Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping… Transmission 50.0….

Look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping…

Transmission 50.0…. w/e 17/12/2017

Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind….

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

Opening groove ….

.. featuring …. The green apple sea, sonmi451, fabio frizzi, Bruno nicolai, jacula, Electronic Phantasmagoria, ennio morricone, mint field, behold a pale horse, the soft moon, moviestar, radiation flowers, panophonic, la witch, frankie teardrop dead, the sunflowers, dom clark trio, Emma de Angelis, moonwalks, Brenda, Jeremy tuplin, Justin dean thomas, sweaty palms, jeremy neale, free / slope, jurgen muller, tomaga, colin potter, janvy, Lucile furs, gary numan, Aluk Todolo, mesange, coum flakes, happy meals, olden yolk, sleepyard, implant, gore slut, terry emm, fly away sorrow, money hater, connect_icut, milano sun, bolywool, Filiamotsa, null spectre, beaulieu porch, flohr, huron, the polymer cities, ex easter island, transmission, john peel, new apostles, susanna, Elizabeth cotton, Remington super 60, yellow6, soft issues, the corrupting sea, Scheich in China, gary war, james holden and the animal spirits, pefkin, barrett’s dottled beauty, girl ray, the go team, Tirikilatops, poetrip, brain masturbation, Elizabete Balčus, acid baby jesus, melmoth the wanderer, pull the plug, you the night and the music, bobby funk, forty funk pipe, popropo, manga bros, ageing children, alexander stordiau, annie and the station orchestra, bearsuit, bunny and the invalid singers, kiremeki, manga bros, martian suculture, petridisch, popropo, Shinnosuke Sugata, steeples fpr people, swords reversed, The Invisible & Divided Sea, the moth poets, Yponomeutaneko, antonio de braga, casual strangers, guitar pk, ivan black, new apostles, transmission 13, vanguardista, winter solstice, wolfgang merx, craven faults, the southern tenant, antonymes, jonathan Wilson, west coast pop art experimental band, acid gallery, the cuppa t, winston’s fumbs, piccadily line, billy Nichols, the factory, the nightcrawlers, cobblestones, Turkish delight, galaxy fingers, moon wiring club, time attendant, the slowest lift, flying saucer attack, hogni, skyjelly, sendelica, bad daddies, razz, greenhouse, document, Alison o’donnell, pulselovers, breakfast muff, the lovely egg, The droids, transvolta, telex, grauzone, zombies, the left banke …..

Admit it, isn’t this quite the most lovely thing you’ve heard in an age, alright then for a few hours at least. Everything about it from the honeyed harmonies, west coast afterglows, opining steel croons to its homely glazing all gather around the campfire in good cheer to instil a warm fuzzy feeling. Add to the mix the breezy lilt of Americana dialects and the irrefutable smoky allure of the lolloping riffs and it all hints of endless summers watching the sun fall to the sound of an early 70’s era Beach Boys and Bufallo Springfield. By the Green Apple Sea, this is the deceptively disarming ‘Doc Watson Dream’ a teaser track pulled from a full length by the name ‘Directions’ due to surface sometime May next year. In short located somewhere between the Low Anthem and a youthful Woods. Links hopefully to follow shortly. 

We really must endeavour to keep abreast of these Eilean beauties. So, while we withdraw to a quiet spot and take in the becoming charms of their impeccably assembled year end gathering, mentions hopefully during the course of the coming week, here’s the labels last outing or at least a brief taster thereof. Alas sold out of its physical form, this is Sonmi451 with ‘gadera’, the longest track from an album by the name ‘Panta Rei’. In short, eight blissful minutes from which to escape modern life madness perchance to float with the stars and swim in the oceanic voids, for this ice sculptured murmur tone is teased with a tenderly forlorn and graceful aura, its airless state stilled with a snow globed porcelain poise that gently pirouettes, thaws and twinkles in a demurring dream like cocooning. https://eileanrec.bandcamp.com/track/gadera  

Interlude …. horrorphonia …..fabio frizzi, Bruno nicolai, jacula, Electronic Phantasmagoria, ennio morricone …..

Tripped over these excellent mix tapes on a recent wander around yoo toob, as you do, what with the night’s drawing in and the season of death beginning to scratch with its icy claws then what better way to celebrate with a few idling hours of macabre…..

First up then a brace of excellent mixtapes culled from horror gore beneath the VHS counter……

Electronic Phantasmagoria …..

 

Electronic Phantasmagoria 2 ….

Fabio frizzi …..

Bruno Nicolai ….

Jacula ….

Ennio Morricone …. In our humbled his finest work to date, the legendary ‘Spasmo’ …..

Arriving just after the oncoming silly season, new happening groove from the eggs in aspic dudes, more uber essential cassette crucialness that’s due to impact early January, this time from behold a pale horse in the shape of their self-titled six track EP. Described in passing as neo psychedelia with trace elements of kosmische, blues and breakbeats and pissing in similar pools to those of NEU!, Dead Indians, MC5, The Doors, Grizzly Bear and early Pink Floyd. Aye we thought we can agree to that, certainly the Doors, for on the two cuts currently gracing the preview pane of their bandcamp window a primitive mysticism rises from the primordial fog, not least on opening herald ‘behold the pale horse’ where to the looping riff sparring a primitive dance snakes and weaves that’s cooled in the dust crusted mantras once upon a time the cooling call of Death Cult.  That said scratch away a little deeper and is that the darkening shimmer toning of a ‘Seduction’ era Danse Society muddying the grooves, we’d like to think so. ‘united souls’ continues with the Death Cult badge wearing though here predating to their Southern Death Cult persona, about you in a rash, its lysergic flashings and rash forming pulse racing edginess honing into terrains once briefly the domain of the Somatics, comes kissed with one of the finest chorus’ we’ve heard all year. https://eggsinaspic.bandcamp.com/album/behold-a-pale-horse-ep

Getting a tad daft this now, here we are with the mother of all man flu’s and the killer records of all shapes, styles and varieties keep popping up and no, before you ask, we haven’t even touched the meds yet. So here we are still trying to prize our jaw off the floor as behold a pale horse slide out of earshot and along come Mint Field to take up the vacated seat. Anyhow, hailing from Tijuana, Mint Field are a duo who’ve an album incoming February time on Innovative Leisure entitled ‘passer de las luces’ from off which ‘ojos en el carr’ has been peeled. Quite frankly if the rest of the album is anything like this becoming gem, then we here will be at the front of the queue with words of fondness and adoration. Starts out a tad crestfallen, the crystalline riff ripples soured and sighed almost Marr-esque, opine with a bruised head bowed hurting to fold around and caress the crushed and reflective vocal, it’s something that instantly recalls those early appearances by the Sundays, just when you are succumbing to its sorrow, the blighter erupts without so much as a by your leave at the 3.38 point to radiantly shower all in euphoria kissed sunbursts whilst emerging simultaneously phoenix like from its wounded former self.

 

No info or press gubbins with this, in fact we tripped across it on that there yoo toob, damn fine it is to, not least for the fact that in an instant we were back in the early 80’s a touch post punky and touch gothy a loggerheads with our younger self as he played to the point of destruction his acquired pile of Killing Joke and 1919 grooves. Indeed the latest stumbling out into the harsh daylight from out of the Sacred Bones soundhouse is by the Soft Moon. This be ‘it kills’ a tensely chilled post punk pill from a forgotten yesterday whose shadow lined icy touching has something of an ‘resistance’ era Clock DVA attaching to its anxious dark heart.

Okay, cards on the table, we are quite smitten with this. truth is we don’t know why, it just kind of sloped beneath our radar and sneaked by our defences, it might be down to the fact that it purrs day dreamily and thoughtfully with a head in the clouds nonchalance, partly slacker-esque yet irresistibly trimmed in a twinkle toning cuteness that catches you off guard, its softly teased sunny disposition snoozing amid a becoming lazy eyed radiance that sweetly curdles and coos with a lilting pastoral phrasing. Adorable. Anyhow, whatever the case, this is Moviestar with ‘chosen few’ – a bit of a sweetie.  https://soundcloud.com/moviestar-812146113/chosen-ones  

Newly peeled Panophonic loveliness, this one features a guest appearance from Paul Baker of Static Daydream. ‘what can I do’ be its name, demurred in the kind of dream draped dissolves that used to be the trademark trope of releases bearing the name Kitchens of Distinction upon their grooves, there’s something here that ought to in the first instance, catch the lobes of those folk fondly recalling the brief but very bright tenure of the Wilde Club family, here I’m very much thinking of a youthful Catherine Wheel, yet stand back and let the sound soak and what comes to fore is the irrefutable ghosting of a reflective Skyray skysigning in the vapour brushed grooves. https://soundcloud.com/tomlugo/panophonic-ftg-paul-baker-what-can-i-do?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=facebook  

Okay, so how did this one escape our gaze first time of asking, had us full tilt and weaving precariously on our listening pedestal. This be Radiation Flowers with ‘dancing in the flames’ a track lifted from a set released way back in July via Cardinal Fuzz called ‘summer loop’. Hell’s teeth, sounds like a muscular Gulp cutting psych tripped black sun psalms ablaze in swirling white-hot vortex’s of darkly seductive lysergic wig flip-a-rama with an occasional nod to classic era Jefferson Airplane thrown in for good measure. Quite freaked, fried and flowery in a dead headed variety. https://soundcloud.com/cardinaldistro/radiation-flowers-dancing-in-flames  

a little brief but deserved mention for this ‘un, truth is it popped up on our player by sheer accident, a demo by Frankie Teardrop Dead who as I recall haven’t as yet troubled these pages. Anyhow this be ‘love hate’ – an utterly adorable loved up bliss beauty, a touch hymnal / gospel-y, a touch campfire-y and above all totally smoked and delicate weaved in west coast-y effervescences, I’ll be open and honest in saying that, had we not known better, we’d have hazarded a guess that this was some kind of long forgotten secret studio face-off between a very youthful ‘car wash hair’ era Mercury Rev and Spiritualized with a side serving of Slipstream folk smoking up the mixing desk magic. https://soundcloud.com/frankieteardropdead/love-hate-demo  

still one of the coolest things in planet pop, you may well have noticed that we adore LA Witch around these here parts, cutting shadow lined primitive rumbles that purr, pout and prowl with the seedily shimmered swagger and scowl of a forgotten ‘pulp fiction’ soundtrack, this be their latest, sporting a moving picture show,  we mentioned it here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/08/08/l-a-witch-2/  

Look I know we’ve been promising, it’s gonna happen and soon, oodles of Finders Keepers freakiness both old and new-ish, well at least the stuff they’ve taken to posting up on their bandcamp shop page. Expect loads of weird ear beardy beauties like this stoney 70’s kooky pill from Emma de Angelis available in both download and vinyl options. Three tracks lurk within to give you a more than enough of an idea of the freak pill range afoot here, the opener ‘forgiveness’ I think might just edge matters in the affection stakes not least for the way it dressed up as a wayward beatnik drop out cooking up some way out frazzled funk blues trippiness. ‘trip’ eases on wig flipping instead opting for something more mellowed, laid back and a tad smoked in a lights lowered after hours sophistication. Which all leaves ‘plankton’ to round out matters to the end groove, though not before spiking your listening space in the softening demur of psych essences mesmerically trimmed in cooling countrified mosaics and a reclining lazy eyed haziness that hints just a subtle touch of John Fahey. https://finderskeepersrecords.bandcamp.com/album/emma-de-angelis  

Ooh, this is quite smoking. This is the latest musical incarnation of a certain Dom Clark, who in recent times has been found gracing the BDI’s line up, now as the Dom Clark Trio, ‘undercover’ is the first of a promised slew of singles that hopefully over the course of time will both seduce and find loving homes with which to adore. As said, first up, ‘undercover’ – immaculately toned in a jazz noir arresting, its slinky and snaking nocturnal prowl smoked and drizzled in a classicism whose lineage cuts to a finite John Barry like smoozy fashioning. That said, amid it’s sultry detailing a sound, both out of time and out of currency smooches its way to the surface with hints of that most rarefied and precious of pop craft occasioned by the likes of Paddy McAloon and Neil Hannon. Alas no sound links just yet, rest assured we are working on them.

How cool is this, be honest the pulse is racing as it awkwardly tries – and fails miserable – to synchronise to the wig flipped, wayward and wiring panic attacking schizoid rhythms reaching out to throttle you to within an inch of your life, oh yea and it’s heading out on Stolen Body, so fear not for the essential ear gear seal of approval has been nailed. This be the Sunflowers with ‘castle spell’ – a track culled from an imminent second full length of the same name heading out February time. Beneath a sweating and seedy feral buzzsaw, something frantic, frenetic and fractured oozes with pure primitive lust, whittling discarded Sonic Youth riffs this seesawing sore thumb swoons, scowls and sermonises with rabid abandon much like a dark evening meeting between DAF and the Ministry both being stalked by a seriously freaked and fried Mudhoney. 

    

What, are they breeding them. We do sometimes wonder whether there be jiggery pokery afoot at the Stolen Body sound house and that somewhere amid their hallowed home they do indeed have resources for a secret laboratory whereupon by night, they are creating pop super beings. Another from the stable I fear, this be Moonwalks with ‘dust is magic’ from an imminent January due full length called ‘in light (the scales in the frame)’. ‘Detroit glam psych rockers’ screams the press release, a tick to that one, what they fail to tell you though is that this might well be the best Toy record not actually recorded, written or played by er ….. Toy, indeed that good.  https://soundcloud.com/stolenbodyrecords/dust-is-magic  

Okay we hold our hands up high, not a clue about this. Here’s us, a backlog of emails no doubt featuring oodles of cool grooves and there we are still sniffing around soundclouds looking for easy pickings. Much like this one for instance, by Brenda, this be ‘beard of bees’ – think Hookworms meets the Lucid Dream cooking up a whiplash inducing rock-a-hula giddy up, hells teeth this is so wild n’ rabid not to mention flipped it’ll probably jive bop you to death with its electro shocked psychobilly, kind of primitive Reverend Horton Heat on speed, adored here incidentally.  https://soundcloud.com/brendato/beard-of-bees-1  

bugger me, where were we when this originally popped up to say hello. Heard twice, loved in an instant to the point of admiring obsession, is it too late to nail your colours to the favourite single of the year mast we wonder.  It’s a rare thing to find a record that can make you cry, laugh, hurt and be aglow with cheery fondness in its opening two lines, but then ‘astronaut’ is not your normal record. I’m still trying to decide whether to file it under folk, gospel or just for the hell of it, invent a whole new generic species for it alone to be safely snuzzled beneath. Anyhow, out on Folkwit, this is Jeremy Tuplin, a late runner for our single of the year you say, I wouldn’t bet against it. What’s magical about this track is its journey, the way it blossoms from the earthy and rustic to the celestial and ethereal, its swaying dance giddy with a haloing of reality checking and the fainting crush of reflectiveness, at once mournfully glazed yet content with its lot. It is irresistible and a rare moment that touches and chimes deeply with a direct line speaking to the soul, sound wise think of the frosty cosiness of Dream Academy’s ‘life in a northern town’ as were rephrased by Bonnie Prince Billy imbibing on the lone wolf spirit of Nick Drake. Be warned this will floor you. Perfection.  https://soundcloud.com/jeremytuplin/astronaut-jt   

literally been bouncing off the walls like a bad ‘un to this, by Sweaty Palms this is ‘queer fatwa’ from a ongoing introducing series hosted by RIP records, this being the seventh release to date, a nifty slab of rumble some wiringly primitive giddy up, part Fall, a lot the Turbines and the Fire Engines and oodles of shock-a-billy hoo-hah that’s blessed with a swing cut cool with a dandy dead eyed stare. Any questions then… https://soundcloud.com/pete-heywoode/sweaty-palms-queer-fatwa-1  

absolutely diddly in terms of information on this one, except to say that is, that its out and about through the greenway imprint. Anyway, found this straying around on sound cloud, first hearing an instant adoring, its by Justin Dean Thomas and it’s called ‘no one knows’. Smoking gospel folk blues it be with hints of Rodriguez swooning amid it’s grooves, damn this sounds as though it’s been cut with such sublime vintage it could have fallen straight out of the 50’s, recalling both the BDI’s – more so their previous incarnation the Panda Gang, there’s an attracting homeliness attaching, the opining steel, the hymnal hushes and the overall grace toned serene of it all – utter bliss in a word. https://soundcloud.com/greenwayrecords/justin-dean-thomas-no-one-knows  

something else we eyed on soundcloud, this ‘un by Jeremy neale, goes by the name ‘small talk’. Okay i’ll admit it might first appear a little saccharine compared to our usual tastes, but wrapped up in a bubblegum tailoring there’s something power popping in the ’79 / ’80 lane that had us much fondly recalling the brief but necessary buzzsawed pop jabs occasioned by the likes of the motors, the jags and split enz, does it for us. https://soundcloud.com/jeremy-neale/small-talk  

annoyingly we suffered a slight internet connection meltdown when this one was aired earlier this evening, I suspect we may well have missed out. Thanks BT – class service as always. Anyhow, mail order happening from the Deep Distance crew, this one a super limited 88 only 10 inch lathe with advertised ‘wobbly b-side’. By Free / Slope, whose album earlier this year we annoyingly missed, this is ‘Ultra Light’, a mind expanding slab of uber cosmic happening replete with primo Sonic Boom wooziness fed upon a head shrooming mosaic equal parts Doors, Floyd and Fuxa, plug in your headphones, tune in, bliss out and let the hypnotic locked groove swirls gently fry your mind, did we say it was highly trippy, no, highly trippy then, we advise repeat plays under strict supervision.    

Deep Distance’s younger sibling, Polytechnic Youth are by accounts, prepping the release the much anticipated album from the Heartwood Institute for yuletide feasting. Details, news and no doubt, much fond words to come. 

Be honest, isn’t this deceptively trippy, floaty and a tad dreamy, the way the bowed instruments curl around each other forging circular ripples upon which the sounds fuse, dissolve and form anew into delicate hybrids and that’s before we’ve even mention the fleeting ghostly earthbeat haziness around which they all orbit. This be Jurgen Muller, a track pulled from a recent split release with Jonas Reinhardt for the abstrakce imprint entitled ‘The Encyclopedia of Civilizations’ – this cut incidentally going by the name ‘Garden Of Nephthys’ – a wonderful infusion of timeless mystics and ethereal future echoes.

Staying with Abstrakce, here’s Colin Potter with ‘never underestimate the power of nothing’ from a recent sent called ‘the abominable slowman’, maybe its just me but we find this playfully sinister, its clockworking menace some kind of portent of ne’er do well deeds afoot, its cloaking chill chimed macabre lengthening its shadow extinguishing the light and escape route as it tightens with impish dread. Alternatively be it a spot of motorik kosmische pilfered from the dark side of Bureau B’s Esmark or Der Plan with a side serving of Radiophonic Workshop-pery attaching.

 

Finally, another from Abstrakce, this one from the beginning of the year, how on earth did we miss this one. Again, a split release featuring Tomaga and Orlando occupying opposite sides of the wax. Described by their press folk as ‘…the Association for the Re-Alignment of Magnetic Dust presents a split release between Orlando and Tomaga of music for video games. Inspired by fictional worlds, imagined quests, and surreal dreams, they soundtrack your adventures in gameland.’ Anyhow this one is ‘giant bitmap’ by Tomaga, imagine if you will a previously secret gathering of Add N to X types with sonic sore thumb Mount Vernon Arts Lab invited along to cut darkly menacing homages to the Radiophonic Workshop by the Ochre folk and in to the bargain freaking the label out with what sounds like a lost soundtrack to a 60’s era Patrick Troughton ‘Dr Who’ happening.

Interlude ….. IMPATV moments ….. Aluk Todolo, mesange, coum flakes, happy meals ….

Aluk  tudolo ……

Mesange ….

Coum flakes ….

… and an old one from the Happy Meals …..

More turntable turn on happenings, this time from the mysterious Janvy who hails from Stockholm. Debut four track EP ‘heads 1899’ is as sure to snare the earlobes of those adoring Beaulieu Porch as it is those who fondly miss those fried offerings emanating once upon a time from the extended family of the Elephant 6 Collective. Four tracks of quintessential vintage psychedelia shimmer within, opening track ‘heads’ tumbles out hazily glazed and somewhat lazy eyed, trippily radiant in the cooling afterglow of swirling west coast lysergics, which to these ears come adored and possessed of that strangely alluring flavouring of the Circulatory System. Venturing deeper into the realms of kaleidoscopic noir, the stoned and smoking mystic ‘sycamore and tronic’ might in a certain light, sound for all the world like a hybrid Cheval Sombre in cahoots with the Murmurs of Irma whilst on some middle eastern retreat being retuned and retooled by the back-room staff of Portishead, I seriously kid you not, so mellow you need to anchor your feet to the floor to stop you drifting away. As mentioned earlier, beneath the fracturing hallucinogenic hazes ‘space 1899’ hints of Beaulieu Porch dissolving and dissipating in the airless astral smoke, the genteel ghost like wooziness wonderfully weaved of a classic era Doleful Lions detailing. It’s left to the adorably spacey ‘Vivit Sumus’ to lead matters out to the end groove, though not before infusing your listening space in dream dozed seafaring mirages of baroque bliss kisses. Very essential. https://janvy.bandcamp.com/album/heads-1899  

This one came in late last night and literally blew us away, so you might just need to give us a while with a full mention as we here are still suffering the after effects of swooning fits at the visitation of opener ‘the fawn of teal deer’. New album from Lucille Furs, is what all the fuss is about, the latest in a long line of bands who I’m suspecting might well be the next psych ensemble vying for your undivided affections, only these a really special. Blending a sun fried 60’s radiance peeled and sprayed in baroque pop bouquets, the airily breezy ‘our lady of perpetual frustration’ is blessed of a rarefied class that’s been seldom heard around here in recent years since those early cuts from the Clientele, so exquisite and out of step and time, you’d be forgiven for thinking it be some previously unreleased and thought lost nugget from a forgotten Left Banke studio session. As said though, the cut that’s arrested our attention ‘the fawn of teal deer’, comes blissfully bathed in a hallucinogenic hazing that hints of nights idling, listening to the Chocolate Watchband and the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band and should, if anything, attract admiring glances from those much adoring of the Hanging Stars and the Wicked Whispers.

http://preorder.lucillefurs.com/

We’ve a lot time for Mr Numan. New album ‘savage songs from a broken world’ has been widely noted for its commentary on matters relating to climate change. However, something we’ve noticed creeping into the Numan vocabulary in recent years has been conversations concerning mortality, as though revealing piece by piece the ticking chemistry of his psyche. Once, early in his career, as though observing from afar, Numan these days has adjusted his dialogue / connection to first person, his fears, irks, vulnerability and those concerns that haunt the sleeping hours all gather to create a close intimacy with the listener. Latest track culled from that album ‘the end of things’ has all these things in abundance extracted from a widening emotional spectrum, one minute contemplative and questioning, the next bitter and angry.

Incidentally, Numan’s 5th full length ‘Dance’ is getting the re-mastered treatment. Released on the Beggars Arkive series, the set that saw Numan stepping away from pure electronics to fuse jazz and funk disciplines with a 30’s fashioning that hinted Chandler whilst trying to court a dark chic, which let’s be brutally honest here, only really shone through on the trypytch of cuts ‘boys like me’, ‘stories’ and ‘my brother’s time’. Due for mid January drop, the set, pressed on purple vinyl, will be spread across two slabs of wax with the original album taking up three sides, the point being that the original mix was squeezed onto one album resulting in a muddy sound and a loss of pitched dynamic, much the same reason as to why those four Eno re-issues arrived earlier in the year. Side 4 will feature all the related b-sides along with the extended, and as yet, previously unreleased edit of ‘Moral’ closing the proceedings. 

‘fraid to say no information on this, well I suppose I could easily rustle up something on the interweb but then I’m only interested in the sounds and not what the band have had for their tea, though saying that I’d been none too surprised to hear of some bong action afoot during the recording because this really is deceptively trippy. By Olden Yolk, this be ‘takes one to know one’ – an 8-minute hypnotic head trip of weaving mystical and coolly blissed out trance toned kaleidoscopics replete with locked grooved woozy Eastern mosaics, I’m sure that covers all you need to know, essential happening by our reckoning setting up camp somewhere between a ‘bad orb… ‘ era Walking Seeds and the Wooden Shjips.

 

We will be back with this a little later in the week, for now, here’s a wee glow forming draft of Sleepyard in yuletide mode with ‘December’. Prized from an EP entitled ‘Christmas Time’, the snow kissed landscape that greets you on the steps of ‘December’ provides for a softly stirred emotional adventure. Framed amid the homecoming lollops, this silently stilled symphonic seasonal card, tumbles, trips and trots to an enchanted wintry scene, its quiet melancholia airbrushed and wooed by the arresting ascendancy of cascading flurries of elegantly tweaked twinkling neo classical pirouettes. https://sleepyard.bandcamp.com/album/christmas-time

Limited cassette action from the much admired, though sadly quiet of late Jezus Factory imprint. This one in an edition of 100 came to be when Heyme Langebroek of Kiss my Jazz fame found a neglected box of forgotten CD’s while readying himself for a move. The archive material within being live recordings of Gore Slut from the late 90’s where passed up to the Jezus Factory folk for consideration and well everyone knows that head honcho Andrew is something of a completist when it comes to all things relating to Rudy Trouve. The CD, carefully listened to and cleaned where put to cassette because everyone loves retro and hey, we want to be as close to that whole 90’s vibe as much as possible in all its joys and horrors of cassette players that play too fast, too slow, if at all, don’t even start with the chewing side of matters. Look we love cassettes. So what you have here on ‘Live And Intoxicated at Nandrin 1997’ is a complete show of Trouve and Co doing, what the press release, so acutely and succinctly puts it, ‘……playing alternative guitar rock in the style of Dinosaur Jr, Yo la tengo, Sonic Youth, Jonathan Richman and Motorpsycho. Dark and introvert lovesongs, covered in a wall of noise’. What’s not to love, truth be told we couldn’t have put it better ourselves with highlights a many here, notably ‘letter’ whose dizzy discordance playfully teeters between the slow fuse rage storms of Nirvana and the squirreling impish of Trumans Water and Eric’s Trip while ‘white socks’ skirts, coos and blisters into terrains so admired of Pavement. For us though, nothing quite betters the parting salvo ‘lisa drugstore’ – an intimately bruised sonic storybook with a propensity to rupture and fragment into moments of skree scabbing unravelling, which in the end makes this something of an essential grab.  https://jezusfactoryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gore-slut-live-and-intoxicated-at-nandrin-1997-2  

saw this on a random posting, okay yes it’s been out a while, but given the coming season and the fact that white stuff is dropping from the sky, it all seems apt to have something warm and homely to snuggle up to the turntable in the company of. This be Terry Emm with the twinklesome ‘gently’, a wonderful slice of festive festooning of wintry wooziness, lolloping rustics and heart warming hazy hymnal-ness all shivered and snow brushed into a cosy toed lulling woodcut wonderland that aside almost having us of a mind to go rooting out our prized collection of Leslie King / katie winter / the silkwinders sorties, near had us a tad tearful. https://terryemm.bandcamp.com/track/gently  

strangely enough we were in fact side tracked from listening to the Trash Gentlemen by this ‘un – fear not they will appear at some stage later, if not this missive, then certainly the next. This is Implant with ‘the phone call’ – an ice cooled subtronic technoid moocher which as far as our ears can tell, manages to sublimely fuse the euro disko industrialonics of classic era Front 242 with the minimalist seedy core club floor prowling vibe of Minty and into the bargain ghosts it with a shadowy decadence finitely freezed to a sub-zero grooving. 

I’m not at all sure whether there’s a required dressing code for this one, I don’t know, some strangely colourful garb, perhaps an animal mask and some dinky tap shoes with bells on. It’s all very affectionate and attractively honed, alas no information, in fact now I come to think of it, I can’t recall how on earth we came to stumble upon it in the first place. Anyhow, safe to say, a wonderfully wonky lolloping folk giddy up is afoot, for this be Fly Away Sorrow with ‘Boar’s Head Carol’ – yuletide yeeha though I’d caution on the knee slapping. https://soundcloud.com/flyawaysorrow/boars-head-carol  

we do miss our occasional detours into noise, hasn’t been the same since Scotch Tapes went into exile and so stopped sending parcels of extreme ear burn caustics. So, for your Monday morning wake up, we smiled wryly when this came up on our suggested listening list. Now we’re certain we’ve had the pleasure of featuring Money Hater in previous despatches, in fact my scars on my ear give ample testimony that we have indeed, no doubt barely escaping out of the other side with our wherewithal intact. Available on a pay what you like option, the ‘a little bit dies everyday’ EP features 25, yep you read right, 25 tracks of caustic ear melting malice and mayhem, which I’m minded to say doesn’t hold back in their anger, discontent and unrest. Most here don’t rise above the 30 second mark yet all skin peeled in the kind of caustic shit storm ferocity that melts skin on faces. Okay, what Money Hater might lack in diplomacy and tact they more than make up for in their ability to reign terror in a most damning and discordant way, no doubt admirers of the Crass ideology, their politics is on the side of those without voice or hope, their sound somewhere formed of a kinship with ENT, your Nepalms and Nails, though in the latter’s case without the doomy gloom gouged misery. And before you say, don’t even ask for a favourite cut, we here are too busy nailing down moveable furniture and potential breakables, though forced arms up the back, the 9 second head butting fury of ‘don’t give power to the Nazis’ is probably all you need to hear to get an angle where things are going, though sentiment wise, we fearfully suspect that its warning might well have fallen on deaf ears leading to a positively worrying situation of closing the stable doors after the horses have bolted.  

Been a while since we featured anything from both the Aagoo imprint and more importantly, connect_icut. ‘Uridium’ comes pulled from an immensely lovely looking triple cassette set going by the name ‘music for granular synthesizer’ – a copy of which we must try and bag. In short, a journey down the great cosmic rabbit hole, for the eight minute ‘Uridium’ bristles with life, activity and radiance, as though a celestial leviathan slowly coming to from a period of deep space hibernation, its slow turned tilt arcing to a silken solar burn, its re-energising aglow with binary chatter and the haloing of pulsar hums whose sense of wakening awareness magnifies with brilliantine intensity, really is quite something. https://soundcloud.com/aagoo/uridium  

staying with Aagoo a moment longer, our lobes found themselves instantly attracted to Filiamotsa’s ‘blabblub’. A bit of an appreciable sore thumb we don’t mind saying and the kind of thing we might well have expected to emerge out of the Beta Lactam Ring imprint a few years ago, not least because this coils to a maddening and nagging war like anti pop paranoia that might well have you reaching for your prized Edward Ka-Spel and perhaps, Rudy Trouve grooves. https://soundcloud.com/aagoo/filiamotsa-blabblub  

not quite keeping in with the time of the year, I mean it’s a little strange hearing something shimmered in sun toned effervescences, not that we here are complaining, just shivering in the icy grip of winter. This then is Milano Sun with the acutely infectious and ridiculously happy hued and up beat soft psych exotica that be ‘Eldorado’, this cutie is heading out through the Varo imprint, recommended for those admiring the sounds of a youthful Woods I would have thought. https://soundcloud.com/varorecords/milano-sun-eldorado  

now maybe it’s just me, but we are totally smitten by another recent outing through Varo, this time by Bolywool with a cut entitled’you are not alone in the universe, i am here’. Now initially we were minded to draw comparisons to the demurring dream pop dissipates of Ummagma, yet scratch beneath its surface toning of celestial coos and crystal tipped cosies and what emerges is something finitely cut and crafted in a ice shimmered likeness of the Lovers Speaks’ ‘no more I love you’s’. perhaps it is just me then. https://soundcloud.com/varorecords/bolywool-you-are-not-alone-in-the-universe-i-am-here    

Every now and again we feel its our duty to throw in the occasional Beaulieu Porch beauty, I get so sad and despairing to discover some folk would rather fritter away their money on far less talented souls who frankly are little more that Saturday night chancers at the karaoke bar. Okay grumbles aside, this one is from ‘Is.’ – this be the ridiculously wonderful ‘’A’ starts the train’. Marooned and left lost on the Beatles’ magical mystery tour, this snow twinkled slice of baroque psych comes charmed in an enchanting and eccentric Victoriana vintage replete with a travelling kaleidoscopic gallery of piping choral florets and marching brass bands. https://carmeliterecords.bandcamp.com/track/a-starts-the-train-4    

Many thanks to the Null Spectre for getting in touch regarding an incoming new offering by the name ‘Wendigo’, which all things being well, we’ll be mentioning later in the week. For now, we eyed the Spectre ones amongst a gathering of souls on a compilation through witch house entitled ‘the other side’, their track being the ominously graven ‘shattered souls’, a macabre mysterio ghost walking the fault lines between dream and the beyond, not I hasten to add one advised for merry listening for here dark incantations and a chilling ne’er do welling lurks with malevolent intent. Skip along a few tracks, to the parting track, to find Sidewalks and Skeletons’ ‘lost in static’ softly seducing from beyond the veil, a sepia framed dream noir spectral trimmed in crystalline shadow torn overtures the type of which had us much minded to stroll of in search of those early happenings from Propaganda. Much like the Null Spectre, Cauchemar Chemin’s prowling ‘Communication With The Lights’ comes equipped in similar disquieting tidings, disembodied siren calls, fracturing chill toned electronics and a sinister remoteness make this a very eerie descent into paranoia. https://witch-house.bandcamp.com/album/the-other-side  

returning back to Data Cult Audio, you may remember that we featured a recent happening by the Polymer Cities folk for them a little while back. In brief, Data Cult Audio is a medium / channel inviting artists, well tell you what, I’ll hand you over to the label for them to tell you ……

‘…. Data Cult Audio is not an entity so much as a mission to explore and curate sound, music and noise created by electronic means. A mission that seeks to move beyond the boundaries and into your head. Our goal is to present and expose others to the sound explorations of different artists. The common thread is that performances are rooted in electronics. Genres are not our business… sound is’.

The imprint has amassed a formidable library of specially commissioned recordings, which over the course of future missives we will be gently dipping into. For now, we’ve found ourselves returning time and time again these last few days to a set by Huron filed here as ‘Data Cult Audio 0033’. An immersive 27 minute odyssey sprayed in multi tracked harvests of hypno grooving jubilance. It’s a bit like, in the early sequences, having your head in some kind of cosmic washing machine on a bliss setting, for these murmuring mosaics playfully a dance gather to court a most mesmeric listening experience both serene and trance toned which much like the track from Flohr, a mention of which, is hopefully following in hot pursuit of this, forges a kind of harmony of spheres. With depth and detail applied, the middle section freefalls into terrains more commonly associated with machinefabriek, the textures looser, more playful and somewhat more minimalist usher in a stately presence to the proceedings before dream weaving its way to end grooves, on what is I suppose, the third section, to incorporate a shape shifting palette of kosmische, bowed symphonies and eastern dialects, really is a most captivating aural trip. http://datacultaudio.com/data-cult-audio-0033-huron/  

As to flohr, again through the Data Cult Audio listening library, this one being ‘data cult audio 004’, a most beautifully lilting star symphonic configuration is afoot, a cosmic cathedral of sound, both elegant, ethereal and like the aforementioned Huron, very much astral brushed as though drawn and crafted from the very stuff holding the stars in the dark void heavens. That said this 23 minute collosal manoeuvres and morphs sublimely towards its parting heralding equipped of a kosmische future gazing very much tuned into the cinematic terrains of Vangelis a la ‘blade runner’.  

    

Many thanks to Mr Clark for returning back with sound cloud links on this one, which we’ll re-iterate is a bit of a seductive smoker which for those who missed our mention first time of asking went along the lines of …. ‘Ooh, this is quite smoking. This is the latest musical incarnation of a certain Dom Clark, who in recent times has been found gracing the BDI’s line up, now as the Dom Clark Trio, ‘undercover’ is the first of a promised slew of singles that hopefully over the course of time will both seduce and find loving homes with which to adore. As said, first up, ‘undercover’ – immaculately toned in a jazz noir arresting, its slinky and snaking nocturnal prowl smoked and drizzled in a classicism whose lineage cuts to a finite John Barry like smoozy fashioning. That said, amid it’s sultry detailing a sound, both out of time and out of currency smooches its way to the surface with hints of that most rarefied and precious of pop craft occasioned by the likes of Paddy McAloon and Neil Hannon’. https://soundcloud.com/dom-clark-944200975/undercover-tj-master  

latest from the IMPATV folk – this footage captures Ex Easter Island Head at a recent performance at the Golden Cabinet in Shipley …..

John peel corner ……

As hard as they try to sneak these things by us, somehow our listening ear mysteriously gravitates and roots them out. No information on this one, but by the looks of things it is being prepped for some Burning Witches action after the silly season. This be Transmission with ‘transmission theme’ – sound wise a slightly more insular and hitherto, intimate palette than previous burning witches happenings, this one sublimely toned in delicate dissipates of cinematic flotillas of pirouetting angel sighs, the effect both graceful and alluring as well as captivating, softly shimmers in the airless voids ghost dancing with silent seduction. 

I do suspect we will be returning to this in coming days. New sonic happening from the recently reconvened New Apostles in the shape of a newly peeled full length going by the name ‘Antiquarian Medical Texts’ from off which for now at least, our lobes found attraction aplenty with the emerging dark beauty that is the cold cool quietly anthemic shadow framed Bowie-esque ‘Halcyon days’, this ‘un seductively slipstreaming the Thin White Duke’s ‘Berlin’ trilogy with much astute aplomb along the way applying the kind of crystalline atmospheric grandeur that you’d be more expecting to discover between the grooves of the classic period outing by the Church. All said we here are more than a tad fond of ‘Bowie’s campervan’ – is there a theme here we wonder – not so – just that we touched upon the two tracks very much in spiritual harmony with Mr Jones. Anyhow as said this one caught us clearly on the hop not least because amid all the frying angular and stoner psych funk fashioning, this distractive nugget manages to shoehorn a positive array of subtle Bowie tropes plucked from all corners of his extensive chameleonic career with ‘lodger’ and ‘young Americans’ being the prime reference source materials. While we are here, a special mention for the parting ‘no particular place’ – hell’s teeth this dandy has the spectres of the much-missed Fatima Mansions and the Godfathers over it like a rash….  https://newapostles.bandcamp.com/album/antiquarian-medical-texts    

There are some people who I’m sure, think that we cobble these missives together by sheer accident with little thought, care or due attention. Just between you and me, we do but hush now otherwise it’ll ruin the mystique and put paid to any notion of professionalism, which I should say, though we strive for our ambition and ability somewhat lacks. Still we’ve put it on our Christmas list, so who knows what form, shape or design that’ll materialise as on the day of Christmas, if indeed Santa has deemed us worthy of being allowed off the naughty step. Where is he going with this, I hear you painfully cry, well it be to do with a track called ‘freight train’. Upon hitting home, playing just three tracks, we’d been sent, trying to basically sort out a schedule for the evenings listening, we noted with interest two of those selections were actually covers of the same song, so without further ado …..

If I were you, I’d find yourself a quiet spot for this ‘un. Once settled and comfortable, draw a very, very deep breath and continually pinch yourself because this is going to hurt. A cover of Elizabeth Cotton’s ‘freight train’ as rephrased by Susanna, her second single from a forthcoming set entitled ‘go dig my grave’. A death song indeed but so beautifully bruised and strangely happily resigned to its fate that it leaves wound marks. We could talk about it poetic daintiness, its serenely sorrowed turn of phrase, perhaps the arresting genteel and wheezing fanfare lulling it to its approaching final sleep or even Susanna’s exquisitely tender and plaintively sweetly sighed ghost toned hymnal hush, but you’d first of all have to muster all the wherewithal to navigate its caressing crush whilst maintaining a degree of lip biting reserve to stop you being reduced to a sobbing shell. Immaculate.     

Tour dates:

22nd-25th March 2018, Big Ears Festival, Knoxville (TN) USA (solo)

22nd-25th of March 2018, Big Ears Festival, Koxville (TN) USA (ft. Giovanna Pessi, Frode Haltli & Cheyenne Mize)

In truth, we actually heard Fly Away Sorrow’s version of ‘freight train’ before Susanna’s, our eyes and indeed ears, descending quickly upon it when we eyed it on a track listening for their recently released ‘sex, death and the blues’ EP. In sharp contrast to the aforementioned Susanna version, Fly Away Sorrow take ‘freight train’ to a whole different place, there’s no sorrow, no regret or bruising to be found here, rather more these folk endow it with a homely gospel toning and with that there’s something of a rejoicing spiritual tootling with an at peace with all expectation at the  coming of life’s end of line with the smoked rustic lollops and parping harmonicas giddily gathering at pace down the steam powered track to the final resting place. Perfect. https://soundcloud.com/flyawaysorrow/sets/sex-death-and-the-blues  

Those among you previously unaware of the original, here’s Ms Cotten herself performing this much overlooked prairie blues classic …..

Here’s something wonderfully homely and cutesy, out via Norwegian imprint Café Superstar, this is Remington Super 60 who one time or another used to pop up in previous guises of these missives with much adoring here. Seems these darling folk have a thing for Christmas and are prone to pop up around the festive season delivering melodic morsels of delightful distraction, the latest of which being ‘another Christmas song’. Sprayed in a snowy dusting and fancifully festooned in twinkling tinsel, this easy pop parcel of winter wonderland delights merrily coos and swoons with a dizzily demurred bright eyed vintage flavouring that twirls, turns and tingles fondly on an starry orbital path where on one side sits the Beautify Junkyards while to the other you’ll find Le SuperHomard.

A little later than previously advertised, seriously the amount of release traffic is at stupid at the moment with no sign of holding up any day soon. Anyway, mentioned in passing a little while back, Mr Atwood – better known to the underground music loving community as Yellow6, is currently sporting three releases presently, the yuletide year end sonic Christmas card ‘merry6mas’ – now in its 19th year – featured here incidentally https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/yellow6-16/, a dandy through silence in sound, hopefully mentioned at the foot of this and a live recording taken from a recent and these days, very rare appearance at the Champion Version curated ‘edition 1’ evening at iklectik in October. Four tracks sit within, as is typical of Yellow6, this quartet harness a mournful atmosphere grace, would be lost sound scores for a dashed at the last minute 70’s spy noir, Atwood’s hypnotic craft both porcelain and pensive found coming into its own on the delicately winter toning frost chimed close intimacy of the seafaring ‘in circles’. ‘about the journey’ on limited CD issue through sound in silence, might yet be his finest moment, the palette expanded and slowed to a murmur, known for his intimacy and that sublimely finite balance between poise and slow cooled majesty that has often channelled a somewhat solemn and solitary path, is here tenderly coaxed and beautifully harnessed on ‘custom’ and caught in a moment frozen and delicately sighed in dissipating smoke trails of a fading romance as were phrased by John Williams retuning Roy Montgomery. Also of particular note, the mellowing resign of ‘last day’ ghost walks the dusty terrains of a youthful godspeed crafting something at once measured, mesmeric and steeled in grace fallen bliss blisters. https://yellow6.bandcamp.com/album/live-at-iklectik-121017 and https://yellow6.bandcamp.com/album/about-the-journey  

certainly, chaps with unresolved (soft) issues, we here are all in favour of this new-found anger management expressed through the magical means of music, often we’ve been forced to resort to such tactics when our feckless neighbour decides to scream obscenities at her young ones, and this after leaving out from dawn to dusk, a yapping rat sized dog who I swear is powered by Duracell, anyhow I often find an hour of Masonna resets the balance. Talking of Masonna, this is Leeds based duo Soft Issues, see how I sneaked in their name when you weren’t looking (or reading no doubt), very subtle and subliminal, well we got a nice message from Gary of the twin set, mentioning that he’d noted our love of friends Thank going on to say they widdled in similar sonic pools to the likes of Masonna and Merzbow, the latter of whom used to be, at one time, a staple feature of these musings. How could we resist, sporting a limited cassette going by the name ‘Soft Issues EP’, barely had we the chance to get comfy when from some hellish sonic abattoir, sounds of rage, ferocity and of overwhelming discontent descended to plague us. Flame on, ‘BDC’ is pure brutality, remember shit n’ shine as mere youngsters, well then you can hazard a guess as to where this cacophonic delight is heading from. And where they might lack subtly, there’s an appetite for skree scouring agitation sandblasting from out the grooves with an intent to perform a spot of DIY trepanning, none more so is this in evidence, than on ‘radiator paint’ of which we’ll just say, think Sissy Spacek meets Tayside Mental Health. For all the sonic skree and wilfully driven fury afoot here, it takes the quietest and longest track, the uncharitably titled ’the thrill of seeing your friends fail’ to usher in an eerie winter wasteland devoid of hope or help, yet dreaded aplenty in disquiet. And then it’s back to the aural atrocities with ‘degloving’ sounding like a particularly trashed out Atari teenage riot trying out for the at war with false noise, while ‘hetchell’ ominously leads matters to the end groove though not before subsuming you in a light sucking suffocation gouged in paranoia and terror phonic pulsars, towards the end sounding glowing white hot and sounding not unlike the psychotronic blasts heard from the innards of the Martian vessel found in Quatermass and the Pit.  https://softissues.bandcamp.com/releases  

those of you with long-ish memories, might well recall us going a tad daftly fond over a twin set sneaked out earlier in the year without scant fanfare through bureau b by Esmark, just in case you don’t or sniffed at it the first time of asking here it is again  https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/05/22/esmark/ – well this is one half of their number masquerading as  Scheich in China for a very insular sounding extended two track visitation entitled ‘tape’. Now we say insular very deliberately, because this is a coldly remote slab of minimalist drone electronics, which alas due to time constraints we’ve only had time to sample the hypno grooving delights of Side 1 which in case you are taking notes, and I know you do, is called ‘Tape 1’. This 20 minute visitation appears to be sub divided in to five or six further suites, the sounds within at once incorporating a series of sparsely coiled frequency modulations and binary pulsars, something that ought to appeal to those of you fully immersed and attuned to the more out there happenings on the much missed Tigerbeat6 imprint from a few years ago whilst simultaneously coming across as though its just jumped from the pocket of a very youthful Pimmon. It’s all very strange, somewhat mesmeric and hypnotic if not at all imagining your mind being artificially upgraded by means of brain washing by some super hive like consciousness as it dips in and out of ear view occasionally, and playfully, partaking in a spot of Radiophonic Workshop oddness and Bebe and Louis Barron-esque eeriness. https://scheichinchina.bandcamp.com/album/tape

Here’s just a very brief teaser of wonderfulness incoming in January. This be the trailer for the cosmic rapture that is ‘Somnambulate‘, the forthcoming set from the very productive work bench of the Corrupting Sea, out through the Katuktu Collective, if the sounds here are anything to judge by, then this might well prove to be the bench mark for all others to be measured against in 2018.

Fancy some head expanding psychedelic freakery that sounds as though its stepped straight out of the 60’s west coast sun. Been a fair old while since Gary War featured in these missives, it’s a puzzling mystery that’s sure to cause many a sleepless night here. Anyhow, enough of the wondering, new happenings arriving through Feeding Tube around February time with the emergence of ‘Gary Forth’ from off which, ‘windows and walls’ has been sent ahead on scouting detail. A one hundred and four second sunny shoehorning slice of kaleidoscopic wig flippery, indelibly shimmered in the vintage of the day, this all too brief effervescent sherbet sun burst sounds by these ears, like some secret gathering of classic era psych popped Moody Blues and Zombies types. Essential in case you hadn’t gathered.  https://soundcloud.com/gary-war/1-windows-and-walls-1/s-Y7dOM   

Again many thanks to Paul over at the adored Sonido Polifonico imprint for sending over copies of the immaculate split lathe release by Pefkin and Barrett’s Dottled Beauty, rescued from the sorting depot between a momentary break in the rain, snow and hail stone storms. We’d love to tell you whether we had the clear or black vimyl variant but I fear the enchantment within this beautifully packaged envelope housing all manner of inserts, tokens, badges and of course the vinyl itself, would escape and be lost forever. So with that we’ll direct you here  https://www.discogs.com/sell/item/583648260 – there https://www.facebook.com/pg/sonido.polifonico/about/?ref=page_internal and to a little we doodled a little while back around about here  https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/barretts-dottled-beauty-pefkin/   

Before you all start yabbering on, yes, I know it’s been out a while, but it’s new to us and yes, I’m fully aware that you’ve probably all played this to the point of destruction and moved on in search of sounds anew. Still a bit of dandy eh, this is James Holden & The Animal Spirits with ‘Each Moment Like The First’ a track taken from his recently released ‘the animal spirits’ full length via border community. Sure, to appeal to those of you enthused and admiring of both Polypores and Pye Corner Audio, I bet those chaps at Pull the Plug and you, the night and the music have been hammering this and rightly so, because this is quite deceptively divine, a twinkle toning slice of svelte kosmische, we just love its balletic purrs and the hypnotic celestial ripples as they seductively ricochet off each other to forge a beautifully crystalline cosmic cascade.

Homely harmonies, cosy toed choral tones, the shy eyed shimmering of nostalgia and oodles of festive fancies snow rushed and cooed with a seasonal lilt, how could we resist. Don’t Girl Ray and cute make for a perfect fit, this sweetheart, incidentally called ‘(I Wish I Were Giving You A Gift) This Christmas’ is their yuletide seasonal carol and a demurring dandy it be. Softly sprinkled in a sepia framing that hints these folk have been hard at work at their festive craft teasing out a tinsel trimmed slice of prettily pristine pop candy cane that features all manner of warm glowing fuzziness, wonky pianos, school choirs and glam glittered loveliness which all said, comes finitely cut with a knowing nod to Wizzard.

Oh my, so its back to the 70’s then is it, why oh why does every release by The Go! Team sound so cheerfully happy and effervescently radiant, that even in the darkest depths of a harsh bout of seasonal flu misery can inspire a smile, a skipping and a frantic moment of wild toe tapping delirium. Has anyone thought of bottling the blighters up and selling them across a chemist counter we wonder. Latest in an unfeasible long line of loveliness, ‘Mayday’ heads out skateboards tucked  under the arm into the sun of ’76, seriously this is so smoking and cool not to mention dizzily retro I’m almost hankering for a packet of spangles, Sesame Street and a star jumper and don’t get me started on infectious, should come with jabs oh and the neat morse coded mosaics. Tell me again what is there not to love and adore.

 

We will be revisiting this again, quite soon in fact, after that is, we’ve refreshed ourselves after a long nap ready to have our heads scrambled all over again. The now seasonal highlight that is the EurNoVision gathering. Now in a brief nutshell for those not having previously paid attention, these compilations, now in their third year, gather a galaxy of folk operating on the distant outer margins of pop from the soon to be light of UK, European Community. Well I say pop in its most loosest of definitions, think upon them as left of the kind of stuff put out by the Arte Tetra imprint. As said just a brief sample for now, first up on the inspection blocks being the Brain Masturbation, I mean where on earth else did you think we’d be starting, this lot hail from Cyprus, clearly under the influence of my cat is an alien albeit as though translated and rephrased through the Sunburned Hand of Man’s viewfinder, it’s a bit droney, primitive and wyrd folky with occasional detours into freakery, I’d go as far tto say a tad disquieting and oddly disturbing if we didn’t think as a result, it might cast a hoodoo over us. UK’s entry to the proceedings, comes from Tirikilatops who serve up the oddly odd and wonderfully fried ‘Walking Bee’ which I must admit once taking up residence in your headspace will drive you to distraction, initial impressions think ….and the native hipsters shimmied up to the Flying Lizards under the watchful eye of YMO, but then stick with it and what becomes kookily obvious are a recalling of the Frank Chickens and pop off Tuesday making sweet skewiff studio merriment with a guest appearance by Fever Ray. I don’t mind admitting we here are somewhat smitten by Elizabete Balčus’ woozy celestial ‘IKA’ as it ventures dreamily into terrains occupied by Jodie Lowther whose latest incidentally, we’ve got simmering on a back burner  while staying with the much missed Soft Bodies theme, and again Jodie Lowther, poetrip’s distractively trippy floor seducer ‘uninteligible dance music’ emerges from the dark side of Quimper. https://eurnovision.bandcamp.com/album/eurnovision-2017  

so long since we had any Melmoth the Wanderer action, that we here were considering putting out a missing persons call. This being the silly season though, along came a message from Mr Peters with unearthly tidings and a reposting of some merry macabre in the shape of a summoning for ‘the ghost of winters past’. Beneath the chilling shadow of the season of death, ne’er do well rituals and foreboding gather to conspire dark deeds, upon a craft wyrd and woozy, ghost lights and time fractures coalesce to create an eerily cold carnival, a magic land of nostalgia from out of which, shadows stretch and lengthen, to extend their icy touch and with it instil a sense of dream like enchantment and sinister disquiet. https://www.mixcloud.com/Melmoth_The_Wanderer/the-ghost-of-winters-past/        

ah,’Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’, has there ever been a more beautifully expressed moment in the considerable back catalogue of Ryuichi Sakamoto. I’ve always paused when it’s come to pass into earshot, that sense of immaculate grandeur and the divine symettary of the symphonic sweeps, swallow dives and sighs make it a thing of beautified enchantment. Admittedly it sounds bare without David Sylvian’s immaculate vocal crush, but still that doesn’t detract from the way the score travels one minute trembled and tearful, the next jubilant and caressing. Here’s Mr Sakamoto accompanied by the Brussels Philharmonic performing said track, a both frail and fragile study softly surrendered by the faultness and spectral seduction of swirling strings, just me or very Bernard Herrmann.

This is causing something of a stir occasioned by mild swoon activity in the listening gaff just now, though Fuzz club this be Acid Baby Jesus with ‘lilac days’. Go on admit, you are a little sniffy with the band name, frightened it might be a little loud and schizoid for your palette, maybe thinking it’ll send you over the edge. Truth is, as the saying goes, never judge books by their covers, for this slice of smoking authentic 60’s soft psych pitches its tent firmly in the love camp of the Strawberry Alarm Clock and should if anything attract those souls among you well attuned to the cool of the Wicked Whispers and the Hanging Stars. Very classy.

  

Just a very brief heads up for this before we head out into the cold for a spot of 9 to 5 work tedium with harsh flu intact, fear not we’ll be returning to this on our return. New seasonal sonic gift wraps from the loved Small Bear imprint, this be their Christmas box of delights entitled ‘unknown presents’. Tittle and minimalist sleeve aside, are we detecting a Joy Division theme / vibe afoot here, well not immediately apparent on the flurry of tracks we’ve had the chance to breeze through, however forty foot pipe’s ‘Christmas in the fens’ with its head in the clouds not a care in the world nonchalance, does hint of a youthful post JD New Order atmospherique, with its cascading post rock out shimmering’s ushering in something of a hypno grooved and deceptively dreamy fixed point snow tipped stillness. https://unknownpresents.bandcamp.com/album/unknown-presents  

I know we always say this, but is the latest edition of pull the plug the best yet, well it’s certainly ticking all our listening boxes and we aren’t just saying that because we get a very unexpected and appreciated mention near the start of the show, my my we feel so humbled now. Anyway, enough of the gushing, this edition is a return to a mainly guitar and flu based show that features two killer cuts of breezily authentic 60’s psych from Lucille Furs with both ‘sunset moons’ and ‘alabaster crayon’ providing for a wonderfully woozy koolly kaleidoscopic mirage of west coast baroque drifts hinting elements of Strawberry Alarm Clock and the Left Banke not to mention the Zombies. Next up the Stropies, who alone judging on ‘gravity is stern’, might be worth the time and patience tracking down their album, this ‘un coming traced and trimmed to a more beat purred power popped throb that hints a tad of both Belly and the Breeders as though retooled and overseen by Sam Prekop. I must admit to being a little mortified to discover that Lake Ruth have sneaked out a limited cassette release through French imprint wewant2wecord. So, while we have a little listen and prep something for a future mention, there’s a brief taster here in the shape of ‘the frozen aisle’ – a beautifully pirouetting slice of noir tinged 60’s baroque imagined from a would be meeting of a youthful Broadcast and Beautify Junkyards. Rounding out the set, something that we’ve been a tad adoring of, since that is it came into our listening space, ‘heads’ by Janvy of which we’ll just say ought to tick the boxes of those Beaulieu Porch loving folk among you. Last up for the mentions, shock Morrissey in decent track spoiler alert, as the saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice day, guess there was bound to be something from Moz that would strike a favourable chime someday, I’ll be honest in saying I’ve been left cold with everything he’s done since returning in the 00’s after a brief exile, but this ‘un – ‘home is a question mark’ be its name is gloriously stirring stuff, a bruised but unbowed shadow traced cinematic torch anthem and with that the end of another well-heeled transmission. https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/pull-the-plug-14th-december-2017/

As mentioned in some random postings on our face book page, that promised latest edition of you, the night and the music, this one a two-hour feast of selections from the previous 12 months are convenient laid out in alpha order, in fact Mat promises several of these ‘best of’s’ over the Christmas period, this particular show taking in the A to F part of this Festive look back. I’m sure you don’t need me waffling on about all the contents lurking within, we’ve pretty much covered these, some in great detail in previous despatches. However, that said, best get a wiggle on with those that annoyingly escaped our gaze, stuff like the zonked out woozy freakery of the Band whose name is a symbol, I mean how did we miss this, very Riot Season-y and wasted. Fairly certain that Capra Informis didn’t trouble these pages, a quite stunning mysterio revealed of a dark ages progressive psych colouring, one for those Rise Above admirers among you I shouldn’t wonder. What can we say about Cavalier Song’s ‘shields’ – quite immaculate, as the show’s host points out very Mark E Smith albeit channelling both Shatner and Burroughs, the music though, stilled and sprayed in an adoring pastoral regency. Next up, Cobra Family Picnic of whom we will say, we will be checking out at our earliest convenience for ‘Gilgamesh’ is one delightfully wigged freak storm of 70’s stonery while Domboshawa pull out some trippy mind arranging cosmic wooziness with the aptly titled ‘far beyond’. Now I’m still scratching head wondering how on earth we missed E Gone first time of asking, emerging from the shadow of the Memory Band, these dudes do a neat line in rambling lolloping rustics while Father Sky, Mother Earth round out this first best of instalment with a frankly jaw dropped slab of brooding dronal majestics that pisses in similar pools to that of Thot, here with the superbly slavish and monolithic slow burn epic ‘across the river of time’. https://www.mixcloud.com/Youthenightandthemusic/you-the-night-and-the-music-219/  

Time for a spot of irreverent up close and personal agit gouged and grizzled punk impishness don’t you think. This be Falmouth based Bobby Funk with the ‘pierced Morgan’ which I’m suspecting is not meant as a homage but more of two fingered pogoing poke in the eye, clearly these folk were reared up on the old school hardcore ways of the early 80’s a la black flag and discharge, ending up sounding like Mayhem and Public Disgrace with just a smidgeon of the Parkinsons thrown in for good measure. https://bobbyfunk.bandcamp.com/album/pierced-morgan  

many apologies to the Bearsuit folk whose last release of the year ‘v/A : The Invisible & Divided Sea’ we’ve thus far neglected to mention, hopefully we’ll get a chance to inspect it fully over the weekend, though failing that shortly after the silly season. Anyway, to whet your appetites a little two-way starter to get you intrigued / puzzled / indifferent – delete as applicable. We’ll start this brief mention with the end groove track, by Manga Bros, ‘Testosterone (Uncle Pops & The Dumbloods Remix)’ is a strangely woozy weird ear, constantly shape shifting and pulling the comfort rug from beneath your feet, its shadowy chamber grooving part sinister part playful, forges a curious sinister tension that at once knits and unravels with dark seduction twisting and morphing like a distant forgotten cousin from Bowie’s ‘the lodger’. PoProPo will, trust me on this, drive you to distraction, for ‘when suddenly the organ joins in’ is indelibly fried n’ freaked with the yabbering disconnection of surreally schizoid and scatter-brained rhythmic contortions sourced from a curious sonic cocktail chiefly made up of kooky binary breakdowns and off the wall weirdly funk struck power house electronica. As said more soon. https://bearsuitrecords.bandcamp.com/album/v-a-the-invisible-divided-sea

Returning back with that superb compilation put out by Vanguardista entitled ‘Winter Solstice’ – really is a most impeccable harvesting of talent and something that we briefly mentioned way back here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/25/winter-solstice/- an 11 eleven track gathering, which to complete the round up I think we’ll work backwards through the track listing, which means old friends Transmission 13 are first up on the inspection block courtesy of the celestial visitation that is ‘northern lights’. Softly stirred in symphonic swirls, this orbital cortege demurs and dances all the time frosted and stilled in the realms of the airless heavens, its mesmeric murmurs tuned to a divinely graceful pageantry that’s sublimely cut to a silently statuesque sculpturing. The slow to unfurl gem that is casual strangers’ ‘palindrome’ is equally dispatched and flavoured in lunar pirouettes, a kosmische ghost light replete with pristinely dipped in ice cooled flurries of pulsing cosmic pastorals. Spectral night lights spliced in a cavernous dub draped detailing be the order of the day for Ivan Black’s softly majestic ‘Skara Brae Solstice’ for here there’s almost a curiously affecting spiritual radiance emerging from the eerie twilight fogginess pulsing as though a navigational point of light guiding the lost from out of the darkness. Antonio de Braga’s ‘frozen waves’ almost had us of a mind to go rummaging around for our prized Inch Time and Minotaur Shock platters for comparison for we must admit we were taken by the hypnotic glitch ghosted minimalist thaw that’s afoot here which at around the 3.32 mark delicately blossoms from its chill tipped framing into something warmly inviting and cosied in celestial choruses and in so doing retunes it to Manual like frequencies. Second mention this missive / week alone, the out of hibernation New Apostles currently sporting a new album ‘Antiquarian Medical Texts’ usher forth with the alluring dark mystic ‘lonely water’ whose stately and crystalline shadowy settings find them freefalling in to domains of the Church. Perhaps the darkest and grandest moment of the collection, Wolfgang Merx’s ‘second winter’ is steeled in forlorn atmospherics, at once majestic and monolithic, this captivating dark kosmische star emerges from out of the eclipsing shadow of Tangerine Dream, beautifully remote, lonesome and abundantly lush in the bruising spray of opining overtures, immaculate in a word. Which all leaves Guitar PK to bring closure to this essential gathering with ‘Spiral Eye’, which I must admit, viewed in a certain light, leaving aside the Floyd-isms that is, has a certain loose and dreamy feel attaching that would suggest something of a hitherto secret studio face-off between a certain Andy Summers and Vini Reilly. https://vanguardistarecords.bandcamp.com/album/winter-solstice  

staying with compilations, two more to come, possibly more if we get time to squeeze them in, here’s more from that spiffing latest from the Bearsuit folk mentioned here a little earlier, which to recap briefly, titled ‘The Invisible & Divided Sea’ features a gathering of twenty tracks from pop’s most outer fringe realms. In truth, this might well be the finest thing that the Bearsuit folk have cobbled together to date. Always good to start on an upward curve with a spot of Vangelis-esque classicism, for Alexander Stordiau’s elegantly ethereal cinema-scoped ‘Fulfilling Eclipse’ ought to attract the ear of the Burning Witches posse as it manages to simultaneously stride the sound fractures that divide the disciplines of kosmische, cold war electronica and the whole Stranger Things community, beautifully ominous and longingly dream draped in a star glazing symphonic pristine. He features again much later in the track listing with the equally arresting ‘a shadow on the painting’ and into the bargain amid a deeply immersive head tripping mosaic cooks up something that we had to double check the credits to ensure it wasn’t cut by the hand of Biosphere. Popropo, we mentioned on an earlier visit, safe to say we are still recovering from the experience, herewith the bonkers and erratic critical meltdown funk struck ‘freak show – dance 2’ – features Theremin’s which gets a huge thumbs up and lock grooves an insidiously fried and kooky motif that hints of a worrying obsessional fondness for John Lurie. Matters thankfully and radically adjust to normality with the visit of ‘chewing gum’ by Martian Suculture, now this is quite tasty, oozed in a nocturnal noir phrasing and to these ears sounding like a lost would be gem left behind in the 90’s fascination for all things heading out of Bristol, though that said scratch a little deeper and what emerges is a coolly coalesced shy eyed 60’s shimmer tone that could easily pass as a distant cousin to Lake Ruth and Beautify Junkyards. Next up, Bunny and the Invalid Singers serve up ‘Eamon the destroyer’ – this sly to catch quiet gem is adored in all the usual lounge noir tropes, truth be told sounds like a soundtrack orphan from a highly arty 70’s spy flick somewhat lost in the fog of funding and fashion, be warned has moments of fried wooziness. Not at all sure what’s happening on Yponomeutaneko’s ‘Tous Les Rochers’ which I guess typifies the whole Bearsuit remit, again very much cut n’ paste with a nod to John Lurie, it delightfully teeters to a puzzling push n’ pull dynamic that swerves between dreamily dippy Francophile fluffiness and moments of animated agit action, in truth strangely recalls those early Pickled Egg happenings by Pop Off Tuesday. They ‘pop’ up again a little later this time accompanied by Alexandre Ferreira for the ostensibly less skewiff ‘Jour 1191’ – a chamber folk spiritual replete with, is that a, didgeridoo. As with PoProPo, we mentioned Manga Bros in an earlier brief, here they are again with ‘Stoma’ as remodelled by Harold Nono. Much like the martian subculture track, this takes Bearsuit into new found terrains, a ghost spelled slice of sparsely chilled chamber folk softly turned in an adoring quietly hushed bruising which without warning, suddenly opens up mid way through a turns about face instilling an aura of jubilant awe. Perhaps the sets kookiest offerings come from Shinnosuke Sugata whose ‘Wednesday! (January 1992)’ and ‘world travel of the piano tuner’ both arrive impishly dinked in what sounds like toy instruments and an over anxious vocal, the latter oozed and adored by a toy room parade of brass band fanfares and all manner of tiny tot oddness, all very disturbingly delightful. Ah, the Moth Poets as the title might suggest – ‘the shabby gentlemen’- makes for a by and large deliciously crooked and kooky 60’s styled futuristic spy TV theme tune that you’d have expected to be ushered out by the ITC network, that said mid way through it does splinter and fracture to skedaddle off message in a most head tripping way. Another of the many welcome finds on this set are the two contrasting contributions by Petridisch in the shape of ‘Le Sablier’ and ‘small train song home’, the former a sublime slice of frosty minimalist shadow playing of the type that by rights you’d expect to pop up on the esteemed moon glyph imprint, simply think Death and Vanilla in a secret studio summit meeting with Tara King Th. As to the former cut, totally different in style, texture and musicality though nevertheless all the more alluring, just love the locomotive rythmics almost hypnotic and eerie and certainly venturing into youthful Stereolab terrains albeit as though rephrased by Pram. Swords reversed, alas supported by just one solitary track opt for a spot of 90’s nocturnalist ambience with ‘looking for a perfect connection with an imperfect person’ veering very much into Orbital realms. Been an age since both Ageing Children and Kirameki troubled our listening space, the former applying something of an ominous post punk toning to the New Order-esque though re-routed by Bauhaus’ David J ‘sick puppy’ while the latter disturb and delight in equal measure with the dream draped apparition that is ‘the ha happy app’ into the bargain going very old school Cornelius, though this being Kirameki there’s always room to manoeuvre into the odd. Another previously unknown to us, Steeples for People’s serve up the aptly named’nocturnal’- a beautifully crated lunar snow globe sighed in mystery, magic and a murmuring of woozy enchantment. Which leaves us to wrap matters up with Annie and the Station Orchestra’s ‘song for the invalid divers’ – given the season, a perfect farewell given this comes dusted in a twinkling nostalgic aura that wheezes and shuffles with a warming campfire like fuzzy glow at its core. https://bearsuitrecords.bandcamp.com/album/v-a-the-invisible-divided-sea   

I must admit that apologies are long overdue to Pat McGarvey, who earlier in the year was in touch about the Southern Tenant, even going as far as to send over links to two albums – one of which I recall, being a superb re-scoring of the ‘Scanners’ soundtrack.. Alas the downloads got buried in a place where only my laptop knows and now refuses to cough up even though faced with the prospect of possible dismatlement at the hands of a trusty hammer, screwdriver and painful looking pliers. Anyway, before we go further off track and forget where we were in the first place, the Tenant folk have a new album out by the name ‘the sleeper awakens’ from off which ‘Lynchdoch Crescent’ has been sent ahead on scouting duties. Now this should be well up the listening street of those of you at once adoring of all things Carpenter, 80’s VHS soundtracks and cold war electronica for this ominous future dread visitation comes dead headed in a shadowy tension that fixes you in an icily remote glare, the psychotronic pulsars casting a hopeless bleakness of light sucking claustrophobia that much recalls a youthful sounding Duke St. Workshop. https://tst-thesoutherntenant.bandcamp.com/track/lynchdoch-crescent  

fancy putting your head space through a 16 minute kosmische spin cycle. Well should that be the case then we can’t find a better way to imagine the effects than taking yourself off to a quiet space donning the headphones and blissing out on the astral tripping happening that is Craven Faults woozed out inner space odyssey ‘tenter ground’. This is mind expanding cerebral groove of the class you’d expect to be frequenting the catalogues of Deep Distance or Bureau B, total locked groove immersion that’s sure to have you happily ga ga by its passing. Anyhow, this mesmeric beauty is heading out from the ‘netherfield works’ EP which gathers together two extended slices of synapses smoking super psyche.

pinched this off the Shindig website, new happening sounds from Jonathan Wilson, this one is called ‘over the midnight’ and comes plucked from a forthcoming full length by the name ‘rare birds’ heading down the tracks for March issue via Bella Union. Admittedly a little too saccharine for our palette, there’s no denying that this will capture the mainstream pop market lulled as it is in amorphous flotillas of cruise controlled star hugged drive pop, kind of Astronauts delicately rephrased through the murmuring view finder of the late Tom Petty.

A welcomed message from Antonymes gently navigating us towards a release that he thought might we might find apt for the time of the year. In truth it’s beyond us how we missed this  first time of asking. Originally gathered together for release way back in 2015, ‘at this time of the year’ collectively harvests a quartet‘…of traditional Christmas music that I’ve recorded over the last five years’. Now I know for a fact that at least one of its number has previously featured here – see https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2014/01/07/antonymes-2/ – but as to the rest, well I’m simply a tad concerned that they escaped our radar until now that is. Antonymes needs no introduction in these missives, crafting porcelain cut neo classical nuggets, the artistry and deft of touch indelibly exquisite is only superceded by the feeling, tenderness and close intimacy that he applies with sensitive minimalism. As said, herewith a quartet of snowy sighs opening with the ice sculptured ‘Sleep (Away In A Manger)’, steeled in a reverential stillness, this frost tipped beauty silently twinkles like a briefly radiant lone star atop a sleeping twilight hazed landscape bathing all in a warming glow. Wonderfully remote, romantic and somewhat bruised, ‘snow on snow’ encapsulates perfectly that stilled silent grace like serene that accompanies the dusting of snow, here adoringly shepherded by the soft angelic opine of hushed heavenly string arrangements. All said, it’s the parting ‘branches of green delight’ that ought to captivate and hold your senses prisoner, sparsely measured and trimmed in expectant poise, this mellowing murmur tone both reflective and introspective is kissed with a touching noir sigh that has a smoky drink at the last chance saloon nostalgic glow attaching. https://antonymes.bandcamp.com/album/at-this-time-of-year

interlude …. A little psyche, a touch of modbeat and a flavouring of quirky …  west coast pop art experimental band, acid gallery, the cuppa t, winston’s fumbs, piccadily line, billy Nichols, the factory, the nightcrawlers, cobblestones ….

west coast pop art experimental band ……

Acid gallery ….

The cuppa t …..

Winston’s fumbs ….

Piccadilly Line ….

Billy Nichols …

The factory ….

The nightcrawlers …

Cobblestones …

You better quick off the mark if you want one of these, by all accounts just 100 cassettes pressed up by I heart noise for this re-issue of ‘tommy bell’ by Turkish Delight from off which ‘grammy’ has been hogging the sound player since rearing into view. A bit having all your favourite noise niking bands from the early 90’s all fused into one and gathered, in this case, to have you in states of swooning delirium for three minutes. Okay Sonic Youth are very much influencing this to the point they’re over it like a itchy rash, but then add in Quickspace and many more of their ilk and this little nugget from a forgetten mid 90’s swerves, skewes and swoons with the best of them with sweet pop precisioned discordance. Now I must get myself one of them cassettes.

 

A slew of essential releases heading out of the Silber sound factory who promise nine more before Christmas descends, so we better get a giddy up then….

… first up, a familiar face in the shape of the Corrupting Sea. Not all together sure whether this is part of Silber’s ongoing 5 in 5 series, I suspect it is, because what lurks here upon the digital grooves of ‘looking to the stars’ are five tracks totalling 5 minutes of music. A radical departure from the usual Corrupting Sea script, that is if you don’t count the parting ‘inhabitable planet’, a brooding beauty equipped with all the trademark stilled grace and somewhat sounding ice sculptured  and solitary, like a passing celestial herald emitting opining love notes. ‘looking to the stars’ serves as a, if you would, sonic story board, it relates to its authors love of sci-fi, each of the titles directing you like scenes / chapters into voyages of discovery. In truth it reads like one of those classic 50’s style space age radio broadcasts, the sounds crystal tipped in a vintage futuristic sound a la ‘journey into space’ et al, which like such a broadcast and / or book captures the atmosphere succinctly, colouring the non visual canvas through detailed narrative and / or sonic chemistry. Case in point, ‘entering the stratosphere’ operates on two possibly three levels, in so much you can feel the weight of the g-force as the rocket escapes the clutches of mother Earth, but then there’s the string section ushering in a sense of wonderment and mystery as the capsule hurtles into the unknown and simultaneously takes note of the crews own sense of peril. The eerie and airless ‘plotting a course’ frames perfectly that sense of arriving at a point of no return and coming to terms with new challenges while ‘keeping time with hibernation’ is pure 60’s styled Radiophonic Workshop leaving ‘new planet horizon’ – as were steeped in expectation and part fear, to iinhabit a subtle Eno like phrasing. https://silbermedia.bandcamp.com/album/looking-to-the-stars

 Next up, something very special from San Diego courtesy of Galaxy Fingers. Truth be told ‘let in Elijah’ is a faultless release, we tripped over it via a you tube posting for the parting track ‘I need therapy’, much taken by its strangely happy / sad reflective twinkling, the dozing lazy eyed opining riffs and the general overall feeling of something tenderly bruised had us near flooded in our tears. Of course add in the sepia tweaked 50’s teen angst bubblegum phrasing and we here were lost forever. Happy to say the rest of this three track set all sit up resplendently shimmered similarly. Opener ‘hugs when you’re anxious’ particularly sighed in a crushing emotional sapping artistry whose softly stirred willowyness stings seductively like a vulnerable and defences down Camera Obscura, while ‘delivered’ picks up the pace a tad, still possessed of that ability to destroy you and yet much revealing of a collective astutely equipped with the ability to navigate their way amid the more tortured and tenderly introspective realms of the great dream pop cosmos. https://galaxyfingers.bandcamp.com/releases  

This being the season of death and renewal, hello winter, surely it be time to visit the strange surreal magic land that be the domain of Moon Wiring Club, perchance to peeketh into his macabre cabinet of curious delights. Existing outside of time, fashion and, we’d be none too surprised to hear, this dimension, the Moon Wiring Club is part prankster, trickster and ringmaster perhaps more so a gatekeeper preciding over realms both wherein the points of time cross, collide and blur and the notions of dream and nightmare fuse. At times disquieting yet strangely dreamweaved, the Moon Wiring Club crafts sounds both of the now, the yesterday and the tomorrow, a musical hall of mirrors each reflection a portal to a would be weird, perhaps wonderful, shadowland. As winter falls and the nights draw in, lurking in the ether the newly birthed twins of the moon wiring club family are eager to play, their name be ‘Cateared Chocolatiers’ and ‘Tantalising Mews’ – the former a vinyl artefact of abstract and absurdist alchemy, the latter a two disc collection of the compact variety promising ‘drifty dreame’ and ‘eerie beats’ …..

Ah the Time Attendant, did we not mention him in an earlier dispatch – somehere here in fact https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/24/time-attendant-2/ only then going on to forget our promise to check out the album ‘Ruby Modifier’ at a later date. Well that later date is upon us, obviously slightly later than we intended but then did we actually put an ‘expiry date’ or any indication on when it would be. Folks over at the blog that celebrates itself take note – ahem. Anyhow we somehow drifted here following the mentioning of Moon Wiring Club immediately struck by the kooky curio that is ‘effortless melody’. Now may we suggest you lock up your toasters and various other kitchen appliances for this slice of AI bop sounds for all the world like some smoking party happened upon on a nightly basis when the local electrical shop clears of the pesky humans and under the glow of the fire exit signages, all manner of consumerist electricals come tumbling out of boxes for a meet, greet and no doubt note swapping update on the latest bid for world domination. All sounds very remote, eerily playful and a tad Cabaret Voltaire-y and mind conditioning, funky to I should add.  https://timeattendant.bandcamp.com/album/ruby-modifier

First of two outings from the VHF imprint, blimey it’s been a while since their wares featured here, anyhow a live artefact type thing capturing Flying Saucer Attack in all their unadorned warts n’ all glory. A remastered reissue as were of a release originally out through Bruce Russell’s Corpus Hermeticum imprint way back in 1996. This remodelled document of a 1994 live experience now comes pressed, for the first time, on two slabs of vinyl with the addition of a specially commissioned Jim O’Rourke mix hogging side four’s proceedings in fine style and also includes several minutes of recordings that were apparently edited out of the original release for being – er – ‘too rock’. Anyhow it’s the Jim O’Rourke part of the equation that we’ve concentrated our lobes on, a hulking 17-minute edit rewired and terra-formed anew into a chilling and eerie ghostly palette of mind wiring psychosis and disquieting delights. Trippy as hell if you can momentarily bypass the macabre and otherworldly gloom gouged resonances and that unerring dread of icy isolationism tis something worthy of the entrance fee alone if only for the last 6 minutes, whereupon a symphonically shrieking cauldron is summoned dragging you deep into the darkest parts of your nightmare forming subconscious. https://soundcloud.com/vhfrecords/flying-saucer-attack-in-search?in=vhfrecords/sets/flying-saucer-attack-in-search-of-spaces-vhf145-2xlp  

staying with VHF as promised previously, the slowest lift, a duo pairing together Sophie Cooper and Vibracathedral Orchestra’s Julian Bradley, might just be putting in a late last minute for one of the debuts of the year with their self-titled set for the label. Fusing dream dazed drone dialects and wood cut folk hymnals, there’s a woozy beguile attaching here that secretly sits somewhere between Nico (see ‘the slowest lift’) and Allison O’Donnell with Lisa O’Piu shimmering around ghost like, one of those releases you suspect that Reverb Worship would have jumped at had it passed by. Simply put, an utterly beautiful listening experience, from the minute that the twilight hazed mystics of ‘Crystal fracture’ softly sigh into earshot to the wheezing foggy psychedelics of ‘hi from the skyline swim’ whisper their primitive spell craft, there’s bewitchment afoot here. However, it’s left to the last two tracks for the duo surface from their hidey hole, firstly for a superb reading of Duran Duran’s ‘the Chauffer’ – yes you read right – Duran Duran – now don’t get sniffy now, into the bargain relocating Le Bon and Co’s finest moment skywards into the airless ethereal whereupon a delightfully enchanting twinkle set is forged from out of an orbital waltz that nods to FortDax. Which all leaves the darkening fracture lines of the discordantly disquieting ‘punched’ too bade you farewell though not before seeing you out to the end grooves cowed by an oncoming chill storm of gloom piercing darkening. https://soundcloud.com/vhfrecords/sets/the-slowest-lift-st-lp-vhf144         

if this doesn’t get you beating your chest whilst simply gulping and falling swoon like in the face of its epic majesterial phrasing, then I’m sorry but you are lost to us. This is Högni with a track culled from his quietly acclaimed recently released debut ‘two trains’ – called ‘Komdu meõ’, this emotional titan sublimely blends spirituals, chorals and trip hop industrialism upon a gloriously atmospheric down tempo toned noir flashing whose eye for classicism had us much minded of Sleepyard had they set their collective minds to forging alliances with Thot. Devastatingly beautiful. On erased tapes I should add.

Tour dates as follows ….

2.12 Basel, Kaserne

4.12 Budapest, Fogas Ház

7.12 Katowice, Rialto

8.12 Warsaw, Cafe Kulturalna

10.12 Poznan, Scena na Piętrze

11.12 Berlin, XJazz Live, Kantine am Berghain

12.12 Moscow, Private show

13.12 Cologne, Gewölbe

14.12 Hannover, Feinkost Lampe

Here’s a little taster video announcing the arrival of Sendelica’s quite stunning ‘Cromlech Chronicles II’, available in both standard vinyl editions plus a plethora of limited edition variants on the bands own site, the one you want is the hulking big boxed version of the species, alas sold out of its quota from the band, we’ve got it on good authority that Keith at Fruits de Mer might have a few over – inside each of these humongous hairy hampers you’ll find the following – pause for deep breath ….. the Cromlech II LP, an exclusive Sendelica Drone Band live DVD, a random copy of one of the 2017 Sendelica FdM festival/Half Moon gig one-sided 7″s – either ‘Nite Flights’ or ‘Yellow Snow’, a Cromlech II t-shirt, an A2 poster of the front cover, a set of 7″x5″ postcards, a ‘make your own dreamcatcher’ kit and a ‘make your own chocolate cromlech’ kit.

Further reading ….

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/10/08/sendelica-20/  

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/sendelica-21/  

 

Again something else spotted on a random posting, thought of you. This is Skyjelly with a track taken from last years limited cassette for doom trip entitled ‘”Blank Panthers / Priest, Expert or Wizard” which I’ll say here and now, was perhaps, our favourite or at least in the top 3 certainly, albums of last year. An album that glowed and radiated adorable at each sly turn. This here being ‘Catherine’s Rabbi’ – just between you and me easily filed alongside Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘in the aeroplane over the sea’ and one of the great lost classics in recent memory.

Further reading …..

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/11/13/skyjelly/  

 

News from afar, well Emotional Response, that they are gearing up for Seasonal shenanigans with a festooning of baubles, tinsels and snow spray whilst currently cobbling together a plethora of well heeled releases that include a near sold out Seafang seasonal and a Christmas compilation featuring loveliness from Even as we speak, Boyracer and others – we’ll try and downloads for feature later – better still yer actual hard copies, well it is the season of miracles after all. So while we fire of begging letters here’s a twin set of newly peeled videos from releases we mentioned here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/bad-daddies/  

and there

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/razz/  

First up, skin prickling scuzzy efferevescence from the adorably agit gouged Bad Daddies with ‘now’ – probably one of the more less frantic and more straight ahead cuts from their panic attacking pogo party pack ’30 singles’ set. In short, a two minute shot of stare you out scowling strut grooved rock-a-hula ablaze in irritation and eye poking agitation.

Staying with Emotional Response, here’s Razz with ‘time frames’ the title track from their debuting full length of the same name, all buzzsawing pristine power pop that had us for a second slap bang in the late 70’s grooving to the Feelgood and the Motors, indeed that good and certainly worth a gander if only to hear the swoon provoking ‘hot little hands’ doing all manner of Flaming Groovies-ness.

I swear the listening room momentarily lit up in a sunny radiance the minute this gem started to stir and bleed through the sound system. This is Greenhouse and ‘acetate’ – a track – well solitary download single that you can pick up here https://greenhousebandmusic.bandcamp.com/album/acetate-single – now I don’t know about you but we are hearing the sound of a youthful Catherine Wheel fused with an equally young sounding Pale Saints shimmereing amid these coolly coalescing grooves the tender toned dream pop demurs fracturing into moments of euphoric turbulence. Does it for us.

Another track the cause of much head turning approval around this here listening gaff, this is Tel Aviv based quartet Document with a track lifted from their imminent ‘the void repeats’ debut full length set entitled ‘red tape’. Now trust me on this one, this will insidiously work its way beneath your skin, agreed it comes possessed with a slacker-esque quotient that hints of a prime time Pavement, yet scratch beneath the surface and there’s a strangely manifesting bubblegrooving attaching itself to a deeply ear hugging angular post punk vibing that had us of a mind to go searching out Left Hand’s much under-appreciated ‘minus eight’ full length along with a few well heeled sorties by the Playwrights with a side serving of Beatglider’s ‘witches’ for good measure.  https://soundcloud.com/documentofficious/red-tape  

While we do a spot of persuasive housekeeping on our faltering laptop, here’s the Pulselovers track you’ll find sitting prettily on A Year in the Country’s rather excellent year closing dark celebration ‘All the Merry Year Round’ – which we’ll finally be gathering together for a long overdue review a little later in the week, now that we’ve managed to rescue our copy from its hiding place. Traced in an uncharacteristic lightness far removed from recent Pulselovers happenings, the cosmic venturer ‘tales of Jack’ is a wonderfully realised vintage lunar dance, trimmed in starry corteges and kissed with a stilled lulling elegance, its classic snow globed silver age kosmische chassis fashioned upon futuristic lines, peers with dream like demur and celestial wonderment into futures to come. https://ayearinthecountry.bandcamp.com/track/tales-of-jack  

Further readings ….

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/all-the-merry-year-round/  

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/08/all-the-merry-year-round-2/  

Mega Dodo see out the year end with news of a strictly limited 7 inch offering from Alison O’Donnell that’s due to land February time. Just 250 copies of this nugget, the first 100 coming signed by Ms O’Donnell’s fair hand. Alas no sound links just yet, safe to say though that this little twin set, gathering together ‘The Road We Know’ and ‘An Empire In All Its Glory’ is a gem. The former emerging gently into view delicately waltzing wistfully down secret evergreen hedgerows to a dizzy lollop whilst fondly spraying the pathways in rarefied petals teased from rustic posies. That said, it’s the flip that’s the main attraction here, pressed upon hazy pastorals this enchanting fairy dance flickers and flitters with a softening radiance that’s hushed in a dreamy lost in the moment folk classicism as it glides ghost like across secret magic lands with siren like allure.  

A lot less fractured and feral than their last visit here whereupon ‘babyboomers’ had us literally pinned tightly to the wall at its sheer gusto. With that in mind and with the scars and bruises proudly on show, as a result of that last listening experience, we were busily building a bunker in readiness for more sonic assaults when we spotted news of a freshly pressed video for ‘Clam’ via their press folk. Safe to say, it was all a false alarm for ‘Clam’, the latest serving of Breakfast Muff, is a softly stirred shimmertone affectionately hazily glazed in subtle psych shades and a healthy dollop of dream pop detailing, much like, it has to be said, a somewhat lazy eyed Lush. 

interlude …. electro …. The droids, transvolta, telex, grauzone….

the droids …

Transvolta ….

Telex ….

Grauzone …

Okay we don’t normally go in for this blatant publicity malarkey but so struck by the excitable screaming from the Lovely Eggs sound shed, we felt obliged to share this warning / sorry message from impish sorts Holly and David, oh yea there’s an album looming now ready for pre order, it’s out around February, it’s on orange-y vinyl and it’s called ‘this is eggland’ – I suspect our stylus might melt under its flame hot flippancy….

… message follows ….

‘THEN WE’RE PERFORMING MOTHERFUCKING LIVE ROUND THE UK IN FEBRUARY WITH PORKY THE POET (AKA PHILL JUPITUS) AND SPECIAL GUESTS TBA AT ALL THESE PLACES….

THUR 8   THE YORKSHIRE HOUSE                    LANCASTER

FRI 9       BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB                       LEEDS

 SAT 10      THE CLUNY                                        NEWCASTLE

SUN 11     THE MASH HOUSE                         EDINBURGH

MON 12     STEREO                                             GLASGOW

TUES 13    NEW ADELPHI CLUB                                   HULL

WEDS 14      CLWB IFOR BACH                               CARDIFF

THUR 15       THE CELLAR                                         OXFORD

FRI 16          THE 100 CLUB                                        LONDON

SAT 17         BAND ON THE WALL                    MANCHESTER

THINGS ARE GUNNA BE WILD!

IMPALE YERSELF ON THE FUTURE!

LET THE FREAKS FRIGGING UNITE!!

YOURS TRULY

AS ALWAYS

AND FOREVER

AMEN

HOLLY AND DAVID XXXX’

Some words ….  

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/21/the-lovely-eggs-6/

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/the-lovely-eggs-7/  

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/10/24/the-lovely-eggs-8/  

end groove ….