vintage segs: rfm on binnsclagg, dayglow exploding super infinite, dr:wr and katz mulk
July 30, 2017 at 6:16 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: binnsclagg, bring back hanging, chocolate monk, dayglow exploding super infinite, dillusion.dot.dot.dot, dr:wr, husks, karl m v waugh, katz mulk, our shadow days, singing knives, thf drenching, verity spott, weightless and everywhere
Binnsclagg arranged by THF Drenching – Bring Back Hanging (Chocolate Monk)
Dayglow Exploding Super Infinite – Weightless and Everywhere, Drizzled in Honey (disillusion.dot.dot.dot)
DR:WR – Our Shadow Days (Eps 1 – 3) (No label)
Katz Mulk – Husks (Singing Knives)
Binnsclagg arranged by THF Drenching – Bring Back Hanging (Chocolate Monk) CDr
Operatic junk-melt from two salty coves is stirred by a third with a runcible spoon.
Beard, Karl M V Waugh & non-beard, Verity Spott have cooked up a shot of pure Binnsclagg and injected straight into Drenno’s eyeball. The last flickering spasms from the Council of Drent’s most celebrated son register on some sort of Beaufort scale (for skronk) and gets marked-up in felt tip ‘fresh gale – twigs break off trees, cluttered sounds smudge gravity.’
Clear enough yeah?
Sense-valves are squeezed firmly from the middle to let the chum squirm rudely out, forming foul brown pyramids:
rhythmic pulses throb like a sore thumb,
granulated ripping precedes a spoken word interlude,
old coins are rubbed on a vintage slate,
the TV chatter is tuned to the Mr T show,
lobbying voices blabber and honk,
synths are employed as security guards,
overloaded sections create vital grab-zones to ponder and chew bitter herb,
ghostly organs invoke the dark heart of Blackpool; pure shredding
six-handed – with a swingers firm grip
A mess? Of course not.
Bring Back Hanging aches like the tight tangle of poetry.
Dayglow Exploding Super Infinite – Weightless and Everywhere, Drizzled in Honey (disillusion.dot.dot.dot) cheap-o digital album
This accidental-static, fluff osmosis is exactly the kind of sound The Red Hot Chilli Peppers and their foul type have tried to scrub out of existence, stomp into history, for years
The exact moral opposite of Anthony, Flea (and the other two) this rotten, fluttering pop crackles in my ears like a dry cotton bud chasing a rogue insect for about 37 minutes.
There’s no funk or no punk in this energetic splutter; indeed there is no jazz or blues either. But this is unmistakably rock n’ roll, the closing moments of ‘Collapsing Droplets’ as badazz as Link Wray’s low-down Rumble; greasy D.A. aloft and flick knife tucked into his waistband.
If all else is true the lengthy ‘Once we Considered Surrender’ is surely the ballad, a slow dance of chittering typewriter keys and radio interference. Somehow wetter than its companions the spitting sonics play out more like a garden hose being repeatedly stepped on-off-on-off in a herky-jerky dance.
Uncomplicated, but of course vibrating with coded meanings only the in-crowd can decode.
A whop-bam-a-loo-bop-a-whop-bam-boo!
DR:WR – Our Shadow Days (Eps 1 – 3) (No label) gratis digital album
A tone-desert as barren as Catterick Lorry Park
Oily loops of reverb’ed somethings snake in sinister circles; a gentle rumble is the slowest drummer – like yeast picked up the brushes. ‘Dream Pollutants’ feels like some Replicant code-patch to increase anxiety and paranoia – take it slow Skin Jobs.
Lazily shifting shapes tip on hidden hinges to reflect a sooty light on ‘an attempt at exhuming nowhere’. The see-saw effect makes this a meditative piece suitable for a trek in Nepal or charity shopping. Those times when you need to make peace with your creator (whoever she is) and open yourself to the bounty of the universe. The final five minutes introduce giant’s steps plodding through the bog; slow and steady.
A thoughtless ohm thrown down a dark corridor? ‘Prebranded Features’ invokes Danielewski’s ‘House of Leaves ‘ with its eerie voicing’s that seem to endlessly descend into some unknowable horror. Compact and neat this piece never stalls or chokes. The layered lines lay as thick and deep as velvet; both opulent and oddly cloying.
But is it as bleak as the famed garrison town? Give me answers dear reader.
Katz Mulk – Husks (Singing Knives) laser cut and risoprint booklet of performance notes with digital album
Three fine brains (Kearney, Morris, Knight) take a bunch of recordings made in public and private and wrap them up in a galactic stew with extra lashings of arm and leg movement.
This really is an arresting listen. Each element: processed sound, voice and dripping percussion exists in a separate timeframe that I have to punch through sideways. Viewed this way, along three separate planes, an extra dimension is revealed – a swooping movement that is felt like warm breath on the cheek rather than simply being seen or heard.
Like a velvet glove inside an iron fist…or should that be the other way around? Heck…either way this disc demands attention. I’ll settle for the ‘kid’s rattle full of dead wasps’ analogy; a sting in reverse, a memory of potential discomfort.
‘Temperament’ spills like wet chrome. Including a cheeky reference to the band rather than the metal a future face presents itself – handsome in profile.
A processed whispering infects ‘Yes like a Cheetah.’ Below the chanting it squats waiting for the echoing ‘clack’ balancing the freezer burn amp-huffing on Andrea Kearney’s perfectly timed Cuban finger clicks. High on rum I feel gloriously wasted.
Slushy-sound, slow like a glacier with levels of engagement pinned between the gritty ice? I’m picking up much, much more than ‘A Leaf, A Gourd, A Sack’ anyways. The tap-dancing of Ben Morris (on vintage segs if I’m not mistaken) chatters like joke teeth, running this track out into a leaky void.
Moving furniture around an electricity sub-station seems to be the basis of ‘Y Gang’. Ben Knight’s voice is a hyena chorus – savannah cackling and bone-crushing moans. The floor flexes making way for a living tarmacadam demon!
That secret lemonade drinker, Beyonce Knowles, is clearly heard on title track ‘Husks’ her high-tech and passionate R’n’B blunted via discarded garden chairs and blackened disposable barbecues.
The full twelve minute masterpiece ‘Meat Stories’ continues the dripping theme. I’m stuck in a time cave! My mind is an echo chamber. A discomforting shift occurs, like a muscular tick you’re trying to suppress when the silken sound shimmer suddenly turns sickly. Like an overdose of mustard you can’t get the yellow whiff out of your hair for days.
Katz Mulk revel in the uneasy space between healthy concern and full-blown paranoia.
-ooOOoo-
patina of yuks: joe murray on the new blockaders, charles dexter ward, libbe matz gang, dr:wr
December 16, 2014 at 5:37 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: charles dexter ward, dr:wr, drone, electronica, fuckin' amateurs, improv, joe murray, karl mv waugh, libbe matz gang, libertatia overseas trading, loxley tapes, matching head, new music, no audience underground, noise, tapes, the new blockaders, tusk festival
The New Blockaders – Everything You Ever Needed (tape, Fuckin’ Amateurs, edition of 12, FA90)
The New Blockaders – A Beginner’s Guide to TNB (tape, Loxley Tapes, edition of 45)
Charles Dexter Ward – CDW 111014 (TUSK) (self-released download)
Charles Dexter Ward – Past Lives (tape, Matching Head, MH208)
Libbe Matz Gang – Infantilised Britain EP (7″ single, Libertatia Overseas Trading, LMG4S, edition of 150)
DR:WR – Trippin’ Daggers Inner Skull Metal Blade Musique (self-released CD-r with ‘original gonzo artwork’, edition of 20 or download)
The New Blockaders – Everything You Ever Needed and A Beginner’s Guide to TNB
A warning. Art-jokers The New Blockaders like to keep folks on their toes right? They’ve toyed with ‘blank’ tapes, live performances that contain no actual Blockading and recordings that never see the light of day. The question on many lips seems to be…
Will this be a real Blockaders recording or some grimy stunt?
The extra patina of yuks comes from the labels themselves, Fuckin’ Amateurs & Loxley Tapes. In Blyth parlance they are most definitely, ‘cheeky fond’. Translation – loveable rogues, with a long history of bootlegged, unofficial and deliberately misleading recordings dubbed quickly and distributed for free.
This time F#A! and Loxley have really nailed the presentation: A Beginner’s Guide… is encased in a rusty metal tin, dripping with foul-smelling bitumen. The tape itself smeared with grime and grit. Everything You Ever Needed is less dirty, the monochrome artwork sporting a spot-on-grim smeared photo of local graffiti, but more or less playable.
Both of these tapes were originally dealt out personally to folk at Newcastle’s TUSK fest by F#A! frontman Martin dressed as a police officer. The remainder were shoved in a bag and left near the bins behind the Star & Shadow cinema for people to stumble upon.
1. How does it sound? The title gives us a clue of sorts. Side A, ‘ACAB – Changez Les Blockeurs vs Live at Morden Tower’ sounds to my tin-ear like two live recordings jammed together. These kind of extended noise jams are always tricky to describe. Here goes…
SKKKEKKKEKK…approximately 30 minutes of mega-amplified squeaky plimsoll on hardwood gym floor…HHHHHUUUUMMmmmmm…moving furniture, painful feedback squeals…KUUMMSSKKkkkkkkSSSSS..broken-glass shatter, spurting electric springs…BuuuuuuummmmBBBB…rusty metal shearing all delivered with hectic energy.
It’s soooo frantic. Any pauses are brief oases and end sharply as things get broken and kicked with renewed vigour. Say what you like about this dark art: it’s really exciting. I can see my teenage self jamming this full-throttle alongside Suicidal Tendencies whilst disastrously skating the local parks.
Side B is labelled ‘Blank’ and seems to be really, like blank man. Totally silent without no background hiss or nothing to judder or hang on to. OK…given the TNB history that’s all very fitting. I’m fine with all that.
As I deconstruct The Beginner’s Guide I swoon for this is indeed a beautiful object. From the insert replicating the famous TNB manifesto to the detailed sleeve notes (hidden inside the tin) it just hums attention to detail. Shining a torch inside the thing suggests this is a TNB approved compilation of their greatest hits; a handy taster for any up-and-coming noise fan. The only problem is I can’t play it. Some of the blue grit (the sort of thing you find at the bottom of a fish tank) has gummed up the spools so my cheap-o-stereo just whirred uselessly and looked at me whispering…
Really? Are you sure?
…under it’s cheap-o breath.
So, dear reader, I’m no further forward with my original ponder: is this TNB or some stunt? I’m not sure – it seems genuine enough but I’m no expert. I reckon as long as everyone goes into things with their eyes open we’re all good. Yeah?
What are your chances of picking one of these up? Slim I’m afraid. But in true New Blockaders style… why would you? Reject the Art! Use the above blueprint to create your own. I’ve got a hot nut for some amplified baking tray action just right for this one.
Mamma…we’re all Blockaders now!
Charles Dexter Ward – CDW 111014 (TUSK) and Past Lives
Brace yourself for a clutch of psych/drone/kraut-tronics from the wonderful Charles Dexter Ward (the tweedy beast). First up this super-hectic live piece from CDW’s storming set at this year’s TUSK festival. Things start all relaxed alright: water bubbling, birds singing and Greensleeves style plucking afore…
Yonder!
The analogue synths start to mist up your eye mask with long-haired groaning lurchers. Slowly, so slowly, new textures (a two note keyboard hum) are added, like peeling an onion in reverse, with each papery skin folding up nicely over the next all neat n’ tight.
Content to let this scene build for over ten minutes the patient Mr Ward starts adding guitar riffs, each loaded with potent chemicals. The rhythmic strumming builds up and up into rapier-sharp soloing clearing the vapours like menthol. And it’s this electric soloing, ecstatic and optimistic that makes CDW my contender for the No Audience Crossover prize. I can picture this, in my giddy mind’s eye, going down in hearty gulps at shindigs like the Liverpool Psych Festival or Islington’s Union Chapel.
There’s a universal in the grain of that guitar sound…a forward motion that’s as unstoppable as evolution. Don’t believe me? Watch with those beady eyes!
The title of the Past Lives tape is a cheeky wink to the age of some of these recordings. Two of the four tracks are from circa 1996 but are in no way patchouli-scented juvenilia. Both dark and gloomy ‘Pathfinder’ is one of the back catalogue offerings; a brief but richly fertile drone building up into a drumlin – a soft-boiled egg in sound.
‘131213’ starts all Carlos Castaneda with that wide-open-spaces-desert sound; shimmering guitar and gritty synth as distant and insistent as the mid-day sun beating down on your naked pate.
But, as the analogue storm slowly blackens and brews, I’m transported to an alternate space. The sense of heat and desolation remains but it’s altogether more sinister now. An abandoned drive-in stands lonely as a poisoner. The tattered screen flickers and springs into life, washed-out colours are slightly unfocused as a Mexican version of Assault on Precinct 13 plays to its audience of one. The slowly shifting colours on screen smear out the violence behind.
Side B opens with ‘010612’; a synth-led warble and fritter. All the juddering warps the stereo-vision like a mirage in sound. Tones flit in and out of focus, showing a partial shape but content to tease until a pair of tamed sea-lions honk in harmony (errr…probably a guitar played with e-bow in reality but please grant me this indulgence). The mantra continues as a raga based on charred notes from Rugby’s space programme but by upping the noise quotient this moves beyond any stale rock music and closer into the tumbling chaos of Edgard Varese.
‘Stereo’, the final piece and another offering from the crypt, is a roughly psychedelic theme tune. Slowly descending chords wreathed in glistening effects remind me of that AR Kane lot when they spoke about remaking Bitches Brew but with guitar feedback. This is a questing sketch (at about 2 minutes long, it makes me want to hear more). An ode to yearning.
Libbe Matz Gang – Infantilised Britain EP
Raised as I was on the heady tripod of Jazz, Heavy Metal and US Hardcore I’ve always felt slightly uneasy around electronics. I mean, I dig all that kind of thing now; but I still have to take a deep breath when faced with anything resembling a plastic keyboard.
The Libbe Matz Gang have no such aversion as this neat little sevener is heavy on the ‘tronics right from the off. This back of the bus rave on a Blackberry Bold with a cracked screen vibe is both harsh and heavy. Each short track is a rap over the knuckles and cosh to the conscience with evocative titles like ‘Casualty to Custody’ and ‘Punterhunt 2’.
The sounds? Well, like I said it’s electronics that rule. What I hear in my ears is: bedpans emptied down a steel tube, concrete burrs over a rubber glove and guttering wobble. The ghost of Chrome hollas a tune…and even forms a rhythm for a few bars. Sonic bombs explode – a scurrying hustle of a contact mike dropped into a tin can, an elbow cracking a tender collarbone are all captured and served on brushed-steel platters.
While that takes care of your percussive needs be prepared for some snatches of speech that are World-in-Action grim/red-light district grotty. They add a dark heart to the bleak, fractured blasts of twisted noise rumbling under the surface.
Available now from their intriguing blog/news/update site.
DR:WR – Trippin’ Daggers Inner Skull Metal Blade Musique
This is one of them discs that doesn’t like to sit about too long. It’s itchy, it’s twitchy and keen to get up, pogo, lie down, roll on the floor and pretty much do everything in its power to grab your attention. This is just the sort of slap I need from time to time. Sure…I’ve got the patience for a 50 minute plus drone workout but I often favour the sugar-rich rush of folk who just want to jam an idea, stop, re-set their equipment, than jam another as quick as silver.
DR:WR have an attention solution. And so in that very spirit I’m going to write this as each track plays. No filler or bumf. No navel gazing or theorising. Just first impressions hammered home on the keys as quick as these folk make ‘em.
Mung Crow: Guitar scree played in forbidden harmonics. Lumping beatbox high with cowbell and handclaps.
Hyper Tile: Super-burnt-electrics ripple like hot water then turn to freezing Napalm.
Lumbargo Extraction: The sort of beat Basic Channel reject for being too out-there played in the dark…no lasers!
Blood Rental: Fizzing electric squid.
City Storms: Oi Eno? Is this what you’re up to these days? Ambient for the terminally uneasy. Seagulls solo. The cliffs crumble in slo-mo.
Sherbet Delay: Tubular Bells heard through the chill-out room door. A 4am vibe when my nerves are shredded by 16 hours or drum & bass and … I drift … slowly … … off.
There you go. An instant reaction to this frothy disc just champing to be played. You’ve got some time don’t ya? I urge you to click here for this and more speedy enlightenment.
—ooOoo—
eye for detail: a long month passes quickly
November 2, 2014 at 10:09 pm | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, nick allen, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
It is now a month since eye for detail, the midwich remixes album, was released as a Bandcamp download. In that time there have been 35 purchases and well over a thousand plays of the individual tracks. More than £150 has been raised for The Red Cross as a result. I can only repeat how grateful and touched I am to those that contributed and to those that have supported it. Keep spreading the word.
Now that a little time has passed some critical reaction has started to bubble to the surface. Opinion first popped into being via Twitter, of course, and friends of RFM like Miguel Pérez and Paul Watson used their 140 characters to praise favourite pieces. Others have stepped out of the limelight to send me personal emails, such as the enigmatic Daniel Thomas. Paul Margree posted a welcome summary over at We need no swords – grinning and shrugging at the enormity of it and shooing his readership in this direction. Andy Wild has played extracts on the 81st edition of the Crow Versus Crow radio show too. The ‘scene’ has rallied around in a most heart-warming fashion.
Further to the above I have also, amazingly, had not one but two track-by-track accounts sent to me. The first of which is a collection of one-liners from the over-clocked, fizzing metaphor engine that is RFM’s own Joe Murray, the second a lengthier effort from my friend Nick Allen.
Joe needs little introduction but Nick is a new name here. We have been friends and work colleagues for many years. He is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic music fan and a frequent gig-goer but is by no means a noise head. He has listened in a tolerant, amused and open minded manner to me gabbing on about it all the while we’ve been sat in an office together and has done me the courtesy of coming to see me play live at Wharf Chambers. In return I have suffered no worse than occasional piss-taking which I consider fair exchange. Being a good sort he donated a tenner to the cause and, after dipping his toe in once or twice, decided that he was going to spend a Saturday afternoon immersed: listening to the whole lot, in order and making notes as he did so. Blimey.
Both sets of reactions are posted in full below. Why not open the eye for detail Bandcamp page in another window and listen along as you read?
Oh, and finally, Nick is an occasional writer of poetry and the combination of a glorious Yorkshire sunrise experienced whilst listening to the track by ZN inspired him to write ‘Juego de la Luz’ – also posted below. Should you enjoy it, Nick has a terrific 32 page, A6, self-published booklet of his work (called, with admirable brevity, ‘Poems’) available for nowt much so email him at the address at the foot of this post and make arrangements. I’m on my fourth copy because I keep wanting to pass them on to others I think will be interested – high praise.
First up – Joe:
Various Artists – Eye for Detail (The Midwich affair)
Micro-reviews/descriptions/impressions of each piece from the Now That’s What I Call Midwich smash hit.
Dale Cornish – Management. Hissing clicks like freshwater shrimps gone loco. Wonderfully sparse.
Aqua Denta – Natural Wastage. A glassy shroud wrapped round a tin body. After time rusty horns blow.
In Fog – Verdigris. A Mynah Bird enrols at IRCAM. This is her final project (informed by heartbreak).
Dsic – Procedures. The gods throw road mending equipment through a black hole.
Clive Henry – Witch Mania, Mend Gem. Scrabble tiles become sentient and form one-note Tangerine Dream tribute act.
Brian Lavelle – Slowly, we illuminate future truths. New Star Wars theme slowed down 1000 times.
Van Appears – Molluscs. Undersea skat. SCUBA improv. Oxygen/Nitrogen mix set to high
AP Martlet – New Plateaus. Elegy for out-of-date School Atlas (circa 1951).
Foldhead – Glacier. Super minimal like pink frost.
Chrissie Caulfield – oTo T50. A sharp intake of robot’s breath. Klezmer exhale.
DR:WR – Left Unresolved. Prison riot as heard through battered brass ear-trumpet.
Hardworking Families – Be to under weather to be. Sunshine distilled into individual waves, pickled then shook in a jar.
John Tuffen from Orlando Fergusson – Weather to be Under. As above but dubbed like On-U Sound.
Panelak – Irnwrks. Chipped-crockery-core! Salty blood runs over teeth staining them pink. Sharp to the touch.
Simon Aulamn – Too Early. A spitting porpoise (of course).
Paul Watson – Midwich. Sneak into the chapel. Stuff the organ pipe with potato. Hit the keys for chips.
Posset – A Moment of Stillness. Dictaphone frottage in Lovecraftian word jam.
The Piss Superstition – tinymuscle. The Detroit mass transport system scored for bic pens and pocket fluff.
Michael Clough – Left Unresolved. Thomas Tallis jumps in the Tardis and demands sexy-android motet.
Neil Campbell – MidwichMIX. Sly Stone comes round to polish yr Horsebrasses? Beware excessive Brasso fumes.
Devotionalhallucinatic – August in Ribblehead. Severe throttling. Barbed Wire snogs. Not a great first date.
Michael Gilham – oTo T22 Part II. Tractor beam vibrations, asteroid mining, dirty spacecracft.
Daniel Thomas – Striking Flint. Cast Iron Cello rubbed till the rivets pop out.
Breather – Floating. The real Pirate Radio material…stick that up your Skinner!
Yol – Stoma 2. Real-live stutter gob vs Jojouka horns (acid remix)
ZN – La Industria De La Luz. The Museum of Misery opens its doors. Churning machinery whirrs inside with dismal efficiency. In your pocket, an invitation…
Andy Jarvis – Bosky. Shit. Wish I’d thought of this. Pure vocal drone like some Pandit Pran Nath dude. Heavy vocal sludge gets more and more looped and freaky. God damn perfect!
—ooOoo—
OK, that’s that for Joe, over to Nick:
I know almost nothing about this music – so here goes – I have had one run through a week or so ago…in bits…when I picked out Cassie Caulfield and Michael Clough as early front runners, let’s see how they perform now its all in one sitting. It is 1.30pm on Saturday 18 October, press PLAY and let the spontaneous prosody begin:
Management – Dale Cornish
static bursts or restrained pissing…something frying long pauses…a message not reaching me
Natural Wastage – Aqua Dentata
outside…natural atmospheric background…perhaps a distant motorway…higher scratchings…spirals…low-level tinnitus…flying saucers from Plan B from Outer Space…an itching…something more coming into view…more solid…almost expect the screen to wobble a la transportation device of sci-fi TV…nevertheless a peaceful embracing enveloping atmosphere…also something of Sunday morning church bells (I can hear my dishwasher in the background glugging a rapid beat)…entering bat territory…higher higher pitch…like listening to a Turner painting, hearing colours…inside a sensory depravation tank with my eyes open…pulsing…meditative…a note, sustained…riding over, riding over…a crashed car with the horn jammed…a ferry…pulled out of calm…fade…stop
verdigris – In Fog
accidental musicality…placid…measured…sounds like a workshop…with an insect trapped…a guide bell…a mood reminiscent of the White Lunar album (N Cave and W Ellis)…fitfull/restful
Procedures – dsic
clamour…clamour…irregular jerking clamour…opening different doors in an industrial factory one after the other…working with the caffeine to increase heartbeat…I can’t help wondering why…space invaders!…and then a drill…all sent to annoy…some pre-recorded music and bleeping…finished and not sad
witch mania, mend gem – Clive Henry
digging, chipping…low backdrop…the sound of an insect invasion, walking…bricklaying…nothing restful…constantly constant…to a whistledown stop and something…walking on bubblewrap (question mark)…wet finger on a glass rim…paranoia perhaps…this could hurt…two apparently unrelated soundtracks…converging on an incoming tide…the hurricane winds battering the wooden window boards in downtown Florida somewhere
Slowly, we illuminate future truths – Brian Lavelle
revelation, and the clouds part…for the first time I close my eyes…a wider picture…within…too calm to be euphoric…there is a place, there is a place…boats passing boats, unseen – that’s something from Apocalypse Now, I’m sure…
Molluscs – Van Appears
Headunderwaterlistening…high tide perhaps…recorded dolphin speak but the voice has been disguised to protect their identity
New Plateaus – ap martlet
pressure build…irritation…a white noise box to mask traffic and city clamour…in a block of flats above an urban motorway, the JG Ballard flyover, and from the balcony you watch the lights swing following the same path, following the same path, lighted traction from the darkest fraction…a city in all its horror and glory…follow the red lights bead…the blinking white lines…sodium…it must all lead somewhere…repetition, the flow, of repetition…dementia…fractures our habits…the neverending nightcity hum…enter the void…there is a darkness beyond…still falling or climbing, hard to tell…exposure…try not to blink…water pressure builds…the last lost signal is broadcast – END
glacier – foldhead
less glacier, more fog, sea fret…immersion and low frequency vibration…soothe…calm intention…passed through some kind of body scanner…observed…minutely…for some reason whales come to mind…perhaps their song…I see in greens and blues…the Sea of Tranquility is green and bottomless and calm…adrift…dreamlike…slumber beckoning…sleep phantoms loom and pass harmless, soft creatures of the deep withstanding enormous gravity, eyeless blind…take an age, we grow…to achieve
oTo T50 – Chrissie Caulfield
outside or wind or…something landing…musical, structural almost a rhythm…there is a Who intro keyboard, slightly…violin-ish…and then cello…trepidation…a sense of lurking…before the trauma…Hitchcock’s Psycho…and so of course, blood in water…some message tapped out
left unresolved (short) – DR:WR
too many voices calling…cannot pick out a thread…interwoven…a sense of cacophony controlled…layers…no structure but mass…diminish…what will happen…
Be To Under the Weather to be – Hardworking Families
the start, the keyboard, the looping beat, then the skip, move up, shape, an invitation to dance, and to risk a beat, this is the dance track, played backwards, beats meet you out of sequence causing surprise, call and refrain, where are the horns, playful, happyhappy, repeatedly running towards me smiling in the video, definitely a song for spring not autumn
Weather to be Under (five is the number he is bounteous) – John Tuffen from Orlando Ferguson
Ibiza choon…arms waving through lights…risings…sunrise…this could pass for euphoria in a bleak world…where next though where next out of the loop…some scattered thoughts fleet and dash before being grabbed and harnessed…and so the loop, ever on, ever on with the loop…mobius sound…within sight of the place we started…zone in zone out…not boredom but the same effect of inattention…the focus is shattered…no, something softer than shattered…but the centre is nevertheless lost in all the rounding circularity…spirals…concentrated meandering always tethered…I’d like my drugs now please
Irnwks – Panelak
flckng rd sttns…nny nny…no pleasure to be had…Alex in Clockwork Orange had his eyelids pinned open…watching someone operate on a broken bone in your leg in your leg because they forgot the anaesthetic…followed by indecision…not unhinged, just hingeless…why would you…
remix of Midwich’s Too Early from Every Day is the same – Simon Aulman
(at 3 minutes this is the Ramones remix)…channelling paranoia…from a bad bad place…do less…much less…a longed for beat stop
Midwich (Hangover mix) – Paul Watson
lethargic crepuscular start…moving with a heavy heart…a car door?…in darkness water dripping…ripples and swirls…open the hands over the mouth and close again childhood megaphones…movement…through a corridor…listening from inside a cupboard afraid of detection…muffle…hiding, stay hidden…steps overhead, steps overheard…feels like ghosts…when you’re unsure
a moment of stillness – posset
verbal verbal…muttered words overlaid an aural mosaic senseless confusion I hear treacle but this is not glutinous it shatters and cracks and loops insensible a moment of stillness is sought, is noted a moment of stillness a moment a moment it is brave and compulsive I imagine him rocking rocking rocking without stop without eventually reaching for the wall like an exhausted swimmer
tinymuscle – the piss superstition
something organic growing one of those slo-mo shots of plants shoots emerging…the remnnants of a dance loop…an antiquity…dust on the needle…laboured breathing, perhaps emphysema, with an oxygen tank by the side of the chair…old industry…with a light touch…a hope…I start to imagine Ian Curtis’ voice…I’m at a loss as to why…
left unresolved cakemix edit – Michael Clough
a spaceship’s groans as it flexes…who would hear it…is it instead the magnified groanings of our knees as we stand again, cartilage upon cartilage…nevertheless it is a wave of sound that seems to enfold in an understated calm…something derived from the element of things…not quite the Buddhists’ chant of Om…closer less ethereal…I am reminded of the alien goo in Under the Skin, that absorbs men, erections and all…which all seems a long way from “cakemix”…the bringer of peace?
midwichMIX – Neil Campbell
tuning up…layers…not yet distressed enough to be Sonic Youth…as if you were touching a piece of metalwork and hearing the vibrations at its atomic level…there is a cohesive harmony but it is hidden among the density…such weight…occasional shafts of light penetrate
august in ribblehead – devotionalhallucinatic
(I like Ribblehead)…adrummerinthedistance…is the foundation…scraping away (an old Jam song)…an element of something happening over there… a show, a performance to be watched, passively…completely immersive
oTo T22 – Part II – Michael Giliham
gently meditative…not quite pastoral…slowly lifting…could be an interlude…so much scope, so much space…allows steady breathing…we float…unhurried…nothing seems immanent…the Northern Lights
Striking Flint – Daniel Thomas
deep echo…slowed dub electronica…all about the pattern on the cardiogram caused by the waves…the repeat and the variance…the approach and the retreat…the search for the optimal point…benign hypnosis…there must be a centre…standing on the shore of an avatar sea…watching the lights on the boats…knowing that the unknowable teems beneath…shoals…that pulse in light…thin filtered light…all this submerged beauty…beyond reach…beyond…timetracklost of…
throating (stomaching) – Breather
(almost) feedback…return nourishment…non-stomaching…which is of course vomit…not a reflection on the sounds, which are gastric at best…push a gurgle through a re-verb…insistent like an alarm…bike horns, he asks unsure…pleasant enough without cramping…
Stoma 2 – YOL
This sort of noise in a supermarket would make you skip to the next aisle and vow to yourself that next time you’ll do the shop on line.
La industria de la Luz – ZN
(this was partially responsible for a poem on the first hearing; see end, Juego de la Luz)
builds and builds…slow accumulation…uncertain pressure…pushing…
something below…an expectation builds…waiting…a chrysalis splitting…no clear view yet…never quite in focus…yet intense…perhaps it is a birth…waiting for what…it is breathing, it is everything, it is repetition it is grind and it is the turning day…the sound of white light at the end of the tunnel…
Bosky (AJ vocal remix) – Andrew Jarvis
…and so the last one…tibetan monk chanting lost behind feedback… something bizarre…squalls over mutterings…vague sense of it being something from another time…or unearthly or uninterpretable…an outtake from the White Album…if I hear a scouse twang I’ll believe it…comes a point where a rock song could climb and take off…but instead it meanders and fades…never less than interesting.
…and we’re done – at 17.23 – off to Fanny’s.*
[*Editor’s note: Fanny’s Ale House is a pub in Saltaire near where Nick lives. I thought it best not to leave that ambiguous…]
—ooOoo—
Juego de la Luz
Awash,
The tentative dawn spills gentle and golden
Sweeping the valley like euphoria
This is what I imagine a warm wind
Would look like, or a heart in love
Rising behind the mass of Windhill
As if a great dam is breaching
Making shadow theatre silhouettes of the radio mast
Which lacks only sails to ride out to sea
And the great chimneys of the ex-factories
Blackly loom exclaiming their redundancy
The lambent air is still, the river’s skin
Lies un-nipped and un-blistered
This gold slips warm and soft along
The singing overhead cables
While the melting iron of Dali’s tracks
Lead the sliced eye to flattened horizons
What will today bring. I suspect
The attentive heron knows, the drifting swan
And the bolting deer locked in their moment of
Stillness, will both know. I am gently enraptured
By this timorous dawn, under whispering mists,
That offers a promise of transcendence
On arriving in the city I find
I no longer understand traffic jams
—ooOoo–
Nick Allen: Panic@6haroldplace.co.uk
eye for detail, paul watson and a giant cardboard cheque
October 12, 2014 at 8:40 pm | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
Regular readers and Twitter followers will know that the 1st of October saw the release of eye for detail – the midwich remixes album. This Bandcamp download comprises 27 tracks by various no-audience underground luminaries each refiguring some section of my back catalogue. It totals three hours and forty minutes in length and can be bought for the knock-down price of five pounds. All proceeds are being donated to charity. The album has garnered universal love since its birth – making it even better than a royal baby – and has already been hailed as the album of the year by no less an authority than the voices in my head. The total plays for individual tracks topped 1000 in ten days. Further details as to its genesis can be read here and notes on its release can be read here.
The cause I have chosen to support is The British Red Cross. You may be aware of the front line medical help they supply in disaster situations but may not be familiar with the global network they have for tracing missing family members, or the support they provide to refugees in accessing services and adapting to life in a new country. You can read about what they do here. It is vital work.
Paul Watson, best known ’round these parts as BBBlood, contributed a handsome mix himself and then went on to earn limitless karma points by enthusiastically badgering punters into coughing up. In return for his help I somehow agreed to make my initial donation of £100 via one of those giant cheques you see in local newspaper photo opportunities – handshake n’all. I have to admit to being tickled by the idea and thought I could pop into a Red Cross charity shop and have a bit of a laugh with the volunteers there. Alas, a little research revealed that The Red Cross do not have such a business here in sunny Leeds and, in fact, their only office is a refugee assistance centre. A visit was nixed immediately – I’d feel a right knobber interrupting this crucial work by prancing about with my sheet of cardboard.
…and yet I still really wanted to get the felt-tips out and had a giant box that bits of a bed had been delivered in down in the cellar. What the hell, eh? I’d make my fake cheque, my 18 month old son Thomas could be The Red Cross’s representative during a symbolic ceremony and I’d do the actual transaction online.
Here are the stats: 25 sales of eye for detail at the time of writing raising £136.23, removing Bandcamp and PayPal fees leaves a donation of £109.01 which was handed over electronically prior to this post being written. My thanks and gratitude again to all those involved and to all those who have donated money. The compilation will remain available indefinitely and I will continue donating future proceeds on a regular basis.
The cheque measures 20″ by 38″ (piss superstition CD-r included in picture above for scale) and is now for sale. If you’d like to own this historic document in return for a further donation I’ll look into posting it – get in touch.
The Ceremony in pictures:
Visiting dignitaries take their seats.
Thomas takes a few photographs himself whilst waiting for it all to begin.
The presentation! Thomas is amazed at this princely sum.
The ceremonial handshake – Thomas a bit unsure about the etiquette.
…goes for the fistbump first…
…then the full celebratory shake…
…then subverts custom by presenting his foot to be shaken too. Kid has flair.
Worrying (with some justification) that Daddy can’t be trusted with money he is eager to get it safe…
…so immediately deposits it in the Bank of Shove-It-Behind-The-Sofa. Daddy retires to the study to do the real transaction online. A job well done. Thanks to Anne for taking the photos.
—ooOoo—
‘eye for detail’, the midwich remixes album, out now!
October 1, 2014 at 9:22 am | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
Comrades! Light the bonfires! Blow those long, thin trumpets with banners hanging off ’em!
Radio Free Midwich is delighted to announce the release of eye for detail – the midwich remixes album.
About six weeks ago a passing comment on Twitter was tossed over the chalet balcony and started to roll down the mountainside. The resulting giant snowball crashed through the doors of my back catalogue and, within hours, a happy band of looters was ransacking the vault. An album was retroactively called into existence with a deadline and a charity cause adding some ‘oomph’ to proceedings. The cut off was the 30th September, the release date today. Such is the unfettered power of the no-audience underground.
I have been delighted with the number of responses, the enthusiasm with which contributors embraced the task and the breadth, quality and imagination shown in the submitted tracks. The artists featured represent a (partial at least) cross section of the ‘scene’ this blog reports on and the gathering of the clan has reminded me, more than once, of the ridiculous oTo tapes project I oversaw a decade ago (indeed, check out the title of Michael Gillham’s track – dude also has a long memory). It has been extremely flattering and morale boosting to see such art inspired by my own meagre output. I am humbled but beaming.
A few words about the album itself. There are 27 tracks in total and the combined running time is over three and a half hours. The artists included are (deep breath):
Andy Jarvis, ap martlet, Aqua Dentata, Breather, Brian Lavelle, Chrissie Caulfield (of RFM faves Helicopter Quartet), Clive Henry, Dale Cornish, Daniel Thomas, devotionalhallucinatic, DR:WR (Karl of The Zero Map), dsic, foldhead (Paul Walsh – who accidentally started it all), Hardworking Families (Tom Bench), In Fog (Scott McKeating of this parish), John Tuffen (of Orlando Ferguson), Michael Clough, Michael Gillham, Neil Campbell (Astral Social Club), Panelak, Paul Watson (BBBlood), posset (Joe Murray also of RFM), Simon Aulman (pyongyang plastics), the piss superstition, Van Appears, Yol, and ZN.
Phew, champion line up, eh? I have made a stab at organising a coherent running order but please feel free to chop and change according to your own mood. Over such a long time, and with so many different styles in play, some juxtapositions are going to grate for some listeners. I have done a little light-touch mastering – mainly just amping up a couple of tracks – but not much, most tracks are presented as they arrived. There are some variations in volume but SO BE IT – no unnecessary compression/loudness war crap here.
The cover photograph was donated by Michael Clough and I encourage all readers to regularly check his tumblr site for a stream of similar observational genius. The download includes a portfolio of a further seven photographs from Clough to accompany the release. Also in the bonus items is a document listing links to further information about the featured artists and, where possible, links to the midwich material that was the source for their track.
Finally then: the cause. It seemed appropriate to me to make this a charity release and chose the Red Cross as the beneficiary. You may be aware of the front line medical help they supply in disaster situations but may not be familiar with the global network they have for tracing missing family members, or the support they provide to refugees in accessing services and adapting to life in a new country. You can read about what they do here. All proceeds from this album will be heading their way.
—ooOoo—
thrashing circumstance: self-released by dr:wr, forgets, orlando ferguson, luminous monsters and garland fields
April 16, 2014 at 7:20 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: dr:wr, drone, electronica, forgets, garland fields, guanoman, improv, john tuffen, kroyd, luminous monsters, megawhat recordings, mitch, namke, new music, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, psychedelia, the zero map
DR:WR – Zamage: Music For Party (self-released download)
forgets – reasons based on our thrashing circumstances (self-released download)
Orlando Ferguson – O! What hath man wrought? (self-released download)
Luminous Monsters – On Rubied Talons (self-released download)
Garland Fields – Schizophreniclustercadence (self-released download)
I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: this ‘self-released download’ business is punker than punk. It is now possible, via services like the all-conquering Bandcamp, for anyone to present any sound at all to anyone else. Admittedly the means of production have not been seized entirely – we still need the internet, which is far from universal, and those banks of servers hosting The Cloud are not owned by a vegan co-op – but compared to the advances punk made in democratizing the creation of art and music this state of affairs is flat out anarchy. No one is listening, of course, but that isn’t the point – this is a qualitative change that we (well, oldsters like me) are still marvelling at. In celebration of all this freedom here are some glowing accounts of items I have been pointed at, *ahem*, ‘recently’…
DR:WR – Zamage: Music for Party
First then, a two track download from the school of The Zero Map. Firstly, ‘Wooden Flesh’ (reminds me of my entry to a ‘make up your own Channel 5 shock doc title’ contest: ‘The Boy With Wooden Legs… But Real Feet!’) sounds like dawn in one of those 2D, day-glo chthonic realms visited by the Yellow Submarine. Creatures gibber and shake the undergrowth as their cartoon anatomies burble. The middle section takes on a hunted tension then, having breakfasted on each other, the improbable animals settle down to the pan-dimensional business of the day.
‘This is not Thesis’ has a greater urgency to it. A crystalline shimmer is sullied, smeared as insistent ticking (at first) then a low end throbbing alarm (in the second movement) suggests there is only a very short amount of time left to defuse the suspect package – bristling with coloured wires – that no-one saw being delivered. If only you’d not spent your lunch break on the river bank eating magic mushrooms, eh? Luckily the only thing that happens when the big red LED counter gets down to ’00:00′ is that a little flag unfurls with the word ‘BANG!’ printed on it and we can all enjoy a pleasant come down.
forgets – reasons based on our thrashing circumstances
Next is forgets, winners of ‘the band I feel most guilty about not mentioning in the 2013 Zellaby Awards award’. Their latest recording – a raw, rehearsal room mix that demands volume and attention – features prose poetry from Kroyd over the improv noise guitar of Mitch, as expected, but also has some instrumental interludes reminiscent of the duo’s free rock incarnation Bluejay Neutrons too.
I find Kroyd’s storytelling to be hypnotizing. The dourness and despairing humour of his observations are perfectly relayed by the rhythm of his delivery and underscored by Mitch’s post-apocalyptic (well, that’s how it feels in some parts of Leeds on a rainy weekday afternoon) chang. At their most effective the poems bring on a kind of existential panic. Kroyd is not content: he realises that his ability to document the cruelties and absurdities of life does little to mitigate them. Being able to feel is not necessarily a survival trait. In fact, to see clearly can be a debilitating disability. So why not blur that vision with drink and rage and wry self deprecating humour, eh? I think Kroyd might be a hero of a strange sort and Mitch is either his therapist or his enabler depending on the shifting mood in the room.
This is not an easy listen but I recommend it, as I do the rest of their back catalogue.
Orlando Ferguson – O! What hath man wrought?
Boy, have I come late to this party. I’m hoping a cheesy grin and a blue plastic bag full of cans is going to get me past the doorman… Orlando Ferguson is a York based duo: John Tuffen and Ash whose-surname-I-don’t-know. Long term midwich fanciers may recall John’s beautiful techno album available from namke communications which I released on fencing flatworm recordings, or perhaps his own artfully packaged micro-label minimism. A decade, and several regenerations (see: neuschlaufen), later John got in touch to alert me to this new project. I was delighted to hear from him but, within minutes, had lost the file down the back of the harddrive and, minutes after that, forgot about it. That was months ago – shame on me. Something, possibly guilt at missing their recent Hogwash show here in the beautiful garden city of Leeds, got me rummaging around and I’m very glad that I did.
Orlando Ferguson was, I am told, a late Nineteenth Century advocate of Flat Earth theory and created a very beautiful map, decorated with bible quotations and jibes at fancy-pants science types, in order to disprove all that globe nonsense. Given that the band is named for such a character, its histrionic title and the defiant running time of 48 minutes for a single track you might expect this album to be epic, idiosyncratic and to have serious courage in some entertainingly wonky convictions. You would be right on all counts.
Put simply: this is a long, involving, proggish, psychotronic ritual which, despite its grand spaciness, remains admirably disciplined throughout. Yes, there is scouring, splintering guitar but it never gets noodly or aimless – riffs have an effective tech/kraut simplicity. Found sounds – some Foley work with bits of metal too – give the piece a grounded, located feel which I appreciate whilst voices gurgling and spitting keep the angelic host tethered to the altar. Its overall success is a product of John and Ash’s balls-out confidence – this was performed live at a noise show where sets are generally half this length – and obvious faith in their work. Great stuff. I now discover there are seven releases available via their Bandcamp site, all of which can be had for a mere couple of quid a throw.
Luminous Monsters – On Rubied Talons
When Matt of the inexplicably named guanoman emailed to plug his new Luminous Monsters album the description had me bouncing in my chair with anticipation:
Five tracks ranging from delicate near-silence to raging psychedelic noise, via heavy drone and the customary ham-fisted approximations of Middle Eastern modes.
Oh, Matt you smoothy – you had me at ‘ham-fisted’. I jest, of course, but it did sound custom made to fit these sorely mistreated ears. So it has proved – I like this album very much indeed.
We start with ‘The Kundalini Engine’. Imagine a great master of gamelan has died unexpectedly in the night. The following morning his shocked students gather to play a tearful, heartfelt tribute. A background buzz of sympathetic electronics and a swell of crystal guitar are entirely appropriate and poignantly represent the fragility of it all and the nearness of the spirits that day.
Next, ‘Tears of a Shoggoth’ sees an example of Lovecraft’s terrifying, amorphous, slave race summoned by a strangely faceted purple crystal and imprisoned in the dome of a mosque. An almost instinctive folk memory is awakened in the frightened populace and, on a moonless night, they surround the building with torches and play music – anything to keep the thrashing, furious animal inside.
Regarding ‘Coils of the Doxic Host’ I was recently asked what it is I am currently looking for in music and, without thinking, I replied ‘low end with sprinkles’. Plenty of that here. A satisfyingly full drone calls to mind a giant cauldron full of boiling caramel. The witch tending this delicious but lethally hot concoction is killing time by improvising on a miniature hand-held church organ.
‘Of Smoke and Sinew’ and ‘Wrath of the Tyrant Sun’ could be parts one and two of the same adventure story. We start with guitar shimmer, a heat haze over the desert sand, then – drama – a truck full of excited men with shovels arrives. They leap out and throw themselves into the task of uncovering a giant hatch that, according to the chap holding the map, is the gateway to a nameless underground city. Once opened, the gathering storm above and the hot, unnervingly breathy, wind coming up from the blackness below suggests the whole business has been a very bad idea indeed…
A cracker. Sadly, I think you’ve missed the pre-release opportunity to swap a free download from Matt for a hand-drawn picture of a monster (charming, eh?) so you’ll have to pay actual dough for it but, at three quid, this is a steal.
Garland Fields – Schizophreniclustercadence
Finally then, the above. This is officially on a label, Megawhat Recordings (I can’t decide whether that name is teeth-grindingly cheesy or some kind of Oi! genius – might be both), but as all the ‘acts’ gathered under this umbrella are incarnations of the same bloke, Robin Foster, this definitely counts as self-released. Robin presented this to me with all the enthusiasm of a kid being ordered by the playground bully to light a banger pushed into some dog shit:
I hope at the very least my music doesn’t repulse you too greatly.
…he said and who can resist such a persuasive hard sell? Luckily, not me. The release comprises one 20 minute track of trilling electronic noise. On first listen it appears to be a shipping container full of panic-stricken R2D2s short circuiting as an anti-droid luddite hoses ’em down. Which is good, obviously, but further listens reveal quite a lot more going on. Fans of foldhead’s gurning squawktronics will enjoy the struggle as flopping, squashed sounds try to right themselves whilst a malfunctioning gravitational field hurls everything arse over tit. Good fun. I shall investigate this guy’s work further.
—ooOoo—
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