Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping…
Transmission 4.0….
Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind…..
The one featuring…….
Taffy, Nadia Reid, proper ornaments, spiral stairs, buzzcocks, interkosmos, test dept, erochika, BLÄÄH, Brups and Tipi, Ministerit, svart records, nostalyga, cavalier song, agathe max, electric moon, eyot, electric moon, cibel gothic, swimming tapes, team picture, laminate pet animal, goldfrapp, wire, sendelica, adamennon, sly persuaders, gnod, the squid and the whale, orchestra baobab, Singapore sling, orbit service, underground youth, 10000 russos, chaz bundick and the mattson2, metamorf, stone foundation, this other kingdom, dire wolves, no joy, kindred spirits, hole house, На 100 Процентов Отмудоханная Бабуля, life education, midnight garden, king champion sounds, the saxophones, the myrrors, parlor walls, centralstodet, down the gullet, daphne oram, dream pop, daydream machine, jo and danny, david bowie, cerise, still parade, billy Mackenzie, the associates, psychedelia, conspiracy theories, flying nun, dead voices on air, psychic tv, leave the planet, hypnotic nausea, sonic jesus, ludus, henry mancini……
Behind banks of wiring glacial shimmers of feedback emerges the lilting arrest of dream draped seductive coos, its serenely set safe spot sat amid the mesmeric turbulence of the fizzing riff pulsars radiates with a lost in the moment jubilant calm. From Taffy this is the effervescent ‘dd’ – arriving shortly on club ac30, a noisier approach than previous outings that’s described as grunge gaze, between you and me we detect an influence of Melys lovingly peppering the grooves. An album ‘nyctophilia’ is prepped for April time landing. https://soundcloud.com/taffy8/dd-1
pulled from a forthcoming set entitled ‘preservation’ due on basin rock early March time, this is ‘Richard’ by Nadia Reid. Admittedly something that’s been the cause of a fair amount of fuss around these here parts not least because it purrs with a hollowed ghost like person portrait intimacy not heard extracted so exquisitely since our ears clapped themselves upon those early sonic utterances of a certain Suzanne Vega albeit here as though found channelling the spirit of an ‘Eldorado’ era Neil Young.
Ms Reid is shortly to set foot on tour in support of her aforementioned second album….
WED 08/02 – Todmorden, Golden Lion, UK
FRI 10/02 – Brighton, Green Door Store, UK
SAT 11/02- York, Fulford Arms, UK
SUN 12/02 – Glasgow, Broadcast, UK
MON 13/02 – Manchester, Deaf Institute, UK
TUE 14/02 – Bristol, Crofter’s Rights, UK
WED 15/02 – London, Hoxton Hall, UK
FRI 17/02 – Rotterdam, V11, NL
SAT 18/02 – Uterecht, Club Nine @ TivoliVredenburg, NL
SUN 19/02 – Brussels, Botanique (Witloof Bar), NL
WED 22/02 – Frankfurt, Mousonturm Theatre, DE
THU 23/02 – Berlin, Monarch, DE
FRI 24/02 – Landsberg, Stadtheatre, DE
SAT 25/02 – Lugano, Studio Foce, CH
https://soundcloud.com/hellonadiareid/richard/s-aCpWO
stumbled across this, so apologies for the lack of information and shock fab news as to the current whereabouts and wherewithal surrounding the band at present. This is Proper Ornaments with ‘bridge by a tunnel’ taken from, what we assume is their current full length ‘foxhole’. Just love the lazy eyed mellowness of this, its lying down beneath a tree on a summer’s day staring wistfully at the passing clouds type of blissful calm that it attracts and exudes, the corkscrewing countrified riff work tempering a delicately snoozing west coast afterburn, frankly it’s all quite tranquil and dreamy, once in your head the blighter sets up camp and claims squatters rights, if I didn’t know any better I’d say it was ripe listening fodder for those Goodnight Lenin types among you with a thing for Pavement. https://soundcloud.com/the-proper-ornaments/bridge-by-a-tunnel-3
did we just mention Pavement in passing, I’m certain that folk think these musings are hopelessly assembled, thought, planning and a fair degree of fine tuning are applied, hours of research and careful attention to detail – oh okay you’re right they are an accident coincidence, haphazard, forgetful and not so much scripted but thrown up in the air with the fading hope that they land with some distant semblance of sense. So where were we, ah pavement, well Spiral Stairs to be precise better known as Christopher Scott Kannberg founding member of Pavement and Preston School of Industry. New album ready to roll in the shape of ‘doris and the daggers’ from off which ‘dance (cry wolf)’ has been sent ahead to do the scouting swoons. Written and dedicated to drummer Darius Minwalla who died midway the initial album recordings, ‘dance (cry wolf)’ is a strangely shadowy earworm tightly wound to a smoking and slinky snaking riff corkscrew (which in truth had us recalling at times the brooding and magisterial tones of Jon DeRosa) upon which a hollowing ghostly aura descends, both teased in regret and introspection it’s groomed with an edgy 80’s atmosphere all housed in a stinging and bruising passiveness which all said does it for us.
some old school grooviness to celebrate Domino’s repacking / remastering of the Devoto years, here’s the Buzzcocks with ‘boredom’ – still sounds the dogs……
I dozed for an hour, woke up and as far as I can see the world is still revolving, so he hasn’t pressed the big red button just yet. Joking aside, it’s depressing that we live in such a toxic times where we are now forced to choose sides. In an age where the scales are beginning to fall from the eyes of the populace, we have bred a society turned in hate and mistrust of our neighbours, where TV celebrities and people in the public eye who were the supposed to be the moral compass have strayed unchallenged to commit criminal acts that have long gone unpunished, a time where politicians lie and deceive and the corporate giants of industry abuse both its workers and consumers in their squalid lust for profit….the list where we to continue would be endless and depressing. Its these things that fuel the nihilist fire of Test Dept’s ‘faces of freedom (headfuck) NOzone mix’ – the subliminal text ‘everything in plain sight’, ‘the new world order’, ‘consumerism = good’ a la Carpenter’s ‘they live’ – the notion of a populace sleepwalking to some apocalyptic precipice with President Trump as the pied piper is chilling agreed but – and here’s where I stick my neck out – not something to which I ascribe to, like the European issue in the UK, democracy for all its limitations and faults has voted, time will now tell whether this course is the wrong or right one, it might be worth noting that the cancer in society isn’t restricted solely to America, it’s everywhere, oh and by the way anyone else think that this little number sounds to the echoes of the Shamen’s ‘jesus loves Amerika’. Rant over – be about whatever you were doing earlier.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/200489895″>Faces of Freedom (HeadFuck) NOzone Mix – Test Dept</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/testdept”>Test Dept</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Promised sulatron grooves featured here this week, to whet your appetites here’s a little something from last year from Interkosmos – this ‘un – incidentally titled ‘kosmos amigos’ appeared on their ‘hypnotize’ full length, a bit of bliss kissed dandy, all ten minutes worth and something that strangely manages to twist and fuse elements of kosmiche, spaghetti western atmospherics and vague arabesque transcendentalism into its dream weaving lysergic palette of sound. https://interkosmos-official.bandcamp.com/track/kosmos-amigos-2
Here’s something of a rare treat, before establishing himself through the variously collected gatherings of the Acid Mothers extended family as one of the keynote purveyors in the realms of the psychedelic, progressive and ambient disciplines, Kawabata Mokoto was once a member of Erochika. So little is known about this quartet that even the usually up to the mark Discogs site manages to list just one release – see https://www.discogs.com/Erochika-%E3%81%88%E3%82%8D%E3%81%A1%E3%81%8B/release/2145617 – dating from 1991, this live recording pulled from Mr Mokoto’s personal archive and incidentally called ‘Morio Yumi To Miroku’ fuses traditional Japanese folk bewitchment upon a swarthy lock grooving and angular soft psych stoner tweaked math gouged framing. https://soundcloud.com/makoto-kawabata-1/morio-yumi-to-miroku-erochika
Again more apologies are due, seems we’ve mislaid the link announcing all the gubbins on this particular release. If memory serves me right “KUOLEMAN TAPPANEET: Punk rockia pienkustanteilta 1977-1983’ is a must have collection coming out via Svart that gathers together a select handful of self-financed and long sold out and sought after small numbered releases by various spike topped hopefuls from Finland’s first wave of punk – very much in the spirit, it has to be said, of those excellent ‘bored teenagers’ comps put out by Detour a few years ago. The album title roughly translating as ‘THE DEATH KILLERS – A Finnish Killed By Death Compilation (1977-1983)’ features 14 lost rumbles of high octane snot nosed two chord pogoing disciples of dissent, a three track teaser is currently slam dancing and sneering its way on sound cloud with cuts from BLÄÄH, Brups and Tipi and Ministerit vying for your undivided affection, the former of whom do a neat, albeit rough, take on the Buzzcocks, the Brups doing straight ahead terrace anthems the likes of which would have found a likely home on the Secret imprint back in the day while rounding up the pack the latter mentioned steam roller their way through some gruff and grizzled no nonsense heads down muscular pub rock grooviness.
Full track listing –
A1. TIPI & MINISTERIT : ”ATK” [1980, Kuusankoski]
A2. TRAGEDIA : ”Teeskentelijä” [1983, Lempäälä]
A3. NEUROOSI / DOLOREX : ”Rock Against Seija Isonsaari” [1980, Suomussalmi]
A4. SOS : ”Kurjat” [1980, Lahti]*
A5. NIRVANA : ”Kielletyt leikit” [1980, Ruovesi]
A6. STRATUS : ”Valhetta vain” [1980, Pirkkala]
A7. T. TORNI BAND : ”Rauhaa ja rakkautta” [1981, Kitee]
B1. BRUPS : ”Ramptoniin” [1980/1, Vaasa]
B2. TUHTIKYMPPI : ”Raapimalla rahaa” [1982, Polvijärvi]
B3. NAUTA : ”Mä meen” [1979, Hämeenlinna]
B4. BLÄÄH : ”Punkfilosofiaa” [1982, Lempäälä]
B5. SUURKAUPUNGIN HAITAT : ”Elviksen kitara” [1978/9, Luopioinen]*
B6. KASVAIN : ”Onko Suomi Usattunut?” [1979, Jyväskylä]
B7. KOLLAA KESTÄÄ : ”Ahvenanmaa takaisin Ruotsille” [1977, Tampere]*
new melodic macabre from the skull dungeon folk, this one a twin set from Noestalgya who in the liner notes describes himself as the Lord of Sorrow – no kidding, we only say this because ‘bunuh diri’ which you’ll find looming over on the flip is possessed of the unnerving ability to suck out light and immerse your listening space in graven darkness, truly eerie and disturbing in a Soriah meets blue Sabbath black cheer type way. In sharp contrast ‘suwe ora jamu’ starts out light and fluffy before that is the ominous onset of storm clouds come a looming in the shape of droning pangs and tarnish the twinkling beauty in gouging strains of sinister obliqueness. https://skulldungeon.bandcamp.com/album/demo-2017
starts off very quietly and proceeds to slowly emerge into focus, by these ears sounds like Mark E Smith chanelling John Cooper Clarke whilst reading from some lost dystopian text by Alan Moore all perched atop a frazzling mesmeric and minimalist cold war fused isolationist electro noodling by a youthful Cabaret Voltaire. This is Cavalier Song with ‘cessna’ -very sparse, very detached and very essential. The track comes as part of a split 7 inch through God Unknown records and has it paired with Agathe Max whose aptly titled folk spectral ‘pagan’ ought first hand to attract the attention of those of you very much admiring of Mike and Cara Gangloff and Alistair Galbraith, the sounds within best described as a slow shifting mist gracing a twilight waking woody ghost land, very hypnotic and charmingly eerie. https://godunknownrecords.bandcamp.com/album/cavalier-song-agathe-max-split-7-god023
next up for the god unknown roster a split release gathering together Part Chimp / Grey Hairs Split 7″(GOD024).
Absolutely smitten with this ‘un, produced by Steve Albini and heading out of the ninety and nine sound house, this is Eyot with ‘veer’ taken from their forthcoming ‘innate’ set. In short a six minute slice of expressively lush and transfixing sonic detailing amid whose intricate interplay unfurls a pirouetting precision where poise, gracefulness and the rushing sense of anticipation collide in an undulating breathless euphoria borne of elements drawn from a freewheeling spray of jazz disciplines, neo classical expression and post rock modes. Perfect.
Cryptic messages afoot that there may be new Sone Institute happenings sometime this year via front and follow, here’s the rather wonderful ‘a model life’ from a few years ago, an album we hasten to add we suspect we missed – probably still trying to pick up our jaws after the swooning attacks of early Sone Institute outings I shouldn’t wonder.
Back with Sulatron groove, another oldie I’m afraid but a good ‘un, this is the hulking head frying 24 minute cosmic odyssey that is ‘star factory’ by Electric Moon taken from a live set ‘Zeiss Planetarium Bochum 2015’ – starts out quietly yet once emerged from the dark side of an interplanetary configuration it soon shifts through the warp gears creating tripping kaleidoscopically kosmiche ripples along the way, quite frankly just out there. https://electric-moon.bandcamp.com/track/star-factory
and now straight back with those Skull Dungeon dudes, only had time to quickly dip into the dark delights on offer from Cibel Gothic via ‘dark shades’ the object of our obsession being the curiously lulling ‘Nestapa Jalma Nu Geus Maot’ which despite its opening greeting of the guttural utterings from sinister type primordial n’er do well’s soon blossoms delicately into a delightfully dainty floral posy spirited and charmed in clock working enchantment, child-like play and faerie magic dust. It makes for a sharp contrast to the apocalyptic Revelations styled dread that descends upon the parting opus ‘Perang Dimensi’ here accompanied by Noestalgya, (who we’ve already mentioned in previous notes and remarked of possessing an uncanny likeness to Soriah), the mood glooms for here a grim portent descends where the narrowing light of hope fades miserably at the feet of a hellish macabre, disturbing, dark and damned. https://skulldungeon.bandcamp.com/album/dark-shades
on connecting to our earlobes, the opening brief passages had me thinking we had something of a Cure wannabe on our hands not that I should hasten to add would that have been a bad thing. But let this honey toned cutie stretch and flex itself into life and what comes into focus is a softly speckled spring hued yearn carried upon an acutely dreamy drift wind all shyly effervesced in crystalline chimes and an affectionate swoon whose ear hugging radio friendly pop framing had us here much recalling those early platters from the likes of the Trashcan Sinatras and the power of Dreams. Anyhow before we forget, this is Swimming Tapes with ‘Cameos’ a track pulled from a newly peeled ‘Souvenirs’ EP via hand in hive. https://soundcloud.com/swimmingtapes/cameos
pissing in the same primordial pool as the jim jones revue whilst dragging behind them the carcasses of the Godfathers and the Fatima Mansions, this is the uber cool Sly Persuaders back again with more high octane shades adorning boogie in the shape of the rabid ‘TFD’. This bad boy squirms, spits and swaggers amid a white hot dragster gouging slab of feral rock-a-hula mooching, stalking and strutting with the kind of decadent dead eyed blues grooving of an animated and scowling up close and very personal Gallon Drunk, essential like need I say more. A self-titled album for roadkill is slowly gathering pace down the tracks and due for stereo playing fisticuffs sometime February. https://soundcloud.com/slypersuaders/tfd-1
oh yes, spiffing new twin set from Leeds based cool dudes come play with me, this ‘un is guaranteed to cause fever pitched swooning fits when it appears at various fingers on the pulse feeling independent record counters sometime early next month. Pitching together the contrasting sounds of Team Picture and Laminate Pet Animal, the former of whom (‘back to bay six’) sound like the bastard off spring of the Cardiacs and the TV Personalities – I kid you not – who no doubt see their sole purpose the seducing and electrifying of your turntable with, what appears to be, an angular appreciation of moments scavenged from Tubeway Army’s ‘Replicas’ albeit rephrased through the new waving post punkular futuristic eye of Magazine. As to the curiously named Laminate Pet Animal, a totally differing beast on offer here with ‘Eve’ sumptuously morphing and terraforming amid a slinky down tempo back drop whose svelte lights lowered smokey future funk framed sonic sophistication is applied with the cooling brushstrokes of the Knife cloaked beneath the night found swapping notes with Alt-J. Alas no sound links just, let’s just say we are working on the label folk as you read this. http://cpwm.co/
additional foot note – sound cloud links to both tracks along with previous split happenings featuring Ceiling Demons, Deadwall, Maggie 8, ZoZo and the mighty Her Name is Calla…… https://soundcloud.com/comeplaywith
Breaking cover from a period of silent exile, Goldfrapp have just announced the release of a forthcoming full length for Mute due at the fall of March. ‘Silver Eye’ is proceeded by a trailer single, the frost purred cold wave star kissed ‘Anymore’ finds the duo on a space walking trajectory dispatching earthbound distress pulsars with a cooling discotheque chic amid whose coded messages translate chill toned orbital raptures traced in a seductively woozy delirium all trimmed in a hermetically sealed electroid kosmick funk framing that’s finitely moulded in a future vision likeness of Donna Summer / Giorgio Moroder.
Additional from the press release….
Goldfrapp will be performing a very special show at London’s Roundhouse on March 27th where they will showcase new music from ‘Silver Eye’. Tickets go on sale this Friday with a special fan pre-sale from Wednesday January 25th. Fans should sign up to the mailing list at http://www.goldfrapp.com to get early access to the tickets.
Silver Eye is released March 31st and is available to pre-order now: http://po.st/GFWebstore
Wire celebrate their 40th anniversary this year with the release of their 15th studio album ‘silver / lead’ from which by way of a teaser taster ‘short elevated period’ has been sneaked out, the cut reveals the quartet haven’t aged wearily of their angular astuteness, ‘by numbers’ indeed it is though more from the perspective that what is presented here is a multi-faceted distilling of their trademark sound through the ages, a bit like drowning and seeing your life flash by on fast forward, so to with ‘short elevated period’ there’s still that whiff of the upstart, the sore thumb and the impish refusenik mentality to veer off in their own direction rather than meekly following the musical circus, it’s an enviable trait that makes them the rarest of breeds among the class of the late 70’s punk / new wave / art pop scene to find them as relevant now as any other time in their career. https://soundcloud.com/wirehq/02-short-elevated-period
somewhere in the must do pile we’ve several incoming releases from Boring Machines with which to adore, so while we busy ourselves in retuning our headspace to their mercurial contents, here instead is a little taster of something of an imminent collective gathering of labels that finds Boring Machines on board with Arte Tetra and Weird Tapes for the release of old school Italo giallo from Adamennon courtesy of a snippet of ‘Le nove ombre del caos’ which for those of you well versed in the cinematic ways of Argento and Fulci is graced seductively in the kind of eerie lounge spell crafting applied by the likes of Bruno Nicolai and of course, Goblin.
Been a few missives ago since we featured Welsh weird ears Sendelica, there will be more from them at some point as we’ve got downloads to their forthcoming friends of the fish release that is in need of swift listening attention. However, scatterbrains that we are we’ve just eyed a forthcoming re-release of a soundtrack they put out ten years to accompany Grant Wakefield’s ‘sleepwalker fever’ movie. The original release, limited to just 50 copies, is now spruced up and given the picture disc treatment along with a ridiculously limited and pricey hand assembled box set containing the picture disc, a DVD of the movie, lobby cards, poster and a t-shirt – all of which I suspect by the time I’ve written this and posted it up will be long sold out – other formats are of course available. Anyhow may we draw your undivided attention to the parting ‘sun of sunfazed’ – a mind morphing third eye astral trip out of whose slick and sedate jazz noir flotillas are formed silver toned dream spells of such mellowing hypnosia that you’d swear the grooves were smoking their own gear whilst peppering your ear space in rarefied transcendental essences summoned from the middle east. https://sendelica.bandcamp.com/album/sendelica-sleepwalker-fever-soundtrack
the eagle eyed among you might have noted with puzzled bewilderment, as was our own, of a very short video put by the rocket recording dudes that just simply read ‘NO’ in big bold words against a striking red backdrop, if I recall there was a brief bit of rumbling at the end and then, diddly – over and out. Perpetrators it seems where Gnod – back with a spanking new album and kicking ass. ‘bodies for money’ has been dragged kicking and screaming from a forthcoming defiance riddled set entitled ‘just say no to the psycho right wind capitalist fascist death industrial machine’. In an age when the world leaders, the corporate giants and billionaires of the world seem content on sending us mere minions racing to hell on a hand cart, art whether film, exhibitions or music should be the conduit for dissent to rise up in times of need to be the spokespeople for the conscience. Look around though, there is nothing, consumerism, greed and envy have replaced the values of tolerance, equality and fairness, rather than learning from the horrors of the last great war and moving forward for the betterment of mankind, we are instead now at a precipice; alliances broken, forgotten hostilities re-ignited and across Europe the spectre of right wing nationalism smiles through lying teeth. Depressing. Thank fuck for Gnod, through the putrid haze of deceit, deception and double dealing, a solitary voice scowls out from the snoozing populace, quite frankly this is no walk in the park it’s a war cry, bearing their teeth Gnod paint a bleak future through a seismic armoury of cranium splitting hardcore and chugging toxically gouged grooving, a furious agit grinning sore thumb broken and bloodied in searing frustration, just what the good doctor ordered, question is are you listening?
Pressed on strictly limited quantities of black, clear and multi coloured splatter wax – latter of which we are led to believe number just 55 in total, this is the rather demurring ‘seahorses’ by the Squid and the Whale – a track which we think features on their current ‘Canyons’ release for Deal with the Devil records – in fact it’s the flip cut we’ve just checked. Everything about this just hits the mark, its bruised, tender, close, intimate and desirably shy and lolloping, comes delicately demurred in a softly stirring and smokily opining countrified warmth whose drifting poise courts delectably to the more thoughtful and solitary moments found teasing the back catalogues of both the Delgados and Mazzy Star. In a word crushing. http://www.dwtdrecords.com/the-squid-and-the-whale
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/179085608″>The Squid and the Whale Studio Sessions</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user55547345″>The Squid & the Whale</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
This next one sneaked itself amid an email that we very nearly missed, found loitering in the spam folder and about to fall into the delete bin where it not for us rescuing it. Now this is quite superb and from a personal point of view takes us right back to those lost night’s listening to the late Mr Peel when amongst the various platters from hopefuls either bashing the life out of instruments for the sake of speed freaked sonic terrorism or those cobbling weirdly trippy glitch oddities, he’d drop without a word of warning some nugget from the African continent to which all of a sudden the gloominess of a shadowy stretching winter cold listening space would miraculously chirp and radiate brightly as though the sun had momentarily returned having remembered it had forgotten something. Topper most in these occasional and impromptu exotic soirees would emerge the Four Brothers. We say all this, not in an attempt to add to the word count of this mention but to introduce the returning sound of Orchestra Baobab who after a 10 year absence have gathered together for the imminent release of ‘Tribute To Ndiouga Dieng’ (dedicated to Baobab’s original vocalist who passed away last year) for the world circuit imprint. A wonderfully joyous collision of Afro-Cuban motifs and traditional African vibes that radiates and sways with a soulfully feel good celebratory electricity as exemplified by deliriously light and vibrant ‘foulo’.
The band are preparing to tour the album’s release with appearances as follows –
31 Jan – Roundhouse, London
02 Feb – Celtic Connections, Glasgow
04 Feb – Opera North, Leeds
Further dates TBA
A newly pressed ‘n posted and dare I say faithful cover of dead voices on air’s ‘sulphur’ by the waking from hibernation Orbit Service, all at once stilled and hollowed with a divinely ghostly hollowness not to mention icily graceful, glacial and monochrome yet irrefutably transfixing and resonating with a bleakly beautiful shadow traced majesty. https://orbitservice.bandcamp.com/track/sulphur-version-dead-voices-in-orbit
Blimey a hive of activity over the Fuzz Club sound house with several key note releases heading down the tracks all vying for your audiophonic attention, among the psychedelic parade outings for Sonic Jesus, the Entrance Band and 10,000 Russos – more about the latter in a second. However what caught our ear was a newly posted offering from the Underground Youth, a band who we mentioned in passing just a missive or two ago when we swooned to the sound of the Cure-esque ‘Alice’. Latest addition to the ear candy adoring list around these here parts comes ‘Amerika’ which we must admit has taken our fancy not least because it’s sumptuously speckled in trip toned dissolving flotillas of dissipating dream pools of bliss kissed narcosia. Does it for us. A new full length through fuzz club entitled ‘what kind of dystopian hellhole is this’ is looming on the horizon.
Channelling both the Gun Club and Jesus and Mary Chain, here’s some sparse shadowy toned fuzzy psyche soul-a-rama from Singapore Sling courtesy of the garage bubble gum grooving ‘riffermania (kill kill kill)’ – maybe it’s just me but we are definitely picking up the vague vibes of Sunray smoking in the psychotropic fog.
Staying with Fuzz Club just a little longer, this is ‘karl burns’ prized from a forthcoming 10,000 Russos set called ‘the 10,000 Russos session’ – a mammoth head shroomer snaking from out of the dense dronal fog of the void, described by the label and a cross roads meeting place where Spacemen 3, Neu! and Mark E Smith stop by to swap notes, scabbed in psychotropic pulsars bedded upon an oblivion veering flatlining motorik underpin this dead eyed prowler emerges doom draped dragging in its wake, by these ears anyway, the spectral dark hearted twins of Jim Morrison and Alan Vega.
Mentioned this in the last missive – see https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/01/20/chaz-bundick-meets-the-mattson-2/ and https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/01/22/look-what-we-sneaked-online-while-you-were-sleeping-transmission-3/ – this is forthcoming from Chaz Bundick meets the Mattson 2 via the company imprint – now with eye catching moving picture show……
Ah Skull Dungeon, indeed again I hear you cry, latest off the download press a rather spiked apocalyptic three track set from Metamorf which I’ll admit right now will have you imagining the modern day trappings of descending the rings of hell in an elevator. Don’t be fooled by the dainty cover snap into thinking that this is going to be anything other damnable warfare scabbed in a darkening cloak of black metal macabre. Mind you that said parting track ‘endless story’ does swallow dive into dream draped pastures, all rather airy and sweet in a hazily tripping rustic ghost lit way. ‘dying heart’ though is another matter, you can feel the edgy sense of disquieting paranoia and sense of judgement day dread biting at its heels as it encircles with vulture like watchfulness leaving ‘far away’ to pick at the carcass all the time soured in despair and abandoned hope. https://skulldungeon.bandcamp.com/album/far-away-ep
It’s a rare moment around these here parts when something featuring Paul Weller comes trooping up the path, not that it’s a first, there was of course that quite spiffing pairing with Andy Lewis on ‘are you trying to be lonely’ through Acid Jazz that I seem to remember getting a warmly favourable thumbs up around the gaff several years ago. He turns up on Stone Foundation’s forthcoming ‘street rituals’ set playing piano, guitar, adding some vocals and even co-writing two tracks, it’s a full length that also includes contributions from both Bettye LaVette and William Bell. For now, while we send out begging missives for promos, here’s a teaser taster in the shape of ‘your balloon is rising’ – a coolly mellowing slice of smoking soul which agreed finds Weller back at the height of his Style Council ascendancy, incidentally anyone here think this bears a passing resemblance to the as were Panda Gang (now Lancashire Hustlers) not to mention something graced by the spirit of Jimmy Miller.
Fast becoming another of our favourite labels, wrong way open their 2017 release account with a by all account lysergic loaded and heavily chemicalised second set from Dublin’s finest purveyors of the psychedelica arts – this other kingdom. Sprayed upon splatter swirled wax, ‘reveur’ looks set to turn heads and melt minds with its sixties sugared senses overloading tapestry of tripping delights as the accompanying taster teaser currently woozily weaving its kaleidoscopic brushwork reveals – flip wigging, far out and flying is all we’ll say of it for now. https://wrongwayrecords.bandcamp.com/album/r-veur
Currently frazzling out the innards of our head whilst woozily weaving its intoxicating psychedelic voodoo in a rarefied spell charm form, this is the sound of the quite frankly out there and tripped out Dire Wolves. These dudes hailing from San Francisco have just dropped a mammoth 12 minute acid pill in the shape of ‘enter quietly’, a cut culled from a forthcoming set for, we assume, the beyond beyond is beyond imprint, entitled ‘excursions to cloudland’. Let’s just say that this is so stoned out that we fear some listeners entering its enchanted sonic portal will not be returning with all their chairs in neat arrangement, reference wise it’s the sound of Bardo Pond time tripping back to the early 70’s signing to Vertigo or some or other hipster weird label and spending the advance relocating to some hippy commune to cobble out melodic magic mushrooms. https://soundcloud.com/mike-newman/enter-quietly
surrealist conspiratorial messaging video aside, here’s the softly lilting high altitude strut shimmying hymnal glide of the hushly toned shoe gaze star sirens No Joy with a track ‘Califone’ pulled from an incoming EP set for Grey Market titled ‘creep’ which to these ears sounds like it’s been kissed with the kind of vapour trailing effervescence that one might imagine would result from a bliss traced Emerald Down channeling deep on the spirit of the kitchens of distinction.
Here’s your daily dose of skull dungeon sonic lunacy. Where to begin with this impish sore thumb, lunacy it indeed is, fear not though for just a mere 8 minutes of your time is politely requested, point of references here being perhaps the Bearsuit imprint. This is На 100 Процентов Отмудоханная Бабуля – at least I think that what they / he / she call his / her / themselves with ‘Заебцовая Тема (EP)’ – (do you get the feeling it going to be a long night) – a seven track bizarro which is described in the liner notes as ‘experimental, technical deathcore cybergrind electronic metal’ from Russia. In truth this boils down to, its barking, playful, incurably addictive if not a little testing on a second sitting, and believe me we have sat through this twice mainly to make sure that what we heard first time of asking was actually what we heard first time of asking. Let’s just say that amidst the derangement and tongue in cheek irregularity, there are things happening here to fisher price toy instruments (I’m assuming they are toy instruments) that I suspect the manufacturers never foresaw to bar not to mention surely a contravening of some European directive buried in a footnote of some extensive prohibitive legislature, in terms of reference markers, aside the aforementioned Bearsuit records brigade – we’re mainly recalling to mind Whizz Kid tuned into some wired Henry Cow vibe summoning up punked out power house vibes for use by Cartoon Network. https://skulldungeon.bandcamp.com/album/ep
More chilling overtures and sonic séances from the dark side with the appearance of another haunting and macabre intrusion through the dimensional fractures of what passes for the dividing portal between reality and the supernatural, yep you guessed it from those weird ear dudes over at aetheric records, this being another visitation from those rather happy chaps known as kindred spirits though here reworked with Hole House’s summoning up of ‘primitive blessings’. Not I hasten to add something that ought to be savoured during the hours of darkness for ghoulishly stilled this aural apparition looms from the shadows with a deathly dread draped droning predatory menace. https://soundcloud.com/aetheric-records/primitive-blessings-by-kindred-spirits-hole-house-re-imagining
admit it, isn’t this just the coolest thing, like an at rest hulking psychedelic mothership transmitting trance toned mind wiping pulsars all kaleidoscopically kut in the sonic image of some long since put to bed Sonic Boom off shoot, frazzled wig flipping brain drone. This is life education and ‘rainbow terminus’ from a forthcoming cassette visitation via grabbing clouds shortly entitled ‘acid owl’. So tell me again, what’s not to adore?
Doing the rounds on grabbing clouds right this moment is a rather spiffing sounding cassette by midnight garden going by the name ‘ruined’ – literally just tripped over this but following a brief listening peek we’ve found ourselves quite smitten by the woozy and wonky parting cut ‘death’ which despite its ominously dreary title is anything but. In truth its sounds a lot like Busy Signals somewhat lo-fi fried through the collective kaleidoscopic lenses of a classic era Elephant 6 collective, Paw Tracks and Moon Glyph gathering with a certain Ariel Pink twiddling the studio desk nobs. https://grabbingclouds.bandcamp.com/album/midnight-garden-ruined
Oh yes, this is, to pardon the straying into local parlance, well dandy, new groove from King Champion Sounds, a strictly limited seven inch in fact, the flip side of which we’ll mention a little later along with details of a short all-important supporting tour across the Netherlands and the UK. Anyhow lead up side is entitled ‘full throttle’ and comes darkly smothered in hypno grooving flashes of deeply tranced subtronic pulsars the kind of which, had we not known any better, appears to plug and feed into the headspace of the Bridewell Taxi’s to curdle a mutant blueprint that on one hand draws deep from the well of Front 242, albeit here found infected by Test Department and on the other forges sonic alliances with fellow Dutch compatriots De Staat.
Incoming on full time hobby a bit of a bruiser from husband and wife duo the Saxophones. An EP in fact headed up by the title track ‘if you’re on the water’ – a hauntingly beautiful slice of intimacy cut and trimmed in a stinging sepia framed vintage that has all the sparsely tender reflective poise of the Tindersticks had they been marooned on a passing star or at the very least heard crackling into monophonic life through the static hiss of an old valve powered radio set serenading the listening space to tearful ballads spooled from ghost lit spectral ballrooms. Alas no sound links just now.
Two separate mentions on this one folks, we are naughty teasers are we not, this is heading out of sky lantern around st valentine’s day we believe, the vinyl limited editions already having sold out on pre sales alone, no excuses though for there are still some lovely cassette variants with which to nail. A split release that pairs together the mighty Myrrors and Centralstodet. The former tripping in with two cuts of amazing vintage kosmiche, the one on this here player being the dream like jazz tinged odyssey ‘Rayuela’ which I must say here and now really is wonderfully trance like and who vibrant free flowing vividly bright textures ought to catch the ear lobes of those among you familiar with the ways of Embryo.
Described by the label as their favourite ‘Swedish prog heads’, Centralstodet, who I’m sure we’ve featured here in the long distant past, occupy side 1 of that spffing aforementioned ‘Ljudkamrater’ set and do a neat line in beard forming beatnik boogie if ‘Vega’s Bodega’ is anything to judge by, all very hairy, fried and head expanding controlled and wayward sonic pyrotechnics in whose presence we suggest you roll up a fat one and get smoking your own whilst you momentarily tune out of the rigours of reality. https://skylanternrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ljudkamrater
This one comes pressed up on slabs of 7 inch vinyl the pre-orders of which come accompanied by a super limited 5×7 painting featuring original artwork by the band. Now we are assuming those measurements are in inches as opposed to feet, but squabbles aside a mighty fine track – called ‘opposites’ looms on the waxen grooves, well at least one side of it, from a collective set by the name ‘play opposites’ by New York based combo parlor walls who in the liner notes describe themselves as ‘experimental no wave jazz trash’. A little unfair but hey ho, that said this should, aside drawing the affection of those attuned to the likes of Delta 5, Au Pairs and dare we say the much missed Ludus, strike a familiar chord with those angular post punk admirers of Controller. Controller. https://parlorwalls.bandcamp.com/track/play-opposites
as promised back with the flip side of that killer King Champion Sounds release along with all the aforementioned tour gubbins. Now maybe it’s just me but I’m of the thinking that the impish nag nag nag sore thumb that is the delightfully angular ‘Debby one day’ has its head somewhat tuned into the kind of early 80’s sonic frequencies of Killing Joke’s ‘revelations’ / ‘fire dances’ phase whilst simultaneously nodding to Joke ejectees Brilliant and referencing ever so subtly Peter Gabriel’s ‘games without frontiers’ – think that covers all you need to know, essential by our reckoning.
As said King Champion Sounds are about to embark on a short tour in support of the single…..dates as follows….
February / March 2017 tour……The Netherlands + U.K.
Friday 24 February UTRECHT (NL) @ dB’s
Saturday 25 February AMSTERDAM (NL) @ Paradiso
Sunday 26 February ROTTERDAM (NL) @ WORM
Monday 27 February HASTINGS (UK) @ The Printworks
Tuesday 28 February BRIGHTON @ Prince Albert
Wednesday 01 March LONDON @ The Islington
Thursday 02 March NEWCASTLE @ Cluny 2
Friday 03 March PRESTON @ The Continental
Saturday 04 March MANCHESTER @ Fallow Café
latest sunrise ocean bender approved pod ‘down the gullet’ features two hours of head tripping smoking groove, some of the featured nuggets we’ve had much cause to rave about in recent dispatches not least the opening mind fryer from Dire Wolves not to mention essential happenings from the Myrrors, Centralstodet and Oulu Space Jam Collective – the latter of whom mere mention of has just reminded me just where the hell are my eggs in aspic cassettes. Sonically sandwiched between these treats there’s a live visitation from the mighty Hills going all karma and transcendentally mystic on you, something by flowers must die that’ll really turn both your mind and surrounding listening space inside out and some cool wig flipping slo-mo astral wooziness from the previously unknown to us Lamagala. Strap yourselves in and head over to https://www.mixcloud.com/mr_atavist/down-the-gulletsob-12617/
stuff……
http://stereoembersmagazine.com/matt-sloans-top-dreampop-releases-2016/
ongoing peek at a little online scrapbook from Jo and Danny…..
http://joanddanny.tumblr.com/joanddannybands
fan recorded VHS transfer recording of Bowie’s last leg of his North American Earthling tour….
Staying with Bowie more ear and eye candy bits and bobs……
BBC sessions archive ……
….the making of Labyrinth…..
Something I suspect – and fear – we may have missed in passing – this is daydream machine with a most sublime slab of shimmering dream pop titled ‘poverty of thought’ – everything about this just screams bliss out euphoric cool, we’ll just leave you to swoon at your own leisure then…… https://soundcloud.com/daydream-machine/daydream-machine-poverty-of-thought
More ethereal loveliness that our usually on the mark radar managed to miss, this is the quite exquisitely turned ghost lit love note that is Cerise’s ‘smoke screen dreams’ from a few months ago, sounds to us like a subdued Sundays channelling Nico and the Velvet Underground. https://soundcloud.com/cerisemusic/01-smoke-screen-dreams
Blimey our radar certainly did go up the spout this time last year or thereabouts because here’s another lovely we somehow managed to miss – harrumph – this is the amorphously orbiting twinkle setting ‘chamber’ from the still parade – we will see if we can root out that mentioned in the wordy text ‘concrete vision’ full length – https://soundcloud.com/stillparade/chamber
Twenty years, where do the years fly…..billy Mackenzie tribute marking his anniversary….
the Associates ‘white car in Germany’
The glamour chase documentary…..
Articles…..
http://www.thewallofsound.com.au/blog-post/it-was-only-acid-your-honour-defence-psychedelia
http://thequietus.com/articles/21627-ufos-conspiracy-theories-trump-alex-jones
flying nun in the Guardian…..
farewells……
Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit passes……
http://pitchfork.com/news/71067-can-drummer-jaki-liebezeit-dead-at-78/
William Peter Blatty…….
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/13/exorcist-author-william-peter-blatty-dies-aged-89
Butch trucks – founding member of Allman Brothers passes away….
Ants guitarist Tom Edwards dies suddenly….
http://louderthanwar.com/tom-edwards-adam-ant-guitarist-rip/
John Hurt loses battle against pancreatic cancer….
..a long career, he appeared in many memorable roles and films, who could forget the first appearance of the ‘Alien’ ripping out of his stomach, or his performances in ‘midnight cowboy’, ‘1984’, his elegant and tender portrayal of John Merrick in the ‘elephant man’ and BBC’s massive coup in getting him to appear as the war doctor in Dr Who’s 50tth anniversary spectacle. For me though the role that always struck, so finely rounded, studied and reflected on screen was that of Quentin Crisp in ‘the Naked Civil Servant’ – here’s the film in full length before the big wigs pull it for copyright infringements……
End bits…..
Mentioned in passing when we featured Adamennon a little earlier, here’s some cool groove from Bruno Nicolai with ‘une vie breve’
The original version of dead voices on air’s ‘Sulphur’ mentioned earlier when we ran the critical ear over Orbit Service’s quite stunning cover…..
A spot of Psychic TV – always a good thing, here’s an oldie and a goodie at that……
Part of the great how did we overlook this first time of asking file of previously unheard delights….this is leave the planet with ‘forever’ a quite beautifully beguiling thing that we here feel mystified that it escaped our ear gaze last year, seductively spectral and coolly ghosted in a gorgeously arresting bliss pop monochrome murmuring ….
A little more groove we’ve thus far managed to overlook, these dudes hail from Greece
Hypnotic nausea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1U2kYA41NU
New sonic jesus set for fuzz club shaping up nicely……
Mentioned earlier when we featured the new parlor walls release, here’s the mighty Ludus…
Contact resources….
Email – marklosingtoday@gmail.com
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/thesundayexperience
Word press – marklosingtoday.wordpress.com
Twitter – @marklosingtoday
Physical – 46 Webster Avenue, BOOTLE, Merseyside, L20 9JF, UK
The run out groove……
Henry Mancini’s ‘theme from the Pink Panther’
the sunday experience 