pico-routines and micro-dramas: joe murray on skatgobs and the found secret compilation

September 23, 2015 at 12:50 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a comment
Tags: 777 was 666, aaron dilloway, altar of flies, chocolate monk, dylan nyoukis, hair stylistics, joe murray, john wiese, karen constance, luke poot, marc hurtado, phil minton, rick potts, skatgobs, smegma, spoils & relics, t mikawa, the custodians of the realm, the new blockaders, yeast culture, yellowhouse

Skatgobs – Pointless (CD-r, Chocolate Monk, choc.314, edition of 40)

Various Artists – Found Secret (CD, 777 was 666, 777-022, edition of 300)

Skatgobs – Pointless

The cockney fug of Café Oto gives way to a relaxed domestic burr and the sharp acoustic slap-back you get between Victorian terraces.

Please welcome Skatgobs

…says some showbiz dude and the performance starts with Luke Poot in your left ear, Dylan Nyoukis in your right and Phil Minton all over your face.  These three have been pulling gunk outta their necks for about 1000 years or so but tonight they are concentrating on collective mouth-music and similar damp jaxx.

For those expecting duck-like explosions, brace yourself.  The sound here is mainly gentle; hissed swoops and whispered threats are the vocabulary.  Each individual – Poot, Nyoukis or Minton creates fresh cockles and whelks from that tonsil and mind conglomerate but it’s the collective that makes this one a speciality bean.  Ideas may launch individually but work in tandem then triplicate.  Things lock pleasingly together for a while then peel away… reflective soap bubbles.

The ‘hssss-furrr-chow, chow, chow’ is lightning fast with pico-routines and micro-dramas played out and passed from cake hole to shell-like to shrimp joke like a juggler’s hot nut.  The collected minds carefully splice each presented ‘bluurr’ or ‘tssshhhh-ch’ with an infinite number of other potential ‘blaaaahs’ to become a 50’s Radiophonic but without the sellotape and white coats.

The pace is brisk enough to satisfy any Minor Threat fan but the deepness of this game means we’re looking at things along the vertical rather than horizontal.  I’m not saying this is a hippy-band meditative piece (this is way more large-colon than third-eye) but a certain gravity and space is required to sup properly .

It’s been asked before but I’ll ask it again.  Does this work without the red-faced gurn and fat-cheeked pop; the sweaty visual to eyeball wide and contextualise? Well of course it does, listening to this in your own dungeon, it becomes an abstract electronic, they (P/N/M) become the human synths with a Mentat’s purple lips.

So dearest librarians… do you file this under Sound Poetry, free-release throat metal or tooth-jazz?

Categories become problematic and stifling with juice this fresh so park that thought buddy and slip these randomly between Editions Mego and Naxos joints, let the punters sort it out.

Essential?  You betchya.

Various Artists – Found Secret

The N-AU loves a compilation: short odd-ends and snippets, bedfellows a-strange and lumpy.  This compilation finds loving arms for all its wonk-eyed children.

But what’s the general feel?  Is it a ready reckoner, a ‘now’ check against your wish list or a wide open window to glistening new green fields?  That all depends on you, my dearest of all possible readers.

Does this tickle you?

• Rick Potts – Calliope collapse/loop-ography.  Ninja Tune scratched and scratched but never got this blunted.
• Spoils & Relics – Gandalf’s pocket fluff rubbed on a shiny pate.  Squeals become veals. Never an accident ignored.
• Yeast Culture – Dot Matrix Disco!  Micro-events drench you like drizzle to awake refreshed but inky.
• Dylan Nyoukis – Close-miked MB Games (Frustration? Perfection?? ) summons up a slobbering beast muttering oaths to pond-scum reverb.  Munch the kelp!
• Smegma – Travel expenses claim recorded in the medium of squeaks and gingerly sliding tones. “How much for an egg sandwich?”
• Aaron Dilloway – Congolese Ping-Pong.  The heat effects the balls so they become heavy as sand.  To be inhaled violently, with paddles proudly flapping.
• Hair Stylistics – Reptiles let loose in the studio. You’ve heard of Lounge Lizards right? Go-Go revolution with £15,000 worth of percussion.
• T Mikawa – a cleansing pixelated conundrum.  The sphinx rendered in exclamation marks. Singular as a Morse Code fist.
• New Blockaders – Mystery men rattle a waterfall.  A ghost of Lisa ‘Lefteye’ Lopez does backing vocals in the style of a ticking car bonnet.  Malfunction never tasted better.
• Yellowhouse – From the brain canal of every blues guitarist ever.  When half-formed is overdone we all win!
• The Custodians of the Realm – The urban jungle beautified with sheets of sound (Coltrane on tapes).  Tiny Indian head massage works my skull as beds vibrate in the emptiness within.
• Altar of Flies – Any Moomin re-boot needs to leak this into the mix. Other worlds but with a distinct Northern flavour – like Dill sauce I guess.
• Karen Constance – 25 years of Eurovision distilled into a pipette and dripped slowly into the corner of your eye.  A slight sting then blissful, herb-scented numbness.
• John Wiese – Bristles like my chin.  See-sawing horns rasp like they are ribbed with foul rubber.   The unease suggests significant REDRUM music.
• Marc Hurtado – Motley Crue’s Mick Mars gave off this vibe in black waves, up to, but not including 1985’s Theater of Pain. The residual mung is collected in jars and left to ferment.

Take a chance sir?  Feel like a flutter madam?  Catch this one while it’s piping hot.

—ooOoo—

Chocolate Monk

777 was 666

[Editor’s note: Found Secret cover pic nicked from the Mantile Records site, where this CD is also available.]