rfm attends to recent downloads: ap martlet and black leather cop

October 24, 2012 at 3:40 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a comment
Tags: ap martlet, bells hill, black leather cop, dave thomas, drone, electronica, grindcore karaoke, hagman, improv, joe murray, mp3, new music, no audience underground, noise, posset, scott mckeating

ap martlet – Flags (download)

Black Leather Cop – Kindaguy (Grindcore Karaoke, GK#271, download)

A new track from ap martlet is a thing to be savoured and celebrated.  Dave Thomas – 50% of Hagman, constructor of home-made musical apparatus, family man – makes his work available by unobtrusively placing it on Soundcloud, coughing politely on facebook, then standing back, job done.  Flags validates, yet again, his meticulous working methods and ruthlessly discerning quality control.  Really, this is essential listening and that it can be downloaded for free two clicks from here is a life-affirming thought.

The piece is about fifteen minutes long and this is what it sounds like.  Imagine electricity was sold in tins.  Levering off the lid would reveal a neon blue syrup which would need to be scooped out into a saucepan and gently heated before it could be poured into your appliances.  Now imagine being distracted whist warming your electricity by something you see outside through the kitchen window.  A gloriously fluid flying ‘V’ of migrating geese, say, or a squirrel bounding triumphantly across the back yard holding an entire slice of burnt toast between its clenched teeth.  During this moment the unwatched electricity boils over the side of the pan and sizzles on the surface of the hob.  An audio description of this whole process is offered by Flags.

Download here.

Kindaguy by Black Leather Cop is a very different fish.  This is a collaboration between Scott McKeating of the mighty Bells Hill and Joe Posset: maestro of the dictaphone and RFM’s North East correspondent.  It has been released by the magnificently named Grindcore Karaoke (“tonight Matthew I’m going to be… Carcass!”) and is freely downloadable from that Bandcamp.

This piece is also about 15 minutes long and this is what it sounds like.  Imagine a prolonged and severe aerial bombardment as heard permeating through the concrete walls of an underground command bunker.  The creatures working in this HQ look and sound like a cross between gremlins (the cool, evil version, not the fluffy kind) and a scaly breed of those green things that worship ‘the claw’ in Toy Story.  The mood is wretched because they are losing the war.  The time for pushing model tanks around a map with sticks is long over and evacuation is the only option.  As they trudge wearily through the vibrating corridors they bicker with squabbling gurgles.  A brief attempt to raise the spirits with some music is instantly (and literally) squashed flat by a harmonica-activated booby trap.  The atmosphere is both comic and dire.  It is grimly compelling.

It might seem obvious that underpinning Posset’s squirming racket with some seriously ominous rumble would be a winning idea (bass is not the dictaphone’s strong point, after all) but nevertheless it still took me a while to warm to this.  Its charms are not immediately evident but repeated exposure can lead to addictive behaviour.  I’m currently taking it at least twice a day.  It’s good medicine.

Download here.