Look what we sneaked online again while you were sleeping just in case you missed it the first time of asking…..
January 2017
Revolutions of a 45 and 33 kind…..
This month we featured….
apartmentos acapulco, arctic circle, atl, beaulieu porch, blown out, bob young, camera, captives of the void, check out, cheval sombre, constantine, control of the going, earthling society, eat lights become lights, endless records, eric arn, exploding numbers, flatland frequencies, human parents, inner wheel, innerise, january 2017, jim ottaway, joel gion, kim and the cinders, klf, lake ruth, larry wish and his guys, look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping, lowly, mike brown, optical sounds, os noctambulos, Peanut butter wolf, pearblossom highway, peter buck, pixies, plumpyethornton, polytechnic youth, ptolemaic terrascope, queen, radiohead, reptilians of andromeda, sequences electronic music, sequential dreams, silent riders, snails, sonus lab, status quo, strange brew, strange raven sky, subterranean satellite band, sundays and cybele, sunstack jones, the blog that celebrates itself, the contrarians, the luck of eden hall, the red plastic buddha, the shivas, the strange signals from space, the xx, thiaz itch, tomorrow syndicate, transmission 1, tremolo ghosts, trumpton and Chigley, twenty-one crows, underground youth, unexplained sounds group, unlike noise, vinyl sales, wolfgang, your psych sounds, Barrett’s Dottled Beauty, ZOFFF, Jo Bartlett, Amonism, ummagma, dead gurus, mary ocher, david bowie, ulan bator, dollkraut, bureau b, Jessica curry, Maurizio Abate & Matteo Uggeri, so beast, liquid library, smiling strange, zero gravity tea ceremony, woe town, elaine rasnake, Pethaugarw, Laetitia sadier source ensemble, blanck mass, menace beach, kramies, Manuel Ferrer, yerba mansa, minami deutsch, eureka California, schizo fun addict, pull the plug, zoll, moonwalks, ourselves the elves, n-qia, children of alice, kindred spirits, the polymer cities, zone six, way past cool, wonderfulsound, clangers, karen Dalton, jenny hval, sunrise ocean bender, Supersize Me, Peachy Hat, Tara King Th, Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, Orange Drop, mark and the clouds, Junkyard Liberty, cult of dom keller, Eggs in Aspic, Strange Collective, the heaters, Moonwalks, has a shadow, kevin krauter, savants, megami acorda, more than human, sppols out, kelman, shed show, serafina steer, wolfgang tillmans, gospel, poppies, space age turntables, lathe cutting, hey colossus, haxan cloak, optical sounds, buzzcocks, los microwaves, caetano veloso, gilberto gil, Ronnie von, os mutantes, rock n’ roll dance party, sonic realities, nite jewel, metal hurlant, sonny day and the tony ray combo, rolf trostel, laura marling, Doncaster electronic foundation, the pulselovers, promenade cinema, damsel in a dollshouse, white shape, odyssey os argonautas, the equestrian vortex, eurnovision, dancing deadlips, fecal vomit,, r seiliog, art of the memory palace, the bordellos, nunofyrbeeswax,belacide, orbit service, jay Tausig, frans kedes, bbc sound effects, keith seatman, the hardy tree, plaid, euerp1, mirian kolev, panophonic, the blog that celebrates itself, chaz bundick and the mattson 2, r stevie moore and jason falkner, gulp, julie’s haircut, gnoomes, pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs, has a shadow, daughters of grief, arabian death mask, emptiness, sonic realities, spectres, grouper, jerry lee lewis, kevin o’neill, earache radio, ouroboros, Italian psychedelia, psychedelic furs, stationary travels, hypercube, wilder Gonzalez agreda, Darren Charles, british space group, William onveabor, the molochs, gorillaz, slows down, flaming lips, cage the elephant, carlo savina, Sylvia, rhys marsh, beautify junkyards, half Japanese, Dorothy ashby, patterns, rob Clarke and the wooltones, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, lay llamas, the apeman, cat le bon, emmy the great, Vivienne eastwood, soundcarriers, ghost box, jon brooks, Doncaster electronic foundation, odd box, slowcoaches, the exbats, tough tits, hatori yumi, trimdon grange explosion, kit records, mal Thursday, the trolley problem, Ronald binge, coronation scot, the pulselovers, promenade circus, damsel in the dollhouse, 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, polypores, evil blizzard, Delaware road, the corporation, catastrophe disasterbator, josefin ohrm and the liberation, the truth about frank, Marcus fjellstrom, adamennon, slowdive, evil uses, taos hum, when nalda became punk, Adriano zianni, Spartan jet-plex, fret, kill alters, the dahmers, the rotten mind, amonism, wonky alice, holy now, temnee, eoin smith, kitchens of distinction, oskar’s drum, hey exit, ty segall, connect_icut, feral ohms,brian Jonestown massacre with tim burgess, the bordellos, snails, gulp, Django Django, new pornographers, razor sharp death blizzard, tempers, soft bodies, Quimper, revbjelde, yuri morozov
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
Something lovely, vintage and nostalgic to see this first transmission out, this is the Trumpton and Chigley sounds….enjoy xx.
first great album of the year, now there’s a hefty notice to be saddled with and have to live up to, yet it’s a description that’s well deserved for this debuting full length from Barrett’s Dottled Beauty appears to emerge from a rarefied fog that’s far removed and remote of pop’s populated path. The collaborative work of an Electroscope and a Kitchen Cynic, ‘owls in her eyes’ comes pressed in a strictly limited 80 only wax variation housed in hand made / hand numbered collage sleeves. Upon its grooves four soft psyche siren-esque psalms quietly stare, seduce and enchant, beguilement doesn’t begin to touch it, ghostly drone mosaics, which as reported on previous encounters, arrive trimmed in classicist vintage whose lineage ripples to a dawning of time whilst sonically balanced on a finite point located somewhere between the primordial psych folk utterance’s of Alphane Moon, Ghost, our glassie azoth and the bewitching trips of George Harrison’s ‘blue jay way’ – non more so is this better exemplified than on the title track itself, buried in the twilight mists hushed murmurs rise and float amid washes of waking atmospherics, the effect very much tuned into some hitherto lost Nico-esque ghost folk mystic. But then to attempt to describe the overall effect of ‘owls in her eyes’ is to liken it to spirit walking through a dream, for here the melodies float in part, in ethereal rapture and wood whittled wooziness to dissipate and dissolve in the ether, delightful spectral symphonies weaved in the wind and arrested upon an unmoored fluidity that sees them shape shift with an alluring eeriness that’s both seductive and enchanted. Here the frost chipped ice sculpturing of ‘the cynic, the dipper and the thrush’ shimmer hazily softly unfurling their kaleidoscopic mantra drawing upon a sonic mysticism that threads elements of Dodson and Fogg with John Fahey. Given its sparse detailing ‘forvie’ – frankly the best thing here it should be said – reveals itself as a lushly toned cosmic ghost light, a celestial rapture graced in hymnal hues and chill tipped choral coos all traced upon lunar pulsars and kissed with an otherly presence. ‘the rain has come in misty showers’ draws matters to a close and as such crafts out something bruising, crushed and lovelorn, its shadowy folk noir toning teased in a fracturing and surrendering beauty that hints of both Preterite and Dead Can Dance whilst similarly soured in the fragile hollowed majesty of Glissando. Irrefutably essential. https://barrettsdottledbeauty.bandcamp.com/album/owls-in-her-eyes
heading out of deep distance later this month, the debut full length from ZOFFF. Originally out in 2014 via CD, ‘ZOFFF 1’ finally gets the long overdue full wax treatment, ZOFFF feature among their cosmic party various members of Levitation, Field Music, Sons of Adrian and Noel and the Cardiacs with this set arriving as a strictly limited 300 only pressing. You can get an early listening via their bandcamp page which while you’re there we suggest you strap yourselves in and recalibrate your head space for the cosmic colossus that is ‘Kozfest MMXVI’ – a 44 minute head expanding trip into the oblivion recorded at their appearance at last year’s Kozfest in July, an improvised lunar leviathan of hulking kosmiche beardiness spooling astral tripping freak outs and out there mind blasts to culminate in a grizzled space stoner opus of monumental tripping heaviness, better roll a fat one this ‘un. https://zofff.bandcamp.com/album/kozfest-mmxvi
by all accounts currently being prepped as a future Kodiak Island track, here’s Jo Bartlett in the intimacy of her living room performing an acoustic take of ‘no easy game’ – with a touch of Sandy ghosting on its shoulder, this little heartbreaker stings and cuts to the quick with a becoming hope crushed reflection.
Many thanks to Matt Bower of Wizards Tell Lies for sharing this (the Wizards will be thawing from hibernation with a new download only full length – details to be confirmed), not rightly sure if this is newly peeled or something drawn from the vaults, still it’s good to have Amonism back on our sound player and sounding, it has to be said, quite empirical and epic. This is a track entitled ‘from the dark explodes light’ – hell’s teeth this is massive, I mean cinematic massive, like Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams huge, hulking massive – all at once an emotional rollercoaster, a chest beating call to arms graven in the regal and ceremonial blood lust for battle. Stunning in a word. https://soundcloud.com/amonism/from-the-dark-explodes-light
welcome return of dream pop duo Ummagma, you know some releases just write their own reviews, ‘winter tale’ initially appearing on their 2015 EP ‘Frequency’ gets a much-deserved remodelling with these mixes featuring a guest appearance by the much adored, around here anyway, AR Kane – more about that in a second though. As the title might suggest and hint, ‘Winter Tale’ comes shimmered in twinkling snow drops, all at once frail and fragile, this ice carved cascade purrs to a Angelically prettified pulsing procession that softly orbits lonesomely in the celestial stratosphere. Over on the flip side you’ll find the ‘AR Kane 69 mix’ – indeed a retooling by Rudy Tambala and a nod to the duo’s late 80’s landmark ‘69’ album, which despite its atonal etching endows the original mix with a somewhat distractively dreamier quotient with the gruff flotillas of wiry feedback sprays and the woozy cosmic electronic warbles seemingly acting as guide lights shepherding Shauna’s vocals homeward bound. https://ummagma.bandcamp.com/album/winter-tale
clearly folks with a thing for ‘psycho candy’ era Jesus and Mary Chain, though that’ll be the Reid brothers inaugurated into the temple of the Fuzztones, this is or should I say these are, the dead gurus with a track ‘ starlight sisters’ pulled from a forthcoming full length for – fast becoming our favourite label – Wrong Way – entitled ‘Acid Bench’ .Oodles of fuzzy twang here with primitive grooviness and that kind of swamp dragged primordial swagger much beloved around these here parts though buried deep beneath an impenetrable stoned out and dead eyed psychedelic wall of sound, shades are indeed a required accessory here mind you having heard it twice now we’re now thinking it sounds the fleshtones and red lorry yellow lorry or is that just me.
Now I’ll be truthful here in saying that we were just going to give this a quick listen and file it in the essential listening section of this extended weekly missive. It deserves more than that. I’d say we were entranced, mesmerised and locked into its ethereal enchantment the minute it crackled into life. This is a teaser track entitled ‘endlessness’ taken from Mary Ocher’s ‘the west against the people’ full length. Produced by Hans Joachim Irmler, the album is due for release on the klangbad imprint, this first hearing is approaching something truly immaculate, described as cold wave which personally I feel underplays its beauty, this minimalist hymnal is touched with an air of isolationist classicism, the melodies whispering and yearning are ice framed upon a willowy seductive murmuring whose frosted noir tracing really is unworldly and captivating leaving us here with the kind of jaw dropped adoring which has rarely came troubling our way since the first time we hooked upon early teaser copies of Goldfrapp’s ‘felt mountain’.
Reaching through the veil shrouded in a hazy intimacy and closeness, crackling to life upon TV screens in a small road side shop window (Newton Electronics – a nod to a distant past), a vapour trailing hymnal from beyond, what first appears chilling and tearful soon shifts with wondrous adventure to reveal something understated and quietly euphoric, much like the returning echoes of Major Tom in ‘Space Oddity’ and ‘Ashes to Ashes’, this is a goodbye from the beyond. Reflective, lost and cut adrift, there’s no tears, no regret, just resolution. This is ‘no plan’ by David Bowie, as in life so to in death, he surprises and continually reinvents art as a form to move, communicate and amaze.
Heading out shortly on Bureau B, herewith three sampler snippets heralding the imminent arrival of new groove from Ulan Bator in the shape of ‘stereolith’ – I bet you were expecting galactic kosmiche of some form or other so were we if we are being honest, instead and this is, assuming that our listening radar is in full working order, we are picking up the undeniably whiff of Edward Ka-Spel stalking across the title track albeit as though busily rewiring Floyd’s ‘the wall’ while ‘blue girl’ is consumed by a strangely industrial grooving whose playfully angular noir shimmering picks around the edges of a ‘Baal’ era Bowie leaving ‘NeuNeu’ – clue is in the title methinks – to round out this brief soiree with some nifty kraut grooved Magazine-esque mantra. https://soundcloud.com/bureau-1/sets/ulan-bator-stereolith-snippets
look i know it’s so last year, but admirers of Bureau B might be minded to check out their ‘best of bureau b 2016’ set – 24 tracks plucked from last year’s enviable release roster and all available to download for free, a fair few rich pickings here including cuts from Camera, Conrad Schnitzler, Qluster, Die Krupps, Automat, Solyst and Rolf Trostel the latter of whom whose kosmiche pulsing ‘sehnsucht’ from his third full length – 1982’s ‘der prophet’ has had us somewhat smitten mainly due to its pristinely air cooled cosmic pop chassis. https://soundcloud.com/bureau-1/sets/best-of-bureau-b-2016-24-free-downloads
merrily macabre, a haunted fairground creeper eerily stilled in a vintage sepia framing, so chillingly playful you can feel ice droplets forming on your brow. The impish dark twin of Goldfrapp’s ‘felt mountain’ if you must under the influence of Add N to X, this is Dollkraut with the teaser track ‘oblivian’ culled from a forthcoming set for Dischi Autunno entitled ‘holy ghost people’ – sounding like, as the press release rightly notes, a lost 70’s era ‘European genre cinema’ soundtrack rephrased by Broadcast under the guiding spirit of Komeda and Korzyński. https://soundcloud.com/dischiautunno/dollkraut-oblivian
Three impeccable releases from the time released sound imprint, starting out with something forthcoming from Jessica Curry entitled ‘fields were the essence of the song’ this being just a four minute extract of an extended 22 minute opus. A curious release that asks for involvement by the listener, the press release describes it as a site specific soundtrack for a film that doesn’t exist, the idea I guess is for the listener to colour the emotional landscape in response to the melodies. The press release continues to litter clues, a soundtrack for an environment to wander about in perhaps to dream, the listener’s relationship to the music switching from slave to master in so much as the ambient sounds don’t dictate the moods but merely act as a conduit. Well I hope that’s what it means. As to the music itself, undulating piano braids serenely sprayed in breezy pastorals all at once touched with a bruised melancholic twist and a nature dancing canter, atop a drifting dialogue hypnotically draws the listener in adding to that unmistakable sense of loss and regret. A release best enjoyed during a quiet moment away from the maddening crowd and clanging chatter of a busying daytime and into the stilled yawn of a late evening. Serenely beautiful in short. https://soundcloud.com/time-released-sound/jessica-curry-fields-were-the-essence-of-the-song
Staying with time released sound, quietly emerging at the tail end of last year, a collaboration between Maurizio Abate & Matteo Uggeri entitled ‘beyond time’ somehow managed to slip our listening net. Again another release best served and enjoyed in the remoteness of a late evening headphone experience for fear that the days hectic activity may shatter the spell of the tranquil beauty unfurling within. On this occasion we’ve sampled the delights of ‘part IX’ – a gorgeous ice carved idyll expressed in genuflecting shimmer toning rushes, the melodies deftly plucked craft out a wood carved sense of magic enchantment that delicately see saws with affectionate tenderness to captivate and allure with a stilled mysterious elegance. https://timereleasedsound.bandcamp.com/album/beyond-time
December’s offering from time released sound, a bit of a delightful sore thumb it has to be said and something that sound wise is a detour from the usual established TRS sonic format, in truth something you’d expect to sneak out of the Bureau B label, it’s not quite Automat but it’s not far off, that is if the excellently titled ‘sex, love and cooking oscillator’ is anything to judge by. This is So Beast with a set called ‘Kira’ – the track in question prickling our ear lobes not least because it wonderfully mutates with such disconnected zeal one minute a crookedly hypnotic and sparsely toned kraut industrial grooved slab of spectral edginess – think part DAF part Lydia Lunch, the next lurching, fragmenting and assuming a sleazily feral uprooting to waywardly detune itself superbly into an angular slab of art groove boogie. https://timereleasedsound.bandcamp.com/album/kira
There’s nothing like an opening description ‘this is some cold shit’ to catch our eye and have us flocking blindly towards. An excellent compilation entitled ‘hoarfrost’ put out by the guys over at Bristol based Liquid Library who describe this in passing as a gathering ‘of ambient sounds with a wintry theme’. Fifteen tracks lurk within, all from artists who’ve so far managed to avoid our radar, we’d love to give over time to them all but alas time constraints deny us the opportunity, so here with a brief picking of what’s about starting with the set opener, to the genteelly oceanic majesty this is the caressing ebb and flow sigh of Elaine Rasnake with the rather beguiled and dare we say aptly titled ‘comfort’. Next up and in sharp contrast, Pethaugarw serve up the skewiff ‘crystallisation’ – all scraped riffs, atonal scowls and freeform mischief set upon an ominously pulsing backdrop, quite eerie and erratic if you ask me – admirers of those Henry Cow chaps will surely adore. Somewhere else, and utilising the same eerie pulsars, Woe Town serve up the hypnotic’83 84’ which to these ears sounds not unlike the pulsing tones found from under a control panel from a resting flying saucer – very chilling and ominous. Be honest, calling yourself Zero gravity tea ceremony and having the nerve to name your track ‘merry fucking Christmas thanks for destroying everything now can I have a hug’ was always going to get our attention no matter how pitiful the sounds might be, happily its quite dandy in a post apocalyptic stars going out end of days type way, while we part to the bruising stoner shoegaze vapour trailing of Smiling Strange’s ‘petelumant’ – maybe it’s just me but did someone order in Codeine to impart their appraising artistry of My Bloody Valentine’s back catalogue. https://liquidlibrary.bandcamp.com/album/hoarfrost
I can feel an adoring rash forming the minute the ear assimilates, translates and connects the sounds to the synapses, rippling outwards they seductive shimmer, shimmy and swoon playfully radiating an addictive and amorphously affectionate free spirited jazz lounge vibe that sounds as though its stepped from out of an early 70’s summer. This is a teaser track from a forthcoming set entitled ‘finding you finding me’ for drag city by Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble. Delectable and squiffily intoxicating, ‘undying love for humanity’ flutters flightily dipping and ducking delightfully just off centre rewiring an unmistakable back glancing nod to both Stereolab’s ‘dots and loops’ and ‘sound dust’ whilst flavouring it in the essences of Os Mutantes, Sergio Mendes and Steve Reich. https://soundcloud.com/drag-city/laetitia-sadier-source-ensemble-undying-love-for-humanity/s-b7QRB
Absolutely smitten by this, an early preview of incoming groove from Blanck Mass, this is ‘please’ from a forthcoming set for sacred bones entitled ‘world eater’. Don’t mind saying, but by these ears this sounds like the dogs, utterly consuming and majestic with it, a gloriously fluid convergence of styles stirred into a joyously expansive chill toned down tempo jubilant hymn that’s sure to crush and caress in equal measure, the coolest club floors across the land. https://soundcloud.com/sacredbones/blanck-mass-please/s-MbAQX
Due to arrive housed in a scratch n’ sniff sleeve via Memphis industries, Menace Beach are set to unveil their ‘lemon memory’ full length – like next week, from it and being sent ahead on scouting duties this is ‘suck it out’ – three and a half minutes of effervescently fried dayglo pop replete with ear candy cooing police siren riffage and a devilishly prowling and mooching off kilter angular slacker grooving, tell me again what’s not to love then. https://soundcloud.com/memphisindustries/menace-beach-suck-it-out-1
Described by its authors as an ‘abstract tribute to David Bowie’ and rescued from a box of forgotten demos recorded many years ago by Kramies, what is now ‘la nuit de Brixton’ was passed to friend Manuel Ferrer to work on as a collaborative exercise. Fixed in the heavens among the stars, a visiting farewell lunar lullaby twinkling in the great beyond sighed by the caressing lilt of oceanic symphonic sprays all delicately hushed, softly spectral and drifting onward out of sight and earshot in the vast void, its parting transmission a nod to ‘Space Oddity’ and then with its message sent, silence and nothing.
Another incoming from the deep distance dudes to go with that aforementioned ZOFFF happening, the self titled debut platter from Yerba Mansa is due for touchdown sometime next week, 300 only pressing all on clear khaki wax. A freeform brain fry, absolutely zonked out wigness of the highest order and something you’d rightly expect to emerge from the sound house of riot season. These freaked out scabbed arabesque mantras arrive blistered and cut upon locked grooved head- tripping primitive hallucinogenic séances of stoned out juju. Yowzah. https://soundcloud.com/yerba-mansa/sets/untilted-excerpts
There will be Sulatron mentions aplenty shortly if not in this particular missive, then definitely the next. For now cosmic cadets here’s the cruise controlled star hugging lull of Minami Deutsch with a spot of lunar loveliness, incidentally the shortest track on their February arriving self titled full length, entitled ‘terra recipe’ which unless our ears do deceive, squirrels in at its close aa little riffing nod to a certain Will Sergeant, though not before tuning itself into the kind of head expanding and motorik murmuring astral arabesque that imagines Sunray sharing studio smoke with Fly. https://soundcloud.com/sulatron/minami-deutsch-terra-recipe
Damn we are getting so dizzy with the dishevelled distraction that this bad babe is pouring forth not to mention feeling a tad pinned down by the g-force velocity as it shifts up through the gears to fraying and frying intensity. ‘What’s he saying’ I hear you say while the rest of you cry ‘what’s he on about’ – new happening from Eureka California is to what we refer, a feral slab of awkwardly spotty goof groove, untamed, unruly and discordantly dandy. It be called ‘wigwam’ and its heading out of HHBTM as part of a fair price campaign for 7 inch singles. Over to the flip there lurks ‘only birds no feathers’ and ‘slack motherfucker’ – the former found scuzzing out and delightfully bastardising thought familiar riffs from a distant modern lovers back catalogue, the latter a storming up close and personal loose and loaded, scab picking and volatile cover of an old lost Superchunk ditty – who said the riff sounds like it was nicked from the Pistols ‘great rock n’ roll swindle’.
Where does the time go, seemed only like yesterday that we were mentioning this – somewhere here in fact https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/24/schizo-fun-addict-6/ – anyhow new Schizo Fun Addict single ‘Chrome Rush’ is now available to download for free, flip side ‘dominion stungun’ is an old gem rummaged and rescued from the recorded vaults and brought back in the light – no excuses now – fill thy boots…. https://soundcloud.com/schizofunaddict/sets/chrome-rush-b-w-dominion
Some essential podcast listening happenings over at the ‘pull the plug’ sound house with a newly unveiled broadcast being aired via resonance FM, again as always this becomingly bijou and often slightly distracted broadcast plucks out the finest sounds from the underground, this one in particular hooking itself upon a kosmiche-y vibe. Amid the miscues and strange technical glitches recent polytechnic youth-ers Tomorrow Syndicate and the recent blink and it was gone outing by Australian Test Labs Inc – ATL – rub shoulders with Ghost Box-ers Pye Corner Audio and Rocket recording dudes Gnoomes while there are two sneak tasters from the forthcoming Polymer Cities incoming full length ‘recreation’ , as the man rightly notes ‘capsuleland’ really does have a ‘tin drum’ feel’ albeit reframed by yellow magic orchestra and remastered by Thomas dolby. https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/pull-the-plug-12th-january-2017/
Apologies to whoever sent this to us, but until I manage to track down your email you are alas uncredited, but many thanks all the same. Continuing our current pre-occupation with bands whose names start with Z – only joking, here’s Zoll, not to be confused with ZOFFF, the latter of course quite ably acquitted in the cobbling together of kosmiche kool with the latter though absorbing a shadowy post punk vibe on the quite titanic ‘Leopold’ which starts, stirs and surveys its sparsely detached wasteland for a moment or two before untethering itself and erupting in a most psychotic way, the likes of which we were much minded to root out our well thumbed copy of ‘Ocean Rain’ by the Bunnymen, if only in order to bask in the gloomy unrule of ‘thorn of crowns’. https://soundcloud.com/zolltheband
So enamoured were we by their appearance on the newly pressed Sunrise Ocean Bender (see somewhere to the foot of this missive) that we felt obliged to go off in search of more of their ear gear. ‘dust is magic’ is the flip side of that aforementioned ‘a little touch of gravity’ track, a beauty that freewheels with an unerring assured majesty that freefalls to join the invisible dots that join together the sonic worlds of Toy and Hookworms. Run out track ‘the joy of geraniums’ is pretty tasty to, annoyingly brief but enough vintage 60’s twang here to suggest one or two of the bands collective number have a thing for the craft of Meek and Barry. https://moonwalks.bandcamp.com/album/in-light-the-scales-in-the-frame
Another newly peeled lovely, this one comes in the shape of ‘wounds’ by ourselves the elves which grumblingly ends a little abruptly but apart from that, is cut with the kind of fragile sighing soft burn that has the hint of the Sundays swooning in its wake whilst swapping notes with Siddeleys as it distractively dreams its way with its head in the clouds draped in a purring forlorn framing that many moons ago wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Sarah records release schedule. https://ourselvestheelves.bandcamp.com/
Regular observers of these cobbled together missives will be all too aware of our fondness for N-qia, frost tipped love notes from the far east. Judging by the liner note descriptors ‘straight forward’ is heading out in some shape or form on the Virgin Babylon imprint, at once trimmed in a neo classical tracing this beautified thawing visitation comes sweetly harvested upon a lost in the moment funky delirium kissed in celestial sprays whilst shyly primed to duck your defences. Adorable in a word. https://soundcloud.com/n-qia/straight-forward
As hard as we are trying, we’ve yet to unearth sound cloud links heralding the imminent release on Warp of a debuting set from Children of Alice so I guess we’ll just have to leave you with the dedicated band page via Warp for a brief hint as to what’s heading down the tracks. For those unaware, Children of Alice is a sound collective that gathers together the talents of Broadcast co-founder James Cargill, keyboardist Roj Stevens and Julian House. The band name refers to ‘Alice in Wonderful’, the late Trish Keenan’s favourite film – the sounds – well from the brief taster on the lock groove player – very trippy and minimal, much like an acid fried kaleidoscopic Radiophonic Workshop. http://childrenofalice.com/
Okay once we’ve gotten around to spring cleaning a few unfinished reviews from way back before Christmas and rummaged through the email mountain, I’m suspecting that there may be a fair few mentions for the Aetheric imprint in the offing. Foe now however there’s this eerie visitation from Kindred Spirits to have you taking up ‘a thought’ safe residence behind the sofa. Not as chilling as fellow label mates Hole House but all the same dead headed with a becoming disquiet with its hypno grooved glacial pulsars and icily isolationism. https://soundcloud.com/aetheric-records/primitive-blessings-kindred-spirit
Ah, the Polymer Cities, surely that debut set must be close, here’s ‘neon beach radio’ to seduce your listening lobes a track which we may have already stumbled over via the airing of Resonance FM’s ‘pull the plug’ transmission wherein references where made to it sounding a tad like ‘tin drum’ era Japan / Mick Karn. Anyway by these ears it’s all futuro lounge spiced in Balearic afterglows – an imagined sound tracking of tomorrow worlds envisaged through the printed words of Bradbury, Dick and Asimov, a sonic picture postcard of automatons at rest refuelling on alien beach fronts lazing beneath sun fired skies, hints of YMO, Vangelis and Plaid did not escape our attention. https://soundcloud.com/midwich-youth-club/neon-beach-radio
Rumours abound that there’s a live album in the offing from these dudes pencilled in for the Spring release schedules of Deep Distance with a new studio album mooted for sulatron records to come later. For now here’s a spot of wigged out head expanding trip-a-rama from Zone Six, this particular cut entitled ‘Cosmogyral’ is taken from their last mind melter ‘love monster’ – a fifteen minute cosmic blues astral stoner which aside sounding as though its emerged through the wasted haze of some particularly potent bliss smoke ought to appeal to admirers of the much missed Green Milk from the Planet Orange, ripe for those who love their sounds beardy and out of it – see Sendelica, Earthling Society and Cranium Pie. https://zonesix.bandcamp.com/track/cosmogyral
Additional listening resources….
tearaway twanging, swamp dragged rock a hula and fuzz fried garage groove are the order of the day on the highly essential turntable teasing Way Past Cool podcast – alas no track listing but what do you ya know a download option – highly recommended…..
https://www.blubrry.com/garagepunk_pirate_radio/19862973/way-past-cool-episode-53?sbe=1
over at Soho Radio the Wonderfulsound dudes are busy doing their stuff with an hour and a half’s worth of lights lowering lounge loveliness – features Goldfrapp’s frankly gorgeous ‘paper bag’….
https://beta.mixcloud.com/sohoradio/wonderfulsound-libraries-02012017/
sounds from more than human this show features selected cuts from Equikknox, Suzanne Kraft, howlround and the latest from the polytechnic youth sound house ATL….
https://soundcloud.com/morethanhumanrecords/more-than-human-205
Spool’s Out retrospective anyone…..
https://robinthefog.com/2017/01/01/2016-in-retrospect-part-1-mixed-blessings/ – which features a two hour mix cloud gathering with track list to boot….
https://robinthefog.com/2017/01/09/2016-in-retrospect-part-2-spools-out-2/
a great band and much missed I’m saddened to say….a few selected classics from Kelman – now on bandcamp….
Serafina Steer in cahoots with Ben Polhill – another quality mix cloud session I’m afraid…..oh and before I forget its called the Shed Show…
https://www.mixcloud.com/ShedShow/10th-january-2017-unhinged/
how on earth we missed this, is well, frankly puzzling, emerging out of fragile last summer this is Wolfgang Tillman’s ‘device control’ – did I hear you say a warmer and more emotionally responsive version of Kraftwerk, you might well be right……
https://soundcloud.com/fragilelabel/wolfgang-tillmans-device-control
spotted this on the interti**t – Brazillian grooviness a go go….
another of those essential ear candy garage punk happenings, this one features an hour’s worth of shaking boog-a-loo courtesy of ‘rock n’ roll dance party’….
https://www.blubrry.com/garagepunk_pirate_radio/20062888/rock-and-roll-dance-party-010917?sbe=1
apologies for being late to the party with this, but another podcast / mix cloud set that found its way onto our sound player just before the silly season, this is transmission #6 from the Sonic Realities dudes, a real mix bag of grooviness featuring Alec Empire, Spectres, the Oh Sees, TVAM, Maps, Goldfrapp and much more including the quite devastating ‘running out of time’ by Nite Jewel which we defy anyone getting through without neither shedding a tear nor feeling somewhat lost for words. https://www.mixcloud.com/sonicrealities/sonic-realities-episode-6/
Haxan Cloak podcast….. over at https://www.mixcloud.com/NTSRadio/haxan-cloak-10th-january-2017/
moving pictures….in memoriam – David Bowie….
An extended discussion about ‘life on Mars’ – aired originally on Radio 2 earlier in the week….
An interview recorded for Dutch TV in 1977….
‘Sound and vision’ – a BBC documentary…..
One of the prime cuts from that aforementioned Way Past Cool pod set – this is Sonny Day and the Tony Ray Combo with ‘creature from out of space’…..
Mentioned earlier in brief – see Bureau B best of 2016 – here’s another taster of Rolf Trostel, this is ‘new age of intelligence’ from his ‘der prophet’ full length released in 1982…..
Actually caught this via the aforementioned wonderfulsound pod, this is Laura Marling’s recent ‘soothing’ – rather lovely yet oddly subdued…..
One of the featured tracks from that superb shed show pod……los microwaves from way back in ’82 with a sentiment I have on a daily replay ‘time to get up’
Don’t care what anyone says, but this still hits the spot when I’m feeling blue…….
Stuff……
Nice to see both Lake Ruth and the New Lines getting mentions in the big takeover best albums of 2016 list, in truth had we been bothered to do a list the New Lines set ‘love and cannibalism’ was streets ahead of everything else we heard by a country mile and more…..also great to see New Model Army topping the selection haul with ‘Winter’ – ridiculously overlooked everywhere else.
quick heads up to say that the latest issue of Optical Sounds is currently imminent and available to pre order, these things go like the proverbial hot cakes, so don’t say you weren’t warned……
http://opticalsoundsfanzine.bigcartel.com/product/optical-sounds-issue-11-pre-order
Buzzcocks – early days – with Devoto to get a long overdue appraisal by Domino with re-releases of ‘Spiral Scratch’ and a set of ’76 demos ‘time’s up’ – all manner of badges, posters, booklets and a reimagining of the fanzine ‘Shy Talk’ – more details here …..
and here……
http://www.dominorecordco.com/uk/albums/10-01-17/buzzcocks-mk1-box-set/
yea yea yea – so we don’t feature many comics, in fact we just don’t – so to even up the score – cue cheap marketing ploy to get the kidz onboard here’s a feature we spotted on the legendary Metal Hurlant –
http://hhhhappy.com/the-daring-french-sci-fi-comic-that-inspired-akira-blade-runner-and-star-wars/
far out space age sound systems….
http://thevinylfactory.com/features/space-age-record-players-stereos/
‘insert picture’ here —————
Beginners guide to lathe cutting your own records……
http://thevinylfactory.com/features/a-beginners-guide-to-lathe-cutting-your-own-records/
vinyl type stuff you need in order to stop the cooler kids laughing at you……new ‘best of’ set from Hey Colossus – out and selling very fast – hulking two disc set entitled ‘Dedicated to Uri Klangers’ – press release our parts of give the background…….
Press Release : ‘In 2015 Hey Colossus released two albums on Rocket Recordings, In Black and Gold in February and Radio Static High in October. Dedicated to Uri Klangers is a look back. It’s best summed up by the 3000 words that can be found on the inner sleeve of the record, the tale begins: “The 2xLP comp that’s in your hands now was initially released on cassette by S.O.U.L for our 10th anniversary show, September 2013, about 50 tapes were made and sold on the night. We thought a BEST OF would be hilarious. We were average at that show and I’m being generous. I’d give us 5.5/10. A shame. Hacker Farm and Helm also played. It was at The Sebright Arms in London, somewhere out East…..” – The cassette sat in the MIE car for three years, soundtracking journeys back and forth across the country. When a new car was bought, criminally minus a tape deck, the decision was made to put it on vinyl. Included are one or two tunes from all the HC albums released 2003-2013, it also includes the Witchfinder General Hospital track (only 100 pressed on 12″). All vinyl versions of the albums from this era are long gone. The discography is a bit of a mess now, the band doesn’t fully know and the Discogs site is not much help – godspeed anyone trying to buy all the back cat. 2xLP, gatefold sleeve, full printed inner sleeves with stacks of photo’s and the aforementioned spiel / tale of woe / occasional victory. 500 copies. This record is a fine way to dig into the first 10 years.
In case you’ve been living under a rock these last ten or more years Hey Colossus kinda go like…..
essential listening….and stuff we missed along the way…..
many apologies for having initially missed this, dropped our way just before the festive melee, this is the strangely catchy ‘Dutch priest’ by the Savants, a drunkenly tripping slab of atmospherically edgy and wiring twang toned rock-a-hula, reference wise think of an unholy gathering séance enacted by Pavement, Jumbo and a youthful of arrowe hill.
Another track that slipped our radar is a rather dream pop lovely from Megumi Acorda entitled ‘(Unexpectedly)’. Alas no information on these folk, not even sure whose actually handling it either, safe to say with its corteges of chiming cascades and dream dazed vocal demurs that there’s more than enough here to attract the attention of shoegazed swooners whose listening preferences slipstream into saint marie et al terrains.
Briefly to this, sneaked up on our player, a little something from Kevin Krauter entitled ‘diamond’ – this honey comes cooled in a mellowing sunny sided 70’s MOR the likes of which we’d hazard a guess ought to appeal first port of call to those much admiring of the Brigadier and the Lancashire Hustlers – though more pertinently the latter mentioned in one of their earlier guises the Panda Gang.
Four piece hailing from Brooklyn, NY these are Poppies with the achingly beautiful ‘mistakes’ – a track pulled from their slow to burn ‘double single’ set, is it just me that’s picking up the Mazzy Star vibe, though that’ll be Mazzy Star twinned with the crestfallen softly toned demur of the much missed Anna Kashfi.
Of this we’ll just settle for sublime……from Jenny Hval ‘the great undressing’
mentioned this a little while – here in fact https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/11/28/gospel-3/ – they must have hated the review because they never replied back. Ah well. Anyway though we’d mention this again because aside now being officially out for download it’s also graced by a moving picture show. This is Gospel with ‘bodies’ – utterly adorable by our humble reckoning and still sounding very much like the Insect Guide in a lovelorn tryst with Maudite Dance.
New sunrise ocean bender playlist has landed and it’s a bit of babe, features a plethora of mind morphing kaleidoscopic sonic wooziness, some of these dudes we will be seeking out for further listens not least the two opening acts Supersize Me and Peachy Hat, the former doing a rather nifty take on the Crimea being rewired by Mirror, Mirror thee latter providing a cosmic campfire cutie of such blissful brilliance I could have swore I was being visited upon by an out there and deeply stoned The Church. Elsewhere cuts from the adored Tara King Th who I must say we ought to feature more, oldie ‘astro girl’ really is up there with the debuting Soundcarriers full length, then there’s the frankly faultless into the trees’ by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions which I’ll just say, has to be heard to be believed, a brace of Mega Dodo’s – the excellent Orange Drop and mark and the clouds, tastiness from the Junkyard Liberty and a sneak peak of a track from an ultra limited live cassette from cult of dom keller from our new favourite label Eggs in Aspic – been warned this is selling fast on pre sales we hear. Add to the mix new things from Strange Collective and the heaters – the latter like wow sounds like the cavalry heading fast over the hills, an ultra cool mind frying dandy from Moonwalks and a killer thing from has a shadow whose ‘sorrow sorrow tomorrow’ I must admit sounds as though its stepped out the best bits of an early 80’s positive punk scene. Look do yourself a favour, forget me waffling just tune into the blighter…. http://www.sunriseoceanbender.com/dont-let-them-tempt-yousob-1-12-17/
…and finally, a moment of greatness………from Karen Dalton….
….and leaving you with this….
….some loveliness from the Clangers to see us out……ta ta for now x
we’re opening this particular missive with a track we mentioned a little while back. The ‘theme from the persuaders’ originally scored by John Barry for the iconic ITC funded 70’s TV series pairing together Roger Moore and Tony Curtis has sat with us since childhood and taken up a small place in our undying affection. This version exquisitely rephrased by Doncaster’s the Pulselovers is pulled from an excellent covers set entitled ’the fourth masquerade’ assembled together by the Doncaster Electronic Foundation (DEF – no doubt a nod to Heaven 17’s BEF – British Electronic Foundation), the release gathers a cast of previous unknown – to us at least – circuit twiddlers re-appraising well known pop hits of yore, special attention ought to made of promenade cinema’s take on Abba’s ‘winner takes it all’ and damsel in the dollhouse’s magnetically chill toned faded glamour brought to pass on their version of Supertramp’s ‘logical song’.
Image here….
https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/11/02/doncaster-electronic-foundation/
https://defsynth.bandcamp.com/album/a-fourth-masquerade
Heading out of Illinois hoisted upon a desert dry trade wind, a mysterious psychedelic arabesque spell charms and spirit walks, this is White Shape with the mind arranging dream tripped astral blues of ‘space reaper’, sitting somewhere along a sonic spectrum located between the Heads and the black angels yet touched with the mercurial hallucinogenic grace of Jefferson Airplane crafting out joyously out there woozily sprayed inner eye odysseys. https://whiteshape.bandcamp.com/releases
I’m feeling a tad disturbed that thus far our usually up to the mark radar has so far managed to miss this, sneaked out earlier last year this is the trance toned psych of Odyssey Os Argonautas. A trip-a-delic dude hailing from Lisbon who specialises in the stirring of a rarefied gathering of intoxicating essences derived from the middle east to forge a head expansive potion of kaleidoscopic flavouring amid whose lysergic reverbs ghost tracings of a Barrett in situ Floyd weave their dream coat of many colours. https://odysseyosargonautas.bandcamp.com/album/odyssey-os-argonautas
Damn our failing memory and ability to recall, just this minute I can’t remember exactly who the Equestrian Vortex is and I know I’ll be kicking myself senseless the minute their identity emerges through the recollecting fog – no doubt at the moment when I click the publish for this mention. Anyway as you might have been able to establish for yourselves, this is Equestrian Vortex with the rather ominous and shivery ‘skull mountain’ – a macabre chill pill daubed in a paranoiac Radiophonic dead heading detachment all cradled in a seriously glowering light sucking stillness, a warning call for the curious, the stupid and the ignorant, a shadowy portal to the other side, very atmospheric and very creepy, a bit like imagining Mount Vernon Arts Lab still under the influence of ‘hobs lane’ re-tooling Stylus’ ‘skomargraph’ full length. https://soundcloud.com/the-equestrian-vortex/skull-mountain?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook
Currently prepped for a fuller review later this week, by the way many thanks to Paul for sending over copies of both the current and last years – well 2015’s – EurNoVision CD sets – this folks is the whole album played at once and condensed into eight minutes of sonic revelry which in truth doesn’t sound as scary or chaotic as you might first be led to imagine, a crookedly cool subtronic no / art / new / future pop pyre if you must with poland’s dancing deadlips leading out the bizarro circus to its concluding end groove. Only weird ears need apply. https://eurnovision.bandcamp.com/track/eurnovision-2016-all-songs-at-once
Been a few weeks since we had the pleasure of Fecal Vomit’s sandblasted skree shredding our sound player to mere dust, new twin set ‘gurgle it and spit to better feel the taste of your success’ is nothing if it isn’t uncompromising, leading the charge ‘you accepted so let’s toast with this piss’ is as extreme as it gets, a full on whirlwind of caustic sonic terrorism which within its 23 minute duration you sense you are under some form of siege battling hard to keep your wherewithal together in the face of the extreme scowls of atonal butchery. The charmingly entitled ‘2000 year old advices for squirting shit from the biggest experts in that field’ offers no hiding place, distorted spoken verses, snatches of ceremonial chants, oddly fitting field recording cut up and insane blasts of acid bath dipped sonic screams impart a brutality that’s both acute and disquieting. https://skulldungeon.bandcamp.com/album/gurgle-it-and-spit-to-better-feel-the-taste-of-your-success
Tailored in a blissful haze of celestial raptures all trimmed in delicate Balearic kisses and marooned upon some far flung lunar out post lazing beneath the soft burn of alien suns, there’s a dream toned serene syncopating fluidity to R Seiliog’s beautifully oceanic Detroit tech draped ‘myopia’ that smoulders and coolly glints beneath a lights lowered chic to nod to the shapeshifting sound palette classicism of both 808 State and Future Sound of London. This cut heads up a recent extended play entitled ‘shedhead’ for Turnstile Music released at the tail end of last year, rare appearances are scheduled with dates booked at London’s the Waiting Room (18th) and Brighton’s Hope and Ruin(19th). https://soundcloud.com/r-seiliog/myopia
Imminent on the horror sounds imprint in ultra limited cassette variants, a new full length from Art of the Memory Palace entitled ‘Voiture blanche dans le noir’ – an imagined darkly chic 70’s soundtrack which we’ll leave Andrew from AofMP to take up the thread……
‘a French, new wave thriller soundtrack album called “Voiture Blanche Dans Le Noir” (“White Car In The Black”) via apocryphal film and soundtracks label, Horror Pop Sounds on cassette & download. It comprises of fairly short vignette tracks, broaching Broadcast / orchestrated Serge Gainsbourg territory’
Release trailer…..
Was I just imagining it, or was it through the fog haggled haze of this thing we fondly refer as to our memory recall that the Bordellos did promise that this year they would be going on a charm offensive. See that’s going well then because we’ve just eyed this sore thumb from pop’s most curmudgeon on a rather nifty free to download compilation entitled ‘you don’t have to be fashionable’ – volume 5 in fact which means we’ve some catching up to do – from the with a messy head folk. It be called ‘Velvet Tuesday’ a previously unreleased sortie that finds them on fine frayed form emerging through a detuned fog of crooked discordance stumbling, scuzzed out and slightly worse for wear wallowing in a sea of acutely estranged scuffed up and edgily fractured psych blues ju-ju. Somewhere else and I’ll admit they initially got the vote mainly due to their name and then we heard the actual track, blimey I think I might be in love, for reasons best left unasked the description whoops a daisy pop sprang into my head, really – do not ask, clearly loveably dishevelled and somewhat all at sea, nunofyrbeeswax’s ‘car’ is a wayward knee slapping oddball which to give it some kind navigation point on the pop spectrum would be to say it was the sound of the Boothill Foot Tappers and the Shillelagh Sisters ganging up on Belly and rephrasing their back catalogue in their own appreciative style, plenty of caterwauling, whoops, shrieks and coos here that lead you to suspect someone more than a tad familiar with the back catalogue of Lene Lovich or at very least her delivery and oh yea and a side glancing admiration for PJ Harvey. Elsewhere and finally for this brief visit, we will be back shortly with more, we’ll leave you with the rather infectious and catchy earworm that is ‘to celebrite’ by Belacide which aside having the most curious knack of being both happy and perky and yet somewhat sad and introspective, ought to appeal to those of you with long memories that can cast their way back to those early Pickled Egg records outings by both Le Bleu and Gulliver. https://withamessyhead.bandcamp.com/album/you-dont-have-to-be-fashionable-vol-5
Been a fair old while since Orbit Service troubled our sound player so you can imagine that we here were much hyped at news of new Orbit Service groove, this be the darkly woven and ominously brooding ‘estar sozinho’ – applied with an 80’s industrial goth vintage – see fresh, industrial, society and sordide sentimental, this shadow playing isolationist hymnal teeters ever so adeptly into terrains more commonly the home of the Legendary Pink Dots. https://orbitservice.bandcamp.com/track/estar-sozinho
I’m certain we’ve said it before, covers versions of Nick Drake tracks are hurdles best left avoided, the perfectionist he was his completed studio recordings oft take the song as far as it can go. Oh sure, there have been those that we’ve loved who’ve brought a little something to the table – Beautify Junkyards, Rhys Marsh and does my fading memory recall hearing a version of Psychic TV covering ‘I was made for magic’ way back many years ago when we were oh so much younger. ‘northern sky’ has always stuck with me, elegant, eloquent and ethereal, there’s a kind of beautified grace surrendered in mystery and yearn rising from its grooves, its lushly hushed tones revealing an at peace with everything trembling tenderness and a first person intimacy rarely heard on any other Drake track that makes it unique and special. Left in the hands of Jay Tausig, incidentally hitting up something of a creative purple patch what with two releases in as many days – his frankly astonishing re-appraisal of the Who’s ‘Quadrophenia’ and ‘incantations’ – reviews of both visiting these pages next missive – ‘northern sky’ is somewhat opened up and given an airy spring cleaning which sound wise finds it relocated into the kind of terrains more readily associated with Dennis Wilson, and while arguably, it may well lack that essential magical ingredient breezing through the original, what Tausig returns to the party is a crisp lilting and lazy eyed contently drifting warmth. https://soundcloud.com/jaytausig/northern-sky
Way back in the late 60’s and throughout the 70’s, BBC records issued a vinyl series entitled ‘sound effects’ – like it said on the tin lid these recordings featured short sound extracts drawn from the BBC’s considerably voluminous library, the intention being to be used by DIY sound buffs, schools for educational purposes or to tie in with a TV serial season – there’s an excellent article delving into their history written up by the invaluable pages of ST33 here https://st33.wordpress.com/sleeve-pages/sound-effects/ – anyhow before we get a tad side tracked here’s Volume 21 of the series ‘more death and horror’ reworked and atmospherically animated to chilling life by Frans Kedes, something we suspect that ought to be of uppermost interest to those of you much smitten by the sinister ghost lights set to tape by that Melmoth the Wanderer fellow. https://soundcloud.com/user-883721636/frans-kedes-mix-bbc-more-death-and-horror
The original mix can be found here…..
Oooh, look what we eyed on sound cloud, no doubt sneaked on there without much fuss and fanfare, we’ll let the press / liner note blurb recount all you need to know – ‘all hold hands and off we go is the 5th album of strange Electronics, Psych, Radiophonics, Drone and quirky Folk by Keith Seatman’. Herewith an extended pre release teaser, the album is heading out into the light sometime April-ish and again finds Mr Seatman forging alliances with Mr Powell for an album length sonic journey into the surreal, the strange and the sinister, a psychedelic pseance populated by waking dreams, nocturnal nightmares and supernatural forbearance, a melodic map of discovered Barrett-esque continents and hitherto beyond the eye magick lands. Trippy stuff. https://soundcloud.com/keith-seatman/all-hold-hands-and-off-we-go
believe this has now sold out of its – is it the second repress seem to recall a blue vinyl version before Christmas – of its yellow wax variant, this is the charmingly affectionate the Hardy Tree with a spot of wood whittled bucolia from an album entitled ‘through the passages of time’ – this being the quite alluringly shy eyed ‘near windmill bridge’ which to these ears sounds not unlike the floral tones of Douglas Gamley being draped in a twinkling sepia nostalgia by littlebow.
In celebration of their US tour starting, Plaid have released a free to download twin-set entitled ‘Bet’ / ‘Nat’ – the former cut on an insular setting that finds them reaching back to their younger selves distilling minimalist Detroit tech design patterns and working them into an intricate glitch shape shifter. Flip side features the blissfully purring ‘Nat’, the preferred side if truth be told, comes blessed with a wonderfully mooching and somewhat lazy eyed cybro-tronic bass twang all immersed into a curious hpyno grooved artificial intelligence smooching funk pill that strangely draws from the Berlin school of cool electronics to imagine a slo-mo Herbie Hancock cutting slick sun refracting symphonic shapes out of Kraftwerk studio floor cuttings. https://soundcloud.com/plaid/sets/bet-nat
must admit to being somewhat taken by this little lovely, tuned and turned as it is to emerge from its slow thaw fragile state delicately shimmer toning with the same stilled elegance and lonesome grace fall as we’ve come to expect from platters bearing the name Yellow6 upon their sleeving, this is the simply serene ‘rudimental winter’ by E.U.E.R.P.I. or Mirian Kolev – we are really quite unsure at this point – anyway something which we here suspect ought to have you old school Labradford and Stars of the Lid types drooling in states of adoring rapture to its dronal demur. https://soundcloud.com/mirian-kolev/rudimental-winter
before the hypnotic lure of the heavily studio sampled bliss bruised ‘loveless’, there was ‘isn’t anything’. Their debut full length was an exemplary fine tuning and a keynote bridge linking between their want for the craft of melodic noise and feedback laden shoegaze. We of course refer to My Bloody Valentine, the subject of a new covers appraisal by the very excellent the blog that celebrates itself entitled ‘forever and again’. There will be mentions aplenty for this over the weekend along with further thoughts on the labels quartet of releases that heralded the start of the New Year. For now though can we draw your listening affections to Panophonic’s sublime and faithful take on the classic ‘you made me realise’, a kick to the head, at once to the uninitiated it’s the sound of shambling friction and stuttering chaos, yet through the discordant haze of pedal effect skree emerges moments of rupturing effervescence, tranced out tripping turbulence and panic attacking frenz. https://soundcloud.com/tomlugo/panophonic-you-made-me-realise?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook
this one is heading out shortly on the company imprint and finds Chaz Bundick (Toro Y Moi) teaming up with the Mattson 2 for a new full length entitled ‘star stuff’ from off which the title cut has been unveiled one suspects to cause a fair amount of swoon activity. Sounding as though its sneaked through a secret back door and slipped out of the 60’s, this bruised babe slipstreams the defences delicately purred with a funky and loose lushness all ghosted by the seductive swirling sting of wallowing string cascades, the sparse daubing of woozy riff flotillas and a cinematic noir beat classicism. Slyly tasty all said. https://soundcloud.com/company-record-label/chaz-bundick-meets-the-mattson-2-star-stuff/
simple, direct and ridiculously potent, may take some weaning your turntable off its contagious ways after the merest of plays, this is the legendary R Stevie Moore found hooking up with Jason Falkner for a full length gathering heading down the tracks on bar none by the name ‘make it be’. From that set and sent ahead as a herald, this is ‘I h8 ppl’- a sub four minute pop art bomb that comes blessed with a snazzy strut kissed kick backing swagger all trimmed and tamed with a choral hook to die for not to mention an insidiously catchy sing-a-long sassiness to boot that grooved in a day glo new wave bubble grooving all purred upon a pop-a-delic palette whose settings are tuned to a radio hugging frequency. Blighter ought to come with jabs. https://soundcloud.com/lostcolonymusic/01-i-hate-people-05-mstr-021016
mentioned this a few weeks ago – here as it happens – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/08/gulp-3/ – this is the latest moving picture spectacle to accompany Gulp’s new thing coming via the O Genesis imprint….
Good stuff heading out of the rocket imprint, first up the second single pulled from their forthcoming ‘Invocation and Ritual Dance of My Demon Twin’ full length, this is Julie’s Haircut and ‘salting traces’. Upon a darkly traced palette the intricate weaving of micro pulsars waken into blurry eyed life, from the foggy earth beat kosmiche undergrowth dissent peers with a watchful eye, all the time the various sound particles slowly shuffle and unfurl finding their voice whilst gathering into a maddeningly acrid configuration, perhaps their most lush yet strangely inward outing to date, the sound of a band moving with confidence inside their own skin.
Also boasting an imminent full length set, this one called ‘Tschak!’due to dock March time, Gnoomes move out of the shadows and into the celestial light with heralding track ‘Cascais’- a motorik distress call hurtling from a forgotten beyond where was once some hitherto lost galactic outpost, moulded in a stream lined space pop classicism, this floor throbbing slab of cool effervescence comes seductively surrendered in cascades of shimmer toning solar activity to intersect a sonic gateway sitting somewhere between eat lights become lights and the lucid dream.
I think it’s fair to say it’s been a while since we featured ear gear from the immense sonic juggernaut that is pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs pigs, herewith a track entitled ‘sweet relief’ ripped from a new full length ‘feed the rats’ via rocket out today in fact on limited blood red vinyl – as though you needed prods of encouragement. Bugger me though this is heavy, bearded beatnik space stoner that principally ought to appeal first hand to those Sabbath and Hawkwind purists among you while simultaneously catching the ear of the Mugstar brethren.
Not sure whether we’ve had occasion to mention this particular track in passing, but here’s the uber cool Has a Shadow with ‘cul de sac’ – a deeply immersive audio phonic astral walk trimmed in mind expansive spirals of vintage key cascades delicately bedded upon hypno-grooving kosmiche pulsars all fried and frayed to a tripping shadow traced tapestry of senses dissolving delights, very far out indeed and something that ought to interest admirers of both the palace of swords and the tomorrow syndicate. An album ‘sorrow tomorrow’ is awaiting record store retrieval right this moment via the fuzz club sound house.
Alas no real information on this with which to pass on, we’re suspecting imminent happenings are afoot. This is the quite alluring bewitchment of Daughters of Grief with the Grey Malkin – aye he of the Hare and the Moon fame – this is a newly peeled track ‘the night’ – a love note ghost light which strangely strays I kid you not, into the kind of melodic magnetic embrace where sits at one end Fleetwood Mac and to t’other Glissando, a beautifully crafted vision all at once spellbinding, spectral and romantically tender not to mention touched with an ethereal gracefulness that leaves it lasting haunt long after the track has departed. https://soundcloud.com/daughtersofgrief/1-the-night-mb1
Blessed with a name like Arabian Death Mask, I’m certain you’ll be aware that what lies in store isn’t some kind of pre-school nonsense pop, no siree, as the title might hint the aptly named ‘grim realities’ is your nightmares coming to visit you in your waking day rather than them waiting for you to go to them in moments of nocturnal slumber. Fast furious and festering scalps of speed balled hardcore is what awaits, okay it’s not quite black flag, mayhem or even carcass, rather more these hell howling hounds emerge from the darkening abyss branded and scarred with an apocalyptic brutality that might suggest these chaps have a fair few unresolved issues in dire need of immediate address. We here are more than a little fond of the demonic belching found on the disturbingly titled ‘beer, titties and a bowl of scrotum chilli’ with its cannibalistic carnage cook book of serrated riff slices, primitive growls and coffin nailing percussion giving rise to pangs of unnatural dread. Incidentally the album arrives soon in strictly limited – like 20 only – CD’s housed in must have hand painted sleeves. https://arabiandeathmask.bandcamp.com/album/grim-realities
We will be returning to this for a fuller listening experience in the forthcoming week, for now though this is ‘meat heart’ by Emptiness from a recently released full length entitled ‘not for music’. Dwelling in the shadows shying away from the light, there’s a harrowing melancholic bruising attaching to this electrically charged atmospheric wasteland, beneath the weight of a brooding foreboding an apocalyptic storm fire rises on the horizon, the sounds bleed with a tension wracked by a claustrophobically choking disquiet that’s both majestically beautifully yet sighed in a hollowing futility, like a deadheading chill wind it swarms to sonically nod to the Fields of Nephilim were they, that is, retuned through the darkening eye of Tulipomania. As said more to come.
A twin headed pod show curated by Ulrich Schnauss and Sonic Cathedral head honcho Nathaniel, this is the serenely drifting seventh episode of Sonic Realities among their collective record box goodies from Charlie Louvin – a cover in fact of Sandy Denny’s ‘who knows where the time goes’, some sublime French electronica from Frederic Wurtz, some recently released Kevin O’ Neill groove remastered from long out of print self released cassette only releases from the 80’s, Mr Schnauss in collaboration with Jonas Munk, the Spectres, Slowdive, the ethereal tones of Grouper and the killer himself Jerry Lee Lewis. https://www.mixcloud.com/sonicrealities/sonic-realities-episode-7/
More of those sublime sounds from Kevin O’Neill’s lost cassettes……this is ‘lucky for some’….
listening resources…..
podcasts a go, first up from Earache Radio, show #3 features a plethora of wholesome snot nosed slam dancing garage grunge from the likes of Sonic Youth, American soul spiders, unnatural helpers, claw hammer, the crumbs, the pleasure fuckers, the Apemen and more….
https://www.blubrry.com/garagepunk_pirate_radio/20172074/earache-radio-no-3?sbe=1
aaaah, again no playlist though don’t let that detract from the tripping grooves emanating from out of a killer dub mix tape from Ouroboros entitled ‘Voyage Into Dub’ – basically that dude Youth allowed free reign for 70 minutes to super chill your headspace. https://www.mixcloud.com/martinglover50/ouroboros-voyage-into-dub/
we’ll just simply say that this set is smoking hot…….from the Origin People collective this is Samo DJ….. https://soundcloud.com/origin-peoples/samo-dj-mlat84
two hours of Italian psychedelia anyone, I’m guessing yes, then fall beneath the spell of global psychedelia’s latest mix cloud offering, a by and large woozy experience interspersed with moments of freaky wigginess, among the roll call selections from le orme, the trip, deadpeach, golden cup, insiders, lay llamas, Jennifer Gentle and more…..essential……
https://www.mixcloud.com/GlobalPsychedelia/italian-psychedelia/
http://dangerousminds.net/comments/japanese_noise_musicians_take_over_italian_tv_1997
mix cloud loveliness from the Stationary Travels folk with the unveiling of ‘hibernation II’ – an hour worth of bliss toned dream pools which by our reckoning best moments come side by side with the appearance of Drombeg’s quite simply alluring and dare we say jaw dropping ethereal ghost light ‘coomnadiha’ at least I think that’s what it’s called – eyesight not being what it is so on and so forth – and Bethan Kellough’s angelically poised ‘vision’.
https://www.mixcloud.com/stationarytravels/hibernation-ii-st-20170115/
over at https://vimeo.com/user17960724/videos here’s Hypercube with the minimalist glitch trance nugget ‘owl eyed spike’…..
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/194797962″>HYPERCUBE – Owl-eyed spike video</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user17960724″>Unexplained Sounds video channel</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
From Unexplained Sounds here’s another teaser from that voluminous and excellent ‘2nd annual recognition test’ full length – we really must try and free up time to mention this in full and give it the justice it deserves…..anyway I’m waffling here’s Wilder Gonzalez Agreda sounding radically different from the last time he appeared in these pages herewith ‘Scala’ – not quite ‘oh superman’ by Laurie Anderson, but employing similar principles of sound, hypno-grooving dub pulsars punctuated by bouts of weird ear activity, all very strange and kooky not to mention decidedly trippy. https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/track/wilder-gonzales-agreda-scala
tis always good to hear the third ear band and here they be on a newly peeled podcast cobbled together by Mortlake Bookclub dude Darren Charles and sitting pretty alongside sonic selections that include tracks by buffalo, palace of swords, pil, demons, the hare and the moon and delia Derbyshire. https://www.mixcloud.com/darrencharles16/unearthing-forgotten-horrors-episode-54-a1-radio/
listening loves this week, the British Space Group…..
Time for some smoking cool sophisticat groove…..this one is from Carlo Savina……
Some seductive disco soul anyone….Sylvia with ‘the lollipop man’
Back to those Nick Drake covers we mentioned earlier when casting an ear over Jay Tausig….here’s the Rhys Marsh cover….
..and beautify junkyards…..
stuff…..and strays we picked up along the way this week……..
a rare newly peeled interview with Half Japanese conducted by the Sound Renaissance folk that features a sneak peek of a track culled from their latest Fire records released ‘hear the lion’s roar’ – the cut being the surreally wired and weird ear mooching b-movie hallucinogen ‘attack of the giant leaches’ – http://www.soundrenaissance.net/interviews/interview-half-japanese/
from 1958 this is the incredible sounding ‘in a minor groove’ by Dorothy Ashby….
Mentioned somewhere above courtesy of the excellent ‘myopia’ cut for turnstile, here’s a little more of the electro wizardry of r seiliog…..this un is an oldie from yesteryear…..’peripheral thermal’ be its name….
Patterns….
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/198593037″>Patterns</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/dkatsafouros”>decay79</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Can’t remember there ever being an edict around saying we couldn’t feature Rob Clarke and the Wooltones just for the hell of it, so just for the hell of it here’s Rob Clarke and the Wooltones, their latest and best – what’s that, the cheques in the post, why thank you chaps……mentioned here of course many, many weeks ago….. https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/12/04/rob-clarke-and-the-wooltones-12/
the legendary Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy – the making thereof…….
http://wyrdbritain.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/the-making-of-hitchhikers-guide-to.html
Nicked this, well rather more was so taken with their appearance on the aforementioned Global Psychedelia mix cloud set, see elsewhere, that we went out in search of more and nailed this for your discerning delights…….this is the full ‘Ostro’ set by Lay Llamas – quite something else….
Mentioned previously via the earache radio pod here’s a spot of twanging cool from the Apemen, this is ‘intoxica’ from their split way back in the early 90’s with the Mono Men on the demolition derby imprint….
Delightfully crooked and wonky loveliness from Cate Le Bon – this is her current ‘rock pool’ EP for Drag City we believe…..
https://soundcloud.com/drag-city/cate-le-bon-rock-pool
new thing from Emmy the Great through bella union, just love the way it day dreams its way from start to finish……
https://soundcloud.com/bella-union/emmy-the-great-rapids
something else we missed and again something from aeons ago, this is the heavenly shoegaze shimmering of Vivienne Eastwood and a track called ‘rose pedals – quite sublime, prepare to swoon……
https://soundcloud.com/vivienne-eastwood/rose-pedals
super duper heavy duty repress of the Soundcarriers quite immaculate ‘entropicalia’ now available at the ghost box shop http://ghostbox.co.uk/news/the-soundcarriers-entropicalia-lp-repress/
post picture here
staying with ghost box – walk around and fill thy boots with oodles of tracks from their extensive catalogue posted on their sound cloud page including snippets from the recent pattern forms full length ‘peel away the ivy’ https://soundcloud.com/ghost-box
coming soon on clay pipe music, this Spring in fact, new full length from Jon Brooks entitles ‘autres directions’ – wasn’t there a lovely little label going by that name many, many years ago…..
images here
RIP William Onyeabor…..
https://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/article/rip-william-onyeabor-who-remained-a-mystery-until-the-end
always good to have a spot of Half Japanese drifting into the gaff…..here’s the aforementioned ‘Attack of the Giant Leeches’…..
This ‘un has been causing slight rumbles around the Sunday Experience dance floor, this is the Molochs with the spectral 60’s sounding ‘charlie’s lips’ – is it just me who thinks that these dudes sound like the shadowy twins of Simon and Garfunkel…..okay just me then.
Again more 60’s sounding grooviness that’s causing heads to turn around the gaff, this is Cage the Elephant whom I’m fairly certain haven’t as yet troubled these pages, this ‘un being the spectral ghost rider ‘cold, cold, cold’ – blighter sounds like it’s just strayed from a spaghetti western set directed by Tarantino whilst graced with the kind of bewitched shadow playing monophonic vintage that suggests it’s fallen through a dimensional trap door out of the 60’s.
How the hell did we miss this first time of asking, Flaming Lips utterly jaw dropping take on Mr Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ here given the colourfully vibrant treatment and smothered in a panoramic lushness that’s finitely balanced between the ethereal and the euphoric not to mention bliss kissed in rapturous hazes of dream toned dissipates that smother you in feel good effervescence. Stunning.
I’m fairly certain we’ve never mentioned this before, our main concern not that though, but if we haven’t how the hell then did we come to miss it in the first place, an absolute gem, ghostly, cinematic and a mysterio touched by a Spaghetti Western like classicism…..up there with Grails, Devastations….this is an oldie from Slows Down….
https://soundcloud.com/slowsdown/the-way-down-leering
abstract and minimalist electronics throughout the ages of pop
http://www.openculture.com/2016/03/the-history-of-electronic-music-in-476-tracks-1937-2001.html
24 days of torture – yea I know we are a little late, or are we 11 months early – your call…..
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/195444476″>24 DAYS OF TORTURE</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user60220426″>VIK & NES</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
And assuming the bombs haven’t dropped yet, it is after all two days his the Trump took up his presidential residence, here’s a spot of conscience prickling groove from the Gorillaz entitled ‘hallelujah money’ featuring Benjamin Clementine – a hymnal from the apocalypse anyone…..
Mentioned the latest rocket releases a little earlier – here’s another currently having us all a swoon – from a few months ago mind, this is Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation and the edit version of ‘ Rushing Through My Mind’ – hits the spot I’m sure you’ll agree……
…..and there’s also this strangely brief intermission…..any ideas……fades in slowly as someone used to say on the radio…..
we mentioned the Doncaster Electronic Foundation earlier, at the start of the missive truth be told, here’s a mix show the collective put together shining the light of electronic pop’s overlooked hits from the 90’s – disturbingly plenty of hi-nrg plastic pop here that might be a little too saccharine for our usual taste, the hall of featured infamy reads – 2 unlimited, kylie Minogue, kim wilde, republica and the pet shop boys – admittedly it does start to mix it up thankfully interspersing the latter half of the set with forgotten nuggets from the likes of chemical brothers, future sound of London, front line assembly, front 242, the orb, orbital, Bentley rhythm ace, the underworld, sheep on drugs – all sounds and reminds us of the days of Mary Ann Hobbs legendary breezeblock sets…… https://www.mixcloud.com/DEFsynthradio/def-radio-15th-november-1990s-special/
fancy some shambolic bear’s arse rough pogoing art grooved discordant pop listening, may we suggest you head over in the general direction and tune your WiFi radar sights to the sounds emanating from Odd Box’s first platter playing gathering of the year, even comes with a track list – a help – and featuring some wildly angular nuggets from the underside of pop’s vast spectrum keynote tracks amongst which are offerings from the likes of tough tits, girlfriendo, pale kids and Chuck Higgins – the latter of whom roundsout the show with some smokingly slinky saxophonic cool….
https://www.mixcloud.com/oddbox/odd-box-podcast-20-january-2017/
here’s a few sorties from that aforementioned odd box gathering – first up the spiked and straight up close and personal angular agit sonic etchings of the slowcoaches with the blister forming ‘54’
Next up the ExBats who do some rather nifty Modern Lovers-esque boog-a-loo for the sassyified Shangri-La’s nodding ‘everyone loves my mom’.
Finally last up for the odd box tips, the discordant edginess of the acutely austere and wired post punk war cry frenz of tough tits with the fracturing hollow of ‘hairless’
Would you believe it, we’ve lost all the information gubbins and the preamble link that contained, no doubt, oodles of interesting wordy things about this next one, so I’m afraid you are just going to have to put with me rambling on about it, for emerging through the moving picture frames is Hatori Yumi captured on a recent live appearance performing ‘matter’ to a transfixed and spellbound gathering of folk whilst crafting out mesmeric dream pools of celestial shimmertones.
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/200378900″>Hatori Yumi – Matter LIVE</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/hatoriyumi”>Hatori Yumi</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
Just ahead of the release of Trimdon Grange Explosion’s self- titled full length set, more about which in a second, the Kit folk invited Alison Cotton to cobble together a mix tape of melodic delights to which she duly responded turning in a serene 78 minute sound collage which amongst the listening picks features loveliness in the shape of Judy Henske and Jerry Yester, Emmanuelle Parrenin, Dave Bixby, the utterly adored Lee and Nancy’s ‘some velvet morning’ and rounding off the show with a quite amazing appearance by the Small Choir of St. Brandon’s School covering Art Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’. http://kitrecords.com/guest-mix-alison-cotton/
As promised a brief mention for Trimdon Grange Explosion’s forthcoming self titled debut, available shortly in a plethora of formats, the one we’ve our eye on is the deluxe variant which aside incorporating the CD, an autographed print and postcard also comes accompanied by a cassette of live and studio improvisations, Anyway this lot used to be in a former life the eighteenth of M\ay before splitting though not going their separate way, a solitary release on the retired Great Pop Supplement imprint and then nothing for six years marks them out either as a gathering of folk who like time to ensure their sound matures and ferments before releasing it upon an unsuspecting public or else lazy fops. I think we prefer the former based on the evidence of the teaser tracks posted on the preview pane of their band camp page which I must admit are currently causing swooning fits around these here parts not least because one of them is a frankly stunning 10 minute version of a traditional ballad entitled ‘the bonnie banks of fordie’ – a macabre death dolly that relates the tale of ‘senseless murder’ with two counts of fratricide and a suicide, cheerful eh. Anyway left in the hands of Trimdon Grange Explosion a psych folk enchantment calls to weave its ghostly spell craft and whittle out an age old dream like gaelic delirium that draws its energy from the very fabric and hitherto mystery of its ancestral woodland setting, reference wise imagine the hare and the moon in a studio conspiracy with the future kings of England. https://borleyrectory.bandcamp.com/releases
Mal Thursday’s show #101 is a ripping liars and bad luck special, two hours of deceit and misfortune with cuts from the speakers from the likes of Stiv Bators, Alan Price, Otis redding, the bee gees, Brenda lee, the ventures, the greenhorns, the escapades, the lively ones and many more besides. https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/malthursday/episodes/2017-01-20T10_20_58-08_00
the trolley problem…… https://vimeo.com/199613170
<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/199613170″>The Trolley Problem</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/eoinduffy”>Eoin Duffy</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>
The end grooves……
…from Donald Binge with ‘Sailing by’…..last one out switch off the lights….
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…..
picture….
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
get picture from….. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Shot_in_the_Dark_(1964_film)#/media/File:Shot_in_the_dark.jpg
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…
The run out groove……
Henry Mancini’s ‘theme from the Pink Panther’
Not entirely sure for certain whether or not this is physically available elsewhere, but here’s Polypores with a live take of ‘lifeform 1’ – a deeply immersive full surround sound headphonic mind expander which despite its obvious coolly murmured kosmiche tracings had us here much recalling of those lengthy softly daubed psychotropic tripping cosmic odysseys once upon a time embarked upon by those Future Sound of London chaps. https://soundcloud.com/polypores/lifeform-1-live-recording
Staying with Polypores, talk about opposites attracting, here he is remodelling Evil Blizzard’s freak macabre dark dub anthem ‘spread the fear’ and perhaps into the bargain chiselling it into something more disquieting than the original mix by applying oodles of shadowy industrial pulsars, haunted playroom motifs and a whole load of head freaking and mind twisting paranoiac motifs. Assembled Minds anyone.
Just in case you weren’t too familiar with the original take – tut tut – here’s the waywardly impish Blizzards’ captured live at the Camden Barfly doing their wig flipping finest……
A little more context to this I feel is required…..as this comes as part of a hulking multi-art / sound / historical spectacle due to happen a little later in the year…..words from the man himself should help iron out any confusion, or who knows – perhaps muddy the mystery further.
Is it life copying art / literature or the other way around, in an age of alternative facts and truth, the spectre of Orwell’s dystopian nightmare ‘1984’ blurs with fearful consequence. So to with music, the genre known as hauntology has extended its borders to re-wiring our memories to confuse the distinction between the actual and the imagined. In a haze of misinformation, alternative histories and corrupted memories, the Delaware Road and the Corporation have ghosted the timeline of pop, twisting both its past and future by reaching back and forth in time to rewrite its script. Yesterday we featured a video drawn from an unknown vault of the secretive shadow dwelling Corporation, it featured Benson Fairlight, a lowly sound man at the mysterious facility moonlighting on synths with the Delaware Boys found here appearing, or so one would believe, in a chart bothering attack in the mid 80’s, however information received informed all it was from the 90’s, dipping their toes in the big shiny suits and big hair glitzy mirror ball world of synth dance soul, it was released on rent free records,, the track in question ‘you always knew I’d feel that way’ is – I’ll warn you now – a tad saccharine for our usual tastes around here, that said we’re not so snobbish as to not to pick up on the coolly grooved noir teased sophisticated vibes which unless I’m not very much mistaken have something of a sly nocturnal funk feel of Shalamar and Shakatak about their wares, 808 State heads might well be equally appealed. But did it ever happen……
Words from the man himself about this archive find…..
‘Its actually a bit of a piss take, totally fictional – recorded around 1994 and part of a series of imaginary productions by Benson Fairlight, manager of The Corporation studios in The Delaware Road. Confusing I know but nature deplores a vacuum etc! – Heres another one that features in the live show interval…….
‘there’s a ‘bunker gig’ in July – to be more precise in a nuclear bunker – an evening with the Delaware Road, the event features Dolly Dolly as the Director of the mysterious Corporation in the role of Sir Babington Gifford – details as to the background history, the interweaving playing parts and how to grab tickets for the event can be found here http://www.djfood.org/what-is-the-delaware-road/
Mr Gubby goes on to further say…..
‘All these dead ends, vids, details, odds & sods sort of come together in the show if you’re paying careful attention. I’ve also had Jarrod from I Monster drawing all the characters from the Delaware story for a brochure at the bunker show.
Benson Fairlight, studio manager at The Corporation and producer for Rent Free Records 1980s synth pop duo The Delaware Boys. also composed the classic library music cue ‘Your Dark Chocolate Box’ used in confectionary ads throughout the 70s + 80s.
There are 20 characters in The Delaware Road that have been fleshed out with their own back stories from world war 2 until the 1970s. Some of which (but not all ) may be vaguely familiar to fans of archival electronica & experimental music’.
Hell’s teeth this certainly pinned our ears back and damn well nearly fried them clean off, the latest sonic sore thumb to be unleashed by the skull dungeon imprint finds the aptly named caustic sound terrorists Catastrophic Disasterbator giving your speakers a work out the like of which they’ve never seen or dared imagine. The eleven track ‘demo #1’ certainly takes no prisoners, amid the blizzard of sand blasted skree, these short electro shocked slabs of power electronic punishment gouge and snarl with trepanning torment, the equivalent of re-enacting some kind of home-made cyclone experiment replete with room flying shards of furniture searching you out with an eye to flail your skin straight off your face, these dudes are obviously enamoured of merzbow, melt banana, kylie minoise, Tayside mental health et al – approach with due care is all we’ll say. https://skulldungeon.bandcamp.com/album/demo-1
As the press release rightly notes there’s the mysterious ghost like whiff of a ‘Ju-Ju’ era Siouxsie Sioux seductively attaching to this psyche arabesque, amid its grooves a kaleidoscopic tapestry is weaved that woozily finds a space between the dream dazed cracks that finitely link Jefferson Airplane and Jane Weaver, this be Josefin Öhrn + The Liberation with a modified reworking of ‘sister green eyes’ – their third single to be lifted from the critically acclaimed ‘mirage’ full length. https://soundcloud.com/rocket-recordings/josefin-ohrn-the-liberation-sister-green-eyes-edit/s-qhNt5
The single will be accompanied by a short tour – dates as follows…..
24 Feb / Nottingham / Nottingham Contemporary
25 Feb / Liverpool / Liverpool Central Library
26 Feb / Newcastle / The Cluny
28 Feb / Glasgow / Broadcast
1 March / Manchester / The Soup Kitchen
2 March / Leeds / The Brudenell Social Club
3 March / Bristol / Louisiana
4 March / London / Moth Club
5 March / Brighton / Haunt
6 March / Oxford / The Bullingdon
7 March / Birmingham / Hare & Hounds
Channelling ever deeper the sub conscious of a youthful Cabaret Voltaire, this folks is new ear ware from those disquieting rascals the Truth About Frank. New material we hear is due to land this year kicking off with a visitation entitled ‘this cocoon is a tomb’ set to appear on a newly gathered compilation from Nektar that’s due to emerge from hiding sometime next month. For now though here’s ‘fountains and factions’ – a superbly glitch grooved slab of minimalist ice forged subtronic mutant dub which to these ears seems to skirt around some vintage Aphex Twin motifs before getting all comfortable and finding a homely kinship with Wagon Christ. Alas the embedding links have been disabled on the moving picture show so you might want to do yourselves a favour re-routing your mouse / cursor in the general direction of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs2CciXTiCw – and whack up the volume while you are there.
Oh my the tension dripping off this is quite something, eerily sinister and cloaked in shadows of uncertainty and apprehension, in truth it had us mind of fortdax when he briefly relocated into darkening environs upon the appearance of ‘a Beverley mythic’, this is heading out of miasmah shortly from an album by Marcus Fjellström entitled ‘Skelektikon’ – the teaser cut you are listening being ‘Skeleton Dance 2’ – very Biosphere it should be said. https://soundcloud.com/miasmah/marcus-fjellstrom-skeleton-dance-2
Blimey, still haven’t had a chance to turn my ears to the forthcoming Adamennon full length ‘Le Nove Ombre del Caos’ for boring machines in full just yet, so while we set about pulling our finger here’s another track in the shape of the ominous ‘La Sconfitta al Pozzo del Sangue’ – vintage Giallo groove indelibly crafted in the hand of Goblin but somewhat stirring from sonic shadows to loosely link arms with Cat’s Eyes, Broadcast’s ‘Berberian sound studio’ and Bronnt Industries Kapital. Stunning. https://soundcloud.com/boringmachines/adamennon-la-sconfitta-al-pozzo-del-sangue
Emerging from recording hibernation here’s the much adored Slowdive with the exquisitely dream dazed ‘star roving’, just hits all the buttons at once, an orbiting bliss kissed visitation shimmered seductively in vapour trailing opines all teased in whisper toning rushes of euphoria all at once stately, statuesque and coolly sublime – any questions?
The band are soon to be touring North America shortly.
I guarantee that this will drive you to near distraction once its skewed and crooked motifs comes into early earshot. Forthcoming download only single ‘gambino’ from the Evil Usses via stolen body records arrives just ahead of their ‘amateur pro wrestling’ set, a becoming blighter that’s deliciously wired around a brain scrambling corkscrew Oriental riff that has a habit of veering off message without playful warning to imagine some kind of hitherto forgotten late night studio chill session gathering together Henry Mancini, John Lurie and the Grails, seriously I kid you not, whacked out and inscrutably wonky not to mention devilishly bonkers.
Same label, different artist and another download only single, this one by Taos Humm, incidentally called ‘hi hats for post punk heroes’ comes culled from the trio’s imminent ‘flute of the noodle bender’ album and finds the ensemble seemingly rephrasing dismembered elements of Joy Division’s ‘isolation’ through the angular art pop eye of a ‘154’ era Wire viewfinder drawing from the resulting melee a decidedly gritty hypno-groover into the bargain that had us here much recalling the sadly missed Playwrights. Alas no sound clips just yet but to whet the appetite here’s another album teaser taster in the shape of the strangely tripping math core mirage that is ‘Velociraptortoise’ – the clue to the references being, I shouldn’t wonder, in the title.
Quite smitten with this slice of c-86 styled shimmery power pop effervescence, the harmonies, the coos, the feel good vibes and the overall catchiness of the whole package as it swoons, sways and swerves into your ear space, okay admittedly it sounds like the Primitives in cahoots with Lush all overseen in the studio by a certain Mitch Easter, however last time I checked such happy happenings weren’t quite outlawed by legislation. Anyhow this is when nalda became punk with ‘hanging out with imogen’ – a new thing heading out on an album ‘those words broke our hearts’ coming soon through Discos de Kirlian / Shelflife…..
We will be revisiting this in a day or two, once that is that we’ve had time to rescue the press release gubbins from out of the inbox mountain. Imminent – well in truth slated for March appearance – a strictly limited 7 inch from boring machines featuring two slabs of wayward electronica from the exile returning Adriano Zanni this being the flip side of the ‘Falling Apart’ set entitled ‘black’ (lead cut incidentally is ‘white’). A little something that we here feel ought to prick the ears of those one time admiring of old school Atari Teenage Riot, Autechre and those early happenings emerging from the much missed Tigerbeat6 and boltfish imprints, interspersed and punctuated with film dialogue, this schizoid subterranean sore thumb wires itself upon a mutant punk techno framing pooled together from erratic glitch gouges and ambient cut ups, all very edgy and icy much like a future echo from some near distant future world. https://soundcloud.com/boringmachines/adriano-zanni-falling-apartblack
loosely back with polypores who we must thank for sending over digital copies of last year’s ‘the wastes’ and ‘timeholes’ releases as well as giving us the heads up on two further polytechnic youth outings due to happen this year with the completion of an as yet untitled full length and a further volume of ‘timeholes’. He also pops up a rather smart compilation being put out by the spool’s out / beachers folk on the bezirik imprint entitled ‘spool’s out volume 1 now > ever’ – a 26 track gathering which alas due to a combination of time restraints and the fact that out free listening credits have run out, that we are able to only dip our toes into. As said Polypores features with ‘the unravelling’ – a track that finds him melodically mining the kind of sound worlds inhabited by the likes of the palace of swords and tomorrow syndicate into the bargain spooling kosmiche sounds of a faraway yesterday which positioned atop a pulsing motorik murmur radiate and transmit images of distant future worlds. Previously untroubling these pages, though after this visitation I can tell you now that’ll soon be at an end, this is Spartan Jet-Plex with ‘brain dead’ – now if I were to say that this is the best thing we’ve heard since we happened across death and Vanilla and Tara King th many years back, then I’m sure you’ll be aware that this is quite something, sounding like something casually sneaked out from the Moon Glyph imprint, this hollowing slice of aching beauty comes traced in a ghostly chill toned angelic poise that’s demurred and bruised as though a quietly vulnerable and woodland dead can dance variant had been pared back and sparsely stripped whilst opining frost flecked hymnals. Somewhere else, admittedly we were attracted by the liner notes describing them as ‘depressed Beach Boys’, Fret! stump up ‘hillbilly’ – a track that is anything but ‘depressing’ and rather more sounds like the work of twanging chap well versed in the delights of man…or astro man, link wray and that dick dale dude. Last one for this brief visit, we will endeavour to return soon, a strangely wayward sortie from Kill Alters by the name ‘sensory’ – a kind of art smudged post punk misfit that appears to delight in wiring, skipping and cooing its way through a deeply immersive sonic hatchling that fuses Delta 5 with a particularly darkly mooching Cobra Killer and smothering them beneath a gloriously skewed haze of playfully angular psychotropic vibes of tripped out wooziness. https://bezirk.bandcamp.com/album/spools-out-vol-1-n-o-w-e-v-e-r
in your face up close and personal punch you groove heading out of the lovely imprint, this be the rotten mind with the panic attacking punkoid hysteria of ‘things I can’t see’ – a blistering bad boy scalped in day glowing daubs of shadowy 60’s shimmer tones all gnarled with a frenetic agit garage gouging, need I say more…..
More lovely imprint grooviness this time in the shape of the Dahmers’ ‘no one’ – this raucously raw and rumbling cow punk rumbler comes dragged from a forthcoming EP by the name of ‘nightcrawler’ with this sparring and spiked wired as hell musical melee sounding like the lost sonic twin that the Violent Femmes’ ‘ugly’ never knew existed.
There’s a degree expectancy around these here parts of Amonism groove hitting the racks sometime this year, here’s a quite arresting peak at some work in progress from the craftsman’s table of sound with the delightfully expressive ‘prologue’ fluttering between autumnal apertures and sun shy canters, to these ears elements of Vernon Elliott tuned to the darkeningly stark symphonic prose of Stockhausen appears to be the order of proceedings for the best part of the initial sparring which then blossoms beautifully reaching an impasse to reveal a most enchantingly romantic choral radiance. https://soundcloud.com/amonism/prologue
loosely related to Amonism though irrefutably emerging from a differing sonic perspective, incoming happenings from the Arell imprint courtesy of a new release by Eoin Smith entitled ‘ivory’ – herewith a teaser taster which I’m sure you’ll agree is revealing of its principle player as being something of a sonic alchemist fully abled in the art of utilising and drawing from a widening resource of melodic textures and mediums with this hazy excerpt seemingly prone to moments of jittering activity and soothing tenderness as it rumbles from states of bowed groans and chaotic clatters to ghost lit sleepy headed mist emerging triumphal siren calls. https://arell.bandcamp.com/album/ivory-preview
from a personal point of view the Kitchens of Distinction where always, as far as I was concerned, one of the shining beacons of late 80’s and early 90’s sound alchemists emerging from the heady dream pop / shoegaze / guitar pop pool, not unlike the House of Love, both captured a crystalline sound that was seamless, surging and tenderly turned in a radiant rush of euphoric turbulence that at times bordered on near heavenly with ‘the third time we opened the capsule’ still regularly dusted down around here to serve as a prime example of the near divinity of pop. Due March time a long and much deserved retrospective is due with the news that One Little Indian will be packaging the bands albums for the extensive long box treatment. Entitled ‘watch our planet circle’ the hard book set gathers together a luxurious 6 CD appreciation that includes their first four studio albums remastered along with a disc of lost b-sides and a further set made up of radio sessions recorded for both John Peel and Mark Radcliffe replete with a 36 page book detailing their discography, history, photos and various gubbins – full details of which can be viewed via a pledge music campaign page at http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/kitchens-of-distinction-box-set?lf=8dc04e77e47506b867a9f27c5fa1a33f
‘the third time we opened the capsule’…
Oskar’s Drum who you may have heard mention of, had you bothered to watch the pledge music video for the aforementioned Kitchens of Distinction box set, find the forging of talents of KoD’s Patrick Fitzgerald and Yves Altana who incidentally in another life was a member of the criminally overlooked early 90’s star gazers Wonky Alice. An album is currently treading water in the shape of ‘a cathedral of hands’ from which we’ve been more than a little smitten by ‘the last I saw Roger’ a witheringly reflective and noir scratched slow burning epic that at once smoulders and rises resplendently touched with the kind of mercurial etching of Jonny Cola and the A Grades not to mention being blessed with the emotional reach and sonic vocabulary of The Crimea, utterly crushing is all we’ll say about it. https://oskarsdrum.bandcamp.com/album/a-cathedral-of-hands
Initially becoming aware of these dudes, well dude to be more precise for Hey Exit is in reality New York based musician Brendan Landis, when they quietly ghosted their way through an ultra-limited twin set for the much adored Sonido Polifonico early last year. Now comes ‘slow names 4 – the bitter scent of light’ – a shyly though hitherto exquisitely frail full length pressed upon limited quantities of c-66 cassette the sounds within of which, strike a seductive slo-mo chord with, it has to be said, the sensitive stylings of fellow New Yorker Cheval Sombre. Yet while CS crafts a bruised hymnal aura to his sonic visitations, Hey Exit instead serve up moments frozen in time, much like photographs, though expressed delicately demurred in opining ghost lights of a spectral delta folk detailing which on first encounter recall the late John Fahey albeit as though flashed through the viewfinder of a late 80’s New Zealand noise framing, most notably that of Roy Montgomery all rubbed with a flying saucer attack tracing. None more so is this best evidence than on the hollowing intimacy of the stilled storm approach that darkens the grooves of ‘there are some things that can’t fully happen, they are to grand and magnificent to fit in an event, they just try to happen’. https://heyexit.bandcamp.com/album/slow-names-4-the-bitter-scent-of-light
This babe is doing bad things on our sound player, lifted as a teaser taster for a forthcoming self-titled Drag City happening, this is the precociously cool Ty Segall with ‘break a guitar’ – a scuzzed up fuzzed out stoner glam psych love in cutting slick snaking Bolan-esque shapes, really what more can I say other than – adored. https://soundcloud.com/drag-city/ty-segall-break-a-guitar
absolutely no information on this except to say its heading out on what we assume to be a cassette compilation entitled “Music for Granular Synthesizer Vol. 3’ through the Aagoo imprint. This is an excerpt of the quite immaculate ‘laureline’ by connect_icut’ – something of a serenely celestial shimmering visitation that put us much in mind, truth to be told, of the Astral Social Club as were at laid back and at rest cooking up night time chill trimmed sorties for the Moon Glyph imprint. https://soundcloud.com/aagoo/connect_icut-laureline-extract?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook
believed to be heading down the tracks on Silver Current shortly this is the high octane scuzz out groove gouge of Feral Ohms with ‘god of Nicaragua’ – a untamed and primitive slab of wild delights nailed upon a blister kissed scowling retro sneer which had we not known better would have hazarded a guess was the work of a wired to the national grid variation of Sweet Apples. https://soundcloud.com/feral-ohms/03-god-of-nicaragua
the cool literally drips of this, new thang from Brian Jonestown Massacre incoming February via a recordings entitled ‘don’t get lost’ from which has been jettisoned on scouting duties, the devilish dandy known as ‘fact 67’. A mooching ghost rider, sparse like Gun Club sparse, a shadowy 60’s renegade, a kind of spaghetti western mystic howled upon a desert dry hypno-grooving spectral trailing in its dust ridden wake the spectres of Link, Leyton and the Lux and featuring a guest appearance by that dude Tim Burgess. https://soundcloud.com/a-records-6/8-fact-67
a quick message from Brian Bordellos to alert us to the release of the 5th volume of their ongoing vault plucking series ‘underground tapes’ – those with their heads and ear tuned correctly will be all too aware that these occasional sorties have a habit of turning up previously unheard or unreleased nuggets from their extensive archive. Ever the understated he reckons this volume is a good ‘un and truth be told we have a tendency to agree with him, for sneaked amid these gruff groovings there’s a blistering scab forming slab of skewed Fall-esque tastiness in the shape of an early version of their Bo Diddley cover ‘I’m a man’ for the esteemed Fruits de Mer label if I recall rightly – this ‘un sounding demonstrably dishevelled and all the better for it. A rare quiet and intimate moment when the introspective ‘Autumn Grey’ bruises into focus, all the time delicately unravelling to reveal the ensembles rarely seen vulnerable soft spot. ‘sun storm’ – the ‘brian vocal’ wraps up the set snaking to a faintly mercurial mystic prowl that irrefutably nods to a darkening Doors-esque vibe leaving the WA11 session version of ‘temperature drop’ to serve as notice of intent to their peers that at their most together, that this lot are untouchable with this spectral version of one of their finest ghosting with a stately tracing forged of an anthem like withdrawing majesty that cuts and wounds to the quick with the Teardrop Explodes’ ‘wilder’ acting as its guiding light. https://bordellos.bandcamp.com/album/the-bordello-underground-tape-vol-5
aw heck we could have simply just given the page citation for this, but trust me, this set was one of the most quietly understated releases of last year. Now getting a new lease of life via Feral Child – a deservedly so on vinyl to boot, think on the last release this label put out was just between you and me, our favourite of the year – the New Lines were its authors in case you were wondering. Anyhow as said, or haven’t said thus far, Snails who hail from Bristol are set to have their debuting ‘safe in silence’ full length lavishly pressed upon wax in a strictly limited 300 only pressing. The set incidentally emerges from the shadows at the same time as another new Deep Distance set by Sula Bassana entitled ‘organ accumulator’ – we’re trying to nab sound links for the latter, for now here’s that Snails review from way back last September in all its unfettered glory……..
Those of you with fairly long-ish memories might well recall us swooning in the ailes and getting a tad fond of Snails’ 7-inch outing from, oooh – about 18 months ago on the ever hip and now temporarily put to bed great pop supplement. There were rumours of further singles to come, they never emerged, an album in the offing we feared might be lost. Intended for release on GPS before plans hatched to concentrate on polytechnic youth and deep distance, a schedule brought considerably forward by matters out of the labels hands, ‘safe in silence’ finally gets its deserved release via undergrowth records. We here are thinking those GPS guys have missed a trick for this full length is succulently wrapped in a classically toned pop vintage that cools with a deceptively soft stroke of 60’s psych, twee pop bubblegrooves (see ‘more than a second’) all graced with the crafted finesse and allured musicality of Belle and Sebastian’s debuting ‘tigermilk’ along with the occasional passing nods to a youthful Tindersticks not to mention a flashing of the gorki’s (none more so is the Mynci influence better exemplified than on the shy eyed love note ‘red nose floating’). Its not brash, its far from wannabe and neither is it immediate like a rash. Instead ‘safe in silence’ is coolly assured, it doesn’t see the point in shouting and rudely vying for your attention, rathermore it hangs about quietly at the back of the queue shyly hoping to catch your ear, and when it does, between you and me, lets just say that this might well be making a bid for one of the albums of the year. Perhaps the aforementioned Great Pop Supplement single ought to tell or hint of the affectionate charms that lurk amid these grooves, both sides of it feature here, ‘winter hearts’ chirps to Bacharach motifs while arrested in an autumnal glow much recalling the much missed L’Augmentation while ‘talking to Anthony’ – what can I say, smitten on first hearing, still am as it happens, its lazy eyed string weaved lolloping softly tingled with a radiant folk hymnal spraying, arcs and allures with the sensitive tenderness of the aforementioned belle and Sebastian and tindersticks with a sprinkling of hey paulette for good measure. In truth, each ttime we’ve put this blighter on its as though someone has switched on the sun such is its lightness and happiness. Opening the set, ‘jennifer jones’ is kissed with an autumnal opening ripped straight from a ‘durable dream’ era Moviola before repositioning itself upon a vintage Sunday afternoon bandstand piping out a soft serving of old psychedelic peculiar to a music hall framing that hints to a mid career Kinks in cahoots with the purple gang. Its safe to say that ‘safe in silence’ is an album of two contrasting sides, the more reclining and thoughtfully toned spirit of the collective found over on side 2 often tugs with a hymnal campfire glow, it’s a mood captured like no other than by the surrendering ‘maisie’ with its lolloping prairie motifs serenading duskily to a cosy toed melodic framing that blissfully sways and swoons to an old school timeless folk spiritual while elsewhere the mellowed ‘seventeen’ lazily nibbles away at a secret Hefner songbook of lost lovelies before the parting sun burn of ‘go on down’ knocks you off your lulling perch with its radiant sprays of pop shimmered effervescence. A very special album indeed. http://snails.bandcamp.com/album/safe-in-silence-album
Trip tronic recut of Gulp’s latest lovely ‘search for your love’ by Django Django – the nautical twilight edit to give it its full title is set to cause temperature’s to rise and swooning fits to no doubt be regular occurrence each and every time it comes into earshot as it steps from out of the kaleidoscopic glow and into the shadow refracting pulsing lights of clubland, for this this babe comes smoked in trance draped wisps of vapour-esque kosmiche. https://soundcloud.com/e-l-k-1/search-for-your-love-django-djangos-nautical-twilight-editwav
See Gulp live:
Feb 14th – The Social, LONDON
May 12th – Focus Wales 2017, WREXHAM
Aug 24th – Sea Change Festival, DEVON
Sometimes pop can be so straight, staid and well, quite frankly, up itself and seriously too serious and prim for its own good. Aren’t you glad then that there are still bands like the Buttertones around and about impishly taking life with a pinch of salt and into bargain cooking up the kind of class A rumble that’s liable to leave with withdrawal pangs each time the stylus leaves its waxen grooves. Described by their press folk as a gathering of ‘the Cramps, the Sonics and the New York Dolls colluding to score a grindhouse flic’ the imminent in dropping ‘gravedigging’ set for innovative leisure is previewed by the duelling Tarantino twang of ‘sadie’s a sadist’ – a full on rock-a-hula flashback who primitive twang-a-rella vintage had us here, imagining the Killer press ganged into the legendary Blue Caps by the dude of dudes Gene Vincent.
Absolutely no information on this, been an age since we heard anything by the New Pornographers but I can tell you now that this little cutie is turning on our turntable right this minute. ‘high ticket attractions’ comes resplendently radiant in feel good starry eyed effervescences all power popified amid buzzing binary pulsars and the arrest of astral toned ear candy transmissions that collectively coo, swoon and shimmy to form a swirling psychotropic solar burst of loved up cosmic cuteness.
Festering swamp dragged uber agit groove from Scottish hardcore dudes Razor Sharp Death Blizzard comes lashed in apocryphal defiance, a war cry from the streets, a torch bearing anthem for the lost, the silent and those trodden upon without a voice let alone hope found barely existing in a world driven by greed, the lust for power at the expense of compassion and equality not mention bedevilled beneath the flag of fear and hate. ‘there will be blood’ comes cast from the legion of Killing Joke, it’s choking and claustrophobic cloak of stoned hardcore both restless and unrelenting, cuts deep with a fist clenching and chest beating bleak portent.
Smoothly seductive and arrested in the kind of deliciously attractive frost framed Balearic noir fashioning that slyly shimmers beneath the defences and sets up a squatter’s residency in your head space to ping its slow burn melodic murmuring each time it fears and senses that you’ll forget its tender toned distress call. This is the opining spectral ‘further’ by Tempers from an EP set called ‘fundamental fantasy’ due for imminent record counter adorning shortly via the vinyl factory.
Sounds alert from the heart of the Soft Bodies HQ with two new happenings having just landed, first up a little melodic mysterio with which to backdrop a crowd funding campaign financing the issue of four Philip McAlpine titles from the pen of Adam Diment – believed to be the work of the guys behind Quimper – more about them in a second, this 60’s sounding spy noire lounge lizard grooves to the same hypnotic vibe as encountered on releases bearing both the names tomorrow syndicate and the palace of swords upon their liner note fine print, chic, cosmopolitan yet traced in a shadowy Radiophonic Workshop vibe it imagines Workshop-er John Baker carrying out secret studio recording assignments with Raymond Scott under the cover of night in the resting corridors of Maida Vale.
https://unbound.com/books/the-complete-philip-mcalpine-collection/embed
https://unbound.com/books/the-complete-philip-mcalpine-collection
for a very brief potted history of the counter culture Bond spy check out these pages…..
http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/news/a9161/the-case-of-the-missing-spy-novelist/
http://www.voicesofeastanglia.com/2012/03/adam-diment-the-counter-culture-ian-fleming.html
http://www.nickelinthemachine.com/2009/08/the-disappearance-of-the-author-adam-diment /
As promised that second Soft Bodies selection comes courtesy of a mini album release by Quimper by the name ‘retrieval’. Described by its author as ‘haunting dark avant pop’, ‘retrieval’ comprises of seven vintage sounding electronic ghost lights traced in becoming and alluring spectral sepia trimmings which in truth sound not unlike the beautified disquiets emanating from both the horror pop sound and Villa9 studio sound houses with the set opening to the floral enchantment of the FortDax-ian (the same effect comes into more vivid and colourful focus on the title track ‘retrieval’) like ‘boundary’ before mischieviously relocating to pastures more commonly associated with the Assembled Minds hauntologist trance found haunting their acclaimed ‘creaking haze and other rave ghosts’ set from last year or thereabouts. The worlds of 70’s children TV and testcard symphonies collide for the perky playschool afternoon milk and biscuits snooze soiree ‘sorenson’ which if anything purists of the sound schools of both Plone and ISAN will adore in an instant before that is, matters manifest into darker and fracturing terrains with the Ron Grainer-esque ‘waterloo shoulder’ creeping out the listening space with a vaguely magical though hitherto supernatural aura, one for the midwich youth club heads among you I shouldn’t wonder. With its mesmeric pulsars and somewhat celestial shimmering ‘lovely lightning’ encroaches into the ethereal sound spaces more commonly breached by fellow Soft Bodies regular Jodie Lowther which leaves ‘everything is fine’ to guide folk to the end grooves no doubt leaving them somewhat chilled with its beautifully eerie visitation seemingly acting as a key to opening a ghostly portal through whose doors the beyond beckons. https://quimper.bandcamp.com/album/retrieval
teaser trailer heralding the incoming of what’s set to be one of the year’s finest vinyl outings from the Buried Treasure sound house this is Revbjelde……more details to come for now some previously swooning murmurs can be sourced here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2014/09/25/revbjelde/ and here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/09/15/revbjelde-2/ while that promised trailer goes a lot like this……
Staying with Buried Treasure a little longer, just eyed this on their band camp shop page, due to land at the end of March, some hugely forward thinking vintage electronics from behind the iron curtain, as was, from Yuri Morozov. Absolutely no information on this, in fact truth be told information on Morozov is limited full stop for under the steel grip of the KGB, pop music as with other forms of free expression were outlawed by the Soviet state during the 70’s and 80’s timeline to which Morozov was at height of his creative musical powers. Thought to have released over 60 albums, most were never heard outside of the secretive tape exchange community of Eastern Europe, it’s only now in recent years and with the aid of enquiring minds tapping into territories beyond the recognised scope of populist music that these rich resources of previously unknown recordings are coming to the fore. As said ‘strange angels’ is due for record shop counter action at the fall of March, for now we suggest you pin your lugs to the darkly wiry sub psych funk of the flipped out ‘shall come forth the demons’ and tell me he wasn’t trying to channel both James Brown and Jimi Hendrix at the same time. https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/strange-angels
stuff…..
wonky alice mentioned a little earlier in relation to Oskar’s Drum…..with ‘caterpillars’
Kinda feeling a little depressed and somewhat mortified that we’ve so far managed to miss this, this comes cut in ear candy hooks aplenty whilst armed with the most audaciously cutely toned vocal swallow dive and that’s even before we’ve gotten around to mentioning the rippling riff corteges that shimmer in at the 1.22 mark, frankly faultless, it’s by holy now who hail from Gothenburg and goes by the name ‘wake up’. https://soundcloud.com/beechcoma/holy-now-wake-up
again another release we are now kicking ourselves for having missed, this is ‘dialectics’ by Tver, Russia based cosmic dudes Temnee, a killer slab of stoned out vintage psych, we here are much admiring of ‘steps to infinity’ not least for the fact that its beatnik-y mystic third eye grizzled arabesque had us much recalling the much missed green milk from the planet orange, something we dare say that ought to appeal the earthling society and sendelica heads among you. https://temnee.bandcamp.com/album/dialectics
literary book club discussion type thing to note in your diary features Darren Hyman and Davis Shepherd in conversation about Mr Eno.https://www.eventbrite.com/e/brian-eno-darren-hayman-in-conversation-with-david-sheppard-tickets-31592767819
making music with computers yesteryear….
Contact details….
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
Goodbye for now…..
the sunday experience 
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