another archive missive from 2011 – originally posted on http://www.losingtoday.com – this un features….
cranium pie, frobisher neck, us and them, the big oaks, the luck of eden hall, warm digits, enth, hookworms, Waskerley Way, among brothers, francobollo, kutosis, race horses, no ceremony
missive 296
19-09-2011
Singled Out
Missive 296
‘do not adjust your headphones we control the volume, the taste and the play list’
Random utterances from the turntable.
Something of a fruits de mer gathering I note…..with Distractions related gate crashing…
Cranium Pie ‘mechanisms – part 1’ (regal crabomophone). Now under normal circumstances an album – and a concept one at that – whose arrival is heralded by a bands own mission statement reading thus…..
‘from the radioactive dust of a post apocalyptic mecha-tyranny, simple life forms strive to fulfil the wishes of ’the blinking eye’ and create the ultimate homunculus destined to fight for the right of organisms’
….may well have most self respecting record buying pundits scratching chins in collective puzzlement or else fearing that the new dawn of prog had hit the buffers under looming storm clouds with the excesses of its former self returning to haunt and send it freewheeling into another ice age like period of scornful obscurity to await another period in the distant future wherein it would be pardoned, paroled and let loose to play along with all the other personas of pop. Students, cider drinkers and cartoon network aficionados may well see matters differently and read into it a secret homage to sponge bob square pants. Whatever the case there was some serious bad weed at large when author and pen colluded to inscribe upon note paper that morning.
But then this is the by product of Fruits De Mer a label whose musical landscape is longing for the yesterday and is flipped upside down, tuned inside out, kaleidoscopically enhanced0 and dimensionally expanded and who if it were a TV show would be the Outer Limits skinning up backstage with the Old Grey Whistle Test all dandified and preening resplendently decked out in t-shirts sporting a hallowed and hip whispering warning ‘do not adjust your turntable’.
Of course Cranium Pie are no strangers to these pages for they have delighted our listening soirees in recent ages with lysergic tipped rolled gold covers of tunes that once turned on wax heads in their original forms by the likes of Dantalion’s Chariot, Brainticket and some obscure beat pop combo by the name of the Beatles. Purveyors of the strange and the leading lights of the (press release described) new wave of Wiltshire prog (was there indeed ever an old wave for the new wave to emerge and is the new wave merely a ripple – answers to these and other tantalising mysteries will be revealed at some point in the not to distant future).
And so to no stranger to these pages are the peculiar aural flavourings to be found on ‘mechanisms’ its coming marked out last year whereupon the last release for the celebrated Bracken imprint (older parent to the lysergic upstart fruits de mer) bade farewell to hi-fi’s (see missive 261 for copious Floyd references) with a curtain calling two track teaser from the freaked psyche of Cranium Pie courtesy of ’rememberrr’ and ’mothership’ both of which feature here and which at the time were mooted for inclusion on a double album voyage with accompanying film. Between then and now there’s been talk in various circles of a mythical bootleg gathering out takes and edits and the like that didn’t quite fit the whacked out vibe of the finished concept – a copy of which we fear spontaneous combustion may visit upon us if we don’t have, hear and hug in the foreseeable future. A free flowing tapestry of delights ‘mechanisms’ gathers together six wigged out treats of the psychedelically progressive variety, duly note that this is but ‘part 1’ of the musical odyssey for ‘part 2’ is rumoured to dock sometime next year. To the sound of the wave form ripples of tidal ebbs and flows ’mechanisms’ opens genteelly to the soft parade of dissipating bird song chorus‘ and pinch picked flowery pastoral opines of ‘this was now….the awakening of the birds’ amid this a momentary hesitance of confusion enwraps our protagonists, washed ashore, lost and dazed the dream weaving montages evaporate and enter stage left the whiff of Barrett-esque Floydisms and the appearance of a merry prankster per ’rememberrr’ – a would be cosmic shaman leading out some kind of psyched out pied piper / lord of the dance routine to a bliss kissed beatnik boogie-fied backdrop of woozy moogs mirages a la elektra’s immortal wig flipping ’cosmic sounds’ set albeit here as though narrated by an acid frazzled magic bus conducting Arthur Brown.
From therein things get shall we say a little hairy – ‘zones – mothership’ sounding like a zonked out and wasted prog grooved variant of ‘war of the worlds’ re-envisaged by a seriously wired Camel that mid way through gloriously turns on its heel to morph into a head expanding slice of galactic ambience to which Floyd’s ‘wish you were here’ is symbiotically fused to the shell of hyper gliding lunar leviathan commandeered by Tangerine Dream while ‘drying in the sun’ achieves enlightenment slyly lush toned to a breathtaking nautically induced lunar trimmed flute / moog carnival that touches base with an as were lounge lulled spacey Oldfield collage sprinkled by magic dust provided by Soft Hearted Scientists. From thenceforth embarking on the trip toned amorphous sub 10 minute voyage that is the centrepiece title cut ‘mechanisms’ – a Crimson-ite gemstone flanked by echoes of Caravan, Soft Machine and Triumvirat wherein all manner of space grooves, prog regality and fringe flipped mind altering montages are stirred up into a humungous psychotropic soup where roam whacked out and wonky wah wah workouts and hulking hypnotic riff solos so long in their gestation that beards grow which is just as well for the freakish and fried fuzzed out magic mushie munching ‘run to survive’ soars into a Hawkwind styled black hole oblivion. File under like tripping inside Waters’ headspace.
Sticking with those Fruity rascals for something a tad special…..
Us and Them feat. Frobisher Neck ‘summerisle’ EP (fruits de mer). For those who’ve been carefully eyeing the release output of both the Bracken and Fruits de Mer imprints to date it may then be no small surprise that sooner or later their collective attentions would have encircled to harvest the strange delights as offered up by the hallowed soundtrack to cult folk horror ’the wicker man’. in fact our own surprise has been borne around as to how and why it hasn’t happened thus far. But happened it has at last. On a personal level ’the wicker man’ has always proven a source of fascination for on many a summer morn when we’ve ventured into the garden of delights and thought ‘blimey wasn’t there a fence there last time I looked’ and proceeded to don our comedy folk facial furniture and with tambourine and stick with bells and bunting secured with floral coloured gaffa tape we’ve danced merrily around the washer line butt naked to the tempting strains of love kindled melodies and the waft of seasoned sausages cooking slowly on the barbeque in an attempt to woo the available fair maidens of the parish. Alas to date all we’ve got for our troubles is three death threats, two warnings from the police and a nettle rash in a sensitive place where believe you me its not advisable to acquire a nettle rash. Complaints, protestations and jokes aside the history of the ‘Wicker Man’ is as strange as the films content – lost to the occasional late night showing on terrestrial TV in the late 70’s and early 80’s as part of the BBC’s once a year licence fee paying allowance to show naked bodies it featured the frumpish and puritanical God bothering jobs worth Edward Woodward (Peter Cushing legend has it was touted for the role by Mr Lee) pitted against the free loving dark Lord of the harvest dance Christopher Lee in a ritual pre Christian versus faith testing modernism head off. The film as said was nearly lost, seemingly unloved and poorly received on its release by the film houses new owners and somewhat amateurishly trimmed in length until lost reels surfaced almost as if by magic along the way (word has it that tens of dozens of reels featuring out takes and unused negatives where buried where what is now the M3), it grew in cult popularity from the late 80’s throughout the 90’s (ignore at all costs the absolutely woeful remake from a few years back featuring Nick Cage which being funded by a greedy anything to cash in on a stock converter Hollywood managed to not only totally miss the point of the original but as Fawlty Towers correctly noted many moons back still showed the yanks not quite getting to grip with that irony thing – in fact our own copy of said remake was summarily dispatched to ash and dust in our own specially commissioned effigy burning event) and is now heralded as a folk fear / horror classic that has outshone its elder siblings ’blood on Satan’s claw’ and ’witchfinder general’. As a child of impressionable years (seen going through my Mike Yarwood phase) I was most perturbed by the sight of facial furniture and crooked teeth in abundance, though depending on your ‘thing’ – ‘the Wicker Man’ was memorable for one of two things, the shock ’well I never saw that coming’ moment of realisation as Woodward’s hapless character after realising he’s been duped and played by the prank loving parish of the island reaches the summit of the hill top and sees that he’s to be part of a giant pagan barbeque or else the sight of a well toned Ekland bottom cavorting curvaceously engaging in a spot of sensual spell crafting (later of course to be revealed as a body double). Still as a youngster I still recall being traumatised by the sight of what appeared to be the Wurzels extended family let loose on an away day from the cider shed – all teeth and facial hair – and was most struck by their contrasting seemingly genetically modified near perfect offspring. Equal to the film was the score itself, sourced by director Robin Hardy and composed by the late Paul Giovanni and Magnet, blending beauty with the eerie it was a timeless tapestry cut finitely from melodic cloths that delved into traditional Gaelic sounds with nursery rhyme motifs, bawdy tavern songs and resplendent in Britain’s lost folk lore. Limited to 500 copies all pressed up on coloured wax, upon this classic in the making seven inch release you’ll find four such cuts re-traced by the fair hands of Sweden based acoustic duo Us and Them assisted ably on this occasion by Tony Swettenham on mellotron and dulcimer duties and of who is better known to the new psyched prog generation as Frobisher Neck who last appeared in listening shot giving us cause to swoon with his stunning re-appraisal of Neu’s ’isi’ on the recent sold out and acclaimed ’roqueting through space’ FdM compilation. Opening with the traditional arrangement ’corn rigs’ – this airy delight awakes from a daydream and unfurls with the self same soft intoxication as that that framed the opening moments of Douglas Gamley’s genteel ‘port and spring wine’ soundtrack, the Gaelic florets and spring formed Cambridge folk hues imbibing a richly hypnotic flavouring of Fairport Convention and Pentangle essences. Drawing sharp contrast the shadow casting ‘fire leap’ is dimpled upon a timeless melodic seasoning that’s traced back through the centuries, its Elizabethan courtship belies a subtle and sinister village fayre undercurrent that hooks upon the lost chilled sentiment provided by age old nursery rhymes as it merrily hops between the playful and the haunting. Featuring the boy / girl interplay of Britt and guest vocalist Ludvig Josephson and traced upon a mesmerising bed of looping floral madrigals ‘gently Johnny’ demurs to an erotic courtship all the time clipped to the breathless lilt and swooning sway of chiming cascades while ‘willow’s song’ – perhaps the best known cut from ‘the Willow Man’ OST and by far the defining centre point of this particular release. Admittedly not as seductive as Seafood’s re-cut of the same track from a few years ago, yet what it lacks in the seduction quotient is more than made up for in terms of its ability to enchant and mesmerise, Britt’s softly alluring vocals woo and weave a Siren-esque spell craft all the time succulently carried afloat to the hovering hush of dissolving melodies eking from out of the shadow light, its subdued spectral calm eliciting an almost ghost like beckoning tryst that’s quite simply something else. All said another classic in the canon of this cult cool crab obsessing imprint.
Updated – on an additional note the seeds of ‘the wicker man’ came from a novel entitled ‘ritual’ written by David Pinner – the book was originally published in a strictly low numbered run which these days commands three figure sums when it appears on auction sites. Battered Ornaments have recently acquired relevant licences and permissions to re-publish this rarity in a strictly limited nature in both paper and hardback forms with forward provided by Bob Stanley.
Next up for FdM is an EP by the Luck of Eden Hall who go a lot like this…..
The Luck of Eden Hall ‘chrysalide’ – due to our hapless filing system or should I say lack of a filing system hapless or not – we’ve managed to for the moment mislay an email from a stateside label whose name I can’t recall right now (stands to reason because we’ve mislaid it – d’oh) who’ve just released (what I seem to recall being) the debut full length from the much loved the Luck of Eden Hall (I promise that come the weekend we will locate the errant blighter) – well it seems these dudes are being prepped for Fruits De Mer action shortly courtesy of a 7 inch wax wonder (which I’m sure I’ve read in despatches features two covers and two originals – look its late and I’m knackered after a long and very dull day in office hell). There be a video playing moving picture thing just posted on the FdM face book page (see below) serving as a teaser that features ‘chrysalide’ which on first hearing sounds not unlike a clearly day-glo poppified Psychic TV wearing Syd Barrett skins and honing their hallucinogenic handicraft to the dazed glazed motifs of XTC’s moonlighting psychedelicists Dukes of the Stratosphear with patron head of the Barrett fan club Robyn Hitchcock on hand cutting all manner of shape shifting psych soaked kaleidoscopic Brit Pop groove patterns. Guess that means its essential – not ‘arf.
Just got an email from Keith FdM saying the year will be wrapped up by the appearance of three more FdM releases before the years out – an EP loosely based on 70’s styled kids TV toons, another double disc Annual with the Bordellos among the cast bearing gifts and glad tidings and a second volume of ‘a phase we’re going through’…..
Warm Digits ‘keep warm….with the Warm Digits‘ (distraction). Another label who’ve strayed from our gaze and been absent from our turntable far longer than we’d care to mention is Newcastle imprint Distraction. Mind you that initial observation is something of a misnomer given they sent over their latest wares a few weeks back in the shape of the currently available Necro Deathmort full length which should you be venturing off to your local record emporium any day soon and are in need of some ear lobe pounding than you’d be wise to note down on paper its title ’music of bleak origin’ – don’t worry its not all gloom and doom in fact if our memory serves its kinda like the Beach Boys with the sun painted black – sadly I can’t confirm this for certain as the blighter has gone for a wander in our gaff though should we lay hands and ears upon it we will be sure to fondly mention it in greater detail in these here missive musings.
Warm Digits are next up on the Distraction release radar (just ahead of a scheduled jazz finger limited 7 inch lathe). A debut outing that pairs together the collective mindsets of Cathode and the Matinee Orchestra – those being Andrew Hodson and Steve Jefferis – the former last mentioned in these pages via http://www.losingtoday.com/tales.php?id=203 and whom was at one time a member of the sadly missed and criminally overlooked Jumbo and the latter much loved here and star of 555, Awkward Silence, Expanding and Static Caravan productions. Described in passing by the distraction folk as a ’semi improvised brew of metronomic rhythms, snowstorm guitar, radiophonic electrronics, dual laptop electro, swathes of no wave guitar and frenetic free jazz drumming that blends the lines between My Bloody Valentine, Neu and Brian Eno’. And who are we to argue for this dandified diode dabbling cosmic interface arrives pressed upon two hulking slabs of wax all housed in a distressed looking gatefold jacket with trip-a-delic BBC Radiophonic like artwork that one assumes is meant to authentically replicate the look of a vintage early 70’s album resplendent with ring wear – looks damn fine if you ask me and a copy of which I’m sure we’d find a loving home for here in the Sunday Experience sun lounge and refreshments bar.
Venturing retro kraut grooved territories previously mined by the likes of 90̊ South and Fly (as on the out there and fried big bearded groove locking gouged astral ambience of the massively mushrooming psychotropic pulsar ‘one track groove‘ – one for cool club land consumption if I‘m not very much mistaken), ’keep warm…. With the Warm Digits’ is a head expanding odyssey of pristinely streamlined turbo charged space rock grinds, modelled in Dusseldorf, designed by Raymond Scott and sporting a chassis futuristically equipped by the Pininfarina’s of pop Kraftwerk and flown by star kissing space cadets, here through the Numanonic Perspex informed partly by Tubeway Army‘s ‘blue‘ and ‘replicas‘ full lengths (as on the cosmic head massage that ‘keep warm’ with its relocated Peter Hook-ish low strung bass twangs demurring to a sea of synth sizzled wizardry and fuzz strutted shoe gazed inclines) stir cosmic shanties that flitter and flutter cross matching to a sonic blood line routinely dimpled in 70’s metronomic flavours, BBC Radiophonic wonky wisps, fuzz out pedal to the metal cosmic workouts (as on the volatile punkish meltdown of the hyper driven ‘weapons destruction’), shoe gazed showers, locked groove psychotropic propulsions and 90’s styled tranced out templates.
Between these grooves a terra-forming musical landscape unfurls that stretches, tweaks and recalibrates the given as norm trademark Teutonic template so that on one side appears the dinky and playful ’grapefruit’ with its mutoid revisualisation of an early 80’s NY dance scene that has Lipps Inc meets Chic shimmying up to a super slinky Scissor Sisters with Lionrock goofing about in the shadows on the mixing desk while elsewhere the simply smoking and wigged out and oceanic ‘trans Pennine express’ is a hot buffet of hip slinging star watching loveliness that sumptuously purrs and preens to a sonic DNA spliced with several parts KLF, Apollo 440 and Front 242 of whose baggy-ist 90’s styled fat funky lines have been germinated in a sonic incubator by Paris Angels. Add in some neatly realised early career Jean Michel Jarre styled electro squiggles via the retro ’a warm front, coming from the north’ and apply some detailing of Delia D styled handiwork to the scrambled white out of Mr Kember in his EAR guise for ’the world in small doses’ and end it all with the celestial cruise controlled caress of the impishly faux Eno titled ’here comes the warm digits’ and you have yourself a gargantuan genre blending kraut kissed gem of near perfect specifications.
And its with thanks to those Distraction chaps that we were led on to…..
The Big Oaks – again who we mentioned in our extended Distraction special way back at http://www.losingtoday.com/tales.php?id=203 – its with great sadness that we hear of Big Oaks main man Simon ‘John the Rat’ Windsor’s passing early this year – as a mark of tribute Distraction HQ are currently trying to raise funds in order to release the Big Oaks ‘monster turd’ full length on brown vinyl – more details can be found at http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Big-Oaks-Monster-Turd-brown-vinyl-LP while the bands dedicated face book page can be visited here http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Big-Oaks/16129537551
And staying with people desperately in need of your assistance and aid, we tripped over an ad posted on the Big Oaks face book site from an artist based in Holland Michigan by the name of Sarah Hensley who masquerades under the nom de plume scrublightning and who following a serious back injury and faced with astronomical medical bills is currently trying to make ends meet by offering her artistic services out for any kind of commissioned work large or small, her current obsession appears to be Zombies, adept in acrylics, polymer clay and in the main ’doodling with crappy ole MS paint’ – get your requests in according to Sarah the ’stranger the better’ – examples of her art can be found here …. http://www.facebook.com/scrublightning
And….
http://waskerleyway.bandcamp.com/album/wind-shear – more self marketed band camp action this time from Waskerley Way who teasing descriptive tags read thus – glam pop shoe gaze united kingdom. Waskerley Way is better known to friends, family and record buying punters as Michael Phillip Bridgewater a resident of Newcastle Upon Tyne who has to date let loose three releases to much the delight of an informed underground scene in the shape of ‘ghost cat’, ‘waterfall’ (available on cassette via the wonder beard imprint) and of course his latest opus ’wind shear’. three cuts feature on this his latest outing, lead cut ’wind shear’ is trimmed with a subduing forlorn gracefulness that initially recalls the drizzle toned solitude of a Durutti Column shimmying up to a ‘true’ era Roy Montgomery, enter stage left the lightly brushed soft hush of vocals and all of a sudden things begin to delicately demur in much the same way as a youthful China Crisis tangling up in the lovelorn caress of Care, all the time the melodies converge, collide, bend, twist and arc in dimension and depth into what by the end appears like a celestially surging radiant sun bursting fuzz fizzed hazily glazed rainbow finger painted by some Kevin Shields styled effects extravaganza with the much missed Flying Saucer Attack. More rainy day tenderness shadow plays throughout the Tex La Homa like briefness of ‘total fluke’ leaving the parting ‘manzanares’ to atmospherically arrest your aural delights with some neatly out there and mind expanding chilled Tibetan monastics which all said had us of the mind to root through our record racks to quickly re-familiarise ourselves to the wares of A R Kane. Goes without saying that its all highly recommended. The Waskerley one will be playing at the Yes Way festival this weekend sharing the boards with the much admired hookworms (see below).
And……
Also recommended by those nice chaps at Distraction records were ENTH whose ‘s/t’ debut via tombs in the valley is described in passing as ’crushing Polish funeral doom’ and features members of Suffering Mind and HellisHeaven – this brooding babe of brutality comes pressed up on 12 inch slabs of wax – a copy of which we will scour our local record emporium for in the coming days – for now though there’s a sample sound clip on the tombs face book site at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tombs-in-the-Valley-Productions/212913165388044 which reveals an overarching sense of the something grim comes this way, very funereal and suffocated by a darkly brooding ceremonial impasse that wearily hints at a punishing retribution to come – admirers of Dead Elephant will swear allegiance. That said let the video play out and hook up to ’Matryca pt1’ – which admittedly I’m not entirely sure features on the album – from its opening landscape of hollowed drone winds comes the arid dust racked sound of a sparsely weaved corkscrewing Godspeed motif slowly coiling you in to cast a thick oppressive taut tension which without warning at 3.01 abruptly turns on itself and in its place the sickly thick sloth like slow core bile of an unearthly shadow prowling inhabitant slowly awakes from its putrid slumber to a bloodied backdrop of battered and beaten bludgeoned beatnik blues. Menacing stuff.
http://hookworms.bandcamp.com/album/s-t – beyond the overcasting glower of dying stars and located on the furthest echelons of the galaxy lurks the astral stoner groove of hookworms, psychedelicised space cadets adorned in shade stirring star visors swaggering to a chemical cache of mind warping effects pedals and trading with the kind of melodic moon juice that would make Hawkwind elders weeps in admiration. Word has it they hail from Leeds and that a limited cassette only version of their debut self titled full length is about to orbit and dock Earthbound courtesy of the Sun Ark imprint. Upon it loom four wigged out third eye blurring sonic odysseys two of which you‘ll trip upon on this here band camp page – ’medicine cabinet’ as you’d imagine from the title alone is a fringe flicking fuzzy feedback flight into narcosis, totally shit faced and out of it in a White Hills meets Mugstar stylee, totally wasted and very very essential though for our money kaleidoscopic purists ought to bliss out to the kraut cooled ‘teen dreams’ as it stirs to the same sonic rock a boogie primitivism as was once the forte of a youthful Suicide though here preening and pouting to a gloriously psyched out Stones-esque strut draped out in the kind of trip-a-delic garlands of galactic gospel groove as once worn by Spacemen 3. In short quite possibly the coolest thing on planet pop right now.
Word reaches us from afar – well Camden as it happens – from the bloody awful poetry press people if you must know – who we are happy to report are safe and well despite having to endure the antics of the mindless in the recent riots – why oh why didn’t the police just paintball the bastards with the stuff the use in security deposit boxes would have made it a damn sight easier to spot the blighters given there’d be endless Willy Wonka type look-a-likes lurking the streets with no way of washing the bloody dye off for several days. Where were we – ah yes Francobollo – a young band recommended to us by the BAP press people – see previously so on and so forth – this lot are described as an Anglo – Swedish combo who delight in lo-fi grunge grooved melody drenched fuzz fried beat pop and who are about to release an debut EP by the name ‘harpolma’ (nah – me neither) which as I write is being mastered although for those of you of a pedantic disposition that mightn’t necessarily mean right now because well they might be on a coffee break or summat – anyhow EP is on its way and as a taster they’ve made available an early mix of ’good times’ as a taster – alas not the Chic floor filler of the same name from many moons ago rather more something which unless our ears do deceive sounds a tad like a detuned pre- ’Doolittle’ era Pixies being re-traced by a clearly out of it and angular Pavement who appear very much in a disconnected mood as they stumble and jar their way in such an disorderly and almost slacker fashion as to have had us off in search of our prized Trumans Water records of yesteryear. Certain on our wish list. http://www.bloodyawfulpoetry.com/francobollo/Francobollo-GoodTimes-testmix2.mp3
Sound like such sensitive souls this lot – the kind of thing that we’d suspect those Arctic Circle types to thaw by, sound wise demurring and genteel yet forlorn and feint as though a mid way point between the Earlies and Shady Bard cordoned off by a shyly retiring Iliketrains this honey as Peelie would say starts quietly and then mushrooms into clouds of softly becoming euphoric grandeur – oh yea they are called Among Brothers and hail from Cardiff…..and there’s been a debut EP entitled ‘homes’ that escaped our normally watchful radar upon release earlier this year via barely regal which we’ll do our level best to acquire for closer inspection…..blimey almost forgot – here’s a video of them performing at the recent Radio 1 Big Weekend…..
As to barely regal – their latest offering sounds a lot like this…..seamless eh…like quicksand…
Kutosis ‘shadows’ (barely regal). Kutosis – sounds like a nasty embarrassing complaint in need of pharmaceutical cream – that aside bit of walloping single this. Alas no press details or salacious gossip with which to serenade and enthral you about this lot (we‘ve got momentary gremlins with our connection so we can‘t even do a spot of googling) oh ‘ang on spoke to soon its all to the rear of the sleeve which briefly thus says ‘released Sept 5th – from the forthcoming long playing platter ‘fanatical love‘ recorded with former Test Icicles guitarist Rory Attwell – this single will be available in various digital formats as well as a pay what you want‘ – and their from Cardiff which we forgot to add. So armed with all that info we suggest you should go off in search off this lot before they go into media meltdown and get ruined by the noddy press tipping them as the fateful next new thang. And why you might ask – well simply because ’shadows’ is up and about you close and personal in the blink of an eye, a furiously scalding slice of twisted paranoiac panic attack pop that jangles and jars to a head butting seizure stricken angulated post punk hyper drive bled from repeat caustic doses of the Fire Engines all coiled to an agit grooved contortionist slab of melodic mayhem that suggests those impish art frazzled johnny foreigner types twiddling with the recording desk knobs. More of the same on the attending flip cut the frenzied ‘skin’ which unless our ears do deceive sounds to us like a spiked up wired as hell scathing pop variant of Supergrass on speedballs trashed out on a cocktail of ’goo’ era Sonic Youth opines.
Race Horses ‘benidorm’ (fantastic plastic). So infectious that we swear we’ve broken out in affectionate rashes, absolutely ding dong tasty and worry not young folk that’ll be the first and last time you’ll find us saying ding dong tasty in an appraisal – whatever where we thinking – anyhow this little sun bearing nugget flows in the same tenacious pop fluency as was once the domain of Pulp albeit here finding Cocker and Co relocated to a mid 70’s mirror ball festooned Studio 54 amid an amorphous array of sweeping strings, fat n funky electro squiggles and the kind of side servings of sun sizzled endless days of past summers whilst being half baked and high as kites on Gorki Zygotic Mynci fumes. File under irresistible type thing. http://soundcloud.com/fantasticplasticrecords/race-horses-benidorm-mp3
No Ceremony ‘hurt love’ (self released). Must admit to being totally besotted and smitten by this, alas again absolutely no information with which to impart given that it came via an unsolicited email that simply said ’thought you might like this….’ that said I suppose it stands to reason that an ensemble calling themselves No Ceremony would choose to release what we assume is their debut outing to no fanfare and of course ’no ceremony’. ’hurt love’ as the title might suggest is a tenderly bruised cradling of low lit down tempo noir tweaked spectral sophistication the type of which you’d imagine an emotionally crushed gathering of Antena, ROC and Massive Attack folk collaboratively concocting by way of some alluring undercurrents of chicly tailored torch techno trimmings as though they’d decided to ice sculpture a particularly fragile Animotion. http://www.noceremony.com/
Those fancying themselves as a re-mixer can download the audio stems for ‘no ceremony’ via http://www.noceremony.com/remix/
Another missive shortly – for contact details see the foot end of missive 297 or the waffly opening bit of missive 295.…
Take care,
Mark
X
the sunday experience 