credit where it’s due: skull mask, neck vs throat and tusk festival 2016

September 2, 2016 at 12:22 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | 5 Comments
Tags: joe murray, miguel perez, neck vs throat, pascal nichols, skull mask, tusk festival, yol

TUSK Festival 2016, 14-16th October, Sage Gateshead

Skull Mask – Alzhared (self-released download)

Skull Mask – Sin Nada (self-released download)

Skull Mask – Aura (self-released download)

NECK VS THROAT VOLUME 3 (self-released CD-r and download)

HOLY LIVING FUCK!!  MIGUEL PEREZ IS COMING TO THE UK IN OCTOBER AND PLAYING AS SKULL MASK AT CAFE OTO IN LONDON AND TUSK FESTIVAL IN GATESHEAD.  CLEAR YOUR DIARIES, BOOK YOUR TICKETS!  BE THERE, BE THERE, BE THERE!!  JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IS THIS FOR REAL?  BLIMEY, FOLKS: IT IS!

*Ahem, OK, deep breath, damp flannel on forehead*

Let’s have a little think about what’s happened.

—ooOoo—

Why are the stamps on post from Hull never franked?  A mystery I pondered as I carefully opened the latest jiffy bag from yol and tipped his letter and a CD-r copy of NvT3 onto the kitchen table.  He wrote:

How are things?  Here is the NVT physical thing, figured you should be one of the first to get one seeing as it’s your fault.

This made me laugh.  To what extent can credit (or blame) be claimed in what this blog refers to as the ‘no-audience underground‘?  Most of the work we cover is the product of the singular vision of artists driven to create on their own, or in small groups, yet the whole thing exists as a (more or less) self-sufficient network.  We are friendly and sociable loners, well-connected outsiders – it’s a satisfyingly odd set up.  To claim credit for the work of others, for making something happen without actually booking the acts, folding the J-cards or whatever yourself, is to place yourself above the milieu.  This doesn’t seem right – I loath writers who consider themselves ‘gatekeepers’, the pretension is nauseating – yet things have happened/are happening partly as a result of radiofreemidwich. It feels a bit wierd.

Take NECK VS THROAT for example.  It was perhaps inevitable that compulsive collaborators yol and Miguel would sext up a transatlantic relationship.  All RFM did initially was drunkenly encourage the swapping of numbers.  However, once the first volume won the prestigious Zellaby award for album of the year in 2012 and Vol 2 was released on my own fencing flatworm recordings they have been a house band.  The addition of Joe ‘Posset’ Murray on squigglephonic dictaduties strengthens the RFM connection and makes Vol 3 an even more bizarre experience.  Hilarious and unnerving in turn, like a gestalt switch duck/rabbit picture, this is essential listening and unlike anything else.  If this is my fault, it is in the same sense that the baboon turned inside out by a gone-wrong transporter experiment is Seth Brundle’s fault.

But all this is burying the lead isn’t it?  Check this out from the TUSK festival website (review quote by Joe):

SKULL MASK is Mexico’s Miguel Perez, emitting stream-of-consciousness compositions via steel-strung acoustic guitar, melding with dub and found sound interactions. Residing squarely on the US/Mexico border, Skull Mask came to us via the fevered advocacy of the Radio Free Midwich blog (you all need to bookmark that site when you get home). As RFM describe his sound:

“Miguel Perez … packs his atlas and strolls the deserts of this world (and the next) on the sun-damaged Artificio y Fetiche. The taught and springy acoustic steel-string has a slight reverb warble as Miguel conjures up the skitter of a green lizard’s quick limbs, the poisonous spines of a cactus and the glassy psychedelics found in handfuls of sand.

This is a desert that’s teeming with life, studded with microscopic activity, scuttling and slithering between the bone-dry gullies.”

There are parallels with Sir Richard Bishop but Perez’s approach is more languid, starkly sun-baked and deeply preoccupied with his own journey to wherever he’ll take the guitar and his audience. He comes to the UK for the first time to perform at TUSK.

Wow, ‘influence’, eh?  Some of you may be amused, or rolling your eyes, at how blown my mind is by these circumstances.  Sure, you may think, Rob knows people who know people who all read RFM occasionally.  It’s a small pond so this kind of thing is likely to happen sometimes, right?  It’s also the case that Miguel hasn’t exactly been sitting on his hands waiting for that big break email – he’s the hardest working guy in dronebusiness.  So what’s the big deal?  Well, it’s that the opinions expressed by this blog – alongside the actual hard work of many other people – have led to a commitment to transatlantic travel, to an expenditure in the hundreds of pounds and, most importantly to the opportunity for the ‘scene’ to meet one of its most enthusiastic members in person.  I’m going to shake the dude’s hand for five minutes straight.  I’m going to shake EVERYONE’s hand!

So, feet back on the ground, what should you expect?  Miguel’s Skull Mask project is succinctly described above and plenty of reviews of his releases can be found by clicking on the tag at the top of this article.  With a background in metal as well as improv, Miguel is an exceptionally talented musician and whilst fans of, say, Jon Collin, will recognize the vibe Miguel’s take is uniquely colourful and richly textured.

The three releases listed above are his most recent and representative.  I’d recommend taking these daily, like medicine.  Miguel will be looked after during his brief visit but he will have to meet some unavoidable expenses himself.  Thus, if you can afford to donate a couple of quid, a few euros or dollars for these downloads via his Bandcamp site then I’m sure he would be very grateful – as would I.  If you enjoy RFM then you could consider buying something from Miguel a type of ‘subscription’ to the blog.  Go on, everyone’s got a wierd little amount in the bottom of their PayPal account – give it to him.

This feels like a fresh start.  Those following the blog will know I’ve had a bit of a crisis of confidence which, coupled with a gruelling time in ‘real life’, has kept me quiet and the blog more or less inactive for a few weeks.  My roving reporters have been busy filing copy whilst I’ve been ‘out of the office’ so I’ll try and use this energy to get a bunch of their posts published.  In-between now and TUSK I’m hoping for a flurry of articles.  Can’t let the blog idle now can we?  We’re awfully important, don’tchaknow?

—ooOoo—

TUSK Festival (Miguel plays on the Friday 14th)

Cafe OTO (Miguel plays on Thursday 13th)

Skull Mask

NECK VS THROAT