Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping…
Transmission 45.0…. w/e 12/11/2017
Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind….
Opening groove …..
…. features ……
L♥XP⥌⥌, Jérémie Naulet, forgotten fields, boone reid, Dudley simpson, john peel, dream division, the heartwood institute, jane weaver, pull the plug, lusterlit, churchhill gardens, Sana Obruent, principe valient, the polymer cities, timothy fife, curelight wounds, ex mothers, artificially yours, united bible studies, magpahi, field lines cartographer, time attendant, brass hearse, opel, vespero, blue giant zeta puppies, the 1910 chsainsaw company, flange circus, sleepyard with judy dyble, moloko+, cb3, swing atoms, maya danon, painted shut, sendelica, the pretty things
Sincerest of apologies to Luca Collivasone who sent over copies of his latest aural adventure, admittedly a while back now, turntable teething issues partly being blamed for the thus far lack of coverage along with our own inept absent mindedness to get to it earlier. Now for regular visitors to these pages, the name Mr Collivasone might well indeed strike a distant bell, for at least two of his previous releases as Doc Luden Looksharp and Cranio where featured, loved and dispatched with fond words in earlier missives. This time, as part of a trio, he heads up a curiously off kilter combo going by the name L♥XP⥌⥌ – which to us mere mortals roughly translates as Lovexpress who’ve just put out a new full length, incidentally pressed on blue wax, called ‘Stars’ for the Furry Heart imprint of Italy. Agreeably skedaddled, not so much in a fried and freaky way as his previous two incarnations (Cranio a misfitting post punk sponge that provided that year with one of its finest releases, Doc Luc Sharp – a more insular manifestation that peered through the apertures of outsider pop fusing elements of glitch, dub and industrial) but rather more for the fact that this gathering is straight ahead and instantly more accessible in terms of sound, style and technique. That said with Mr Collivasone in attendance, both yours, ours and his idea of straight ahead might well vary quite vastly in description, appreciation and appearance. Listened to in one sitting, ‘Stars’ sounds oddly, yet satisfyingly, out of time, fashion and currency, a strangely mutant affair that has the sense and wherewithal of something that’s been dropkicked out of 1980. At once clever and impish, it trains its sonic eyeline on the vibrant anything goes fluidity of punk’s fallout period, stirring into its genre hopping brew a sonic concoction drawn from a peculiarly crooked pop palette that waywardly appears to absorb and retune everything it touches and hears – art wave, new wave, no wave, post wave, minimalist funk etc….. Still scratching your heads, well maybe a short description from the trio might help .. ‘pop culture meets industrial, noise, psychedelia, shitty jazz, improv ….’ In truth I’m seriously of the mind that they are underplaying their collective craft, no more so is this in perfect evidence than on opener ‘enfant plastic’ which across its 8.27 duration starts and finishes from and at the same point, yet between those two book ends goes off for a wander via a series of cul de sacs, dead ends and a brief moment of dreamily noodling oddness all the time constantly morphing anew touching at various junctures Devo, Wire, Yello and strangely enough Henry Cow, I kid you not. Parting track ‘yes sir’ I think I might be right in saying rewires, blanches and skews Baccara’s 70’s global pop juggernaut ‘yes sir I can boogie’ into a shapeshifting after dark anti-anthem whose austere sheening and head tripping funk floatiness, not to mention, wiry electronic daubing channels elements of Simple Kid a la ‘the road’ and Clinic albeit as though jettisoned back several decades and found sporting their wares on a newly fledging Some Bizarre imprint. Both title track ‘Stars’ and the pursuing ‘puncture’ on the other hand mooch and feed in the shadowy terrains muddying the fault lines between Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, the former additionally spiked with some seriously smoky eastern-esque riffola that much recalls the superior flip side of Bowie’s ‘the lodger’ album with the latter employed of the same tropes though freefalling more into a pre ‘Godstar’ PTV back catalogue replete with niftily edgy fret work a la Fripp via ‘scary monsters…’ All said, we must admit something of a soft spot for the seizure inducing skittish sore thumb ‘king kong’ which initially I was minded to cite Atari Teenage Riot and Locust as close relatives, but then again, its strange mutant funkiness distantly owes its dues to Herbie Hancock’s ‘future shock’ though here as though radically rephrased and fractured by a gathering of Basement Jaxx and Battles types. https://furryheartrecords.bandcamp.com/album/stars
Had we the time, this next one might well have made the last-minute cut in our recent Halloween foray, in fact such is our scatter brain of late it was primed for feature last missive just gone until it errantly went walk abouts. Anyhow, we’ve found it, so before it goes off radar again, here’s the rather spiffing ‘Ghost’ by Jérémie Naulet, a track that’s getting plenty of nods around this here listening space, not least because amid it’s technoid fashioning a subtly threaded ice cool sense of the sinister and the mysterious inhabits its chicly murmured shape cutting lining, something which, if ears do not deceive, had us recalling the more chill grooved moments from a Biosphere back catalogue had they forged alliances with an equally laid back Orbital. https://soundcloud.com/nauletjeremie/ghost-original-mix
before you all start hollering, no not a clue as to who is putting this out, shame really because this really is something else. Think Gnac, Yellow6 and Antonymes ushered into a studio and swapping notes of admiration and then setting to work sculpturing something divinely atmospheric, bruisingly intimate and hitherto dashed in forlorn. The use of space, the softly hushed detail of spectral depth not to mention the application of poise endows it with a majesty, a magnetism and a moment frozen, magnified and revealed of all its emotional facets. This is the gracefully lulling and withdrawn beauty ‘Over the Field the Zephyr Blew’ a track culled from a collaborative set by forgotten fields and krzyzis. Sublime doesn’t even begin to touch it. https://soundcloud.com/forgottenfields/over-the-field-the-zephyr-blew
… back again with that rather immense charity compilation from Patetico going by the name ‘Rock Back: Stronger than the storm’. Mentioned last missive out, we promised to return swiftly to this again and again and here we are a second time delving a little deeper unearthing the treasures within. Now I’m fairly certain we’ve mentioned the Churchhill Garden’s previously, here with the delectably breathless slow to burn bruising that is ‘breath’, a cut bliss kissed in haloes of vapour trails whose sting and svelte seduction freefalls into the silent sighs of Kitchens of Distinction. Somewhere else here we strongly recommend you sample the hip wiggling smoking soul blues noir seduction of Lusterlit’s ‘flight’ not least because it snakes hypnotically shapeshifting and peeling from its sultry sonic skin to emerge dimpled in a wonderfully warmly radiant gospel grooving. Those preferring their sounds a little on the trippy and floaty side will do well to check out Periscope’s laid back loose n’ smoking cover of Booker and the MG’s legendary ‘green onions’. Last up for this brief return, Sana Obruent’s beautifully bruised and introspective ‘Adumbra Lineamenta Satis Quieta’ arrives ghosted in woozily dream dissipates crafted and cut with a longing though immeasurably crushed spectral detailing which on reflection deceptively manages to draw the invisible dots linking a more thoughtfully toned Roy Montgomery with Vini Reilly. https://pateticorecordings.bandcamp.com/album/rock-back-stronger-than-the-storm
Many thanks to Allan Murphy nee Midwich Youth Club, Own Brand, Mirror House et al, for sending this over, new subliminal synapse sonics from kosmische kadets the Polymer Cities, a teaser track from a forthcoming full length by the name ‘Data Rot’. This ‘un, as yet untitled from what we can gather, comes by way of a three-track download single, the other two cuts will, I promise, get an airing later in the week. Astral gliding kosmische is what you get for your trouble, impeccably crafted in a 70’s styled silver age futurist vintage, the Polymer folk go all playfully dreamy, woozy and a tad (binary) funky, setting the controls for eyeball swirling bliss out and locking, tractor beam like, onto your headspace with a murmuring of fixed point mesmeric motoriks whose minimalist, yet strangely expansive pulsar palette has an imagining of demurring distress calls emitting from a distant star outpost populated by a scouting party made up variously from members of Tonfed Oren, Fly, Silver Apples, EAR and Kreidler.
With its cavernous chimes, sonorous vocals and hulking wide screen radiance, there’s a consuming majesty arresting the grooves of Principe Valiente’s latest salvo ‘running juveniles’ that hitherto glows and adores with such a heaven hushed cathedral-esque caress that’s been rarely heard converging into such brilliantine alignment since the days of Kitchens of Distinction’s shortly bright ascending star. File under blissful and perfect.
Apologies to the Blog that Celebrates Itself folks, seems we’ve been a little absent minded with reviews for recent releases, I’m not even going to bother saying we’ll be revisiting them in later musings because, well it’s almost a sealing of a death wish, all I’m going to say is watch this space. Latest to their esteemed and busy years roster, a homage to Wire via a nineteen gathering of talents, all of whom, barring one or two names, I’m embarrassed to say have yet to trouble our listening space. Now long-time visitors to these missives will be all too aware of our fondness for ‘Map Ref 41N 93W’ – a track that’s stayed with us ever since first hearing as an impressionable youngster, still sends shivers each and every time we hear it. Left in the hands of Curelight Wounds, its divinely shimmered in oodles of sun burst hazes and bliss kissed with a vintage dream draped shoegazey serene that could have easily have been forged in a classic era Creation sound house, its pristine pop acuteness beautifully blurred by a fuzzing radiance which to these ears sounds not unlike the The Hollow Men emerging through the feedback fog of Flying Saucer Attack. Aligned to a rollicking spikey swing, there’s a primal looseness and delightfully scuffed up waywardness attaching to ex mothers rephrasing of ‘dot dash’ here given an anthem surging pogo charge that veers between moments rekindling memories of a youthful Fall and Serious Drinking. Best track on initial listening, Artificially Yours’ take on ‘used to’ has to be heard mainly because, and really I shouldn’t be saying this, it scores highly against the original mainly because of its isolationist and emotionless vibing perfectly framing its obliqueness daubing it in a divinely cold distancing. That said Slaap’s revisioning of ‘heartbeat’ is no slouch in the affection stakes, its ragged primitive wiriness distressed into something which sounds more like prime era Television than Wire. https://theblogthatcelebratesitself.bandcamp.com/album/single-k-o-wire-revisited
There’ll be more of this, as and when we unearth our CD copy, hopefully towards the end of the week or at latest early next week. The latest from the A Year in the Country folk, ‘all the merry year round’ it be called, from off which five delicately shy souls have ventured from the shadows to reveal themselves on the bandcamp previewer. First up, a little dream ghosting from the United Bible Studies whose ‘towards the black sun’ provides for a wonderfully woozy wood crafted mystical folk hymnal, the type of which, should our ears deceive, has something of a spectral toning as with which beguiles and bewitches to recall a youthful gathering of Earlies and Tunng types. Suitably attired in the seasons autumnal aura, Magpahi’s ‘she became ashes and became the wind’ unfurls gracefully to reveal something of a beautiful haunting, cascading keys tremble and teeter with an as old as the land vintage, tender and tormented flickering from the shadowy overhangs tracing a delectable yet hitherto fearful wrong path gloomed in both delight and danger beneath all of which a siren coos bewitchment. Next up, field lines cartographer serves up ‘Azimuth alignment ritual’ – as the title might well hint, all is not as it seems, positioned in some fracturing aperture of time, parallel events glower and menace in a black hearted ceremony, an underworld dividing reality and the beyond, the elements and atmosphere stilled with darkening portent provide for a moment of chilling disquiet. That seasoning of foretelling carries through to Tradition and Modernity, the microlite melodic murmurs instilling both a sense of head bowing melancholy and futuristic glimpses of apocalyptic terrors to come, the effect both lulling and yet strangely disquieting. Time Attendant takes matters to a temporary conclusion, for this brief visitation at least, ‘in a strange stillness’ doing what it says on the tin and recasting your listening space into a somewhat surreally dissipating realm not unlike, it should be said, that of those eerily occurrences occasioned to tape by Keith Seatman, albeit here etched in the blurring detachment of dreamy dissolves and the twilight dozing of mistily whispering night terrors. https://ayearinthecountry.bandcamp.com/album/all-the-merry-year-round
Something darkly brooding wanders this way. This be December’s vying for affections from the ultra-cool Burning Witches imprint, pure gallows groove from Brass Hearse with a self-titled set a prowling down the line from off which for now, we here have been somewhat smitten by the growl howl of the swamp dragged parting cut ‘Chrome and Hot Leather’. This dust ravaged dead eyed preacher rides in gloomed on a shadowy primitive wind, its deathly swing scarred and savaged with a sun scorched and parched blister blues gouging, beneath its flowing torn and bedraggled cloak, a dark hearted ambition burns with fatalist damnation dragging in its wakes the bones of rocks darkest deeds, for references start with Black Heart Procession’s third. There will be more.
I think I might be right in saying that both the limited lathe pressing (111 copies) and the rarer still 20 only cassette variant of this have long since sold out and no doubt at present, high on the watch list of online auction sites. Barely days after Timothy Fife’s went and vamoosed in the draw of a breath, then Dream Division’s debuting Polytechnic Youth outing similarly courted something of a feeding frenzy. Pressed up on hand numbered clear wax, the 7-inch variant culls four edited moments from the full-length cassette version of ‘mosura’. No strangers here, we mentioned them in both our Halloween soiree and here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/01/dream-division/ – anyhow we’ve already mentioned ‘dark force’ – something for all you Pye Corner Audio, Polypores and Heartwood Institute types with just a necessary smidgeon of Frizzi / Goblin ghosting the grooves. Elsewhere here, ‘liquid dreaming’ could easily be the lost sibling of Carpenter’s ‘utopian façade’ – a lulling lunar frost cascade demurred in shadow lined dystopian fractures while ‘regeneration 90’ very much courts with the same ghostly isolationist symphonia that solemnly sours the grooves of releases bearing the esteemed name of Concretism across their mid-rift. Lightest and best moment of this essential four track set, barring the aforementioned ‘dark force’, ‘blade of blood’ is very much phrased in classic 80’s VHS tropes and given the current climate it attracts a definable ‘blade runner’ aura for beneath the haloing of glowing atomic skies, a futuristic vision dramatically plays out awash and schooled in a cinemascopic grandness.
Available as a free download, really are they kidding, here’s a quartet of spiffing rough cuts drawn from the tape vaults of Opel. Pleasingly these recordings have a more rougher around the edges and, as with ‘rain’, a more softly mellowing psych coding to their tapestry, ‘she don’t care’ particularly courting a mod topped 60’s flavouring that strangely dovetails the fading indie brittleness of a mid-career Bang Bang Machine. That said we here are more than a tad taken by the parting track ‘mutations’ – previously unreleased and as far as we can make out only appearing here, a more flame hot and frantic side to the Opel persona we’re more readily accustomed to, this coming tightly wired to an irrefutable Who-esque surge waylaid across an acute Curved Air like psyche folk flavouring. Ridiculously recommended. https://opel1.bandcamp.com/album/mt3xep
promise we will be back with this, more than likely next missive out, but simply couldn’t resist putting out a heads up for this ‘un. Heading out on Tonzonen records shortly, new sonic happenings from the mighty Vespero courtesy of ‘«Shum-Shir’. On initial listens our heads have been turned by the parting opus ‘Hapi’. In short, a seven-and-a-half-minute astral trip, an absolute immersive tripping listening experience that one’s suspects is riding along on its own super strength bong vapours, traversing the inner space kosmische plotting a trajectory somewhere between the floaty mind expansive mosaics of Astralasia and the mystical murmurs of a super chilled Sendelica. This is deep and heavy stuff and with that recommended for maximum out thereness by way of headphonic intimacy that way separated from the demands of a hustling and bustling commercial world, you find yourself in a safe trance toned environment hitherto alive, fertile and teaming with the chatter of a rapturous undergrowth of strange lifeforms.
I’m certain that we were only remarking in recent dispatches, about the of late missing in action the Blue Giant Zeta Puppies, whether by coincidence or the fact that they felt our concern, these dudes turn up on the latest volume of head tripping happenings courtesy of the latest new and improved Active Listener sampler. ‘by the light of the moon’ is your flip wigging sub three-minute shot of totally zonked out beatnik-y freakiness, a psych pouting kosmick star rider that appears to have been taking the occasional leaf from out of Schizo Fun Addict’s book of fried rock-a-hula and wiring it upon a snaking Eastern motiffed palette possessed of the riff whiffs of Will Sergeant. Somewhere else here the wonderfully named the 1910 Chainsaw Company drop the kookily radiant mirage that is ‘good friend’ – a lilting and lazy eyed lolloping sun peeling smiley sortie gorgeously woven in an eccentrically distilled old fashioned around the pub piano singalong, music hall, honky tonk and MOR west coast vibing with hints of an early 70’s Kinks and Beach Boys mellowed, murmured and melodically sighed to sound something akin to a studio gathering of the Heartstrings and the Soft Parade, quite perfect if you ask me. Maintaining the high-end quality control, ‘kwak’ by the previously unknown to us Flange Circus has been setting tongues a wagging and heads a nodding here with its curiously mesmeric earthbeat tablas adored in swathes of symphonic glacial waves, some noodling bass snake winds and the occasional primal howl emerging through the twilight fog, pretty mystic I can tell you, nu age psychedelic ju ju anyone. I’ll warn you now, Void Watcher’s ‘succour’ will, make no mistake, blow you away. Late to the table as far as end of year hoohah’s go, had the great Mr Peel still been around, this would have been attracting enough adoring as to see it emerging as the surprise Festive 50 chart topper, kissed with a heart heavy hush and tripped with that rare x factoring that has you dropping everything in order to shuffle up closer, its opening moments opining to the fragile flurry of crystalline riffs that sound like classic Marr / Reilly craft, there’s something here majestically turned and phrased in the hallowed image of a youthful Butterflies of Love. Last up for this brief stop by, fear not we will be returning, lest we forget to mention to heavenly visitation that is ‘Rainy day vibration’ by Sleepyard accompanied here by the angelic tones of Judy Dyble, crushingly beautiful, its hymnal poise tip toed in spectral snow kisses, its minimalist murmurs swooned in quietly rejoicing enchantment, so touching, tender and timid I can almost feel the tears a welling in the company of its cocooning ice sculptured majesty. https://theactivelistener.bandcamp.com/album/the-new-improved-active-listener-sampler-vol-ii
I don’t mind admitting that this caught us clearly on the blind side. This is Swing Atoms with the most becoming ‘lucid dreams’ – destined for the coolest of club floor seduction, this ‘un clearly tunes itself into classic Moroder frequencies and elevates them into pure head morphing kosmische climes, a totally tripping dream machine dandy executed with crystalline purring perfection. The track comes accompanied by two additional mixes, first up, left in the hands of its rephrased Maria Love remix it mutates and morphs into a floaty mind expansive and loved up hyperreal consciousness jettisoned upon pulsing Carpenter burners while housed in its sixtoaugusto chassis the mood is dropped to demurring, upon its deeply mesmeric trance toned tapestry a noir traced after lights smoky seduction is sewn. https://soundcloud.com/emerald-and-doreen-rec/sets/swing-atoms-lucid-dreams
You see this is what happens around here, leave sound cloud player running and things previously undiscovered come falling out of the speakers. Now this strangely ethereal sortie came a whispering while we were mildly out of earshot, ‘hang on – I know that track’ I thought to myself as it breezed between rooms, that’s White Noise’s ‘your hidden dreams’ only it isn’t, well it is, but it’s by Maya Danon, available as a free download would you believe, this one being sneaked out at the tail end of last year. Now how did we miss this, because just between you and me, the original version is one of our all-time favourite cuts and in truth this remodelling is quite a thing, an imagining of the track as one might expect left in the collaborative hands of say, Musetta and Fever Ray all pinned to a deliriously trancy locked grooved subtronic flavouring which by our reckoning stays faithful to the original’s otherworldly mystique and outsider attraction. https://soundcloud.com/44100hzsocialclub/maya-danon-your-hidden-dreams-edit-free-download
first of two releases due early January from the esteemed Fruits de Mer sound house. An immense set from the mighty Sendelica, this one we mentioned in passing somewhere here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/10/08/sendelica-20/ finds Wales’ answer to Acid Mothers returning en masse to the Mwnci studios to harness the legendary mystique of the nearby ancient Cromlech. ‘the Cromlech Chronicles II’ finds these crafted purveyors of progressive psych / folk embarking upon a different musical path than previously that soundwise sees them plotting a sonic trajectory hinting of elements of Popol Vuh, Jethro Tull and Ariel Kalma being drawn to their vivid colourful and mammoth tapestry. A softly stirring monolith, ‘even though my mouth is silent’ is a tribute to its surrounding, the atmosphere toned with a reverential mystical heraldry, a séance perhaps drawing forth the ghostly aura of an ancient age long since past. The symphonic lines turned in a deeply lulling fog bound majesty as though woven from the very elements of nature itself, stir with a poised observing funereal grace as the strings, choral chants and wind instruments harmonise and coalesce sultrily to a lost sonic tongue to weave a deeply intoxicating and hitherto snaking aural alchemy. Immense stuff.
Alongside the Sendelica happening this January from our Fruits de Mer friends, there’s also a rather spiffing 4 track set from the mighty Pretty Things to take on. Alas we’ve not had a chance to hear or even see a copy of their recently acclaimed full length ‘the sweet pretty things are in bed now’ but judging by the sounds of ‘the same sun’ I think we may have to get a wiggle on and acquire a copy on our next record buying jaunt. Hell’s teeth folks, this nugget comes peeled from a combo who’ve been cutting magical shapes as long as the Stones and dare I say, sounding ridiculously more relevant. With its snaking swagger and lightly stoned strut, ‘the same sun’ radiates effervescently with a soft psych blues kaleidoscopia, a head shrooming lysergic trip coiled upon a cool as f*** 60’s flavoured grind that’s tight, taught and highly tasty. Equally grooved in an up to mark shimmering, ‘renaiscence fair’ proves to be no slouch in the affection stakes, haloed as it is in a hippy trippy mistiness all purred and pouted in a sun peeling 60’s wooziness. Over on the flip of this four track wig flipper, two live cuts rescued from the bands prime era 60’s vault, the skewing and fried freak beat-nish of ‘she says good morning’ here found wild and untamed playing an impish game of peek a boo threading the invisible dots between Tomorrow and a Barrett era Floyd while ‘Alexander’ is your sharply suited and booted slab of funk bitten gruffly gnarled garage blues boogie.
Latest two shows from the hugely enjoyable Pull the Plug are festooned in all manner of hipster happenings, the first of which, the 2/11 broadcast features a trio of twinsets from latest loves Dream Division as well as smattering of select pickings from recent nuggets by way of both the Heartwood Institute and Jane Weaver, all of whom should need no introductions here. Featured here on this teasingly short transmission a brace of selections drawn from Dream Division’s debut full length ‘mosura’, the head turner here being ‘dark force’ – exploring a similar vintage and horror glazed preset to the much loved Heartwood Institute, as said in previous musings – here – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/01/dream-division/ – this ‘un beautifully chills with a seductive macabre to recall some lost 70’s Fulci terror scored by Frizzi and Goblin. As to the Heartwood Institute, what can we say, each passing release like pieces from a jigsaw gathered together forming a picture of alternative realities, while its right to say traversing the same disturbed shadowlands as say, Concretism, Pye Corner Audio and Polypores, scratch a little deeper and stir deep into the well of displacement and psychosis and what’s revealed is a haunting kinship with the Unseen, these two tracks ‘she come back’ and ‘powers of darkness’ being pulled from his immensely darkening supernatural soundtrack ‘Witch Phase Four’ – mentioned in more detail here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/10/31/look-what-we-sneaked-on-online-while-you-were-sleeping-on-halloween/ Inhabiting her own hermetically sealed sonic universe, or so it would seem, Jane Weaver’s intuitive ability to draw to her extensive sound palette and ethereally weave seamlessly from elements of psych, kosmische, kraut, electronica and folk with such sublime dream like grace is perhaps only matched by Goldfrapp, her range and art in diffusing them as one so that each track incorporates a multi-faceted persona is something that owes to Stereolab, with ‘elements’ featured here dovetailing dreamily into environs that fondly recall a very youthful Soundcarriers.
Shift along one week, to yesterday’s transmission, 9/11 as it happens, and we have something of a Burning Witches feast with, if I recall rightly, three tracks drawn from the labels recent Halloween mix tape ‘Witches Brew’ – a copy of which we really must strive to beg, steal or haggle for over the weekend. Mentioned with much fondness in our Halloween special – see above, tasters from All of them Witches, Timothy Fife and Deathcourt in Silicon Valley feature here. Add to that a sneak peak of new futuro funk groove from the criminally underappreciated Polymer Cities, mentioned here strangely enough https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/the-polymer-cities-7/ – very cosmic and very much sounding like Fly rebooting Silver Apples. Rounding out the grooves of this particularly dystopian themed airing some vintage woven chill from Dream Division, again another selection from their recent ultra-limited and sold out in a blink cassette ‘mosura’ – trust me, come the year end and you’ll be tired to the back teeth with us mentioning these folk. Dare we forget to mention ‘we are robot’ by Jonathon Sharp, he who is the Heartwood Institute, how we missed this is besides beyond us, is a tad troubling, we will be making enquiries of that you be rest assured, this ‘un sounding not a million miles in terms of sound culturing as the aforementioned Polymer Cities though serenely snoozed in an Isan like playfulness occupying a corner of the FortDax cosmos. https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/pull-the-plug-2nd-november-2017/
https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/pull-the-plug-9th-november-2017/
first of a plethora of Eggs in Aspic releases, let’s hope they send copies this time. This ‘un appears to be sold out of its cassette form on pre-order alone, from Stockholm, this is CB3 (Charlottas Burnin’ Trio) with a set planned for January drop entitled ‘from nothing to eternity’. From that set serving as a hulking herald as to what to expect, the radiant sonic solar flare emerging through the rumbling apocalyptic storm fog that is the title track, a sub thirteen minute monolithic bruiser that finds its sonic settings sat somewhere between the mighty Mugstar and the adored Heads, this is colossal, heavy and dense, a brooding behemoth flavoured in a primordial tapestry ghosted upon a snaking Eastern sent mistral, its desert dry atmospherics poised, majestic and sky fired upon a deeply alluring cinematic skin weaving out at deeply intoxicating brew of stoned out mind altering stratospheric mantras. https://eggsinaspic.bandcamp.com/album/from-nothing-to-eternity
those of you who keep abreast of such things, will be all too aware that the traditional season’s end Fruits de Mer celebrations are this year marked by not only a members only limited Schizo Fun Addict vinyl occurrence but also a split label co-outing with Eggs in Aspic. Following last year’s head to head with Static Caravan, its now the turn of Newcastle’s finest to step up to the plate with the release of a ridiculously limited two track cassette that features two lost gems from the vaults of the forgotten Moloko+. Now FdM regulars will be all to aware that head honcho Keith has something of a soft spot for these folks having issued ultra limited outings by them in recent memory, this one in fact will also be available in a strictly limited lathe pressing available to subscribers of the labels members club. Just one cut on the preview playing, sent ahead doing the wowing duties, ‘bite the hand’ with its smokily crystalline chime charmed breeziness very much tuned into the sonic frequencies of the days jangle pop fraternity – see the Orchids, Trashcan Sinatras et al, yet cut away at the surface and something disarming, gritted and flavoured in a 60’s mistiness rises up through the grooves that initially hints of the Go Betweens before settling into a Long Ryders vibe possessed of hints of Buffalo Springfield. https://eggsinaspic.bandcamp.com/album/bite-the-hand
a little something we tripped over on that Bandcamp things, this be Painted Shut who hail from California, specifically Garden Grove, a new set out just out called ‘Heavy Dreaming’ is a damn fine way to lose 18 minutes of your life getting lost in. Adored in all manner of dark psych tropes that are seductively smoked, however it’s the sore thumb ‘ascend the mountain’ that had us peeling our tongue and prizing our jaw from the floor, a thunderous whirlwind of unravelling ju-ju whose unhinged gusto tears, scratches and cuts sharply with an electro shocking scowling which to these ears sounds like a seriously potent and primal lost in the moment classic era Jefferson Airplane. https://paintedshut.bandcamp.com/album/heavy-dreaming
john peel corner – bit of a corker this one, featruresthe mighty Bastro, the original transcentral mix by KLF – still the best mix of all the various variants, something by the much maligned Birdland, Sink, I ludicrous and straitjackets fits in session – what more can you ask for …cuts in a bit……
Contact resources….
Email – marklosingtoday@gmail.com
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/thesundayexperience
Word press – marklosingtoday.wordpress.com
Twitter – @marklosingtoday
Physical – 46 Webster Avenue, BOOTLE, Merseyside, L20 9JF, UK
End credits …. Dudley Simpson RIP……
the sunday experience 