stamina and chutzpah: joe murray on anla courtis, the pink chunk, g.j. de rook and id m theft able

November 7, 2015 at 8:23 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a comment
Tags: anla courtis, g.j de rook, id m theft able, invisible city records, joe murray, no basement is deep enough, the pink chunk

Anla Courtis – Microtonal Drifts (tape, Invisible City Records, ICR18, edition of 50 or download)

The Pink Chunk – Unearthed (“C20 Tape in a pink and green bulbous swelling”, No Basement Is Deep Enough)

g.j. de rook – a and bla (“C25 Tape in a chunky letterist bundle”, No Basement Is Deep Enough) 

ID M THEFT ABLE – Jowls Without a Face (“C25 Tape in a felt-lipped plush purse”, No Basement Is Deep Enough)

Anla Courtis – Microtonal Drifts

I’m such a brain-doofus I wouldn’t know a microtone if it bit my pooter but I can fairly say this tape is some splendidly jiggering fux.

On side one a skittering hand limply flaps nylon guitar strings whispering new vibrating words in my ear like…

Chid-duh-duh-duh; kunnnn-unnng. Douw. Douw. Douw.

I’m guessing the ex-Reynols professor is nudging a wooden guitar with layer upon layer of rubbery notes.  A mixture of electronic effects and intelligent fingering makes each single tone wobble brightly and then gradually build up into an incredibly satisfying jelly.  It neatly swerves the dreaded grey-goo approach by revelling in the human touch.  The occasional stray string-buzz or delicately lacquered slap adds an artisanal edge, like stone worked smooth.

If that all sounds a little light and pretty for you side two uses the exact same methods (canny fingering, electric magic and fretboard slide-rules) but roars out the speakers like an acid-etched excursion by Xazzaz.

Picture a freezing sleet storm dashing horizontally across a bleak valley.

The stings howl in some Quatermass dialect, harsh and pissy, among never-ending metallic squeals.  Thin abrasive sounds slowly peak like waves of shale, reaching a precarious tipping point then shatter noisily among cracked debris.

Imagine the world’s largest blackboard and the world’s longest finger nail.

The shush/slush/shush is polished with a finer grain and, just when you think you have the measure of this misty beast, the tape snaps off with a rude ‘click’.

Crickey!  After a pause and pat down I feel like my ears have fallen down the stairs, hubbity-bubbing down each soft step but my body is still paused, taught and alert on the landing. I’m breathing hard and black-coffee wired.  Thank you Invisible City for a darn-near perfect tape experience!

The Pink Chunk – Unearthed

It’s a NBIDE joint so that means you’ve plugged into some pure outsider trash right from the start yeah?  The sleeve notes hint this is some forgotten classic, pressed originally to 45 way back in the day.  I’ve learned to trust pretty much nothing Ignace says but the heft of the beardy voices and sunny collapse of the recording switch my dial to 1979 pronto.

As ever the NBIDE design budget is pushed hard with this Pink Chunk being delivered to me in a blinking Pink Chunk!  35/83?

The ‘Louie Side’ unwraps rock’s dumbest moment and gives the Kingsmen a right royal rodgering.

But it’s the cheeky dub effects that took me by surprise; at times I can hear Lee Perry plotting revenge on Chris Blackwell among the sloppy verbal poncing, smashed tunes (including a vamp on Ellington’s classic ‘Caravan’) and edge-of-the-mind juxtaposition.

Like a couple of Zappas with the smart-arse kicked outta them these partial-tunes/melodies and approaches collide in an unschooled mix.  The Guru Gwilly Edmondez seems to be a retro-influence on some of the outpourings and that makes this a darn peachy effort in my book.

The ‘Kitchen Side’ starts with a Kitchen Cantata (natch) and dissolves into multi-speed stoopidity as quick as a wink.  Playing purely for yuks can make a listener grudgeful, but no fear – dramatic crystalline metro-gnomes polish my pleasure node good!

Fake Inuit vocals hinge back and forth and have that cabin fever feel.  In fact it’s all a bit infected with chipmunk squeals, frontiersmen accordion and, on occasion a ‘residents-plays-the-beatles-plays-the-residents’ hum than feels like I’m looking into an infinite mirror, reflecting, reflecting, reflecting…

What can you rely on?  The unreliability, man.

g.j. de rook – a and bla

The phenomenal pulsating brain that is Gerrit Jan de Rook [poet, curator and artist] comes wrapped up in a unashamedly descriptive package of giant A,B,L & A again.

In the early 70s Gerrit Jan concentrated on sound poetry but has been active in publishing, mail art and all manner of edgy performance across the decades.  Recently, all old and grey, he’s been roping in them Bloody Stereos for Rotter-fun.  He’s a groovy uncle for sure; and as my kids would say…

Gerrrit… he’s legend.

I’m almost trembling as I slide this modest grey tape into the player and soon get jaxxed by some quiet yet fiercely determined vocalese jibber- jabber.

Side one is surely as pure as snowy white towels.  There’s no electronics, no hawking-throat phlegm, no burst-sinus koff, no birdcall whittering or flutter but real text/sound meshes that sit as calm as a rose-scented balm.

The gentle undulations of language get gradually unpicked and unravel in a glorious slow-plosion. It flits and stutters but never breaks character or pauses for breath.  At over ten minutes the sweet unconscious babble (yet fully scored and annotated I’m guessing) becomes a marathon of vowel sounds, repeated to reduce meaning, necessitating an automatic, animal response.

Those simple base syllables are stretched and re-modelled like putty to create unnatural tensions and networks.  Yet, if I listen at a distance this yammer blends with the domestic hum of our house so perfectly they cancel each other out and space becomes transparent.

I have to sit back a little to ponder on what I’ve heard.  Such wondrous play makes the ache in my knees vanish and an amber glow of energy snake up my spine.  I’m transported to a more innocent time of long walks and toxic Tip Top drinks.  This is music as time-travel provider!

Side two starts with super-gentle rounded phonics (all ‘ohs’, ‘ehs’ and ‘ahs’) but soon turns a corner into whispered ‘shiffing’ with a faint whiff of studio reverb.

The volume increases and pace quickens like a gushing tap until we’re in the midst of some demented horse racing commentary.  Lips are slapping speedily as neurotic whimpers whistle through the fatty gob tissue.  The occasional deft pause is dropped like a Gene Krupa rim shot. The sudden, off-beat, smack drawing you back into the moist melange as the thunder rumbles on.

I’m struck by the stamina and chutzpah that keep such a human mouth swinging with such fruity aplomb.

I surrender completely.  Join me in slack-jawed praise.

ID M THEFT ABLE – Jowls Without a Face

MORE PURE KLUNK from the frizz-hair mountain that is THEFT ABLE.

Shit… props are most definitely due to SKOT as the absolute master of this kind of super-fast cut up jaxx and lippy bluster.  This couldn’t be more different from the cool natter of de Rook.  You can’t measure ID M’s punk-a-delic Truman’s Water to de Rook’s stately P Glass; his gilded Rococo mouldings to Rooky’s cool IKB 79.  Apples and oranges man.

But before I go off like a jizz-rocket I must report its sheer chance that interrupts reason on the super-classy opener ‘don’t keep your feelings a secret’ as THEFT ABLE sings Hallmark platitudes in an uncomfortably high soprano.  Like in his classic tape Babb’s Bridge found words become the jam in his porridge to gloop down tasty

Girdles rip as ABLE ‘poings’ energetic springs and screws up tape FFW scree to salt lake flats speeds on ‘TRY IT IF IT’S ELECTRIC’.  Never a throaty singer, this is all front-of-house style vocal-jaxx with spittle being squirted between flat white teeth and rubbery uvula.

Mid-review note: The lips and cheeks play a fundamental part in ID M’s sound, as key to him as what those jazz-beards will riff over Dizzy’s groovy bullfrog impressions.  Like Diz, ID M builds up such an impressive air pocket that other vocal improvisers lay gasping on all fours, all blacked out and nauseous.  Yeah…these chops are deeply impressive and singular.

It’s delicious to get lost as side one continues to bluster and poke.  Electronics fight it out with radio-thumbing and DJ mumble.  The whole construction is whipped up, ever changing and jagged with energy; like a fidgets dream yeah!

But just when you’ve busted your last move and need a little breather ABLE brings out his Beatle-bones to jagg about playfully on xylophone and piano until it sounds like George Martin’s thrown down his headphones screaming

You fucking Scousers drive me batty.

Side Two introduces a multi-choir of massed nonsense. Partial songs jostle with instant composition, the brain-pauses keeping it cute.

Then things devolve into electronic stew // marimba destruction in a matter of minutes.  With the clunk-a-bout wooden ‘dong’ being one of the most pleasant sounds this blender of soniks is cosy and comfy.  Voices are pitched fairly high so that ‘meoooo’ thing doubled on twin tapes becomes a thick-grey wash, the odd words bubbles through are  ‘vain’ or ‘fame’ or maybe both.

I could go on about the disembodied carping, the tuneful scratch, the dub-like ‘boof’ of dropped soup mix.  But it would just be more words.  If I’ve not convinced you to click on a link or check out this hipster’s profile [Editor’s note: woah, Joe is reclaiming the word ‘hipster’! Ballsy move!], I can do no more.

It’s over to you my most luscious reader.

—ooOoo—

Invisible City Records

No Basement Is Deep Enough