new aqua dentata album on fencing flatworm recordings!
August 12, 2015 at 9:46 am | Posted in fencing flatworm, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: aqua dentata, eddie nuttall, fencing flatworm recordings, zellaby awards
Aqua Dentata – ‘Neko Baader-Meinhof’ (CD-r, fencing flatworm recordings, edition of 50)
Ladies and gentlemen, fencing flatworm recordings, via radiofreemidwich, is delighted to announce the release of Neko Baader-Meinhof by Aqua Dentata.
Less damaged readers may recall that the prize for winning the RFM Zellaby Award for album of the year is the offer of a release on my legendary, but otherwise dormant, micro-label. Last time around the worthy recipient of the gong was Eddie Nuttall, recording as Aqua Dentata, and here he is taking me up on it.
The Aqua Dentata back catalogue is a slow growing coral of exceptional beauty. A seemingly restricted palette of (home constructed) synth drones and unplaceable metal-on-metal skittering is used to create abstract expressionist work of such depth and subtlety that the hold it commands has an almost occult power. See here for my opinions of Eddie’s previous output, see his own website to keep up with his activities. You really should – his patience, control and dedication to expressing a rigorously thought through aesthetic are unrivalled.
Neko Baader-Meinhof comprises three untitled tracks totalling just over 45 minutes. The packaging is functional – silver CD-r in plastic wallet, white paper inserts with black text, no illustration – but with a pleasingly mysterious aspect. The cover features a numbered list of 23 points provided by Eddie which bear no obvious relation to the contents (three tracks, untitled) and are otherwise unexplained. Listeners are invited to unpack the connections and allusions contained or, indeed, to make up their own. Attempts to form a narrative, or to plug these seemingly dada juxtapositions into a conspiracy theory of some kind would be most welcome.
The music itself is exquisite. I needn’t double-down on the superlatives – you simply need to hear it.
So here’s how. Aside from promotional blurb, a Discogs listing and (hopefully) any reviews it might garner, at Eddie’s request this release will have no internet presence. No soundclips anywhere, not a whiff of Bandcamp. It will only exist as these CD-rs and, when they are gone, the release will go with them. There are 50 in total – 20 have gone to Eddie for him to distribute as he sees fit, 10 have been sent or set aside as freebies for various RFM staffers and friends of the blog and the remaining 20 I have for sale…
EDIT: NOW SOLD OUT AT SOURCE! Eddie may have copies himself but the cupboard has been ransacked here at RFMHQ. Many thanks to those trusting souls who handed over money without even being able to preview the contents of this album. I’d be interested to hear what you think of it. OK, *phew* that’s enough business for one year – fencing flatworm returns to its comfortable slumber…
Y’know, sometimes running this blog is an uncomplicated joy. This is one of those times.
—ooOoo—
midwichmas: live at the radiofreemidwich 5th birthday shindig
December 2, 2014 at 12:57 pm | Posted in live music, midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: aqua dentata, daniel thomas, dave thomas, drone, eddie nuttall, electronica, forgets, hagman, human combustion engine, improv, john clyde-evans, kroyd, live music, mel o'dubhslaine, midwich, mitch, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, phil todd, psychedelia, shameless self-congratulation, uk muzzlers, wharf chambers
The Radio Free Midwich 5th Birthday Shindig: Hagman, Human Combustion Engine, midwich, UK Muzzlers, forgets live at Wharf Chambers, Leeds, 29th November 2014
So, yeah, it was a blast. Thanks to all who came and special, glowing thanks to Mitch of forgets who put it together then allowed me to hijack his efforts for my self-congratulation. All the sets were terrific and, despite the usual pre-gig nerves and some (fully justified) technical worries about crackling pots, I couldn’t be happier with how mine turned out. Good crowd too, despite ‘rival’ gigs nearby (PAH! <spits on floor> I HAVE NO RIVALS! <short pause, sheepishly looks around, cleans up spit>). Some of my typically half-arsed and incompetent photo-journalism follows below. Let’s face it, I was only really concerned that my t-shirt and balloon were documented…
Oh, and in reply to the two comrades who wondered if this was now going to be an annual event the answer is: no, not unless each year another benefactor wants to come along and organize it for me. That said, my vanity did bubble to the surface on receipt of this riff from Eddie Nuttall of Aqua Dentata:
I propose Midwichmas as a name for this. Midnight mass on Midwichmas Eve can adopt a tradition of no carol singing, but perhaps a 4-hour recital of sine waves, bowed baking trays, and warpy cassette hiss. This can be followed by the traditional exchange of photocopied collages, also known as Midwichmas cards.
On Midwichmas morning all the children will excitedly gather round the Midwichmas Tree (a petrified oak) to exchange CDRs in edition of 7 or something, usually recorded an hour or so prior. These are presented in the traditional Midwichmas wrapping paper substitute, heavily weathered Poundland Jiffy bags that have been recycled across England half a dozen times or more.
A traditional afternoon Midwichmas film would perhaps be like a Christmas film, but probably substituting Bing Crosby for Duncan Harrison.
Heh, wouldn’t that be glorious, eh?
OK, on with the showbusiness…
Trowser Carrier had to cancel (trapped in a giant laundry basket, apparently) so Hagman kicked off by recreating the pose from every other photo I’ve ever taken of Dave and Dan Thomas (no relation) ever. Their set was a gruff, bassy, throb – like the hot breath of a big cat as it licks you with its sandpaper tongue. I swayed purposefully.
Human Combustion Engine (Mel and Phil of Ashtray Navigations) teased out some tangerine psyche-synth with semi-improvised power moves. I slapped my thighs in time with the pulse. Occult science.
…and then:
…it was SHOWTIME folks!
I thanked everyone for their support and played a 20 minute set comprising two new ‘songs’. These have been recorded and will be released alongside their live versions on my Bandcamp site soon. You will be kept informed. About three minutes in I remembered the helium balloon I had stashed under my table and releasing it (see pic above) got a ripple of amused applause. This moment was such a coup de théâtre that my friend Alice later said it was…
…better than the Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Surely, no rational observer could disagree.
A word about my rad t-shirt. The logo reads ‘Sonic Circuits’ and the tagline runs thus: ‘Avant Garde Music For The No Audience Underground’. Yes! My philosophy vindicated with leisurewear! These garments were produced in celebration of the Sonic Circuits Festival 2014, organised by the genre-busting promoters of the same name based in Washington, DC. My twitter bro’ and extraordinary digi-crate-digger Phong Tran (@boxwalla) appears to have convinced ’em that the slogan was bang on and, in return for lifting the idea, a shirt winged its way across the Atlantic. So cool. Fits real nice too.
Next were ‘headliners’ UK Muzzlers. Neil Campbell and John Clyde-Evans played caveman Oi! over a hilarious tape collage. There was much whooping, thumping and brute racket. It was as if Happy Flowers had grown up but were still refusing to take their medication. The future of rock and roll, possibly.
Finally, Mitch, who organised the night, and Kroyd, who’d been on the door, dropped their admin roles, took to the stage and brought the evening to a close as forgets.
The noise purists don’t like this…
…Kroyd began, and, looking at the half dozen people who remained in the room, he clearly had a point. The throng appreciating UK Muzzlers had melted away into the ‘beer garden’, the bar or had sprinted for last trains and buses leaving just this attentive elite. Ah bollocks to the lot a’ya – I fucking love this band. This is what they do: Kroyd tells stories and recites semi-improvised prose poetry whilst Mitch soundtracks it with improv noise guitar. A comrade who shall remain nameless worried that Kroyd’s observations were ‘hit and miss’, which I concede, but it all adds to the cumulative effect of the performance. People who put their heads around the door and think ‘hmmm don’t fancy this’ are missing out on sharp, funny, sometimes very moving stories and, quite often, a fantastic crescendo of flailing, bewildered despair that tops out the set. I recommend sitting the fuck down and listening.
…and that was that so we packed up, said our goodbyes and tumbled out onto the street. Dan Thomas, taking pity on a tired old man who’d been up since 4.30am caring for his boy, made sure I got home safely. In the morning Thomas had a shiny helium balloon to play with…
—ooOoo—
UK Muzzlers (dunno – try via Astral Social Club)
the crayfish looks up at the tiny webbed feet above
November 19, 2014 at 9:05 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: aqua dentata, beartown records, drone, eddie nuttall, new music, no audience underground, noise
Aqua Dentata – The Cygnet Procambarus (CD-r, Beartown Records, edition of 50)
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.
To listen is to be immediately removed from your surroundings in a kind of rapture, to be placed elsewhere for the duration, then abruptly returned by the inevitable snap cut. His plug-pulling endings are like being thrown through the doors of the TARDIS into… your own kitchen, or the bus to work…
…which is where I first heard this album (for the record: one half-hour-ish track on CD-r, great collage cover and Spirograph-style insert, from those lovely boys at Beartown). I later joked on Twitter that it made my commute feel like a trip to the off-world colonies. Since then though, repeat listens have dunked me into a tank of pink jelly (yes, two gloopy posts in a row). Picture this:
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———
—ooOoo—
eye for detail: a long month passes quickly
November 2, 2014 at 10:09 pm | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, nick allen, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
It is now a month since eye for detail, the midwich remixes album, was released as a Bandcamp download. In that time there have been 35 purchases and well over a thousand plays of the individual tracks. More than £150 has been raised for The Red Cross as a result. I can only repeat how grateful and touched I am to those that contributed and to those that have supported it. Keep spreading the word.
Now that a little time has passed some critical reaction has started to bubble to the surface. Opinion first popped into being via Twitter, of course, and friends of RFM like Miguel Pérez and Paul Watson used their 140 characters to praise favourite pieces. Others have stepped out of the limelight to send me personal emails, such as the enigmatic Daniel Thomas. Paul Margree posted a welcome summary over at We need no swords – grinning and shrugging at the enormity of it and shooing his readership in this direction. Andy Wild has played extracts on the 81st edition of the Crow Versus Crow radio show too. The ‘scene’ has rallied around in a most heart-warming fashion.
Further to the above I have also, amazingly, had not one but two track-by-track accounts sent to me. The first of which is a collection of one-liners from the over-clocked, fizzing metaphor engine that is RFM’s own Joe Murray, the second a lengthier effort from my friend Nick Allen.
Joe needs little introduction but Nick is a new name here. We have been friends and work colleagues for many years. He is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic music fan and a frequent gig-goer but is by no means a noise head. He has listened in a tolerant, amused and open minded manner to me gabbing on about it all the while we’ve been sat in an office together and has done me the courtesy of coming to see me play live at Wharf Chambers. In return I have suffered no worse than occasional piss-taking which I consider fair exchange. Being a good sort he donated a tenner to the cause and, after dipping his toe in once or twice, decided that he was going to spend a Saturday afternoon immersed: listening to the whole lot, in order and making notes as he did so. Blimey.
Both sets of reactions are posted in full below. Why not open the eye for detail Bandcamp page in another window and listen along as you read?
Oh, and finally, Nick is an occasional writer of poetry and the combination of a glorious Yorkshire sunrise experienced whilst listening to the track by ZN inspired him to write ‘Juego de la Luz’ – also posted below. Should you enjoy it, Nick has a terrific 32 page, A6, self-published booklet of his work (called, with admirable brevity, ‘Poems’) available for nowt much so email him at the address at the foot of this post and make arrangements. I’m on my fourth copy because I keep wanting to pass them on to others I think will be interested – high praise.
First up – Joe:
Various Artists – Eye for Detail (The Midwich affair)
Micro-reviews/descriptions/impressions of each piece from the Now That’s What I Call Midwich smash hit.
Dale Cornish – Management. Hissing clicks like freshwater shrimps gone loco. Wonderfully sparse.
Aqua Denta – Natural Wastage. A glassy shroud wrapped round a tin body. After time rusty horns blow.
In Fog – Verdigris. A Mynah Bird enrols at IRCAM. This is her final project (informed by heartbreak).
Dsic – Procedures. The gods throw road mending equipment through a black hole.
Clive Henry – Witch Mania, Mend Gem. Scrabble tiles become sentient and form one-note Tangerine Dream tribute act.
Brian Lavelle – Slowly, we illuminate future truths. New Star Wars theme slowed down 1000 times.
Van Appears – Molluscs. Undersea skat. SCUBA improv. Oxygen/Nitrogen mix set to high
AP Martlet – New Plateaus. Elegy for out-of-date School Atlas (circa 1951).
Foldhead – Glacier. Super minimal like pink frost.
Chrissie Caulfield – oTo T50. A sharp intake of robot’s breath. Klezmer exhale.
DR:WR – Left Unresolved. Prison riot as heard through battered brass ear-trumpet.
Hardworking Families – Be to under weather to be. Sunshine distilled into individual waves, pickled then shook in a jar.
John Tuffen from Orlando Fergusson – Weather to be Under. As above but dubbed like On-U Sound.
Panelak – Irnwrks. Chipped-crockery-core! Salty blood runs over teeth staining them pink. Sharp to the touch.
Simon Aulamn – Too Early. A spitting porpoise (of course).
Paul Watson – Midwich. Sneak into the chapel. Stuff the organ pipe with potato. Hit the keys for chips.
Posset – A Moment of Stillness. Dictaphone frottage in Lovecraftian word jam.
The Piss Superstition – tinymuscle. The Detroit mass transport system scored for bic pens and pocket fluff.
Michael Clough – Left Unresolved. Thomas Tallis jumps in the Tardis and demands sexy-android motet.
Neil Campbell – MidwichMIX. Sly Stone comes round to polish yr Horsebrasses? Beware excessive Brasso fumes.
Devotionalhallucinatic – August in Ribblehead. Severe throttling. Barbed Wire snogs. Not a great first date.
Michael Gilham – oTo T22 Part II. Tractor beam vibrations, asteroid mining, dirty spacecracft.
Daniel Thomas – Striking Flint. Cast Iron Cello rubbed till the rivets pop out.
Breather – Floating. The real Pirate Radio material…stick that up your Skinner!
Yol – Stoma 2. Real-live stutter gob vs Jojouka horns (acid remix)
ZN – La Industria De La Luz. The Museum of Misery opens its doors. Churning machinery whirrs inside with dismal efficiency. In your pocket, an invitation…
Andy Jarvis – Bosky. Shit. Wish I’d thought of this. Pure vocal drone like some Pandit Pran Nath dude. Heavy vocal sludge gets more and more looped and freaky. God damn perfect!
—ooOoo—
OK, that’s that for Joe, over to Nick:
I know almost nothing about this music – so here goes – I have had one run through a week or so ago…in bits…when I picked out Cassie Caulfield and Michael Clough as early front runners, let’s see how they perform now its all in one sitting. It is 1.30pm on Saturday 18 October, press PLAY and let the spontaneous prosody begin:
Management – Dale Cornish
static bursts or restrained pissing…something frying long pauses…a message not reaching me
Natural Wastage – Aqua Dentata
outside…natural atmospheric background…perhaps a distant motorway…higher scratchings…spirals…low-level tinnitus…flying saucers from Plan B from Outer Space…an itching…something more coming into view…more solid…almost expect the screen to wobble a la transportation device of sci-fi TV…nevertheless a peaceful embracing enveloping atmosphere…also something of Sunday morning church bells (I can hear my dishwasher in the background glugging a rapid beat)…entering bat territory…higher higher pitch…like listening to a Turner painting, hearing colours…inside a sensory depravation tank with my eyes open…pulsing…meditative…a note, sustained…riding over, riding over…a crashed car with the horn jammed…a ferry…pulled out of calm…fade…stop
verdigris – In Fog
accidental musicality…placid…measured…sounds like a workshop…with an insect trapped…a guide bell…a mood reminiscent of the White Lunar album (N Cave and W Ellis)…fitfull/restful
Procedures – dsic
clamour…clamour…irregular jerking clamour…opening different doors in an industrial factory one after the other…working with the caffeine to increase heartbeat…I can’t help wondering why…space invaders!…and then a drill…all sent to annoy…some pre-recorded music and bleeping…finished and not sad
witch mania, mend gem – Clive Henry
digging, chipping…low backdrop…the sound of an insect invasion, walking…bricklaying…nothing restful…constantly constant…to a whistledown stop and something…walking on bubblewrap (question mark)…wet finger on a glass rim…paranoia perhaps…this could hurt…two apparently unrelated soundtracks…converging on an incoming tide…the hurricane winds battering the wooden window boards in downtown Florida somewhere
Slowly, we illuminate future truths – Brian Lavelle
revelation, and the clouds part…for the first time I close my eyes…a wider picture…within…too calm to be euphoric…there is a place, there is a place…boats passing boats, unseen – that’s something from Apocalypse Now, I’m sure…
Molluscs – Van Appears
Headunderwaterlistening…high tide perhaps…recorded dolphin speak but the voice has been disguised to protect their identity
New Plateaus – ap martlet
pressure build…irritation…a white noise box to mask traffic and city clamour…in a block of flats above an urban motorway, the JG Ballard flyover, and from the balcony you watch the lights swing following the same path, following the same path, lighted traction from the darkest fraction…a city in all its horror and glory…follow the red lights bead…the blinking white lines…sodium…it must all lead somewhere…repetition, the flow, of repetition…dementia…fractures our habits…the neverending nightcity hum…enter the void…there is a darkness beyond…still falling or climbing, hard to tell…exposure…try not to blink…water pressure builds…the last lost signal is broadcast – END
glacier – foldhead
less glacier, more fog, sea fret…immersion and low frequency vibration…soothe…calm intention…passed through some kind of body scanner…observed…minutely…for some reason whales come to mind…perhaps their song…I see in greens and blues…the Sea of Tranquility is green and bottomless and calm…adrift…dreamlike…slumber beckoning…sleep phantoms loom and pass harmless, soft creatures of the deep withstanding enormous gravity, eyeless blind…take an age, we grow…to achieve
oTo T50 – Chrissie Caulfield
outside or wind or…something landing…musical, structural almost a rhythm…there is a Who intro keyboard, slightly…violin-ish…and then cello…trepidation…a sense of lurking…before the trauma…Hitchcock’s Psycho…and so of course, blood in water…some message tapped out
left unresolved (short) – DR:WR
too many voices calling…cannot pick out a thread…interwoven…a sense of cacophony controlled…layers…no structure but mass…diminish…what will happen…
Be To Under the Weather to be – Hardworking Families
the start, the keyboard, the looping beat, then the skip, move up, shape, an invitation to dance, and to risk a beat, this is the dance track, played backwards, beats meet you out of sequence causing surprise, call and refrain, where are the horns, playful, happyhappy, repeatedly running towards me smiling in the video, definitely a song for spring not autumn
Weather to be Under (five is the number he is bounteous) – John Tuffen from Orlando Ferguson
Ibiza choon…arms waving through lights…risings…sunrise…this could pass for euphoria in a bleak world…where next though where next out of the loop…some scattered thoughts fleet and dash before being grabbed and harnessed…and so the loop, ever on, ever on with the loop…mobius sound…within sight of the place we started…zone in zone out…not boredom but the same effect of inattention…the focus is shattered…no, something softer than shattered…but the centre is nevertheless lost in all the rounding circularity…spirals…concentrated meandering always tethered…I’d like my drugs now please
Irnwks – Panelak
flckng rd sttns…nny nny…no pleasure to be had…Alex in Clockwork Orange had his eyelids pinned open…watching someone operate on a broken bone in your leg in your leg because they forgot the anaesthetic…followed by indecision…not unhinged, just hingeless…why would you…
remix of Midwich’s Too Early from Every Day is the same – Simon Aulman
(at 3 minutes this is the Ramones remix)…channelling paranoia…from a bad bad place…do less…much less…a longed for beat stop
Midwich (Hangover mix) – Paul Watson
lethargic crepuscular start…moving with a heavy heart…a car door?…in darkness water dripping…ripples and swirls…open the hands over the mouth and close again childhood megaphones…movement…through a corridor…listening from inside a cupboard afraid of detection…muffle…hiding, stay hidden…steps overhead, steps overheard…feels like ghosts…when you’re unsure
a moment of stillness – posset
verbal verbal…muttered words overlaid an aural mosaic senseless confusion I hear treacle but this is not glutinous it shatters and cracks and loops insensible a moment of stillness is sought, is noted a moment of stillness a moment a moment it is brave and compulsive I imagine him rocking rocking rocking without stop without eventually reaching for the wall like an exhausted swimmer
tinymuscle – the piss superstition
something organic growing one of those slo-mo shots of plants shoots emerging…the remnnants of a dance loop…an antiquity…dust on the needle…laboured breathing, perhaps emphysema, with an oxygen tank by the side of the chair…old industry…with a light touch…a hope…I start to imagine Ian Curtis’ voice…I’m at a loss as to why…
left unresolved cakemix edit – Michael Clough
a spaceship’s groans as it flexes…who would hear it…is it instead the magnified groanings of our knees as we stand again, cartilage upon cartilage…nevertheless it is a wave of sound that seems to enfold in an understated calm…something derived from the element of things…not quite the Buddhists’ chant of Om…closer less ethereal…I am reminded of the alien goo in Under the Skin, that absorbs men, erections and all…which all seems a long way from “cakemix”…the bringer of peace?
midwichMIX – Neil Campbell
tuning up…layers…not yet distressed enough to be Sonic Youth…as if you were touching a piece of metalwork and hearing the vibrations at its atomic level…there is a cohesive harmony but it is hidden among the density…such weight…occasional shafts of light penetrate
august in ribblehead – devotionalhallucinatic
(I like Ribblehead)…adrummerinthedistance…is the foundation…scraping away (an old Jam song)…an element of something happening over there… a show, a performance to be watched, passively…completely immersive
oTo T22 – Part II – Michael Giliham
gently meditative…not quite pastoral…slowly lifting…could be an interlude…so much scope, so much space…allows steady breathing…we float…unhurried…nothing seems immanent…the Northern Lights
Striking Flint – Daniel Thomas
deep echo…slowed dub electronica…all about the pattern on the cardiogram caused by the waves…the repeat and the variance…the approach and the retreat…the search for the optimal point…benign hypnosis…there must be a centre…standing on the shore of an avatar sea…watching the lights on the boats…knowing that the unknowable teems beneath…shoals…that pulse in light…thin filtered light…all this submerged beauty…beyond reach…beyond…timetracklost of…
throating (stomaching) – Breather
(almost) feedback…return nourishment…non-stomaching…which is of course vomit…not a reflection on the sounds, which are gastric at best…push a gurgle through a re-verb…insistent like an alarm…bike horns, he asks unsure…pleasant enough without cramping…
Stoma 2 – YOL
This sort of noise in a supermarket would make you skip to the next aisle and vow to yourself that next time you’ll do the shop on line.
La industria de la Luz – ZN
(this was partially responsible for a poem on the first hearing; see end, Juego de la Luz)
builds and builds…slow accumulation…uncertain pressure…pushing…
something below…an expectation builds…waiting…a chrysalis splitting…no clear view yet…never quite in focus…yet intense…perhaps it is a birth…waiting for what…it is breathing, it is everything, it is repetition it is grind and it is the turning day…the sound of white light at the end of the tunnel…
Bosky (AJ vocal remix) – Andrew Jarvis
…and so the last one…tibetan monk chanting lost behind feedback… something bizarre…squalls over mutterings…vague sense of it being something from another time…or unearthly or uninterpretable…an outtake from the White Album…if I hear a scouse twang I’ll believe it…comes a point where a rock song could climb and take off…but instead it meanders and fades…never less than interesting.
…and we’re done – at 17.23 – off to Fanny’s.*
[*Editor’s note: Fanny’s Ale House is a pub in Saltaire near where Nick lives. I thought it best not to leave that ambiguous…]
—ooOoo—
Juego de la Luz
Awash,
The tentative dawn spills gentle and golden
Sweeping the valley like euphoria
This is what I imagine a warm wind
Would look like, or a heart in love
Rising behind the mass of Windhill
As if a great dam is breaching
Making shadow theatre silhouettes of the radio mast
Which lacks only sails to ride out to sea
And the great chimneys of the ex-factories
Blackly loom exclaiming their redundancy
The lambent air is still, the river’s skin
Lies un-nipped and un-blistered
This gold slips warm and soft along
The singing overhead cables
While the melting iron of Dali’s tracks
Lead the sliced eye to flattened horizons
What will today bring. I suspect
The attentive heron knows, the drifting swan
And the bolting deer locked in their moment of
Stillness, will both know. I am gently enraptured
By this timorous dawn, under whispering mists,
That offers a promise of transcendence
On arriving in the city I find
I no longer understand traffic jams
—ooOoo–
Nick Allen: Panic@6haroldplace.co.uk
eye for detail, paul watson and a giant cardboard cheque
October 12, 2014 at 8:40 pm | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
Regular readers and Twitter followers will know that the 1st of October saw the release of eye for detail – the midwich remixes album. This Bandcamp download comprises 27 tracks by various no-audience underground luminaries each refiguring some section of my back catalogue. It totals three hours and forty minutes in length and can be bought for the knock-down price of five pounds. All proceeds are being donated to charity. The album has garnered universal love since its birth – making it even better than a royal baby – and has already been hailed as the album of the year by no less an authority than the voices in my head. The total plays for individual tracks topped 1000 in ten days. Further details as to its genesis can be read here and notes on its release can be read here.
The cause I have chosen to support is The British Red Cross. You may be aware of the front line medical help they supply in disaster situations but may not be familiar with the global network they have for tracing missing family members, or the support they provide to refugees in accessing services and adapting to life in a new country. You can read about what they do here. It is vital work.
Paul Watson, best known ’round these parts as BBBlood, contributed a handsome mix himself and then went on to earn limitless karma points by enthusiastically badgering punters into coughing up. In return for his help I somehow agreed to make my initial donation of £100 via one of those giant cheques you see in local newspaper photo opportunities – handshake n’all. I have to admit to being tickled by the idea and thought I could pop into a Red Cross charity shop and have a bit of a laugh with the volunteers there. Alas, a little research revealed that The Red Cross do not have such a business here in sunny Leeds and, in fact, their only office is a refugee assistance centre. A visit was nixed immediately – I’d feel a right knobber interrupting this crucial work by prancing about with my sheet of cardboard.
…and yet I still really wanted to get the felt-tips out and had a giant box that bits of a bed had been delivered in down in the cellar. What the hell, eh? I’d make my fake cheque, my 18 month old son Thomas could be The Red Cross’s representative during a symbolic ceremony and I’d do the actual transaction online.
Here are the stats: 25 sales of eye for detail at the time of writing raising £136.23, removing Bandcamp and PayPal fees leaves a donation of £109.01 which was handed over electronically prior to this post being written. My thanks and gratitude again to all those involved and to all those who have donated money. The compilation will remain available indefinitely and I will continue donating future proceeds on a regular basis.
The cheque measures 20″ by 38″ (piss superstition CD-r included in picture above for scale) and is now for sale. If you’d like to own this historic document in return for a further donation I’ll look into posting it – get in touch.
The Ceremony in pictures:
Visiting dignitaries take their seats.
Thomas takes a few photographs himself whilst waiting for it all to begin.
The presentation! Thomas is amazed at this princely sum.
The ceremonial handshake – Thomas a bit unsure about the etiquette.
…goes for the fistbump first…
…then the full celebratory shake…
…then subverts custom by presenting his foot to be shaken too. Kid has flair.
Worrying (with some justification) that Daddy can’t be trusted with money he is eager to get it safe…
…so immediately deposits it in the Bank of Shove-It-Behind-The-Sofa. Daddy retires to the study to do the real transaction online. A job well done. Thanks to Anne for taking the photos.
—ooOoo—
‘eye for detail’, the midwich remixes album, out now!
October 1, 2014 at 9:22 am | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
Comrades! Light the bonfires! Blow those long, thin trumpets with banners hanging off ’em!
Radio Free Midwich is delighted to announce the release of eye for detail – the midwich remixes album.
About six weeks ago a passing comment on Twitter was tossed over the chalet balcony and started to roll down the mountainside. The resulting giant snowball crashed through the doors of my back catalogue and, within hours, a happy band of looters was ransacking the vault. An album was retroactively called into existence with a deadline and a charity cause adding some ‘oomph’ to proceedings. The cut off was the 30th September, the release date today. Such is the unfettered power of the no-audience underground.
I have been delighted with the number of responses, the enthusiasm with which contributors embraced the task and the breadth, quality and imagination shown in the submitted tracks. The artists featured represent a (partial at least) cross section of the ‘scene’ this blog reports on and the gathering of the clan has reminded me, more than once, of the ridiculous oTo tapes project I oversaw a decade ago (indeed, check out the title of Michael Gillham’s track – dude also has a long memory). It has been extremely flattering and morale boosting to see such art inspired by my own meagre output. I am humbled but beaming.
A few words about the album itself. There are 27 tracks in total and the combined running time is over three and a half hours. The artists included are (deep breath):
Andy Jarvis, ap martlet, Aqua Dentata, Breather, Brian Lavelle, Chrissie Caulfield (of RFM faves Helicopter Quartet), Clive Henry, Dale Cornish, Daniel Thomas, devotionalhallucinatic, DR:WR (Karl of The Zero Map), dsic, foldhead (Paul Walsh – who accidentally started it all), Hardworking Families (Tom Bench), In Fog (Scott McKeating of this parish), John Tuffen (of Orlando Ferguson), Michael Clough, Michael Gillham, Neil Campbell (Astral Social Club), Panelak, Paul Watson (BBBlood), posset (Joe Murray also of RFM), Simon Aulman (pyongyang plastics), the piss superstition, Van Appears, Yol, and ZN.
Phew, champion line up, eh? I have made a stab at organising a coherent running order but please feel free to chop and change according to your own mood. Over such a long time, and with so many different styles in play, some juxtapositions are going to grate for some listeners. I have done a little light-touch mastering – mainly just amping up a couple of tracks – but not much, most tracks are presented as they arrived. There are some variations in volume but SO BE IT – no unnecessary compression/loudness war crap here.
The cover photograph was donated by Michael Clough and I encourage all readers to regularly check his tumblr site for a stream of similar observational genius. The download includes a portfolio of a further seven photographs from Clough to accompany the release. Also in the bonus items is a document listing links to further information about the featured artists and, where possible, links to the midwich material that was the source for their track.
Finally then: the cause. It seemed appropriate to me to make this a charity release and chose the Red Cross as the beneficiary. You may be aware of the front line medical help they supply in disaster situations but may not be familiar with the global network they have for tracing missing family members, or the support they provide to refugees in accessing services and adapting to life in a new country. You can read about what they do here. All proceeds from this album will be heading their way.
—ooOoo—
art imitates life imitating art in the barrel nut issue #9!
May 20, 2014 at 8:02 pm | Posted in art, no audience underground, not bloody music | 2 CommentsTags: aqua dentata, eddie nuttall, gary simmons, hiroshima yeah!, idwal fisher, mark ritchie, mark wharton, no audience underground, the bald heads of noise, the barrel nut, visual art, zines
Comrades, castaways, fellow members of the gutter elite! Radio Free Midwich proudly boasts of finding issue number 9 of The Barrel Nut stuffed down the back of art’s sofa: a momentary delight for those of heightened aesthetic awareness but sorely limited attention span.
We begin strong with two pages of pavement photography from Eddie Nuttall of Aqua Dentata. He is a contemporary master of the well-tempered drone – each piece by him a comfortably warm iceberg – and his visual art has a similar austere intensity. Here he proves, alas, that the streets of London are not paved with gold but instead awash with suspiciously milky discharge…
The centrefold contains another hilarious four panel gag strip from Uncle Mark Wharton of the essential Idwal Fisher blog. This time the bald heads of noise enjoy a night in the pub doing what they like best: talking bollocks about music whilst quaffing the ale. That’s you that is – just show this to your partner and they will nod in rueful recognition.
Finally, we have a tag team effort from the brothers of Hiroshima Yeah! fanzine. Gary Simmons provides a photograph of life literally imitating art – and what life! What art! – whilst Mark Ritchie follows it with some sage advice for the working stiff presented in compelling collage form.
Cracking stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. For anyone new to this party (you’ll have to refill the chip-‘n’-dip, I’m afraid) here’s some reheated explanatory blurb:
The Barrel Nut is a microzine – a single sided, single sheet of A4 paper cleverly folded to make an eight panel, A7 pamphlet. Paper copies will be distributed to anyone who wants one, or who has expressed an interest in the past. I’ll bring some to gigs I attend and a bunch will be passed around by those with a similar love of the post.
Should you be so inclined then you are very welcome to download and print out your own. Links to the latest issue in jpeg and pdf formats are below (you’ll need to trim the print-out a bit down one edge to make it fold properly). Some more context, assembly instructions and previous issues can be found on The Barrel Nut’s own page (tabbed above).
Should you wish to contribute artwork then I would be very grateful indeed. Submissions need to look OK when reproduced as a black and white photocopy and be 7cm by 10cm in size (or scalable to roughly those dimensions). Good quality scans attached to an email are fine, originals sent in the post ideal. Please get in touch.
As ever, I’m proud to bring this to your attention. Contributors and subscribers will be receiving copies in the post in due course. Links to downloadable versions below, as promised.
I shall finish by repeating my customary plea: leaving aside a dwindling stockpile of stuff by the regulars I am in need of submissions for future issues. If you like this little project then please feel free to send me something.
The Barrel Nut issue #9 as a pdf file
The Barrel Nut issue #9 as a jpeg file
documents of the golden age: new from ashtray navigations, aqua dentata and helicopter quartet
July 29, 2013 at 7:30 am | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | 7 CommentsTags: aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, bandcamp, chrissie caulfield, drone, eddie nuttall, helicopter quartet, mainstream versus underground, new music, no audience underground, noise, obsolete units, phil todd, psychedelia, punk, simon reynolds
Ashtray Navigations – Insect Descent (CD-r, Obsolete Units, OU-042, edition of 100)
Aqua Dentata – Ten Thousand Wooden Faces (CD-r, Echo Tango, etc02)
Helicopter Quartet – Where Have All The Aliens Gone? (self-released download)
Musing on the quality of the releases above, and on the methods by which they found their way to me, led me to revisit some comments made by Simon Reynolds in that speech we talked about last year. In particular, the bit where he seemed to champion the freedoms won by punk whilst being suspicious of the freedoms allowed by the internet. He also bemoaned the lack of an audience for the avalanche of creative endeavour that is instantly accessible nowadays. He worried that all this production needed validating by sufficient consumption and that the required level of consumption just wasn’t there. Hence his reference to my notion of the ‘no-audience underground’.
Regarding the first worry, well, of course we should all be grateful to punk for wresting the means of production (partially at least) from the majors of the mainstream. It showed that the music ‘industry’ could be run by and for fans and artists. May I cheekily point out, however, that all the elements that made up the mainstream music industry were retained by punk: releases, tours, press, promotion etc. Even, in some cases, old-school bullshit like management and contracts. The fan/artist (stage/pit) divide was made more permeable but wasn’t eliminated. That these means were co-opted by people who weren’t godawful wankers and who really cared about the music and the politics is not the same thing as jettisoning them altogether. I realise that I am being naughtily revisionist in doubting the ‘Year Zero’ status of punk but you know what I mean.
In contrast, the freedoms offered by the internet are greater by orders of magnitude. Via services like Bandcamp any sound at all can be made available to anyone on the planet with an internet connection, at no unit cost to either the artist or the listener, within minutes of it being completed. Punk couldn’t compete with that: it’s as transparently democratic, anarchic even, as it is possible to be in a ‘music-related’ context. Sure, engage with traditional elements if you like (running a label, for example, is a fun thing to do and still one of the best ways of organising a cluster of artists who share similar objectives) but you don’t have to. The extent to which you commit yourself is entirely your own concern. You don’t have to sound punk either, or cop a snarling attitude. Simon Reynolds, betraying an old-fashioned punknosity, suggests the underground should define itself in opposition to the mainstream. Quaint, eh? In turn I’d suggest that it is far more radical to ignore it. The machine loves to be raged against – what it can’t bear is to be shrugged off as irrelevant. Which, of course, it is.
The second worry seems to be based on a misunderstanding of why we do what we do. If we instead take as read that the primary purpose of most worthwhile creative endeavour is self-expression then this concern just dissolves. ‘But where are the fans?’ Simon says, ‘what do you mean ‘fans’?’ I reply, looking up from the keyboard and glancing nervously over my shoulder. It is lovely to have an appreciative audience, I understand this – I’m as vain and needy as the next guy, but this is a secondary concern. In fact, aren’t we supposed to be suspicious of ‘art’ created with the audience in mind, that is, with an eye on the market? Isn’t that what we call ‘product’? Not very ‘punk’ is it? Sure, I’ll settle for market-driven pabulum if I find myself in an undemanding mood but I’m equally sure that the stuff featured on this blog is created without any concern for how many ‘units’ it might shift. We all appreciate the occasional reward – we work hard – but no one here needs a fist-pumping crowd to validate what they do. A friend joked the other day that the ratio of artists to listeners on Bandcamp is 10 to 1, then was careful to add: which is how it should be. I agreed, laughing. The production of all this work is, in and of itself, a terrific thing. What should we be doing instead? Passively consuming CDs recommended by veteran cultural commentators presumably. Ugh: boring.
So why rake over these coals again? Well, these three releases nicely illustrate three choices about levels of commitment to the process, and give three crystal clear examples of the majesty that can be achieved by people following their vision irrespective of whether or not it will ‘sell’. All are also expansively psychedelic, albeit in different ways, and thus suitable listening during the recent heat.
Ten Thousand Wooden Faces by Aqua Dentata comprises five untitled tracks totalling about three quarters of an hour. They are presented to us by Eddie Nuttall himself via his ‘echo tango’ imprint on CD-r in the stylishly minimal, ‘wood grain’ print cover pictured above. Once again I am impressed with his exquisite discipline. This is electronic noise as tai chi performance: poised, muscular, subtle, focussed.
The first track features not much more than a tone hovering at midriff level whilst a rolling rattle seesaws to and fro around the stereo field. I have no idea what the sound source for this liquid clatter might be but it calls to mind happy hours from my early childhood spent dropping endless marbles down a homemade run constructed from bits of cardboard and sellotape. The six year old’s equivalent of meditation. The second track is almost modernist in its austerity but I find this drone soulful and not the slightest bit academic or aloof. It is like a Beckett play – formally minimal, intensely human. The third track finds the gradual smearing of an early morning burglar alarm reconceptualised as the centrepiece of Eddie’s album. Context is everything – sat here it is perfect.
The main event is the fourth track: an 18 minute stretch so magnificent that I feel compelled to coin a new sub-genre to account for it. I used the phrase ‘tethered crescendo’ in the piece I wrote about Lucy Johnson but would like to flesh it out here. What I mean is the type of piece that exists in an uneasy stasis and gives the impression that it could roar into chaos if it wasn’t being held delicately but firmly in place by the guiding hand of the artist. I picture Eddie struggling with a sack full of drunken wasps or holding his hands stock still over a crackling, multipronged, malignant-looking, sentient Theremin. We end with a short coda of dangerously wet electrics which, inevitably, short circuit and leave us in ozone-scented darkness…
Where Have All The Aliens Gone?, the new album by Helicopter Quartet also comprises five tracks totalling about three quarters of an hour, this time self-released as a pay-what-you-like download via Bandcamp. It is fair to say I swooned over the first Helicopter Quartet album and I have been quivering with anticipation since hearing that the duo of Chrissie Caulfield (violin, synth) and Michael Capstick (guitar, bass) were recording their second (y’know, in a studio and everything, like a real band). Expectations were high and I’m happy to say that they have been comfortably exceeded.
Their sound (‘drone rock’? ‘dark ambient’? I don’t know) is dense and rich, each element absorbing in its own right, all contributing to a mysterious but coherent whole. It is like finding an ornately inlaid wooden casket containing a collection of exquisitely handcrafted objects: what might be a bear, carved from obsidian, a female form cast in an unplaceable grey/green metal, an abstract pattern, possibly even unreadable script, scrimshawed onto yellowing bone. All irresistibly tactile, all fascinating, all revealing aspects of the character of the unknown and long dead collector who gathered them together.
It is cliché to describe simplicity as ‘deceptive’ and efficiency as ‘ruthless’ but both phrases are perfectly apt in this case. There is no waste, no let up, the emotional demands of this music are unmistakeable. Despite the jokes about torturing aliens on its Bandcamp page, this is a deeply serious music but, like Aqua Dentata above, it is epic on a human scale. Allow me an anecdotal illustration. The other day I found myself walking home from work chewing over some difficult news. No need for specifics – suffice to say that aged 41 years old I find myself surrounded by young children, elderly relatives and am occasionally (still) shocked by mortality and frailty in my peer group. In short: I am now a grown up. This album was playing on my walkman at the time and it resonated so perfectly with my mood that at one moment – it could have been the violin’s entrance in the title track, maybe the guitar in ‘Hunter Gatherer’ – it pulled at me so irresistibly that my mental jenga pile collapsed and I found myself crying, hard, whilst waiting to cross a road at Sheepscar junction. Remarkable. I think HQ can consider that a standing ovation.
Finally, we have Insect Descent by Ashtray Navigations, a pro-pressed CD-r in full colour digipak lovingly produced in an edition of 100 by American label Obsolete Units. Yet another five track album but this one is a monster 73 minutes long. The music herein was recorded by Phil solo (can I make the ‘on his todd’ joke? Hah! – I just did!) back in 2008 but, mysteriously, has languished unreleased since then. I don’t know the story but no matter – all’s well that ends well and we should thank Obsolete Units for doing their duty in making it available.
We begin with ‘The Trail Of The Long Wet Mystery Fruit That Dropped Into The Lion’s Mouth’, two minutes of scene setting psychic alarums – the kind that might go off in your head when you realise you’ve just taken twice as many magic mushrooms as you originally intended. We are then launched into ‘Insect Descent Trajectory’ which is 12 minutes of orgiastic delirium. Picture a neon-lit pit full of writhing, multi-limbed, demigods wearing nothing but day-glo body paint. Every protuberance is for fucking with, every crevice and orifice is to be fucked. Yeah, Phil uses the medium of the guitar overdub to paint a vivid scene. The bip-bop, electronic percussion track that accompanies the squalling is hilariously strutting, bad-ass, daring you to laugh at its rinkydinkyness.
The wet electrics that ended the Aqua Dentata album resurface as the main component of ‘One Million Pleasurecards All Painted White’ – 23 minutes of guttural rumble, like the drainage system of a large, Northern, post-industrial city attempting to clear its throat before announcing something important. This growling throb is leavened by guitar occasionally bobbing to the surface – giant fuzzy dice emerging miraculously unsullied from an oil-slick filled bay.
By the time we get to ‘Fake Aeroplane’ the mushrooms from earlier have well and truly kicked in and you find yourself fried and sitting on a park bench at 4.30am. “Up!” you murmur and the bench launches into the air, “vroomm!!” you suggest and the bench flies you towards the raspberry dawn. “Somewhere nice please,” you politely request and, after fifteen minutes of blurred landscape below, you land gently in the setting for the final track. ‘Sweeping Song’ is a masterfully sustained 20 minutes of blissed-out heat, tropical but made comfortable by a sea breeze. It is the aural equivalent of laying on your back, spread-eagled, on a beach and slowly working your fingers and heels into the sand. The rhythm track that starts, somewhat surprisingly, at around 14 minutes marks the dawning realisation that this might be the most awesome afternoon of your life…
So there we have it: three album of the year contenders in one blog post. One available direct from a terrific microlabel, the others direct from the artists concerned. You don’t even have to pay for the Helicopter Quartet album if you have nowt spare (though please bung ’em something if you can – it is well worth a donation). All done for the love of it, because the drive to do it is irresistible. All created outside of any commercial concerns and with little, if any, reference to ‘the mainstream’ at all. Never mind the music industry, here’s the life affirming genius.
Truly, people, we live in a golden age.
the compass will always point north
June 24, 2013 at 11:13 am | Posted in live music, new music, no audience underground | 1 CommentTags: andie brown, aqua dentata, bbblood, daniel thomas, drone, eddie nuttall, electronica, hagman, hairdryer excommunication, idwal fisher, kevin sanders, live music, mark wharton, midwich, new music, no audience underground, noise, paul watson, petals, shameless self-congratulation, sheepscar light industrial, these feathers have plumes, wharf chambers
Sheepscar Light Industrial Presented:
‘The Compass Points North’
Petals, Aqua Dentata, Hagman, These Feathers Have Plumes, Midwich, BBBlood
Wharf Chambers, Leeds, Saturday 22nd June 2013
Dan Thomas is to be congratulated. Again. The latest of his biannual gigs, themed (more or less) around his microlabel Sheepscar Light Industrial, took place last Saturday and was, without quibble, a triumph. Background and biographies of the acts that played can be found via the numerous links Dan worked into the original publicity so I’m not going into much context here. All I want to do is give a brief and immediate impression of what was a terrific, life affirming evening (this will be accompanied by my usual terrible photojournalism, which this time gets all arty part way through when I decide to forego the flash). The gig was also appropriated by Mark Wharton of RFM’s sister blog Idwal Fisher as part of his 50th birthday celebrations. More on him in the section about my set.
Being the model of efficiency that he is, Dan has already edited, mastered and posted freely downloadable mp3s of each of the six performances. These can be found zipped up in rar files on mediafire but you lot can’t be arsed with that can you? Thus I’ve taken the liberty of hosting unzipped mp3s here in the cavernous RFM vaults too. Listen by clicking on the little arrows you’ll see below or download by right clicking on the links and saving the digital goodness.
Due to childcare commitments I couldn’t be part of the committee welcoming our three guests from London: Andie Brown (These Feathers Have Plumes), Eddie Nuttall (Aqua Dentata) and Paul Watson (BBBlood) so I met up with them, Kev Sanders (Petals) and Dan at Wharf Chambers sometime just gone 6pm. Setting up and soundchecking was in full swing and Dan had thoughtfully dragged my usual table and standard lamp into my preferred position. Kibe (apologies – I don’t know the spelling, it was pronounced Key-Bee), our soundguy, was super helpful and accommodating and asked a question I have never heard someone doing his job ask in all my years of droning:
Would you like it to be louder?
I knew right there the evening was going to be a belter.
So here’s us setting up, tabletop electronics is a breeze, eh?
Once all was in hand we retired to the Wharf Chambers beer ‘garden’ to relax and listen to the gathering crowd of ecstatic noise-fans chanting our names as they waited outside to rush the doors as soon as they opened. Here’s Andie and dapper Eddie rockin’ his trademark mod look.
… and here’s Paul and Kev, synchronising their Sam Smith intake.
That bit about the baying crowd was a joke obviously. For some time the first and only paying punter was the mighty Pete Cann. Looks well excited, eh?
So come 8pm a respectable crowd was gathering but many jaded regulars were alarmed to find that the gig was going to start (and run throughout the night) on time. Dan needed to run a tight ship to keep it afloat. He did. First up was Petals.
Picture shows Kev indulging in a little liquid preparation. The esteem in which I hold this guy’s work is second to none and the sheer quality of his set made me want to simultaneously a) lie face down on the floor, eyes closed, palms up and b) accost the general public, grab lapels and thrust Petals releases into the pockets of the bewildered. Putting him on first is a crime really, but it set the bar almost comically high for the rest of us.
[audio https://radiofreemidwich.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/01-petals.mp3]Next was Eddie:
After championing his release March Hare, Kraken Mare this time last year I have been following the Aqua Dentata story with an almost unhealthy interest. Eddie’s music has a quiet but unswerving sense of purpose and is constructed with such patience and confidence that its simplicity becomes exhilarating. Like a clear blue sky, like a perfectly sharp knife. This guy knows what to leave out and, in so doing, makes anything other than rapt attention impossible. Smart dresser too.
[audio https://radiofreemidwich.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/02-aqua-dentata.mp3]Then Dan had to relinquish his organisational duties for half an hour and take to the stage…
Hagman, the duo of Dan Thomas and Dave Thomas (no relation) was exactly 50% short as the latter was not in attendance. Due to Dave enduring an attack of ‘real life’ type stuff Dan had to play solo. An intriguing start of cross-clattering rhythms (field recordings from his recent travels to Hong Kong?) gave way to the pressurised roar of a sleepless night in an aircraft cabin, augmented by the pots and sliders of the kit jumble you see above. It was muscular but delicate too.
[audio https://radiofreemidwich.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/03-danielthomas.mp3]…and then something really magical happened:
To my shame, I wasn’t up to speed with Andie’s work as These Feathers Have Plumes before. Suffice to say I am now a fan. She used the three giant glasses (vases? punchbowls?) pictured above, part filled with water, to produce gorgeous, haunting, tones by rubbing a moistened thumb around their rims (titter ye not). This augmented a carefully underplayed selection of field recordings – birds, weather, water – to create an effect that was, in short, perfect. Usually, the act before I go on is a blur as I pace around retching and coughing with nerves but Andie’s music held me transfixed. The artist Joan Miro once described his life’s project as to ‘conquer simplicity’. I’ve always been quite taken by that notion, despite the machismo of ‘conquer’, and was envious of Andie’s obvious and natural understanding of the idea.
[audio https://radiofreemidwich.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/04-these-feathers-have-plumes.mp3]Download These Feathers Have Plumes
My turn. I didn’t take any photos of me performing, for the obvious reason, and my attempts to photograph the crowd at the beginning of my set were too rubbish to be used. No matter, you can see my set-up at the back of the photo of Dan – sparkly scarf used as glamour table cloth, standard lamp, grumpy old mc-303. The first of my two tracks was a version of the title track from inertia crocodile, my soon-to-released CD-r on WGGFDTB, and is mainly constructed from a rave stab noise filtered until it gets seasick and starts tripping over itself. The second track is a new piece, as yet unnamed, in which a recording of Thomas the Baby drinking his bottle of milk is used as a rhythm track under a dense drone ‘lullaby’. I was very pleased at how it turned out – good and loud and thick. Now, I am a vain, self-regarding man and will shamelessly fish for compliments after a set but, to my delight, people I didn’t even know wanted to shake my hand and congratulate me. My spoken intro got a laugh and most seemed charmed by my indulgent use of Thomas recordings.
I dedicated the set to Mark Wharton who, as mentioned, was there celebrating his birthday. As well as being a friend, a comrade and an all round good egg, Mark has been an important influence on me over the years. In a sense he taught me noise – no Idwal Fisher (and its predecessors) = no radiofreemidwich. I’ve written about this before so I’ll just wipe the tear from the corner of my eye and leave it there. He seemed touched by the gesture, which was my intention.
[audio https://radiofreemidwich.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/05-midwich.mp3]OK, time for Paul Watson to step up and obliterate this soppiness…
Finally: BBBlood. A performance by Paul is always a treat and an eager throng gathered, vibrating in anticipation, as he kicked off. The first section was all scabrous electro-mechanical rhythms, building in intensity until the appearance of his handheld noise-o-tron (a tobacco tin with a mic in it) indicated that the point of no return had been reached. Paul then flung himself into it, clattering his sound source onto/under the long suffering furniture and fiddling viciously with the pots and sliders of his patch lead orchestra. Totally joyous: we all went fucking crazy and when the noise dropped for a burst of pop funk many audience members, notable Kev, couldn’t resist busting a move. There was even an encore of sorts as a ‘highly refreshed’ Andie wanted to shout into the microphone. A dizzying, nostrils-flaring, grin-inducing end to a great night.
[audio https://radiofreemidwich.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/06-bbblood.mp3]Post-gig, the atmosphere of drunken revelry was such that leaving the venue was like leaving a wedding party: all hugs and promises. The rain didn’t dare touch me as I ran for the last bus.
reminder!! midwich live this weekend at ‘the compass points north’
June 18, 2013 at 12:58 pm | Posted in live music, midwich, new music, no audience underground | 1 CommentTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, bbblood, daniel thomas, drone, eddie nuttall, hagman, hairdryer excommunication, improv, kevin sanders, live music, midwich, new music, no audience underground, noise, paul watson, petals, sheepscar light industrial, the compass points north, these feathers have plumes
Yes, on Saturday I have the pleasure of performing as part of the terrific line-up above. I’ve no doubt the date has been circled in red in your diaries for some time but I thought it best to post a reminder just in case. This unmissable gig, assembled by the tireless Dan Thomas of the peerless Sheepscar Light Industrial, has also been co-opted by Mark Wharton of Idwal Fisher as the end point of a Leeds-based pub crawl to celebrate his 50th Birthday. You are all invited.
Full details of the gig here.
Facebook event page for the gig here.
Facebook event page for Mark’s debauchery here.
Huzzah!
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