bang the bore celebrates fencing flatworm recordings part one
September 28, 2011 at 9:20 pm | Posted in blog info, fencing flatworm, midwich, musings, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bang the bore, birchville cat motel, fencing flatworm recordings, ffr, mainstream versus underground, midwich, neil campbell, no audience underground, tapes
Hello to anyone visiting after reading Pete Coward and Seth Cooke’s lovely article posted at Bang the Bore about my work with fencing flatworm, oTo and this blog. I hope you find much of interest here, not least many free-to-download mp3s of FFR releases. Should you be a regular reader wondering what I’m talking about then mix yourself a drink, settle down and click here.
Part one is an article written by Pete Coward (described by Seth as: “bootlegger/blagger and Wire website tech guru”, known only to me as “that guy who used to buy stuff that I met at that one show once”) about FFR and its philosophy. His thoughts are insightful, generous and laid out with panache and I am grateful to the point of jaw-dropping amazement that he gave my (*ahem*) legacy (*snigger*) such considered consideration. Part two, to come in a fortnight or so, is a lengthy email interview with yours truly conducted by Seth with Pete chipping in. I hope you find the exchange as entertaining to read as it was to write.
Being involved in this project has been great fun and, of course, enormously flattering. I enjoyed having to think hard about what motivated the Rob of ten years ago; it was a very interesting experience to apply the benefit of hindsight to the FFR/Termite Club days. Sorting all that out in my head is one of the major factors inspiring my continued reactivation of midwich (watch this space). Should you not be aware of Bang the Bore I heartily recommend frequent and substantial visits. It is a force for the good.
wired for sound part 18: ashtray navigations – human wrecktronics / too few notes
September 22, 2011 at 8:16 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ashtray navigations, drone, medusa, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, phil todd, tapes
Ashtray Navigations – Human Wrecktronics/Too Few Notes (Medusa #102)
Occasionally, dear reader, I find myself struck by the certain knowledge that a particular release, as yet unheard by me, is bound to be truly wonderful. I then quiver with anticipation until said object is in my possession. The reliability of this knack is uncanny.
And so it proves here. I started to covet this tape when I saw a photo of a box full of them on the Ashtray Navigations blog and I was mighty delighted when Phil slid me a copy under the pub table a couple of weeks later. In-between those two events the usual object of my covetous desires - my neighbour’s ox Flossy - stood glumly at the garden fence not getting a look in. Ahhh… lovely Flossy – forgive my infidelity, one day you will be mine!
Anyway, the spec is as follows: double sided tape in fold-out cardboard sleeve fastened with a Velcro button. The Medusa website lists this as a C22 but that is not correct: the red side lasts 20 minutes and the green side only a couple of minutes less. Each side features one track and each track is an authentically inauthentic jam created by Phil Todd from various mysterious sources and swaddled in overdubs. Side one guest stars Neil Campbell and side two features Ashtray regular Mel and the irregular Phil Legard.
The music returns us to the company of the Interstellar Buddha mentioned in the Cinderella Stamps review. This time our intrepid hero finds himself in the court of a decadent androgynous God-King – I’m picturing a cross between Mick Jagger in Performance and that green chick in her underwear in the Star Trek reboot. The God-King listens amused as Interstellar Buddha preaches the noble truth that all existence is suffering and then, rather missing the point, orders a three day bacchanalian orgy to prove him wrong. Interstellar Buddha tries to protest but someone/thing spikes his drink and he ends up joining in. The proceedings are sound-tracked here, sometimes in high definition, sometimes in slow motion. It is glorious – I’ve been flipping it from side to side in my walkman non-freakin’-stop.
Treat yourself to a copy via AshNav here or why not go direct to Medusa here.
artifacts of the no-audience underground: joinedbywire
September 19, 2011 at 7:42 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: drone, joinedbywire, new music, no audience underground, noise, striate cortex
Joinedbywire – 48 Space Platform (Striate Cortex, S.C. 43)
Earlier in the year I wrote at length about how I was giving up downloading music and was instead only going to listen to things I was given or actually paid for. I was unconcerned with the legal or moral arguments. Instead, I was dismayed by my addiction to amassing hour upon hour of music that I barely even had time to hear, let alone get to know. My organs of musical appreciation were atrophying at the same time my access to music was near-infinite. I thought that maybe squeezing the latter might help the former grow back.
There have been some tough times. When friends in the pub talk of ‘forwarding this great blog address’ or of ‘flacs’ or of ‘printable hi-res sleeve scans’ I grit my teeth and stare hard into my ginger beer. For the most part though, as my powers of concentration and overall sense of wonder return, I feel completely vindicated. Stepping on the ‘content’ firehose has allowed me the luxury of repeat listening, and repeat listening has led to revelation.
This release is an illustrative example. If, in the bad old days, I had ‘acquired’ mp3s of it then it would have received a half-listen before being dismissed as disjointed and discarded for a newer new new thing. However, regime change has allowed me to dig it over a couple of weeks and, once I decided to write about it, I’ve looked forward to it accompanying my commute.
What we have here is a 50 minute(ish), 6 track, CD-r housed in a digipack covered with what looks like hand-made yellow paper and spattered with red and green ink. It looks like a section of the floor of Mos Eisley Cantina following a violent argument between two species of clientele. It is the sort of high class package I’ve come to expect from the infallible Striate Cortex. Label boss Andy Robinson is a man of taste and vision who works hard on his releases and deserves your unswerving support.
The set comprises several long tracks of drone and noise interspersed with short tracks of hiss and fizz. The opener is formed of several movements, each of which mutates from the previous. Some of these mutations are sudden and alarming – new limbs sprout fully formed and immediately lean their elbows on the keyboard – but this isn’t just a bunch of sketches cobbled together. Patience reveals a satisfying and surprising whole. The short tracks are little shards of broken mirror, reflecting a cloudless sky. The final track is the best as it builds to a glorious, cathartic roar, like dragons mourning the death of one of their number with the fire-breathing equivalent of a 21 gun salute.
Elsewhere on the internet I see that Joinedbywire has been described as a ‘feral Ashtray Navigations’. Now this is amusing, and I see where they are coming from, but I’m not sure it is accurate for two reasons. The first is that Ashtray Navigations are themselves the feral Ashtray Navigations: Phil and Mel live in a hedge in Burley Park and only come out at night to knock over bins in search of food and broken Korg Electribes. Secondly, whilst some of this would be quite at home on an Ashtray CD-r, none of these tracks contain a lengthy guitar or keyboard ‘solo’ which I’d argue is the least you need to be correctly described as Ashnavian. S’all about the licks, man.
Anyway, should you wish for musical comparisons, some of Astral Social Club might be nearer the mark and the first track isn’t a million miles away from the Eyeballs stuff I raved about a while ago. The final two tracks call to mind the ‘lost generation’ post rock of bands like Seefeel, and there is an achingly melancholic synth line that, dare I say it, evokes the Aphex Twin of Selected Ambient Works Volume II, albeit cruelly eroded and awash with static and distortion. In case you were still wondering: this is high praise.
So, setting aside the fact that I am an idiot, why else would the downloading-me have dismissed this as disjointed, especially given that repeat listens reveal it to make perfect sense? Perhaps I would have been thrown by the varied movements of the first track, or the fact that several of the longer tracks have tacked-on codas that bear scant relation to what preceded them. I suppose this might grate with the casual listener. I guess the only conclusion is this: bollocks to the casual listener.
Buy here for a scandalously meagre £5 plus postage. That link directs you to the Striate Cortex wordpress blog where the action is happening nowadays, details of Andy’s older releases can also be found on the original Striate Cortex website.
posset on tour (and on cd-r)
September 18, 2011 at 6:15 pm | Posted in live music, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bells hill, bill orcutt, improv, jessica rylan, new music, no audience underground, noise, paul hession, posset, rhys chatham
Posset – A Diamond of Radiant Colour (Bells Hill, BH007)
‘Ow do folks. Just a little note alerting you to the fact that blog fave and RFM’s North East correspondent Joe Posset will soon be treading the boards in a city possibly near you. On the 30th September he features as part of Leek Pudding, venue t.b.c. but in the Toon, on the 8th he joins the legendary Rhys Chatham at the Star & Shadow Cinema, also up Newcastle way, and nightly from 11th to 15th October he is proper touring with the venerable Bill Orcutt (of Harry Pussy) and the wonderful Jessica Rylan. I see one of the London dates will feature the unassuming legend that is Paul Hession – proclaimed by me, drunkenly but accurately, as the best drummer in the country. More details via Joe’s myspace page and very comprehensive and useful information (including youtube clips) on the London gigs via the cafe OTO site. Should prove unmissable.
(Although not for me of course. Due to my gargantuan, immoral laziness I will only attend shows performed in the Scout hut at the end of my road. Even then I am hamstrung if it is the servant’s night off as I often find myself wedged into my leather armchair and need the assistance of old Carstairs to extricate myself. Once the cook had to be called to help too and, by using the coal shovel as a makeshift giant shoehorn, I was freed with a sound not unlike a champagne cork popping. Ahh…, Ashtray Navigations were fantastic that night. But I digress…)
Allow me to also mention the CD-r above – the latest Posset recordings to arrive here at RFMHQ. I will keep this brief for two reasons: a) it is already ‘sold out at source’, meaning Scott of Bells Hill has already parted with all his copies (might still be worth asking Joe) and b) it has already been dealt with comprehensively in the lengthy, intelligent and entertaining review by Peter Taylor over on Foxy Digitalis.
Suffice to say this is another belting set of improv destructo-skiffle and dictaphoned amusic, with a portion perhaps being a little darker and meatier than other recent Posset releases. Mind you, that perception could just have been caused by my mood. The last time I end-to-ended this I had grumpy ears and was listening to it in an attempt to cheer myself up following a gruelling day in the office. Did it work? Yes, it worked.
wired for sound part 17: new luddism’s luddite deficit tapes – high speeddddd tapists!
September 11, 2011 at 11:15 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: dddd, drone, new luddism, new music, no audience underground, noise, tapes, zines
I have written at length, and on several occasions, about my love for the fanzine DDDD and its founders Simon and Pippa. Click on the ‘dddd’ tag above for evidence. Years ago I mourned its death in hard copy. As a papery entity it appeared through the letterbox rolled and taped into a tube, ready to be used to swat away the irrelevancies of everyday existence. When I started this blog I was overjoyed to find its unlikely web presence: vast scans of resolutely unsearchable cut-and-paste collage, the most unwieldy blog on the internet. Simon’s writing is/was a constant source of thought-provoking inspiration for me and has, on occasion, been genuinely life changing. For example, my current stance on downloading, music appreciation and the ill effects of the former on the latter was worked out in a series of blog posts ‘in conversation’ with him.
Recently, however, DDDD imploded again. In a breathtaking act of self-immolation, the entire online archive was pulled overnight. All of it – gone, apparently forever. Not one for half measures, our Simon. This time though I was prepared. I didn’t start wailing and gnashing my teeth, I just stood in front of the cave with my arms folded, a wry smile on my face, and waited for the boulder to roll back.
In due course it did, but I have to say the form of the resurrection caught me somewhat by surprise. I returned home one day after a gruelling session of hardcore clerking to the welcome sight of a hand-addressed jiffy bag on the right side of the letterbox (avoid giving me the hump by checking its dimensions before sending me anything – see ‘about me and this blog’ page). In it were the first two luddite surfeit tapes and a letter informing me that Simon had forsaken writing in order to produce music instead.
The working method remains consistent from tape to tape: a) clip section(s) from piece(s) of music, b) loop and layer, c) repeat until enough generated to fill one side of a C90, d) subject to a little light editing/mashing using Audacity. And that is it: the basic compositional tool is repetition.
Simon’s choice of source material is eclectic. Pick three tapes at random and a crystalline shard of Wolfgang Voigt could follow some austere chamber music which in turn jars with some digital splatterpunk from Bomb 20. This makes for an interestingly varied listening experience. Depending on your mood you could be in for 45 minutes of blissful reverie, or nostrils-flaring catharsis, or you could be scrabbling to ‘review’ the tape in question with a claw hammer after 90 seconds…
Still, no matter, as another one will be along in a minute. I have received, I think, 19 releases in this series in a period of less than two months. I note half of them are deleted already. “High speeddddd tapists!!” indeed. In a letter accompanying the latest package Simon claims:
As you might be starting to twig, the N.L. ambition is to make music faster than it is humanly possible for one person to hear it – 30 hours of music per day is the target.”
Mad lolz, of course, but the work rate reveals this is only a half-joke. Simon’s approach to his creative endeavours is always all or nothing. He also isn’t afraid of showing his working out as I get the impression that the process of creating is probably more important for him than actually presenting the finished product. After receiving about 8 or 9 tapes, I asked him how many of each he was sending out. Simon replied sheepishly that I was the only recipient. This might sound insane – I briefly felt like I was in the no-audience underground equivalent of a Charlie Kaufman film – but on reflection it makes perfect sense according to the logic of the project. What do you do after you’ve made some music? Package it up. What do you do after you’ve packaged it up? Release it. What does it mean to release it? Give it to someone who isn’t you. Boxes ticked with the minimal amount of fuss, now on to the next one…
I now know that at least one other person (hi Lee!) is getting this stuff, and I have permission from Simon to mention it here on RFM, so I am free to recommend you give NLT a try. Amusingly, some of these ‘tapes’ have been made available as downloads via the New Luddism website so there is no excuse not to go visit and dip your toe into the torrent. Should you desire the physical objects – tapes packaged in magazine illustrations and eerie old photos with hand-typed inlay info or scribbled-on CD-rs – then you will need to contact Simon at newludditetapes@gmail.com with an address, a note and the dimensions of your letterbox. No money changes hands, no trades accepted, no promises made – you just have to wait and see.
Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.
