Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping… Transmission 39.0….

Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping…

Transmission 39.0…. w/e 1/10//2017

Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind….

… opening groove ….

…. Happy Birthday BBC Radio 1 …..

…. features ….

Autobahn, green seagull, marzie doatz, simian ghost, Gloria, black waters, ross blake, skylark, time attendant, grooms, ducktail, mnipk, white wine, target archery, vibracathedral orchestra, rewilding, flowchart, fuxa, spectrum, laurie Anderson, low, pram, adam probert, all of them witches, deathcount in silicon valley, maine, Nathan hall and the sinister locals, pye corner audio, ty segall, Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier, the lovely eggs, moths, jon thorne, Bill MacKay & Ryley walker, gulp, reverse family, Circuit des Yeux, sextile, the hanging stars, rob Clarke and the wooltones, chambers, les baxter, ummagma, mammoth penguins and friends, oliver cherer, angel Olsen, papernut cambridge, Airiel, prana crafter, cabaret Voltaire, jean michel jarre, john peel, radio one, etched grooves, a certain ratio, John cage and Marcel Duchamp ….

Back with Mega Dodo who like Static Caravan and Eggs in Aspic appear to be hitting a purple patch of late, arriving November, if we recall rightly, will be a limited twin set from the Green Seagull. Second outing time, this one pairs together ‘(I used to dream in) black and white’ and ‘not like you and me’ the latter of which the more upbeat and garage grooved, arrives awash in all manner of woozily vintage organs and the kind of slick strut 60’s beat cooling that you might expect to find on one of those essential vault unearthing compilations, this ‘un hitting a sonic stride that sits somewhere between the Strawberry Alarm Clock, ? and the Mysterians and a mark one inspiral carpets. That said, the undoubted gem here is the lead cut, for ‘(I used to dream in) black and white’ – a spring hued baroque fancy who’s softly blossoming and radiant palette purrs adorably to a becoming finite melodic craft hinting essences of the Zombies and Left Banke. Alas no sound clips just, rest assured we are working on their label folk.

Tripped across on a recent wander around bandcamp, based in Ramsbottom, this is Marzie Doats with a release a release that originally appeared earlier in the year and due too much embarrassment, managed to slip beneath our radar. A two-track sweetheart that pairs together ‘the waking dream’ and ‘three-mile island’. The former starts of ominously to recall the sparsely weaved tension taught textures of some of Carpenter’s finest movie mosaics before without warning, slowly blossoming to reveal a lilting flutter by whose looping dream drift fretwork and sighing lunar waltz electronica very much had us imagining that we’d stumbled upon some lost, left at the starting tracks, cut from Enraptured’s celebrated and dare we say, much missed ‘Bedroom Ambience’ series. Over on the flip, if truth has it, our favoured side, ‘three-mile island’ offers a moment of ghostly sweet reflection, much tuned in style wise, to lost gems from forgotten imprints such as Liquefaction, Bad Jazz and Wurlitzer Jukebox with Landshipping and Portal immediately springing to mind. https://marziedoats.bandcamp.com/album/the-waking-dream-ep

Utter adorableness from Simian Ghost, this is the star-crossed dream pop soul pill that is ‘climb the walls’ a teaser cut culled from their forthcoming self-titled set due later in the week. Now tell me what’s not to love about this, the euphoric tingle brought on by the playfully pulsing frost flecked patterns melded around the snow glazed choral caresses and the demurring dream popping effervescence all coalescing sumptuously into a sighing ethereal visitation that’s sugar rushed with an ear candy exuberance. https://soundcloud.com/simian-ghost/climbthewalls

Further reasons for being side-tracked, somewhere and somehow, another release that sneaked beneath our radar, in fact I could have sworn we were on their mailing list, hey ho. Here’s a little something from the howling banana imprint, peeled from a free to download happening compilation called ‘summer sampler #4’, this being Gloria with an unreleased cut by the name ‘you will get yours’. Now this ‘un comes softly smoked in the kind of hazy mystique that had us much recalling those early visitations by the Smoke Fairies, its 60’s psych folk wooziness flavouring a fuzzy wiry path that trips around a seriously out of it Crystalline Jacqueline crafting a studio séance in an attempt to summon up the spirit of Jefferson Airplane. Wouldn’t be too surprised if another track or three gets sneaked in here before the nights out. https://soundcloud.com/howlin-banana-records/gloria-you-will-get-yours

Believe you me we’ve tried to nail the lid back on this, but just like the proverbial genie escaping the bottle, this blighter keeps insistently nagging in the background. This is the ferocious sound of Black Waters with the quite fierce some ‘let the good times roll’. A blistering echo to the days when bands would come along and in the space of three minutes nail down a melody and chorus which was over you like a rash the minute the stylus dropped on the vinyl not to mention blessed with an anthemic gusto that flung you off your listening perch with the kind of electric shocking wow, yeah, wtf was that moment of life changing urgency. Possessed of hooks aplenty, an abundance of attitude and a strut gouged glam punk tethering, hells teeth we’d almost forgotten what the repeat button option was for. https://soundcloud.com/blackwatersuk/let-the-good-times-roll

There’s a press release kicking around which due to the calamitous filing system or lack of therein, that we operate around here, we’ve momentarily lost. Still I’m sure you’ll agree that the music speaks for itself. This is a track from Ross Blake’s imminent happening for horsearm records entitled ‘pretty en rose’ which features a guest appearance from Karen Gwyer no less. Be honest isn’t this quite immaculate, somewhere between being otherworldly hymnal and celestial and yet simultaneously peculiarly peppered and dinked in playfully affectionate lunar seaside mirages and dreamy lullaby effects all of which I’m minded to cite the more lighter moments of White Noise’s ‘an electric storm’ as something of a kindred listening experience of course as though retooled by Plone. https://soundcloud.com/rossblakemusic/karen-black

Also imminent in record world, a new set from Time Attendant about to land with the ominous arrival of ‘Ruby Modifier’ shortly from off which ‘TechAtomic’ has been sent ahead on scouting duty. An ominous dark star sent from a near distant dystopian future, its sparsely toned minimalist vision threaded intricately with subtronic pulsars wired upon an isolationist AI consciousness decoding Autechre-ian binary signatures.

Hopefully we’ll be grabbing downloads of this one shortly, for now, two brief teaser videos showcasing the arrival of ‘Skylark’ by Jonathon Heron. Appearing to arrive from a similar sound space as Dan Haywood’s New Hawks’ debut from 2010, ‘Skylark’ refuses easy categorization, a good thing by our reckoning, for the best part from what we’ve had the pleasure of hearing, wiggy and fried psych folk is what’s on offer, opening two tracks ‘theme for to the wilderness’ and ‘heron pool’ freefalling sumptuously each carving out for themselves a time, a place and a style that deeply contrasts from its neighbour, the former a beardy and woozy acid fried proggy trip pill that had we not known better, would have surmised was some secret studio conspiracy hatched upon by a gathering of Cranium Pie and Sendelica types. The latter mentioned, had us much recalling the quick fingered willowy rustics of a certain Scott William Urquhart and with that Messrs Rose and Fahey, yet which somewhere mid-way through takes a curious turn going all hazily lazy eyed and village green pastorally with a genteel nod or two to a maypole gathering of Owl Service, XTC, Wicker Man and Freed Unit types. https://jonathonheron.bandcamp.com/album/skylark

Another track pulled from the forthcoming Grooms set for western vinyl, which I’ll tell you now, is the cause of much heart skipping in our gaff at present. The album entitled ‘exit index’ is due to land next month with ‘magistrate seeks romance’ being sent ahead on a slow burn swoon setting. This dream draped sonic vision sits on a starry axis located somewhere the mighty Hookworms and Toy employing the darkly impacting trademark swirling vortex of the former and the svelte pop manoeuvring of the latter to its creative bow as it freefalls between moments of spitefully angular agit gouging to bliss toned crushes of grace fallen radiance.

Third single from the imminent Ducktails set ‘jersey devil’ for, we gather, the new images imprint, this is the distractively casual ‘in the hallway’. A track that I must admit, fair caught us on the hop, given it arrives seasoned in an affectionate framing that partly hints of the Go Betweens had they ran into June Panic for a spot of studio down time noodling whilst kissed in a deliriously deceptive sun basked MOR phrasing, which in truth, had us half a mind to go digging out nuggets by Kevin Tihista’s Red Terror.

Here’s the flip side to that spiffing digital outing by mNIPK, a name which is causing all amounts of woe for our beleaguered spell checker, ahem. This is ‘hunter’, the a side of which ‘abyss’ we featured somewhere here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/22/mnipk-5/ – this ‘un comes tripped in a deeply intricate micro detailing of shadowy subterranean shimmer toning, its omnipresent spectral glowering ghosting beneath the radar like a light repelling leviathan, in its passing the delicate spray of subtronic technoid pulses fracture the silent voids with its softly hushed sigh.

Talking of dark hearted sore thumbs, the delightfully disquieting ‘falling from the same place’ really does sound like the freak circus coming to town, its macabre passing edgily groaned by a musical procession parading promises of dark delights. We here are tempted to mention David J and Marc Almond’s extra curricula recordings in the early 80’s just as Soft Cell unravelled as reference markers, yet the sounds stark and somewhat menaced with a becoming foreboding chill, point to a conspiratorial gathering among whose number secretly lurk Edward Ka Spel, Volcano the Bear and Tuxedo Moon. This be White Wine from whom an album ‘killer brilliance’ looms with dark intent via Altin Village & Mine.

Not, I’ll admit, the best way to hear the new Vibracathedral Orchestra album, I’d rather hear it on my hi-fi, a nice looking late 80’s Aiwa in case you’re asking, that rumbles fearsomely to life the minute the on button is fired up. Anyhow before we rudely interrupted ourselves, I do believe we were talking new groove from Vibracathedral Orchestra, strangely enough through Vanity Case who I assumed had either given up the ghost or more probably, as the case may be, decided to stop talking to us. Indeed, two shocks in the space of five minutes, appears the blighters have been peppering the clued-up cognoscenti with all manner of releases, one of which by Geese which we missed and now fear sleepless nights until we hear. Anyway latest to their formidably diverse and off radar catalogue this new live one from VCO imaginatively titled – er ‘live at Total Inertia’ – which comes pressed on limited slabs of white wax sized 10 inches. In truth, a wig flipping test of endurance replete with skronked out horns, head frying electronics and freeform freakery the likes of which, the partaking of chemical substances or peace pipe tooting might well assist in fathoming some notion of sense from out of lysergically beardy fog that they cook up here which for the second time this very evening I’m very much tempted to drop the name – er – Volcano the Bear into a write up. That said those who admire their sonic mantras somewhat turned slowly on a weird ear psych primordial stew will do well to subscribe, me – well I’m off to refamiliarize myself with the ways of Ma Cherie for Painting before I even dare jump back into the mind melting and off its box mosaics afoot here.

Typically turned in the high calibre sonic intimacy that we’ve come to love and adore from the hidden shoal imprint, this be from Target Archery, the second single (‘soujourn’) therein from a newly peeled set due to arrive shortly by the name ‘clock of the long now’. Target Archery, for the uninitiated among you, is the solo project of Ambrose Knock, who in a parallel musical life cobbles together svelte sonic sweetness in the guise of Apricot Rail who one time or another used to adore these pages to much swooning fondness. Measured in his trademark softening detail, ‘soujourn’ is delicately spirited away in a quietly blossoming and picturesque shyness, harvested upon undulating rustic cascades and the lolloping drift of a sun speckled lilting ramble, it fizzes with a softly wakening joyous dizziness whose advancing homecoming dimpling collides perfectly at the 2.00 point momentarily elevated by a tingling rush of feel good bliss haloed euphoria.

Further Hidden Shoal loveliness, this time in the shape of Rewilding’s ‘high desert’ – a track called from an imminent self-titled set due middle of next month. Rewilding is the alter ego / instrumental project of one Jake McFee of Connected View, as the accompanying blurb rightly notes is a set made up of intricately teased melodic miniatures with an affectionate nod to both Fridge and Pram. There’s certainly something here that ought to appeal to those much tuned into the domino catalogue c. 99 not least for the way in which its dreamily reflective tones are teasingly sculptured in a disarmingly fragile whittling who willowy palette casts a busily beautified lullaby lilting whose playfulness recalls flowchart.

Interlude …. stylus sighs … flowchart, fuxa, spectrum, laurie Anderson, low, pram ….

Flowchart ….

Fuxa ….

Pram ….

Spectrum ….

Laurie Anderson …..

Low ….

First up on the evenings listening roster, word reaches us of cassette store day action from the admired sonic entrails tape camp what with limited outings for both ‘the doxey boggart’ and ‘Satan’s Bee Keeper’ glaring menacingly from the shadows. So while we try to secure whatever sound clips that we can summon forth from the aural abyss, here’s the labels latest. From Adam Probert, this is the disquieting ‘famine’ here retuned and retooled as the ‘non bio mix’. Reading between the lines, seems the spoken word recordings of Mr Probert has been sent forth to the darkest and strangest of places for extreme sonic examination, this particular track attracting our earlobes mainly for the fact that aside sounding so tormented and devoid of hope, has something of a minimalist remoteness attaching to it that had us much minded of those sore thumbs, middex, albeit here as though haunted in psychotropic disturbia, in fact the older among you are advised to root out Element’s ‘sore blaster’ set for creeping bent for close listening reference. https://sonicentrails.bandcamp.com/album/adam-probert-battle-redux

Finding it all a tad disturbing to note that thus far, Kent based imprint Burning Witches haven’t troubled our radar. To say we are mortified is something of a great understatement. So, to remedy matters here’s three short treat suites with which to seduce and serenade these oncoming Autumnal days and long dark nights. First up all of them witches with ‘the hunt’, a track lifted from last year’s full-length set ‘the coven’. Initially gloomed by the shadow of John Carpenter, this dark beauty soon mysteriously manifests like some forgotten Italo horror soundtrack for an abandoned Fulci classic, its svelte shimmering of macabre and magic immediately calling to mind the mighty Goblin as well as those essential would be sinister symphony’s once heading out of the Villa9 studio sound bunker. https://burningallwitches.bandcamp.com/track/the-hunt

Alas sold out of its physical form, this is the opening track (‘voices’) from deathcount in silicon valley’s ‘hex void’ full length released a month or three ago. Straying into ‘stranger things’ terrains and kissed with a cinematic iciness, this darkly set pulsar is sumptuously immersed in a brooding shadow lined kosmische toning whose hypnotic glare very much veers with amorphous seduction into the kind of futuro-retro vintage that imagines both Zombi and Pye Corner Audio revisiting Tangerine Dream’s sonic outlands. https://burningallwitches.bandcamp.com/track/voices

Last up from Burning Witches, latest to their enviable roster, an immense double disc release by Maine entitled ‘V’ from off which ‘the world without’ has had us all of a swoon. A beguiling beauty bitter sweetly turned in sighing choral haloes and ice bathed in the kind of alluring majesty that we’ve rarely heard the likes of around here since Ex Post Facto’s ‘oceanic explorer’ crackled into existence and by its parting had us emotionally destroyed. https://burningallwitches.bandcamp.com/track/the-world-without

the label incidentally, will be sporting a compilation entitled ‘Witches’ Halloween Brew’ at this year’s Cassette Store Day shenanigans, hopefully we’ll try and nab sound links as and when.

A note from John over at Mega Dodo alerting us to the small but rather essential detail that the A side of Green Seagull’s forthcoming corker ‘(I used to dream in) black and white’ is now available for listening, adoring and swooning though not necessarily in that order. Mentioned here as it happens … https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/green-seagull-3/ – up there, by our humble reckoning, that rather spiffing new thing from the Chemistry Set via Fruits de Mer… https://soundcloud.com/mega-dodo/green-seagull-i-used-to-dream-in-black-and-white

… and talking of Fruits de Mer, many thanks to Keith for sending over copies of the forthcoming solo full length by Nathan Hall and the Sinister Locals, which many of you with an eye for such things might recall we featured with much adoration here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/nathan-hall-and-the-sinister-locals-3/ – the album is titled ‘effigies’ and has pride of place in our gaff being that our advance copy is a nice looking handwritten exclusive …. anyway, we believe it’s Nathan’s birthday today so here’s a little celebratory toast with a tune from the album ……

Whether it’s the same aforementioned Nathan Hall who guests on this, we’re not sure, but this one caught our ear. By Scott Nice, we think this is ‘wellspring’ – a track culled from an album that might well be called ‘one under the sun’ – great bit of researching there – eh. Anyhow, is it just me or can you feel the heat rising from this as it sultrily snakes beneath sun flamed skies woozily across desert hot landscapes, its intoxicating passing bringing with it a timeless mystery, the Australasian mosaics tripping hypnotically, really is quite stunningly alluring if not dreamily mesmeric with a hint of a youthful Grails to its permeating craft.

I’m certain we’ve mentioned in passing that like Polypores and Concretism, Pye Corner Audio has been peppering his sound cloud page of late with oodles of recent live performances. The latest of which, taken from a recent set at Brighton’s Modular Meet in July, features a free to download shy of 50-minute cerebral probing occurrence which had we not known any better might well have thought was some Sonic Boom / Spacemen 3 happening, all fixed point kosmische pulsars and modulating murmurs whose slow turned curvatures weave out superbly immersive mind frosting mosaics which from the 35 minute mark assume a funkily smoking Plaid like sound trajectory. https://soundcloud.com/pye-corner-audio/sets/pcalive

Stupidly good but then what do you expect from Ty Segall, this dude kicks out nuggets for fun while most column inches grabbing grandees of rock will tell you they’ve toiled, been tormented and tested themselves to the maxima to deliver a pale imitation of the last old tat they had the nerve to bore you rigid with. New thing ‘Alta’ comes wired to the teeth in a surging scuzzed glam gouging all blessed and blissed with a wasted 70’s vintage, kind of Sweet Apples but without the disappointment (only joking) channelling just about every other half decent record in your collection which when first heard all you ever wanted to do was skip down the yellow brick thingamajig with guitar in hand hoping to trade in your soul at the crossroads with the Devil in return for scoring flame fury fretwork. https://tysegall.bandcamp.com/track/alta

Ty Segall & The Freedom Band Tour Dates:

5/10/17 at 191 Toole in Tuscon, AZ, USA

6/10/17 at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, NM, USA

7/10/17 at Summit Music Hall in Denver, CO, USA

8/10/17 at The Fox Theatre in Boulder, CO, USA

10/10/17 at The Bunkhouse Saloon in Las Vegas, NV, USA

13/10/17 at the Institute of Mentalphysics in Joshua Tree, CA, USA

Seriously getting daft now with all these releases, we haven’t even gotten to mentioning a refound Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier platter yet, which believe you me is causing our listening axis to wobble frantically. Instead we find ourselves somewhat arrested by the pristine purr of Gulp whose incoming ‘morning velvet sky’ might be best described as a celestial herald. An amorphous apparition, a calling from future, whatever the case may be there’s no denying that this svelte slice of spacey seduction orbits on a romantic curve. A lunar love note hermitically sealed within a motoric mirror ball, the cosmic equivalent of a message in a bottle I guess, shimmer toned upon a softly radiating psych hive consciousness whose glacial warmth is motored by Moroder-esque pulsars whilst decoding sound signatures more commonly received from sonic quadrants where lie the likes of Goldfrapp, Jane Weaver and Cary Grace. https://soundcloud.com/e-l-k-1/gulp-morning-velvet-sky

Wowzah … do you know there’s such a scant lack of sub one-minute nuggets around these days, that wigs flipped and eyeballs popped at the brief blink and it’s gone appearance of the Lovely Eggs flip cut to forthcoming scuzz storm ‘I shouldn’t have said that’. Discarding any notion of the usual verse chorus verse niceties, ‘melody for meathead’ just rips loose, a festering slab of punch you out agit gusto furiously channelling a disquieting Mark E Smith and a seriously gnawed off and spikily dismissive John Cooper Clarke. In short, a deliriously damaged and discordant delinquent dandy. A side, in case you were wondering, sounds a lot like this according to our ears … https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/21/the-lovely-eggs-6/

Be honest now, isn’t this rather smoking. Images of setting sun dappled prairies and a sense of the haze hued sleepy great wide open stretching far into the horizon are instantly recalled, its lazy eyed sighing slumber, an intricate tapestry of drifting delta blues agelessly distilled and flavoured with a timeless sonic craftmanship that admittedly might first hint of John Fahey, yet when uncorked and allowed to brief has the ghosts of Blind Willie Mctell and Mississippi John Hurt sitting on its shoulder. This is ‘lonesome traveller’ by Bill MacKay & Ryley Walker, a track pulled from their forthcoming collaborative full length ‘SpiderBeetleBee’ out shortly via drag city.

WALKER/MACKAY TOUR!

10/20/17 @ Acme Records in Milwaukee, WI

10/21/17 @ Constellation in Chicago, IL

10/22/17 @ Magnetic South in Bloomington, IN

10/23/17 @ Al’s Bar in Lexington, KY

10/24/17 @ The Pilot Light @ Knoxville, TN

10/25/17 @ The Mothlight in Asheville, NC

10/26/17 @ Pale Fire Brewery in Harrisburg, VA

10/27/17 @ Betty’s Bar and Grill in Nashville, TN

10/28/17 @ The Spot in Lafayette, IN

11/4/17 @ Forest Hills Lodge in Rockford, IL

11/24/17 @ Rozz-Tox in Rock Island, IL

Spotted on a 345rpm posting, something very special heading out of the Fruits de Mer sound shed. Alas the release will only be in strictly limited quantities, around 50 or so we believe, all lathe cut and ready for purchase at the forthcoming Dionysus gathering – more details below. This is Moths with ‘Halfdans Daughter’, one of two tracks you’ll find pressed upon the grooves of this limited lovely, the flip side featuring a newly peeled track titled ‘constant fascination’. The band having recently reformed are due to play the festival this October, time then to revisit this quietly alluring slice of ghostly enchantment for ‘Halfdans Daughter’ originally released some 45 years plus ago, is delicately spirited with Gaelic bewitchment, its softly hushed rustic tones emerging sleepy headed through the twilight glinted woodland mist endowing all with its mysterious spell craft. http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/moths.html

… staying with 345rpm postings a little longer, there’s always this, strictly limited to just 100 copies, as entrancing and as disquietingly beautiful a release we’ve heard all year, this is the latest out of Static Caravan by Jon Thorne from a set we mentioned here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/17/jon-thorne/ entitled ‘homestead’ – the set featured a 7 inch lathe cut with accompanying CD packed with all manner of inserts.

Thought lost forever, rescued, carefully baked and delicately restored for maximum listening pleasure, Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier’s ‘Les Chemins De Katmandou’ soundtrack finally gets its first ever wax pressing through those audio grail hunters finders keepers next month. A truly remarkable find, the backstory of which you can read here http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/shop/serge-gainsbourg-jean-claude-vannier-les-chemins-des-katmandou/ – from that set, the title track has been sent ahead as a teaser, as though you needed one. Punctuated by starkly toned heraldic fanfares, it starts shadow lined in something of a rainy noir dappling, in fact the spy noir phrasing runs through its core not unlike it should be said, some of the late 60’s / early 70’s stylising’s of Lalo Schifrin. Yet scratch a little deeper and there’s a deceptively chic lounge-y swing afoot here that draws familiarity with the 90’s Birmingham scene, notably Broadcast and Pram. Quite stunning if you ask me. https://finderskeepersrecords.bandcamp.com/album/les-chemins-de-katmandou

I won’t deny that this forthcoming set for Drag City is sitting perilously high on our shopping list. Mentioned in passing previously, another from Circuit des Yeux’s imminent ‘reaching for indigo’ full length, this is the crushing mysterio ‘black fly’. Asides being emotionally testing, amid its fracturing beauty and swirling grandness there’s a softening turbulence rippling beneath the surface that’s haunted and trembled in a slow to burn heart heavy sighing the likes of which whose unravelling majesty easily sits between both Patti Smith and Nico.

Might take a bit of explaining this next one. Started off with a curiously intriguing exchange of emails with the Reverse Family, seems these dudes are shortly, well next week to be a bit more precise, about to embark on a seriously ambitious release schedule, in fact I’ll tell you what, best if I let Andy himself take up the baton and explain in person ….

‘ …. this set of releases starts on October 2nd and sees me (Reverse Family) putting out a 7-track ep every Monday for a year. 52 eps in all – 365 songs (one ep will have 8 tracks so it all adds up and that’s it. It will be available through our perfect pop co-op label and all of the Usual digital places. There will also be a monthly sampler on nub records (a bite size ‘best of’) to people afford a purchase. I intend to do a physical release at some point but it will be expensive so need to get interest in it first, this will include diary entries for the year too!’

.. indeed, at that point, I too had to re-read just to make sure my eyes weren’t playing up. I’m thinking like you probably, that this either the mindset of someone bitten by the creative bug or taken a knock to the head which once the bruising has relented, will no doubt wonder what the hell he’s let himself in for. Anyway, during the course of those email exchanges, we were suddenly asked, what’s your favourite number, us being awkward plumbed for four – 6, 11, 23 and 29 in case you ask. Okay then, the response came, I’ll burn those tracks to a CD and get it off to you post haste. Days later a CD arrives, handwritten note an all, with not three but ten tracks peeled from the Reverse Family sonic draw pot. In a former life, with the Scratch, we’d always suspected that Andy had wiled away the days fully versed in the ways of the Buzzcocks and Magazine (in fact that same dayglo dalliance is still ever present, not least on the sharply acute power pop burn of the effervescently teased bubble grooved ‘was I a good man?’). Seems similar tropes come to play here, albeit suspiciously subtled by the impish appearance of Syd Barrett to the prickly palette, as curiously evidenced on the loosely dippy ‘we got it – supreme positivity’ here as though channelled through the viewfinder of Adam Ant c. ‘dirks wears white sox’ . As said 10 tracks, a sampler therein plucked from a choice peppering taken from the first handful of planned EP’s. Very much reminiscent of AB Leonard’s mammoth ‘Octopus’ schedule from a few years ago and similarly toned. ‘no reason to run’ opens the proceedings, a track whose snakish garage haloed soft psych tilt is bleached with a distant nod to a certain Mr Hitchcock c. Soft Boys’ ‘underwater moonlight’ and something that finds itself somewhat contrasted by the drift like mellowing kaleidoscopia that peels from the deceptively warmly smoking ‘summer thunder’ which by these ears certainly has something of an Elephant 6 crookedness about its wares. Talking of kookiness or was it crookedness, simple kid is instantly called to mind with the arrival of the playfully minimalist ‘filth and lame’ while elsewhere there’s the insular dark heart ‘7pm’ which you feel, adored with weeping string arrangements might shine it with a Rialto like mastery, that’s not to say this doesn’t sting as it stands, cowered as it is by a heart heavy introspection. Superbly threaded with prowling pulsars, there’s a seductive wiring chic flavouring ‘sunshade city’ that had us of a mind to go rooting out our prized Wolfmen stash while the darkly weaving shadow torn cabaret that is ‘the bigger picture’, in truth the best thing here, slowly picks away at the scabs ushering in a chokingly edgy psychosis which had we not known better, might have hazarded a guess had fallen from the flip side of an early Bauhaus b-side. Glam draped reverbs drip from the ghostly Bolan-esque ‘the test’ while grooving amid the psychotropic purr of ‘the sun’s rays are like birthdays’ are spectral echoes of a youthful Psychic TV. So in answer to our opening question, obviously the creative bug option is afoot here, here’s to the next 355 tracks. http://www.reversefamily.co.uk

Mentioned in earlier dispatches, here in fact https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/rob-clarke-and-the-wooltones-17/ – here’s the newly cut moving picture show accompanying the latest Rob Clarke and the Wooltones bruiser, wonderfully sultry and a tad teased in a breezy dappling of tropical trims, quite splendid if you ask us.

I guess you won’t be too surprised to hear that we’ve momentarily managed to mislay the press release introducing this next one. Still, who needs accompanying words when the sounds are cut so sublime that they speak for themselves, this is incoming perfection from the Hanging Stars, goes by the name ‘honeywater’ and should be heading out on all digital platforms next month via crimson crow. What can we say, yes, we hear Gram, Buffalo and more appreciably, Gene Clark ghosting through the grooves of this reclining pedal steel opining lovely, all wonderfully drifted in a prairie relocated west coast after glow whose bliss bathed hush softly allures and sighs much like a reflective Wicked Whispers. https://soundcloud.com/thehangingstars/honeywater

Fairly certain we’ve mentioned these folk in passing at one time or another, latest thing cooking on the much admired Felte back burner, this is Sextile with ‘crisis’ – a track lifted from I guess, their recently released sophomore set ‘albeit living’, now maybe it’s just me, but do I hear subtle nods to the Triffids and Turbines frequenting through this, there’s certainly a primitive twang swing afoot here gouged in a post punk echoing with just a hint of a youthful ‘vengeance’ era New Model Army bloodying the nose of the Godfathers and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. https://soundcloud.com/felte/sextile-crisis

I’ll admit we were initially attracted by the ‘sister doom’ reference attaching to Chambers. Be warned this is darkly wiring stuff, in some ways channelling the positive punk spirit of the Batcave scene of the early 80’s, ‘down the rabbit hole’ is a maddening walls closing in fast slab of swamp dragged psychosis, the tension so palpable you half expect it to reach from the grooves and throttle you, all of this wound around a pulse racing panic attacking fright wigged skeletal sparring that seesaws with a scabbing dark hearted menace. https://soundcloud.com/ukchambers/down-the-rabbit-hole

How the buggering hell did we miss this first time of asking. Seems this was breaking hearts last year, by Twin River this is ‘knife’ from their ‘passing shade’ set for light organ records. Seriously words fail, this had us all rash forming in an instant, a smoking slab of 50’s bubble grooving, kissed with a strut sassy swing that’s rippled with twang opining reverbs aplenty and blessed with a shimmering dead eyed seduction that’s ripe for swooning to. https://soundcloud.com/light-organ/twin-river-knife-1

Teaser track pulled from a new Les Baxter offering, hopefully due for an appearance next week, this is ‘Wiawan’, the album incidentally is ‘bloodstone’. Described by its aural authors as ‘… an excuse to indulge our obsessions with Satanic 70s horror’, this tripping head flipper woozily navigates a seriously wasted and high as kite progressive psych lineage that takes its cue from the hippy happening that was Mike Vickers’ freak pilling score for ‘Dracula AD 1972’ before manoeuvring at pace through the gears nodding to Floyd, Camel, Ash Ra Tempel before finding itself in the middle of Porcupine Tree’s ‘up the downstairs’ before traipsing back having melted minds with its wig flipped sonic sorcery. https://soundcloud.com/les_baxter/wiawan

Apologies to all concerned for being a little late with this one, truth is it’s been burning holes in both our sound speakers and affection. Latest from Ummagma through the somewhere cold imprint, features a quartet of sublimely soaked dream draped demurs the opener ‘LCD’ finding them cosmically spun in an amorphous noir tweaked rapture, which while nodding to friends the Veldt and A R Kane, has them spiralling on an ethereal trajectory whose vaporesque trimmings purr with the kind of soft radiance that recalls some sort of amorous alliance between ROC and Musetta. Left in the hands of Dean Garcia, ‘LCD’ assumes a trippy and somewhat sun frosted psychotropic ambient flavouring that imagines Hologram Teen at play in the kaleidoscopic undergrowth of CHXFX’s surreal sonic jungle, certainly something that ought to appeal to those well versed with the gloopy grooves found emanating out of both ‘Monsterism Island’ and a mid-90’s Delirium back catalogue. Featured in previous despatches where it’s been adored, ‘Lama’ gets the celestial chill experience from the hand of Robin Guthrie and into the bargain finds itself arrested to a murmur, a shimmering orbital lunar love note lost in the moment. ‘back to you’ rounds out matters for this particular visitation, again Dean Garcia at the helm tweaking the response times and settings, I’m minded to offer Shortwave Set as a reference marker sighed in a forlornly glacial rephrasing as though fixed point heavenly spectrals deep in adoring conversation. https://ummagma.bandcamp.com/album/lcd

I do wish people would warn me about these releases, almost missed this one, in which case there would have been some fairly glum looking gurning goings on in our gaff. A new one from Oliver Cherer whose various alter egos and sonic guises we can barely keep up with these days – see – the Assistant, Rhododendron, Gilroy Mere et al. via Wayside and Woodland, another label that have thus far, managed to annoyingly sneak beneath our radar, this is ‘the myth of violet meek’ which give you a bit of a flavouring goes something like this …. ‘… a true story, about the hounding of some travelling entertainers and their dancing bears and how the bears were killed by a mob in revenge for an invented attack on a local girl in the woods between Cinderford and Ruardean’. See it’s not all about that boy meets girl nonsense and stuff, rather more this one comes tasted in a chill, each peeled chord and rustic sigh of the strings revealing a little more of the dark deeds at play. For our part we here are a little taken by ‘delicate blooms’ its sweet macabre issuing forth an intoxicating bewitchment that’s dizzily spell formed in a ghost toned traditional folk tongue that peers through the woodland mists like some eerie apparition, something all said that ought to appeal to those Hare and the Moon and sand snowman loving folk among you. http://digital.waysideandwoodland.com/track/delicate-blooms

Already having cemented themselves in our affections courtesy of ‘the sailor’ which we mentioned, ooh let me see, somewhere here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/19/mammoth-penguins-and-friends/ – Mammoth Penguins and Friends have just unveiled a new video accompanying teaser track ‘the chorus’. Taken from their incoming ‘john doe’ full length for WIAIWYA, ‘the chorus’ serves in sharpening musical contrast to the aforementioned ‘the sailor’ for aside featuring the criminally underused Theremin, here found wheezing woozily amid its grooves, there’s an affectionately attractive light dusting of ear prickling popness breezing the palette whose craftily crooked and out of step strut shimmer hints and nods subtly to the Memory Band and Goodnight Lenin albeit as though channelled by the Stealing Sheep in collusion with Saint Sister.

Anyone remember trembling blue stars, oh come on of course you do, ‘Abba on the jukebox’ one of the finest things committed to wax, I only mention this because, barely five seconds into this and we were surrendering to the charms of the demurring bliss burned cascades spiralling forth from this dream draped lulling lovely. This be Airiel with ‘your lips, my mouth’ – a track culled from, what we assume to be, a current full length by the name ‘molten young lovers’ heading out through shelflife. Indeed, trembling blue stars, why what how you are wondering, why mention them as a reference marker, well simply because this bruised beauty is soured with the same finitely forlorn ache right from the weeping stratospherics to the heart heavy haunt, quite immaculate I’d like to think.

Through Gare Du Nord, pressed up on limited slabs of wax of a 10-inch variety, the ever wonderful Papernut Cambridge with ‘Carnaby Cathedral’ – a track pulled from his latest set entitled ‘Mellotron phase – Vol 1’. This is quite something else, its sly fusion of 60’s mercurial, the flashing of baroque phrasings, the teasing of soft psych floral posies and the vintage tweaking of a sun peeled hymnal grandness all converge to endow this with a deeply adoring village green rustic elegance possessed of touch traces of Douglas Gamley.

Isn’t this just, like … wow. Not for the first time this missive that we’ve found words failing us, though in the case of this one, there’s good reason. This just purrs with supernatural seduction, at once ghostly and spectral, there’s a kind of Velveteen haloing attaching to the hollowed psych soaked skeletal soul blues smoking forth here, which while we are minded to say that this orbits territories frequented by, say, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s retrimming of ‘hey joe’ from a few years ago, there’s enough of the sublime afoot to have this sitting next to anything featuring the tones of Tess Parks which before we forget it might be best to mention that this is Angel Olsen courtesy of a track lifted from a forthcoming JagJaguwar happening called ‘phases’ this one going by the name ‘special’.

Just one hundred specially pressed cassettes of this ‘un out there via Seattle’s Eiderdown imprint, which by rights should be shifting fast. I’m only sorry that we haven’t gotten around to this sooner, given our original download got somewhat lost in the digital traffic waylaying our hard drive. This is Prana Crafter with ‘MindStreamBlessing’ – an album that I think I’m best advising might be a good idea that you find a quiet spot away from modern life traffic and the grinding fuss that society in general has to offer, kick back a spell, roll yourself a fat one and prepare yourself to be mellowed to within an inch of your life. Here sit six tracks of lazy eye drifting, at once smoking and woozy, perhaps a tad stoned, yet strangely hymnal and softly glazed in a sea faring soft psych roving, non-more so is this better evidenced than on the title track itself, whereupon applying some delicately intricate fretwork, a dreamy mosaic is etched that’s crafted in spell forming Australasian mistrals. ‘At Agartha’s Gate’ the opener incidentally, almost had us double taking to make sure I wasn’t listening to a lost sun hazed Archer Prewitt nugget. In sharp contrast, the fraying big beardy ‘as the weather commands’ has you thinking its author might be smoking a far superior and more exotic stash than you by this point, its delicately mesmeric mantra snaking hazily to the kind of primitive pathways occasionally frequented by the likes of Master Musicians of Bukkake. Something more still is the hazy narcotic filtering through which on initial listening has a cosmic Floyd-ian vibe attaching, yet scratch a little deeper and a sultrily reclining prairie blues toning ushers forth that had us much of a mind to re-investigate Ry Cooder’s simply smoking ‘Paris, Texas’ soundtrack work. Teased in poise and precision, the delicately harvested ‘Luminous Clouds’ had us momentarily recalling Roy Montgomery’s ‘true’ before the onset of some lulling proggy wigginess assumes centre stage, its bliss kissed tones surrendering beneath the shimmer of fire hazed sun spotting. ‘bardo nectar’ brings matters to a close, let’s be honest the clues is in the title for this slice of spectral psych ear gear trades upon the woozy and wasted freakery of the mighty Bardo Pond. Did we say essential? https://eiderdownrecords.bandcamp.com/album/prana-crafter-mindstreamblessing

Stuff ……

John Peel corner ……

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