-man-alrn071
just one brief sitting with this and I promise it’ll be nagging away doing bad (good) things at the back of your head space all day long. From a forthcoming drag city set entitled ‘the wink’ this is teaser treat ‘clue’ by white fences’ Tim Presley – all at once off kilter and off road, no matter how many times you hear it, it still retains that unnerving ability to keep you hopping on the back foot as it stumbles, pauses, momentarily forgets where it is before proceeding onwards in a crookedly though mildly fried way. Everything that works about this, shouldn’t – its lackadaisical vibe and kookily casual skewed garage blues snake winding craft an intricately funky vibe that, at least to these ears, skirt to cook up a bright eyed albeit bent around the edges brew assembled from Beefheart, Richman, talking heads and Pere Ubu essences. https://soundcloud.com/drag-city/tim-presley-clue
as always you might have to forgive us a moment because, due to an obvious lack of anything resembling organisational skills or a filing system (we can but dream of these mere peripheral tools of professionalism), we’ve managed to forget or book mark the link from which we stumbled across this. Now folklore tapes have been mentioned on several occasions in these pages, such mentions are usually prefaced by us complaining – or more so, mourning thee fact that by the time we stumble upon said goodie, that they’ve long since flown the coup and become things of objectionable costliness on various online auction sites. Anyhow this is an extended snippet from their ongoing ‘calendar customs’ series, an audiological sound book that seeks to explore and research the arcane facets to do with the passing seasons of the countryside / the land and the lengthening shadow of the myths, customs, pagan rituals, games and rites of passage entwined within. Now up to the fourth instalment – ‘crown of light’ sets its sinister eye on the cycle of midsummer to provide a ghostly mirage of, what on the face of it, are quaint customs and quirks, behind whose smile and merriment lies a macabre mural /history of death, blood and sacrifice. So for the next six minutes, be transported to the land of green whereupon jigs, costume and the ways of the old come eerily devoted to the watching shadow of nature, where the innocence of folk stories is blurred by the resonant groan and prowl of death, where the rambling country paths by day chirp and charm with welcoming invitation to manifest by night in a haunting shadow forming trap. https://soundcloud.com/folklore-tapes/calendar-customs-voliv-crown-of-light-midsummer-traditions-and-folklore
returning back to the another timbre imprint for further samples from their recently released summer catalogue, this is the quite elegantly demurred autumnal beauty that is ‘volume’ an extract from an extended composition by Johnny Chang and Michael Majkowski, here trading collectively as illogical harmonies, a most alluring example of the bowing weave of violin and double bass whereupon the conversation assumes a graceful stillness as though conducted in some misty twilight forest glade just as nature’s guards change with the night falling away to sleep and the yawn of daydream, a most dedicated and quietly appreciating study of poise, atmosphere and polite interplay.
Another release we’ve been finding ourselves smitten with of late are the doric cuts featured on an essential 10 inch set heading out of Bristol’s peripheral minimal. The set entitled ‘sleep of reason’ features six tracks of sublime vintage thawed from a cold wave age, only 300 of these babies, which if there were any justice in this land would be guaranteed to fly off the presses in nanoseconds. A release that ought principally, to appeal to those of you, much adoring of the bleakly opaque cold war / wave signature sounds of the late 70’s and 80’s, much like those say venturing out of the polytechnic youth and weird imprint sound houses, we here finding ourselves much taken by ‘poets land’ – a collaboration with Valisia Odell – that flies, as were, into the very heart of Foxx’s icily dystopian ‘metamatic’ to find itself cast among a high tension wiring panic stricken landscape of senses heightening siren hums and paranoiac frostiness and isolationism. ‘sleep of reason’ on the other hand is pure classic era groove teasingly extrapolated from lost moments of a youthful Some Bizarre / Mute back catalogue, a distress echo from a forgotten age daubed in an edgy shadow gouged backdrop of a future gazing post war post punk European landscapes graved in detachment. https://soundcloud.com/repartiseraren/sets/exclusive-premieres-doric-sleep-of-reason-poets-land
Spraying our listening space in warming rays of radiant sunshine whilst outside summer time fights a front line charge of the impatiently early arrival of Autumnal elements, there’s much to love and adore about the Highest Order’s ‘slip away’. Prized from a forthcoming set for idee fixe entitled ‘still holding’ and sent out on a scouting mission as a heralding download single, there’s a cosy toed smokiness about ‘slip away’ as it day dreams the passing of time reclining under the overhanging branch of a green felt hill top. Peppered in subtle west coast washes all crookedly cooled in the affectionate lazy eyed cortege of lolloping prairie murmurs, hints of buffalo springfield rephrased by a particularly chilled summer hymns spring readily to mind on this desirably drifting doozy.
Something I strongly suspect will be an important date to note in your diary – the label – mega dodo, the time of release – 26th September 2016, the event – a yellow vinyl 12 inch set limited to just 500 copies featuring a seminal Peel session from Big Grunt. A historical recording featuring one of the most eccentric voices to have ever have graced this marketable medium we loosely call ‘pop’. Big Grunt where one of many collective alter egos / bands fronted by Mr Vivian Stanshall shortly after the dissolution of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, in essence they were the Bonzo’s only without co-conspirators Neil Innes, Larry Smith and Rodney Slater, a kind of extended family that included members of their road crew. Recording just one 4 song session for long-time admirer and friend John Peel, this motley crew of merry pranksters never quite made it out of the recording studio to perform live before Stanshall was on to the next page of his ‘where to now’ notebook. Hard to imagine then that both Peel and Walters missed a trick in not persuading Clive Selwood to unearth these forgotten recordings as a potential Strange Fruits release and that it’s taken until now, for all four tracks to be gathered together in their entirety. Of course both ‘blind date’ and ‘the strain’ have over the years managed to secrete themselves onto variously associated Bonzo archives but never till now has ‘cyborg signal’ been heard since its original airing in March 1970. As you’d rightly imagine from anything bearing the unmistakable Stanshall signature, the sound of Big Grunt is off page, prone to humorous detours and well, not so much running against the musical tide of the day, but more so idly sitting on the fence wondering what all the fuss is about. Peculiarly quaint and a tad sighed in a remembrance of polite society and courteous ways, ‘blind date’ ambles and tootles its way through a fairer British landscape referenced in homely seaside key seasonings and lolloping yarns however, this being Stanshall it’s not quite your ordinary ever day boy meets girl love note as the absurdist twist at the close soon reveals. ’11 mustachioed daughters’ allows free reign to Stanshall’s surrealist imagination, a scatty Beefheart like work out cutting up wigged out arabesque snake charmed blues with surf-a-rella add ons indelibly high on the abstract. ‘the strain’ provides for the most-straight ahead thing here, a slick lock grooving strut–a–rama 50’s bubble groover checking around the curve and no doubt witnessing the oncoming pub rock traffic hurtling down the road. All said by far the best thing here is the parting instrumental ‘cyborg signal’ – a mellowing slice of dream drift gouged and grooved upon a meticulous, light years ahead of its time, post rock framing upon whose mercurial musicality elements of ‘parachute’ era Pretty Things, the Floyd and Mountain are stirred into its demurring storm stirring brew. Essential in case you hadn’t already gathered.
More a moment of light relief, but we happened across Not the Nine O’ Clock News’ hilarious new romantic pastiche ‘nice video shame about the song’ earlier today and found ourselves ruminating on exactly who it was they were having a pop at, of course the internet age being as it is awash with information, both useless and useful tit bits, and yes it would have been easier to busy away 10 seconds of my life to research the answer, we felt such rummaging would have detracted from the fun and cringing horror of re-watching videos that haunted our youth. So here’s three horrors of visual pomposity, not an Adam video in sight, in order ascending order of daftness – just between you and me the Classix one just about manoeuvres to include every known cliché in the new rom book of video presentation – gothic building, pouting, co-ordinated vogue, enigmatic camera shots at distance, comical fight scene, point the camera at me singer / star / ego complex, bored looking girl…..we could go on but I guess you’ve got the point…..
I do wish these mix tapes would come with playlists, I feel almost embarrassed not being able to recognise the artists or tracks being played for fear of getting things woefully wrong. This folks, is a killer head phonic dream dazed mix cobbled together by those Front and Follow and the Geography Trip dudes, the latter of whom we feared had called it a day with the former currently sporting a very fine split face off that pairs together IX Tab and Hoofus on a limited cassette. Two hours of, what is essentially, cerebral chill food featuring a fond spray of mind drifting mosaics, cosmic castaways, noodling nocturnal niceness and the occasional detour into glacially ornate noir folk from the outer realms of electronic sound, perfect one would imagine for an astral walk within the privacy of your mind garden. https://www.mixcloud.com/reformradio/the-takeover-with-front-follow-the-geography-trip/
Blimey, no sooner do we despatch the games for may goodie sets, then along comes Fruits de Mer’s summer collection, an ear feasting three pronged singles selection as ever all pressed up in limited quantities and all arriving in bespoke coloured wax variants. First up on the turntable rack the much touted ‘the fruits de mer records guide to the hitchhikers guide to galaxy’ EP. The label had been by and large fairly tight lipped about this release until recently which has served to only heighten and exasperate our itch to hear it. Features three unique differing takes / perspectives on one of TV’s most recognised and dare I say, legendary theme tunes, ‘journey of the sorcerer’ – better known of course as the theme from Douglas Adams’ ‘the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy’. Originally appearing on 1975’s ‘one of these nights’ (the album immediately preceding their worldwide money printing quadruplateen zillion selling ‘hotel California’ set), the track by the Eagles was chosen by Adams who reportedly wanted something that sounded both ‘sci-fi’ and gave the feeling and sense of ‘travelling’. The EP finds said cut handed over for re-interpretation by a specially selected troop of cosmic free spirits with Astralasia being first to take up the baton, who in turn apply all their cosmic head expanding reserve into engaging the infinite improbability drive to appear inside your headspace sweeping up the grey matter and giving it a much need and rather fetching kaleidoscopic make over before applying warp drive thrusters to have pinging like a pinball around the realms of inner space upon a turbo charged Silver Surfer-esque sonic board. Icarus Peel on the other hand puts said track through the bliss blender on a hot cycle only forgetting to take it out on time and leaving it emerging in to the daylight slightly freaked and fried for the experience, a kind of head tripping cosmic fairground ride or more rightly an absolutely freaky and wigged out sonic space dub bong. Ramping up the fuzzing sci-fi-tronic twang-a-rama quotient to maxima, blue giant zeta puppies round out matters with their intergalactic b-movie styled space spy meets Man or Astro Man re-tooling by effecting a deliciously dream machining dark star hypno-groove that imagines ‘mission impossible’ gone Martian. The release comes replete with a bonus CD featuring a wealth of similar covers and various mixes from the likes of Quantum Surf Rocket Garage Dolls, Astralasia and Sendelica’s Peter Bingham – phew.
And as for the original, well that goes a lot like this……
Continuing with this cornucopia of cover sets, up next on the fruits de mer summer cat walk are frequent FdM flyers Vibravoid found here amassing their considerable psychedelic powers to weave a cosmically head expanding and beard forming brew out of Iron Butterfly’s monolithic classic ‘in-gadda-da-vida’. Left in the hands of Germany’s premier wig flippers, the originals freakbeat stoner blues grooving is hypnotically tempered into a 60’s shimmered molten 15-minute (incidentally split across two sides of coloured wax) mind trip which aside displaying an exquisitely crafted vintage whilst decorated in dandy lysergic threads also manages to find these shade adorned dudes craftily leaving their trademark fingerprints to claim it as their own and paint it in all manner of kaleidoscopic shadings, funky freak outs, Eastern mosaics, reverse loop dub cultures and wickedly sassy and snaking strut gouges. In short, absolutely out there and flying.
Here’s the Iron Butterfly original……
Stumbled across this via an interesting mid-season round up by the shoegazer alive 9 site. Of course you’ve no need for me telling you that the Stargazer Lilies are a much loved distraction around these parts given we’ve featured them on occasion. However, I’m suspecting we’ve an unread email / press release somewhere because as far as we recall we haven’t as yet had the pleasure of hearing their latest offering. Via ghostface records, ‘door to the sun’ – incidentally voted #2 in that aforementioned mid-year selection list, arrive in all the usual formats – including a limited vinyl version and an ultra-limited cassette edition – the latter we’ve admittedly got our enviable eye on. Anyhow while we try to wrestle download links from their press folk people here’s the quite angelic sounding ‘personal autumn’ – a gorgeous sun burn siren swooning and swirling lost in the adoring bliss kissed hazes of MBV’s ‘loveless’ whilst haloed and sighed in a forlorn framing of vapour trailing shadings of soft psych euphoria that irresistibly echoes of a subdued lovelorn Slowdive. Stops annoyingly abrupt – just saying. https://graveface.bandcamp.com/album/door-to-the-sun
oh and that mid season shoegaze chart can be found here…. https://shoegazeralive9.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/the-60-best-shoegazer-albums-of-2016.html?m=1
again something else with which suspect we’ve received an email about recently, seriously I do apologise for not keeping on top of these things, blame it on the fact that we have the memory of a goldfish and the easily distracted nature of an infant that causes us to flip and hop, attract and attach ourselves to all manner of strangely pretty sounds. Anyhow this little beauty is heading out of the Song, by Toad imprint who will, I can assure all, be getting a fondly worded begging letter for promo copies the minute we’ve wrapped up and sent this gem to bed. This is modern studies and a track taken from a forthcoming debut album entitled ‘swell to great’ by the name ‘dive bombing’ – a most lilting floral folk beauty described by the label as arriving fully formed from a chamber pop collective hailing from Glasgow via Yorkshire which by way of these attuned ears freefalls into the kind of mellowed allure that has been known to grace platters by Beautify Junkyards. Possessed of a sea faring aura all kissed with a dreamy demur, amid its beautified beguile elements of a sweet seduced forging echo of le mans and fugu essences radiantly purr to a willowy pastoral pillow grazed and reclined by the subtle stirring of Stereolab and L’Augmentation types.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/141192422″>Dive-Bombing | Modern Studies</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user8040974″>rob st john</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Fancy some dystopian trip hop, well there’s a ridiculously limited 7-inch EP heading out of Welsh imprint Recordiau Prin that might well be up the street of those among you impishly tuning your frequencies and realities into 1981 and finding yourselves somewhat crouched on a cold waving axis located somewhere between Mute’s the Normal and Alrealon Musique’s Black Saturn. However, the surprise here might be when we tell you that this is by Pulco, of whom some of you might recall us gushing aplenty sometime last year when our listening space was greeted by, what you might rightly call, a best of set entitled ‘dip in the ocean’ – a gathering of lost EP’s and tracks that revealed a creative artistry purred in the kind of sensitivity and craft that offered an extended hand to the likes of June Panic, Lux Harmonium and AB Leonard. In sharp contrast, the previewing cut ‘disguises’ from his latest offering, an EP entitled ‘Solid Geometry’, is a shadowy slab of edgy paranoiac b-movie eeriness framed in the macabre merriment of sinister fairground scares and the detached isolationism of, an as were, score for a Cronenberg interpretation of a forgotten William S Burroughs script crookedly grooved by a Mk 1 version of the Human League, something we suggest that ought to be an essential record collection acquirement for those subscribing in all things Polytechnic Youth. https://recordiauprin.bandcamp.com/track/disguises
An oldie but goodie, from the late Fad Gadget……
In case you thought we’d forgot, here’s the third and final platter of that FdM singles summer parade. Again another superbly cut covers set this time featuring Sidewalk Society cutting it up in fine style with a brace apiece of The Action and Bowie grooves. The exquisitely faithful re-visiting of Bowie’s ‘can’t help thinking about me’ initially appeared on last year’s members club freebie ‘fashion’, a stunning 60’s beat grooved dandy, clipped and studded with an abrasively cool Who styled Mod-ness all kissed with a knowing swagger and an astute aloofness. Admittedly ‘let me sleep beside you’ is a curious choice however they thin and clean up the original to rephrase it in a hazy soft psych vintage with much aplomb. Strangely enough though it’s the Action covers that provide most interest here in so far as the bands remit, by their own words, was ‘to bring them into a more fully formed state’. Both cuts from their latter career, featured on the ‘rolled gold’ sessions. In particular, it’s the parting ‘strange roads’ that shines the brightest and gets our vote for being the sets best track, a strangely becoming hybrid of pub rock and power pop vibes indelibly mellowed in a 60’s sheening but aglow in a curiously free spirited fuzziness that imagines an early 70’s styled Beach Boys shimmying up to 10cc with a subtle side serving of Brinsley Schwarz types, all lying forgotten in a studio vault until being discovered and polished anew by a studio gathering of doleful lions and kingsbury manx folk. Not that ‘look at the view’ is any slouch in the shade adorning stakes coming on like a sun fried slice of radiant west coast effervescence cooked up by a Byrds / the creation face off. As ever limited issue and on coloured wax to boot.
Over forty years since her blueprint for future sound, Daphne Oram’s portable ‘oramics’ interface is finally realised. The original ‘Oramics’ model is these days housed in the Science Museum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36651270
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-36651270/embed
For most of a certain vintage, our first exposure to electronic sounds would have invariably, been attached to the realms of sci-fi / horror b- movies / tv through the prism of the bbc radiophonic workshop or glimpses of the future via Sylvia / Gerry Anderson’s extended TV21 universe, by and large perhaps because of this, many of us have a disconnect to the warm fluency of electro pop preferring our sounds grimly grinned in icy overtures that hint of secret bleak histories or of robotic futures to come and with that revealed in their basest and more forbidding / foreboding minimalist toning. We say all this because by way of the revolutions per day blog we were introduced, albeit a little late in the day given they’ve – well in truth he, Alexandre Grand of Invasion Planete Recordings – has been issuing releases unbeknownst to us for the best part of a decade as Le Syndicat Electronique. Based upon a monochrome toned terms of reference, Grand crafts ghostly analogue apertures cooled in mechanoid murmurs, future echoes that glower with cold war paranoia spun upon dystopian visions trimmed in eerily macabre musical clock working charms whose sparsely industrialised minimalist threading chills with an wearily haunting emotional hollow much like the Normal redrafting the score for ‘Halloween III’.
Staying with the same blog (revolutions per day), recent posts have had us turned on to the sounds of Roberto Auser who is about to release an EP by the name ‘Faceless Future’ through the Enfant Terrible imprint. Sent ahead on a scouting routine just ahead of the EP’s release, ‘fearless’ finds Auser comfortably at home piloting glitch grooved subterranean spectrums fusing the kind of deep dubtronic trance toned technoid elements once upon a time the trademark catch of the smallfish, boltfish, and rednetic sound houses and then relocating to the immersive minimalist sonic schooling of the bureau b imprint by way of tarwater and cluster and all their extended family variants, whilst simultaneously applying a subtly funky framing to the mix that might well get your kitchen appliances feeling a little frisky.
the sunday experience 