listen ….can you hear it? ….. transmission 1…

Listen … Can you hear it? …..

Intermission 1 …. m/e 31/1/2018

‘revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind’ ….

The much delayed first edition of Listen …. Can you hear it? A slightly truncated affair I’m afraid to say due in the main to a rather stressful but necessary move, new contact details somewhere below. As you’ll note the original pre-amble to this first monthly missive didn’t quite go as planned, I’ve included our original intentions here …… 

…. A new year and new missive, you’ll probably note we’ve given it both a name change and post frequency alteration moving to monthly as opposed to weekly and from ‘look what we sneaked online while you were sleeping’ to ‘Listen …. Can you hear it?’. Hopefully there’ll be no dip in content, just saves the panic and hair pulling tension of getting these musings online every Sunday as was the case last year.

As promised last time out, this edition is something of a ‘the blog that celebrates itself’ special, the label having shot out several well-heeled releases in the last few weeks as they celebrate their 10th anniversary. You can also expect several visits to Unexplained Sounds’ mammoth end of year report peppered about these pages, a colossal release that gathers together over 200 tracks. We might also have a few Christmas hangovers, featuring releases that were prepped for inclusion over the festive period yet due to an aggravating chest infection (– which even after 10 plus weeks still shows no signs of giving up the ghost and instead appears to have mustered new found vigour in making up miserable), found themselves abandoned and shivering on the sidings.

Safe to say both the Blog that Celebrates Itself and Unexplained Sounds will feature numerous next missive out, which all things being well will find itself posted last day this month.

I’m sad to say that this month we have lost many, Jim Rodford, Peter Wyngarde, Delores O’Riordan, Hugh Masekela and fast Eddie Clarke

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42650076

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-42760180 

… however out of all who fell this month, the biggest shock still being felt around these here parts, was the sad news of Mark E Smith’s passing. The thought of no more new Fall records is a crushing thing, since first tuning into Peel as a younger self and hearing them, they’ve quietly nagged in the background of my music listening life, defiantly non-conformist, a shock of realism, a sore thumb with working class values sitting outside of the tent chucking in dismissive barbs whilst sounding like no one else but the Fall. Rest in Peace Sir …….

…. some words from the man himself ….. 

…. finally one of his finest moments ….. from the near perfect ‘Grotesque’……

Also, worth noting that we are moving address shortly, so please be kind enough to update your contact lists, details are below somewhere here ….

12 Stewart Avenue,

Bootle, Merseyside,

L20 9JD

UK

… and with that the first thoughts of the month ….. and so, the first missive of 2018 ….

… features ……

Reginald esquire, slipstream, you are number six, green seagull, maps and diagrams, kepier widow, kindred spirit, the fall, hey colossus, lo five, impulse array, laurel halo, roger robinson, Richard dawson, you the night and the music, Sylvia massy, the heartwood institute, brian eno, prana crafter, Damien Olsen, val solo, the bordellos, those unfortunates, jack hayter, anton barbeau, the cold spells, unexplained sounds group, zebra, evvol, la witch, mick harris, bill nelson’s red noise, the paranoyds, Suzanne santo, the corrupting sea, pull the plug, bedroom cassette masters, good charlotte, evvol, electronic sounds, 7dd9, a silver age, the urban molluscs, walt thisney, kaelan mikla, pop simonova, fuka lata,  shad shadows, person:a, dark sun, sendelica, fruits de mer, schizo fun addict, Nathan hall and the sinister locals, Didier bocquet, brigitte fontaine, pole, François de Roubaix, cortex, dream weapon ritual, maximum rock n’ roll, earache, it’s trash, radio mutation, cut x cut, slow thaw, subduxtion, acorn Falling, petunia liebling macpumpkin, dandelion set, Julius Vanderbilt, Jeffrey siedler, m1nk, tremolo ghost, human league, throbbing gristle, ultravox, zero gravity tea ceremony, shit creek, abwartz, anne clark, fehlfarben, no age, doris Norton, stockhaussen, paradox obscur, effetto joule, modele macanique, opale, pleasure symbols, tomorrow syndicate, papernut Cambridge, moths and locusts, cult of dom keller, lake ruth, the fall, sycamore, clair obscure, that feint light, haunted me, perhaps, zeuk, pretty lightning, familia de lobos, wawawow, dark sun, bleach dream, Edward artmeiv, nanaki, automat, zodiac, the corrupting sea, zebra, david cw briggs, la witch, Suzanne santo, g p-orridge, aaron dilloway, e mordrake, kabukimono, beautify junkyards, neoelph, john Bramwell, ebol digon tebal, san segur, kosmonaut, panophonic, tc&i, robyn Hitchcock, xtc, snow glows, spectre collector, the null spectre, the keep left signs, liiight, worker and parasite, spunking octochoke, the church of st simon the tanner, cardiacs, sea nymphs, telescopes, el presto maniac, outrageous methods of presentation, super robots, Low sea, modern witch, les visiteurs du soir, silent signals, peine Perdue, minuit machine, hante, furniteur, Wojciech Golczewski, brian eno, visage, the clash, the séance ….

 

Opening the new year account with a spot of magic enchantment courtesy of Reginald Esquire’s ‘dormant hymn’. Totally smitten with this, through its neo classical phrasings a purring Bucolic lounge tongue snakes and stares, clearly schooled in its initial moments in the ways of John Barry. This dream weaving fantasia swirls between romance and regret making full use of the emotional spectrum as it arcs and sighs with caressing finesse slickly immersing itself in noir toned 60’s shadows and chicly crafted symphonic grace falls whose full blooded mercurial resonances wouldn’t go amiss adoring a classic Hammer Horror flick, the heraldic dapples are breath-taking whilst its fairy trimmed wonderland imagery are both arrestingly radiant and hitherto ghosted in a soothing choral beguilement kissed with a spectral beauty that’s simply flooring. In short, immaculate and something best described as a shepherd’s light illuminating a path through the coming dark days. Available as a free download via https://soundcloud.com/reginald-esquire/dormant-hymn  

The posting reads …. ‘What do you do when you’re bored on New Years Eve with nothing to do? Why, you do a version of the greatest love song ever written, that’s what you do.’ Indeed, and why not especially when the resulting jig ends up sounding like this. Slipstream, who must be surely due for release action soon, unless I’ve already missed it which wouldn’t surprise us given we’d taken the foot off the pedal somewhat towards the end part of last year. Anyhow, here’s their rather spiffing version of the Ronettes classic ‘baby I love you’ sounding into the bargain like a super chilled cruise controlling Jesus and Mary Chain with the additional plus of adoring said classic with a lazy eyed fuzzy glam psych swagger. https://soundcloud.com/slipstreamuk/baby-i-love-you  

Imminent any day now, the debut vinyl outing from the Heartwood Institute will be among us via Polytechnic Youth. Somewhat delayed from its original October schedule due to pressing plant issues and glitches, ‘secret rites’ looks like being the early 2018 pace setter for the rest of the competition to follow. From that collection, ‘Aradia’ has been sent forth on heralding duties, ghost walking the twilight shadows peering through the fracturing apertures where alternate time lines and forgotten histories collide, cross and distort, the sounds shimmered and sealed in a glassy and mystic vintage are caressed with an unearthly and eerie Bucolic rustic that’s applied with a retro – futurist etching that imagines the stark and ominous dystopian bleakness of ‘timeslip’ relocated to an 80’s VHS age a la Fiedel and Carpenter. 

 

Further reading …..

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/the-heartwood-institute-8/  

Something we tripped across on that there sound cloud, can’t believe we missed this first time of asking. This is Green Seagull, whose first full length must surely be in the offing some day very soon, this ‘un a demo take of a track (‘they just don’t know’) that formed the ear gear essential twin set happening that was their debut 7 inch outing for the much admired Mega Dodo imprint last year, something that was fondly swooned over here at https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/03/13/green-seagull/  – still sounds very Left Banke which really is no bad thing. https://soundcloud.com/greenseagull/they-just-dont-know

Almost at a loss to say we missed out on grabbing ourselves a physical copy of this one, the 50 only CD variant literally disappearing on presales quicker than the blink of an eye. Latest from the prolific work bench of Maps and Diagrams, this be ‘Klättra’ – the opening track from an imminent set entitled ‘obra’ (of which I must say, might well be his most sparsely minimalist yet most beguiling listening event to date). A twinkling lost star marooned in the cosmic echelons, ‘Klättra’ is an orbital waltz, an echo from an electronica silver age demurringly sprayed in sleepy headed mosaics of snoozing binary sighs, the solace brought to bear by its lonesomely orphaned detachment is somewhat longingly eased and displaced by its affectionately playful love note murmurs. Adorable. https://handstitched.bandcamp.com/album/obra  

…. Stay with Maps and Diagrams by way of a short hop over to their sound cloud page for a chance to grab yourself a free to download compilation of tracks recorded between 2002 and 2006 which till now have been lost to the vaults ….. https://soundcloud.com/handstitched/sets/maps-and-diagrams-2002-2006    

Another release we appear to have missed out on is a double cassette offering that was limited to just 30 copies from the emotion wave folk of Liverpool titled ‘daffodils’. Thankfully available on digital variation, this gathering collects together some of the finest talent on the electronica spectrum amongst the names on show – polypores, simon jones, glitchfield plaines, the mekano set, lo five and impulse array with proceeds from the release going to assist the sterling work done by the Merseyside Domestic Violence Services. So, while we have a further rummage around the compilations contents with a view to a fuller mention later this missive, we’ll just briefly mention two of the treats within. First up, Impulse Array’s ‘magnetic density effect’ might first appear like some mind wiping dream machine but upon closer inspection reveals a positive hub of activity that’s clearly tuned to a classic Detroit tech palette, that palette of course having been positioned on a hulking satellite mast high up in the ionosphere from off whose glowing and radiating hive consciousness, flotillas of binary pulsars busily chatter and tap out greeting messages into the darkening voids of the cosmos. I suspect we owe Lo Five something of an apology as I’m certain we received a CD a while back which has since seen fit to disappear to places so far unknown, to us at least. So, while we do a spot of online searching to see if we can find relevant links for a write up, here he is with the aptly titled ‘glorified beauty’. Svelte, seductive and smouldered in an ice sculptured neo classicism, at least for the initial opening that is, for once eased through the radiant greeting of a new morning alarm call, ‘glorified beauty’ mutates and shapeshifts with sublime seamlessness one minute briefly oozed in Bucolic sprays the next, hushly harvesting an intricately sleepy headed aura of glitch sighed snoozes and dream draped dissipates, the overall effect very amorphous and somewhat tastily trippy.  https://emotionwave.bandcamp.com/      

The festive 51 according to the in memory of john peel show –

 https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/imojp/episodes/2017-12-29T12_37_14-08_00  

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/imojp/episodes/2017-12-30T11_54_07-08_00

https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/imojp/episodes/2017-12-31T13_23_08-08_00  

…the chart in full in descending order ……

Higher Moment       Amor                      

Miami      Baxter Dury           

Victoria Train Station Massacre            The Fall                  

The Ghost of A Tree                Richard Dawson    

Equality & Death (mothers, fathers, where are Ye-)              Angles 9  Disappeared Behind the Sun 

Sink         METZ     

Sippy Cup               SARN      

Brixton Summer      Roger Robinson     

Failure In Chrome  Actress    AZD       

I Want To Tell You Something                Gavin Martin         

A Kid       Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith            

Brother Joe             Ashley Reaks          

Headphone Jack      Skyjelly   

Lazarus Online       Wolf Parade           

Wed Dreems           R. Stevie Moore     

Interior Plains         Decomposure         

Safe Word               Cube

Till Fots Fick Jag Gå Genom Solsystemen             Anni Elif

Thick Air Frk. Jacobsen          Lobsters                 

Paper Bag               Circuit des Yeux     

EIGENGRAU (ChILDREN OF HELL II)              Chino Amobi          

To The Moon And Back          Fever Ray               

enigma    Jlin         

Badges for the Boring             monster island.      

Turkey Girl             Annie Anxiety         

Themistocles is Captured:      Quinta    

Princess Turnt        Bob Bellerue          

Here Is The Thing   Protomartyr

Beni Said 75 Dollar Bill          Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock (AAC)

Second Partially Recollected Conversation           Those Who Walk Away          

LA CHUCK            

Plastic Fox              Mik Artistik’s Ego Trip          

Hope Swims            Simon Fisher Turner             

Drunk Lads             Nachthexen

Hollow    Thom Ashworth @thomashworth                          

Hard Life In Country              The Fall  

Anxi (ft. Jenny Hval)               Kelly Lee Owens    

It’s All Free             I, Ludicrous           

tonite       LCD Soundsystem  

The Animal Spirits  James Holden & The Animal Spirits     

Real Death              Mount Eerie

Paper Error            Gnod      

Enough    Irreversable Entanglements                   

Horizon   Aldous Harding                     

Walk With Me         Roger Robinson

Couples vs Jobless Mid 30s    The Fall  

How To Tell Time With Jesus Hey Colossus

Jelly         Laurel Halo           

Fol De Rol              The Fall  

new Maps                Roger Robinson     

Ogre        Richard Dawson

….. finally that all important top spot hogger …… quite a wondeful thing sounding like Circulus and Polyphonic Spree on relocation to Summerisle ……

I must admit, we here are getting a tad bit fond of these press releases, this one from familiar friends Kindred Spirits promising thus ‘….. behold: kindred spirits invoke a sonic seance, perfect for use in abandoned houses and ancient libraries. A disquieting collage of haunts, pulsing rhythms and insidious drones. Prepare the circle, relax and feel your eyeballs roll back in their sockets….’ Limited to just 35 cassette copies – incidentally going fat – through the Lugubrious Audio imprint, ‘the dread of being’ features eight slices of disturbia within. All hope abandoned for here behind the veil, shadows stalk and macabre manifests in many forms, these sinister symphonies watch silently from the darkness, the atmospherics degraded to an ice tombed dread stillness, the effect one of remote isolation, a nightmare from which there is no escape and from whence no light touches or pierces, its deeply solemn stuff stricken with paranoia and an unravelling psychosis and something which, the safety afforded from listening to from behind the sofa, in daylight and with the lights on, will I suspect, do little to temper the overwhelming sense of terror. https://lugubriousaudio.bandcamp.com/album/the-dread-of-being    

Further readings and selected sightings …..

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/kindred-spirits-5/

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/kindred-spirits-vs-hole-house/  

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2016/10/16/kindred-spirits/  

staying with Lugubrious Audio a little while longer, again on limited cassette release – again in a strict 35 only pressing, this be Kepier Widow with a two track outing going by the name ‘the duality of man’. This one comes ahead of a new release due any day soon, title as yet undisclosed but we suspect it might be called ‘burden’ though watch this space for dissenting missives. Anyhow, time pressing we’ve only had chance to sample the fracturing delights of ‘peace symbol’ – a decidedly creeped out shape shifting dark star howled in a chamber recital fog from out of which emerges a chilling foretelling ghosted in apocalyptic terror, something whose want for continually putting you on the back foot is brought into sharpening focus by its fragmenting forays into noise niking dead ends, disquieting dark ceremonials, atonal shimmers, flat lining drone collages and a disconcerting and scrambled sense of creative unrest at the hand of its author, not that we here are complaining.  https://lugubriousaudio.bandcamp.com/album/the-duality-of-man   

latest edition of you the night and the music specially remodelled for this edition as yule the night and the music, the third end of year soiree featuring a gathering of Mat’s favourite tracks in er – alphabetical order meaning that this one covers all those essential ear gear happenings from F to H. A familiar feast of psych, electronische, hauntology, kosmische and more besides, this 2-hour hipster hi-fi hugger opening to the far out 60’s shade adorned space sounds of Free / Slope’s recent limited lathe outing for deep distance, one for all you Sunray / Sonic Boom loving dudes I shouldn’t wonder. Now I’ll embarrassingly put my hands up in admitting that thus far, until now that is, that hotel wrecking city traders haven’t as yet troubled these pages, well that’ll be changing if this bad slab of boogie is anything to judge by, gloriously primitive cacophonic groove, while similarly making a play from our affections the darkening psych freak storm that is the Janitors. Somewhere else there’s Julie’s Haircut who we really must make it a new year resolution to pay more closer attention to in the coming year, clearly these dudes are on a different level of psych consciousness to everyone else. Throw in some Keith Seatman strangeness, a spot of mercurial musing from Klaus Morlock, some veering into the heart of the sun wig flippery courtesy of Lamagaia and a sample of the delights that lurk in the fascinatingly strange and surreal hidden world of Jumble Hole Clough, from a personal point of perspective, one of the many great finds to adore our listening space these last twelve months. https://www.mixcloud.com/Youthenightandthemusic/you-the-night-and-the-music-221/  

we were going to include a little off the press gubbins in order to stir you in a rough direction as to where this is going, but quite frankly, it sounds and scans like bonged babble, which on reflection I guess, is quite perfect for this is humongous tripping out there groove. From what we gather, a split outing between Transnadežnost’ and Ciolkowska, both of whom hail from the Russian Federation and each share groove space on wasted wandered. Transnadežnost’ open proceedings with ‘huldra’ – a formidable slab of out there beardiness the likes of which that ought to prick the ears of those Cranium Pie and Magic Bus folk among you not to mention the more stoned out happenings emanating from the Bad Afro imprint. For their part, Ciolkowska’s side of the bargain is a more mellower more post rockier affair initially not far off the mark from say San Lorenzo and Billy Mahonie in style though swiftly figuring through the gears assuming something approaching the dream draped delirium of say, Arcade Messiah before jettisoning off into the astral mystics along the way wiring up some seriously wyrd psych folk wooziness a la Dungen. https://noname666.bandcamp.com/album/huldra-108  

I won’t lie in saying that this has scarcely been off the player since finding its way upon our listening space. There’s something kookily creepy and seductive sinister about this chill dipped shadow walker. Going by the name ‘vulture’ the track comes peeled from a new EP set by Agura Matra titled ‘in silence’. We here just adore the peculiar playfulness of the clock working lullabies as they scratch and poke around your psyche ushering in their ne’er do well, which while on first listen, might well hint of the impish macabre schooling of Psychic TV / Throbbing Gristle, had us on repeat visit much minded of a distant cousin to Biosphere’s ‘phantasm’.  https://aguramatra.bandcamp.com/track/vulture  

From the land of pop, that’ll be Sweden, this is Val Solo, sounds a little too close to Sal Solo, he of Classix Nouveaux fame or infamy depending on your perspective. Anyhow, mere mention of Sal Solo may appear not be the accidental coincidence that we might have first led to you to believe, for the ten track ‘songs from another time ….. and space’ full length finds this Mr Solo refusing to hide his obvious fondness for the crafting of pristine purred pop, especially if it comes styled with a whiff and shaped in the contouring of an early 80’s electro pop age. Anyhow, due to pressing time restraints, a brief delve on this visit, with that in mind, hang in there with the Classix Nouveaux references because in truth they aren’t far from the fold, a point no better exemplified than on the clearly big hair big shoulder suits soft smoulder of ‘no sound’ who feel good anthem like tethering clearly locates it around 1985 with would I be right in saying, something of a prettified pop tailoring that distantly recalls Bobby G’s theme work for ‘big deal’. Mind you that said opening salvo, the chill pop buzz pop flirtation that is ‘why don’t you talk to me’ has something of a youthful A-ha about its wares while ‘I’m in space (cabdiver dreams)’ has a strangely alluring Howard Jones thing going on towards the business end of its five-minute stay. https://valsolo.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-another-time-and-space  

We here are a tad bit concerned that this ‘un might nearly have passed us by without so much as a hi, hello and how are you. Incoming on the perfectly formed beyond beyond is beyond tape imprint, an ultra limited cassette outing by Prana Crafter whose last visit to these pages courtesy of ‘mindstreamblessing’, we were still trying to recover from only managing to shake its effect just before Christmas and various chest infections descended to provide a newfound focus for our concerns – anyway words here should you be interested, and you should be –  https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/29/prana-crafter/  

‘Bodhi Cheetah’s Choice’ is duly expected to land from wherever sometime later this month, from it ‘holy tempel of flow’ has been sent out to flavour your chosen peace pipe, hell’s teeth this is more Bardo Pond than Bardo Pond, a truly woozy freak pill that initially takes you by the hand for a genteel dream dazed astral glide, the effect light headed, out of body and amorphous soon aligns itself to a smoking and stoned beatnik locked grooving slice of wigginess that wouldn’t look to out of place on some early wax happening from the mighty bearded one, Bevis Frond. https://pranacrafterbbib.bandcamp.com/  

Okay, I’m not quite sure exactly how we are going to shoehorn over 200 tracks that make up the colossal end of year report curated by the Unexplained Sounds Group.into this missive. Shall we agree to play it by ear and perhaps pepper these musings with as many nightly visits as possible. Okay agreed. Available in a choice of two volumes and as previously advertised, gathering together over 200 tracks, ‘Ocean of Sound – the 3rd annual report’ – in short, a best of, or at least a sample therein of the sounds, styles and artists who’ve featured these last 12 months on this forward-thinking sound survey. On this particular visit, we’re concentrating on Volume 2 of the collection, three brief tracks to get the ball rolling, so to speak and beginning with David M. Paganin’s decidedly odd sore thumb ‘Welcome to Everlasting Night’ which I must say viewed in a certain light, ought to appeal to those of you well versed in the dark delights of Edward Ka-Spel, certainly the kind of minimalist mantra that at one time would have no doubt graced the catalogue of Beta Lactam Ring. The strangeness doesn’t stop there, for the oddly sultry snake charming apparition emerging into view by way of Bruno Gussoni’s ‘Radio India’ is cut with a musical tongue as old as time itself with this arabesque mantra echoing through the passages of time like some thought lost Tibetan psalm crafted by Ariel Kalma. Last one for this particular visit comes from Damien Olsen whose ‘parsy’ strikes something of a curiously lilting yet hitherto remote sounding slice of cosmic exotica whose playfully bowed lunar motifs, dub dissipates and starry conversations muse cheekily to a pulsing palette one imagines schooled in the experimental classicism of Louis and Bebe Barron. https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/ocean-of-sound-the-3rd-annual-report-volume-ii         

Three days into the New Year and we already have two Bordellos releases to happily contend with, notwithstanding that on a date as yet not appointed, there’ll be an expanded version of their finest moment – that’ll be ‘Debt Sounds’ in case you didn’t know – appearing sometime this year via, we believe, the Small Bear imprint. We did mention two releases, both are compilation gatherings, the bulkier of the two ‘faves’ we’ll be mentioning a little later this missive. For now, though, volume 10 of the bands vault dig that is the ‘underground tapes’. As ever these selections come sourced from all manner of radio sessions, alternate takes, forgotten cuts and early versions and arrived in our inbox with an accompanying note from Brian musing on the fact that ‘melody inn’ – featured here – the Dandelion radio version therein, might well, in his opinion, be the bands finest moment. In truth we were all ready to whole heartedly agree until the impish occurrence of the parting ‘Marianne’ came into ear view, pure Fall-esque wiriness, delightfully skewed, off the wall and pretty much post everything, a true irregular head trip. Mind you ‘melody inn’ is indeed a cut above and by our reckoning as close as you are ever going to get to any imagining of a gathering of ‘wilder’ era Teardrops musing with Joy Division while led from the fore by Scott Walker appearing for real. Elsewhere here and certainly not making up the numbers, the darkly wired and primitively scowled ‘perfect time to die’ sounds as though its fallen from some early 80’s post punk blind spot, very ‘crown of thorns’ by the Bunnymen truth be told. Talking of the Bunnymen, some nifty Sergeant-esque needle work features on the bruising love note that is the very Doors-esque Stones sounding ‘the head on the floor’. Class. https://bordellos.bandcamp.com/album/the-bordellos-underground-tape-10-2  

plenty of Gare Du Nord activity afoot …. so we’ll start at the start then, kinda makes sense ……

….first up a full digital release for the second volume of Anton Barbeau’s electronic excursions. ‘Antronica 2’ via gare du nord, gathers together a collection of synth based pop nuggets that pretty much straddle the entireity of his career with some rare features here dating back to his first forays as a musician in the 80’s. Indeed, the more keen eyed among you might well have already noted that we’ve featured to much swooning ‘dolphins on drugs’ when we briefly touched on the latest volume of Bedroom Cassette Masters – more about them shortly – however, just in case you missed it, fear not – for it be here – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/12/27/bedroom-cassette-masters-volume-9/ – as said, it’s the second such pickings from the Barbeau vaults collecting together sixteen such pristine pop gems with ‘rain, rain’ having carved itself a small hollow in our affections, not least because aside it’s overt 80’s adoring has something of a cooly chic Foxx vibe attaching to it, had he of course at the time shimmered up to Pete Shelley. Links to follow very shortly.

In addition to this particular release, Mr Barbeau is set to release ‘natural causes’ in April via a split label co-opt between Beehive Sound and You are Not Alone, more details as and when we get them.

Currently being primed for deserved fond words, an absolute gem of an imminent happening from the Cold Spells that’s been doing a fair amount of damage in our listening room of late. Anyhow, just in case you missed it first time of asking, here’s the teaser herald ‘roll me over’ which incidentally we mentioned here in passing –  https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/the-cold-spells/ – I mean I ask you, can it get any better, I’m edging on the no part of the fence. Perfect.

https://soundcloud.com/the-cold-spells/roll-me-over?mc_cid=83fe8c5e6f&mc_eid=ffbf620525          

a brief momentary break in the gare du nord soiree, here’s a delightful little something we tripped over on sound cloud which i’m suspecting might well have a connection to the previously mentioned Cold Spells. Okay, it’s Christmassy perhaps a little late eh, but then isn’t Christmas for life or at least the spirit which sadly everytime I switch over to listening to the news it appears not to be the case. Anyhow enough of the cheeriness, this is Farmer with the completely bonkers and wonderfully addictive ‘nuclear family Christmas’ which unless our ears do deceive sounds like  an impish meeting of casino vs Japan / winterbrief and the Beach Boys / Spector all deliciously warped into a 8 bit chuckling n’ chirping seasonal sleigh ride along the way spreading mirth and madness in equal measure as it tumbles at pace into your affections. Available as a free download so no excuses now….. https://soundcloud.com/farmbwelts/nuclea-amily-chistmas-bnce3  

back with Gare du Nord for a little something due to land March time. This is a teaser track from a new set by Jack Hayter going by the name ‘Abbey Wood’. Alas no sound links on this just yet, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that ‘at crossness pumping station’ is quite something else. Cut with the same bruising intimacy as that which used to attach to releases by Lupen Crook, Hayter’s magic is his ability to draw you close into his quietly evocative and peculiarly sleepy headed storytelling, for here both the arrangements and the woozy rustics beautifully expressed, softly daub the musical landscape in a hazy dappling of wheezing Medway breeziness to underpins perfectly its shanty like shadowy persona. 

Also due to land a little later in the year, a smattering of cassette and download releases by the much admired Those Unfortunates titled ‘Two Songs About Buses’ and ‘two Songs about Football’ – one of which is due to land on the FA Cup weekend – can you guess which one, as ever details as and when we get them. For now, the gare du nord folk have kindly pointed us in the general direction of a little something that was sneaked out over the festive season. This be ‘harvest song’ – a wonderfully mellowing lollop cosy toed with a close intimacy that glows with warming fuzzy feeling, in truth sound  wise it shifts from the bands usual impish craft to freewheel into the kind of hushed quietly smouldered terrains of the Soft Hearted Scientists, which as you all should know is no bad thing.

As promised previously, herewith your nightly visitation from that frankly superb ear bending double volume set from the Unexplained Sound Group folk entitled ‘ocean of sound’. As mentioned in earlier despatches this hulking set is a year end summary of tracks that have graced their formidable catalogue over the previous twelve months, a total surpassing the 200 mark. A collection that ought to be on the radar of those of you attuned to the likes of Resonance FM and those essential podcast postings from Vital Weekly not mention folk still much missing those essential transmissions, as were, from the Mixing It folk back in the day on BBC Radio 3. On this visit we’ve rummaged around for three selections from ‘volume 1’ opening with, well, the opening salvo from interface type seven titled ‘resistor’ which by these ears really does provide for a lilting slice of purring cosmic fantasia of the styling that wouldn’t look to out of place sitting on a Pye Corner Audio outing. That said we must admit to having something of a fondness for David Lee Myers’ ‘implicate order’ in so much as the way it’s glassy timbres shimmer, sigh and somewhat seduce with a hypnotic eeriness to what sounds like a softly quivering crystalline ethereal choral ghost light. Last up for this nightly look in is from Vlimmer. Now would this be the same Vlimmer who literally blew us away on a recent appearance to these pages with ‘Betonozean’ – a track ripped from their latest for the blackjack illuminist imprint, I think it might well be. Herewith ‘Zerstörung’ – a foreboding dark star draped between moments of dream dazed delirium and impacting fissures of rumbling sonic whiteouts the likes of which might have you minded to go off in search of your prized outings from both Bruce Russell and Bill Horist. https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/ocean-of-sound-the-3rd-annual-report-volume-i

‘ ’ is almost upon us, the imminent fourth full length by the Corrupting Sea issued through the Katuktu Collective imprint. Newly peeled from what promises to be an immaculate occurrence, the first single ‘moments of clarity’. Softly sighed in a hazy dream like nostalgia, this serene sweetheart might be seen as a road of two paths, perhaps a fond sepia sealed childhood memory of lulling in a state of dozing, sat at the rear of a parent’s car driving by night, occasioning in and out of consciousness, watching from the passenger seat, the blur of the street lights, passing cars and the endless line of cat’s eyes into the distance. Or maybe, something more spiritual, perhaps more final, a new beginning so to speak, an epitaph maybe as we make the inevitable trip through the veil to the beyond. Whatever the case, there’s no denying that here there be something reverent and majestic touched in unearthly wonder.

  

Sorry about this, but you can expect a fair few of these little interruptions over the course of the month as we try to clear, or at least give a heads up to a few outings we missed last year. So, a few little nuggets intended for our last ‘look what we sneaked…..’ hurrah that tickled our fancy over the last twelve months …..

…. first up…..

….  Zebra with some lulling stratospheric dream pop in the shape of ‘tropical’ –  very ‘let’s go to bed’ era Cure-esque if you ask me

… some demurring flutterby loveliness from Evvol with a little something sneaked out earlier last year entitled ‘comfort fit’ …..

… might take a little while to kick in and hook but this is the superb mat being pulled from beneath your feet shapeshifting ‘information thaw’ from Romjbor Klanglabor via the Jipangu imprint …..

…. Some achingly frail and fragile lovelorn dream pop from the immaculate Floor Cry …..

…. some Christmas second helpings with the buzzsawed power popped hurter ‘Christmas by the phone’ from Good Charlotte …..

The end of year party pack from the pull the plug folk here remodelled as the extended 2 hour pulling the plug on 2017 soiree. Packed to brimming and bursting with all the hippest toons from some of the nations leading taste makers, plenty of old favourites here, several nuggets from the esteemed polytechnic youth imprint, a handful of appearances from the variously guised Allan Murphy – the polymer cities and Kehrschleife, a brace of dandy sounds from what proved to be one of our favourite releases of the year, that being a limited cassette outing from the Art of the Memory Palace through horror pops who despite promises of more releases later in the year, just appeared to disappear. Talking of particular listening faves, a little something from both the papernut Cambridge and tara king th, the latter of whom we meant to revisit for a full review and may still do in the fullness of time – sorry Moon Glyph chaps. In truth, just too spoilt with the selections here to nail the best moment, though pattern language would never be straying too far from a top 5 list and neither would Jane Weaver, though that said, how the hell did we miss and more’s the point, get through 2017 without hearing ‘Car’ by Racoon Rally – think Pavement when they were perfect rather than mere brilliant smooching up to a youthful ‘car wash hair’ era Mercury Rev, yep that good.  https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/pulling-the-plug-on-2017-december-2017/  

…and because we love you and we are a little short on the evening word count – here’s the full tracklisting, now don’t think for a second we’ll be making a habit of this……  

‘Neat Neat Neat’ – Transistor (Massproduktion)

‘Science Fiction Stories’ – Pea Hix (Pea Hix)

‘The Consumer Programme’ – Vic Mars (Polytechnic Youth)

‘A New Absence’ – Art Of The Memory Palace (Horror Pop Sounds)

‘Telescope’ – Vanishing Twin (Soundway)

‘Bohemian Garden’ – Balduin (Sunstone Records)

‘It’s Only Raining Right Where You’re Standing’ – Drugdealer (Weird World)

‘Devil’s Mistress’ – Fantasmes (Last Bummer)

‘Liquid Dreaming’ – Dream Division (Polytechnic Youth)

‘Phares Sous La Pluie’ – Art Of The Memory Palace (Horror Pop Sounds)

‘The Hauntologists Race To Emulate The Stranger Things Soundtrack’ – The Polymer Cities (Internationally Obscure)

‘Sirrius’ – M I D D E X (Polytechnic Youth)

‘My Camp’ – Toska Wilde (Fusion)

‘A Believer’ – The Shifters (Market Square)

‘Attic’ – Rays (Trouble In Mind)

‘Big Man’ – Ty Segall (Drag City)

‘Special Glands’ – Navy Gangs (No Roads/Super Fan 99)

‘Ticking Time Bomb’ – The Asteroid No.4 (13 O’Clock)

‘Reduction Agent’ – Dion Lunadon (Agitated Records)

‘Celestial Echoes’ – Tara King th. (Moon Glyph / Petrol Chips)

‘The Planets’ – The Clear (Clear Music Records)

‘A Tilt Remains’ – Art Of The Memory Palace (Horror Pop Sounds)

‘Puppet Shop’ – Papernut Cambridge (Ravenwood Music Ltd./Gare Du Nord)

‘Recreation Zone 4’ – The Polymer Cities (Internationally Obscure)

‘Tambourine’ – Groovy Movies (Groovy Movies)

‘Alabaster Crayon’ – Lucille Furs (The Minimal Beat Ltd.)

‘Kensington Garden Pie’ – Radiophonic Tuckshop (Last Night From Glasgow)

‘Cucumber Sword’ – Man From Uranus feat. Taishi Nagasaka (Re-Alignment of Magnetic Dust)

‘By The Time We Get There’ – Pattern Language (Happy Robots)

‘Cold Fear’ – Moon Duo (Sacred Bones)

‘Approach’ – Pye Corner Audio (Ghost Box)

‘Into The Void’ – Tomorrow Syndicate (Polytechnic Youth)

‘You Shouldn’t Have Said That’ – Vertical67 (Brokntoys)

‘Slow Motion’ – Jane Weaver (Fire Records)

‘Element’ – Jane Weaver (Fire)

‘The Build-Up To A Smashing Night Out’ – Own Brand (Internationally Obscure)

‘The Alright Side Of Just OK’ – The Black Watch (The Eskimo Record Label)

‘Stole My Pushbike’ – Amyl And The Sniffers (Amyl And The Sniffers)

‘Der Gemüsehändler Und Der Bauer’ – Kehrschleife (Kehrschleife)

‘Car’ – Racoon Rally (Numavi)

Now pick the bones out that …….

Think there may be apologies due to David CW Briggs who sent over copies of a CD he released earlier in the year, which I‘m most embarrassed to say, somehow sloped off in the releases melee. Anyhow, as a wee expression of thanks and a humbled sorry type thing, here’s his latest. Just 25 copies of this ‘un, incidentally titled ‘are you the only one in your world?’ – a strictly limited CD-r heading out of the folk archive imprint from off which the opening title track has been the cause of much affectionate hoo-hah around these parts and no wonder because this little nugget comes hollowed and seasoned in a ghost lit misty mountain blues spiritualism that teasingly sits somewhere between Robyn Hitchcock and the mighty Frond. That said  ‘sleighted’ is no slouch in the fondness stakes its muddy and fuzzy psych folk swing adopting a subtle woozy and dizzy toning that hints of a solo Syd Barrett sitting upon its creative shoulder. https://davidcwbriggs.bandcamp.com/album/are-you-the-only-one-in-your-world   

…. And here’s something a little older from Mr Briggs – here under his Hills have Riffs alter ego ….

stuff we picked up along the way ….. la witch, mick harris, bill nelson’s red noise, the paranoyds, Suzanne santo ….

la witch …. drop dead cool live rendition of ‘kill my baby tonight’ …..

Here’s the Paranoyds who, if ‘heather doubtfire’ is anything to judge by, will be sought after for featuring here on a regular basis this year……

…here’s more LA Witch just because their as cool as …..

… and another from the Jam in a Van sessions …. This ‘un is Suzanne Santo ….

…. while over at IMPA TV here’s an extended set from Mick Harris recorded at his recent appearance the golden cabinet in Shipley …..

…. while time for a spot of nostalgic classicism courtesy of bill nelson’s red noise with their legendary Peel session from ’79 ….

….more stuff we picked up along the way ….. happy meals, the space lady, Genesis P-Orridge and Aaron Dilloway Live at Cafe Oto ….

… opening with the Happy Meals …. who i’m sure you’ll be sick of hearing about around these parts this coming year judging by this live footage ….

… the legendary space lady ….

…. Genesis P-Orridge and Aaron Dilloway Live at Cafe Oto ….

Somewhere amid these pages you’ll find two releases that use the curious enigma 23 – or the law of five’s as it’s more commonly known – as its source point. First up, there’s this newly exhumed oddness from the Aetheric folk, more specifically, e mordrake, while a little later you’ll find links to a superb mix tape curated by those fine people over at Wyrd Daze. Anyhow, back to e mordrake who in the finest tradition of Aetheric releases that have passed before, ushers in a disquieting dread across this macabre 14 minute sitting titled ‘lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil mixtape’, for here lurk ne’er do well apparitions and all manner of uninvited presences and unexpected guests, gathered to perform an unholy séance whilst spreading chilled contagion. Blanked within an impenetrable psychosis and an unearthly eerie, these ghostly drone recitals shimmer with a dead heading ice cold stillness that crafts something of an uneasy dark displacement.  https://aetheric-records.bandcamp.com/album/lovely-as-a-dream-hideous-as-a-devil-mixtape     

Staying a little longer with the Aetheric imprint, here’s a little something they sneaked out at the tail end of last year, which to much horror and embarrassment, it appears, slipped beneath our radar. This is ‘Clair Obscur’ the latest set from Julien A. Lacroix from off which we’ll just include a little of the press announcement to whet your appetites. ‘…..this album mirrors our interest in conceptual and abstract story-telling. It is directly inspired by occult-themed horror tales which draw upon ideas from the Symbolist and Hermetic traditions’. Sounds a bit grim doesn’t it, in truth it is and it isn’t, plenty of ethereal whispers, meditative bells, shadowy neo classical eeriness and chamber haunts,which might upon reading this, give the impression that you are at the entrance of some speedy elevator preparing to descend at pace to the very bowels of the fabled underworld. But then peel yourself away from the outer dark distractions and what emerges is an alluring shadowy fantasia, okay i’ll admit that it’s spirited away somewhat, to the realms that exist in the finite cracks between dream and night terrors, yet all the same tamed and traced in a mesmeric unworldliness, our favourite moment, should you be a wondering, being ‘conjuration’.  https://aetheric-records.bandcamp.com/album/clair-obscur       

…. and back with a few more selections from that excellent Unexplained Sounds Group year end archive ‘ocean of sound’. Just to recap a humongous two volume gathering of out there sounds operating on the distant margins of pop’s ever expanding cosmos, this collection extending to some 200 plus tracks drawn from the labels formidable release archive of 2017. As you can gather, a little hefty to feature all in one sitting, so we here have opted to drift in and out, delving as we as we go along, plucking out keynote tracks via these occasional visits. And so with that it’s a return to Volume 1 where you’ll find ‘hirajoshi’ by that faint light. This really is something else, the spectral pirouetting, the poetic poise and the frosting neo classical sighs adore it with a bewitching and airy night time intimacy, where just you, the silence and the haunt of your conscience sit in deep contemplation. Assuming a more darker persona, parting salvo ‘Comadreamers II’ by Haunted Me is etched in all manner of senses unravelling disquiet, a chilling aural account whose stilled and prowling unease, fixes you squarely in its deadening drone dread glare. https://unexplainedsoundsgroup.bandcamp.com/album/ocean-of-sound-the-3rd-annual-report-volume-i  

Apologies to the Riot Season sound house, so gutted that we failed to mention this on initial asking that we are now busily kicking our backsides up and down the listening room in an attempt to knock a modicum of sense into us. This will blow minds, though I suspect not quite to the extent of its makers, whom I’m sure must have been smoking far weirder stuff than both you and me. This psychedelic folk, is the whacked out and wasted n’ woozy freak pill that is ‘mood stabilizer’ by Perhaps from a set entitled ‘V’ sneaked out by Riot Season many months ago and still available for adoption by homes who prefer their listening, shall we say, a little more stoned and playfully off its head and tripping. Now I’ll be honest in saying, had this headed out on some hip imprint – say for instance Bureau B – not that I’m saying that Riot Season don’t fit the bill, just that they don’t reside in Germany – and say had the name Der Plan or something closely connected to the Kluster family tree stamped on its hide, then you’d all be going gaga, that it doesn’t in no way detracts from its mind melting floatiness incidentally.  https://soundcloud.com/riotseason/sample-one  

talking of trippy, a little something that’s been out for a while now from Zeuk who I’m fairly certain, though I could be wrong, have at some point in the dim and dark past, shimmied by our way. Anyway this is the aptly titled ‘the mists of Phobos’ – an astral snow globe wonderfully ethereal and somewhat touched in starry sighed shimmertones, a lunar fantasia traced in dreamy dissolves and half woken lulling dissipates, a very spacey spectral symphonia. In short, blissful.  https://soundcloud.com/zeuk/the-mists-of-phobos-soundtrack

desperately playing catch up with all these releases,fairly certain we got a message or some sort of communication from these folk a little while back. Latest to the Fuzz Club academy, these are pretty lightning who I‘m sure we’ve mentioned in earlier despatches, this slice of hypnosia titled ‘tangerine steam’. Down the psychedelic rabbit hole for what is a curiously mesmeric mantra blessed with an affectionate lolloping swing that sound wise imagines Gnoomes lost and tripped out in the land of Gnod, the effects dreamily dissolving and off centred in a woozy lysergic frying of bonged out mystical floatiness. Does it for us I’m aafraid.

… and back with Riot Season for a little something that’s shimnying down the line ready shortly for essential record store conter action. This be Familia de Lobos with ‘Todo Lo Que Brilla ‘ – a track taken from their imminent self titled head trip. What can we say, sounds as though its been dropkicked straight out from some 60’s Tibetan retreat, absolutely smoking in fact almost spiritual, certainly trippy of that there’s no doubt, you can feel the heat sultrily snaking from the grooves as it picks the locks to open your hidden third eye. https://soundcloud.com/riotseason/familia-de-lobos-todo-lo-que-brilla-riot-season-2018

Getting a tad concerned now, what with tripping across all these skedaddled sonic salvos that we keep bumping into, this ‘un was out around this time last, from Wawawow – really don’t ask – this is ‘space invaders’ – a wiry little blighter that seesaws precariously between out and out lunacy and freakish scuzzed out day-glo dandiness, would I be right in saying that hints of Spizz Energi weave into their sonic tapestry, whatever the case you’ll be hard pressed to find anything closely resembling its high octane feral finesse. https://soundcloud.com/wawawowband/space-invaders  

just ahead of a by all accounts killer new owHH outing through reverb worship, the labels current listening love is a set from Dark Sun entitled ‘innerspace astronauts’ from off which the frankly immense ‘heart beat’ has been sent on ahead on scouting detail. A cosmic dark star, this big bearded galactic juggernaut comes schooled, shaped and purred in the finest of classic era kraut / space rock vintages as though time travelled from the 70’s, a humongous Hawkwind disciple swirled in head shrooming astrals and bliss kissed moonage mosaics replete with a brief peppering of hallucinogenic happenings courtesy of a momentary sitar detour. Disturbingly essential. https://soundcloud.com/reverbworship/dark-sun-innerspace-astronauts-rare-and-unreleased-cd-version-01-heart-beat

another gem sneaked out a little while back, this is Bleach Dream’s ‘silent star’ – we just love the push n’ pull

https://soundcloud.com/user-209888959/silent-star

https://soundcloud.com/luciamusicx/lose-my-mind  

interlude ….  Darkwave / chill wave … some stuff we fell over …… kaelan mikla, pop simonova, fuka lata, shad shadows, person:a ….

our latest obsession …. so with that, two cuts from kaelan mikla …..

pop simonova …….

fuka lata ….

shad shadows ……

person:a ….

Many thanks to Keith over at Fruits de Mer for sending over a copy of the ridiculously limited, and from what we can gather, long since sold out special edition version of the latest Sendelica happening ‘Cromlech Chronicles II’. An awesome looking boxed packed to bursting with all manner of goodies that we here scarcely wonder how on earth they manage to shoe horn all this stuff in, really is an eye watering affair. Just 110 of these shipping around, inside of which you get a copy of the album itself along with – draws deep breath – 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’ – ours had the later in case you are taking notes, 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. Absolutely stunning and well worth going on the hunt for. Anybow we’ve mentioned the album itself a few times previously – links attached to the foot of this, therefore thought it best to give the accompanying DVD a little whirl. Featuring the band recorded at a recent Kozfest appearance, the footage features three extended transcendental suites or drone mosaics as you might have gathered from the fact that this is the ‘Drone’ persona of the Sendelica hive mind, it’s  all very trippy with ‘ripples of the megaliths’ – incidentally one of the two tracks you’ll find pressed upon the ‘Cromlech’ ear feast – particularly woozed to barely a dreamy murmur and seductively threaded with something of a far out astral jazz out thereness, totally bonged out in other words. Mind you that said, we here are still recovering from the lysergic hits still reverberating around our headspace following the encountering of the head fracturing ’12 shades revisited’ – a colossal shamanic psychedelic happening featuring a stirring lost in the moment Nico-esque guest vocal by Karen Langley. Essential acquirement.

Further reading ….

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/28/sendelica-22/

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

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

staying with Fruits de Mer a little while longer, seems all the initial copies of the label 10th anniversary celebrating members only freebie have all found their way to loving homes, just to recap, this was a rare vinyl pressing of Schizo Fun Addict’s ‘the sun yard’ – links and details below. There’s still time to grab copies, the label celebrating thwir 10th birthday with an intimate evening in Glastonbury this coming summer have pressed up versions of the album in shades of red wax while at the moment, the label are running a competition to secure three copies of the much sought after blue vinyl variant – which we’ll let Keith chat with you about …….

‘… I’ve launched a new section on the FdM website called ‘Under The Counter’, where I’d like to share stories about record shops, their owners and their customers!

Here are a couple of early examples:

http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/wales.html  

http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/kicksintheteeth.html  

But i need LOTS of stories from you to make it work – stories about your favourite shop, the worst shop you’ve ever been in, terrible shop owners, shops you’ve found in the most unlikely places, your first-ever experience of a record shop, shops that stock the most unusual records…that sort of thing.

Email your stories to me – fruitsdemer7@hotmail.com – and I’ll post a selection of them in the coming weeks on the FdM website.

AND in a week’s time, my wife Liz will pick three emails out of a virtual hat and you’ll each win a copy of the Schizos LP.

Of course, besides this there’s the labels latest outings from Moloko and the Pretty Things – both of which I’m assuming are long since sold out – though mentioned here – https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/10/the-pretty-things/ and https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/moloko-2/ – later towards Spring time there’ll be a host of special releases,freebies and festival gifts – with sinles from Ilona V and Permanent Clear Light as well as a handful of compilations ‘a gathering of fish’ and ‘sideshows by the seashore’ with the jewel in the crown being a mammoth triple vinyl birthday gift entitled ‘goldfish’ which comes accompanied by its little sibling ‘the little goldfish’ 7 inch.

Further readings …

http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/sunyard.html    

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/10/21/schizo-fun-addict-8/    

…. and while we are here with Fruits de Mer, a chance to mention a very limited CD pressing of ‘mute effigies’ by Nathan Hall and the Sinister Locals. Those of you who keep a keen watch, will be all to aware of our fiondness for ‘effigies’ – the debuting solo long player by the Soft Hearted Scientists head honcho, sneaked out while the band enjoy a sabbatical. For those of you at the back previously ignoring such fond words of the adoration poured upon this quietely arresting gem – see  https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/nathan-hall-and-the-sinister-locals-3/ – anyway, I’m certain we’ve read somewhere that there are just 100 CD copies being pressed of this, the alternate instrumental variant – hence the title ‘mute effigies’. Why an instrumental version you might rightly ask, well aside serving as a ‘parent’ album to its bigger and more realised sibling, what ‘Mute’ intriguingly does is to pour fresh perspective on ceratin tracks, shining a light on them so to speak and repositioning them in a different landscape. Sure enough the album as a whole in terms of vibe still oozes and is imbibed with nods aplenty to, principally, XTC, William D Drake and the Cardiacs – see ‘the unholy ghost’with its healthy dose of ‘gigglegoo’ era Freed Unit phrasings – it still purrs with a sense of adventure, a fantastical voyage to mysterious lands, kind of boys own – not the band you understand, gone Captain Nemo by way of Robinson Cruscoe, its something that sound wise draws back to the roots of the Soft Hearted Scientists sound as found on their initial releases. For here you’ll find ‘plant your flag’ salvaged from it’s Paul Roland like Victoriana steam pop psych-i-ness and remodelled into a dare n do dandy hurrah navigating the high seas, while somewhere else ‘the sighing song’ just gets dreamier and more lushly caressed in pastoral posies. A particular fave of mine personally,‘stained glass girl’ is here retuned in all manner of old English psychedelic peculiar, a surreal fairground fantasia hooked upon lulling rustics drawn from lost childhood memories. All said, by way of a spot of suspected impishness, parting track ‘song for the flowers’ – incidentally it does feature twice, is described by its author as an ‘anti instrumental’ and is redecorated and spruced up as the radiantly arrested soft psych campfire hymnal ‘Beach Boys cloud of choral vocal mix’. Essential I’d have thought.  https://nathanhallandthesinisterlocals.bandcamp.com/  

Here’s a little shimmertoning chime pop from the Shelflife imprint that caught us on the hop. From the keep left signs this is ‘tomorrow’, a bracing slice of classicist indie pop whose tingling adoring sighs had us much minded to go rummaging around the place in search of our prized copy of Moviola’s ’durable dream’ and whose cascading lilts put us much in mind of a more frisky and breezy variant of the Lucksmiths. https://soundcloud.com/shelflife/the-keep-left-signs-tomorrow  

One of a handful of releases you’ll hopefully find peppered around these here parts from the much admired Liquid Library imprint of Bristol. First up a super limited cassette entitled ‘split ends’ – this one being Volume 5 in what we assume to be an ongoing series. As said super limited in so much as there are only five of these kicking around, upon the tape two extended far out improvised jams one apiece mind from Liiight and Worker & Parasite. The former going by the name ‘Asis’ is split into three mind morphing sequences, initially assuming something of a dreamy slice of kosmische noodling before fracturing into waves of frequency distorting binary pulsars the type of which, recall instantlty the gloopy weird ear tonalities once upon a time tripped out by Sonic Boom in his EAR guise although here as if retuned and rewired by a clearly freaked out Battles. Then it’s off for a spot of wig flipped flatlining locked grooved drone dub to round out matters to the end groove, one I’m guessing for those of you who’ve ever lain awake at night wondering what kind of psychosis purred psychotronics might head your way had Throbbing Gristle and The Revolutionary Corps Of Teenage Jesus ever found themselves swapping notes in a shared studio space. As to Worker & Parasite’s mind melting 20 minute head trip ‘Luno)))’,  with its glassy sustains and white hot shimmering dronals, this slice of serene noise blissing veers into the kind of terrains, once the domain of the likes of Russell, Montgomery and the Flying Saucer Attack, quite essential if you ask me. https://liquidlibrary.bandcamp.com/album/split-ends-vol-5  

staying with Liquid Library, not sure how many of these are kicking around, but again pressed on limited cassette editions this is the noise niking feral lo-fi happenings of Spunking Octochoke for the ten track ‘toll’ set. Clearly enamoured of the Lovely Eggs one would imagine, these folk seem acutely adept at the crafting out of spiky and soured fuzz pop that’s sometimes finger jabbingly edgy and playfully funky in an oddly bent of shape way, we here being particularly fond of the scuzzed up tantrum ‘both ways’ and the frenetic and frantic ‘frustration’, the latter mainly due to its abrupt agit gouging and its strangely reminiscent Alexei Sayle screaming. Best moment of the set though, the clearly impishly out of step sore thumb ‘sits oder steh’. https://liquidlibrary.bandcamp.com/album/toll  

sitting waiting for us on the front door step this very dinner hour, a one-sided lathe cut seven inch. With a cryptic press note attached inside, we instantly recognised the handwriting on the envelope and fired off enquiring missive to which responses of a hush hush variety came forth in their many along with a video clip of the performance pressed upon said grooves of this limited release. That said, this outing possibly marks the start of sporadic appearances by the Gardener’s Delight imprint, which if this one sided seven inch is anything to judge by, promises to be an interesting and varied mix of happenings and occurrences pressed up for posterity at the whim of the folk behind the label. Indeed this first appearance is something very special, moving and spiritual, a recording of the Church of St Simon the Tanner performing ‘Psalm 53 (sung in Aramaic)’ – whether you are religious or not, you can’t help but be touched by the ethereal beauty of this recital for it speaks to our inner self in the truest and most natural of forms, from tongues as old as time itself channelling ancestral voices the serene and lulling aura that the chants stir, crafts a deeply mesmeric connection whose joyful radiance sparks something of a warm glow that’s both majestic and hitherto resonates an awakening deep within our DNA.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/6231332-The-Church-Of-St-Simon-The-Tanner  

Some Cardiacs …. though before that,an announcement ……..

TIM SMITH OF LEGENDARY CULT BAND, CARDIACS, HAS AN EXTRAORDINARY TALE TO TELL

Tim Smith is one of the most influential British musicians alive today. Radiohead, Blur, Napalm Death, Faith NoMore, Biffy Clyro and countless others have cited Timand his band, Cardiacs, as a profound inspiration. He’s also in trouble.

A cardiac arrest suffered in 2008 left him with severe brain damage and a condition called dystonia. Mentally he’s as sharp as ever. His ability to move and speak, however, is minimal. Funding shortfalls and bureaucracy have seen his rehabilitation grind to a halt, along with his ability to make music.

Tim’s condition is complex and poorly understood. He has responded positively to treatment when his income has afforded it. A tribute record, fundraising gigs, reissues of his music and conventions attended by devoted fans have helped. But he is now entering his tenth year of inadequate care. ‘The only way I can try and let you know how I feel at the moment,’ Smith says, ‘is, imagine if you were wearing a skintight bodysuit made of fishnet all around you with electrical pulses going all the fucking time. This is what my body feels like unless I fall asleep’.

He has resisted publicity up until now, but we, his friends and family, now agree with him that the time has come to go public, with a story of a man’s unique creative world and the severe problems of neuro-rehabilitation. A charity called the Raphael Hospital Group, run by Dr. Gerhardt Florschutz, has bought the facility Tim lives in and is able to provide him and his fellow patients with the input necessary to make progress. This, of course, comes at a price and while he waits to hear about the possibility of funding, vital time is being wasted. We want to raise £40,000 so that he can finally afford the care he has needed since the beginning of his illness.

Tim’s friends and family just want him to be allowed to try to get better. Everyone in his condition deserves that opportunity. Being given the right treatment could allow him to complete musical projects of great beauty that still burn brightly within him. ‘People who could genuinely be described as geniuses are few and far between,’ says Steven Wilson, who recently hit number 1 in the UK album chart. ‘But I think Tim is up there, I really do.’ Tim’s carers and friends are available for interview. Some access to the man himself can be arranged. Tim’s better known fans and supporters are also keen to help. Video and audio footage is also available.

For a comprehensive health update: https://www.cardiacs.net/tim-smith-health-2018  

Just Giving crowdfunding page: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/timsmith  

…. And the Sea Nymphs live ….

A little Telescopes related news from the Yard Press folk …. Must nab a copy of the album …….

STONE TAPE BY THE TELESCOPES

OFFICIAL RELEASE PARTY

Stephen Lawrie Acoustic Show

Saturday 27 January 2018 @ STADLIN, Roma.

This is a rare chance to witness stripped down, intimate versions of Lawrie’s intense compositions in their original form, as composed; on acoustic guitar.

Stephen Lawrie is the sole songwriter and the founder of the legendary English underground band The Telescopes. Stone Tape is the new album from the group and the first audio release for the publishing house Yard Press. The Telescopes will be touring Stone Tape with a full band in Germany and Italy in February.

During the release party the Stadlin record store Ultrasuoni will be customized for the event. You’ll be able to listen and buy your Stone Tape signed copie by Stephen Lawrie. You’ll also have the chance to take a look at the entire Yard Press catalogue and purchase our books! For the occasion, a video project by Roman artist Michele Manfellotto dedicated to Stone Tape will be presented during the live show.

http://www.yardpress.it/stone-tape/  

Further reading ……

https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/10/03/the-telescopes-5/  

darkness looms, shadows stir and macabre descends. This be the latest sonic hatchling from the required rate of return imprint courtesy of El Prêtro Maniaco with a track entitled ‘Ghost’s whip’ no doubt pulled untimely from a full length going by the name ‘opus premum’. This disquieting dark delight ushers in a menace rarely heard more impacting than the occasion of UK Decay’s ‘rising from the dread’ set upon our turntable player. Steeled in supernaturalia this forbidding ghost light prowls with dark deeds in mind as it stalks the dimensional fractures that separate the underworld from our own reality. 

If we’d gotten our act together over the festive period and not succumbed to a nasty chest infection, this lots ‘repressed memories’ would have featured too much puzzling joy, it was without doubt the strangest and most oddly surreal stereo adventures to have landed upon our listening space the whole of last year. Just as well then that we hooked upon this split ‘un, the latest from Outrageous Methods of Presentation and the Super Robots, both ensembles who essentially are the brain child of one Bruno Wilkinson, a resident of Bristol and someone who clearly appreciates the anarchic, the daft and the impish even if you don’t. Anyhow, two tracks here, the flip of which is a cannibalising of the legendary riff from the Kinks’ ‘you really got me’ set on a loop and subjected to oodles of interference, hiss and all manner of playful piracy not to mention tongue in cheek annoyance, seven minutes of it, in case you were considering how much your patience could tolerate. As to the lead out track, if indeed you actually have an A side on these digital things, is in fact the sets title track ‘rendered lifeless’. A wonderfully skewed slice of distorted bastardisations of, from what we can gather, your bargain basement Top of the Pops albums from the 70’s, all sent through the frequency blender in all their warped and wonky glory, totally skewiff, absolutely barking and trustingly tripped with its annoyance setting turned up to full maximum effect. It’s pop of a brand that’s adventurous and not decorated in the drab magnolia effect that seems and appears to have blighted music today and made the radio such a terrifyingly redundant experience.  https://outrageousmethodsofpresentation.bandcamp.com/album/rendered-lifeless     

A hot off the presses message from Dan over at Cae Gwyn Records giving us a heads up on a rather spiffing compilation that they are prepping for February release entitled ‘Casgliad Cae Gwyn’. This release is set to not only coincide with the labels 10th birthday festivities but is also perfectly timed to celebrate Welsh Language Music Day with such celebrations extending, according to the press release, to the album release being marked by a ‘very special Omaloma gig for pupils, staff and parents at Ysgol Bro Gwydir primary school, Llanrwst, on Welsh Language Music Day (February 9th, 2018). This is where George Amor (Omaloma) works as a teaching assistant when he’s not busy strutting his stuff as a psychedelic rock star’. The album itself features a gathering of ten tracks some old and some new from bands some sadly forgotten and some no more, all prized from the labels extensive back catalogue. For now, while we busy ourselves prepping the compilation for full review, a teaser tasting of just two of its number. Instantly catching our ear, Ebol Digon Tebal’s ‘Gwallt’ is as instant as they come, softly stewed in delicately weaved psych tapestries and courted with a subtle west coast breeziness, hints of Beautify Junkyards sweetly caress this quietly unassuming nugget, though scratch a little deeper and something of the Gorky’s oozes to the surface of the grooves after, one would imagine, a summer season spent pouring over the early 70’s back catalogue of the Beach Boys. Also worthy of the entrance fee alone, the second of two featured cuts from Sen Segur – the band having imploded before their debut full length ever got a chance to see the light of day, here with the dead eyed cool that is ‘pen rhydd’ – a shimmering post punk ghost light trimmed in the kind of atmospheric majesty that one might expect to result from a classic era Wild Swans and Zerra 1 face off.  http://recordiaucaegwyn.com/     

Bit of a belated and somewhat disappointing message from Stephen of the sadly no more Kosmonaut who keener observers among you may recall we mentioned with a degree of fondness somewhere here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/09/12/kosmonaut/ – just before the band called it a day, it was mooted that they’d invite friends along to do a series of remixes for the track ‘Debbie Harry’s smile’ alas matters unravelled. However, one mix did survive the fallout which is now being made available as a free / name your price download, bit of a belter to, by the Luxembourg Signal this is said track remodelled as the ‘California on Fire mix’. A pristine cosmic dream popper tripped in all manner of hushed honeyed harmonies and bliss kissed stratospherics, something I’d imagine ripe for the shade adorned among you not to mention those preferring their sounds a tad giddy up in a buzzing and fuzzing soft psych bubble grooving which while we are here had us imagining a studio gathering of Creation era Telescopes and Ride folk swapping starry love notes with Fuxa. https://kosmonaut01.bandcamp.com/track/debbie-harrys-smile-california-on-fire-mix-by-the-luxembourg-signal     

Many thanks to Tom of Panophonic for sending over downloads for the imminent Patetico Recordings set ‘endlessly’ which is being primed to break hearts first week in February. So while we get swooning with its contents, here’s a little video that the band made earlier, how on earth we missed this first time of asking is a little disconcerting, but hey, better late than never. Anyhow, this is called ‘I can’t come home’ – best described as one of those slow to burn sucker punches, all woozy, trippy and a tad trimmed in a dreamy narcosia that might in an instant appeal to those of you tuned into the kind of frequencies that channel the murmuring mosaics of say – Cheval Sombre, C Duncan and Co Pilgrim, yet that said, scratch a little deeper beneath the surface and something truly magic and quietly majestic oozes through the grooves whereupon hints of an early variant of the Earlies channelling Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized stirs forth, nuff said. 

How priorities change, only seems like yesterday that some of us of a certain vintage where at the starting block of life’s journey, endless days ahead, still time aplenty for lazing and making plans. Now as though waking up from a long sleep a few decades have galloped by and those carefree summer days have turned full circle and an Autumnal bite has descended with thoughts turning to mortality. Cheery stuff eh, well you can blame Colin Moulding and Terry Chambers for this momentary morose, styled simply as TC & I, the backbone of the legendary and dare I say, quintessentially English XTC, have found each other and pooled their talents for a new EP coming through pledge music and burning shed imprint entitled ‘great aspirations’. From that four-track set, the strangely bruised though both irrefutably resigned and expectantly optimistic ‘scatter me’ has been graced with a moving picture show directed by Laima Bite. Sweetly soured in nostalgia, there’s a tenderness afoot here that purrs with bitter sweet reflection and expectation through a sepia lens whose merry memories are flashed through like the turning of pages of a photograph album. This is not an epitaph but a new beginning and a new road to explore. 

Staying loosely connected to XTC, there’s a new documentary about Swindon’s finest about to emerge entitled ‘this is pop’ – and tells the story of the bands rise from new wave outsiders to the rarest of jewels in the crown of English pop classicism.

…. and a smattering of their finest moments …..

… and a rare interview from 1989 …..

seductively sprayed in pristine dream pop mirages, this is the quite swooning demo version of ‘soda pop’ by the Snow Glows. In truth this shy eyed lovely ought to be by rights on the watch list of those of you much admiring of Ummagma not least because it comes kissed with tingling raptures of Cocteau-ian flutterby’s which in short make this something of an angelic slice of delicately weaved chime charmed demurring. https://soundcloud.com/user-875589309/sodapop-demo

fairly certain that the Spectre Collector haven’t as yet troubled our listening space, though on the evidence of this darkly beautiful three track ghost light, we’d be a mite surprised if they didn’t become a regular visitor to these musings in the coming weeks / months. This is ‘dark house 1’ as said a three-track offering from the Spectre Collector, what took us about this release was its spectral beauty, the seeming juxtaposition of the interweaving dark and light tonalities, the melodies murmured and whispered, softly sigh and seduce with a becoming yearn, yet beneath all this a chilling macabre undercurrent haunts amid the grooves creating a vaguely edgy and sinister disturbia, as is the case of ‘we have always lived here’. Both dreamy yet consigned to the depths of the damned, ‘they hide in the shadows’ is haunted in a tearful ice shrouded regret, the ethereal wisps and the minimalist swirls nodding principally to recall Biosphere’s ‘phantasm’ though it’s the parting ‘fun when you’re dead’ that provides the sets defining centrepiece, oddly from the perspective of one of the ghostly residents, its sparse melodic hollowing both disconnected and dissipating, mirrors perfectly the protagonists spectral self. https://thespectrecollector.bandcamp.com/album/the-dark-house-1  

from the Spectre Collector to the Null Spectre, indeed you still think we throw these together with hapless haphazardness. Last time we spotted the Null Spectre in these pages, I’m certain it was via our Halloween special, returning with a new full length ‘wendigo’. Billed as a soundtrack for an imagined horror, this four-suite 25-minute mysterio comes beautifully equipped in an ice carved widescreen swept neo classicist majesty. A sparse and seductively sinister symphony both remote and crystalized in a close intimate touch that imagines perfectly the tension, paranoia and haunting silence of the detached landscapes its story board relates, the melodies minimally turned appear to float in the eerie as though suspended between dream and nightmare, both the effect and realisation perfected by the unworldly sounds, themselves cavernously etched in a stilled dead air that isolates the listener with its nulling and mesmeric ghost drone disquiet. That said, ‘dead of winter’ lifts the mood momentarily, still chilled and haunting of that there’s no doubt, yet here ventured with a shadow lengthening magic enchantment, itself serving sharp contrast to the deathly nothingness of the parting ‘cave of the Wendigo’.

Those of you much recalling of Damon and Naomi’s shimmying up to Ghost many moons ago, might well and rightly so, find yourselves summarily spun in smitten seduction upon the arrival of ‘Aquarius’, the opening herald and first download single prized from the forthcoming Ghost Box full length ‘the invisible world of Beautify Junkyards’. Forever assured of a special place in our heart, we’ve long had a soft spot here for the Junkyards, since those first tastings via Fruits de Mer right through to last year’s exceptionally perfect second full length for Mega Dodo, they’ve furrowed a strangely enchanting musical path which, flavoured of a blend of psyche and folk drizzled in a South American tongue, has mysteriously weaved an ethereal tapestry that’s at once both out of time and fashion yet curiously crafted in a mercurial reserve that perhaps, of today’s current crop of talent, only Lake Ruth dare veer into their orbit. As said, third album looms, ready for March despatch via the ever dependable and forward seeing Ghost Box, ‘Aquarius’ opens to a hazily spectral 60’s tinged earth beat chorus whose intricately fragile footings instantly recall the ghostly apparitions of those early Broadcast happenings. From its subdued gloaming something both magical and spiritually vintage emerges resplendent in vividly shape shifting kaleidoscopic garlands cut from a finery that lilts and enchants, whilst pressed upon a hypnotically rhythmic mantra traced and trimmed in a becoming and beautifully alluring spray of Bucolic phrasings and subtle jazz dialects. Something I’m minded to say, that ought to appeal to those much fond of a youthful Soundcarriers. https://open.spotify.com/album/3F20T6uYAf8dj2sRjpKfyi  

many thanks to Cyprianus of the Unquiet Meadow fame for giving us the heads up on this truly immersive outing by NeoElph. Five tracks sit upon ‘Ancient ghosts still loom’, a darkly atmospheric supernatural fantasia, these ghost lights are found somewhat serenading in shadows locked deep down in your sleeping consciousness. The tonalities spectral and curvaceously ice sculptured are bled in a bruised forlorn beauty (‘the gloomy knight resurrected’ – particularly piloting a sonic trajectory at times veering into minotaur shock and inch time terrains) that’s stilled in a quiet reverence and daubed in a chilly glitched cinematic serene. After a degree of eerie remoteness, ‘ancient ghosts still loom’ slowly emerges into view, a passing apparition delicately drizzled and draped in ethereal mystics ushered unto in forgotten tongues and the ways of the old, the mood both lulling and softly trance like comes purred in a rarefied majesty set upon a ghostly mistral conjuring harmonies from the very elements of nature. With its snowed globed bowed orchestrations, noir ghosted murmurings and dimpling of down tempo motifs, there’s something of the Orbital attaching to the charm effect motifs of ‘111 binah’ that endows upon it a shadowy lullaby toning whose eye and ear acutely tunes itself to the ‘stranger things’ universe. And while we must admit to being a tad smitten with the kosmische event that is the parting ‘300z’ – very Craig Padilla we must say, it’s the 10 minute opus ‘within the alchemists lotus’ that surely provides the set with its defining centre piece, this oceanic lunar being ripe for head phone close contact if only to afford yourself the chance to settle down, kick back and dream drive amid its softly melting kosmick highways, one for the astral trippers I’d hasten to add. https://neoelph.bandcamp.com/  

it’s a rare quality is the crafting of a song that hitherto both instils a feeling of mourn and chest beating celebration, its something that literally bleeds through the unassuming grooves of John Bramwell’s ‘from the shore’. A sneak preview, in fact the first single, pulled from the I am Kloot frontman’s forthcoming solo full length ‘leave alone the empty spaces’, ‘from the shore’ deceptively lollops and breezes prettily to a shanty folk like lazy eyed serene all the time packing in its travelling seaside case an emotional sucker punch that at once pricks with sighing reflection yet is steeled with a so what dust yourself and lick your wounds carefreeness. https://soundcloud.com/user-316776823/john-bramwell-from-the-shore/  .

a tour is afoot ….  

Fri 26th Jan – Hartlepool, The Studio

Tue 30th Jan – Bedford, Esquires

Wed 31st Jan – Bath, St James Wine Vaults

Fri 2nd Feb – Bath, St James Wine Vaults

Sat 3rd Feb – Newton Abbot, Kingskerswell: Parish Church St Marys

Sun 4th Feb – Leicester, Soundhouse

Sat 17th Feb – Hebdon Bridge, Trades Club

Thu 22nd Feb – Chester, Telfords Warehouse

Fri 2nd March – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club

Fri 16th March – St Helens, Citadel– Get Tickets

Sat 17th March – Cambridge, Waterbeach Baptist Chapel

Fri 11th May – London Putney, Half Moon

interlude ….. odds n’ sods …. Didier bocquet, brigitte fontaine, pole, François de Roubaix, cortex …..

Didier bocquet …..

Brigitte fontaine ….

Pole ….

François de Roubaix …

Cortex …..

Latest from the much admired Boring Machines imprint, something we mentioned in passing at https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/dream-weapon-ritual-2/ – this be the darkly brooding ‘the uncanny little sparrows’, the latest outing from duo Dream Weapon Ritual. Courting the spectral beauty of say, Glissando with the overreaching shadow setting of Preterite, Dream Weapon Ritual craft a mercurial fusion of the old with the new that conspire the craft of musical landscapes etched both with new age phobias and the archaic haunt of a timeless solemn. The set opens to the album side consuming colossus that is ‘bird mother’. Engulfed in twilight mists, the groan of sea horns and the dead fall shimmering instil a disquieting beauty upon this ghostly mantra, its spell weaving stilled calm tempered in an eerie chamber folk macabre that’s cut to a lost forgotten musical tongue, the siren like calls serving as search lights lulling and mesmerising all into its ancestral fog, all the time the tonalities assuming mass and definition to rise from the droning gloom snaking their hypnosia to craft a sultry shape shifting primitive arabesque. Really is consuming stuff, atmospherically towering and somewhat studded in a head fracturing psychosis which I’ll say now, the further in you delve, the further it fractures and fragments to create a howling cauldron of tripping frenzy. Over on side 2 there lurks four more eerie visitations, ‘mating call’ mentioned previously still sounds to these ears like a darkly surreal sore thumb from the dark side of a sleeping child’s play room while ‘two little sparrows sitting on a bough and waiting for enlightenment’ is pulled straight from the sparsely set shadow worlds of the Virgin Passages. A primordial mantra set within a glooming ceremonial casing whose reference markers appear to be located somewhere between Coil and the Hare and the Moon while elsewhere some dark ne’er do well approaches this way with the creeping and crooked ‘tittle tattle among secret devices’, its misshapen ill formed rhythmic mooching and sinister prowl imagining Alan Vega lost in a petrified sonic outland conjured up by some unhinged alliance between a ‘death disco’ era Public Image and Throbbing Gristle. Which leaves ‘the one with the iron beak’ to round out matters towards the end groove, though not before summoning up an icy remoteness to fall upon your listening space whereupon scabbed jazz dialects scratched over a pulsing earth beat mantra act in a pact formed design to keep you shivered and frozen to your intensely watchful vantage point from behind the sofa, very La STPO in terms of edgy atmospherics and its overall sense of mind unravelling psychosia. www.boringmachines.it    

Love the way the menace in this is so seductively served, it’s that quietly casual way that’s so reassuringly chilling rather than something uttered in a momentary hissy fit, that gives it a kind of exacting and purposeful pre-meditated threat. Anyhow, this is m1nk – pronounced em 1 en kay – who I’m certain at some point may have traded under the name Mau once upon a time, all gets very confusing, anyhow this is the dark warning that is ‘fuck you up’. Ghosted in a shadowy chill wave shelling, ‘fuck you up’ sumptuously mooches and prowls with club floor intent, its pulsing noir tones scratched with an hybrid industrial frosting that slinks and snakes feline like to a darkly weaving and deceptively funky electro phrasing whose ice touched framing has something of a youthful Miss Kitten and Cobra Killer about it albeit as though fronted by a Debbie Harry evil twin with issues.

Hopefully we’ll be taking a closer listen to this ‘un later in the week, already mentioned in despatches somewhere here https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/23/jeffrey-siedler/ – a limited DVD /  audio set replete with an illustrated technical guide book written by both Jeffrey Siedler and EMS authority and designer of the original ‘Spectron’, Richard Monkhouse that’ll be heading out of the esteemed Buried Treasure sound house shortly. For now, immerse yourself in the dream weaved remote and gloopy terrains of the secret sonic universes found located in the binary outlands. As ever, an essential happening.

Staying with Buried Treasure a little while longer, we eyed this superb mix cloud set from the Continuous Play folk, just between you and me, it’s essentially Julius Vanderbilt whose various transmissions we may have mentioned in passing in previously postings, if we haven’t then we meant to. Anyhow, partly through laziness partly because we are busy picking our chin from the floor here’s a spot of copying and pasting telling you about the show and what you are listening to …..

‘……The Dandelion Set Cassette is an unreleased, never-to-be released version of the 2016 album ‘A Thousand Strands 1975-2015’ on Buried Treasure records. Featuring edits, early versions, out-takes, re-inventions, mistakes, intros, found sounds, as well as tracks from former bands the cassette version is for serious freaks only. A savage de- and re- construction……’

….now I’ll admit we here are a little disturbed to find that we missed this treat when it was originally released, if indeed it was released, safe to say it’s all very trippy and serene, something which by our reckoning fans of the Superimposers may well do themselves a small favour of checking out, mind you we’ll qualify that by saying, try imagining the Superimposers on an astral boat set sail for Monsterism Island being piloted by the Seahawks. https://www.mixcloud.com/JuliusVanderbilt/continuous-play-episode-16-the-dandelion-cassette/

Currently being primed for adoration later this particular missive, crookedness and surrealism aplenty in the shape of newly peeled weird ear-isms from the strangely beguiling Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin, for just out on electric phantom a magic bag of mischief and macabre is manifesting within the grooves of ‘I left my heart in uncanny valley’. To celebrate this gathering of abstract nonsense and kaleidoscopic kookiness, a teaser video has been specially unveiled heralding as it happens, the albums opening salvo ‘uncanny valley intro’. Featuring illustrations by Jodie Lowther, to whom apologies are long overdue, we will I promise, get around to mentioning her latest solo outing soon, this MacPumpkin merry go round reveals a psychedelic parade of the strange, the outsider and the out there all gathered for what is a tripping carnival of wide awake dream states  

Apologies to Lars of Acorn Falling who really must have the patience of a saint, I swear that if I was within punching distance of him he’d have laid me out clean well before now. Now this has been circling our listening space since forever, due for official release this Friday, ‘the Northern Transmitter’ will, I promise, be getting fond words aplenty tomorrow. All I can do is apologise for our ineptness thus far. As a taster, here’s the trailer video which I must isn’t a true reflection of how the album sounds overall, in truth it’s far darker and somewhat shivered in shadowy atmospherics, this essentially being the frenzied whiplash that is ‘I’m okay’ which aside being sublimely possessed of a thunderous panic attacking scowl, has something of an end of days finality attaching to it……

Incoming on the Alrealon Musique imprint where it’s being pencilled in for March time obsession, the return of Subduxtion who if both ears and memory are playing tricks, return after a lengthy lay off from these pages. A new twinset then, entitled ‘ambulate ‘/ ‘dry’ looms darkly on the horizon. Clouded in subtronic tension, the former provides for a becoming shadowy palette infused with slickly wired elements of dub and trance, the snaking textures coiling tightly to weave a deeply luxuriant spy noir story board which to these ears sounds not a million miles in the imagining of some secret studio summit gathered of members of plaid, orbital and depth charge. ‘dry’ on the other hand is a totally contrasting beast, edgily etched in petrified atmospherics, what might first appear dislocated, detached and despaired as though you’ve found yourself at the entrance of some thought fabled mystical portal, soon weaves something of a low lit nocturnal spell charm that seductively shimmers in the shadows woozily wooing amid its becoming spectral mesmeric pulsars much like some ghostly mythical siren.  https://alrealonmusique.bandcamp.com/album/ambulate-dry-alrn084   

With the merest utterance of new incoming from Aetheric, I’m guessing you are already heading for the comfort of your own particular safe spot and indeed, who are we to blame you for previous outings from this ne’er do well imprint have often, or so it would seem, been procured from the other side. In truth the latest to their uneasily forbidding catalogue finds their head honcho, here darkly donned in his Slow Thaw guise, perhaps etching the imprints lightest moment to date, of course we’ll qualify that by saying that it’s still gloomed in a shivering solemn. A ghostly aural apparition part ‘Stone Tape’ meets ‘Poltergeist’ with a momentary detour at ‘Hobs Lane’, yet it’s the permeating chill it gives off which though the track itself, incidentally called ‘slugs’, is only a brief two minute visitation, leaves in its wake a lasting shadowy spot in the corner of your listening space. https://aetheric-records.bandcamp.com/album/moonlit-chamber-slugs      

Stuff …..

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30634496/maximum-rocknroll-radio-1592?sbe=1#autoplay

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30615871/cutxcut-ep-18-make-out-summer/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30604217/record-roulette-club-24/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30500062/cutxcut-ep-17-new-year-new-you/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30473861/its-trash-110-best-of-the-worst-2017/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30393329/earache-radio-no-25/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30333378/record-roulette-club-23/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30306828/its-trash-109-killed-by-meth-2/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30276038/garagepunk-surfcast-38/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30634495/maximum-rocknroll-radio-1590/

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30065696/maximum-rocknroll-radio-1589/

latest moving picture show from the legendary Robyn Hitchcock is a bit of kooky visual treat that finds the Hitch’s spiritual inner self – here revealed as a one-eyed cat, in actual fact a guest appearance for his feline pal Tubby – emerging out of his slumber. Peeled from last year’s acclaimed self-titled set for Yep Roc, ‘Autumn Sunglasses’ is touchingly weaved in a sweetly melancholic phrasing, while surface wise mourning the passing summer, there’s a deeper close intimacy stirring here that’s ghosted in a fading nostalgia that’s drizzled in fond reflection as though snapshots of life’s moments on quick rewind. The sounds typically cooled in Hitchcock’s softly lysergic crafting, the mystically shimmered eastern chamber arabesques at the beginning radiantly giving way to a spraying of kaleidoscopic chimes hazed in a deliciously demurred lazy eyed aura. Does it for us. 

Incoming on the shy eyed liquid library imprint of Bristol, a quite special three-way split entitled ‘embertide’ that gathers together the becoming talents of Tremolo Ghosts, Zero Gravity Tea Ceremony and Shit Creek. Seven tracks within, one from Zero Gravity, two from Tremolo with the rest left for Shit Creek to wow. Three tracks feature on the preview listen, a track apiece from all opening with ‘blood fog’- this serenely breezed visitation comes gorgeously ghosted in a reflective sorrow which to these ears, amid its seafaring lo-fi lull hints of something deceptively mercurial that’s sweetly soured in the essences of Tex La Homa and Lupen Crook. Next up ‘emberr’ by Zero Gravity Tea Ceremony who I must admit, might in time prove to be one of our favourite listening pastimes if this is anything to judge by, strictly speaking we’d have been none too surprised had this been sneaked out on the Ecstatic Peace imprint, certainly something for the Terrascope folk to take an interest in, very dream drifted Flying Saucer Attack like and one for all you old school Kranky purists. Now I’ve n issue with Shit Creek in so far as, well let’s try putting it this way, a band name often hints and indeed realises a perceived sound even before you’ve heard a single note, you tend to get the measure of a band / artist. Now with Shit Creek we were expecting all manner of impish hijinks perhaps even extending to something appreciably unlistenable. Not so, for ‘Cymbeline’ appears to trace a trajectory, that had you not known better, would have rightly assumed was the craft of the Astral Social Club in one of their more blissful moments, this shimmering orb hiccupping radiantly sweetly degrading in the heat of solar burns leaving in its wake wistful vapour trails of hushed love notes.  https://liquidlibrary.bandcamp.com/album/embertide  

You can sample more of the delights of Shit Creek courtesy of a recently released CD simply titled ‘volume 2’. Packed with strange little subterranean oddities from this Bristolian work bench, we here have found ourselves somewhat taken by the mellowing trippiness of ‘Andrew Jackson enters into hell’ – an eerily dream like fantasia comprised of looped motifs within which an airless nothingness of chamber symphonic apparitions and the seafaring lull of flutter by flotillas craft out something of a foggy enchantment, quite beautifully serene all said.  https://shit-creek.bandcamp.com/

As to the excellently named Zero Gravity Tea Ceremony, well these folk prefer to keep things pretty mysterious, their band camp site laid out in black means that you have run the cursor around various parts to highlight the information, their latest opus titled ‘.’ by the looks of things, features just one track, apparently untitled and sounding, unless our ears do deceive, like something that’s emerged from the primordial drone soup which by rights ought to appeal to all those once upon a time, sonically fixated by the sounds emanating from the short lived Oggum imprint back in the day i.e. Alphane Moon, the Spires of Oxford and Our Glassie Azoth with a side serving of Hood for good measure.  https://zgtc.bandcamp.com/track/–14  

Interlude …. Odds ‘n bods ….. Throbbing gristle, ultravox, the human league ……

Throbbing gristle …..

Ultravox ….

The human league …

Incoming transmission from tomorrow syndicate. Message reads – album currently undergoing final completion checks: expected arrival – unknown; venue – Polytechnic Youth; destination – all good record homes. Broadcast continues – early sightings noted and recorded, code name – ‘another world’. Analysis and description – kosmische pulsar; context – time shifting; contrast – soft euphoria / dreamy; location (time) – 70’s / future date locked; location (physical) – ultra consciousness; location (space) – mind’s eye / DNA; reference – kosmische / krautrock / motorik / clubland / space disco / chic cold wave. Conclusion – post human artificial hybrid.  

Here’s their limited ‘VHS’ release for polytechnic youth last year in its full uninterrupted glory ….

….and some rare live footage ……. 

 

Interlude …. Cold wave ….. pleasure symbols, opale, modele mecanique, effetto joule, paradox obscur, stockhaussen, doris norton …..

Pleasure Symbols ….

Opale …

Modele mecanique …

Effetto joule …

Paradox obscur ….

Stockhaussen ….

Doris Norton ….

Heading out of Bureau B April time, the eagerly anticipated second full length from Die Wilde Jagd. With a debut album released two years ago and still much adored around these here parts, so taken that it occasionally gets a dusting down for a cursory spin, ‘Uhrwald Orange’ finds the duo intricately weaving and honing their eclectic craft to something more mystical and tripping with ‘2000 elefanten’ particularly succumbing to a mellowing and snakingly sultry Eastern sonic tongue. Woozier still, ‘stangentanz’ seductively swoons in whittling out a deceptively mesmeric vibe channelling astral arabesques while, for this snippet teaser at least, ‘sauregaule’ cooks up something of a fat funky club floor mooching groove proving that these folk have lost none of their impish ability to cut the coolest of toe tapping shapes.  https://soundcloud.com/bureau-1/sets/die-wilde-jagd-uhrwald-orange-preview  

Just out on the well cool Drag City, latest opus from No Age incidentally titled ‘snares like a haircut’, a track off which we did swoon aplenty over here somewhere https://marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2017/11/30/no-age/ – which while we go off with begging bowl for promo copies, or at the very least, downloads from which to review it, here’s another well heeled teaser treat this time in the shape of ‘soft collar fad’. Now unless our ears do deceive, this angular lo-fi lovely, had us much minded of very young Pavement had they been spotted sharing studio space with Dinosaur Jr, very frazzled, perhaps a tad discordant though all said, delightfully wayward slice of scuzz pop.

Gutted to hear the sad news of Mark E Smith’s passing, words fail, the Fall were / are an integral cornerstone of my musical journey, more than a national treasure – a way of life  …. without further ado …. A Fall fest ….

Interlude… odds n’ ends….Fehlfarben, anne clark, abwarts, rotzkotz ….

Fehlfarben ….

anne clark ….

Abwarts ….

Rotzkotz ….

Interlude ….. electronische …..

Edward artemiev …..

Zodiac …

Automat …..

Unless ears do deceive, we here are picking up the subtle DNA twists that fuse the genteel statuesque tones of the much- missed Workhouse with the slow peeling sucker punch dynamic of Codeine circling the grooves of ‘farewell’. The opening track from a new Nanaki full length entitled ‘epilogue’ just out via small bear records, ‘farewell’ is bruised with the kind of tender distance and sweetly souring solace that purrs and pricks with the kind of fluency that these days is the trademark sound of yellow6, prowled in regret and softly surrendered in what if’s, it’s unassuming majesty and precision howled in a hollowing ache. Very tasty.

Okay, safe to say we will be back later in the week with more from this release. Volume 6 in With a Messy Head’s annual ‘you don’t have to be fashionable’, a typically fried and desirably cute gathering of underground names currently parading their impish wares beneath the radar, this brief visit drawing to our adoring attention the sets parting cut by Sycamore. ‘Antenna’ be its name, a strangely alluring ghost light whose initial childlike wonky electronic vintage twinkles affectionately assuming something of a playful distraction that in truth had us here much minded of … and the native hipsters. Further inspections highly recommended. https://withamessyhead.bandcamp.com/album/you-dont-have-to-be-fashionable-vol-6

Apologies one and all, but this is another brief head’s up for something we will be revisiting later in the week while for now we busily search about for stuff like clothes and laptop leads, following our near disaster like recent move. Seriously just don’t ask, the whole thing was a stress forming shambles start to finish. Anyhow, a kindly email from Joe at Farm Music to alert us to incoming happenings from Co-Pilgrim man Mike Gale. Co Pilgrim in case you were wondering released one of THE finest full lengths of last year – fact. Anyhow due to land shortly is ‘Beachhead Galaxy’ from off which what we’ve sampled so far has had us a fair old cock – a – hoop, reports of us dancing in the aisles so far remain un-denied. Anyhow to set the scene, this here wordy thing from the press release ……

‘In the year 2412, interstellar teleportation is commonplace. Peace and harmony between all lifeforms reigns across the universe and war is strictly forbidden. Until one day, a traveller from the mysterious Beachhead Galaxy arrives on planet Styx MM with a secret so terrifying it destroys life itself……’

Okay as far as press releases go this is veering worrying into Rush / Yes terrains, not that there’s anything bad there, yet fear not, beards are banned here, for what emerges on ‘cloud warm’ – one of several tracks to have had our senses somewhat smitten is something mellowed and dreamily woven in the rarefied  brush strokes of both Mercury Rev and Neutral Milk Hotel, for this lolloping sun downer coos, caresses and crushes all the time radiantly spraying its succumbing bliss toning shy eyed seduction. Alas no sound links just yet, rest assured we are working on it…..

only 40 copies of this one knocking around searching for loving homes to seduce, via the immaculate Reverb Worship this is Kabukimono with a track entitled ‘the Witch’ taken from her ‘Strega’ full length. A stirring slab of spell craft whose aural alchemy comes curdled in a shadowy chamber toning that weaves and wavers between the eerie and the enchanted, hauntingly beautiful and bewitched in a flawed and faded sepia gouged glamour. I dare say there’ll be more of this shortly. https://kabukimonomusic.bandcamp.com/track/the-witch  

More on this tomorrow, for now a very quick heads up on this very special archive find that was originally out in 2015 and now comes bolstered and bundled by eight super hot remixes exclusively made for the buried treasure folk, all very wow factored future floor floppy fringe grooviness…… we suggest you take a hit of the parting Revbjelde mix…. As said more words of fondness soon….  https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/rare-psych-moogs-brass-remixed  

Okay, over the weekend, there’ll be plenty of polytechnic youth related gubbins from heartwood institute, middes, polypores and other such like, yet for now something slyly seductive from a forthcoming 500 only Feral Child happening by the quite irresistible Lake Ruth. From their incoming ‘birds of America’ full length this is the summer shimmering heart stop of ‘one of your own’, a star gazing 60’s shoegaze noir flutter by that flickers and flirts with sweetly demurring radiance harvesting for itself a softly smouldered safe spot that sits somewhere between Broadcast and the Soundcarriers. Any questions? https://soundcloud.com/lakeruth/one-of-your-own  

…. returning back to that Mike Gale full length shortly to head out of farm music that goes by the name ‘beachhead galaxy’, here’s one of those moving picture show type things to accompany the track ‘hokum in the hook of your heart’. I mean what can we say, blessed with a melodic ingenuity that finds it located somewhere the Crimea and the Doleful Lions, there’s definitely a softly effervescent Elephant 6 Collective like rush to the head spinning joyously off this fuzz buzzing genteel psych star gazer that might well prick the ears of those among you much adoring of the Apples in Stereo and the Minders …..

Er….. already sold out at source, the latest happening thing from the Eggs in Aspic folk, who distressingly maintain in sending cryptic messages to us pertaining to releases being sent and yet never arriving. This latest one a ten track gathering, a compilation if you must, entitled ‘Nice Enough to Beat – Psychedelic Sampler Vol.I’ featuring all your favourite psych folk, at least they should be your favourite, all pressed upon a limited edition cassette, which as we’ve already established is er…..sold out. Anyhow, on the preview sound player a track apiece from Papernut Cambridge, cult of Dom Keller and moths & locusts. First up on the inspection blocks, cult of Dom Keller with the darkly ceremonial ‘hate on repeat’, a monumental track that finds them elevated upon the uppermost psych grid footings and into the bargain adopting to their craft something thoughtfully tender and alluring not to mention harvested in a timeless spiritual quotient that sounds as though its been forged by the hands of ancient elders. Of course, Papernut Cambridge are in need of no introductions around these parts, the peculiarly floaty psych wooziness attaching to ‘every creak on the stair’ is blissed kissed with the drifting dizzy day dream detailing of Syd, its light-headed radiance cutting beautifully baroque trimmed spectral shapes that delicately demur and dissolve in the lazily hazy smoke. Last up for this brief sonic soiree, moths & locusts deliver the dissipating astral glide that is the bonged out ‘fresh red blood’- a seductive smoke hued drift space peppered in all manner of mind expansive hallucinogens and mystic murmurs turned dreamily into an inner space walking tripping tapestry.  https://eggsinaspic.bandcamp.com/album/nice-enough-to-beat-psychedelic-sampler-vol-i  

… and here we are back with that essential volume 9 happening of the bedroom cassette masters series, apologies but we are splitting this over several mentions, hopefully, well that’s the idea, mainly due to time constraints and in order to give it a degree of maximum coverage in which case you might want to head over there now because it’s available free for a very limited period. A few brief selections then on this all too brief visit, starting out with 7DD9’s ‘turning back’ which had we not known any better would have gathered was the work of another of Allan Murphy’s alter ego’s, certainly has a feel of Midwich Youth Club about its wares in so much as that trademark off centred wonkiness, albeit here found cooking up Concretism styled homages which due to a pressing plant mishap have ended up on cassettes left a little too long in the sun. next up, a silver age’s ‘this feeling’ has had me rummaging around our record collection, who do they remind us of we were puzzling, okay Modern Eon that’s a given but not quite right, another band of that era and of a similar vintage and pedigree, then in a flash it hit us – some detergents, hell’s teeth this lot we thought have that whole minimalist early 80’s chill wave nailed to the spot. Perfect in case you were wondering. Okay I’ll openly admit, we were attracted by the name – the Urban Molluscs be their name – the track – the equally intriguing and puzzling named ‘Putney trundle’. A delightful sore thumb, crooked and kooky and hitherto strangely found sitting in the sonic dark with the Flying Lizards and Gerry and the Holograms on side of them while the Caretaker lurks to the other. Last up for this mention, parting outing ‘the city becomes a forest’ by Walt Thisney is cooled in the kind of serenely sprayed oceanic orbitals that had us here much recalling a bliss toned and laid-back Fred und Luna. More later.  https://bedroomcassettemasters.bandcamp.com/album/bedroom-cassette-masters-1980-89-volume-nine  

Interlude…. chill / synth wave …. Low sea, modern witch, les visiteurs du soir, silent signals, peine Perdue, minuit machine, hante, furniteur, Wojciech Golczewski …..

Low sea ….

Modern Witch ….

Les Visiteurs Du Soir ….

silent signals

peine perdue

minuit machine…..

Hante….

Furniteur ….

Wojciech Golczewski …

Stuff ….

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04w08p6

https://tapeop.com/podcasts/episode-11-sylvia-massy  

Brian Eno documentary from’73 …..

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/249138677″>ENO</a&gt; from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/radiocitizen”>More Dark Than Shark</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Little bit of Visage never did anyone any harm – rare session from ’83 …..

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30276038/garagepunk-surfcast-38?sbe=1#autoplay

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30065696/maximum-rocknroll-radio-1589/  

https://electronicsound.co.uk/blog/albums-of-the-year-2017/

http://hhhhappy.com/beatles-promo-disc-becomes-the-most-expensive-7-ever-sold-on-discogs/

the Clash – documentary …..

https://www.blubrry.com/radio_mutation/30306828/its-trash-109-killed-by-meth-2?sbe=1#autoplay

latest obsessions Vlimmer along with a whole host of dark wave and moise niking folk feature on the superb mix tape assembled by the textbreak folk …..

https://www.mixcloud.com/Textbeak/textbeak-cxb7-radio-385-xian-d/

new style of sound mix tape, this ‘un curated by the Doreen and Emerald folk …..

https://styleofsound.com/portfolio-item/style-of-sound-vol-3-mix-compilation/  

latest transmission from the Séance ….

https://www.mixcloud.com/jamespapademetrie/the-s%C3%A9ance-16th-december-2017/  

End credits ….