Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping… Transmission 29.0….w/e 22/07/2017….

Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping…

Transmission 29.0….w/e 22/07/2017

Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind….

Features…..

Percy faith, galatee, co-pilgrim, three dimensional tanx, 7shades, michael head and the red elastic band, maps and diagrams, timber timbre, chad vangaalen, arturo’s, psychic tv, tomorrow syndicate, matters, revolutionary army of the infant jesus, les big byrd, Thurston moore, the black angels, mottey’s garage, mal Thursday, earache, maximum rock n’ roll, big enschilada, vital weekly, mixing it, Bjork, Spiritualised, Radiohead and Coldcut, matt ross spang, tape op, klf, the smiths, chester bennington, allen Ginsberg, The Peoria Plague, the knack, van Coeur, the gold needles, brinsley Schwartz, dr feelgood, the pirates, the motors, Eddie and the hot rods, flamin groovies, goat girl, lake ruth and listening center, eric in the kitchen, the orange drop, the blog that celebrates itself, blue Bombay, bleach bath, opel, suspirium, rob gould, the NoMen, fast cars, impaTV, elephant house, lone taxidermist, data quack, this is the kit, pull the plug, vic mars, the focus group, morphoex, rewilding, rosemary’s a blackberry, i speak machine, nick Sutton, anneka, Elias Rahbani, tonio Rubio, bothhands free, Brian Bennett, the roger web sound, Pierre Cavalli, Francis Monkman, Brian Bennett and Alan Hawkshaw, George a romero, bobby jameson, martin landau, brian eno…..

Opening credits…..

Percy faith…….

be honest, isn’t this quite the thing, not rightly sure whether this is a newie or oldie, in fact the information is so scant that you might be forgiven for thinking it had dropped fully formed from the ether. Anyhow this is Galatée with the simply beguiling ‘les deux’ – a faultless ghost lit fantasia traced in the merest of minimalist electronic motifs all glazed in a noir toned cold war isolationist chic that’s spirited away on crystal tipped orbiting carousel the likes of which unless our ears do deceive, instantly recall the exquisite futuristic pastorals flavouring fortdax’s ‘at bracken’ full length.

I hate to rain on your parade, but just one listen through and I’m of the mind that Co-Pilgrim’s ‘moon lagoon’ is going to take some shifting out of our affections when we come to cobble up end of year favourites lists. Apologies to the band, the label and their press folk for so far letting this sneak beneath our radar without so much as a word never mind a thank you – truth is the blighter got a tad mislaid in the great CD mountain. Adoration aplenty arriving later in the week, once that is, we’ve had a chance to pick our jaw from the floor, for here is a collection of songs that not only hug, seduce and mesmerise, but take you to places other albums only dream of. Until then we’ll leave you with this, at once quietly stately and tenderly crushed, a visitation, a hymnal, truth be told off the radar in terms of reach, impact and creative classicism, this is the surrendering “Cylindrical fire escapes”. Phew, we never even got to mention Spiritualised or Low once throughout, oh that’s done it….

There’ll be more fruits de mer happenings later this missive, sooner still later tonight. However, we wanted to give the heads up to this recent posting which features excerpts of the tracks that’ll be making up what looks like being a seismic head to head between three dimensional tanx and 7shades. Limited to just 50 copies, all lathe cut on seven inches of wax, this ‘un will be available at the forthcoming August festivities. ‘trip hazard’ is the three-dimensional tanx side of the groove, all koolly peeled kaleidoscopic karma and as the title gives hint, very trippy and hypnotic, no doubt stoned on its own stash so you don’t have to be and very much tuning its trance toned radar towards the kind of sonic navigational points where you’ll find located psych dude Sunray. 7shades are a more wiry proposition with the head imploding star tripping ‘grasping at straws’ possessed of the kind of mind mushrooming motifs that easily draws distant comparisons to the Cardiacs.

Further reading…..

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/7shades/

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/three-dimensional-tanx/

We managed to wrestle this from a posting spotted on the Sonido Polifonica facebook page, new groove from Michael Head and the Red Elastic Band in the shape of a new full length heading out through Violette entitled ‘Adiós Señor Pussycat’ from off which this little nugget has been sent ahead on scouting detail. Trimmed in an old school folk vintage, ‘Josephine’ sumptuously rolls to the ripples of the Mersey, its blending of seafaring stewardship and the breezy wafts of Gaelic motifs crystallise perfectly the heartland spirit of his Liverpool home within this framed and nailed up nostalgically roving sonic photograph.

Limited to just 80 copies and incoming early August time, the latest from Maps and Diagrams, entitled ‘mosaic’, is shaping up to be a truly full on psychedelically enhanced immersive experience if, that is, teaser track ‘OctaVolt5.2’ is anything to judge by, for here mind morphing trance toned motifs dissipate and dissolve amid shape shifting biospherical environs literally teaming with life, in short offering an astral planing playmate for CHFX’s recent and much loved ‘transcranial targets’ full length for castles in space. https://handstitched.bandcamp.com/album/mosaic

An evening of videos…..we’ll see……firstly…..

Starkly bleak glances into the grim futures are the overarching feature of the latest heading out of the Timber Timbre soundhouse. This be the chilling dystopian dread head ‘sincerely, future pollution’ – a scabbing and prowling shadow player grooved in pulsing metronomic dubtronica dialects gouged in paranoiac wastelands all slinkily snaking to recall elements of Alan Vega’s time with the Revolutionary Corps of Teenage Jesus.

Another cut from his forthcoming Sub Pop set ‘light entertainment’ incoming September time, this is Chad VanGaalen with ‘Pine and Clover’ – one of those deceptive tracks amid who’s mellowing slightly off kilter grooving packs something of a delay effecting punch as it mooches about with a lazy eyed smokey casualness that orbits between the serving of sublimely hazy halos of woozy country caresses and the spraying of spiritual lovenotes.

Mentioned in previous despatches, both ‘allegory and self’ and ‘pagan day’ have just been remastered and released on vinyl via sacred bones and dais, their first appearance on wax since back in the day of their original release. While we start a clearing of the desk project in readiness for the pouring forth of words of fondness for these two oft overlooked releases here’s a little taster in the shape of ‘cold steel’ from ‘pagan day’. In addition, there’s an interview that Genesis recently did with Spin – you can find it here….. http://www.spin.com/featured/genesis-porridge-interview/

…. while a tour has just been announced, dates and venues as follows……

Tour Dates: 

Aug 18 Denver, CO Mercury Cafe

Aug 19 Las Vegas, NV Hard Rock Hotel & Casino @ Psycho Las Vegas 2017 (w/ King Diamond)

Sep 21 San Francisco, CA The Independent

Sep 22 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex

Sep 27 Emmenbrücke, SE Sedel

Nov 7 Manchester, UK Band On The Wall

Nov 8 Nottingham, UK The Doghouse

Nov 9 London, UK O2 Academy Islington

We were going to leave this until tomorrow but so smitten by it we feel it impossible to contain our excitement for fear of bursting. Literally just hit our inbox and i mean literally, like five minutes ago, this is a new twinset heading out of the La Mela imprint by the Arturo’s. You know how it is, something ghosts past your listening desk that’s so off road, off kilter and off in the distance running in a different direction from the usual groove you get, that you find yourself a tad jaw dropped and adoring. Such a joyous listening experience i could almost weep, for both ‘only with you’ and its flip ‘days of thunder’ are cut with such disturbingly curious affection and sun fried radiance that they might want to consider bottling this stuff up and selling it from under a chemist counter. First up ‘only with you’ is delightfully skewed with a wickedly wonky riff strum all kissed with a strangely tropical island breeziness that fizzes and flirts beneath glowing sunsets, which if you’re looking for references then I’d be of the mind to offer up Kitty, Daisy and Lewis marooned on a desert island with very youthful versions of Olivia tremor control, of Montreal and the go! team. Better still over on the flip sits ‘days of thunder’, a slice of sepia tweaked loveliness all dinked in a delightfully classicist vintage and a pouting of slyly warming and lolloping campfire effervescence, which unless our ears do seriously deceive had us much minded of some three-way gathering of Camera Obscura., the Ladybug Transistor and Polyphonic Spree types. https://lamelanelpiave.bandcamp.com/album/the-arturos-7

interlude…..tomorrow syndicate…..

….three (plus one that isn’t part) of the (7) videos that you’ll find gathered on the latest limited issue emerging out of the polytechnic youth sound house from Tomorrow Syndicate, this one is strictly limited to 50 copies all coming on VHS tape replete with PY video club card…..

…. details for ordering the VHS tape…..go here…… https://www.facebook.com/polytechnicyouth/

Mentioned this a few weeks back where it arrived to much love here pressed upon what we assumed to be, limited quantities of promo CD variants from those nice folk over at Static Caravan, now getting a full digital release, instead of the official video which we included in our aforementioned adoring – see here – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/matters/ – we thought you’d prefer to see these progressive kosmische-rs doing the business via a fully immersive head expanding live performance of the track……..this ‘un taken from a performance at the end of last year at the Hare and Hounds, Black Heath, Birmingham. Incidentally before we forget to say, this is Matters.

Take my word, this will simply blow you away. Hard to imagine that this originally got released way back in the early 90’s via probe plus, now being given a limited vinyl outing via the occultation imprint. These are the Revolutionary Army of the infant Jesus with ‘mirror’ – an album not so much ahead of its time but quite simply out of time, for now we’ve honed in two tracks of rare classicist majesty – ‘thème de l’homme qui n’a pas cru en lui-même’ and ‘nativity’ – the former, traced in a vintage noir chic is simply put, framed with such rarefied dark elegance, it’s akin to a Holy Communion where dance and demur, a marriage of the celebrated symphonic scores of John Barry (‘Vendetta’) and Krzysztof Komeda ‘(Rosemary’s Baby’). A truly magical affair. Proving to be a totally different kettle of fish, it might well be that the eerie desert dry foreboding atmospherics brought to bear by way of ‘nativity’ may well have predated the grooves opted for by both godspeed and grails by several years. More a spiritual visitation than a listening event. https://revolutionaryarmyoftheinfantjesus.bandcamp.com/album/mirror

Another of those previously ‘adored here’ moments, latest from Les Big Byrd which you’ll find heading out via the much admired PNKSLM hi-fi house, has been serviced with a quite bizarrely twisted and deeply unsettling nihilistic moving picture show where, unless I’ve dropped the ball, finds the bullied becoming the bullies amid a backdrop where the boundaries and the ante is pushed by increasing incremental to see just how far they can go, while society just ambles by, in some respects very Clockwork Orange. Anyhow we never went to film school, we could be spectacularly way off the mark, still music wise a spiffing slice of slowly peeled purring kosmische psychedelia which as it happens we first countered here – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/les-big-byrd-3/

Ah…. the Black Angels, having already hit us with one of the finest albums of the year so far, that’ll be ‘death song’ in case you’ve been sleeping at the back, the band have just unveiled the full-on head turning happening moving picture show for the blisteringly smoking cool that is ‘I’d kill for her’ – see here for earlier fondness…. https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/03/22/the-black-angels-2/

Hands up who remembers ‘tricks and trappings by Snares and Kites, a relatively limited and criminally underappreciated album released by the Dutch imprint Inbetween way back in the fall of the 90’s. I only mention it, because from out of the fog of my memory it was instantly recalled when hearing this, the latest from Thurston Moore. Much to our embarrassment and part annoyance, we’ve been kicking ourselves stupid that thus far we’ve managed to get by without not even being aware, let alone not actually hearing, ‘rock n’ roll consciousness’. From that set, the embarrassment quotient gets worse by the minute, because here’s a cut peeled from it that’s been sitting in record world for some two months or so. ‘Aphrodite’ is probably Moore’s most straight up handiwork since ‘Goo’ and ‘Dirty’, everything here just purrs with classy cool, kissed with an acutely prowling swing, its clicks and ticks to a shadowy grooving whose dark smothering encircles to forms an impenetrable fence around you the deeper you wander in from which point at the 6-minute mark everything goes woozily bliss kissed, wasted and a mite stoned and trip toned.

Podcast corner and various stuff …. rock a hula to go from the garage punk cartel..…….

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/25351480/motteys-garage-67?sbe=1

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/25314612/earache-radio-no-14/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/25225357/the-mal-thursday-show-118-love-baby/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/24984682/maximum-rocknroll-radio-1564/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/24970231/the-mal-thursday-show-117-the-job-that-ate-my-brain/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/24966258/earache-radio-no-13/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/25364840/maximum-rocknroll-radio-1566?sbe=1

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/25403518/big-enchilada-110-lizard-logic?sbe=1

been way too long since we checked in on Vital weekly, we really do miss their weekly distribution print editions from the late 90’s, really were an essential source of recorded mysteries by artists and labels alike that you’d never heard of. Anyway latest edition is awash with top turn ons for your turntable with #1091 opening to the sounds of an album from Tele:Funken which as far as we were lead to believe was being prepped for promo only but now seems to be being readied for a special lathe cut outing – anyhow a spiffing release all the same, his first since 2001 and mentioned here as it happens https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/06/28/telefunken/ – next up something truly dark, mystical and a tad chilling from Edward Ka Spel whose solo recordings are indeed the dark twin of his more familiar work with the Legendary Pink Dots, we really must fire off missives to Soleilmoon for soundlinks. Swiftly on apace, a tranquil moment for pause and reflection with the emergence of ‘corrupt patima’ by Berreca and Leimar, a most seductively sedate masterclass in porcelain poise and something which I’m suspecting admirers of both blue tapes and arell will adore. Featured here you’ll find a brace of selections from boy dirt car, the first of which the darkly choking shadow mass that is ‘a molecule that has broken free’ howls with dread servitude, the atmosphere tightening ever more in a densely foreboding fog. Also heading out of Soleilmoon a most curious posthumous outing for electric sewer age who featured among their number the late Peter Christopherson, ‘moon milk (waxing)’ featured here is one of those strangely alluring and dare I say, intricately funk bitten sore thumbs that would have no doubt set the critical tongues a wagging among Radio 3’s ‘Mixing It’ duo, Messrs Sandall and Russell. Orphax’s ‘horns’ we had the very wonderful pleasure of mentioning last missive out, irresistible loveliness from the Champion Version crew – more info here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/07/10/orphax/ those preferring their listening sounds somewhat space walking, floaty and indelibly woozy may be advised to sample to airless horizons conjured up by Kamil Kowalczyk’s ‘Transmisja’ which in truth does indeed sound like a hulking intergalactic levaithan at rest, similarly touched with an ethereal grace toning is Steve Peters chime cosmosis ‘airforms 10’ – very minimalist and something harking back to the unworldly atmospheric palettes once upon a time crafted by the Radiophonic Workshop. If out there on the extreme sonic spectrum is your bag, we reckon Antoni Robert’s aptly titled ‘the rancid and rooten breathing of the ominous beast’ might scratch that itch, not quite emerging from behind the veil rather more, shall we agree to say, the gatekeeper, very eerie and isolationist in design and altogether haunting and chilling in both delivery and effect.

Full track listing and reviews on the featured releases can be found here… http://www.vitalweekly.net/1091.html

…. while your actual sounds are here….

https://www.mixcloud.com/Vitalweekly/vital-weekly-1091/

some Mixing It archives, one featuring an interview with Bjork…….

https://www.mixcloud.com/ferdinandbeckett/radio-3-mixing-it-bjork-special-170302/

https://www.mixcloud.com/ferdinandbeckett/mixing-it-full-episode-fri-21st-july-2006/

…followed by a few archive Breezeblock sessions with Mary Ann Hobbs……feat Spiritualised, Radiohead and Coldcut….

https://www.mixcloud.com/georgeswift/spiritualized-breezeblock-mix-1998/

https://www.mixcloud.com/mrtrugoy/breezeblock-coldcut/

https://www.mixcloud.com/mrtrugoy/breezeblock-radiohead-11122000/

latest issue of the ever-excellent Tape Op magazine is available for inspection and indeed download here –

http://tapeop.com/issues/120/

…while you are there, hook up to the magazines latest downloadable podcast, features an interview with Matt Ross-Spang….. http://tapeop.com/podcasts/episode-6-matt-ross-spang

weird s*** time, ever cryptic, ever mysterious, the KLF have just communicated the following……

Liverpool: Welcome To The Dark Ages

The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu will have completed their The Twenty Three Year Moratorium on the 23rd of August 2017.

The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu will be marking this completion in a number of ways. Firstly with the publication of their novel 2023. 2023 will be published by Faber & Faber on the 23rd of August. All review copies will be delivered on or after that date. Secondly, over three days in the UK city of Liverpool, they will host:

Liverpool: Welcome To The Dark Ages. The three days are the 23rd, 24th and 25th of August 2017. The titles of each of these three days are:

Day One – Why Did The K Foundation Burn A Million Quid?

Day Two – 2023: What The Fuuk Is Going On?

Day Three – The Rites of MuMufication.

There will only be 400 tickets available. There are no guest lists. There are no press passes. Every one of the 400 ticket holders will be expected to be Volunteers.

WARNING: The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu in any of their various past, present or future guises will not be performing music. Tickets go on sale at 11.23am on July 23rd 2017.

Departed…..Chester Bennington…. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40676530

Smithy alert, this October sees the release of a mammoth expanded 5 lp box set of the Smiths’ finest hour ‘the queen is dead’ – this gathering includes a remastered take of the classic ’86 album, a disc of demos and alternative takes and a ‘live in Boston’ recording with the CD version getting you an additional DVD of the Derek Jarman ‘the Queen is Dead’ film….which features the video for ‘there is a light that never goes out’ which frankly (Mr Shankley) is the Marr / Morrissey star at its most ascendant point, pure class in short….

A fascinating resource providing an intimate personal insight, Stanford Libraries have just uploaded a mammoth catalogue of cassette recordings made by Allen Ginsberg, this vast collection features an array of interviews, conversations and recollections set across some 2000 plus tape recordings…. The archive can be accessed here … http://library.stanford.edu/blogs/digital-library-blog/2017/07/2000-audio-cassettes-allen-ginsberg-collection-now-streaming ….while there’s a rare conversation across an afternoon breakfast table between Ginsberg and William Burroughs here https://purl.stanford.edu/mp348nq1804

…..in which case, you’ll no doubt be very interested in this, on CD for the first time with a bonus disc of unreleased material, 1970’s ‘complete songs of innocence and experience’ gets the full remastering through the omnivore imprint, a youthful Ginsberg paying respects to William Blake…..here’s a brief little teaser in the shape of ‘the garden of love’……..

Not that we should be in need of an excuse to play the Knack’s ‘my sharona’ – but here’s something we spotted on a posting giving the low down on the songs back story – also features unreleased footage of the official video……

http://www.laweekly.com/music/the-story-of-the-knacks-my-sharona-and-the-real-life-romance-behind-the-song-8414267?curator=MusicREDEF

Something we managed to root out on you tube, a vintage zombie radio play from 1972 entitled ‘The Peoria Plague’…..

Interlude……pub rock / power pop and various odds n’ sods….…..brinsley Schwartz, dr feelgood, the pirates, the motors, Eddie and the hot rods, flamin groovies….

Brinsley Schwartz……

Dr Feelgood…..

The Pirates…..

The Motors….

Eddie and the Hot Roads…..

Flamin’ Groovies….

Only 50 of these hanging around and by all accounts flying fast on pre orders alone, mentioned a little while back here – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/06/26/the-gold-needles/ and here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/06/27/the-gold-needles-2/ – a strictly limited and privately pressed (the handiwork being done by the folk over at 345rpm) lathe cut by the Gold Needles…..excerpt of the lead out track can be found here https://soundcloud.com/user-88561080/josephine-sample – there will be further mentions for the Gold Needles tomorrow when we run the critical ear over a track they’ve contributed to a Monkees tribute album by the name ‘listen to the bands’.

More limited lathe loveliness, this time from Van Coeur who’ve just commissioned the folks over at 345rpm to hand cut just 10 copies of a rather a spiffing twin track seven inch that pairs together ‘the evil twin’ and ‘valley’. Both these cuts comes graced in a brooding huskiness, ‘the evil twin’ in particular emerging through a shadow forming fog, you can feel the breath of the in / exhaling melodies upon you, not so much macabre rather more bruised, head bowed as though a confessional as it skirts distantly around a sparsely hollowed motif that’s not a million miles from the Palace Brothers. ‘Valley’ walks a similarly tortured path, the weight of its burden almost crushing the melodies into a back breaking submission to pour forth a weariness that’s very much reminiscent of a ‘three’ era Black Heart Procession, stunning if you ask me. https://endless-records.bandcamp.com/album/the-evil-twin-valley

now we were going to mention at this point ‘country sleaze’ by goat girl, only on a quick rummage we managed to nab this, their latest, well incoming if you want to split hairs. Still we’ve included ‘country sleaze’ for pure listening love, let’s just say a particularly spiked PJ Harvey in cahoots with the Jim Jones Revue, Gallon Drunk and the Godfathers and leave it at that, pure primitive perfection. As to the latest, well this ‘un incidentally titled ‘crow cries’ is readying itself for rough trade release at the end of next month is cloaked in a deceptively mesmeric and darkly manifesting psychotropic ju-ju that had us much in mind of Kull as though trading notes with a very youthful Stealing Sheep.

I know I’ve said this before, probably to the point of sounding boring, but we really must do an extended catch up with not only, the blog that celebrates itself but also the unexplained sounds folk. Both imprints have since the turn of the year, been responsible for turning in a most formidable body of work that serves to better in terms of upping the creativity ante with each passing release. Latest from the former mentioned, finds their radar firmly pointed and surveying the mercurial kosmische sonic corridors of Stereolab. The compilation entitled ‘Stereolab in, Metronomic Underground Versions’ gathers together fifteen of the finest underground talent to pay homage to Gane and Co. while we clear the listening table in readiness for fuller review, hopefully over the weekend, here’s a rather special collaborative head to head pairing together Lake Ruth and the Listening Center in cahoots spraying kosmic magic dust aplenty upon ‘Monstre Sacre’ and into the bargain capturing perfectly that sense of retro vibed futuristic 60’s chic here deliciously haloed in an amorphous lounge noir fantasia which in truth, very much manoeuvres into terrains more commonly recalling the shadowy noir seduction of a very youthful Broadcast. https://soundcloud.com/lakeruth/monstre-sacre-stereolab-cover-with-listening-center and https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/stereolab-in-metronomic-underground-versions

Oh Lordy, here’s another the blog that celebrates itself selection that we appear to have missed in all the recent mail surge currently gridlocking our inbox and again another release that we will endeavour to revisit as soon as. Prior to the recent Stereolab tribute, subjects of desire where Spiritualized to whom 27 bands convened to pay respect courtesy of collection entitled ‘Spiritualized in other medications’ from off which we’ve honed upon Eric in the Kitchen. Indeed, you’d be right in thinking the selection was based purely on name alone and we wouldn’t offer any resistance in the pursuit of petty denial especially given their version of ‘step into the breeze’ is right on the button arriving here all blissfully toned and shimmered in shade adorning hazes of Velvets cool. That said a quick eye rifling check through the track listing also unearths the inclusion of Mega Dodo dudes the Orange Drop whose cover of ‘soul of fire’ might on early listening be worthy of the entrance price alone, which as it happens is zilch, the track itself, can we just say for now a soul gliding spiritual and leave it like that. https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/spiritualized-in-other-medications

….and while we are at it, latest release from Sao Paolo’s finest, literally only just appearing online, is a mammoth 28 track celebration of all that is good in pop world today except you were probably a little too lazy or else busy being told by certain printed publications that whatever and whoever were your latest favourite band to find for yourself. ‘Vacations Time’ aims to redress and reset your faith that the underground scene is as vibrant as its always been and that it’s not all about pointless reissues and sheep gathering bandwagon jumpers. For this very brief stop two cuts for your discerning earlobes, the first of which ‘shampoo’ by Bleach Bath might have, once upon a time in the early 90’s, found itself in a celebrated tug of war for affection from the likes of Creation, Wilde Club and Ultimate given its bruising shoegazed afterglow opines as though some previously forgotten studio conspiracy enacted upon by a youthful Catherine Wheel and Ride. On the other hand, Blue Bombay courtesy of ‘puzzle’ do a muscular oblivion staring variant of dream dazed bliss blistering psych that had they still been doing them, might well have found itself amid a plethora of kindred spirits vying for your undivided affection on one of those Northern Star ‘psychedelica’ compilations. https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/va-vacations-time

Hopefully over the weekend we’ll be smothering you with a selection of items that lucky punters attending the August sonic frivolities hosted by Fruits de Mer will receive in their now legendary goodie bag just for the turning up. If I recall rightly the bags will be stuffed with 9 CD’s featuring the wares of artists closely associated or at the very least, adored by the FdM community. For now, a brief smattering of delights to come. One such release being by Opel, whose brief existence in the 90’s resulted in a lone Bob Harris session for GLR, ‘the bough at Jacob’s rake’ collects together a wealth of previously unreleased material, showcased here by ‘253 (sunshine)’ – a wonderfully breezy and sun toned cutie grooved with a liltingly airy progressive folk phrasing which even appearing in the 90’s must have sounded as though it had woken up from some 70’s chemical haze and indeed something you could easily imagine causing a degree of swoon among the pre new wave / punk made over OGWT loving crowd, sure to appeal to those Curved Air loving folk among you.

With an album, back catalogue numbering in the 30’s, duo Suspirium craft out epic sound track voyages for silver screen sci-fi odyssey’s yet to be filmed, like futuristic ghost lights sucked in through apertures in the space time continuum, these visions of tomorrow echo to the panoramic Sensurround listening journeys once embarked upon by the mighty Tangerine Dream.

…of course, no stranger to these pages, Rob Gould is one of those rarefied and most mercurial of talents, his compositions reach far beyond the mere tokenist genre classifications of fashion for here sonic storyboards are delicately crafted and intricately weaved to provide a demurring palette of creativity that’s lush in both tone and turn whilst rewarding and mesmeric in listening delivery not to mention laced and threaded in a most becoming and engaging emotional courtship. Available for the first time on CD, ‘the sad robot delivered peace with himself’ provides for an exquisite masterclass in classicist conversation as exemplified by the teaser cut here ‘daybreak in the graveyard of the sentient robots’ a track so steeped in grace, poise and elegance it’ll leave you somewhat equally touched in wonder and wounding.

‘straight to Dave’ is a specially sprinkled CD compilation cobbled exclusively together for this happening by the NoMen, gathering up lost nuggets from various vault raids of tracks either forgotten, never released or ditched last minute in the cutting room, from it here’s ‘Woo Hoo’ – a 94 second frazzled slice of dayglo bubblegum all acutely fried, freaked and fired in a most delightfully off their chops schizoid way which may, in fact will cause some listeners episodes of mind expansiveness.

Fancy something a little, shall we say, woozy and trippy in a wonderfully vintage hippy dippy trippy 60’s way, here then is a little something from the recently reconvened Fast Cars with a track pulled from the FdM goody bag offering ‘rarebits’ this ‘un being the magically mellow and head mushrooming ‘the real thing’…….

We’ve had these popping on our listening list these last few weeks, so I guess as good a time as any to gather a few of them up for a mention. Courtesy of the Islington mill public access TV network or impaTV to give them there more recognised moniker, these dudes provide a sterling resource best described as, well I’ll tell you what we’ll leave the impaTV folk to describe it in their own words…..

‘Since 2015, IMPATV (Islington Mill Public Access TV) harness a unique visual aesthetic inspired by the defunct media of public access television, appropriating a lust for the odd and experimenting within. They combine obsolete and modern technology in order to broadcast and stream to you a plethora of weird and wonderful live music, performance and dance around the UK. As well as filming live events we like to stay true to our origins by providing a Public Access style platform for video production.’

What caught our earlobes though is their roving on location briefs which take in a formidable recording journal of some of the finest and dare we say, most experimental, interesting and out there bands currently swimming in the currents of underground….for now here are three of their recent band broadcasts…..

…. of course, Elephant House scarcely need introduction here, we’ve had the pleasure of featuring them around these here parts here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/02/28/elephant-house/ and https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/04/02/elephant-house-2/ – so settle back, take the weight off and for 16 minutes just bliss out in the company of their warping and woozy wonderland of mind fracturing mosaics……

…next up Lone Taxidermist, who will feature again, if not later in this missive, then certainly during the week sometime, are a most perplexing genre bending collective who without doubt probably deserve the descriptors – trippy, weird ear and out there more than any other band we’ve had the pleasure of hearing all year, to say they play with your head is an understatement, cross weaving a potently woozy palette that morphs and melts into a kaleidoscopic stew from a freeform playground of styles that dissolves elements of no wave, post punk, electronica, afrobeat, techno and mutant dance – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg…..

…last up for this brief visit, a recently recorded performance by the clearly barking Data Quack who judging by this first listening of their groove, ought to first and foremost be something that should have admirers of the foolproof projects community alarmingly smitten. What first had us reaching for our prized Henry Cow and This Heat platters for close comparisons soon starts to loosen up in a most head expansive way to incorporate dissolving dub dialects and the kind of wigged out waywardness that one might expect tripping from some late night head to head session that gathered the likes of Wizards of Twiddly, Volcano the Bear and the Inside Ov a Butchers Shop folk together…..

Take your time getting yourself ready and settled, this is one of those wow moments that’s liable to knock you off your listening perch. Now I must admit to being a tad disturbed that thus far, This is the Kit hasn’t enchanted and beguiled our listening space, I mean have we been asleep and missed several pages along the way. Better known to kith n’ kin as Bristollian Kate Stables, we literally stumbled upon ‘moonshine freeze’ by sheer accident literally within the last half hour and can openly admit we’ve been totally smitten. This cut comes pulled from a rough trade session, a thing of fleeting beauty its intricate threading mooching and murmuring a most mesmeric folk spell craft that sound wise manages to find a shadowy spot, (and you may well scratch your heads here thinking we’ve taken a knock to the senses), PJ Harvey, Stereolab (c. Sound Dust), Broadcast and Vashti Bunyan.

The Vashti references are more apparent on her latest single ‘hotter colder’ – a track culled from her recently released ‘moonshine freeze’ set, a copy of which we must nail as soon as for fear of combustion of some form, something which I minded to say ought to be high on the radar of those Susan Christie and Linda Perhacs admirers among you.

A three-way split showcasing recent platters from the ghost box, polytechnic youth and connected view sound houses is the order of play on the latest pull the plug airing, a bit like being summoned to a 70’s school science lab I’m even wearing my super-duper digital watch with matching psychedelicised tank top for this edition which in case you are taking notes is #322. Opens with some wonderfully wonky Vic Mars grooviness before going all eerily dreamy and Radiophonically spooky with a trippily freaky foursome of Focus Group happenings which for the best part sound like a cut up collage of transistor dial shuffling. Up next, rewilding heading out – we think – of the connected view collective with two tracks of such serene vintage daydream you might be forgiven for thinking you’d dozed off momentarily only to awake in some cosmic woodland, the second track, incidentally titled ‘balloon ride’ sounding a lot like a lovelorn Plone feverishly rustling up lovenotes to ISAN. The set draws to a close with something old and something new from the Polytechnic Youth folk, the newie being an incoming happening from an eagerly awaited full length from Morphoex courtesy of ‘UFO’ which I do believe we mentioned in recent dispatches – here in fact – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/morphoex/ and the oldie, a nifty slice of demurring nocturnal kosmische drift space (think the Superimposers donning lunar suits for some lilting astral lounge) from Listening Center in the form of ‘town of tomorrow’ from his recently re-released and pressed to vinyl ‘example one’ set https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/pull-the-plug-20th-july-2017/

We told you or should that be warned or perhaps threatened you, that we’d be back with further lone taxidermist groove, fear not their latest single is being prepped for later inclusion, for now though, they pop up on a rather essential cassette set being put out by the Anti Ghost Moon Ray folk who it’s been a while since we last mentioned. This tape release is aid of the excellent work being done by various charities through the nation and beyond, with all profits being donated accordingly, volume 1 gathered monies for the sterling work done by Médecins Sans Frontières. Volume 2 of ‘Annual General Meeting Record’ is a gathering of 14 cutting edge artists drawn from US, UK and Russian territories, us being typically time poor have honed in on just five selections guaranteed to adore your discerning listening ear, the first of which is by Rosemary’s a Blackberry who on ‘play or pay’ manage to create an affectionately amorphous and ethereal out of body flutterby swooned in ghostly whispers and mind morphing mosaics. I’m fairly certain we’ve featured I speak machine in earlier dispatches, crafted on what appears to be an airless platform, the ghost lit spectral ‘blood from a stone’ is seductively shadowed in an eerie noir phrasing which once passing through its initial entrance soon assumes an ice-cold dance trembled in folk toned mysterios etched in entrancing sinister sophisticated apparitions. Those of you preferring your listening space seduced in elegiac hymnal kisses might do well to hook up to ‘these lands’ by Anneka, a heavenly visitation softly swooned and adored the otherworldly embrace of cascading chorals while Nick Sutton’s ‘prayer’ rounds out matters, as the title might initially suggest or give rise to hint, a celestial visitation is upon you bathing you in a brilliantine radiance as the slo-mo curvatures of the symphonic arcs softly arrest and serenade to provide a dream toned masterclass in compositional control and discipline. Lest we forget, that aforementioned Lone Taxidermist cut, ‘red kiss’ be its name, from what sounds initially like some orgasmic ritual emerges a most delightful sonic sore thumb whose ancestral reach nods to the Slits and the Au Pairs, yet whose creative crookedness and impishness finds its parental line much owing to …and the native hipsters and the lemon kittens…. https://antighostmoonray.bandcamp.com/album/annual-general-meeting-record-vol-2

Interlude……easy listening and mellow melodies……. Elias Rahbani, tonio Rubio, bothhands free, Brian Bennett, the roger web sound, Pierre Cavalli, Francis Monkman, Brian Bennett and Alan Hawkshaw…..

Elias Rahbani……