kenny g your neighbours. a no basement is deep enough special: joe murray on kito mizukumi rouber, ho turner, bart de paepe and bleek

February 21, 2017 at 3:23 pm | Posted in no audience underground, not bloody music | Leave a comment
Tags: bart de paepe, belgian waffles, bleek, ho turner, joe murray, kenny g, kito mizukumi rouber, nbide, no basement is deep enough, wolf eyes

Kito Mizukumi Rouber – Savatia Calvi ni KMR (No Basement is Deep Enough)

Ho. Turner – T.V. Tapes Mix (No Basement is Deep Enough)

Bart De Paepe – Twistkapel (No Basement is Deep Enough)

Bleek- Lay your Skull upon the Groundz of the Bleek Godz (No Basement is Deep Enough)

The No Basement tapes always cause a commotion in our house when they slam indignantly on the door mat.

“Oh Daddy…what are those Belgian/Serbian hash-leprechauns up to now?” cry my tear-streaked children.

Coz the kidz…they dig the NBIDE big-style.  It’s like snapchat or YOLO or dabbing or something.  So for the sake of all our pre-teen readers I’ll make a real effort to big-up the packaging that you so covet.  Let’s go young people!

Kito Mizukumi Rouber – Savatia Calvi ni KMR (No Basement is Deep Enough) C40 Cassette

~tape wrapped in a hand-sewn fabric ribcage daubed with fake blood~

Bonkers art-skronk from a real-life band sporting the odd dreadlock and jean jacket I’ll wager.

Squat down long enough and your feet go wobbly.  Listen to Kito Mizukumi Rouber long enough and that sticky pin-prick-wobble travels from sole to head.

At times this drifts into territory mapped out by the fairly obscure Gibson Brothers.  There’s no shame in the ‘a-hella, hella’ rock and roll and reel and rawk and rask and wrark…

…but any quiff is flattened by the shambolic looseness.  Like – SHAGGS loose baby.  A sax bleats over sox-string wrangling and the tubs thumped by the delightfully named ‘Papa Big Papa’.

I’m not getting any Memphis on me but this certainly straightens my trousers as I pop a steel comb in the back pocket.

Like Easy Rider never happened.

Ho. Turner – T.V. Tapes Mix (No Basement is Deep Enough) C60 Cassette

~tape encased in toxic yellow foam stuck on the back of a large ceramic ear (sprouting wires from the ear drum)~

Short-form synth gurgles that make like a bath emptying slowly, leaving a ring of creamy residue.

Originally recorded in the early 1980’s for deaf folk Ho. gets his hands dirty grabbing large puddles of ‘groof’ and ‘schhhappp’ moulding it with fingers, mouth and elbows. A handy paper leaflet tells us the electronics Ho uses have names: the saucy Kawai-synthesiser 100f and legendary Fricke MFB-501 drum machine – so get busy fan boys and fan girls – wreck those second-hand market prices!

The resultant mix is seemingly timeless and swoops like a lazy bat in that skittering, only just viable way. Themes and ideas move quickly with an ancient logic.  This resultant mist flows from abstract cloud-based longing to strict-military (like The Normal) or something.  Parps and squelches may be damp as a used towel but are as far from a Tangerine Dream as you can imagine.

At times I feel John Carpenter’s corridors closing in on me…running from an unseen enemy going ‘blop, blop, blop’.  Later on (on side two to be precise) the mud-bubbling wouldn’t be out of place at some seaside rave (circa ’94) but with the BPM’s seriously mogged out.

To add some ass-grit Ho makes sure we have a regular reference point; be it a rhythm or thin- recordings – a school choir, a black box recorder all nattering away in ever reliable German.  This anchoring stops the tape floating away like analogue bubblebath but still leaves me delicious and squeaky clean.

As this cheeky tape clicks off I’m left with a very vivid visual after-image: steeped terraces, only a metre wide, but circling the fresh green mountain.  Weird but exactly right eh?

Best grab this one now as Entr’ acte have a brace of Ho. tapes (also mastered by digital-druid Marc Behrens like this offering) out there too so it’s only time before tape war begins.

Bart De Paepe – Twistkapel (No Basement is Deep Enough) C40 Tape x 2

~resplendent in a winged lung-shaped wallet that transforms into a lady’s face~

Totally zoned-out Space Rock/Kosmische as gentle as a cough syrup from the Sloow Tapes shagger.

Suitable for:  fans of Japanese Psych, long winter evenings in front of the fire, daytime drinkers, foreign exchange students, light sleepers, bikers on a tea break, tree guardians, squat wizards and basically anyone else with a bit of time on their hands and the desire to break free and dig deep into the negative zone.

De Paepe is, I believe, responsible for all the guitars going ‘wah wah’ like an infant holding out a greasy palm.  Some other jokers are ‘Tuckering’ the drums and tinkering on the occasional breathy and sizzling keyboard mung.  Together, with the wide stereo sound and measured, almost agricultural, pace I’m thrust deep in the heart of the Euro-prog.  I’m whiffing on the barley husks of Sylvester Anfang II, Parson Sound and International Harvester.

Each tune/piece/movement seems to get progressively more inward-focused until I’m lying, eyes closed tight, brain cogs spiralling in decreasing circles letting out a clear snake of drool.

Even without the double tape aspect this is l-o-n-g music to be lived in.  Long in vision and scope, in length and near-constant solo…

What more is there to say? You wanna rock or you wanna die?

Bleek- Lay your Skull upon the Groundz of the Bleek Godz (No Basement is Deep Enough) C60 Cassette

~ avocado green tape in silky black purse, finger the slit and a bloodshot eye stares back at you ~

Two side-long jams of J-A-Z-Z from some Wolf-dong side-project. Oh yeah daddy!

If, like me, you like your fusion lumpy this will up-end ya, will flip ya.  Caveman-primitive electronics wheeze and ralf in an asthmatic fashion but soaring above, proud like dope-stallions horn some horny horning.  It’s all spraffed thru a limp echo box so that all important swing is multiplied again and again bouncing round my book-lined study as I nibble on a peanut.

Remember the time rock goons like MC5 and The Stooges really, really dug the free jazz?  It’s got that same electric-jizz burning pure white in its veins but with one foot on the monitor.  Let’s go!

Side one focuses on the distant horizon, eyes squeezed shut to keep out the wind.  The horn wheels and keens while a rubber foot stomps out segments of time divided by soul-math.  There’s a nobility and savagery to lengthy jams (30 mins or something) marking an endurance that’s damn shamanic.  Drop the ‘shrooms and p-a-r-t-y.

Side two is altogether neater in a button-down shirt and braces with two guitars (Jared Left & Adam Right) strumming out spidery chords and brief ringing chimes.  Wot…no sax? Be calm. Olson still blows his brass-stick while electronics sprout and climb like poison ivy.

Remarkably smooth – but tight enough to Kenny G your neighbours into submission.

No Basement is Deep Enough

-ooOOOoo-