Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping…
Transmission 37.0…. w/e 17/09//2017
Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind….
… opening grooves ….
Raymond Scott ….
…features ….
Morgen Wurde, the Maharajas, the Chemistry Set, EΛEVEN, Harald Grosskopf & Eberhard Kranemann, squadron scramble, Raymond Scott, carl stanning, analogue trance, Daniel Carlson, Justyn Rees, john peel, pink Floyd, the séance, resident advisor, Michael Bonaventure, sister of your sunshine vapour, the pink elephants, the red daggers, Pete international airport, septimus keen, melmoth the wanderer, john carpenter, john 3:16, lapis exilis, those unfortunates, the bordellos, ysgol sul, blancmange, ma’at and Sekhmet, orchestral manoeuvres in the dark, chemistry set, wooden arms, honey harper, lilikoi, seafang, ocean party, Florence Reynaud, Simon mccorry, henri Herbert and the fury, Ursula bogner, kosmonaut, terry malts, kids on a crime spree, even as we speak, the detox twins …
We’ve struggled to find as perfect a way to open this Sunday account that this, a track lifted from the latest set to escape the Californian based Time Released Sound & Time Sensitive Materials sound house. By Morgen Wurde, this is ‘forgiveness’ from a rather exquisitely intimate reading entitled ‘Assassinous Act’. As ever strictly limited in nature and available in two variants, the standard CD version in a 100 only edition and the deluxe art set – just 50 of those. By way of a little background here, the label describes the release thus, ‘the thirteen tracks here take us through the conception of the crime, to the actual acting out of it, and beyond to a final redemption and reckoning of sorts. With his two “accomplices”, Maria Estrella Aggabao and Georges-Emmanuel Schneider, he has indeed provided us with a fitting soundscape to this evocative release!’. As said it’s ‘forgiveness’ that’s somewhat held our hearts a siege, divinely demurred, action and consequence are engaged in deliberation, both squaring on opposing sides, between them weighing the scales, reflection. Its counsel casting a moment of peaceful consideration, the effect ethereal approaching celestial and unworldly, is sighed by the mesmeric murmur of serenely spectral dream draped overtures and hymnal grace falls, as beautifully poised, classically caressed and crafted not to mention, spiritually attuned as you’ll hope to find outside of the Dead Can Dance canon. https://timereleasedsound.bandcamp.com/album/assassinous-act
Ripped this off the Shindig site, this stunning shadow stalker is the lead cut from a forthcoming full length heading out of the low impact sound bunker by the Maharajas, this ‘un going by the name ‘you can’t beat youth’. In short, a twang-a-rella garage beat spectre that aside rearing up like a lost Estrus gem, sounds like a forgotten 60’s apparition with Joe Meek perched on its shoulder in need of a suitably seedily cool chic retro noir Tarantino flick with which to adore.
Those nice folk over a Fruits de Mer have just sneaked a teaser video that features the rather spiffing and head shrooming lead out track from the Chemistry Set’s forthcoming 7 inch EP. Mentioned here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/08/09/the-chemistry-set-6/ in previous dispatches, ‘lovely cuppa tea’ is your classically psychedelicised slice of English eccentrica, a kaleidoscopic carnival colourfully fried and flipped by a lysergic procession of Barrett, Small Faces, Blur and Dukes of Stratosphear types.
Starts out kissed with the classical sigh of Shady Bard and Swimmer One haunting its grooves, this is heading out of fierce panda – been too long since we heard from those folks, this be Wooden Arms with a forthcoming entitled ‘lost in your own home’. One of those tracks that it’s safe to say is a bit of a slow burner, at each turn shifting up a notch then pulling back, all the time deceptively drawing you in by sleight of hand cloaking you with its chamber noir tipped intimacy, the lolloping flurries soon sharpening in intensity and turbulence to weave a gloriously emotion sapping finale.
I’m thinking we’ve fallen off the Emotional Response mailing list, bugger. How do we know, well it seems the blighters have been releasing nuggets left, right and centre, all of which have thus far dipped beneath our usually acute radar. Happy to report that we nailed this one down for inspection, by terry malts this is the adorably addictive ‘surgical lights’ as remixed by mike butler. A Velvets’ shades adorned Ramones-esque fuzz bomb coiled in effervescently fidgeting glam buzz saws shimmered in fizzy power popped 50’s teen thrilled bubble grooves. https://soundcloud.com/emotional-response-2/03-surgical-lights-mike-butler-mix-1
Is it the sighing slides, the crestfallen croons or the overall aches that courses throughout this vulnerable gem that just makes you want to throw a consoling arm around it for support. This heart heavy crushed country number goes by the name ‘pharaoh’, it’s by Honey Harper – a track pulled from an EP entitled ‘universal country’ heading out of Arbutus imprint, one we suggest that should find a neat spot in your record collection sitting next to your prized Low Anthem stash, guarantee there’ll not be a dry eye in the gaff once this reaches the end groove.
Okay I’ll be perfectly honest with you, the press release isn’t promising, something about people talking to the ocean population and this being from the perspective of the fish. Indeed, but it is late in the evening and in truth this ticked so many boxes not least because we were quite smitten by the softly stirred seduction afoot here, that fusing of woozy world song and whale song opines atop a distractively dreamy and sleepy headed melodic murmur all had us suitably lulled. Add in some subtle soft psych washes towards the end and that overall sense of at peace and at one gospel ghosting and you have something slyly tasty, all of which before we round off matters, we’d better tell you it’s by Lilikoy Mananas and goes by the name ‘iamwhatiam’. https://soundcloud.com/lilikoymananas/iamwhatiam?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=lilikoy_mananas_to_release_dreamy_indie_track_iamwhatiam&utm_term=2017-09-09
By way of a wee apology, mainly due to a slight error relating to a recent posting which we’ll remedy a little later, here’s a plethora of swinging indie peaches from those emotional response folk, first up of which is a newie from Seafang. Of course, those of you with something of a ‘hang on didn’t you mention them previously’ type instant recall, then consider yourselves winners of the rarely awarded spotters badge, for we did mention them, somewhere here in fact – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/08/30/seafang/ – anyhow this is their latest, it be called ‘solid gold’. In short, a sky blazing C-86 shimmer tone effervescently bliss bathed in the most distressingly infectious siren signing riffage beneath which adorned in shades the soft hazy adoring of 60’s sun bleached harmonies woo and weave to a radiant tapestry that imagines a love in between Lush and the Primitives.
Staying with Emotional Response, two tracks of note from the latest Ocean Party full length ‘Beauty Point’. Judging from the note attaching to this ‘un, seems the Emotional Response folk are a tad smitten with this release. A curious album all said, that sweetly shifts through moments of lightness to a withdrawn introspection interspersed with, as on the parting ‘cracked and shattering’, slow thawing gems that unfurl from twinkling tropes of hope into softly euphoric cloud peeling magisterial feel good nuggets. Of course, ‘quality control’ is no slacker in the affection stakes, caught as it is in a moment of casual head in the clouds dizziness and featuring some niftily twanged fretwork, it’s easy on the ear mellow rubbing betraying a warming soulful motif peppered in tropical trimmings.
Just time to sneak in another Emotional Response gem, this one popped up on our player and near clean knocked us off our listening perch. Teasingly brief as it might be, this is ‘Catwalk’ by Florence Raynaud from a recent three track 7 inch entitled ‘Singes’. Now maybe it’s just me, but this has the curious kind of playfulness as to suggest Laetitia Sadier sneaking out of a late 90’s Stereolab recording session soiree and into the bracing winter’s night air with Mary Hansen for a spot of sonic colluding with Pram in order to cut oddly affectionate slices of smokily chic sparsely wired chamber pop.
We’re a tad annoyed at ourselves here, thus far we’ve managed to overlook an album that’s been somewhat marooned on our hard drive. By Simon McCorry, who some of you might well recognise more familiarly as Amonism, the album ‘blue’ – incidentally heading out of the close recording imprint, is awash with a chamber scoring whose neo classical craft, aside being sublimely poised and deeply intimate, finds a sensitive passage hidden well away from the bright lights and bluster of modern pop and from that safe haven, intrinsically attunes and genteelly aligns itself to the very pulse of nature. From that collection, this is a short film directed by Will Simpson to accompany ‘Invocation I’. In short, its ten-minute duration offers a chance to escape, for here caught upon a twilight mooring, the ghost like passing of a daybreak fog softly moves across the landscape, a silent gesture heralding a new dawn, beneath its clearing a beautified scene of a sleepy headed woodland slowly stretching to wake from its slumber. The delicately genuflecting hush of the processed cello motifs usher forth an eerily timeless cycle of majestic calm, the melodies frosted are sculptured in an alluring emotional tenderness, what first passes for rustic mournfulness, is rather more a moment of undisturbed beauty freeze framed. The overall effect is at once as graceful and poetic as it is evocative and entrancing.
No links on this just yet (tell a lie – we’ve just sourced a link on yoo tube), but it’s safe to say this has been burning holes in our sound player all night. The mighty Henri Herbert here with the Fury, ‘live at gypsy hotel’ their debuting full length is a live recording capturing this force of nature in all his untamed glory from a performance earlier this year at London’s Gypsy Hotel – like where else. If I didn’t know any better I’d have said this dude had been exchanging contracts with ol’ Nick at the crossroads and into the bargain teaching him a thing or two about ripping up a fire storm. This cat is possessed, a cut loose Jerry Lee Lewis with the scorched feral scowl of a youthful Elvis cutting indecently primitive flame hot boogie woogie, fear not we will be coming back to this, but let’s just say worthy of the entrance fee alone just to hear him decimating Little Walter’s ‘it ain’t right’ – a frantically savage train wrecking slab of brutal boogie – totally off the scales. Featured here though the raw n’ scalped white hot tension wire teetering stalking preacher growling ‘raze hell’.
I’ll be totally honest in saying that this wasn’t on the evenings listening to do list, but so mesmerised and curious at its back story it felt like an itch you couldn’t scratch. These are rare recordings pulled from an archive of tapes featuring electronic recordings composed by Ursula Bogner. This archive came to light in recent years, its author alas dying in 1994, was largely unknown crafting these recordings as something of a curious hobbyist. Without putting to finer a point on things, ‘Atmosphärische Energie’ a track taken from a recently released three suite set entitled ‘winkel pong’ through the faitiche imprint, is very much revealing of an artist attuned to the varying forms of the electronic disciplines, of course Raymond Scott and the Barron’s immediately scream from the track, the former’s playful childlike lullaby patterns moulded upon the latter’s minimalist analogue / futurist sounds. Yet scratch a little deeper and the classicist eye of Derbyshire and the pulsing cold war tech of the Berlin School peer from the shadows to craft an after dark magic land of sinister syncopating sound of a clock working toybox army eerily marching while prying eyes rest sleepily. https://soundcloud.com/user-749010250/atmospharische-energie
more information and sound clips about / by Ursula Bogner here …. http://www.faitiche.de/index.php?article_id=9
now I wasn’t expecting this to be this special. Be honest, something drops by you by a band called Kosmonaut, its name ‘misfits on the horizon’, already in your mind’s ear, if like me, you are conjuring images of cosmic beardiness and that’s even before you’ve happened upon a chance to hear a single chord. However, what you’re not preferred for are the hazy dappling’s of trippily laid back sun burns escaping from its grooves and colouring your listening space in seafaring hazes of lazy eyed lilts. If the promise of all the above ticks your listening box, then we suggest you partake of the parting shot ‘your day in the sun’ because I don’t mind saying this sounds as though its tuned its receivers to the 90’s whilst stowing away for a merry jaunt on the psychedelic boat to Monsterism Island, for breezy hints of a debut album era Toshack Highway, a smidgeon of the Paris Angels, Jumbo, My Jealous God and ‘star’ era Primal Scream all flicker and blur in the tropical Balearic glow of this affectionate gem. That said those fancying something sounding as though it wears its Bus Stop, Summershine and pre-Oasis Creation hearts on its sleeve, might do well to check out the coolly smoking west coast drifted power pop purr of opener ‘silver star’ which in truth had us with half an inkling to root out our prized platters by the High and those early outings by the Trashcan Sinatras. A release which all said wouldn’t look to out of place sitting aside that rather spiffing Snails set from last year. https://kosmonaut01.bandcamp.com/album/misfits-on-the-horizon
….and back with Emotional Response, yes, I know we’ve featured them enough already, but they do have a rather dandyish ear candy release roster going on at the moment, so who could blame me. Anyway this is the one that we mentioned in earlier dispatches and got somewhat muddled with who was doing what – see here he days embarrassingly https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/terry-malts-2/ – what we failed to say or indeed notice, was that this particular outing is a split happening between Terry Malts and Kids on a Crime Spree, basically the review is the same just substitute KoaCS for TM – phew – think we managed to sneak that one in before anyone noticed eh? Anyhow two tracks apiece, the other Kids on a Crime Spree sortie incidentally, being the rather wonderfully addictive ‘the saddest time of the year’ whose quickly drilled strutting impatience prods and pokes at the heart heavy sweetheart sitting in the corner mournfully reflecting. A Christmas song no less, is it really that time of the year already with the marooned and distressed 50’s styled teen angst opines and abrupt stricken strums sounding to these ears like a youthful Ariel Pink in cahoots with Another Sunny Day. Terry Malts on the other hand stumps up two devilish nuggets in the shape of ‘cheap mimicry’ and ‘off my back’ – the former a surging power pop gem replete with acutely dayglo’d spikey fringes which the label folk merrily cite a definite Buzzcocks vibe being afoot throughout, which yea I can see, but I’m more minded to point you in the direction of Robert Lloyd. The ridiculously infectious ‘off the back’ on the other hand is punch you out pure punked pop that pogoes out of the grooves whilst adorned in its finest Ramones finery. https://emotional-response-recs.bandcamp.com/album/our-love
…and so, to the last for now – this missive at least, from emotional response, time for something very special. First recordings since 1993, this is the recently reformed Even as we Speak. Was there ever a more perfect band to grace the much-missed Sarah imprint way back in the day. A band with the ability to make you smile through tears, their songs shone with the innocence of youth – hang up’s, crushes an all, told through a melodic prism that fizzed with ear candy effervescence. As said ‘the black forest’ EP features their first recordings in over twenty years, the five-track set headed up by ‘Clouds’ – I mean what can we say, one for the Melys adorers among you, there’s a breathless tug afoot here, its disarming quiet reflection teased with a breezy casualness whose feint distractive tones woo with a softly mellowed murmur that gently stings with slow fused seduction. https://emotional-response-recs.bandcamp.com/album/the-black-forest
Here’s the band in conversation with Sydney’s FBI radio ……
http://www.evenaswespeak.com/peel-sessions-interview-fbi-radio/
literally dropped over at polytechnic youth just now, this is one of the sides taking up residency on a limited 111 lathe 7 inch pressing by the Detox Twins entitled ‘I’m not available’. Typically, chilled in the labels trademark austere retro futuro electronische grooving, this coolly chic slab of remote binary blip hop melds the dark subterranean industrial eye of Front 242 with the aloofly minimalist and isolationist tech of Salon Boris and Client albeit with a heavy infusion of Miss Kitten, essential I’m thinking. https://vorderhaus.bandcamp.com/track/im-not-available
getting a tad daft now, would you believe, we had our evening listening list all sorted this morning, it’s been the first time we’ve been this organised in an age. The best laid plans however have a knack of unravelling fast, especially if like me, while listening to one thing you are having a little nose over the cyber fence to see if anything is hiding in the shadows, say for instance this ‘un. This be the excellently named Sisters of your Sunshine Vapor who I’m sure were being prepped for feature but with an altogether different track from this. Anyhow this is ‘see you in the morning’ – trust me this is going to blow minds. Starts out very old school Earlies all sleepy headed shimmering spectral pulsars soon mushrooming with slick stealth into cosmically haloed soft psych ripples of Doors-ian smokiness which reference wise in recent memory at least, had us much minded of the cult of free love, before setting the dials for wow and going all trippily spiritual and lysergically gospel blues in a kind of Spiritualized slyly retracing their Spacemen 3 steps. Stunning in a word.
Time, I think, to slow matters to something of a murmur. This one has been hitting the spot since appearing in our listening orbit earlier this evening, just what you need as the night wraps itself around the days end. This is the first of a brace of tracks sent to us via a message from / and featuring a certain Peter McNestry. The first of which by the Pink Elephants who I’m fairly certain we’ve mentioned in passing previously, quite sure they never sounded this mellow for this is a forthcoming cut entitled ‘blue high’. By the looks of things, the first taste from a possible new album titled ‘psychic mirrors’, this one is a sub 10 minute astral ride rippled in a divinely teased crystalline dream draped contouring all dappled in dissipating demurs emitting trip toning oceanic sprays, the effect is quite mesmeric and blissful not to say very much recalling of Manual albeit celestially adored in chiming crystal tipped Cathedral-esque cascades and very much in awe of the Church https://thepinkelephants1.bandcamp.com/album/psychic-mirrors
Peter McNestry also features as part of the Red Daggers who’ve a new 6 track EP set just out entitled ‘early grave’ from off which the opening title track has been casting long shadows around our listening gaff. Steeled in an austere chill and ghosted in a darkly grooved post punk edginess that sounds as though its fallen from a Peel radio transmission c. 1980, the hollowing ‘early grave’ is icily petrified in a doomy toning the kind of which imagines Joy Division refracted through the sinister eye of a ‘mask’ era Bauhaus. All said we suggest you fast track to the end grooving ‘the corridor’, with its hints of a youthful Sisters of Mercy and the March Violets playing trick or treat amid its sparsely fragile framing, there’s a paranoiac disturbia unfolding within. https://thereddaggers.bandcamp.com/album/early-grave
you might want to skin up a fat one for this next ‘un, more head expanding happenings from the essential taste making sound house that is Eggs in Aspic. Again, another must have strictly limited cassette issue, this time in an edition of 50 by Pete International Airport, the alter ego of Dandy Warhols’ Peter G. Holmström. ‘Safer with the Wolves’ his solo debut features a plethora of guest appearances, take your pick from Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Black Angels, Daydream Machine, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Dark Horses and Hopewell. If that doesn’t get you going ga-ga them maybe you ought to partake in the mind shrooming psych smoke of the uber trippy and hushed ‘flowers of evil’. This ghost walker descends like some orphaned cosmic visitation, out of time, out of step and out there and which to a hazily permeating mystic earth beat snakes and prowls with a ghost like purring its trail dissolving in its passing that at times strays into terrains once occupied by the much missed Beatglider. https://eggsinaspic.bandcamp.com/album/safer-with-the-wolves
Think I’m right in saying that this is the flip cut you’ll find strapped in to the b-side of that ultra-limited outing by The Detox Twins for Polytechnic Youth. ‘Lights and faces, faces and lights’ be its name, as previously, its ageless analogue awareness acquired and spooled from first generation electro tech off cuts sourced from Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode all rewired, remodelled and upgraded onto a deliciously seedy simulated underworld that throbs and pulses to the melodic hive mind of Minty. In our books, kind of makes it essential. https://vorderhaus.bandcamp.com/track/lights-and-faces-faces-and-lights
Happening upon the lair of Septimus Keen, Melmoth the Wanderer carefully sets down his canvas bag of curios. With the sun descending, he rests for a while upon a weathered patch of a glooming glade, there he slowly empties the contents. With the care, a father would bestow upon his child, he arranges the objects one by one in a secretive formation. The sun is almost done for the day, shadows begin to stretch, as they do, the landscape takes on an eerily unfamiliar form. As night begins to fold its cloak and with prying eyes no more, the mysterious wanderer sets about conjuring his magic craft in re-animating Septimus Keen’s once laid to rest ‘wake the wood’. The visitation called to life, eerily stirs, solemnly chilled and august in a dread countenance. Beneath its touch a foreboding disquiet looms, from its mouth an age-old dread calls forth forging a passage between reality, dream and nightmare. You have been warned. https://septimuskeen.bandcamp.com/track/wake-the-wood-shadows-mix
The kind of trip-a-delic happening you’d have one time or another, imagined ripe for release by the likes of Manimal or Lo recordings and perhaps further back still, to the uber crucial Italo imprint Shado. Here’s a wee sneak peek at the sumptuous strangeness afoot in the Hologram Teen sound house at the moment, this being a preview track from her forthcoming Polytechnic Youth outing ‘between the funk and the fear’, this one entitled ‘God(d) Of Thunder Vs. Sukia’. A fuzzily floaty mushrooming mosaic, weirdly woozy and zonked out, a cosmic forest land of magical adventure turned on by dreamy dissipates of 80’s echoes fractured and fried through the smokey third eye of the ambient arm of the Magic Mushroom Band and the Ozric Tentacles as though refracted and moulded by the playful touch of Lemon Jelly, themselves having commandeered a surreal sail boat and setting a course for Monsterism Island. https://soundcloud.com/hologramteen/04-god-d-of-thunder-vs-sukia/s-qPtGz
Look, before you all start saying, yea a killer track but it’s been out for about a year and we are oh so over it, another of those now how did we miss this first time of asking moments. This is Elevenrus or maybe even EΛEVEN, it’s all very confusing, anyhow they are a duo hailing from the Russian Federation, a territory of the world we really must feature more artists from, if only they’d get in touch. This is ‘ Välk’ of which waxing lyrical might be a little difficult for us at present, given we are busily trying to peel our swooning tongue from the floor, safe to an ice sculptured celestial eternal, utterly beguiling and enchanting, the kind of sweet ethereal visitation which aside taking equal measures of the Knife, Goldfrapp, Mum and EMA and stirring them into a most amorphous and attractive seductive spell craft, touches with something approaching heavenly. https://soundcloud.com/eleventiiukiik/valk
A brace of tasters from a forthcoming reworked archive set by John Carpenter. ‘movie themes 1974 to 1998’ out via sacred bones next month, is a gathering Carpenter’s finest moments right back from where it all started with ‘dark star’ all the way through to 98’s ‘Vampires’ in between stopping off at ‘Halloween’, ‘the Thing’. ‘they live’ and ‘Christine’ – which featured here, is accompanied by a newly reshot video that opens with a nod to the infamous ‘show me’ moment before panning to the blood lusting Plymouth Fury toying with a distressed female motorist, the scene almost aping the death of moochie welch scene, at the end revealing the man himself at the wheel. Also featured the snarling gnarled retweaked ‘in the mouth of madness’ Mr Carpenter is shortly heading out on a stateside tour dates as follows ….
John Carpenter North American live dates:
Oct 29: Las Vegas, NV @ The Joint at Hard Rock Casino
Oct 31: Los Angeles, CA @ Hollywood Palladium
Nov 2: Anaheim, CA @ City National Grove
Nov 4: San Francisco, CA @ The Warfield
Nov 5: Santa Cruz, CA @ The Catalyst
Nov 7: Maplewood, MN @ Myth Live
Nov 9: Chicago, IL @ Aragon Ballroom
Nov 10: Detroit, MI @ El Club
Nov 12: Toronto, ON @ The Danforth Music Hall
Nov 13: Montreal, QC @ Metropolis
Nov 15: Boston, MA @ Royale
Nov 16: New York, NY @ Terminal 5
Nov 18: Philadelphia, PA @ The Trocadero
Nov 19: Syracuse, NY @ The Palace Theatre
Many thanks to John 3:16 for sending this over, a little something he features on by Lapis Exilis courtesy of a track entitled ‘sadness’. Now this really is furiously hitting all the buttons at once, definitely one to file in the slow to burn category, the coldwave / darkwave / industrial tags might be a bit deceiving alas for what you have here bookended by the locked grooved grizzling intro / outros is something that bitter sweetly blossoms with the kind of strickening symphonic gracefall that we here were put squarely in mind of a thoughtfully introspective Steven Wilson retracing the ghosts of his former self and the early work of Porcupine Tree. https://soundcloud.com/john316john/lapis-exilis-feat-john-316-sadness
I’m getting a tad alarmed, what with cassette store day looming next month and scant mention of it here, mainly due to the fact that we’ve had little, hang on … make that … no press releases announcing happening tunes pressed on ferric tape, except that is, this one. Much admired around these parts, those unfortunates are set to round out the year with the release of the 7-track cassette ‘In Lavender and other stories’. Released on midnight bell, it’s a set slyly peppered with gems for the taking, much like a Sarah echo, those unfortunates’ rainy afternoon waltzes strum and sting with the bitter sweet sigh of the Wedding Present, hillfields and Decoration, the fact not least evidenced better than on ‘in lavender’ which with its thoughtful reflection wearily hanging heavy shuffles effervescently through a haze of what if’s and might have’s. somewhere else ‘druid lane’ is kissed with a distractively 60’s beat pop phrasing that to these ears sounds not unlike a slightly ragged Small Faces. Have to admit ‘woodlouse’ has been pinging the earlobes, a woozily lazy eyed day dreamer replete with opining riffs and a wonky soft psych casualness that put us in mind of a ‘gigglegoo’ era Freed Unit in cahoots with Giant Paw. Mind you ‘mirror’ isn’t far behind it in terms of affection, its detuned off kilter lolloping persona pitching its peculiar tent somewhere by clinic and next to the soft hearted scientists. ‘fountayne road’ brings matters back to a more strum roving brittleness, blighter almost had me in half a mind to dig out my prized lupen crook goodies for reacquaintance. Any questions then?
The band are incidentally, about to head out on a short tour, dates as follows ….
13th October 2017 – The Jazz Bar, Edinburgh
14th October 2017 – The Admiral Lord Rodney, Colne, Lancs
21st October 2017 – The Islington, London
Those fancying their heads being messed up with some devilishly delightful Dadaist Dusseldorf by way of Detroit and back Kraut-tech might well fancy the playful antics being brewed by the hive mind union of Messrs Harald Grosskopf & Eberhard Kranemann. This is the ridiculously infectious ‘Ou Tchi Gah‘ from their recently released ‘Krautwerk’ set for the esteemed bureau b. Omitting the jabs it ought to come pre-packed with, a necessary safety precaution to ward off its rash forming hypnotic ways, this kooky kosmische funk bug pilots a futuristic head trip whose clock working rhythmic pulsars purr with the metronomic minimalism of classic Kraftwerk atop of which sits a mechanical playground of trippy train sets and rock em sock ‘em robots operated by an impish gathering of Yello, Trio and Flying Lizards types.
The duo are set to step forth onto British shores for several key note appearances, the tour dates as follows ….
23rd September 2017 UK-Liverpool – International Festival of Psychedelia
3rd October 2017 UK-Oxford – The Bullingdon
4th October 2017 UK-Brighton – Patterns
5th October 2017 UK-London – The Jazz Cafe
7th October 2017 UK-Stockton on Tees – The Regency Room
8th October 2017 UK-Glasgow – Broadcast
9th October 2017 UK-Leicester – Dryden Street Social
We are loving this so much in our gaff at the moment, new thing from Squadron Scramble who you might recall featured on that recent, and sadly final, ‘bleed out’ compilation put out by the Soft Bodies folk. This be ‘parallax’, a ten track twinkle toning collection of lunar drift kosmische, something that’s as sure to appeal to admirers of ISAN as it is to fans of god is an astronaut, the former mentioned instantly recalled on the lilting orbital lullaby that is the breathlessly alluring ‘rover’ with its modular music box murmurs seductively in serene formation dispatching radiant love notes from the centre of its centrifugal core. Pressing itself in our affections, the purring pulsar that is ‘robotic engine mill’ is kissed with a noir-ish Faltermayer persona that’s sun scorched by the occasioning of impacting solar bursts that had us much minded of a youthful Victories at Sea. For us though best moment comes with the passing of ‘delta wing’, a would be last transmission from a dying star, a mournfully beautified cosmic waltz summoning up all its wherewithal for one last moment in the galactic night sky before fading into the long sleep. All said those of you with a thing for classic 80’s sounding sky siren stratospherics might be well advised to strap in for the warp driving space ride ‘Bell XI’, very Eat Lights Become Lights unless I’m very much mistaken and nothing wrong with that last time I checked I should add. https://squadronscramble.bandcamp.com/
Many thanks to Brian of the Bordellos for giving us the heads up for the latest rescued from the vaults ‘underground tape’. This be volume 8 in the continuing series of rare archive recordings by the Bordellos, featured here four lo-fi sore thumbs that glare and glower from the darkness of pop’s outsider realm, the set opening to the scuffed swing of ‘the plague’ which aside featuring some seriously sleazed out beardy stoned fuzz riffola laid atop a vacant and disconnected pulsar rhythm, has St Helen’s finest picking away at the scabs with a pathological vibe that snakes to a darkening edginess grizzled in disquiet and futility. Recorded for Neil Crud’s Tudno FM show, we’ve mentioned ‘die by the radio’ in passing somewhere around here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/the-bordellos-29/ – still sounds to these ears crushed with reflective melancholy, the kind of blistering they pride themselves upon these days. Not sure why that each and every time ‘stop killing yourself’ has reared into ear view this very evening that we feel compelled to dig out God is my co-pilot grooves, in truth the kind of thing that the much-missed guided missile folk used to kick out at an alarming rate once upon a time, all scowling rough around the edges discordant garage beat boogie. ‘dead bunny’ rounds out the pack though not before detuning your listening space in all manner of impishly frayed waywardness, did someone say Half Japanese. https://bordellos.bandcamp.com/album/the-bordellos-underground-tape-vol-8
You’d be right in thinking that we’ve totally given up on our intended playlist feast for the evening, it seems we can’t move for tasty turntable treats presently, it’s all getting a tad distressing. Latest on the inspection block Welsh trio Ysgol Sul, who are about to self-release their first collection of English language songs later this month with the appearance of ‘Eventide’. From that set, this is the simply sublime ‘elsewhere’ – hell’s teeth this is good, think of a bruised hope yearning and youthful Paul Simpson from the Wild Swans fronting some studio gathering of Hillfields and the Church types, a stressless softly purring arrow to the heart demurred in shoegazey / dream popped vapour kisses, the kind of thing Kitchens of Distinction used to do with such casual ease I shouldn’t wonder. https://soundcloud.com/ysgol-sul/elsewhere
New from Blancmange, well Neil Arthur at least, here saddled up to Benge whose found co-opted in for production duties. This is the frost cut futur-noir of ‘Anna Dine’ a track peeled from a forthcoming full length entitled ‘unfurnished rooms’, a coolly chilled ghost light whose glacially swathed panoramic retro phrasing is adored with an early 80’s time stamp that sits somewhere between John Foxx and Bill Nelson.
Tour dates as follows ….
‘Unfurnished Rooms’ UK Tour:
5 Oct – Brighton, Concorde 2
6 Oct – London, 229
19 Oct – Southend, Chinnery’s
20 Oct – Southampton, 1865
25 Oct – Darwen, Library
26 Oct – Newcastle, Boiler Shop
27 Oct – Edinburgh, La Belle Angele
28 Oct – Glasgow, Audio
2 Nov – Bristol, The Fleece
4 Nov – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
https://soundcloud.com/blancmange/anna-dine-1
I find it very distressing to note that only 29 people have thus far, tuned into this hidden gem, not even sure whether it’s commercially available. But we do love the neo classical pastoral flurries softly tumbling and cascading throughout, the percussive freestyle patterns awkwardly distracting a curiously playful and impish sound path of their own, as though a naughty child having given up on following its genteel contours and instead deciding to stamp and stammer on in its own defiant way. And while the two integral ingredients thus described, might sound at odds and unworkable, do instead forge a strange symmetrical chemistry that’s quite alluring. This is ‘mysterious cells’ by Ma’at & Sekhmet, something we feel that ought to appeal to those of you familiar and smitten with the output of the foolproof projects folk. https://soundcloud.com/sekhmet-maat/mysterious-cells
interlude …. pretending to see the future …. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark ….
… prompted by a feature appearing on the online electronic sound blog about a petition to re-instate the red telephone box the subject of OMD’s ‘red frame white light’ – go here https://electronicsound.co.uk/blog/petition-started-to-reinstate-red-phone-box-that-inspired-omd-song-red-framewhite-light/ – you forget how ahead of the curve OMD really were, while we here would without hesitation, reach for ‘Organisation’ as the benchmark of their greatness, it is to their debuting full length that of late has been frequenting our listening space in down time, housing all their genetic seeds, its possessed of a nostalgic warmth and a futuristic afterglow that pinpoints it to a stationary spot that looks both, back in to the past and far into the future. Pay particular attention to the Peel sessions for a killer version of ‘Messages’ – here retrimmed seductively in a kosmische framing so far better than the finished article.
Something we tripped over by sheer accident on that there sound cloud, this is the aptly named Analogue Trance who I’m guessing you won’t be too surprised to hear, we have absolutely no information on, other than to say this is the rather alluring ‘littlespringinterlude’ – a quite gorgeous dream drift orbital all teased in subtle Balearic glows and the kind of trippily mesmeric moonage murmuring that lurks on the outer edges the ghost box sound spectrum. https://soundcloud.com/athimusicknobs/littlespringinterlude
I dare you to get through to the end of this without feeling as though you’ve left a little of yourself behind with it. This head bowed and heart heavy gem, the latest from Daniel Carlson, comes peeled from a forthcoming set for folkwit entitled ‘not a drawing’, this being the wounded autumnal sweetheart ‘cloudy people’. Bathed in an utterly crushing sepia framing this exquisite ghost like mourner is traced in the kind of close intimacy and hushly hued nostalgic craft whose airless grace fallen symphonic touch easily recalls the souring beauty of both the Brigadier and Oddfellows Casino. Quite perfect if you ask me in a hazy waving to yesterday type way.
One for those among you who love nothing more than crate digging for rare outsider grooves, happen that Endless Boogie main man Paul Major might have pipped you to a few of those rarefied morsels and gathered them together on an imminent set called “Paul Major: Feel the Music Vol. 1” for Anthology records. One such nugget is Justyn Rees’ lost psych folk freak pill ‘behold’ from ’69, this stoned out smoking hazy revelation is just so woozy and approaching hymnal that you might feel inclined to have a lie down after all the swooning and the swirls in your eyes have faded. The album, arriving in November, features 12 like-minded oddities from the Major record bag and serves as an accompanying soundtrack to his recently published tome ‘Feel the Music: The Psychedelic Worlds Of Paul Major’ – the album – per the press release ‘…..includes 12-track LP and download code, plus a folded obi-style insert featuring Paul Major’s handwritten track descriptions and eye-popping art from his legendary record catalogs.’
Stuff …..
Look, shall we agree to setting aside one of these spots to featuring archive Uncle John Peel shows, that is if we remember and think on each week. Starting this with two shows from the 70’s – the infamous er ahem – punk show from 76 and something from ’78 ….. take it away Grinderswitch …..
Pink Floyd …..
https://www.mixcloud.com/RadioReverb/ears-wide-open-32/
https://soundcloud.com/resident-advisor/lullabies-for-insomniacs-ra-label-of-the-month
We’ve been promising for a fair while now to pop in on the unexplained sound folk, happen it’s just as well that we hqve because they’ve just released a newly peeled anthology / retrospective that shines a revealing light on the eclectic craft of Michael Bonaventure. Entitled ‘works 2008 – 2017’, this eleven-track gathering provides not only a select picking of compositions from the last decade but also exemplifies the depth and breadth of styles, tonalities and sonic phrasing drawn forth through the prism of noise, chamber drone and experimental sounds as viewed through a classically trained eye. To this end, we’ve concentrated our minds and ears on just three selections, a choice that will hopefully serve as evidence of the reach and craft of this unique sound alchemist. First up on the inspection table, ‘celestial objects’ as the title might give ample hint, is a dream dazed visitation, a threading of a myriad of silvery choral corteges, the effect, one of ethereal displacement, the mosaics dissolving and dissipating to create something adorably trippy, imagines as were, some kind of white light occurrence as the physical morphs into the spiritual, really is quite trance not to mention serenely peaceful. In sharp contrast, at 10 minutes in duration, ‘dead electronics’ veers into the darker terrains of dronal electronica and processed / manipulated sound, its grainy toning and showering of noise bursts, reminiscent of Revenant Sea’s more extreme output I should add, gives the impression of somehow being hand cuffed to the underside of a hulking extra-terrestrial spacecraft in the midst of some self-detonation sequence, very bleak and isolationist. Last up for this brief visit, ‘encounters’ offers a joyous expression of radiance, utilising processed vocals by way of monastic chants and church chorals being stretched, cut and looped all collectively pressed upon a backdrop of ethereal pulsars, something truly jubilant emerges from the grooves as though the church bells like peel of a celestial calling. https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/works-2008-2017
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… end grooves ….
Carl Stalling ….
the sunday experience 