the science of dropping things: joe murray on 23 minutes, mudguts, hardworking families
October 18, 2016 at 1:17 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: beartown records, bells hill, eastville vending, hardworking families, joe murray, mudguts
Various Artists – 23 Minutes – 23 Tracks – 23 Artists (3″ CD-r, Eastville Vending, edition of 60 or download)
Mudguts – Locque Atmir Kodai (3″ CD-r, Bells Hill, BH 013, edition of 30)
Hardworking Families – BA/LS/BN (CD-r, Beartown Records, edition of 50)
Various Artists – 23 Minutes – 23 Tracks – 23 Artists
How I love a micro-compilation. Those labours of love that gather together large numbers of wonky artists and put them in a restrictive jacket. They say,
Do your thing… but keep it quick.
Of course this is excellent advice – the forethought and discipline creating a series of unrelated but often complimentary micro-moments coughing and spluttering outta your earbuds.
As ever there is a bit of personal history here. Homemade Grindcore tape-trades and the RRR-500 locked-groove monster (with its 500 individual artists) first alerted me to this fascinating stubby-nub of the ‘various artists’ family tree. Then I found the slightly more breathy Martin Archer Network series with over 100 people playing short pieces over two discs. More recently Sindre Bjerga took up the mantle with his Gold Soundz compilation of 99 international-gonks on the marvelous and irreverent Pissing in the Wind.
But this time the seed was planted by one Neil Campbell to use up all those old 3 inch CD-Rs out there. He reckons 23 minutes is around the maximum amount of music you can cram on one of these little silver discs so 23 x 1 minute pieces makes perfect sense. The Marketing and Research branch of the Eastville Vending Corporation agreed and ‘ta-dah!’ – a new micro-comp is born.
You can slice these things several ways but my favourite tactic is to dive straight in and dig this as a single piece; an ever-changing narrative of moods and themes. Then I realise that it is actually presented as a single 23 min piece so that does help things somewhat and I settle back and l.i.s.t.e.n.
So, where did my 23 minute journey take me?
Laica – Electric dodgems collapse into magnetic tessellations // Kemper Norton – brass rubbing slowed down via architectural trauma // Concrete_Field – watching a séance from inside a wax piano // Revbjelde – slopped balloons, dry spaghetti cracks // Band of Holy Joy – machine code dirty-talk between distant servers // Farmer Glitch – scary news ident // Howlround – confessions from the bristles of a shoe-shine machine // Neil Campbell – the science of dropping things at various angles // Gusset – answerphone message melancholicx – the stilted delivery making this one of the 21st Century’s saddest sounds // IX Tab – no pussyfooting with high-vis jackets // Noise Research Institute – bumplestiltskin – hands in the air! // Runningonair – public enema dub : surprisingly relaxing // Graham Dunning – radiates as multi-coloured auras // Ekoplekz – “A rare moment of calm. The bombs fall on the Eastern District so all I can see is dust.” // Elisabeth Veldon – loop-tronics raid Esquivel to bring a new clarity to damp cardboard // Decadnids – serious bowed-metal-sax reverberations border on the erotic // Xylitol – a clear autumn morning, alone in Kendal // Robin Foster – selective tones filtered by sympathetic shimmering feedback // Foldhead – mighty & dark theatrics // FM3V – chestnut seller hacks oven to play Bollywood themes // Tim Hill – tanned seabirds rejoice the new birth // Assembled Minds – I dropped my water pistol down an echo chamber (smeared surprise coda) // Sarah Angliss – Twins joint memories? Phantom limb pluck and solemn-compression electronics.
Mudguts – Locque Atmir Kodai
The original Death Eater musik – as banned from the Slytherin Common Room!
Bilious clouds of distemper billow from his holiness Lee Culver and are muddied further by dark mistral Scott McKeating… that’s how Mudguts roll. True believers take note – this cheeky 3 inch is a semi-official offering so even more occluded and forbidden than it’s dark predecessor.*
This disc gets down to business straight away so there is no reason for me not to either.
‘Widowvine’ crashed through a cloud of bad intention and night tremors to become a meditative prescription of bitter herbs and rancid smoke. Parts are reversed Santana, parts are bar room pre-brawl. As a map of psychic disturbances this marks the truly terrifying blank spots with an inky smear.
A one minute masterpiece ‘Split Gorgon’ re-lives the dispiriting experience of tuning into another person’s dream. It’s all falling, falling, falling until the brain juice squirts a different solution and you find yourself becoming Leonard Cohen (or something). Then ‘snap’ it’s over and you are awake.
Then finally, with the most evocative track title of the year, ‘First my Body, Now my Corpse’ sparkles and shudders with an almost glam-rock brightness. But this spotlight is so harsh and revealing it blisters the skin and cooks soft rubbery eyes. At times I’m minded of that Sonic Boom fella if he dug the Darkthrone. But soon enough I shake my head hard enough for them scales to fall from my peepers and I realise I’m on my knees… Mudguts glory has laid waste to my corner of civilisation and rags and half bricks are all that remains.
Phew! You dig it?
*What I’m saying is hit up Scott for a copy at the Bells Hill address!
Hardworking Families – BA/LS/BN
HWF approaches this record in pieces: abstracted sauces, performance as code, gristle, electronic manipulation and tape glitch. Forgive me. I’m gunna gush, but Tom (HWF) Bench is a master of the thought and edit school for sure.
This release solves sound problems like a damn dancer would; the old soft-shoe shuffle provides texture while clean accuracy is rustled from the percussive rudiments of tap. All built on sexy muscles the accents are a silvery jet that slips between ear and frames.
This is what I hear…
- Glutch & fromer! A displaced chord organ melts into black-flecked slush. The distant whooping crane places his beak into the shellac grooves on the Victrola.
- “Buff-uddle.” Microphone shuggle in a hair shirt. Constant motion gaffs like an okra bud over Velcro. The hobo orchestra ‘thwack’ old tins and wrestle an egg-slicer back and forth. The ripple of thin metal dances right in my forehead – things coalesce – merge – re-form into steps cut out of bright paper – Matisse becomes instruction. The code is to be cracked but a fair advantage is favoured on the light of ankle. Un-led rhythms shuffle out of this desert storm, moving against each other like lovers, all slither and explore. Tin & rin & rin & tin & tin pop-out plastic eardrums to faint electro influences? The gradual sigh of a bus coming to rest and opening up the wheelchair ramp. Dry energy – like plunging your hand into a bag of uncooked rice – each grain perfect, each cousin similar but individual. Wheat echoes; a fork balances, it’s twines interlaced with a spoon’s surly lip.
- Buttons of rubber depressed by pudgy fingers. They sing in harmonies un-dreamt by Clive Sinclair – each mercurial tone a slack-arsed fart. The washer vibe snips out via polo mint.
- Wooden planks mumble as heavy hands slap until they find a resonant pitch/probing fingers dislodge the lid and keys (the white teeth of shame) are slackened with a tone-wrench/the taught strings are teased and top and sides rubbed with soft beads/a variety of fidelities, each proper in it’s own dissonance becomes partially embedded so rich echo-parlour switches between hi-fi buff and pre-teen noise goofball. I read Miles’ BIG FUN was cobbled together outta oddments. Tom takes a similar stance but each floor-cutting here is as wonderful as an unexpected smooch.
- The opening salvo of dysentery bombs that smoke over the battlefield! It clogs hair and exposed pores – the Angel of Mons offers scant sanctuary.
- An ice-cream headache from Steve Albini’s brow. THAT THE THINK guitar sound shredded through electric fan in a pissing bad mood. Shaking frozen peas out of a Tupperware box, drilling holes into broken glass. Or, if you’d prefer, the barista’s revenge – hot milk battered through dirty filters.
- Free-text box opened up and all the pixels clump together into vague geometric shapes with impudent languor.
All in all, this disc brings an essential vitality into my soft pampered life. It’s wormed into my lugs now. I’m saved ya’ll.
Can you afford to miss this one dear reader? Can your children?? Can your immortal soul???
—ooOoo—
new midwich product! ‘blisterpack’ on bells hill
May 20, 2016 at 9:03 am | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bells hill, midwich, scott mckeating
midwich – blisterpack (3″ CD-r, Bells Hill, BH 012, edition of 50 or download)
Yes, yes, I know there is an unwritten rule that nowadays radiofreemidwich does not cover the work of its contributors or editor (a great shame as we are a pride of geniuses but, y’know, ‘integrity’ and all that) HOWEVER a new midwich ‘side’ is a rare occurrence and no money is being requested so: fuck it let’s go…
Your tireless editor is proud to announce the release of blisterpack by midwich on Scott McKeating’s Bells Hill label. In a development that might raise eyebrows amongst long-term midwich watchers this, err…, ‘mini-album’ comprises 12 tracks totalling a mere 18 minutes. There is a little of the drone I am usually associated with but, in the main, this is a collection of fun, spiky sketches in the mode of the short interludes you’d often find on earlier midwich recordings. Scott requested short tracks and it is an aspect of midwich I really enjoyed returning to. I’ve joked that this is my punk album but it is more like a ‘loops and breaks’ type thing, I guess. If any of you out there do remixes, create radio jingles or whatnot then feel free to use it for that purpose. Hope you dig it.
There is a Bandcamp link below but Scott also created 50 copies of this on 3″ CD-r and got Lee ‘Culver’ Stokoe to design some cover art (which is free of his usual prurience – see above). As we are both true, hardcore, no-audience underground 4EVA these physical objects are not for sale, instead they are offered up as gifts or in trade. If you’d like one get in touch with me or Scott (try @scottmckeating).
—ooOoo—
stop the press! introducing the new staffers at radiofreemidwich
April 27, 2013 at 9:32 am | Posted in blog info | Leave a commentTags: bells hill, bells hill digital, black leather cop, joe murray, posset, scott mckeating, the quietus
Radio Free Midwich is delighted to announce the arrival of two new members of staff.
Yes, currently sharpening their pencils are cub reporters Scott McKeating and Joe Murray. You’ll know the former as the head-honcho of the critically-acclaimed (by me) micro-label Bells Hill and perhaps for his excellent column documenting the outer limits which illuminated The Quietus. You’ll know the latter as dictaphonic explorer Posset and perhaps for his epic end-of-year round-ups in which tens of thousands of words pickling the year’s musical highlights are emailed to a select elite and then hidden from the general public by being posted on myspace. You’ll know both as the indescribable doomphonics duo Black Leather Cop. What I’m saying is that their credentials are impeccable. They are even both based in the North East. Perfect.
Some may mourn the passing of the ‘single voice’ era here at RFM but I’d like to reassure my dear readers that the carefully honed aesthetic of this blog is just being augmented, not replaced. Despite being able to complete a surprising amount of blogging in these post-Thomas-the-Baby times (see opening paragraph of previous post), a hand with the heavy lifting will be much appreciated. Guest posting was trialled at Christmas with reviews from Joe and then again a couple of weeks ago with Pascal’s account of the Crater Lake Festival and both experiments proved a success.
Having the three of us posting will keep the tempo up and allow us to map some new contours. I trust you’ll come to appreciate our differing tastes and styles. Look out for Scott’s account of a returning guitar hero, now self-releasing analogue electronics, Joe writhing in appreciation of Winebox Press and pieces I have planned on Yol, Half an Abortion, The Piss Superstition and new stuff on Striate Cortex. I may even have time to muse up some no-audience underground theory as well, if you are very lucky. Much joy to come.
rfm attends to recent downloads: cthulhu detonator, deceiver, orange annihilator, seth cooke, petals
March 8, 2013 at 10:41 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bells hill, bells hill digital, cthulhu detonator, deceiver, drone, field recording, hairdryer excommunication, impulsive habitat, kev sanders, mp3, new music, no audience underground, noise, orange annihilator, petals, seth cooke
Cthulhu Detonator – Infernal Machines (self-released)
Deceiver – I Will Always Be Dead Inside (Bells Hill Digital)
Orange Annihilator – Scrub (Bells Hill Digital)
Seth Cooke – Intercession (Impulsive Habitat, IHab065)
Kevin Saunders / Petals – various back catalogue items (Hairdryer Excommunication)
My lack of willpower regarding downloads has been extensively documented on this blog before and explains my general attitude of wariness towards this most tempting aspect of modern musical appreciation. Not all music stored on physical objects is good, of course, but to present it as such does indicate a faith in the work and acts as an initial filter to limit an otherwise unprocessable torrent. My preference is to sit with my back to the firmly secured floodgates and listen to them creak as I open my post.
However, what is a boy to do when approached by charming artists touting interesting sounding projects that are only available on that Bandcamp or via netlabels? Or if a known favourites make experiments or long forgotten back catalogue available via the same means? I would hardly be a conscientious editor if I just ignored these leads, now would I? In that spirit there now follows a series of ‘in brief’ accounts of some clickable goodness recently brought to my attention. *Sigh*, one thing no-one dares mention when warning you of a slippery slope is just how much fun it can be to slide down it…
First is Infernal Machines by Cthulhu Detonator. I know what you are thinking: “how dare this impertinent rascal imply that our master, Lord Cthulhu, is the sort of thing that can be detonated?!”, right? Well, I’ve sent this disrespectful heretic an oddly cut purple crystal in an anonymous package and if he looks into it he is fucked. That’ll teach him! Ai, Ai!
Anyway, blasphemy aside, this album is very entertaining. Perhaps, like a lot of debut albums, it is a little over full – RFM recommends keeping it to a tight 40ish minutes and saving the offcuts for an accompanying EP – but who am I to fault exuberance? This is from the computer-constructed/electronica end of noise: ten distinct tracks working through aspects of a coherently defined sound. There is a momentum, a squelching bounce, that is gleefully pummelling interspersed with quieter moments spent exploring cyclopean ruins with faulty batteries in your torch. Nicely balanced and engaging throughout. Ideal background music for an evening spent flicking through your dog-eared copy of Unaussprechlichen Kulten.
Second are two cuts from the recently formed Bells Hill Digital. I Will Always Be Dead Inside by Deceiver is as grim as its title suggests. Part I is a three minute harsh noise blow-out, a planet wide, corrosive hailstorm pitting the black surface of an inhospitable world. Part II is an almighty eleven minute conflagration. About halfway through a mournful tone attempts to rise above the roar – like the one building miraculously left standing in an area otherwise devastated by carpet-bombing – but is soon vandalised, deliberately destroyed by the same spiteful fire. It is utterly without hope and, in my humble opinion, remarkable. Please investigate.
Scrub by Orange Annihilator is so irresistible that I listened to it ten times in a row the other day, non-stop, on my commute to work. No, my bus wasn’t stuck in a snow drift, nor have I been seconded to Aberdeen. The reason this feat was possible is that this five track album is in total three and a half minutes long!
It is electronic noise, best heard at ear-splitting volume for maximum nostril-flaring effect. Plenty happens but this is not a frantic gonzo cut up. Segments are allowed a toehold, are established fleetingly, then tumble into the void and are instantly replaced. Its efficiency and brevity are refreshingly classy.
I think this is a clever example of what imaginative types can do with the Bandcamp model. I’d argue that this really is an album – it is coherent, complete, self contained – but its length makes it very difficult to present physically. A 7” single maybe? Expensive to produce, difficult to distribute. A credit card CD-r? A fiddly format that has never really caught on. Neither of these formats suggest ‘real’ album anyway. However, on Bandcamp its format is just the same as for everybody else. Brilliant.
Next is Intercession by Seth Cooke released on intriguing netlabel Impulsive Habitat. This is one 21 minute track constructed with Seth’s customary attention to detail from sound sources found ‘singing in the wires’ at his place of work. It starts with a frantic chirruping and buzzing – an orchestra of locusts conducted by Steve Reich – before settling into a shifting pattern of hums, ticks, throbs and gentle feedback tones. It suggests the micro-climate of self-storage warehouses, server farms, aluminium tubing, ducts in the crawlspace. In the last five minutes birdsong and traffic can be heard alongside a scything overload in the cables, reminding us of the natural world replicated by the landscaping of the science park outside. I find this intensely absorbing. It has a kind of fractal geometry that pulls the listener into the recording. Despite being as cool as air conditioning and as alienating as fluorescent light I’m sure I can hear a very human yearning behind the machine buzz too. Exemplary.
Finally, I need to mention the archival project ongoing at the hairdryer excommunication Bandcamp page. Kev is making as much of the Kevin Sanders / Petals back catalogue as he can find freely available via this resource. I guarantee that any fruit you pick from this vine will be delicious. The more I hear of Kev’s work, the more I want to hear and there is no higher praise than that.
All this stuff is freely downloadable:
bells hill digital and george ferguson mckeating vol. 2
February 15, 2013 at 1:08 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: actual songs, beccy owen, bells hill, bells hill digital, brian lavelle, drone, electronica, folk, guanoman, leyland kirby, matthew shaw, nev clay, new music, no audience underground, noise, richard youngs, scott mckeating, space weather, the radiation line
Various Artists – George Ferguson McKeating Vol. 2
(download, Bells Hill, Bells Hill Digital 2)
Scott McKeating’s Bells Hill, like other noise labels based in the North East such as Molotov, Matching Head and Fuckin’ Amateurs, prefers to keep it on the down-low. No need to advertise, no need for a flashy and substantial web presence, no clamour for ‘press’. Just dedicated fans and artists distributing releases amongst themselves and to a handful of grateful outsiders who have discovered their work. There’s nothing elitist or wilfully insular about this behaviour: these comrades simply don’t give a monkey’s about the trappings of ‘breaking big’ and are realistic about the limited appeal of their (mainly dark, metal and/or psych inspired) noise. They know that the curious will gravitate to them eventually. The unhurried self-sufficiency of this scene is a constant source of inspiration to me.
Some can’t help themselves, though. The indefatigable Joe Posset, RFM’s North East correspondent, is filled with evangelical zeal and heart-bursting enthusiasm and his dispatches from the frozen wastes of Newcastle have won many converts. Scott’s approach is more reserved. The guy is clearly omniscient in matters of North East noise. If you need to know a name, an email address or the ‘phone number of Mike Vest’s tailor then a one-line email or blog comment will quietly appear from him within hours of you mentioning this gap in your knowledge. In fact, the only time I have seen Scott in effusive mood is when valiantly defending the principles of this blog and the wider no-audience underground in a facebook discussion following that Simon Reynolds thing.
Likewise, packages containing stuff from Bells Hill arrive with little fanfare, despite the quality of their contents, and are thus guaranteed to be a pleasant surprise. The announcement of the new digital arm of Bells Hill, located inevitably on that Bandcamp, was a similar unexpected treat.
At the time of writing there are four releases to be found there. I shall talk a little about the one pictured above. Scott founded Bells Hill in order to release a compilation album to raise money for The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund. Pancreatic Cancer is a particularly vicious and fast moving variant of the disease and almost always lethal. Sadly, it took Scott’s father. Hence the simple title and poignant cover photograph. Some brief thoughts from me on the first volume can be found here. The possibility occasioned by Bandcamp has spurred Scott on to complete a long planned second volume.
Happily, I can report that – as with Vol. 1 – this is excellent throughout and would be an essential purchase even without the cause behind it. It satisfies all criteria for a successful compilation. It is sequenced in a coherent, flowing way but is varied enough to create some lively juxtapositions. The quality control is consistently fierce so there are no barren patches to skip over. Many of the tracks – all of which are exclusives – are beautifully self contained and are eminently rewindable. The artists are a mixture of safe hands (for example: Brian Lavelle, Richard Youngs) and the mystifyingly new (to me, at least) that will have you scrabbling around the search engines looking for more. There is glittering shimmer, monastic spirituals, haunting atmospherics, apocalyptic noise metal, ecstatic bubble drone, even a couple of actual songs – y’know with lyrics and structures and everything – and very lovely they are too. What more is there to want?
The album is available in return for a donation to the PCRF. For full instructions of how to do this and secure your download code visit Bells Hill Digital here.
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 commentTags: 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.
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.
artifacts of the no-audience underground: recent jazzfinger
August 7, 2012 at 7:57 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bells hill, drone, hasan gaylani, improv, jazzfinger, noise, popular radiation, sonic oyster
Jazzfinger – Poem of Stones (Bells Hill, BH010, CD-r, edition of 50)
Jazzfinger – Night Fall At Borrowed World (Sonic Oyster Cassettes 009, edition of 50)
OK, what we have here is a nicely presented CD-r on Scott McKeating’s ever reliable label Bells Hill. It contains one track which documents about 45 minutes of a Jazzfinger rehearsal from 2004. The recording is inexpensive, unedited – rumble at the bottom, harsh at the top, meandering throughout – however as it progresses it becomes clear that this is no mere ephemera of interest only to Jazzfinger obsessives. I can’t get enough of it. The liner notes provide some context:
Recorded at Morden Tower, this was a rehearsal for a gig we were going to play at a Weekender at the abandoned Aldwych Tube station back in November 2004. As it turns out the event was cancelled at the last minute and coincided with John Peel’s funeral on the Friday, and Jhonn Balance‘s death that Sunday. What a shit weekend.
Presumably the band did not foresee this shitness but the melancholy air to much of the piece suggests a hint of what was to come may have been in the room.
There are changes of direction, as you would expect from a rehearsal tape, but these are far from aimless. As with all good improv, the transitions are as interesting as the periods of ‘steady state’ noise. It shifts with the unknowable purpose of a nocturnal marine predator swimming over what in the daytime is a multi-coloured reef rinsed to grey-scale by the moonlight. Is it looking for food, a mate, shelter? Or is it a Lovecraftian ‘Deep One’/human hybrid, fully adapted to the life aquatic and shaking off the last vestiges of its humanity? Irresistible.
The tape is a more manageable, relatively slick affair with properly edited and titled tracks released in the generic neon packaging of the collectable Sonic Oyster cassette series. Would it be perverse of me to describe this as ‘urban pastoral’? What I mean is that Jazzfinger’s psychedelic noise is no hippy delirium, no prelapsarian bliss. Instead it seems pulled up from the streets of the city, like strange flowers growing through cracks in the pavement, in a place where urban foxes knocking over bins have the same totemic power as the coyotes of the Mexican desert.
For more on Bells Hill see their discogs page or email Scott via scottjamesbellshill@gmail.com. Details of how to get hold of the the Sonic Oyster tape can be seen here.
artifacts of the no-audience underground: space victim
March 6, 2012 at 1:05 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bells hill, bong, drone, improv, lucy johnson, mike vest, new music, no audience underground, noise, psychedelia, space victim
Space Victim – Psychotropic Mind Murder (Bells Hill, BH009, CD-r, edition of 50)
In the same package from Scott of Bells Hill that contained the Culver & Fordell Research Unit CD-r was nestled this monster, eyeing me suspiciously and waiting patiently for the opportunity to flex its scaly wings.
For what we have here is Space Victim, a duo of Lucy Johnson of Obey and Mike Vest of Bong and Basilica (see VISUAL VOLUME for details of all these variations). And what Space Victim have for us is some heavy, viscous, maximalist guitar psychedelia. Don’t be expecting anything whimsical or pastoral and flower strewn. This is best-night-of-the-year-without-leaving-your-armchair drug music. I suppose should you want a musical reference point then this sounds a little like millennial Ashtray Navigations, pre-synth turn, with Phil’s guitar sound at its most monsoon drenched and tropical.
The release is bookended by two lengthy jams (for want of a better word): ‘The Sea of Sleep’ (17 minutes) and ‘Entrail Weight’ (20 minutes, great title) which riff, drone, drift and shimmer in a heat haze. Teenage dragons might groove on this in a lair filled with dope smoke as they do flame-grilled hot knives whilst sniggering at that lame-ass Lord of the Rings shit. The tracks that make up the middle section are much shorter and offer glimpses of experiments: part mad science, part arcane rite. Orgone accumulators crackle and the tang of ozone bleaches through the heady fug of incense. However glimpses are all you get: sometimes these tracks end suddenly, as if the laboratory door had been slammed shut in your face.
Passages of this album are properly fried. The psychonauts amongst you may be reminded of the ‘chameleon’ stage of an acid trip: peaking like crazy, your senses fizzing like sherbet fireworks, your skin rippling and morphing to mimic your surroundings, your eyes bulging and swivelling independently of each other. Or so I hear. I wouldn’t know, of course.
Over the last couple of weeks a few casual listens led to an addiction blotting out almost everything else. Then this release became pretty much the only thing I wanted to hear. I was hoping that typing this up might help break the spell, but I can feel its claws tightening on my shoulders again already…
Highly recommended. Contact Scott of Bells Hill via scottjamesbellshill@gmail.com
artifacts of the no-audience underground: culver and fordell research unit
February 18, 2012 at 4:48 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bells hill, culver, drone, fordell research unit, matching head, new music, no audience underground, noise, pjorn 72
Culver and Fordell Research Unit – “Everyone For Themselves, And God Against All” (Bells Hill, BH005)
Now, stop pouting – there’s no need to be jealous. I know that I took a million years to review whatever you sent me and that this package from Scott of Bells Hill only arrived this morning, but I have been thinking about this release since I blagged a copy from Lee Stokoe at the gig a fortnight ago. Scott is not getting special treatment – I love you all just the same (and before you ask: my spare copy has already been parcelled up ready to be sent to another good home).
The specifications: a 42 minute, 10 track CD-r (well, 47 minute, 11 track CD-r but the tenth track is five minutes of silence separating the odd, spiky coda from the main body of the album) packaged (t)artfully in the vintage smut that Lee cannibalises to serve his aesthetic nowadays. I’m unsure as to how much of this is contributed by Fraser of FRU (hey Fraser! hope all is well) and how much by Lee, or what their working method of collaboration was, but it is safe to say that this is not a new Dubstep/UK Funky hybrid.
The main deviation away from Lee’s usual product (apologies to Fraser but I haven’t been keeping up with FRU stuff – shame on me) is the number of tracks. Whilst Culver/Inseminoid releases tend to feature one or two lengthy sessions of abyssal staring, this has 10 distinct segments. A handful feature rhythmic or percussive elements – the forlorn sonar pulse of ‘Remember Me?’, the dismal pistons of ‘Truth Will Out’ for example – but most consist of carefully layered, hypnotic, droning roars of a type cherished by aficionados of Lee’s back catalogue.
It is interesting to move between so many Culveresque tones and textures in such a short length of time. It feels like a greatest hits compilation, or a sampler album or, whilst not sounding like them of course, a Vibracathedral Orchestra LP. I mention the latter because their albums featured tracks that sometimes felt like self-contained vignettes and sometimes were obviously excerpts from an epic, the rest of which lay tantalising on the cutting room floor. During repeat listens – as the tracks ripened, flowered and became more distinguishable – sometimes a gestalt switch would be thrown and the vignettes would become excerpts and vice versa. That disorientating flip definitely happens here as, like all Lee’s stuff, close attention is repaid with revelation.
Very highly recommended, of course, and limited to 50 copies so get a move on. Contact Scott of Bells Hill via scottjamesbellshill@gmail.com, more from Bells Hill can be inspected via their Discogs Page, and a pdf scan of Lee’s latest Matching Head Catalogue can be seen here – apologies for the hefty size of the file but it is illegible otherwise.
rfm’s 2011 round-up: the zellaby awards
December 1, 2011 at 6:31 pm | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: andrew perry, ashtray navigations, astral social club, bang the bore, bells hill, best of 2011, ceramic hobs, cinderella stamps, culver, dddd, drone, electronica, eyeballs, foldhead, hiroshima yeah!, idwal fisher, improv, infinite exchange, inseminoid, julian bradley, medusa, memoirs of an aesthete, neil campbell, new luddism, new music, no audience underground, noise, perpeteia, phil todd, plurals, posset, sanity muffin, seabuckthorn, seth cooke, spon, striate cortex, the piss superstition, the zero map, Waz Hoola, zellaby awards, zines
An end of year list is irresistible isn’t it? No matter how fallacious and arbitrary, it is nigh on impossible not to flick forward or scroll down to the number one slot. And who am I to deny you that festive pleasure, eh? They can also be incredibly useful. For example, The Wire assigning top spot last year to that awful album by Actress finally freed me from any obligation to read that silly publication again. What a time-saver!
Last year my round-up was all encompassing and fairly hefty. This year I’m keeping it to the point and, as far as music goes at least, well within the no-audience underground. This adds a bonus frisson to proceedings as many of you reading this will have reason to take my meaningless judgements personally. Mmmm… what could be more delicious? Maybe a warm mince pie with brandy butter…
And hasn’t it been a cracking year? Along with the people and releases detailed below I have to mention a few other non-categorizable inspirations. The consistently great writing to be found at Idwal Fisher is such a huge influence on this blog that I’m hoping Mark believes imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery. I’ve been delighted by the return of the paper fanzine to my doormat in the form of indescribable packages from Spon and Hiroshima Yeah! I have been awestruck by the all-or-nowt work ethic and decision making of Simon DDDD who not only created DDDD’s unfathomable online presence but then deleted the lot in a breath-taking act of self-immolation once he decided it had run its course. There then followed the even more jaw-dropping New Luddite Tapes project during which he created 72 releases – all recorded himself – within four months. This has now also imploded, though some remains can still be picked over at the website. Who knows what will come next? Not me, that’s for sure. And on that bewildering note, on with the show…
(Methodological aside: the music mentioned below may not have been released this year, although most of it was. To qualify it just had to be heard by me for the first time in the calendar year 2011. There are five award categories ending with a prize, yes you heard right: an actual prize, for the album of the year.)
5. The “I’d never heard of you 10 minutes ago but now desperately need your whole back catalogue” New-to-RFM Award is shared by…
Of Plurals, RFM said: “…one of the most striking things I’ve heard this year…” (full review here) and the verdict was similar for Eyeballs “…intelligent, wryly humourous and unashamedly ambitious…” (see here and here and here). If you ever feel inclined to pay attention to what I say, I urge you to check these guys out.
4. The “Astral Social Club” Award, given for maintaining quality control over a huge body of work making it impossible to pick individual releases in an end of year round up goes to…
Of course it does. Neil’s ability to crank out such class at such a fierce pace remains inspirational. Honourable mentions must also go to those snorting workhorses Culver/Inseminoid, Andrew Perry and Posset.
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award is shared between Andy Robinson of Striate Cortex, Seth Cooke of Bang the Bore and RFM’s North East correspondent Joe Posset.
Andy has generously provided review copies of some of the most intriguing and involving music that I have heard in years. His brain food has nourished a selection of my most baroque, gushingly lyrical and borderline nonsensical reviews.
By agreeing to publish the lovely article Pete Coward had written about FFR then expertly conducting the interview that followed, Seth Cooke not only helped me put that era to bed – the definitive account is now on record – but inspired me to reactivate midwich too. New releases and live appearances are in the works and it is, to a large extent, his fault.
Finally, I would like to officially acknowledge the work of Joe Posset, RFM’s North East correspondent. As well as providing a stream of his own terrific recordings, Joe’s tiggerish enthusiasm and selfless generosity have hipped me to many great acts and labels, including Fuckin’ Amateurs and Andrew Perry. His efforts have been very much appreciated.
2. The Label of the Year Award
Well, given what I said above, it will come as no surprise to hear that the winner is… Striate Cortex. I needn’t say any more. Everything I have written about Andy’s enterprise can be read by clicking here.
Honourable mentions must also go to: Sanity Muffin (on hiatus, but I’ve heard some great stuff due up next), Memoirs of an Aesthete, Medusa (more great tapes), Bells Hill, Infinite Exchange and our Mexican cousins Oracle.
1. The Album of the Year Award
This is the biggie so I’m going to do a proper reverse-order run-down for added anticipation. It goes without saying that everything by the artists mentioned above automatically makes the longlist for this award. In addition to that cavalcade of excellence honourable mention must also be made, in no particular order, of the following:
- Seabuckthorn – A Mantra Pulled Apart
- Waz Hoola – Multiply Reality by Infinity
- Perpeteia – Music for Mesmer
- Foldhead – Drugs Paint Alcohol
- The Zero Map – Felis Cattus Domesticus
All terrific. Click on a title to be taken to my review. Now on to the big three:
The 3rd best album of year is:
The Piss Superstition – A Themepark for Whatever Happened Before
I wrote: “For me, Julian’s work has always called to mind machinery, often on an unimaginable scale, working to some forgotten purpose, on the brink of being overwhelmed by entropy and halting altogether … It is an absolutely brilliant way of conveying the devastating effort it takes to feel something – anything – in this alienating world we live in.” Full review and article here.
The 2nd best album of the year is:
Ceramic Hobs – Oz Oz Alice
I wrote: “This band is not only ‘going there’ but doing so willingly and, whilst there, using some voodoo power to create this music for the rest of us. My mind boggles – rather them than me. Simon suggests that this might be the last Ceramic Hobs album. I very much hope it isn’t but, if so, it would be a magnificent way to bow out.” Full review and article here (wierdly, still my most popular post ever).
..and finally, The Zellaby Award for Album of the Year goes to:
Ashtray Navigations – Cinderella Stamps
I wrote (in a post titled, fittingly, ‘ashtray navigations are my favourite band: empirical fact’): “…it is almost comical to me how perfectly it ensures that I get my groove on. Pretty much every musical element I dig is there, distilled and combined. One finger piano? Check. Expansively tangerine wob-wob synths? Check. Red-hot tropical guitar? Check … Imagine Phil and Mel soundtracking the adventures of an interstellar Buddha, preaching the eternal truths to bewildered alien races on Chris Foss style space-arks…” Full review and article here.
To be honest, given the quality of their work, Ashtray Navigations and associated projects could have featured heavily in every category (except ‘newcomer’, of course) but I kept ’em out of it knowing that the most glittering of prizes would be theirs in the end. Speaking of which…
The Award Ceremony
Some background: in early November I gave up drinking diet coke and in late November it was my dear Grandmother’s 92nd birthday and the combination of the two factors led to the first Zellaby Award for Album of the Year. Now, I realise that last sentence doesn’t make any sense at all, so allow me to join the dots.
For years I have drunk at least half a litre of that nastily acidic, highly caffeinated ‘delicious beverage’ (original phrase removed at the insistence of RFM’s legal team) every day. Finally, I convinced myself that this was a foolish thing for a grown man to be addicted to and ‘may have been’ (lawyers again) detrimental to my health. So I went cold turkey. The caffeine withdrawal not only gave me a bitchin’ headache for days but also led to a few decaffeinated moments of clumsiness and doziness. For example: I dropped a load of eggs on the kitchen floor whilst attempting to open the fridge with my elbow, I put some delicate bedding in the tumble drier and it is now no longer King size (or even Queen or Jack size, more like Nine of Clubs size. The pillowcases look like crocheted iPhone covers.) and then I made a mistake in Marks and Spencers…
I was in the process of assembling a parcel of birthday goodies to send to my Grandmother. It was to contain a long handwritten letter, some photos, a birthday card and some easily postable presents, one of which was to be a M&S voucher. I dutifully trotted down to the shop, made my purchase and it wasn’t until I got on the bus home that I realised I’d picked a card that said ‘Merry Christmas’ on it. “Bollocks,” I said out loud to my fellow passengers and went back the next day for a ‘Happy Birthday’ one.
My grump lifted when I decided that it might be funny to award the spare token as a prize to the artist responsible for RFM’s album of the year and, when I realised I saw that band in the pub most Thursday lunchtimes, the possibility of getting a photo of the ‘ceremony’ for the blog was irresistible. So here we are. I handed over the prize at lunchtime today and the reaction of bewildered delight was exactly what I was aiming for:
The official photo, Phil & Mel remain a little suspicious as to what I’m up to…
…the realisation that they have actually been given something of worth…
…the descent into emotional delirium as the moment proves too much for Phil.
And on that happy note I’d like to call the 2011 Zellaby Awards to a close. Thank you all for being such a beautiful (no-)audience. Goodnight, comrades.
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