Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping….
Transmission 1….
Revolutions of a 45 and 33 kind…..
Opening gubbins…..
If all goes well and we don’t bore of the idea, these transmissions will be coming at you thick and fast on a weekly basis. In short they are a gathering of the weeks reviews with added content, that content being very short heads ups for those releases we just never had the time to mention / hear or review along with a picking of various podcasts and mix sessions doing the rounds that particular week. The reason for this being that we always feel bad either missing emails, losing emails or finding time running against us – I mean last year alone we had something like – 15,000 of them in our inbox all music related, leaving us often joking that even if we photocopied myself five times I still wouldn’t have enough time to cover everything. So in order that I can get a peaceful night of sleep without guilt tripping, the aim is simply to give mention to as much as comes to pass by our desk. Of course my reliability threshold is pretty much non-existent – so if we get into February doing these things – well that’ll be an achievement in itself.
Briefs…..
Apparently vinyl is on the increase, try telling that to some of the independent record labels especially around the time of Record Store Day wherein it becomes impossible to book pressing time due to the majors clogging up the order books with repackaged releases with little thought or imagination only in so much as trying to nab your hard earned cash with their vastly overpriced back catalogue rehashes.
the KLF or at least some variation thereof announced activity – see below somewhere .
peter buck signs with old school label just deals with cash doesn’t use a computer, just does things proper like a traditional record shop – I think I may move to Portland….. https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/rems-peter-buck-needed-a-new-label-the-one-he-chose-wont-take-your-credit-card/2017/01/05/4543095c-c60e-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?utm_term=.2b792e55e592
Matrix run out groove – A side…. ‘it ain’t what you do….’
There’s only 8, yes you read right, 8 copies of this currently in circulation, pressed on 8 inches of lathe cut vinyl by the hand of the 345rpm folk, it’s by twenty-one crows, it’s called ‘diamond heeled shoes’ and its heading out of the endless stable. Guess you’ll be wanting to hear what it sounds like, damn fine in truth, from a lo-fi minimalist starting point it steadily shifts in perspective gathering dimension, depth and density prowling and prodding with an angular haloing that scratches and scabs to form something that never quite catches light in the expected way but rather more glowers and simmers much like the fraught emotional response of some shadowy post rock summit meeting gathering together the collective handiwork of quickspace, left hand and radiohead. Over on the flip sits the relatively more sunny aspect of ‘kings’ – a slow to burn magisterial epic amid whose darkly woven floral pageantry emerges a dead heading overcasting storm that initially recalls godspeed though on repeat listens nods with a crafted finesse to the much missed the future kings of England. https://endless-records.bandcamp.com/album/attrition
Mentioned this before the festive hullaballoo, no reason not to give it an additional plug. Heading out shortly, self-released I believe on strictly limited quantities of 7 inch vinyl, this is Manchester’s Control of the Going with the uber cool ‘she’ – best filed next to your prized my jealous god platters, indeed that good – see https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/11/control-of-the-going/ for more enlightenment. https://wrongwayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/control-of-the-going-she-wild-flower-ltd-edition-7
More wonky waywardness from human parents who you may recall regaled us not so long ago with the evils of the president elect courtesy of ‘trumped’- now found ushering in the new year with ‘brand new truck 2017’ he happily provides evidence indeed that over the recent festive break he’s lost none of his sore thumb biting knack for minimalist impishness and stone throwing discontent, for fans of Daniel Johnston and Jad Fair we suspect. https://humanparents.bandcamp.com/track/brand-new-truck-2017
This being the day after the night before, we here are suspecting that one or two of you might well be suffering from the labours of celebration, good job then that Innerise have hastily cobbled a mind drifting cure all cocktail of ambient delight to ease you through your delicate state. This is ‘1511tk1’a newly hatched demo fresh off the Innerise workbench, a kind of new dawn thaws sumptuously ghosted in celestial sighs all turned upon the delicately measured arc of yawning choral cascades, it makes for a deeply meditative moment of quietly dream drifted majesty. https://soundcloud.com/innerise/1511tk1
Responsible for causing swooning aplenty with their occasional cover sets throughout last year, the blog that celebrates itself open their 2017 with not one, but four excellent and exceptional compilations, each dedicated separately (with their own colour to boot ranging from violet, pink, orange and grey) to the sonic spectrums dreampop, shoegaze, psychedelia and post punk, all of which WILL be getting our undivided attention over the course of the next few days. For now we’ve plucked just one track from each of the sets by way of a taster. First up on the inspection block, the ‘violet’ / ‘dreampop’ selection which opens to the sounds of the quite divine Lake Ruth whose ‘empty morning’ shimmies to a disarming noir seduction temptingly traced in jazz lounge lunar motifs that silkily and playfully populate an uber cooled 60’s orbital palette that imagines hand held star formations forged from the collective elements of Stereolab, Broadcast and the Soundcarriers. https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/va-colors-compilations-violet-dreampop
next up in this feast of colours compilations, the grey selections hone’s its headspace to all things post punk, amid this chilly and angular 12 strong gathering we’ve eyed new groove from Reptilians of Andromeda who as any well versed casual observer of these musings will tell you, have a curious knack of raising the pulses around here each and every time they veer into earshot. The oddly macabre ‘sweet’s gone’ is a beyond the grave love note, a prowling dark hearted positive punk cutie seductively souring and deadheading that circumvents the kind of shivery and shadowy places once upon a time the isolationist lair of the celebrated Batcave community. https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/va-colors-compilations-grey-post-punk
I’m fairly certain we’ve had recent correspondence from folk connected with the subterranean satellite band which we will do our utmost best to rescue from the email mountain in the coming days. For now though, they’ve a track on the blog that celebrates itself’s ‘psychedelic’ compilation happening as part of the labels four part colours series, this one being the ‘orange’ one. A strange sonic sortie is ‘certain things’ – pierced with an eerie majesty there’s a kind of kosmick spaghetti western vibe withering throughout replete with dust ravaged atmospherics from out of which peer momentary glimpses of irresistibly frayed west coast murmurs and celestial hymnals all sublimely fracturing into overcasting hazes of finality which all said sound to these ears like something forged from the dark half of a working for a nuclear free city persona. https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/va-colors-compilations-orange-psychedelic
Last up on this brief soiree of TBtCI ‘colours’ releases comes from the ‘red’ / ‘shoegaze’ selection this being the quite adorable Apartamentos Acapulco with ‘scarlett’ – a vapour trailing processional grace fall whose disarming nature is borne of a lulling and quietly traced emotional rush that softly gathers in density and depth from a point of sparse shimmer toning to the blossoming into radiant raptures of white hot heavenly haloes of majestically sighing lovelorn star kisses – need I say more. https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/va-colors-compilations-red-shoegaze
At the start of the week we had this……
Shall I just leave this with you to ponder on – the fives, 23, Union Express, ABBA and….the K Foundation….
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/197669227″>KLF 01-01-2017 WTF FOUND VHS</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user60943800″>Cale Leth</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
…by its end we had this https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2017/jan/05/klf-comeback-bill-drummond-jimmy-cauty – fevered anticipation that pop’s saviours / assassins – delete by choice – where planning a comeback – something to do with the magic number 5 – twenty three years since they split – ie 1994 to 2017 = 23 – 2 + 3 =5 ‘the fives’ and that they were planning something afoot around the 23rd of August….we almost nodded off at the gushing waffle of it all, I wonder if the writer does conspiracy theories and suduko.
And then there was this…….
Another tip top release from the folk over at recordiau prin records, this was sneaked out just before the silly season, twenty copies in total, sorry just nabbed the last one I’m afraid. By the tremolo ghosts, ‘o’ appears to be a collection of memories and ghostly recitals or as the liner notes put it more succinctly, ‘a set of coded records that document secret worlds forgotten by time’. We’ll leave a full review for a few days while we hang on patiently for the CD, for now though may we draw your discerning ear to the rather mellowing and strangely trance-y tones of the sets longest track ‘inside orange light’ upon whose detached dreaminess elements of Flying Saucer Attack and Stylus converge to craft a radiant sunburst of bleached mountain folk mosaics cradled in the sonic likeness of John Fahey albeit faintly sketched by Grails. https://recordiauprin.bandcamp.com/album/o-tremolo-ghosts
Also out via recordiau prin, that’s not forgetting the small though essential matter of a Pulco outing entitled ‘or tu allan’ which we mentioned way back at https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/12/pulco-6/ – there’s the second of the labels hand crafted one off ukulele which I swear one of these days I will get around to purchasing, these arrive as a unique limited edition of 1 – built from scratch, hand painted with gig bag to boot – look quite dandy if I’m being honest. https://recordiauprin.bandcamp.com/merch/handmade-recordiau-prin-ukulele-prinu0002
Things we missed…..i’m suspecting that this may well indeed be the same Constantine who appeared on last year’s festival goodie bag bundle and who has connections to Sendelica, that said that might have been Constadine – the memory plays cruel tricks and anyway I’m trying to recall something from last summer when here am I am struggling to recall what I was doing ten minutes ago. Ah well as you might gather this is Constantine and ‘day of light’ – by the looks of things released little under a year ago, but the sounds – enchantment and beguilement aplenty pour forth from this prettified pastoral posy, one we suspect that’s ripe for those Circulus admirers among you.
Is it just me that’s thinking the new teaser track ‘Alice’ by the Underground Youth have the distinct whiff of a post ‘pornography’ / pre ‘the top’ Cure about its wares, not that we here are complaining or anything, how we love those needle picked crystalline riffs, anyhow this comes pulled from a forthcoming full length entitled ‘what kind of dystopian hellhole is this?’ a question which has long dogged our own sleep patterns as we ponder its intricacies in the wee small hours when normal folk do rest, ah well its heading out of fuzz club sometime next month I shouldn’t wonder.
Happened across this by accident, a bit of a dark hearted beauty, this folks is pearblossom highway and ‘drone eye’ – a superbly set slice of shadowy psych noir replete with mind warping dissipates, a brief nod to Syd Barrett, several more nods to Barrett acolyte Edward Ka-Spel and a more than generous bathing of psychosis freaked fracture like eeriness which in truth did have us a little minded to root out and refamiliarize ourselves with the early handiwork of Clock DVA. There’s an album currently mooching around by the name ‘psychotic jail’ which I’m gathering we need to hear…..
After having heard this, I’m not so sure who has the biggest beards, this lot – Earthling Society or those cosmic fret fighters Sendelica. This ‘un comes ripped from a forthcoming album ‘Zen Bastard’ due to impact upon all deserving dansettes sometimes next month via the drone rock imprint, ‘outsideofintime’ sounds as though its smoking its own gear, strong psychoactive stuff judging by the tripping out thereness of this mind expanding nugget which for the best part comes across like an oblivion heading teeth bared stoned out Floyd literally caving in amongst themselves as they veer into some dimension altering wormhole only to emerge out of the other side intact with their faculties and wherewithal a tad bonged out and tastily tranced up amid flotillas of dissipating dub mystics. https://soundcloud.com/dronerockrecords/outsideofintime
Imminent grooviness from the polytechnic youth folk, this one is heading out next week or thereabouts on a limited 300 only orange wax pressing. It’s that Oliver Cherer dude doing hypno-grooved mind altering star symphonias under the alter ego ATL with a full length vintage kosmiche set entitled ‘music for air cooled motoring’ from off which playing on the moving picture montage is the track ‘moto moto v.1’ – a woozy cruise controlled motoric pulsar sumptuously tripping a head expansive mushrooming galactic sound spectrum that imagines a second album version of Eat Lights Become Lights populating their Apollo mission homage palette from La Dusseldorf-ian studio floor trimmings.
Talking of polytechnic youth, many thanks to Tomorrow Syndicate who kindly set over 2 copies of his latest 7 inch twin header ‘into the void’ / ‘x for the unknown’ – alas now long since sold out at source and mentioned here a little while back at https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/07/tomorrow-syndicate-4/ – but be honest you don’t want to hear old stuff, that’s so ‘yesterday’, instead we had a little fumble around pop’s sack of delights and managed to unearth this little cutie that he sneaked online over the festive period. Plugged in and transmitting to a darker frequency ‘galaksija’ treads to a shadowy future echo nightmarishly cloaked in government secrecy, surveillance and mind control. Sitting somewhere between the dread portent of yesteryear televisual apparitions that chime to sinister tales of dystopian parallel worlds from ‘timeslip’ to ‘Sapphire and Steel’, a melodic mirror for Nigel Kneale storytelling ‘Galaksija’ is grimmed in kosmiche kooled cold war detachment of the kind found frequenting the grooves of Concretism and the many disguises of Oliver Cherer.
Isn’t this just a dandy little poppet, nabbed this from a bido lito posting and I don’t mind saying since hearing it we’ve been a mite smitten by the blighter, this is ‘always something up’ by Sunstack Jones – a sun hazelled beauty that purrs to a Monkees swing whilst delectably shimmered in Byrds-ian mosaics all kissed with the smoking inclines of Gram Parsons as though viewed through a collective viewfinder of the Hanging Stars, Goodnight Lenin and the Summer Hymns – indeed that good. Oh yea it’s from an EP ‘days stand still’ via brass button records. https://soundcloud.com/sunstackjones/always-something-up
Apologies for the slight derailing of the promised listening list tonight, we’ve been somewhat thrown off kilter by some impeccable finds this evening, high on the list of those being this by the Contrarians which judging by the sound cloud posting date has been doing the business for some nine months. How it sneaked beneath our radar in the first place is a matter upon which questions are now being raised and asked. Anyhow this is ‘the sun comes up’ – a sumptuous slice of mellowing cosmic drift pop its sparsely minimalist synth toning crafting out a wonderfully woozy spectral sonic space walking lunar soul variant. Adorable in a world. https://soundcloud.com/contrarians/the-sun-comes-up
The eagle eyed among you might well have noticed that the same you tube user Vortex VHS – see Tomorrow Syndicate – has also posted a video collage to accompany a track entitled ‘all the answers’ by Inner Wheel. Well to save you the sleepless nights and knowing how shy at heart you folk are we asked Tomorrow Syndicate if there was a connection. Indeed there is for Inner Wheel are duo Graham and Seamus, the former the other half of Tomorrow Syndicate who in a previous life was a member of psych combo Helicon. Anyhow Inner Wheel are a distinct retreat from both the aforementioned, reference wise we’d suggest their sonic kinship touches base with a very youthful the Earlies ploughing the lilting and lulling twinkle tones of those rarefied sonic souls Arctic Circle to craft out a desirably homely hymnal that freefalls into the sighing environs of littlebow.
Newly pressed video to accompany that recent Static Caravan ‘view master’ lathe cut – incidentally mentioned here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/03/cheval-sombre-5/ – it is alas now sold out at source. This is the simply immaculate Cheval Sombre with the painfully shy and retiring hushed hymnal ‘if it’s you’ – a full length tentatively titled ‘time waits for no one’ is currently in the process of having its finishing coat applied and should be ready for swoon action later this year.
Doing bad things on our sound system this is the uber cooled slinky glam fuzz psyche swagger of Joel Gion’s ‘tomorrow’ – currently taking time out from his Brian Jonestown Massacre duties and holed up in a studio nailing down a second solo set, beneath its shade adorned eyeline this babe snakes seductively to a locked grooving riff shimmy that’s liable to get the coolest of cats purring in swooning formations.
Nicked this off the Shindig website, I’m not surprised they’re all gushing about this, it’s hot, it’s dirty and very, very wayward and sexy, a nifty slab of psych toned garage funk from Wolfgang, hard to imagine that this album has remained in the vaults since 1970, only just getting an airing now via out-sider music. Anyhow the albums called ‘eliminate hate’ with this being a teaser cut entitled ‘thinking things over’ – just love that drawling Elmore James like slide blues riffage over what sounds like the Standells getting down and dirty with that Hendrix dude. http://www.shindig-magazine.com/?p=1458
Is it just me or is there something touchingly melancholic and crestfallen about this. This is the frankly superb ‘Frölichke’ – a track lifted from the latest set from Camera via Bureau B entitled ‘phantom of liberty’, a cruise controlled voyage upon a kosmiche ghost light piped through with shadow playing lunar mosaics primed with a noir expressionism whose tender turning orbits a lush mind morphing terrain that’s all at once forlornly side glancing retrospection and future gazing whilst fixing upon a navigational point that acutely intersects where Tangerine Dream, La Dusseldorf, Vangelis and John Carpenter converge.
I won’t deny the fact that we here were initially taken by the unhinged lolloping crookedness of this, a new thing from the moon glyph crew, this being by Larry Wish and his Guys, as it happens limited to just 150 cassettes entitled ‘not from my come from’ with ‘calendar year’ being sent on ahead to scramble your fringes. An oddly fracturing account, guess you could at a stretch call it chamber psych prog, clearly these dudes have been long time admirers of the Cardiacs and the legendary pink dots with a side serving of Tuxedo Moon to boot for everything here shuffles and stumbles to a sonic misdirection to be blessed with a lo-fi oddness that out weirds even the most fried and tripping tones once upon a time found falling out of the Elephant 6 Collective. https://soundcloud.com/moonglyph/larry-wish-his-guys-calendar-year
We must admit to being taken by the vulnerability and fragile nature of this, a teaser track pulled from Lowly’s forthcoming full length debut for Bella Union ‘Heba’, its frost landscapes and caressing choral corteges configured to a sighing angelic grace fall, one moment the ice sculptured symphonies appear isolated and detached the next distractively rising with a quietly assured majesty to splinter and blossom into momentary snow bursts of radiant euphoria much like a bruised and spectral Fever Ray. https://soundcloud.com/bella-union/lowly-prepare-the-lake
Many thanks to Phil over at 345rpm for sending over the test sleeves and labels for the much loved and ridiculously limited Evil Blizzard Christmas lathe cut. Inside the pack he included a little addition, another Exploding Numbers release pairing together both ‘much loved two’ and ‘war on words’, this outing appeared on the 345rpm subscription series ‘454545’ and was in fact record 5 of the 45 release vault excavation undertaken by Phil in putting out a historical sonic catalogue of everything he’d put a hand to right from the days of the much missed Southall Riot to his PhilM outings and beyond. As said this one is by Exploding Numbers, a solo soiree recorded originally in 1998 / 2002 and to date left unreleased and gathering dust. The former track, ‘much loved two’ ought to appeal by and large to those much admiring of the Southall Riot, very much tuned into the vibe picked up by essential ear gear labels of the day – Bad Jazz, Earworm, rocket girl, ochre, roisin and more besides, the dreamy atmospheric shimmer tones spiralling from the grooves here extend far beyond mere post rock noodling into fleeting moments preserved upon an as were, sonic photograph, of course there’s hints of spaciness and a sense of seafaring which when gathered together suggest a demurred studio tryst enacted upon by an assembling of toshack highway, portal and j xaverre types. Four years along the creative timeline and flip cut ‘war on words’ assumes a gruffer tonality, amid the thickly smothered and buried deep lo-fi tuning, echoing ripples slip their mooring to craft a curiously grooved slice of kaleidoscopic kosmich that sniffs and skirts around a sub psychedelic palette forging together extracts drawn from both Roy Montgomery and Echoboy.
Equal love and hearty thanks to Beaulieu Porch whose ultra limited 20 only pre-Christmas bundle (featuring CD copies of ‘IS’, ‘Sarum Sounds’, a personalised Yuletide card and this here rare as hen’s teeth copy of a 7 inch issued way back in 2014 as a limited 250 only issue). The 7 inch pairs together ‘the view from Gainsborough’ and ‘of particles’ the former of which beautifully fuses elements of reverse looped freak fried poppiness with pristinely turned baroque braids to imagine a cosy toed kaleidoscopic summit meeting happened upon between the Left Banke and Nick Nicely. However as much as we adore the art pop psych fracturing of ‘Gainsborough’ it’s the flip cut ‘of particles’ that had us all a swooning in the listening corner, a psychedelic pastoral ghost light woozily wandering along a nursery rhymed olde English vintage peculiarised by a Barrett quaintness with a shadowy nod to Paul Roland. https://tillsammansrecords.bandcamp.com/album/7-ltd-edition-vinyl-single-of-particles-the-view-from-gainsborough-remix ink for some, no doubt, ultra cooled happening about
I’m fairly certain that secreted amid our in box that there’s a message from the riot season folk within which is contained a download link for some hulking happening, probably this as it happens. Sneak peek time, this one will part your hair from your head and no doubt have your brain boiling to mush, new thang from Blown Out. This is the colossal ‘impious oppressor’ an early bird call ripped from a March planned set entitled ‘superior values’ – a mammoth sonic supernova radiating a white hot chemical reaction of fuzzing pedal scorched oblivion groove, I am hearing White Hills, envisaging mind loss and predicting repeat plays. Yowzah. Premiere activity here – https://psychinsightmusic.com/2017/01/05/premiere-impious-opressor-by-blown-out/
Bonged out trippiness from Sundays and Cybele, ‘brujo’ ripped from their new full length ‘chaos and systems’ for – we think – beyond beyond is beyond, is a wonderfully sun fried slice tropicalic psych, kind of Woods on magic mushrooms if you are needing reference points though that’ll be Woods after a skin full of Donovan on the hi-fidelity player, nuff said. https://soundcloud.com/mike-newman/brujo
On the downside, a bit pricey, that said beautifully packaged and dare I say a rather eye catching addition to any record collection. And then there is the sounds, exquisite and dreamily murmured. This folks, is a 500 only vinyl pressing heading out of the Hornschaft imprint – who may or may not have some small connection to the Africantape label. A 10 inch set housed in a rather wonderful looking hand numbered 52 page hardcover fine art photograph album, its sonic authors are Check Out and this is – from what we can gather their debuting ‘self-titled’ outing. Two tracks on the sampler teaser player, the album features five in total all to be listened to in conjunction with the visual portraits within headed up under the themes of excess, exposure and death. ‘check out – part 2’ arrives lushly lulled by the caress of softly strummed string sirens who are crafted as such that they form demurring ripples of forlorn retrospection, their grace, poise and slow precision turn cooling dreamily to nod to those early releases via the kranky imprint and which mid-way through suddenly change tone and track assuming a more snow burnt feedback sheened tranquillity much reminiscent of a slow burning Flying Saucer Attack before parting amid a briefly beautiful moment of defrosting twinkle toning. ‘part 1’ assumes a far darker and dare I say funereal posture, its slow burn neo classical tracing aching mournfully drawing it in to terrains more familiar on platters bearing the name Antonymes upon them before shifting tact to freefall into the sedate environs once occupied by LaBradford. Exceptional in a word. https://soundcloud.com/hornschaft/sets/check-out
More details via that special record – https://www.thatspecialrecord.com/collections/january-2017/check-out-self-titled
somewhat concerned that our mention of this might have gotten somewhat lost in all the pre-Christmas hype, this is the coolly toned chill tipped noir bliss of Silent Riders’ ‘I see you’ whose release on limited 7 inch variants is very imminent – that earlier mention incidentally is here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/11/26/silent-riders/
Marking 10 years in existence, your psych tunes celebrate the fact with the release of a head tripping free to download 17 track compilation entitled ‘planet caravan’. Much to our embarrassment all the featured dudes here are previously unknown to us except of course for the luck of eden hall who stump up ‘another high speed blowout’, a tripadelic slab of head frying kaleidoscopic cosmosis which within its five minute visitation manages to terraform, blur and dissolve the lines between straight ahead vintage 70’s stoner prog struts, milky way motoriks, lysergic fracturing and astral planning hallucinogenia into a cranial expanding combustive dream pool. If memory serves me right, then the Eden folk, or at one or two of their number feature in the Red Plastic Buddha whose ‘little white pills’ navigates a melodically astute space pop detailing of a mid career variant of the Church. Rummaging through the playlist, we’ve happily spotted the quite superb Os Noctàmbulos – didn’t they have a set fondly acclaimed here via bad afro, anyway found here serving up the uber cooled key drenched 60’s garage beat grooved ‘jordi taught me’ – a bit of a gem that stalks around in shades across a sonic landscape populated by the Troggs and the Fuzztones. Elsewhere the Shivas somewhat rebrand the Surfaris ‘wipe out’ as ‘whiteout’ and in to the bargain give it a Dick Dale dragster turbo fuelled upgrade. All said we here must admit to being a mite taken by both Kim and the Cinders’ ‘kiss my apocalypse’ and Mike Brown’s ‘tambourine’ – the former a crystalline mystic homely hued in mountain psych blues mosaics atmospherically storm calling out campfire mantras with the latter culturing a trippy road blues hymnal whose ghostly murmuring sits somewhere between the Simple Kid and those early career outings by the Animal Collective. https://yourpsychtunes.bandcamp.com/album/planet-caravan
All things being well, we will be immersing ourselves into the latest offering from the Unexplained Sounds Group sometime tomorrow, for now though to give you a brief flavouring of what’s afoot on their latest gathering of outsider folk via ‘Differences – visions of contemporary composition’ we’ve plucked just two tracks for your discerning ear. Blending ghostly jazz noir apparitions, snake charming mosaics and an artful eeriness that recalls a very young Volcano the Bear impishly relocating the spirit of Miles Davis amid some desert dry arabesque wasteland, strange raven sky drop the delightfully fractured ‘entering the spastic plastic disaster zone’ – an unsettling ghost light that wires itself into the playfully spooked terrains of La Société des Timides à la Parade des Oiseaux – more commonly known as La STOP. Elsewhere here the appearance of Eric Arn with ‘pas d’une helice’ – isn’t there an album kicking around somewhere that I’m sure we’ve seen notices for – we must search out – anyhow this loosely shuffles, stumbles and skirts around the mountain folk blues sonic work bench of John Fahey and Loren Connors, some exceptional string stinging finger plucked craftsmanship afoot here that ought to keep admirers of both David A Jaycock and Scott William Urquhart sufficiently sedated and a swooning. https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/differences-visions-of-contemporary-composition
We do love the skedaddled nature of this slice of rehearsal grooviness from PlumPyneThornton, crooked time signatures, erratic changes in direction and that element of everything and the kitchen sink being tipped into its waywardly freeform wig flipping recipe as evidenced on ‘it must have been good I’m bleeding’, better still though is the disconnected rattle and ramble of the excellently, and dare I say, aptly titled ‘all the voices in my head just had an argument’ – are we sensing a little Dadaist impishness colouring their already mischief making palette.
https://soundcloud.com/plumpynethornton/all-the-voices-in-my-head-just-had-an-argument
https://soundcloud.com/plumpynethornton/it-must-have-been-good-im-bleeding
Kosmick love aplenty heading out of deep distance shortly with the imminent arrival of a new oscillating opus from eat lights become lights entitled ‘nature reserve’ with the title track being sent on ahead on scouting duties, a killer thing it is to, for deep from within the inner core of a pulsating hive mind turbulent transmissions flicker with furious precision busily fuelled by hyper-driven activity achieving critical mass density, in short cerebral ear candy for speed freaking space cadets.
Alas not the same Snails who graced these pages a little while back courtesy of a well-heeled set for the recently retired great pop supplement imprint, these dudes are the Greek contingent who by the looks of things, are readying themselves for the release of a new full length entitled ‘Dr Acid’ from which, by way of a teaser, ‘I’m on fire’ has been culled, a nifty slice of uber cooled shadowy shimmered 60’s psych purred with twanging reverbs and the kind of ghostly beat grooved vintage that might suggest to some was the work of the Shadowy Men from a Shadowy Planet doing a tribute turn in honour of a certain Joe Meek. https://thesnailsathens.bandcamp.com/track/im-on-fire
definitely some freak fried skin up groovy happening going on here with more than a hint of Sabbath being filtered through the kosmick kaleidoscopic eye of the Ozric Tentacles rumbling amid the uber stoned shape cuts of the bearded beatnik-iness that is ‘your city needs you’ – this bad boy incidentally comes culled from a self-titled set by the Captives of the Void annoyingly sneaked out beneath our radar last year, one suspects Floyd heads need to seek it out at their earliest convenience if only to hear ‘homebound blues’. https://captivesofthevoid.bandcamp.com/
Why don’t we get sent records like this we wonder, all at once crooked, kooky and very charming in a woodcut wonky way. This disarming dandy found its way out of the French based imprint Proot a little while back, by Thiaz Itch this is ‘slopat oprk’ from a rather surreal nursery folk happening entitled ‘metsan folklorea’. Best described as a fondly nostalgic trip back to childhood, there’s very much a whiff of early 70’s children’s TV disturbing and delighting the listening vibe here – think ‘noggin the nod’, ‘hector’s house’ et al, something that should be of interest to admirers of both the finders keepers and trunk sound houses, its chamber folk serenades and woodland enchantment chiming cutely to forge a sonic kinship with Vernon Elliott. https://prootrecords.bandcamp.com/track/slopat-oprk
Matrix run out groove…b side ‘it’s the way that you do it’
Randoms and footnotes…..
Ghosts of 2016, don’t think we ever did feature the video for the Pixies ‘um chagga lagga’ – still a killer track shame they never sent the album the blighters…
Those of you fancying some full on immersive sonic brain food might be best advised to dive deep into an absolutely dream draped sound collage cobbled together by the folk over at Sequences Electronic Music, a mammoth 3 hour mind altering aural trip of kosmick out thereness and chill toned electronic grooves, headphones are your only essential requirement – high spots – there are too many to mention but we suggest tuning your ear space Jim Ottaway’s ‘cosmic shift’, Sonus Lab’s ‘orbital strings’ and Quebec based Sequential Dreams mercurial ‘Pleiadian Prophecy’. https://beta.mixcloud.com/mickgarlick9/sequences-podcast-no101/
Mentioned somewhere else in this here missive, more KLF groove, always had a lasting soft spot for this one……the original mix of ‘last train to transcentral’ – alas embeds are disabled so copy and pop this in your you tube search box….. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_64V5he-bk
Some reading eye candy…… these things fly out faster than those rarely spotted Ptolemaic terrascope’s – http://opticalsoundsfanzine.bigcartel.com/product/optical-sounds-issue-10-includes-the-myrrors-7
talking of ptolemaic terrascope – latest batch of reviews are online – here – http://www.terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Reviews_January_17.htm#PianoMagic – word has it that Phil is cobbling together the next limited terrascope journal as I write……
Arctic Circle mentioned in passing somewhere above, see the Inner Wheel review, go or at least used to go like this, adorably affectionate stuff……
Recorded before the sad passing of Rick Parfitt, Strange Brew caught up with Quo-er Bob Young for a chat about the bands six decades in music sharing fond anecdotes backed by a ripe picking of nuggets from his own solo work and that of the Quo, prize picks ‘69’s ‘the price of love’ and a rollicking country tinged version of ‘down down’. Available to listen and download at http://thestrangebrew.co.uk/http:/thestrangebrew.co.uk/bob-young-status-quo/
A little Radiohead…..how on earth did we miss this first time around, in our humbled opinion their finest and most understated album to date…..
And then there’s this……
Additional listening resources……
Alas no download option on this and disappointingly no playlist, still grumbles aside a superbly 59 minute chill toned dream scape gathered together Jokyron for the ‘the strange signals from space’ podcast….. https://beta.mixcloud.com/jbkyron/strange-signals-from-space/
Again another superb podcast which like the previously mentioned ‘strange signals’ playlist only disappoints in so much as the absence of a playlist or the ability to download, still the sounds are dandy with the unlikenoise folk preferring to populate their palette with all manner of experimental, left field, drone and ambient related works… https://unlikenoise.com/just-launched-unlikenoise-podcast/
Another little curio with which to charm or alarm, should it so choose, your listening space. Here’s Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ played out on a 100 year old fairground organ, I’m sure you’ll agree that it brings a whole other eerie to what was an already macabrely majestic opus……
Two hour’s worth of chamber drone, out there sounds, neo classical loveliness and vintage electronica courtesy of the latest transmission from flatland frequencies … again no download option or more annoyingly, a tracklist…aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh.. https://beta.mixcloud.com/bonus_round/flatland-frequencies-5117/
Tasty things we never had time to review in full……
The quite desirable chill soul noir love note that is the XX’s ‘say something loving’….
Heading out towards the final credits, here’s a smoking mix put together by Peanut Butter Wolf – not as depressing as it may first initially appear given its called ‘RIP 2016’ – a superb homage / tribute to the many that pop lost last year- https://soundcloud.com/pbwolf/rip-2016-part-3
Contact resources….
Email – marklosingtoday@gmail.com
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Word press – marklosingtoday.wordpress.com
Twitter – @marklosingtoday
Physical – 46 Webster Avenue, BOOTLE, Merseyside, L20 9JF, UK
Something lovely, vintage and nostalgic to see this first transmission out, this is the Trumpton and Chigley sounds….enjoy xx.
the sunday experience 