this is true: rob hayler on ‘nothing’s good’ by duncan harrison
March 26, 2019 at 11:08 am | Posted in no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: duncan harrison, index clean
Duncan Harrison – Nothing’s Good
Index Clean, IC-011
CD edition of 100 or download, 3 tracks, 37 minutes
This fair stopped me in my tracks it did. For a few days I had it on repeat, listening intently to the content, noting the transitions and juxtapositions, transcribing the spoken ‘verse’ so I could read and reread it whilst tapping a pen thoughtfully against my ample forehead. I realised I was approaching it like a puzzle, an academic exercise – which always risks killing art stone dead – but I was powerless to stop. Then: a breakthrough. One night I dozed off with it playing and woke in the morning, headphones on the floor, to find the following three words written on a notepad I keep on my bedside table:
‘This is true’. My hand, no recollection of writing it, bang on the money. But I get ahead of myself…
Nothing’s Good is a short album comprising three substantial tracks (‘Are You Angry?’ 15 minutes, ‘A Good Night’ 14 minutes, ‘Its Blinking Torture’ 8 minutes) by Brighton-based artist and radiofreemidwich favourite Duncan Harrison. The first two tracks are collages given overall sense by a vibe clarified in the third. We have clockwork mice skittering in erratic circles, an ogre’s snoring heard from the base of the beanstalk, stretching and scraping as unsecured chandlery rolls round the deck of the Teignmouth Electron, kids throwing stones at an allotment greenhouse or a borderline alcoholic convincing themselves that staggering to the bottlebank counts as a ‘breath of fresh air’, a comically slurred interlude about a neighbour’s fondness for Metallica, spiralling loops of distressed organ drone – as fucked as a dropped kaleidoscope, theatrical coughing and some bad-ass table-top electronics: fury interspersed with silence.
But this is just me gabbing on, eh? I’m gently reminded that it is rude to talk over the music by ‘Its Blinking Torture’ which pulls all this back to the actual setting: two people sat at right angles to each other at a kitchen table… but miles apart. After an initial traumatizing squeak – a luggage trolley? A faulty appliance coming to the end of its cycle? Stuck between carriages on a packed commuter train? – the track is largely pregnant pause punctuated with sub- or near-vocalisations, barely audible hiss, looped whine and sproing. This acts as a bed/surround for a prose poem, repeated, in which Duncan describes meeting an antagonist, their relationship fractious, positions entrenched, and expresses concern about where he perceives they are headed. I’m not quoting it because I want you to listen and form your own interpretation. Suffice to say it is succinct, evocative and smart enough to invite serious thought as to its consequences.
Listening to this refigures what has come before. There is no need for my fairy tales and extravagant metaphors. The sounds used now seem entirely domestic – either sourced from the everyday or intended to convey the reality of living in a tricky situation. We walk on eggshells, we steam quietly (or not so quietly) with anger, we relish occasional moments of levity that are both a huge relief and a tragic reminder of what is slipping away.
The minimal cover art contains nothing but the title and the following two lines in italics:
an airport mobility aid. the ceiling and bathroom light.
a dismantled smart phone. the bus stop by Rose Hill Terrace.
I wonder if these items and this location were the sources of argument or the sources for some of the recordings. Easy to imagine both being the case and therein lies the genius at work here. Duncan has conjured a piece that is both satisfyingly ambiguous and specific enough to be highly relatable. Nothing’s good, in that doing and saying nothing can, temporarily at least and in these circumstances, divert our attention from the increasingly unavoidable conclusion that, in fact, nothing’s good.
This is true.
—ooOoo—
you thought festival season was over. you wrong! sheffield’s singing knives present a host of hot lickin’ cockles.
November 27, 2017 at 8:06 pm | Posted in live music, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: acrid lactations, duncan harrison, dylan nyoukis, f. ampism, giblet gusset, happy birthday, historically fucked, joincey, jointhee, katz mulk, kieron piercy, luke poot, posset, singing knives, sippy cup
F.Ampism
Dylan Nyoukis & Kieron Pirecy
Sippy Cup
Giblet Gusset
Historically Fucked
Katz Mulk
Posset
Acrid Lactations & Jointhee
Luke Poot & Duncan Harrison
Beards and gals at a loose end on Saturday 2nd December are invited to hop the train, hitch a lift or bundle into a rusty van to attend Singing Knives clumper clam-bake of monumental proportions.
A batch of RFM favourites huddle together in a haughty scout hut to honk and bray their way through a mist of all day-drinking and goon-hatching.
Where? Regather, Sheffield, 57-59 Club Garden Road, S11 8BR
When? Saturday 2nd December
Like…I mean what time? Doors open at 3:30pm, and the laffs start at 4pm
How much? £5 Not even a quid a band.
F.Ampism
“A jungle lushness drips through the recent work of Mr F Ampism. Thick and green, waxy and water-resistant each micro-collage is rich beyond our feeble senses; ethnic percussive loops wobbly like belly fat, environmental recordings gurgle as algae-thick rivers, electronic squirts gush tessellated digital foof. It’s a sound you can smell and that smell is pregnant and full.” RFM
LP just out on the ace Ikuisuus label of Finland, but of course you know that already.
Dylan Nyoukis & Kieron Piercy
“Dylan Nyoukis’ work exists on the fringe of contemporary avant garde art and underground DIY insurrection. As a leading light in the UK’s tape/CD-R scene, Nyoukis has long functioned as a rallying point for artists working to clear a space for original, non-idiomatic sound and feral performance modes.” Ubuweb
Kieron is in Spoils & Relics yeah and probably carries a blade. What more do you want eh?
Sippy Cup
A two person group; both ying to each other’s yang. Flim to their flam. Watch ‘em empty a box of clogs on a table and make the damn things dance. Total introversion, rattle, squark and dog toys. Leading lights, oof-architects Kate Armitage & THF Drenching may be involved.
Giblet Gusset
A new name on me but a quick youtube search fessed up a poorly lit scene of folk in masks moaning and rolling cigs. Sudden peaks of pure chuddering power swept through the scene (by now faintly blue) to punctuate the mossy fiffle and ripe broad cheer.
Historically Fucked
“A four way entanglement. It is trying to make short songs at-once but also to destroy them then too. It is about playing and laughing at playing, and it is about not doing either of those things sometimes. Sometimes it is to do with talking, howling or grunting, and sometimes it is to do with hitting and rubbing. It has to do with some of the four people who do it, who each share the same duties, and whose names in sequence are Otto Willberg, David Birchall, Greta Buitkuté and Alecs Pierce and who would like to be remembered by them, so that when they have finished doing this thing, their names carry on doing other things.” Anon
Katz Mulk
“A three piece experimental group based in Manchester made up of Ben Morris, Ben Knight & Andrea Kearney. Ben Knight is a singer, researcher and social worker. He also plays in Human Heads and publishes the Dancehall journal with Hannah Ellul. Ben Morris is a Musician and artist. He records solo as Lost Wax and is in the long running duo Chora. Andrea Kearney is a dancer and graphic designer.” Singing Knives
Posset
“From identifiable vox chop-up to finely-ground tape slurry, with the occasional non-larynx instrument wheeze to brighten the corners.” We Need No Swords
Acrid Lactations & Jointhee
“Joincey is the peripatetic originator of a multitude of solo projects and the member of more bands that if printed here, would make this paragraph seriously unmanageable […] Acrid Lactations are Stuart Arnot and Susan Fitzpatrick […] who one day had Joincey turn up whereupon they made some tea and recorded some songs. Twelve of them. Each one having a different resonance each of them giving me that esemplastic laminal improv feel. Whilst listening I wrote: the Stokie Shaman, gut ache improv, Sun Ra skronk, stories told by someone pretending to be a witch, silence, taut Hitchcock-ian soundtracks, spoken word question and answer sessions…” Uncle Idwal Fisher
Luke Poot & Duncan Harrison
Sheffield-based Strepsils abuser. Collaborations with the likes of Adam Bohman, Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, Blue Yodel, Ben Knight, Acrid Lactations, Chastity Potatoe, and Phil Minton’s gang of toughs. ‘I just listened to a bit that sounded like a pig pushing weights with a scotch egg in its gob.’ – Stuart Arnot
“Duncan Harrison hails from Brighton and his multi-pronged activities make him a man of diverse artistic peers, including TUSK favourites Ali Robertson, Pascal Nichols and many more. Duncan throws himself at sound poetry, tape use and abuse, electroacoustic improv and often more conceptual approaches. The trajectory of his sets is impossible to predict and can provoke as much aesthetic distaste and downright annoyance as they can pleasure, perhaps depending on how wide your mind is.” Tusk Festival
-ooOOoo-
the 2015 zellaby awards
January 8, 2016 at 11:24 am | Posted in blog info, musings, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: aas, alec cheer, ali robertson, alien passengers, andrew wild, andy crow, anla courtis, aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, bbblood, benjamin hallatt, blood stereo, bridget hayden, cardboard club, charlotte braun, chocolate monk, chrissie caulfield, claire potter, crow versus crow, culver, david chatton barker, david somló, delphine dora, dominic coppola, duncan harrison, e.y.e., expose your eyes, fake mistress, female:pressure, fort evil fruit, g.j de rook, giant tank, graham dunning, guttersnipe, hagman, hairdryer excommunication, half an abortion, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, ian watson, invisible city records, joe murray, john tuffen, joined by wire, jon collin, kay hill, kev sanders, kirigirisu recordings, know this, luke vollar, luminous monsters, macrowhisker, mantile records, marlo eggplant, mel o'dubhslaine, memoirs of an aesthete, midnight doctors, namke communications, no basement is deep enough, paul harrison, posset, power moves label, r.a.n, reckno, richard youngs, robert ridley-shackleton, rosemary krust, saboteuse, sabrina peña young, sam mcloughlin, saturn form essence, scke\\, shareholder, shredderghost, sindre bjerga, skatgobs, sonotanotanpenz, sophie cooper, steve lawson, steven ball, stuart chalmers, tabs out, the piss superstition, tom white, tutore burlato, va aa lr, whole voyald infinite light, winebox press, xazzaz, yol, zellaby awards
Hello friends and welcome to the 2015 Zellaby Awards and Radio Free Midwich end-of-year round-up. I’m very glad to see you. My apologies in advance to those long term readers expecting the usual introduction full of whimsical nonsense. There will be some of that, of course, but this year needs to be taken seriously and I’m going to start dark. Don’t worry though – spoiler alert – there will be joy and life-affirming redemption by the end: this piece is my It’s a Wonderful Life.
Firstly, it is not the job of this blog to comment on the wider world but aside from the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, our glorious future prime minister, 2015 was largely without hope. I wish you all good luck in navigating the coming End Times.
Personally, away from music, my year can be split into three four month long segments. For the first of these I was ill with non-stop, run-of-the-mill viruses. Nowt serious on its own but the cumulative effect of so many strung together – a necklace of snot – left me in a parlous state. My depression played cards with its fidgety cousin anxiety, waited until I was defenceless and then kicked in the door. The second four months were spent off work attempting to shift these unwelcome guests whilst maintaining a functioning family life. I’ve written about this debilitating effort elsewhere, no need for further details here. The final four months of 2015 were the tale of my recuperation and slow recovery following a change in medication and a breakthrough in both the treatment of my illness and my attitude towards it. After much grief, I left 2015 exhausted and resentful but hopeful that new ways of muzzling the black dog will allow me a lengthy period of peace and sanity.
When I was down in it, days, weeks even, passed when music seemed more trouble than it was worth. The list of releases submitted to RFM for review, plus other stuff that caught my bloodshot eye, became an untended vine cracking the panes of its greenhouse and desiccating the soil in its giant terracotta pot. I’d try to ignore it, slumped in my deckchair, but would be tickled awake by a tendril and look up to see something like Audrey II grinning down at me:
Or maybe one my colleagues – Joe, Chrissie, Sof, Luke, marlo – would arrive with a ladder, new glass, plant food, exotic orchids or intricate alpines to distract me, gawd bless ‘em. Looking back, I’m surprised at how often I actually did pick up the trowel – if only to wave hello, or whack Luke on the nose with it when I found him digging in the flower beds – and I’m quietly proud of maintaining this garden despite the inclement mental weather. During 2015 radiofreemidwich received approximately 32,000 visits – a new record. 93 posts were published, including the blog’s 500th, by half a dozen different authors. The most popular of which were last year’s Zellaby Awards and my no-audience underground ‘state of the notion’ address – most gratifying as both are heartfelt celebrations of the scene. Not bad, eh?
Now, at this point in the introduction I was going to get catty about my usual scratching posts, hit a few sacred cow arses with a banjo etc. but, looking down at the silted pavement and up at the grey sky, it’s clear that what the world needs now is love, sweet love – not smart alec remarks and passive-aggressive score settling. So let’s get the party started instead.
Here’s the rules: to be eligible in one of the following five categories this music needs to have been heard by one of us for the first time in 2015. It does not need to have been released in 2015. As the purpose of these awards is to spread the good news about as many quality releases as possible, should an artist win in one category they will not be placed in any of the others. I do not vote for my own stuff as midwich, nor any releases that I had a hand in (thus no Aqua Dentata on fencing flatworm – sorry Eddie). The team will avoid touting each others’ projects too – not because we care about conflict of interest (there isn’t any down here) but we do like to maintain at least a veneer of decorum. Aside from marlo, who has been nostril deep in PhD crap all year and thus didn’t feel qualified to contribute, the whole team has chipped in and I will be pasting their responses below. This year I am at least nodding in the direction of democracy when compiling the lists but, as editor, I am reserving final say. Don’t worry though – my dictatorship is benevolent and progressive.
Right then, time to pop some fucking corks…
—ooOoo—
Radio Free Midwich presents the 2015 Zellaby Awards
5. The “I’d never heard of you 10 minutes ago but now desperately need your whole back catalogue” New-to-RFM Award
Chrissie expresses doubts about the whole process then nails a perfect nomination:
I’m not much of a one for end of year retrospectives, forward is my preferred direction. Also I find it hard to compare music and place it in any sort of order. One day a particular piece or artist will be exactly what I need, another day it will have me screaming for the STOP button. Add to which I haven’t actually reviewed very much this year. Even when I found a (rather large, rich) niche to occupy I still take longer to complete a review than I’d really like. Still, I hate to disappoint, and I never miss a deadline so…
Even while reviewing one album, I couldn’t help mentioning tracks on other albums!
[Editor’s note: an extract from Chrissie’s review of Science Fiction & Horror Movie Soundtrack Collection: Strange Films of Sabrina Peña Young:]
‘Singularity’ is a whole Star Trek episode in miniature. It opens as an almost conventional, if nicely constructed piece of theme music, and gradually becomes something very much more. Going from the journey out, discovery of a possibly inhabited planet, then meeting an alien, trying to escape and the closing theme music again – a novella in seven minutes forty-three seconds! To be honest I’m pretty sure that that isn’t the actual narrative of ‘Singularity’ but I like to make things up as I’m listening and that idea seemed plausible at the time [Editor’s note: it’s the RFM way…]. What it’s really about is the rise of machine intelligence, of course; which is equally scary, possibly.
Joe speaks in italics:
Not for the first time, Serbia’s No Basement is Deep Enough label has pinned my lugs back and hotly tongued my ear. But this time it slipped a note in my pocket that read ‘G.J de Rook’ (but no phone number I notice!).
Gerrit’s considered gobble-de-gook on a and bla is the metallic-gravy I’m craving right now. The calm and pleasant gibber hits that sweet-spot of babies gurgling, a hummingbird’s gaudy thrum and the plastic pop of wrenched bubble-wrap. These are universal sounds; sounds enjoyed from the Mongolian deserts to the Seattle coffee-house scene. These are the sort of sounds we need to send into space – gaffer tape a CD-r to Voyager or something- for them bug-eyed overlords to ponder.
Although Gerrit’s wider discography is relatively thin and achingly expensive don’t worry readers, I have a plan in place to slurp slowly in discreet ‘o,o,o,o,o,oa,oa,oa,oa,eh,eh,eh,o,ooo,o-like’ sips. Think on.
Sof’s joy in discovery:
I heard and reviewed the album 3 by Sonotanotanpenz at the start of my Midwich employment and have since heard everything I can by them because, for me, they just tick all the right boxes. Cheers to Kirigirisu Records for pointing me in the right direction finding this stuff!
Luke forward/slashes:
Ben Hallatt – Kay Hill, scke//, KIKS/GFR – the sinister/minimal man, eerie urban horror with muted synth/tape work.
…and I say:
…that I haven’t had the wherewithal for the obsessive curiosity that usually makes it so easy and obvious to decide the winner of this category. I have a few interests bubbling under – that lovely, young Graham Dunning seems like an intriguing chap so maybe I’ll stalk him once I have the energy – but in the meantime I’m happy to to go along with Chrissie’s nomination of Sabrina Peña Young.
4. The “Stokoe Cup”, 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
Sof ponders:
I don’t think I have an answer for this one, I can only think of Delphine Dora who released four albums this year which to me seems a huge amount! I’m not really into musicians who put out so much stuff that I can’t keep up. It puts me off if I’m honest, I like small and considered bodies of work. [Editor’s note: a very practical attitude – and Delphine should definitely be on everyone’s list anyway.]
Chrissie scratches her head too:
I’ve not really reviewed enough to come up with a suitable nomination for this. Similarly for the label award. I was tempted to nominate Steve Lawson for the Stokoe cup but he might be rather too ‘big’ for that to be sensible now and also I don’t believe he’s ever been reviewed here [Editor’s note: he is and he hasn’t but, hey, s’up to you – it’s an indication of where you are coming from too]. However he does release a considerable amount of material and it is of quite an amazingly high standard.
No doubts from Joe:
We’re all renaissance men and women now eh? Fingers in various pies yeah? You’re a composer/performer, a curator, a thinker, an archivist, a broadcaster, a hard-assed critic and goofy listener, a publisher and promoter? Scratch the N-AU and we bleed like colourful skittles.
This is all vital and impressive for sure. But the real trick is to weave all those various roles together with a broader sense of ‘who you are’, a central-unifying-theme and aesthetic that’s as real as Westeros fantasy shizzle. So with the powers invested in me by the fabled ‘Stokoe Cup’ I hereby recommend Andy Wild, the Crow versus Crow guy guy, as an upstanding exemplar of unified vision, industry and purpose.
Not only is Andy releasing beautifully packaged CDs on the CvC label, he’s keeping us up-to-date with a set of paintings and photography. He’s had a one-man exhibition, “You’re Gonna Need That Pure Religion, Halleloo” in his native Halifax. He’s researched, presented and broadcast almost 100 radio shows and curated a bunch of special one-off sessions (like John Peel yeah). And all this strikes me with a look and a feel that’s unmistakably CvC and unified. Here’s an example: as Andy dug deeper into old blues records spindly hiss and burr appeared on the paintings (and in the exhibition title). The smeared photos mirrored the abstract sound of worn vinyl. The shows became looser, the voice deeper and the mood darker. Do people still do mission statements? If so, is ‘be beautiful’ taken?
Luke starts on a theme:
A tough one this year with the above mentioned Ben Hallatt and the incredible Stuart Chalmers. My vote, however, has to go to Robert Ridley-Shackleton: the Oxfam prince, the cardboard king. He keeps on peaking, inhabiting his own corner. In a just universe he would be on the X Factor panel: he IS pop.
…and I say:
Well, Joe makes a compelling case for Andy Crow there and since being born from an egg on a mountaintop the nature of Shackleton is irrepressible, but I’m handing the trophy to a familiar name and previous Zellaby award winner: Kev Sanders.
Whilst not quite reaching the Stakhanovite release rate displayed in 2014, his productivity remains alarming high, as does the quality of his work. I’ve not reviewed a great deal of it, nor much else released on his label hairdryer excommunication (this collection of haiku from September being my main engagement) but it has been an ever-present background radiation.
If you picture the year as an autobahn, one which I have been stalled beside, hood up, engine steaming, then Kev’s music is a series of electricity pylons running alongside carrying cables buzzing with an intensity that is somehow both bleak and comforting. I wish him well with his coming move to that London and look forward to a chance to catch up whilst he is otherwise engaged. Now, like a casino bouncer chucking out a professional gambler, I’m banning him from winning anything else for a while. House rules.
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award
Sof and Chrissie have a playground tussle over who gets to be teacher’s pet:
Sof: It’s no secret that Rob Hayler has had a rough year with his depression but his drive and passion for underground music has meant he’s kept up with this blog which I’m sure a lot of folks wouldn’t do under the same circumstances – fair play and respect to you!
Chrissie: At the risk of sounding like a spoilt kid sucking up to the boss, I’d like to nominate Rob for this award. In what has been a difficult year for him he’s hired three new writers, no small risk in itself, trusting our ability to actually deliver readable prose (well, in my case anyway) in usable quantities, not to mention editing it onto the blog in good shape and good time. He’s also put up with my erratic writing schedule and lack of enthusiasm to take anything off the review pile – preferring to go off on my own in a crusade to bring more female artists to the notice of our good and loyal readers.
[Editor’s note: it might appear shameless to include the above, and I admit it kinda is, but, as I’ve pointed out, it has been a tough year and I was touched. Let me have a little sugar, yeah?]
Luke picks an outlier:
Sorry gonna have to be Robert Ridley-Shackleton again [sings: “Return of the Shack! Here it is…!”]. A little quote from Robbie following a chat about tedious porn/bondage themes in noise:
To me noise is a positive thing, it fills my brain full of the joys. I don’t understand all the negative themes presented, to me it’s life affirming
Yeah baby!!!
[Editor’s note: R-Shack’s physical contribution to RFM is indeed notable as he sent copies of all his releases plus extra examples of his womble-on-ketamine junk art not just to RFMHQ but also personally to Joe and Luke too – a Knight of the Post.]
Joe rallies the troops:
As ever, I reckon this one belongs to everybody. Anyone that sent in a tape, clicked on a link, wrote a review, listened with intent, left a comment or gave a god-damn fuck. This one’s for you. It’s all of us that make this: writers, readers, editors…even you cynics (coz debate is good, yeah?). We’re all part of the oneness. No one hears a tree fall in an empty forest right?
…and I say:
Tempting as it is to fall into step and punch the air, nostrils flaring, there is an objectively true answer to the question and that is: Anne, my wife. Without her love, care and truly unbelievable strength this blog would not have continued to exist.
However, if we limit the word ‘contribution’ to meaning actual hands-on graft accounting for the endeavours of the no-audience underground then only one name can be engraved on this medal: Joe Murray.
Of the 93 posts published this year a huge proportion were by Joe and each of those usually contained reviews of numerous items sourced from far-flung corners of the outer reaches. Despite his hep prose poetry being the best music writing currently available – Richard Youngs himself described Joe’s review of his epic No Fans seven CD box set as ‘the definitive account’ – he is completely selfless in his unpretentious enthusiasm. He embodies the ethos of this blog.
[Editor’s note: hmmm… getting a bit lovey and self-congratulatory this isn’t it? Maybe I’ll rethink this category for next year <takes deep breath, dabs corner of eye> OK, on with the big gongs!]
2. The Label of the Year Award
Sof sticks to the point:
I’ve really enjoyed every release I’ve heard from Fort Evil Fruit this year, and most years, I think we must have the same taste in music.
Luke whittles on the porch:
Another tough one with old favourites like Chocolate Monk continuing to deliver the goods. However at a push it’d be Winebox Press, a fairly laid back work rate but always something to look forward to, can’t think of another label as aesthetically as well as sonically pleasing to me at least. Objects of cosmic power that’ll warm you from the inside out.
Joe’s takes a turn:
Let’s hear it for Cardboard Club. Why? For the dogged determination and other worldly logic of course. I have no idea what is going on in the disco/noise shire of Robert Ridley-Shackleton. All I know is that I like it, I like it a lot.
Robert’s singular vision is not so much outsider as out-rigger; a ghost on the pillion. The label spreads itself across media so the scrabbly zines, tape artwork and ‘pocket-jazz’ sound can only contain the RR-S, nothing else. But what made me giggle, what made me really smile was the recent move to vinyl. Some lame-o’s see the hallowed seven inch as a step up; a career move if you please! With that kind of attitude the battle is already lost and all ideals get mushed in ‘rock school’ production. None of this for our Cardboard Club… it sounds exactly the same! A hero for our troubled times.
…and I say:
Yep, all excellent selections deserving of your attention but, with hairdryer excommunication out of the way, I’m going to use editor’s privilege to share this year’s prize between two exemplary catalogues: Invisible City Records and Power Moves Label. Both are tape-plus-download labels based on Bandcamp, both have strong individual identities – in ethos and aesthetic – despite presenting diverse, intriguing rosters and both share impeccable no-audience underground credentials (PML’s slogan: ‘true bedroom recordings with delusions of grandeur’). It don’t hurt that the gents running each – Craig and Kev respectively – are polite, efficient and enthusiastic in their correspondence too. Anyone looking for a model as to how it should be done could do worse than sit at the front of their class and take careful notes.
[Editor’s note on the Editor’s note: yes, yes, I know that ICR re-released my epic masterpiece The Swift, thus making it the label of the year by default but I felt duty bound to mention it anyway. Shame on Tabs Out Podcast, by the way, for filling the first 135 places of their 2015 Top 200 with hype and industry payola. Glad to see sanity and integrity restored with #136.]
1. The Album of the Year Award
Chrissie kicks us off:
1. R.A.N
My first female:pressure review and the one I still listen to the most.
…not only are the individual tracks on this album good, but the ordering of them is exquisite. They follow on from each other in a wonderful, spooky narrative that runs smoothly and expertly from start to finish – the gaps between them allowing you to pause for breath before being dragged into the next hellmouth.
2. FAKE Mistress – entertainted
The opening track, ‘Appreciate the moment’s security’, will pull you in with its drama, heavy noise-based beats, spooky voicing and very punkish shouting but you’ll stay for the gentler opening of ‘You better trust’, intrigued by where it’s going. There’s harsh noise in the middle of this track and in lots of places on this album, but it’s never over-used. It’s here as a structural device to take you by surprise and drag you out of your complacency.
Luke casts his net wide:
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Self-Titled EP
Charlotte Braun – Happy Being Sad
Absurde, Chier – Absurde VS Chier
Skatgobs – Pointless
Blood Stereo – The Lure of Gurp
Alec Cheer – Autumn
Ali Robertson & His Conversations
Guttersnipe – Demo
xazzaz – descent / the crusher
VA AA LR – Ping Cone
Stuart Chalmers – Imaginary Musicks 3/4
Anla Courtis – B-Rain Folklore
S C K E / Kay Hill – Disclosure, TESSELLATION A/B, IN-GRAIN, Cold Title
Jon Collin – Wrong Moves / Dream Recall
Whole Voyald Infinite Light – Uncollected Recordings
Ashtray Navigations – Lemon Blossom Gently Pixelating In The Breeze
Melanie O’Dubhshlaine – Deformed Vowels
yol / posset – a watched pot never (no link – ask yol or Joe, they’ll sort you out)
half an abortion / yol – the designated driver
Shareholder – Jimmy Shan
[Editor’s note: blimey, eh? Luke also provided a ‘year in metal’ list too! Available on request.]
Sof’s impeccable taste displayed:
I’m going with Steven Ball’s Collected Local Songs which I reviewed earlier this year because it’s the one I’ve gone back to over and over, each listen revealing more to me. It’s such an original piece of work.
Originality is the theme of my list –
Saboteuse – Death, Of Course (this maaaaaaay, have come out last year!)
Bridget Hayden and Claire Potter – Mother To No Swimming Laughing Child
Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God
Guttersnipe – Demo
Rosemary Krust – Rosemary Krust
Sam McLoughlin & David Chatton Barker – Show Your Sketches
Delphine Dora – L’au-delà
Joe selects:
I fucking guarantee your serious music critics will moan and denounce 2015 as a fallow year for sounds. Fools! If you look around there’s an embarrassment of riches spilling out of the tape drawer, CD-r pile and download..er…folder?
I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable hurling my opinion of ‘what’s best’ around so, in the spirit of “non-competition and praise”, here’s what I’d play you right now if you were to pop round for sherry.
- yol – everyday rituals. When a record makes you run giddy for the Spanish/English dictionary you know something extraordinary is at work. You’re familiar with yol yeah? You’re not? Get a-fucking cracking pal. This is a truly explosive & genuine performance that makes your insipid rebellion look safe as milk.
- Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God. A super-subtle voice and tape work. What I love is the ‘too studio-fucked to be field recordings and too much punk-ass rush for fluxus’ approach. Natural and wonderfully blunted domestic, ‘Others…’ inhabits its own space – like a boil in the bag something served piping hot.
- Midnight Doctors – Through a Screen and Into a Hole. The merciless despot with a harmonium! Phil Begg’s steady hand guides a cavalcade of rough North East gonks through their paces to produce a timeless noir classic. It is equal parts soundtrack, accurate cop-show homage and mysterious new direction for tight-meshed ensemble. C’mon Hollywood… make that damn call.
- Shareholder – Jimmy Shan. Rock und Roll songs collapse in sharp slaggy heaps. Dirty explosions replace instruments (the guitar x 2 and drums) leaving us dazed in a no-man’s-land of stunning, blinding light and electricity. Ferocious and don’t-give-a-fuck all at once.
- Tom White – Reconstruction is tied, even-stevens, with Sindre Bjerga’s – Attractive Amplification. The world of violent tape abuse is one I follow avidly. But there’s nothing to separate these two outstanding tapes (of tapes, of tapes, of tapes). Both Tom and Sindre have the muscle memory and total mastery of their mediums (reel to reel and compact cassette) to wrench brown, sticky moans from the vintage equipment. It sounds belligerent, punch drunk and rum-sloppy to my ears. A perfect night out chaps!
…and finally, your humble editor:
Bubbling under: here are the releases that made my long list but not the countdown. Every one a cracker, presented here in alphabetical order to avoid squabbles breaking out in the car park:
Culver – Saps 76
David Somló – Movement
Delphine Dora and Sophie Cooper – Distance, Future
Dominic Coppola – Vogue Meditations
Hagman – Inundation
Hardworking Families – Happy Days
Ian Watson – Caermaen
joined by wire – universe allstars
Luminous Monsters – The Sun Tree
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Self-Titled EP
Saturn Form Essence – Stratospheric Tower
Shredderghost – Golden Cell
yol – everyday rituals
[Editor’s note: I also have to make special mention of Askild Haugland and his peerless recordings as Taming Power. I’ve received two (I think, possibly three) parcels from him this year containing his work, all the way from Norway, and these recordings always have a profound and meditative effect. Some of it, for instance the 7” single Fragments of the Name of God, could quite possibly be perfect.]
OK, right – ooo! exciting! – here’s the top ten, presented in traditional reverse order:
10. E.Y.E – MD2015
…and what a joy it has been to have Paul Harrison back in the fray! Yes, after over a decade new material from Paul’s Expose Your Eyes project was finally made available via his new Bandcamp label Eye Fiend – a repository for much missed Fiend Recordings back catalogue (Mrs Cakehead has to be heard to be believed) and digital versions of the new stuff which is otherwise only available in tiny hand-splattered physical editions.
MD2015 is a four CD-r, four hour and twenty minute set comprising discordant synth clatters, decontextualized chanting (familiar to anyone into first wave industrial music), beats: pitter, patter – galloping hooves – factory presses, intoxicating loops, delirium (remember that footage of animals drunk on fermented fruit? This is the OST to a bootleg version of The Lion King that features those orgiastic scenes), repetition beyond human endurance / irresistible motoric groove, ‘proper’ noise – all primary sexual characteristics out and flapping in the breeze, and sorbet-refreshing shortwave-radio-ish pulse. It is a lot of fun.
9. AAS – Balancing Ritual
Y’know when your favourite stoner rock band lay down a super heavy, half-hour long, ego-obliterating, tethered crescendo but it isn’t quite enough so you and a hardy group of the suspicious break into one of the spaceships of a seemingly benevolent alien race currently visiting Earth and discover this playing inside? Yeah? A version of the above but clinical, steely, a step up from our humble efforts. It’s like that and I, for one, welcome our new drone overlords…
Graham Dunning offered to send me a tape of this, I visited Bandcamp for a sneaky preview and ended up so impressed that I’d bought the download and fallen in love before my exhausted postie even delivered the jiffy bag. I can count on the fingers of no fingers the other times that has happened recently.
8. Duncan Harrison, BBBlood, Aqua Dentata – “Ineluctable modality of the visible”
What an excellent three-fer. Not only occupying a wholly justified place in the chart but giving me the opportunity to praise Paul Watson (BBBlood), Duncan Harrison (who’s Others Delete God tape, so highly praised earlier, shamefully passed me by. Did I ever own it? Did I send it to Joe in a moment of madness? Ah, who knows?) and Eddie Nuttall (who, as Aqua Dentata, is producing amongst the finest work on my radar). Here’s some extracts from marlo’s review:
…But, damn you, Duncan Harrison! The first track immediately gets me back in my academic head! ‘(Je suis) La Loi’ makes me think of psychoanalytical linguist theorist Julia Kristeva and deconstructionist scholar Jacques Derrida. The use of breath and physiological sounds makes the listening an embodied experience. The listener feels present. It is hard not to notice if one’s lips are dry or if you possibly had too many coffees…
…In ‘Nexistence of Vividence’, BBBlood returns to more of the crunchy reeling and wheeling and dealing. It is a typhoon that builds and waits. Never fully collapsing, the sounds peters out like attempting to catch water running through fingers. Yet there is an ethereal resolution to the struggle and the listeners are laid to rest, an aural wiping of the brow. Time to rest after the long haul…
…Eddie Nuttall, a.k.a Aqua Dentata, is not from this planet. I honestly don’t think he is. His music feels like extraterrestrial communication from outside our universe. Like binaural beats and subconscious interfering hypnosis, his untitled track sounds like it is made of laser beams. As a listener, you feel like you merge with the frequency and question your ability to make cognitive sense. It isn’t because of a reliance in bombarding one with several sounds but rather a direct cerebral invasion…
7. The Piss Superstition – Garage Squall
Joe reviewed this one in the shape of a UFO. No, I don’t know why either but it is absolutely bang on:
Mag-lev trains.
The very best form of bluster.
As gentle as breath on a mirror,
Predator’s Answerphone message
The Velvet Underground trapped in a matchbox.
A map! Hectares of featureless crystalline crackle – zoom into mountains,
A corduroy vibe; not geography teacher clichés but that ribbed softness – a tickle on the fingernail.
Ride the world’s slowest roller-coaster taking 1000 years, cranking the incline.
Forbidden Planet strained with nourishing iron-rich greens,
A dream-tractor changing gear on the endless road.
Immense power restrained by gravity
A hit of strong, clean anaesthetic,
I’m counting backwards.
10, 9, 8…
6. Stuart Chalmers – Loop Phantasy No. 1, No. 2, No. 3
Joe again, not sparing the superlatives:
…But this time I throw my regular Northern caution and cynicism out the window and claim these three recordings THE MOST IMPORTANT SALVAGED TAPE LOOP RECORDINGS EVER YEAH.
What? Like…ever?
I hear you ask.
Yes
I answer with a calm, clear voice.
Like in the whole 100 year history of recorded music?
You probe,
even including the oft- mentioned high- water mark of looping Tom Recchion’s Chaotica?
You add. I merely smile and press play on the device of your choice.
You must listen, you must listen to truly understand
I chant with glassy eyes.
Anyway… fuck yeah! That’s what I’m saying. If you want to know where looping is right now in 2015/2016: PLAY THESE RECORDS. If you are looking for an instructional map of what’s possible with simple tape loops, a couple of pedals and some hot ears: PLAY THESE RECORDS. If you want to open up that valve in your stomach that helps you release gaseous tension: PLAY THESE RECORDS…
…Students of tape culture – your set-text has arrived. Screw in those earbuds and get seriously twisted.
5. Ashtray Navigations – A Shimmering Replica
A beautiful album in every respect and an entirely life-affirming experience. Terrific to see Phil and Mel get such a high-profile, flagship release in what was a high-profile, flagship year for the band. I will have more to say on this in a long-planned article which will be published around the eventual release date of the long-planned best of Ashtray Navigations 4CD box set. Coming soon! In the meantime: buy this.
4. Melanie O’Dubhshlaine – Deformed Vowels
Likewise, Mel’s remarkable solo venture deserves a much more detailed account than it is going to get here. Via a kind of meta-semi-improv (or something?) she continues on her utterly compelling, largely unheralded project to reinvent music on her own terms.
I imagine a Dr. Moreau style musical laboratory in which Mel cares for her cross bred instruments, incunabula parping their first notes, joyfully interacting with the sentient automata Mel has created to entertain them with. She dangles a microphone over the giant aquarium tank in which they all live and conducts this unique performance.
Unlike anything else I’ve heard this year, or maybe ever.
3. Helicopter Quartet – Ghost Machine
A peerless work, even within the band’s own faultless back catalogue. From my review:
It is difficult to write about Helicopter Quartet, the duo of RFM staffer Chrissie Caulfield (violin, synths) and Michael Capstick (guitars), because their music is so enveloping, so attention seizing, that when I’m listening the part of my brain I use to put words in a row is too awestruck to function. However, following many hours with it, I am certain this is their best album yet. That a work of such mature beauty, sculpted over months, is freely downloadable is surely further evidence that we are living in a golden age for self released music. It has the austere and magisterial presence of a glacier edge, the drama of that glacier calving into the sea.
If you ever act on anything I say then act on this: go get it.
2. Guttersnipe – Demo
Wow, this kicked the fucking doors in. With this CD-r and a series of explosive live performances Guttersnipe owned 2015 – they were either your new favourite band or you just hadn’t heard of them yet. Luke got to review this one, here’s an extract:
Guttersnipe whip up a frightening noise on drums, guitars, electronics and howled vocals that will have you reaching for the light switch. The cassette fidelity smudges the freejazzmetalhaze into a fog of terror from which emerges the fangs of a gaping gob ready to bite you. I’ve been listening to a lot of black metal recently and these vocals could have the corpse painted hordes crying for their mama. However, they are not the guttural grunts of the alpha male but more a feminine screech of desperation and disgust which the other two respond to by conjuring a blackened and unsettled miasma. Calling this disc demo leads me to believe that Guttersnipe are selling themselves short. This is impressively original material that comes over like a Xasthur/Skullflower hybrid with a hefty slug of secret ingredient. Marvellous job.
Amusingly, and presumably because he hadn’t seen them live at the time, he seems to imply this duo is a trio – a testament to their ferocity (and my skills as an editor…).
1. namke communications – 365/2015
Finally then, the winner of the Zellaby Award for album of the year presented by Radio Free Midwich is, in an unusually literal sense, the album of the year: 365/2015 by namke communications. Here’s some context from a piece I wrote in March:
…old-friend-of-RFM John Tuffen, in a project which recalls the conceptual bloodymindedness of Bill Drummond (who has raised ‘seeing it through’ to the level of art form), is recording a track every day throughout the whole of 2015 and adding them to the album [on Bandcamp] as the calendar marches on … each track is freshly produced on the day in question and, as might be expected, vary enormously in style, execution and instrumentation – there is guitar improv, electronica in various hues and field recording amongst other genres welcome ’round here…
Indeed, added to various forms of (usually light and expansive) improv and field and domestic recordings of life’s ebb and flow were many forays into sub-genres of electronica, techno as she is written, actual *ahem* songs, drones of many textures, experimental sketches with software and new toys, callbacks, the odd joke (all tracks in February had the duration 4’33” following a twitter exchange with me) and so on and so, unbelievably, on. I can’t claim to have heard all of it – of course I haven’t – and there are misfires – of course there are – but the level of quality maintained is gobsmacking given the scope of the exercise.
Each track was accompanied by notes, most with a picture and then a tweet announced its presence too. John was no slacker on the admin – I approve. In March I suggested:
This one I have no qualms about dipping into, in fact I would recommend constructing your own dipping strategies. As the year progresses you could build an album from the birthdays of your family, or never forget an anniversary again with a self-constructed namke communications love-bundle. Won a tenner on the lottery? Create your own three track EP with the numbers and paypal John a couple of quid. Or perhaps a five CD boxset called ‘Thursday Afternoon’, in homage to Brian Eno, containing everything released on that day of the week? Or condense the occult magic with a set comprising every 23rd track? Ah, the fun to be had. Or you could just listen to it on a daily basis until it becomes a welcome part of your routine…
I was at least half-joking at the time but engaging with 365/2015 has proved a unique way of experiencing an album. During the worst of my illness, as I spent nights trawling Twitter unable to sleep, it did become a valuable part of my daily routine. Literally a light in the darkness – Bandcamp page shining on the tablet as I lay in bed – John’s project, existing due to nothing but his crazy drive to create (the whole thing, 40+ hours, available as a ‘name your price’ download!), truly helped me through. A clear and worthy winner.
In conclusion…
So, that is that for another year. John’s prize, should he wish to take me up on it, is for namke communications to have the one and only release on the otherwise dormant fencing flatworm recordings some time in 2016. A surprise baby sister, perhaps, for his lovely available from namke communications released by me back in the day and now (I think) a teenager itself.
Many thanks to my fellow writers and to all who support us – for your time, patience and enthusiasm – it is much appreciated. Heartfelt best wishes for the New Year, comrades.
All is love.
Rob Hayler, January 2016.
—ooOoo—
direct cerebral invasion: marlo eggplant on duncan harrison, bbblood and aqua dentata on tour
December 15, 2015 at 12:55 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: aqua dentata, bbblood, duncan harrison, marlo eggplant
Duncan Harrison, BBBlood, Aqua Dentata – “Ineluctable modality of the visible”
(self-released tour CD-r, edition of 60)
INELUCTABLE MODALITY OF THE VISIBLE: AT LEAST THAT IF NO MORE, thought through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs.
The title of the compilation, “Ineluctable modality of the visible” is a direct quotation in which the protagonist has just free associated, eventually entering into the subjective/objective questionable space. Perhaps that would be the best way to describe this convergence of the works of Duncan Harrison, BBBlood, and Aqua Dentata. Despite thinking that all three are righteous talented dudes, I think this title is a very clever framework in which to curate a collection. The title demands a questioning of the senses: what is the visible, or rather, what are the boundaries of the experience of vision? When an object is observed/witnessed, it exists outside of that experience. There is the form, what we experience in seeing, and the substance, what is actually sitting in front of us. This is an extrapolation of Aristotle who felt sound was different than vision: in the process of hearing and making sounds, a mixing of substance and form are more entwined and mutually reliant [Editor’s note: errm… blimey… if you say so]. Although I may be going a little bit off on a tangent here and letting my academic brain interrupt my appreciation of just a freaking good comp [Editor’s note: ah! Gotcha].
But, damn you, Duncan Harrison! The first track immediately gets me back in my academic head! ‘(Je suis) La Loi’ makes me think of psychoanalytical linguist theorist Julia Kristeva and deconstructionist scholar Jacques Derrida. The use of breath and physiological sounds makes the listening an embodied experience. The listener feels present. It is hard not to notice if one’s lips are dry or if you possibly had too many coffees. The repetition of the words ‘la loi’ meaning ‘the law’ provides the only semi-structure. It is loosely yet intentionally reapplied throughout the piece. I once saw Harrison do a performance at Splitting the Atom down in Brighton in which he stood uttering words barefoot on broken dishes. The tension of harm and presence was so intense. That’s what it is about the track. It has an immediacy to it. Almost like if Houdini were trapped in a room, struggling with a word puzzle. Using recorded voice and live improvisation, the piece feels historical like an old lecture. Maybe the whole thing is a nod to Trevor Wishart or Ellen Moffatt. Or maybe Duncan is losing his mind. Either way, I am sold on this track.
With the second track, ‘The Rye’, there is an experiment in what sounds like tape manipulation and mouth sounds. Great mini-silences and pace. What Harrison demonstrates here is a patience unafraid to allow disconcerted emissions. Metallic whirring transmissions, water flowing, movement sounds, shushing, scratching on surfaces, wind/inhale/exhale… layers and whistles. It is a great follow up to the text-sound playfulness of his first track.
Next up: BBBlood. Paul Watson, like Harrison, has explored different methods and techniques over the years and one can clearly hear his mixed genres spilling and building. I associate BBBlood with capital ‘N’ noise due to his early work or perhaps because of his epic 2013 Crater Lake set. In ‘Xinbad Rapid’, he erupts and flows into processes. You can see his love of patterns and repetition playing with more fully embraced samples. Despite the constant layering, it is not saturated. It still gave me the low ends and rumbles that this old grrl is a sucker for but with measured application. The track feels live yet framed. In ‘Nexistence of Vividence’, BBBlood returns to more of the crunchy reeling and wheeling and dealing. It is a typhoon that builds and waits. Never fully collapsing, the sounds peters out like attempting to catch water running through fingers. Yet there is an ethereal resolution to the struggle and the listeners are laid to rest, an aural wiping of the brow. Time to rest after the long haul.
Eddie Nuttall, a.k.a Aqua Dentata, is not from this planet. I honestly don’t think he is. His music feels like extraterrestrial communication from outside our universe. Like binaural beats and subconscious interfering hypnosis, his untitled track sounds like it is made of laser beams. As a listener, you feel like you merge with the frequency and question your ability to make cognitive sense. It isn’t because of a reliance in bombarding one with several sounds but rather a direct cerebral invasion. To call it a drone would be a disservice because it is mechanistically minimal in texture but complicated in its building. I cannot tell if the sounds are all intentional but my mind hears a widening of sensation and a pleasant obliteration. Nuttall does not back away from higher frequencies but does not accentuate their presence within the composition. I really like the way he uses volume in slight shifts. Sometimes the resonance makes my teeth hurt in the best way possible.
“Ineluctable modality of the visible” is an excellent comp with smart tracks. If one of my friends back home in the States were to ask me for a contemporary recommendation of an album of my favorite sounds in the UK, this would definitely be on the top of my list.
—ooOoo—
[Editor’s note: this CD-r was produced by the contributors to be sold at a trio of Northern dates last September. The run was mainly snagged by attendees. Perhaps you could try Electric Knife? Or did I hear Duncs say he had a copy or two still?]
psychedelic domestic: joe murray on karl m v waugh, duncan harrison, lost wax
April 28, 2015 at 3:08 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ben morris, chocolate monk, disillusion.dot.dot.dot, duncan harrison, field recording, improv, joe murray, karl mv waugh, lost wax, musique concrète, new music, no audience underground, noise, reckno, tapes
Karl M V Waugh – unnamed murk (coagulated detritus may 2014 – january 2015) (download, disillusion.dot.dot.dot)
Karl M V Waugh – Varnish Crease EP (download, disillusion.dot.dot.dot)
Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God (tape or download, Reckno)
Lost Wax – The Poacher (CD-r, Chocolate Monk, choc.304, edition of 60)
Karl M V Waugh – unnamed murk (coagulated detritus may 2014 – january 2015) and Varnish Crease
A lazy, taking a line for a walk, kind of listen. That’s no criticism readers. I’m loving this particular ramble with Karl; round the town, out past the betting shop and onto the Downs, chatting and shooting the shit as we wander.
These unnamed murk pieces are poor orphans (coagulated detritus indeed) with no home to go to. And for me that makes things all the more interesting. Are you telling me these pieces don’t fit into your soundworld Karl? Man…I gotta check out these oddballs – they are going to be the nuts.
The modus operandi remains classic K M V Waugh – an object or technique is picked up and fiddled with for a while and each possible combination of rubbing, striking, bowing and blowing rained down until all options are exhausted.
‘Bread Failure’ dances with some close mic rustle, jazz-gob, fake sine wave feedback loops and acoustic guitar fumble as crispy as an early 2000’s Usurper jam. ‘Close Net’ starts with a slo-mo rave synth trapped in a bathysphere; the two Navy SEALS having it large while contact with the surface is registered in day-glo Morse and trippy emoticons. Outside the Angler Fish get anxious with stress-harps. Blimey, Jacques Cousteau couldn’t get this low. ‘Nada Test’, the most lovely one of the lot, is an untutored, unconscious guitar/balalaika/mandolin (?) improvisation heavy on the Korean and Rembetika influences. There’s pure innocence in this playing, a passionate exploration and experimentation that’s scrabbling but at all times searching for a melody to grasp out of the clear blue sky. The last 2 minutes of this 21 minute piece add a slight distortion giving you a soft landing destination.
This mini-album, the wonderfully titled Varnish Crease, is an 18 minute smeared collage, a bold painting in Bovril hues.
Industrial grot (a malfunctioning PEZ dispenser perhaps?) and novelty dice dropped into a chunky whiskey tumbler form the base coat to KMVW’s meta-poetry. Like several porridge-slugged mouths reading their dreams simultaneously this has a head-fudge quality. Ever been lost in a crowd? This mimics that slight panic and claustrophobic feel exactly.
Wonk-hop snatches of sound are introduced like RZA’s all blunted on Funeral Dance Party; a South Coast One Wobbly Egg. In fact this whole crease has a real Cidershed feel with that slight tint of threat added to the vulnerability.
Essential listening for any young dream-voyager.
Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God
Pearls dipped in butter swirling round the palm of a brown giant. The slick tones fill the smooth handful; fingers wiggle to spread the flutter.
This is a disarmingly charming and hypnotically beautiful opener from his holiness Duncan Harrison.
Gurble-gobs, slop and slobber the lazy consonants and sighs that very skitter with finger-manipulated tape skank. It soon turns into pigs grunting quick enough (oink oink oink) and a sonic Richard Scarry cartoon of crash-bang-wallop.
A water butt slowly fills with rancid treacle as tiny black imps dance around the bloated barrel, slapping their bulbous bellies and blowing crimson smoke rings. A watchful Duncan scoops up the imps and ingests them all a-wriggle, recording their hapless plummet down his gullet.
But please don’t take my sub-Stan Lee dribbling as evidence of sonic goofiness, cynically used to leap-frog to the desired ends (freedom, bliss, ecstasy etc). Repeated listens to this humble tape reveal this to be a mature work, a self-assured work, a personally resonant work floating slowly into my consciousness. There’s no reliance on underground clichés here. The psychedelic-domestic of bus number recital, buffeting wind noise, slow chip-pan ‘pop’ and throaty Gatwick roar have filled my heart with honey and my head with sleepy nutmeg.
Side one ends with another real-life vignette, this time trad-jazz busker (think bowler hat and pinstripe waistcoat) overlaid flinty guitar pluckage (think sloppy Arran jumper and orthopaedic shoes) bringing two worlds together – the beach front and the bedsit – into a tangy-sharp fragment.
Side two opens with a wanking mumble, a half remembered dream of the time John Noakes applied Chopin’s poesie sonore methods in the Blue Peter garden (don’t bother to ‘YouTube’ it. This nugget was never televised and then destroyed on direct instructions from Biddy Baxter.) as the tape edits flutter around his West Riding glottal stops.
Valhalla opens its gates to welcome another fallen hero. For a time the drunken revelry quietens and the bard’s horn plays mournfully through the mist. Shields become bronze gongs beaten with a soft as the captured skald drones on.
Back in the studio Duncan dons his silk gown and adopts the Crane stance blowing on flesh bassoon until a feeder tape of allotment gristle joins the sound mix like it was the most natural thing in the world. Birds aimlessly chirrurp and flapper and cast iron tools are tinkled like collectible glass bells. I can feel the late afternoon sun in this recording baking my neck and making me sleepy. This. Is. Delicious.
A game-changing tape from D Harrison. It looks innocent enough for sure; but this tape’s got a confident swagger that’s unmatched right about now.
Lost Wax – The Poacher
Super-classy Musique Concrete from Ben Morris that takes full advantage of the far-flung places he’s laid his loveable mop-top over the last couple of years (China, Vietnam and even Derbyshire).
The Poacher is split into three parts, each third revealing a different side to Lost Wax, that unlock and fold out on hidden brass hinges. Let’s look inside…
The first third, ‘The Sun is a Hammer’, takes clear recordings of tin parakeets, smoke-train rumble and happy-clapping ritual and slices them up nice with a razor like some heavy radiophonicia dripping secretly out of 1970s Bulgaria.
The pace is stately, like a nurse on a bike, as Ben adds layers of hiss and schloop weaving them into a tapestry fit for a medium-sized town hall. But before we can even jiggle a heavy chain of office beautiful voices creak out of the floorboards. They soar and float like rainbows. Flutes trill. I swoon.
Next we visit the watch menders convention for ‘Time Travel Corrodes the Mind’. A hired drummer fiddles with his high-hat (fairly obsessively tiss-tiss-tiss) as the cummerbunded MC beckons in a phalanx of beach balls full of gaseous hippy crack. The massed horologicalists look up from their chaotically ticking handfuls but relax as Ben, safely at the controls, squeezes out a rhythmic pulse for the cast-iron disco crowd. Tapes of paranoid mumbling (source: CIA bugs, Cuban Missile Crisis?) bookend the track as several men bend aluminium picture frames in your left ear.
This tasty trio is completed by ‘Home, Exhuming a Shed‘. Imagine F.M. Einheit getting ready for a date (checklist – red rose, lump hammer, rusty chain, trumpet, gas canister) dressing in his best dungarees with bear-grease controlling his wanton quiff.
Gnarled hands rip up steel casings and pummel a brass boiler with oranges. The bright zest fills the air and this sudden change in atmosphere calms our man…his fingers caress the splintered keyboard moving from black to white. Digit-shapes transfer from 3D geometry into calm sound-pools that sit gently rippling in the citrus breeze.
—ooOoo—
fizzing blue stars: joe murray on ksds, acrid lactations, smear campaign & poulsen/harrison/watson/bjerga
February 6, 2015 at 2:08 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: acrid lactations, bbblood, chocolate monk, claus poulsen, duncan harrison, improv, joe murray, ksds, new music, no audience underground, noise, paul watson, sindre bjerga, smear campaign, stars dots and the new junk, stuart arnot, sue fitzpatrick, total vermin
Claus Poulsen, Duncan Harrison, Paul Watson & Sindre Bjerga – Blind Dates (CD-r, Chocolate Monk, choc.294, edition of 66)
KSDS – Black Abba (CD-r, T-Shirt and stickers, stars, dots and the “new” junk, Starsdots016, edition of 15 or download)
Acrid Lactations – Drizzling Quids A’ Crepuscule (tape, Total Vermin, #88)
Smear Campaign – Funky Cold Demeanour (tape, Total Vermin, #36)
Claus Poulsen, Duncan Harrison, Paul Watson & Sindre Bjerga – Blind Dates
A note on construction: these two duos; Duncan and Claus, Paul and Sindre played live to an audience in single figures in London’s free and easy Olive restaurant last year. These remarkable first-time duos were recorded and expertly mixed by Claus Poulsen and released in an edition of 66.
Duncan and Claus serve up a hubbling, bubbling mixture of tension and texture. Drawn-out scrapes and moans open the piece until loose cheeked ‘pops’ cut some slack and open up the landscape for Duncan’s concrete word-dub. Meanwhile a rich acoustic ripping rolls out of Claus’ fingerless gloves as he jingles a vintage synth with his toes. The button marked ‘sexy robot talk’ is fingered to start up a hot conversation that would make Louis and Bebe Barron blush beetroot red! A satisfying climax is sculpted out of decaying polystyrene blocks and Viking horns – classy!
Paul and Sindre begin inside a peach, pulling out chunks of juicy flesh and dropping it noisily to the floor. Sindre starts his onyx panther purring while Paul plays an egg-slice by caressing it with red Tudor brick.
Next they turn their attention to soundtracking a rowdy bout of Olympic wrestling. I can clearly picture the slap of stinging-pink flesh on the crash mat and feel the astringent whiff of liniment in the nostrils. A cub reporter gets in close with the Dictaphone but fluffs the buttons (screee…) and a disco plays, thump, thump, thump in one unfortunate head until you bail and cry ‘UNCLE!’ Chucky Cheese is hosting a sugar-frenzied birthday party for Sky Saxon and the electricity keeps cutting out like Norman Collier is controlling the Black Ark.
Then things get serious. A sound like giant granite blocks being slowly moved around the chessboard is overtaken by Wu Tang Killer Bees (swarming) then descending into the insect-o-cutor to die spectacularly as fizzy blue stars.
All this furious invention makes me ponder the position of the improviser in 2015. It used to be a point of pride for grey beards to master the jizzle, skin or hornpipe until they could play inside out. Listening to a record like Blind Dates makes me remember that a collection of eggs, dried seaweed and a typewriter can transform just as spectacularly in the hands of a select goon. Ears are of the highest importance. Imagination is gold dust. Courage is the epaulette earned through practice and concentration.
Hold up your heads gentlemen…you join the pantheon along with yr average Derek, Evan or Han on this blow-out piece.
KSDS – Black Abba
This is a cheeky one alright. Mocked up to ape the Sabbath classic Master of Reality this disc by KSDS might be free of all inverted crosses but it’s still a heavy trip (man).
Fans of Kosmische-leaning keyboard action pay attention! This is whirling like a day-glo electric galaxy.
In some places heaviness comes from clustered chords held down until grim fingers bleed. In others (‘Cosmic Radiation’ for instance) crude beats lend weight and sound like the ghost of Jacob Marley took up the drums, rattling his rusty chains. ‘Hammer of the North’ is as claustrophobic as an oft remembered family car journey with a similar sense of tension and restrained anger; the shifting banks of delay sculpting something almost dancefloor friendly that would sit neat and tidy in the Opal Tapes catalogue.
And just when you think you’ve got the measure of things a tune of pure loveliness (‘With Anger’) swirls like some green and pleasant church organ gone up the silk route for hash and adventure.
But it’s on ‘The Stack’ that things get totally sepia-tinted kraut. Sounding like mid-period Cluster simple lines overlap building up layer upon layer until the tinniest beat (high hats spitting like a drowning man) keep strict tempo with a military bearing.
Acrid Lactations – Drizzling Quids A’ Crepuscule
More strung-out edge-of-consciousness skronk from that most singular of duos, Acrid Lactations.
Following in the footsteps of The Who, Iron Maiden, Kiss and Johnny Cash, Acrid Lactations release their version of that record industry classic – THE LIVE ALBUM. For many bloated groups it was a stop-gap, a cynical filler to be snorted up between tour and studio. But for some (hopefully the old beards named before) the live album becomes more than just a different version of the same old shit. It’s a chance to stretch out and rediscover the energy and vim that brought you together in the first place.
This collection of jams recorded between 2012 and 2014 is so live you can chew on the humus breath of the audience. You can sniff the peculiar brew in the air and feel the starchy knit of a woolly jumper necessary for the unheated venues of the no-audience underground.
But what do you get from the Lactations in a freewheeling live space? I sense a willingness to push things even further in these recordings. I mean…this is performance right? Honest entertainment for cold hard cash yeah? Stuart and Susan know the value of a dollar and play right up to punters letting new gasses fly. There’s a strong brass presence with the familiar Arnot trumpet joined by a whole selection of metallic blowholes from Sue (pipe, whistle, ocarina perhaps). An old accordion is humped and huffed with a lazy foot, tattered voices mesh, taped squalls blabber and a metallic shiny sheen shimmies.
Yet it’s the very dualism of a two piece group that makes the strongest impact here. With only four hands between them there is a delightful limitation to what can be done. You can only juggle with what you have eh? Sonically there’s a ‘to-you-to-me’ that’s so much more than basic call and response…it’s an appreciation of what needs to be left out, rejected, un-attempted to concentrate on the pure reaction/expression/reaction that flows like warm milk.
Most of the recordings are high energy affairs, skipping slightly quicker than your beating heart, but on occasion a delightful interlocking calmness occurs making a high tide mark in the performance journey.
Someone draw a plimsoll line so we can see how high we all got!
Another fine Acrid tape on the goddamn essential Total Vermin.
Smear Campaign – Funky Cold Demeanour
The word on the street is that this ruby red tape is based on old hip hop vinyl found in Glasgow’s charity shops. The Fly-girls and B-boys among you will perhaps notice the play on words in the title barfing up memories of your favourite gold rope wearing sexist Tone Loc.
So can you expect block rocking beats on your boombox? Errrrrrr…not really.
Side one starts off with what sounds like a huge bath full of agricultural slurry being thoroughly mixed…a flexible hose runs from the bottom of the steaming vat to your ears so you can better hear the liquid brown churn.
Soon metallic voices start to spar and dart (could this be our Anthony?). The distinctive ‘schliip’ and ‘f’wip’ of turntable melts into the dull consonants like a seasoning, bringing out the highlights, shining the vowel.
Side two opens with some percussive bumming as rusty sponges are rubbed together. A brief spurt with some human air is soon battered like a pork medallion with swathes of medieval feedback. Yet still the lip, teeth and tongue flip and stutter like a malfunctioning mp3 file.
This minimal judder strolls seamlessly into an altogether more hellish movement of tightly bound-up humming and rubbery percussion, stretching out across all points of the compass before ‘snick’ the sound stops and the tape pops.
Having said all that (and yes I know I was starting to become really cryptically verbose before) this is all done with a sense of reverence to the source material. This is certainly no ‘look at those people in the past, they stoopid cuz they clothes different’ schtick but a real act of honest sonic ecology.
Recycling done with no turntables nor a microphone.
—ooOoo—
stars, dots and the “new” junk
Total Vermin (now nearly two years since a blogspot update but Stuart is clearly still active. Be resourceful)
the 2014 zellaby awards
January 4, 2015 at 8:23 pm | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: adam bohman, albert materia, altar of waste, andy jarvis, ap martlet, aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, askild haugland, bbblood, beartown records, botanist, cherry row recordings, chrissie caulfield, ckdh, cory strand, crow versus crow, culver, daniel thomas, dave thomas, david keenan, dear beloved henry, death of the underground, duncan harrison, dylan nyoukis, early morning records, eye for detail, ezio piermattei, female borstal, forest of eyes, hagman, hairdryer excommunication, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, henry collins, hissing frames, joe murray, karina esp, kevin sanders, kirkstall dark matter, la mancha del pecado, lee stokoe, lf records, lucy johnson, luke vollar, luminous monsters, matching head, midwich, neil campbell, new band of the faint people, nihl, no basement is deep enough, pascal nichols, peak signal 2 noise, petals, phil smith, posset, robert ridley-shackleton, rotten tables golden meat, scott mckeating, she walks crooked, sheepscar light industrial, skullflower, smut, sophie cooper, spoils & relics, stamina nudes, stuart chalmers, taming power, the piss superstition, the red cross, the skull mask, the thomas family, the wire, tom bench, werewolf jerusalem, yol, yoni silver, zellaby awards
The deliberations are over, the ballots are burning. White smoke billows from the chimney here at Midwich Mansions. Ignore the salty wave of ‘best of 2014’ lists you saw prematurely ejaculated over an appalled December – here is the real thing. ‘Never finalised prior to January 1st’ – that’s the Zellaby pledge.
And what a conclave it has been! Scott turned up early and presented his nominations as a hyperlinked series of Discogs listings – he spoke using a vocoder throughout and would only answer our questions if we assigned them catalogue numbers. Joe’s effervescent enthusiasm remained undimmed despite a trip to Accident and Emergency following a foolhardy attempt to gargle Christmas tree baubles. New kid Luke seemed happy to fetch and carry despite our hazing pranks – oh, how we laughed sending him to Wilko’s for a tub of left handed CD-rs! All I had to do was sit in my wing-backed leather chair, fingers steepled, and pass Solomon-style judgement. My beautiful Turkish manservant took copious notes during procedures, of course, and whilst those are being transcribed I’m afraid I must begin with some sombre news: the underground is dead.
An article making this claim by David Keenan was published in the December issue of The Wire magazine and caused adverse weather in the crockery. Having finally read it I can confirm that it is, by and large, laughable. The friend who sent me a copy included this note:
Here it is. I will look forward to reading your response as it would be great to see his flimsy, self-obsessed nonsense getting torn apart.
Hmm, yeah, tempting as it is to to embark on a comprehensive rebuttal what does it really matter? I hate to disappoint but engaging with the wilful fucknuttery to be found in publications like The Wire is like arguing about the properties of phlogiston – it might be of vague historical or semantic interest to those with too much time on their hands but is ultimately pointless. My favourite response has been Tom Bench‘s (@TJDizzle) satirical summary of Keenan’s disdain, tweeted in reply to some genuine outrage from Duncan Harrison (@Young_Arms):
yr not tru underground because u have friends and sometimes talk to them about music
Lolz.
Some of the fallout has been quite interesting though. Just before Christmas, RFM started getting hits from an Italian language music site that was, on investigation, carrying an interview with Keenan in which he is asked specifically about the idea of the ‘no-audience underground’ as popularised by this blog. In his short response he manages to invent a barely recognizable straw man version of the notion, take a swing at it, miss, then step back as if he’d actually landed a punch. Admittedly, Google Translate may have knocked some nuance out of his answer but, as I was able to read it, it was good for a hearty chuckle and fuck all else.
Phil Smith, currently researching the history of Termite Club for a book chapter, wrote a thoughtful piece largely agreeing with Keenan that contained the following tragicomic scene:
One of the saddest moments of the year for me (on a lovely day) was Neil Campbell & John Tree talking about whether there was ever in our lifetime likely to be a music revolution like (say) punk again (one which Keenan seems to want), & shaking their heads in total ‘of course not’ resignation, the required kidz soaked in computer games & all manner of other entertainment drips & (I suppose) music, whatever it signifies to people, only ever welling up in such a way as part of a business move anyway.
I laughed out loud reading this. Not only have these rueful old geezers forgotten at least one revolution we’ve already had since punk (rave culture – musically game changing, actual laws passed to disrupt it) but the internet enabled golden age is orders of magnitude more significant than punk. Here’s a piece from yonks ago which begins to explain why and, for good measure, here’s another from double-yonks ago about why The Wire is hopeless too.
Neil Campbell, emboldened by Keenan’s piece and nostalgic memories of poorly received gigs unearthed in response to Phil’s Termite research, ramped up his usual silliness. On Twitter he lamented the lack of confrontation nowadays and took the piss with his #realnoaudienceunderground hashtag. I was interested to find out if there was any substance behind his bravado so devised an experiment. After waiting for Twitter to move on, I called Neil out on some random nonsense in a deliberately antagonistic manner. As expected, fight came there none. Indeed, after explaining what I was up to both publicly and via direct message (the latter, I admit, did contain the phrases ‘full of shit’ and ‘you ol’ fraud!’) I found myself unfollowed. Ah well, so much for confrontation.
(Aside: Neil has form for practice/preach discrepancy. After hearing him proclaim several times that he’d rather read a bad review than a good one I took him at his word and minced three Astral Social Club releases including the album Electric Yep. I did this with heavy heart and even ran it past Neil before posting. He replied with a jaunty ‘hey you know me, go ahead’ but after I did he deleted the RFM link from the list of friends on his Astral Social Club blog and has not submitted anything at all since. I was amused to find myself excommunicated for heresy. Ah well, so much for bad reviews.)
I get the impression that Neil might be a bit uneasy with his current status as universally loved sacred cow. Or maybe he digs it and is frustrated not to be a Wire mag cover star? Who knows? I love the guy, have done for about fifteen years, and hate to jeopardise a friendship with a shameless ad hominem attack over something so inconsequential but… dude has clearly forgotten how to take a kick to the udders.
So, in summary: those that say they want confrontation don’t, or rather only want it on their own terms or at a safe distance, those that lament the lack of revolution need only to open their eyes to what is happening around them and those that proclaim the underground dead are talking pish.
Before moving on a word about terms of engagement. Whilst I’ve enjoyed a few physical fights in the past (yeah, I may be short and out of shape but I’m fucking mental), I find this kind of swaggering jaw-jaw to be boring, childish and unproductive. Comment if you like but unless what is posted is novel, substantial and engaging I am unlikely to respond. I won’t be tweeting about it under any circumstances. I have washed my hands and will need an irresistible reason to get ’em dirty again.
—ooOoo—
BOY! WHERE ARE THOSE NOTES? Oh, thank you. Have a shortbread biscuit. Right then, shall we crack on with the fun bit?
—ooOoo—
Radio Free Midwich presents The Zellaby Awards 2014
Thank you for bearing with us. Firstly, an apology: due to, y’know, austerity n’ that, this year’s ceremony will be taking place on the swings in the playground at the muddy end of the estate. Nominations will be scratched into the paint of the railings and refreshments will be whatever cider Luke can prise from the grip of local vagrants.
Secondly, the rules: to be eligible in one of the following five categories this music needs to have been heard by one of us for the first time in 2014. It does not need to have been released in 2014. As the purpose of these awards is to spread the good news about as many quality releases as possible, should an artist win in one category they will not be placed in any of the others. I do not vote for any of my own releases, nor any releases that I had a hand in, er…, releasing (with one notable exception this year). My three comrades are free to ignore these rules and write about what they like. The price paid for this freedom is that I, as editor, have final say. Thus the awards are the product of the idiosyncratic taste of yours truly with input from my co-writers along the way.
A couple of omissions explained. Long term readers may be shocked to find no mention of previous winners Ashtray Navigations or the piss superstition. Phil and Mel have been preoccupied this year with moving house, full time unenjoyment and various celebrations of the AshNav 20th anniversary and have not been as prolific as nutcase fans such as myself would like. There has been one cassette of new material, Aero Infinite, which, to my shame, I only became aware of recently and do not yet own. Believe me, the pain is fierce. Bookies have already stopped taking bets on their planned four-disc retrospective winning everything next time out.
Julian and Paul have shared a split live tape with Broken Arm and had a CD-r, The Dialled Number, The Bone-Breaker, The Heavenly Sword, out on Sheepscar Light Industrial but, in my humble opinion, their defining release of 2014 was getting nothing to appear on the developed film, a mighty album which is sadly ineligible for this year’s awards because it was released by me on fencing flatworm recordings as their ‘prize’ for winning album of the year last time. See, complicated isn’t it?
There are also many releases on the guilt-inducing review pile that I suspect could have been contenders had I found time to digest them properly: apologies to Ian Watson, Prolonged Version, Troy Schafer, Seth Cooke etc. and thanks for your continued patience. For the first time, two entries in this year’s poptastic final chart are previously unreviewed on RFM. Mysterious, eh?
OK, enuff with the preamble. The first category is…
5. The “I’d never heard of you 10 minutes ago but now desperately need your whole back catalogue” New-to-RFM Award
Joe votes for Yoni Silver:
I heard Yoni Silver play a solo bass clarinet set on November 1st this year. Over the course of 20 minutes I blinked repeatedly and snapped my fingers; my mouth hung open like a codfish and eventually my eyes filled with hot tears. I’d emerged from a jazz-hole that ranged from barely-there, reductionist ‘hummmm’, to wet-chop dribble/spittle outta the brassy pipes, to full-bore Ayler-esque gospel skronk. It was so good I didn’t just clap and holla…I vowed to start a record label to immediately box this shit up. Yoni’s discs are thin on the ground but live shows with proper jazz cats and beards like PWHMOBS are gathering pace. Watch out!
Luke goes for Botanist:
Ever fantasized about a forest dwelling black metal troll singing songs about plant life on drums and hammered dulcimer only? Me too. Well, fantasize no longer: he exists. Just when your jaded ears smugly tell you they’ve heard it all along comes the Botanist.
…but anyone paying attention will have already guessed that the winner this year is Taming Power.
I might have indulged in some ill advised Campbell-baiting above but I am profoundly grateful to Neil for taking the time to introduce me to the world of Askild Haugland. This quiet Norwegian has amassed a sizeable back catalogue of tape and vinyl releases on his own Early Morning Records, most of which were recorded, edited and annotated around the turn of the century and have remained largely unheralded since. His work – created using tape recorders, cassette players, shortwave radios, electric guitars and the like – is perfection viewed from shifting angles, filtered through prisms. His patience and dedication to uncovering every nuance of his processes are truly inspiring. It has been an enormous pleasure to promote his music to a (slightly) wider audience – exactly what this blog is all about. The chap himself seems lovely too. Read more: Neil’s accidental guest post, reviews, more reviews, Early Morning Records catalogue.
…and when you return we can move on to…
4. The “Stokoe Cup”, 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
Joe makes a compelling case for the Peak Signal 2 Noise broadcasts:
If Cathy Soreny and her Sheffield-based gladiators had released ten 25 minute compilation tapes in a year featuring the creamy froth of the N-AU we’d stand to attention and sing a rousing song. To create ‘visual cassettes’ for your telly and computer screen and navigate the machinations of the community TV industry and come up with such a thoroughly curated, imaginatively shot and god-damn funny series is just the bee’s knees. PS2N has opened another glossy window into the N-AU.
Luke keeps it pithy:
The Stokoe Cup should clearly go to Lee Stokoe. ‘The underground is dead ‘ announces David Keenan in The Wire this month ‘shut up you prat’ is the reply from Radio Free Midwich.
Scott agrees:
Predictable enough, I HAVE to say Lee Stokoe. Browsing my discogs list for 2014 acquisitions it’s virtually all Matching Head tapes – either the new ones or tapes from the 90s that I didn’t already have. Its consistent to the point of sheer ridiculousness.
However, the editor has other ideas. This year’s winner is Daniel Thomas.
Dan’s output in 2014 has been prodigious. He even wins in two categories that don’t exist: ‘1016’ the opener on Enemy Territory is my track of the year (go on, play it whilst reading the rest of this article) and the ‘flower press’ edition of That Which Sometimes Falls Between Us / As Light Fades put together by Dave Thomas (no relation) for its release on Kirkstall Dark Matter wins packaging of the year too. The latter album is perhaps the definitive expression of ‘extraction music‘ – the sub-genre I defined as a way of herding the work of Dan, Dave, Kev Sanders and other fellow travellers into a manageable fold of headspace – and one of at least three projects involving Dan that could have been album of the year. For the record, the other two are Hagman’s Number Mask on LF Records and the remarkable Dub Variations by The Thomas Family in another beautiful package hand crafted by Crow Versus Crow:
It is the bead of sweat on the brow of the tightrope walker. It is a time-lapse film of dew condensing onto a cobweb.
Dan shows no signs of slowing, nor of relinquishing his choke-tight quality control. I cannot wait to hear what he has for us in 2015.
…and now a favourite moment for the editor:
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award
Scott goes for a far-flung ambassador:
It has to be Miguel Pérez. For making RFM a global concern, and being full of passion, he’s the man.
Joe, as ever, finds this a tough one to pin down. He suggests…
…we should say a thank you to all the readers and contributors … to everyone who has waited patiently for a review/carried on reading without sending us hate mail…
…which is a sentiment I share, of course, but this year I think one particular set of contributors has to be recognized in this category. God knows how 27 different acts are going to share the gong though because the winners are…
The artists who submitted tracks to eye for detail – the midwich remixes album:
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 (who also provided cover art), 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.
This year I finally joined Twitter which, as a wise-cracking, smart-arse, mentally unstable narcissist with self-esteem issues, turned out to be a perfect platform for me (though for those exact same reasons I think I’ll have to exercise a bit more caution with it in future). One of the first things that happened was a throwaway comment about a midwich remix project ballooning into an actual album that had to be retroactively called into existence. The final release six weeks later contained 27 re-workings of tracks from my back catalogue and lasted a total of 3 hours 40 minutes. The process was humbling, exhilarating, joyful and unprecedented in my personal experience.
The album remains available here (along with more detail as to its construction). If you don’t already have it, I recommend you treat yourself with that Christmas money from Gran. I’m charging a fiver for the download and all dough raised is being given to The Red Cross. The total donated so far, after PayPal and Bandcamp fees, is something like £180. When I reached a ton I had a giant-cheque-handing-over-ceremony, again following whims blurted out on Twitter.
Many, many thanks to all involved – you are elite members of the pantheon of the righteous.
—ooOoo—
BOY!! DIM THE LIGHTS. What? Oh yes, we’re outside aren’t we. Fetch me a shortbread biscuit then. What do you mean there are none left? Well, just give me the one you are holding. Gah! The impertinence! Anyway, finally we come to the two main categories…
—ooOoo—
2. The Label of the Year Award
Joe goes for No Basement is Deep Enough:
You could easily mistake No Basement is Deep Enough’s tape goof for a zany Zappa-esque prank. But peel away the layers; brush the fringe to one side, open that single plush tit and you are rewarded with some amazing music. Almost like a wonky Finders Keepers NBIDE have unveiled some new ghouls and re-released some remarkable old gizzards (Alvaro – The Chilean with the Singing Nose, Ludo Mich and Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson) in frankly outrageous packaging. Old or new, experimental classicists or gutter-dwelling hobo these gonks are pure trippin’ for ears.
Yeah, I’ve been involved as a one of these gonks this year but I think that means I can give you an extra bit of insight into how curator Ignace De Bruyn and designer Milja Radovanović are such wonderful human beings. I told them about getting some mentions in The Wire (Ed – you’ll love this) and they didn’t give a shit. “Ha, we always get mentioned in The Wire without any clue how, what, where, when” said Ignace, “and let’s keep it like that” he chortled into his waffle.
Luke narrows it down to two:
Beartown Records. A consistent champion of no audience sounds and nice and cheap, they sent me a parcel addressed to Luke ‘ the sick’ Vollar which contained a postcard with ‘sorry just sorry’ written on it. For this reason they are my label of the year.
Also a mention for Altar of Waste. I find it comforting to know that somewhere in North America there is a guy called Cory Strand transforming his favourite films / TV programmes / music into insanely limited and lovingly presented sets. Twenty disc drone interpretation of Harry Potter limited to five copies!? He also releases loads of drone/HNW discs that are lovely items to look at and listen to including my album of the year [SPOILER REMOVED – Ed]
Scott apologises:
Sorry, Matching Head again.
Luminous worthies, for sure, but I reckon my choice has been phosphorescent:
The winner is hairdryer excommunication.
The solo venture of Kevin Sanders has released, I believe, 26 items in the calendar year 2014. Unbelievably, during the same time, he has also had his creations released by other labels, has played live, has moved house and job along a lengthy diagonal line from North to South and has let fly with a gazillion opaque tweets. This guy’s heart must beat like a fucking sparrow’s.
But never mind the girth, feel the quality. Kev’s hairdryer excommunication sits alongside Lee Stokoe’s Matching Head as an absolute exemplar of the no-audience underground micro-label as expression of personal vision. Each release is a new page in the atlas mapping the world he is presenting to us; each trembling drone, each nihilistic/ecstatic scything fuzz is a contour line. Like all great labels, hXe is greater than the sum of its parts and only gets more compelling as those parts collect and combine. I appreciate that this might appear daunting for the newbie so here’s five to be starting with – you’ll thank me for it.
Now you see why I have to strictly enforce my ‘win allowable in only one category’ rule. I could have created a top 40 (!) that just contained releases by, or involving, Askild, Dan and Kev. Astonishing. So, leaving those guys sat chatting under the climbing frame, we finally come to the blue riband, best in show, gold medal event:
1. The Album of the Year Award
Woo! Lists! Click on the album title and you will be taken to the original RFM review (if such a thing exists) or another applicable page (if not) where you will find details of the release (label, whatnot) and, most importantly, how to go about hearing/purchasing these marvels.
First to the lectern is Mighty Joe Murray:
It’s taken a real effort to whittle this down but here’s my top 5 in order:
1. The New Band of the Faint People – The Man Who Looked at the Moon
Keep yr Wounded Nurse. These micro-pieces are stitched together with a domestic hand juggling fly agaric.
2. Rotten Tables, Golden Meat – My Nose is Broken
This cheeky release opened a new stomach pouch and gassed itself in…yeasty and fruity. Biggest smiles of the year.
3. Pascal – Nihilist Chakai House
It goes, “tk tk tk tk tk …. po/po/po – ping.” Blistering like hot metal pipes; fragile like seaweed.
4. Spoils & Relics – Embed and then Forget
Stream-of-consciousness becomes conscious itself…a living, breathing music as fresh as green parsley.
5. CKDH – Yr Putrid Eyeballs/Fungal Air Creeping Adders
The most violently restrained listen of the year by a long shot. Needle sharp. Music to break radios.
Scott briefly interjects:
Skullflower – Draconis
As sylph-like a heavyweight as you’re ever likely to hear.
Now over to the office junior Luke:
Album of the year…
Midwich – The Swift
Utterly sublime floating tones, get your cranky toddler off to sleep in minutes, limited to 15 copies only?! Madness. [Editor’s note: ha! What is more shameful? Luke sucking up to his editor or me for publishing it? Yes, I know its me – shut up.]
The rest:
Spoils & Relics – Embed and then Forget
culver & posset – black gash
Skullflower – Draconis
Aqua Dentata – The Cygnet Procambarus
Robert Ridley Shackleton / Werewolf Jerusalem / She Walks Crooked – April Fools
Ashtray Navigations – Aero Infinite
Yol – Headless Chicken Shits out Skull Shaped Egg
Dylan Nyoukis – Yellow Belly
Ezio Piermattei – Turismodentale
..and last of all, to your faithful editor. I have chosen twenty items (well, twenty three including cheats). The first half are presented in no particular order, the second set in the traditional ‘top ten run down’ ending with the actual, objectively verified best album of the year. In my opinion.
- Henry Collins – Music of Sound
- Smut – Vulgar Tongue
- Luminous Monsters – On Rubied Talons
- Forest of Eyes – Winter Wakeneth
- Adam Bohman – Music and words 2
- BBBlood – No Religion at the Salad Bar
- New Band of the Faint People – The Man Who Looked at the Moon
- Karina ESP – A single moment, repeated
- La Mancha Del Pecado – Witchskinner
- Stamina Nudes – Discipline of Exploding Bridges
10. NIHL / Female Borstal / Dear Beloved Henry / Albert Materia
The perils of the split tape, eh? I dug the Female Borstal side of the former, sadly didn’t get on with Albert Materia on the latter. However the sides by NIHL and Dear Beloved Henry were bloody marvellous and, if they’d appeared on the same object would have rocketed up these rankings. So I’m imagining an ideal world in which they did. NIHL got a haiku:
Seduced by darkness
beyond guttering arc-light –
like moths, like dead souls.
Praise for Dear Beloved Henry – equally heartfelt, less formatting:
…deceptively simple in execution: a flowing electronic drone groove with a vaguely East Asian feel – like 1970s Krautrock that has been listening to a bunch of gamelan LPs – works through the variations. However, every so often a magnetic pull distorts it off course and adds an intriguing, complicating layer of discordance. It’s like it was mastered to VHS and someone is now messing with the tracking. Is this an artefact of duping it to an old recycled tape or is this woosiness wholly intended? The result is magical either way.
9. Helicopter Quartet – Leading Edges
…the album expresses a profound vision with an austere but soulful beauty. Imagine a slate-blue version of Ashtray Navigations psychedelics or a restrained take on the intensity of, say, Swans without the self-loathing bombast. The band may jokingly self-describe as ‘semi-melodic mournfulness’ but this is a deeply serious music with, I think, plenty to say about the difficult, forlorn, wonderful, awe-inspiring condition we find ourselves in.
…Helicopter Quartet are, to my tired ears, a near-perfect example of how musicianship can be harnessed in a noise context. Chrissie and Mike balance their considerable skills with an understanding of how to use noise to pluck the soul of the listener and have it vibrate with a slightly discordant, emotionally complicated, seriously intended, profoundly satisfying resonance.
8. Sophie Cooper – Our Aquarius
When I wrote in the RFM Christmas message to the nation…
To be transported by a work of art – to be lifted from yourself, your surroundings and placed elsewhere for the duration – is a profound experience and, as someone who has trouble with self-sabotaging mental illness, one that I greatly appreciate. Catch me right and the bus to work is swapped for a magic carpet skimming the treetops. Find me in a susceptible mood and waiting at a pedestrian crossing becomes standing at the bedside of an elderly relative, brimful with a mixture of love and trepidation. Listening to music pans the muddy water sloshing inside my head, nuggets of gold and squirming, glistening creatures are uncovered. It – thus: you – is a constant source of revelation, of insight and of inspiration.
…it was no coincidence that I had been listening to this album a lot. My apologies to Sof for not getting around to reviewing it but, hey, Uncle Mark did over at Idwal Fishers. The cad suggests that it is ‘by no means a flawless release’ but if he dare repeat that in my vicinity I shall strike his cheek with my glove.
7. Stuart Chalmers – imaginary musicks vol. 1
The world his music describes is fully formed and the listener’s experience of it is immersive and ego-dissolving but carefully placed ticks – a filter echo, a moment of dictaphonic skwee – bring you back to the surface by foregrounding its artificiality. It’s like a South Sea Islands version of Philip K. Dick’s Time out of Joint. Imagine walking on the golden beach, admiring the dancing palms, looking out over the glassy ocean to the setting sun only for it all to suddenly disappear and be replaced with a featureless white room and a scrap of paper at your feet with the words ‘tropical paradise’ typed on it. As with all the very best stuff: the more I listen to it, the more I want to listen to it.
6. The Skull Mask – Nocturno Mar / Sunburn
Another terrific year for the prolific Miguel Pérez, RFM’s Mexican cousin. From the bloody-minded free noise of his improv duo ZN to the incense-and-bitumen ritual drone of The Will of Nin Girima (released on new label-to-watch Invisible City Records), I doubt a week has passed without me spending some time in his company.
My favourite of his projects is The Skull Mask and these two recordings were released either side of Miguel’s return to acoustic guitar. The former is made of enveloping, tidal drones containing half-submerged reversed vocals. It can prove oppressively menacing or hypnotically soothing depending on your mood as you encounter it. Just like the night sea it is named for. The latter is ravaged, desert psychedelia improvised with raw acoustic guitar. There is no shade under which Miguel, or the listener, can hide – this is completely exposed music and is riveting.
5. Yol – Headless Chicken Shits out Skull Shaped Egg
From the preamble to a review by Joe:
For the uninitiated Yol has carefully and modestly created his own footnote in the frantic world of kinetic poetry. Imagine tiny fragile words battered with broken bottles. Innocent syllables and posh sibilance swashes getting clotted and clumped together. Those classy phonics all chopped up and smashed; ground out like spent fags and stuttered wetly in a barely controlled rage…
Musical accompaniment is of the most primitive and brutal kind. Forget the chest-beating Harsh Noise dullards, this is frighteningly naked and exposed. Short blasts of destruction come from broken machinery, sheared plastic shards, bits of old hoover and burnt cutlery. A more dicky commentator would say recordings are made in carefully selected site specific locations. The truth? Yol’s breaking into empty factory units and shouting his rusty head off.
4. Spoils & Relics – Sins of Omission / Embed and then Forget
The closest the RFM staff come to ‘critical consensus’. I can’t decide which of these releases I prefer so you are getting ’em both. From my review of the former:
Their music denies narrative … The palette used is a largely abstract selection of found, domestic and field recordings as well as sound produced by the various electronic implements that make up their ‘kit’. The source of any given element is usually (and presumably deliberately) unclear. They are examining the innards of everything, poking around where noise happens and taking notes. It is more akin to the meta-musical experiments of AMM and their progeny.
Don’t be scared off – this music is not dry and scratchy, it is layered with humour (ranging from the wry raised eyebrow to banana skin slapstick), tension and a whip-smart self-awareness that speaks of the telepathic relationship between the band members when performing. A piece by Spoils & Relics is about sound in the same way a piece by Jackson Pollock is about paint.
From Joe’s review of the latter:
There is a constant flow of ideas all itchy with life; reminding me of a similar feeling – running your finger over a gravestone, nails gouging the names. I’m caught up in a multi-sensory melting of meaning into a constant ‘now’ … Listeners who favour that hi-fidelity will be delighted. Beards who dwell in the no-fi world of clanking tape jizz are going to be entranced. Skronk fans will be be-calmed. Zen droners will wake up refreshed and sharp.
3. Ap Martlet – Analog Computer
The title is perfect – it calls to mind a room-sized, valve-run difference engine humming with contented menace. These three tracks seem less compositions than iterations of an algorithm set in motion by a wonky punchcard being slotted into the machine upside-down. ‘Comdyna’ and ‘Thurlby’ are both rhythmic in an abstract sense – the latter being a low impact step aerobics class for retired ABC Warriors, the former an exercise in patience and discipline as a series of low-slung tones are held until they start to feedback, then released, then repeated. The final track, ‘Heathkit’, is a coruscating, brain-scouring, fuzz-drone. It is the kind of sound that in a workshop you would wear ear protectors to dampen but here it is presented for our contemplation and admiration.
2. culver – plague hand
[Editor’s note: a sudden attack of prudishness has stopped me from reproducing the covers of this release. Scans can be found accompanying the original review.]
I need to account for Matching Head catalogue number 200: plague hand by culver, a twin tape set containing four side-long tracks totalling, you guessed it, 200 minutes. Each of these four untitled pieces (the sides are labelled a,b,c, and d and that’s all you get) is a sombre Culvanian documentary: a long, wordless panoramic camera sweep taking in the scenery with an unblinking 360 degree turn. Each is different from the last, all are wholly involving and will have the attentive listener crowing ‘aww… man, I was digging that!’ and reaching to flip or rewind as soon as the track ends. I say ‘attentive listener’ but really there is no other kind because you have no choice in the matter. This isn’t background music – allow yourself to get caught and your ego will be dissolved like a fly in a pitcher plant. It is a masterwork and a fitting celebration of the numerically notable point it represents.
[Editor’s second note: Lee later told me that this is in fact all one track with various movements. Just so as you know.]
…and the winner of the Zellaby Award for Album of the Year 2014 is:
1. Aqua Dentata – The Cygnet Procambarus
My review took the form of a science fiction (very) short story. Eddie’s music does that kind of thing to your head. Here it is:
In some future hospital you are recovering from a horrible accident. Within a giant glass vitrine, you are suspended in a thick, healing gel – an amniotic fluid rich in bioengineered enzymes and nanotech bots all busy patching you up. From the waist down you are enmeshed in metal, a scaffold of stainless steel pins keeping your shape whilst the work continues. The first twenty minutes of Eddie’s half hour describes your semi-conscious state of prelapsarian bliss, played out over dark undertones of bitter irony: every moment spent healing is, of course, a moment closer to confronting the terrible event that put you there.
During the final ten minutes the tank empties, bizarrely, from the bottom up. Pins are pushed from healing wounds and tinkle and clatter as they collect below you. Attending staff shuffle nervously but maintain a respectful distance and near silence. As the gel clears your head, your eyes slowly peel open, the corners of your mouth twitch. You look out through the glass at the fishbowled figures in the room. You weakly test the restraints you suddenly feel holding you in place, and with a sickening flash it all comes back and you rememb———
No-one in what this blog lovingly refers to as the ‘no-audience underground’ is producing work as consistently brilliant as Eddie Nuttall. The back catalogue of his project Aqua Dentata – growing with the alien beauty and frustrating slowness of a coral reef – contains not a wasted moment. His work – quiet, long-form dronetronics with metallic punctuation – is executed with the patience and discipline of a zen monk watching a spider construct a cobweb. Best dressed man to feature on this blog too.
—ooOoo—
So, that is that. Eddie’s prize, should he wish to take me up on it, is for Aqua Dentata to have the one and only release on the otherwise dormant fencing flatworm recordings some time in 2015. I’ll keep you posted on negotiations.
Oh, and should any of you be interested in how this blog does – y’know, number of hits and all that – I’ve made the annual report provided by WordPress public and you can see it here.
Heartfelt best wishes for the New Year, comrades. All is love.
Rob Hayler, January 2015.
rancid fridge imploding: joe murray on knives, osmiroid, pain jerk, justin marc lloyd, duncan harrison and hyster tapes
March 19, 2014 at 9:26 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: beartown records, blyth, drone, duncan harrison, electronica, english as apples, grey park, hyster tapes, improv, jamie wrest, joe murray, justin marc lloyd, knives, kohei gomi, leitmotiv limbo, new music, no audience underground, noise, osmiroid, pain jerk, stars dots and the new junk, tapes, vocal improvisation, wasted capital since 2013, yol
Knives / Osmiroid – Stars, Dots and the “New” Junk (tape, Stars, Dots and the “New” Junk, starsdots007, edition of 50 or download)
Pain Jerk – Inflammable Material (CD-r, English as Apples)
Justin Marc Lloyd – I’m Sorry for the Thoughts Assigned to My Name (C29 tape, Wasted Capital Since 2013, WC6, edition of 50)
Various – FOUR LETTER WORLD COMPILATION (recycled tape, Hyster Tapes, HYSTER17, edition of 50)
Duncan Harrison – Ogre Neon (CD-r, Beartown Records)
Knives/Osmiroid – Stars, Dots and the ‘New’ Junk
The little seaside town of Blyth UK has been churning out some of the murkiest noise that my little ears have ever feasted on. So, it was with the grim anticipation of a solemn kicking I unwrapped this Blyth-related tape from the excellently named ‘Knives.’ I make the distinction of this being Blyth-related as the hipsters may know Knives as Blyth ex-pats, refugees who left their fabled mist-drenched home for the bright city lights of London.
These dark Knives take the guitar/drum/bass/tape set up you’ve shook your head to for all them years and set the controls for glistening tinnitus. On ‘Days of ancients’ finesse is treated with distain…this is a ROCK recording and plods like an undiscovered Birthday Party sound check while Nick’s round the back kinging his wretched ink. The unctuous rhythm leaves guitar free to dive-bomb, swooping and crashing into gasoline-scented balls of flame. Track two ‘Ancients of days’ starts off with the leaden bully-boy stomp of The Cosmic Psychos or Slub or something and disintegrates into a sheer hellish miasma of scorched electric gravy…steaming, dangerously fizzing.
Osmiroid sounds less like a band and more like a couple of heavily-bearded dudes with tapes, modulators and laptops playing evil dragging noise. Imagine a splintered, heavy cable hauled over a gravel pit of broken bottles. That’s the kind of abrasion pouring into my ears right now. The modulators give a fowl hoot every now and again. Another god-damn Australian makes an appearance but this time it’s Rolfy Rolfy Harris hawking his never-popular Stylophone. Yup. This makes no sense at all and is all the richer for it.
You can try before you buy at Bandcamp.
Pain Jerk – Inflammable Material
Real life, honest to goodness, retro Japanese noise from Kohei Gomi aka – Pain Jerk. But before we dive into this shiny beast there’s some back story. Jamie Wrest takes it from here.
Initially this Pain Jerk album was meant to get issued as a cassette 18 years ago. But it just never happened because of one thing or another. I was handed the DAT by Steven Middleton who was first sent it by Pain Jerk in 1996. Next I paid a visit to my friend M.P. Wood who runs the Soundroom studio in Gateshead. He worked his MAGIK on the recordings and now here they are in all their nasty glory after all these years. So enjoy whoever you are…
OK. The scene is set…but what does it all sound like? If you’ve never experienced Pain Jerk this is a pretty great place to start. With the first piece ‘Spiral Dragon’ you get unhinged-blackened-noise whipped-up like the mother of all howling storms. But there’s also some brief interludes of squelching electronic bird-song (possibly the base material for these improvisations) that sneak through the brutal tidal hammering. The white noise hiss gets turned up beyond any levels of common decency and, in parts, become a static floating thing, a gauze cloud perhaps? But any temporary prettiness is soon shouldered aside by the very physical jerks of metallic paintwork all scratched and peeled; wire wool in the tumble dryer, a rancid fridge imploding.
Track two ‘Right Angled Air’ is even more aggressive with less bass and more hi-fi harsh roar. There’s very little let up from the caustic scouring except a herky-jerky knob twiddling towards the end that temporarily dulls the sharpness for a moment, but of course brings things back at double export-strength…and then it just ends without no fanfare or crescendo. Phwoar! What a listen.
No idea where you can get this. English as Apples is the ultra-underground, hand-reared, barely legal bootleg label run by Blyth’s most beloved son Jamie Wrest. You could try the man himself, a fixture at most North East noise shows. For readers based outside Geordieland an email to the ever-helpful Turgid Animal label might help…possibly.
Justin Marc Lloyd – I’m Sorry for the Thoughts Assigned to My Name
Described as ‘Globular Vocal Mass’ on the handy Wasted Capital site this neat looking tape from Justin Marc Lloyd caused me a bit of a foggy-brained confusion. I know, pretty much for certain, that Mr Lloyd is a born and bred American. From over the pond and all that. So why does this tape remind me so much of the late 1990s Essex-bwoy sound of Ceefax Acid Crew or Chaos A.D.?
It could be the sound quality which is busy and precise but ragged as dogtooth check. It could be the speedy, buzzing energy; manic as a teenage oik on Frosty Jacks. It could be the obnoxious clots of ‘globular vocal mass’; derived as easily from a rusty Commodore Amiga as a mucus-drenched throat.
“So much for the overall feel of the tape you hippy.” I hear you snort. “What about the edited highlights man?” OK…I know you’re busy people. Here’s the skinny version.
Side One contains the future-hit ‘Sub-dermal Thirst for Bland and Christian-like Suburbia’ and has a ‘wasp-in-a-crisp-packet’ buzz about it with some crunching ‘beats’ sounding like heavy mortar fire hitting the next village. Real Apocalypse Now shit. It ends with the superbly brief ‘Comfort of One’s Own Innocent Lover’ which appears to be some sticky-palmed sigh lasting for exactly 26 seconds.
Side Two starts with a see-sawing motion, and a Vocoder bleat like some ‘Rockit’ era outtake and segues into the sound lampposts make in a buffeting high wind (a kind of bruised and lonely temporal clicking) on ‘Perimeter Scan with Faulty the-world-is-shit Filter’ until a rise-of-the-robots synth alarm crushes other sounds beneath its primitive metallic chime. The final piece is an homage to the Wasted Capital/Hideous Replica brothers where objects, things and stuff gradually get folded round the sort of gloriously limp guitar loop last heard on a Kemialliset Ystavat record. Wow…that’s some ground covered; Chelmsford to Tampere via Chicago. Booyaka! (Editor’s note: yes, Joe did really write ‘Booyaka’ – I shall deflate his bouncy castle immediately as penance.)
Various Artists – FOUR LETTER WORLD COMPILATION
Hyster is a Finnish label specialising in the more austere end of the no-audience underground. Artwork is from the photocopied greyness & musty collage school. The tape releases are recycled and lovingly battered. The artists tend to be Northern European beans sweeping round the iron-filings factory. So far it’s all pretty dope. This simple little tape opens my ears to a few unfamiliar names and presents the ever-wonderful Yol in a new context. Here goes…
Crap sampled horn and heavy dub effects over a skronky-ass scribble open the proceedings with a piece from LEITMOTIV LIMBO. Then there’s a gap…and then the slum-horn strikes up again. It’s all over in under 3 minutes and I love the off-handedness of this. There’s a serious ‘I don’t give a fuck’ to the way it’s shaped and presented. Like the slouching teenager outside the off-license…he doesn’t even want you to go in and buy some Special Brew for him…he just wants to see you squirm like a middle-class liberal.
GREY PARK are a perfectly named project for this kind of gristle. There’s a bone-freezing dawn mist outside. But, pulling on warm socks and boots, you crunch through the most beautiful field of silver-frosted grass; each blade a perfect pewter shard. Looking back you see your own heavy footprints creating rhythmic dark patches like rough stitching on a blanket.
Breeze block rumble and the cough-glotty howls from cattle baron YOL opens side two. This ‘disappointing human-head pulled out’ kinetic-poetry and furious violent honks are artfully tempered with some real subtle tin-tapping, stone grumble and an almost hissing scat coda from our man from Hull. Six minutes long and over in a flash.
The mid-1980s synth tone mumble over record-player-run-out-groove ‘schhhhlip, schhhhlip’ and recorded babble make %20 come across like Tangerine Dream got a bonk on the head. Recorded live in Chomsky Bar, Riga it says here. I picture this played on Newcastle’s Diamond Strip at closing time. Tottering heels and big-armed boys slow the dance from which all dances come, the hen-night quietens to silence and all take stock of bitter lives lived. No one returns on Saturday.
Two Euros plus postage. 50 copies. Trades welcome. Weirdness distro and ‘zines too… plaa@pcuf.fi
Duncan Harrison – Ogre Neon
I’m over a year late reviewing this god-damn essential clutch of sonic-chuff from Brighton’s Duncan Harrison.
The general mood is confident. Unhurried and relaxed; this is no sweating beard scrabbling at the lock. And while Hanover Mist might open with close-miked domestic chutter it’s the kinda-blue bicycle-bell sample that makes this as refreshing as pink grapefruit.
Pretty much all approaches are fair game, so: loops, vocal jizz, noise interruptions, kraut-inspired repetition and crackling ambience all play a part in building up the lumpy canvas on ‘Rattles in the North’ with its heavy closing meditation on the three words…
Let’s try again, let’s try again, let’s try again, let’s try again, let’s try again, let’s try again, let’s try again…
…that becomes pregnant with hidden intention and meaning.
But again I keep coming back to the relaxed hand on the tiller. There’s no hurry to get from ‘A’ to ‘B’ at all. A limp finger dangles in the water as the punt floats imperceptibly through the bull rushes.
A simple two-note bass riff creates the backdrop for ‘Dust from the Artists Quarter’, the building ‘sceeeeee’ sine wave thing giving this a medical vibe – music for dentists perhaps? At any rate it’s starched and white for sure. ‘The Shadows Cast by the Bottom of Photoframes hung on Gallery Walls’ is a fuzzy-logic vocal piece with that expressive Dictaphone smear all over the plosive and consonant knocks that goes something like this…
n..n..NN..Ssss…S’t..nN..ssh
…with the occasional blurt of dicta FFW klonk for three blissful minutes.
Now the the chasers are necked, and the hors d’oeuvres munched, the main event occurs. A weighty 20 minutes, ‘Upstairs in Infinity’ squeezes the tubes marked Pierre Schaeffer depositing the chalky paste ready to spread.
Things gently toast with some concrete turntable frittering and intimate bottle breathing (this captured like some Mongolian shamanistic ritual, the low tones echo the desolation of the high plains via Cream Soda) until slo-mo, dicta in pocket reportage, takes us on a trip though the sort of antiques shop last seen on Tales of the Unexpected. Stark lighting and swift edits make the stuffed birds all sinister and beaky. The old busted violin squawks like a Harpy. Single notes drift as dust motes in the pale afternoon sun. But what’s that scratching come from the old tea chest? It sounds like something’s try to GET OUT! Cue credits and daft titles.
If this sounds like your kinda schizzle check out Duncan’s Bandcamp for this and a whole bunch of other essential releases (hint…2012’s Young Arms is his ‘On The Corner’). As Rob always says, ‘give what you can.’
Afore ye go…check out the excellent Beartown Records site for more related mung.
Over and out comrades!
pete cann’s noise+punk alldayer, wharf chambers, leeds, 24-03-2012
March 26, 2012 at 7:52 pm | Posted in live music, new music, no audience underground | 5 CommentsTags: andy jarvis, dogliveroil, drone, duncan harrison, electronica, etai keshiki, foldhead, hobo sonn, idwal fisher, joincey, kev sanders, kieron piercy, live music, mark wharton, mel delaney, melanie o'dubhslaine, new music, no audience underground, noise, ocelocelot, panelak, paul walsh, petals, pete cann, phil todd, plurals, target shoppers, wharf chambers
In belated celebration of his 20th birthday, Leeds noisester Pete Cann organized a day long carnival of punk and racket which took place last Saturday. What vigour these young ‘uns have, eh? I thought it would be convivial to wheel myself down there and suck up some of their lifeforce. And so it proved.
It was originally booked to happen in The Fenton, a notorious shithole, but they got cold feet (apparently those guys are only interested in ‘proper’ music nowadays – don’t they realise what heavy drinkers the noise scene are?) and cancelled. Pete was undeterred and, much to everyone’s relief, the gig was moved to the lovely Wharf Chambers which is run by hep-cats as a co-op and is therefore much more open minded.
I took a camera with me so instead of my usual arch wordiness there now follows some briefly annotated photo-journalism. Apologies for the hard-lit pictures – my camera is only a little snappy one and it insisted on the harshest flash possible. You’ll have to imagine the cool lighting and flashing LEDS. I didn’t correct the red-eyes though because everyone really did have red eyes…
I arrived at about 3.15pm and the first act, Aimmar Cair, was already playing. Alas, I heard nowt of his set as I was too busy chatting with Paul Walsh (foldhead), Mark Wharton (Idwal Fisher) and Andy Jarvis (Asymptotem) who was there to be part of Dogliveroil. Andy is organising the next midwich gig (glamorous Stoke-on-Trent, June 9th – watch this space) and it was a treat to see him face-to-face for the first time in years. Kieron Piercy (Spoils & Relics) was also an early arrival and handed me a few tapes to slip into my hand-tooled, Italian leather man-bag. Our conversation was briefly interrupted by a lad puking in the doorway between bar-room and venue-room. We couldn’t decide whether this showed a pitiful lack of pacing skills or an admirable dedication to making a day of it. Probably both. Anyway, the vom was cleared up and I took a look at the running order:
I was sceptical, but this was adhered to, pretty much. Foldhead swapped with Etai due to the latter arriving late and Heroin Diet swapped with Dogliveroil at 9pm but otherwise all was as planned. When I left 7 hours later the whole thing was only running 15 minutes late. But I get ahead of myself. Paul was on first:
With his strobe-activated squiggling and weevil-bashing crunchiness he was thought to have raised the bar pretty high, pretty early. Check out these guys vibing on his technique and taking mental notes:
Etai Keshiki arrived during Paul’s set and followed with a bunch of high-octane marvellous. I heart them so much. Andy Jarvis and his charming friend Mike were similarly wowed and we dissected their greatness in the bar whilst waiting for Ocelocelot.
During Etai, Mel had been out buying baking soda so we were agog at what was going to occur. Unfortunately, that part of her ‘kit’ – a bottle containing pop and baking soda contact-miked (‘miced’?) to amplify the fizz – didn’t work so well but the rest of her stuff – balloons, wind-up toys etc. – made a joyous din and playfully subverted the tabletop-electronics of the other acts.
In between Ocelocelot and Petals, Paul and I nipped out for chips. You could tell it was a good chippy because the lass behind the counter called us ‘love’ and ‘darling’ about ten times whilst taking our order. We were back in time to see none of Kev’s set-up work properly. We didn’t know that until after his set, of course. At the time it sounded great and we all enjoyed the bit at the end when he leapt up, took his knackered cymbal and length of bent metal and strode defiantly around the venue bashing the former with the latter.
I was flagging a bit during Hobo Sonn – post-chips lethargy, I think – so I sat back and let it wash over me. This was well timed as it was one of the least abrasive of the table-top noise performances, almost electronica in places, and soulfully resonant. I stared at the back of Ian’s head, wondered if the back of my own head looked like that, then got stuck in a very pleasant feedback loop until the applause at the end of his set brought me back.
Target Shoppers were fucking ace. First gig in over a decade, and easily as much fun as this looks:
…then they were joined by Mel (also in bald wig/mask/condom thing) for a completely balls-out finale that was actually the loudest noise of the day so far. Great guitar face from Phil there!
Duncan Harrison, known to me as a member of RFM-faves Plurals, performed a very entertaining solo set of cassette racket and gurglecore. He’s a charismatic guy with great comic timing and had the crowd grinning and laughing and grooving on a deceptively lo-fi din. A standard lamp appeared at the side of his table too which gave it a magic show/séance feel. I praised his showmanship when talking to him later and, interestingly, he admitted it was something he was tempted to hide behind because he lacked the confidence in his sound to just sit there and let the noise do it all. I think it would be a shame if he did.
Next up was due to be Seth Cooke but he was rinsed out after a twelve hour performance in an art gallery in Bradford the previous day. It was one of those high concept, ultra-long things that Bang the Bore likes to cook up. See here for details – it’s about car parks, apparently. So instead we had Pascal Ansell (Panelak) and event organiser Pete Cann (Half an Abortion) taking up the slack. Confidence was not an issue here as, for reasons known only to themselves, the boys stripped to their boxer shorts for a bit of man-to-man weevil-bashing. I only took one photo – partly because the flash was very unforgiving of partial nudity, partly because I feared being put on some kind of register. Paul described it – unforgettably – as twinktronics.
Us oldsters were taken back to the good ol’ days of noise when you couldn’t go to an all-dayer of this sort without some cocks-out action…
I apologise to Heroin Diet, who were on next, as I spent their entire set outside recovering from the hot-flush provoked by boy flesh. I chatted to Kieron about the health of the scene and hating The Wire magazine – a sentiment I wholeheartedly agree with. I spoke to Ian (Murphy, Hobo Sonn) and Duncan at some length about Brighton, physicality in noise (versus laptops) and growing up down South. Duncan was very gracious when I mistakenly attributed an album to him that he had nothing to do with (I later remembered it was by Eyeballs – It had been a long afternoon/evening). I should also mention that I spent a lot of the day talking with Kev Sanders (Petals) – a charming and witty guy who is disarmingly enthusiastic and wears his obvious erudition and seriousness very lightly. A gentleman.
And here we come to the way my evening finishes: Dogliveroil. The joke during the day was that you were presumed to be in Dogliveroil unless you had opted out, but in the end it was a mere seven people that made up the band, arranged to surround the audience on three sides. Amusingly, it was Joincey’s role to sit on the stage in the middle of this maelstrom and look as bored as possible. He picked at a cuticle, he stared at his foot. It was riveting. The whole business was topped off by a guest appearance from Simon Morris (Ceramic Hobs) who’d come over for the day and was happy to add a little high-security-wing karaoke (a reel on the theme of Stupid Hoe by Nicki Minaj).
Apologies to Sump and Cementimental who were still to play but that was enough for me. I left on a high and trotted out to my bus back to the leafy suburbs. I hope everything ended well – I’ve heard no stories of police raids since – and thanks again to Pete for organizing such a consistently fun event. Happy Birthday, man.
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