the tin skeleton: joe murray on blood stereo, luke poot, lovely honkey, gate
February 16, 2016 at 1:00 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: angurosakuson, blood stereo, chocolate monk, gate, joe murray, lovely honkey, luke poot, mie
Blood Stereo – The Lure of Gurp (CD-r, Chocolate Monk, choc.320, edition of 47)
Luke Poot/Lovely Honkey – Shame 3 (CD-r or download, Angurosakuson)
Gate – Saturday Night Fever (12″ vinyl, MIE, MIE036, edition of 600)
Blood Stereo – The Lure of Gurp
A selection of mini-trax that hiss as natural breath: in and out, in and out.
B. Stereo leave the long-haul jam behind for this one and concentrate on a smorgasbord of lung expand and a coy pinkie on the tape head. In their on-going campaign of pitching formal versus informal sound, the wooden spoon is spun thrice round the bowl in heavy, sugary swipes. Can I lick the spoon? Yeah man, why not!
Moves are dramatic and executed with confidence in bold smears (a palette knife spreads ruddy ochre across smooth glass) so things are very well defined but not necessarily primary in colour.
As a result melancholy haunts certain corners. Examples?
‘Huntiegowk’s Return’ soundtracks that most modern of ills, the loneliness of crowds. This rumble is handled with a touch as light as mushroom spore. The title track scoffs and mutters while a Chelsea Pensioner polishes his brass buttons, rum-scented wind whistling out of stiff pink nostrils. Ever tried to catch a memory? They often move too fast for your fingers and dissolve on contact anyway. For this study of Tantalus tune into ‘The Hand That Will Not Cup’ and follow the psychic instructions.
But the best example of this sepia-tinted longing erupts on ‘Gob & Soupy’, the Shipping Forecast through a post-ecstasy downer. Or it’s hippy Elvish. One of the two.
Whilst never regular church-goers, Blood. S are adept with the dusty church torpor that settles on dull Sunday worship. That blanket-heavy hum that sucks away at your vitals but buffs the rusty brain like you ate up double portions of sleepy lettuce. I swear I’m transported back to Methodist Ministries with the ‘rambient’ (random/ambient) churn of heavy organ keys pushed to release grimy gas.
And if I can hear the twitch of a goatee from the under-represented jazz-cat, I worry not. Everyone’s favourite bass-clarinettist, Yoni Sliver’s damp fluttering is taken apart in a super skilful way (and I should know- I’ve tried it) to re-build into a B&W herky-jerky chorus making Korky the Cat jiggle and swing – on the yip!
The No Audience-Underground is often criticised for being amber-stuck, uncritical and self-satisfied. Silly goose I say! Check out this latest BLDSTR infotainment disc (complete with pics, sleeve notes and collage or something) to hear a stretching out and cheeky toe wiggle. Its new territory marked out with heady musk.
If this doesn’t make those plants grow I’m calling you Percy Thrower.
Luke Poot / Lovely Honkey – Shame 3
I’m feeling a bit Top Trumps.
Name: Luke Poot
Avant Schtick: Tape farmer, ideas basket, office stationery re-claimer
Distinguishing features: Mighty colourful beak & ‘sad’ eyes
Hidden Weakness: Feared of magicians
Luke Poot’s singular furrow has been ploughed across the sub-toilet circuit for the last five or six years and often leaves the casual listener in need of a new fold-out map and clearly defined landmarks. Listen to this without basecamp support and a Sherpa or two and you risk being lost in a white-out of pro darts, taped slurp interruptions and heavy breathing all delivered with the expert timing of a 60-a-day stand-up comedian (circa 1977).
But back to the map. Two live recordings bookend some Manchester-born radio sessions that sound unusually strapped inside my skull; like Poot is playing from the inside out – a most disconcerting osmosis. More of this later…
‘I Wanna Be a Cape (Live in Notts)’ is a brief 6 mins of prepared tape, infrequent muttering and embarrassed silence. A total environment is carefully laid out but exists just out of reach, making me miss whatever fetid dungeon this was first crouched in.
The three radio pieces occur as part of an equipment breakdown. The first is a classic mouth/tape recorder duet where prior planning only accounts for half the excitement. The seat of the pants call and response milks some strange teats indeed, some half-got football reference adds to the sickly approach, like watching Noel’s House Party running a sweaty fever. Part two features the half-explosive screams Poot has become famous for…being both powerful and polite, more like an abortive sneeze I suppose. They are certainly becoming increasingly nasal as the track goes on and I feel like ticking off the severity on a Beaufort scale. And at last, it had to happen, Richard Harris gets his first oblique mention in the fabled Poot-ography. Part three is a study of failed whistling gibbers and gobbles with what sounds like some very real throat damage as fleshy tubes get pinched sharp. There is a discernible story arc (again football related) but bearing no relation to Roy of the Rovers.
‘Happy, Yeah? (Live in Sheffield)’ follows no such narrative and seems to be a secretly recorded tape made of John Cale walking his favourite lady out on a date. The sun is starting to set and everything is relaxed in buttery yellow light. They pass hang-outs and cherished restaurants. Poot is following behind the couple with an outstretched hand. He gives the command and Sea Lions spout out of the man-hole covers (it’s New York right?) clattering them aside and, in fishy unison, chant and honk a Backstreet Boys version. All whiskery naturally and over in five brisk minutes.
I recommend this highly.
Gate – Saturday Night Fever
It seems to be a universal truth that most humans can’t bear to hear their own voice on tape. You’re instantly confronted by your worst self-image without the filter of selected hearing or (in my case) regular oblivious dumbness.
Once you join that vocal jaxx brigade you’ve got to get used to your strangulated vowels and plummy neck pretty darn sharp. It’s not pleasant but you get used to it. You dig?
But what really makes me knock-kneed with fear is the prospect of capturing an image of myself dancing. It happened once and what I viewed was an almost evolutionary wrongness. Like a gin-soaked St Bernard reared up and deciding ‘four legs bad’ I folded myself into 6 foot 3 inches of tangled limbs and chin-drenched shaking. I’m not a dancer. I’m a grotesque.
I think it’s for this reason I’ve steered clear of so much ‘dance music’ in my life. I love the idea of euphoria blossoming up from your feet and gushing out your blowhole. I love the concept that freedom of movement unhitches my brain for a few blessed minutes until the lights and sound replace the fetid sump oil of my soul. I like watching people dancing but shudder at the thought of actually doing it myself.
So it’s with clammy hands I pick up Michael Morley/Gate’s new record, an exploration of disco’s glittery fulcrum – Saturday Night Fever.
It’s a 12 inch, of course it is… the ultimate dance format, with four extended loop-driven swoons, smooth as Calpol.
Horns! Horns unapologetically honk brassily from the front end of ‘Asset.’ MMorley tells me I should be dancing (did you not read that last bit mate?) and, despite myself, I begin to twitch a little until all things buckle under Dead C-heavy guitar clouds. As the kids say…
pretty sweet.
Are those palm trees? Rich coconut oil drips from swollen husks. I’m ‘on the strip’ with Vince Neil and the boyz. The sunlight is blinding as something by Circle plays on the AM radio and the Wolfman Jack cries ‘Licker’.
Fucking ‘ell Vince,
I say,
this rawks!
Vince just winks and flashes a gold molar.
The shortest track, ‘Caked’, is still over 9 mins long and boxy and shallow. This is no creepy insult; I mean it’s all jittery surface, like a frozen lake. The action takes place at your eye level and concentrates on wild wobbling and heavy keys.
OK… things have been pretty great so far but the closer ‘Hijack’ might just be an example of bright-shiny-footloose perfection. A nagging set of bells/parping vocals loop in tight little circuits building up a mesh of rhythms. Our Mr Morley’s hang-dog singing (he’s a 21st century Jona Lewie for sure) is gravy on the steak but the real genius is revealed in the fade out (almost half the length of the track) that strips away dance floor to focus on the reinforced mechanics, the tin skeleton I’ve been raving on for the last 10 minutes.
Like fluff on a needle it’s a beautiful static ruffle: pffft… pfffft… pfffft.
—ooOoo—
black raindrop collage: joe murray on eugenio sanna, lovely honkey, dan melchior, sindre bjerga
November 27, 2015 at 1:24 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: dan melchior, eugenio sanna, ezio piermattei, joe murray, lovely honkey, luke poot, sindre bjerga, tutore burlato
Eugenio Sanna – La porta stretta (tape, Tutore Burlato, #04)
Lovely Honkey – Sharp Intake of Breadth (tape, Tutore Burlato, #07)
Dan Melchior – Human of Stow (tape, Tutore Burlato, #05)
Sindre Bjerga – Attractive Amplification (tape, Tutore Burlato, #06)
When Alexander Graham Bell released The Noble Four, his treatise on early electronic sounds, he could not have imagined how electricity and sound would become ubiquitously meshed to a point where one is almost unimaginable without the other.
How he’d pinkly-blush at Luke Poot’s menacing audience participation and twirl his beard to Sindre Bjerga’s Technicolor throat spasms. I can picture a neatly-booted foot tapping to Eugenio Sanna’s trustworthy improvisations and the watercolours cracked out to better capture Dan Melchior’s solo rumblings.
In the spirit of electronic experimentations Ezio Piermattei has released his own Noble Four on the charming Tutore Burlato tape label straight-outta-Bologna. Packaged in smart plastic cases with intelligent and sensitive artwork the dreich professor could easily slip all four into his waistcoat without bothering his pocket watch.
For you, my dearest of all known and possible readers, you get a head full of gonzo-text and a couple of blue links to send you on your voyage of discovery. God speed gentle ones!
Eugenio Sanna – La Porta Stretta
Konked-out solo-guitar rottings from Italy.
Side One presents a suite of tight head-stock ‘pings’ aping the sarcastic hizz of cold milk dripped on glowing barbeque coals. These metallic pickles (reassuringly sour) rattle my pegs real good especially when the few good moo-cow moans let loose. It’s a sparse affair but full of Charles Atlas’ DYNAMIC TENSION therefore giving me and the whole family assembled space to throw in a stray cough.
When things get a bit more hectic in ‘Agosto in campagna (parte prima)’ Eugenio’s 5 supple fingers ripple unconsciously over 6 strings and a fine distortive mist descends reminding my old brain of mice pattering quickly across amplified tinfoil. You dig? A zinc rustling that’s both pacey and pink-footed.
I’m sucking on some Kendal Mint Cake when Side Two slots into place and the thin metallic scratching merges perfectly with my mouthful of sharp menthol. My nose-hairs stand to attention as similarly stiff strings are plucked with a leathery thumb. It’s simply beautiful.
Then all at once the improvisation feels less improvised and more like a slowly revealing pattern I was just too dull to recognise. If you could complete a crossword with simple silvery tones it might, after forty minutes or so of head-scratching, lock into this bedazzled lotus flower.
The final short track ‘Agosto in campagna (parte seconda)’ leaves us in no doubt of Eugenio’s experience and skill – he’s been playing improvised stuff since the 70’s with beards as grey as Phil Minton, Eddie Prevost, Derek Bailey and Roger Turner – by making his guitar sound exactly like clam shells rustling in a salt-encrusted keep net.
Lovely Honkey – Sharp Intake of Breadth
For such an active collaborator and vital live jaxxon them Lovely Honkey solo tapes are thin on the ground, eh? But Huzzah! Ezio Piermattei’s clear eye spotted Luke Poot’s theatre-whoop all the way from Bologna to let us in on this felt-tipped ritual.
Sound-wize the fidelity is fairly non-existent making this feel like you’ve carefully inserted a hosepipe into Poot’s ear and you can hear the festival of whirs and clunks direct from the old-grey-thistle.
Squeaky toys, rubber dogs, old tape glutch and office stationery get used to whip up a gentle Intonarumori. In fact you could bring a smarty-pants Futurist round for tea, jab this tape on and they could check off the officially required…
- Roars, Thunderings, Explosions, Bangs and Booms
- Whistling, Hissing, Farting, Puffing
- Whispers, Murmurs, Mumbling, Muttered Hip-Hop Oaths, Gurgling
- Screeching, Skanking, Creaking, Rustling, Humming, Crackling
- Noises obtained by beating on metals, woods, skins, stones, pottery and half-melted Sindy Dolls etc.
- Voices of animals and people, Shouts, Screams, Shrieks, Wails, Hoots, Howls, Death rattles, Sobs. Oh yes, especially the sobs.
That is of course until it all degenerates into Superman (and I don’t mean the Laurie Anderson version) which I don’t think no Russolo would ever, ever approve of. Sweet.
Poot’s Circus of Shame rolls lustily into side two in a sad convoy, wheels dropping off the primary coloured cart. We bear witness to a hidden ritual. A music box plays, a small appreciative crowd moan like ghosts and Poot’s seemingly loose hand on the helm belies the firm fingertip control. He’s got us trussed up and basted in hot butter, baby.
As the ritual continues he huffs up: tape grot, Stereophonics, (more) dog toys and frenzied choking. All component parts slide together like currents meeting round a sooty headland. Sure they gash and churn but the fluid mechanics could be scribbled on a blackboard and studied by grey beards and goofs all night. He’s got the math right you dig?
So don’t listen to the chaos, listen to the patterns beyond the chaos. Leave your expectations at home and tune in deeply and surrender. Wake the town and tell the people…there’s an inventiveness and joyful release shattering that snotty ego on this tape; a freedom that few ‘plinkerty-plonk’ merchants dare to reveal.
Dan Melchior – Human of Stow
The bottom-dwelling mud flapper attaches itself to my face and starts to pump creamy fluid into eyes, ears, nose and mouth. I’m surprised I’m not choking as pints of liquid fill up my head-holes but I’m too distracted by the fanciful visuals and audio-hallucinations.
Soft boulders shuffle slowly across a ploughed field leaving zen-streaks in their wake. The Town Mayor proclaims the moral victory in an Obese Antiques Roadshow. I blow the dust from a pair of old sneakers and hop backwards at the sight of an HO-scale field hospital nestled inside. The plane I’m on descends, descends, descends but the ground fails to appear. Super-lamb-banana melts into a shallow yellow lake – the La’s lick it into the shape of Chad.
Loaves of bread are kept in gilded cages. My once beautiful nails are chipped and grimy. Elastic muscles snap back into place more slowly now. I wake up suddenly remembering why the magic markers were left in the outhouse. A slow frog begins his chorus.
All these thoughts and more float across my soft-human-cinema as Dan’s new tape wriggles out of the stereo. The working method is important. Dan randomly fills a tape full of these evocative sounds which, in fairness, are probably sourced from field recordings, accidental damage, damp organ and domestic tape huss. They are layered and woven together without no mastering hand making it clear “that the whole idea of form is pretty elastic.”
Hey…that’s in direct contrast to the Honkey tape above. Don’t we just cover the whole field of dreams readers?
To my tin-ears this all sounds pretty dandy as drones start up then stop suddenly, dismal beats lose the will to live and conversations become one-eared affairs. It’s well documented that our brains love order and strive to overlay a regular grid on anything haphazard or irregular. The connections on Human of Stow are no-less random than a fat, black raindrop collage on a dry pavement but seem ordered like the suits in a pack of cards. The bully-boy clubs versus bleeding hearts, the razor sharp diamonds outfoxing the slow spades. And like cards this tape gives me side-eyes, never quite letting me relax.
After a flutter of sonic dry heaves things unsettle further like an early Fucking Amateurs CD-r where it’s unclear what is performance, what it added random mayhem (or in-joke) and if that regular ‘whomp’ is the sound of the broken recording equipment?
The folk next door, possibly alerted by my frantic ‘clickerty-clack’ typing, have just put their bin out and I’m convinced this is Dan’s master-stoke. Unconscious collaboration hits our collective driveway… Melchior versus Newcastle City Council!
Sindre Bjerga – Attractive Amplification
Regular readers know Sindre Bjerga’s modus operandi by now; ‘prolific-as-fuck’ yeah? And this wonderful release delivers superbly on his other well-known calling card: super-dense tape work.
Structurally we’ve got two live performances from both of the Dams – Amster and Rotter, recorded in 2015 and preserved in fine rubbery clarity.
Things start with ‘Flicker and Burst’ and it fairly slaps me across the noggin quick sharp. Jeezus…this is very, very heavy tape manipulation that thumbs a lift from Henri Chopin playing Henry Rollins.
The splutters are thick with phlegm; glottis-deep and curdled. After a time of fairly violent honks a deep perfumed-drone sets up while Sindre clatters shit-smeared chicken cages with a naked foot. You can relax into grey calm for a moment or two but don’t get too comfy because that distinctive condenser-mic jaxx starts to build and build into a full-spittin’ and bitin’ tantrum. Oof!
After a little lie down I gingerly press play on ‘Reverse Energy’. Where Sindre went wet and wild on side one this is dry, measured and sparse. In places I’m picturing the maudlin decay of Gilbert & George’s Dusty Corners, all abandoned hope and unfinished business. Sure, the tapes get mangled and strangled with that erotic ‘whurrr’ but it’s more of an internal sound, like the last sickly pulse of a tension headache.
When the volume and complexity is pitched down (a symptom of the reverse energy perhaps) it encourages a welcome introversion. The super-sad ending (some 70’s AM classic sung in pure innocent sunlight) rattles among the hiss-canyon like a lost Lambkin jam. Amber-glass perfection.
—ooOoo—
scarfing antelope: joe murray on lovely honkey & his acrid lactations
July 26, 2014 at 10:29 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: acrid lactations, glastonbury, improv, joe murray, lovely honkey, luke poot, new music, no audience underground, noise, stuart arnot, sue fitzpatrick, tapes, the curse of never-ending elbow, total vermin, vocal improvisation
Lovely Honkey & His Acrid Lactations – Hardy the Wayfarers (tape, Total Vermin, #85)
I’m a bit of a worrier me. I worry about all the normal things a middle-aged, pampered, white, male worries about I suppose: kids, missus, job, state of the world and all that jazz. But being a welded to the no-audience underground I sometimes worry I’m being an inadvertent elitist.
Is the underground, with its limited editions, challenging approaches and cultural immersion more valid than the mainstream? The best I can muster is a, “Duh…I dunno” most of the time.
Maybe it’s time I did some serious thinking.
To make it clear reader…I have no problem with pop music. Check out the teenage magic-realism of Eliza Doolittle’s ‘Walking on Water’ or the outrageously frothy ‘Call me Maybe’ by Carly Rae Jepson? Curiously enough this kind of pure, purple, pop makes me smile just as wide as any of Phil Minton’s japes. Sure it’s a transient sugar rush…but are you telling me that Shakira (Editor’s note: Ugh. I was with you up to Shakira) don’t make you snap your fingers like the Art Ensemble?
So that’s pop music sorted out…but what about it’s more grown-up brother: indie rock?
In this day and age I should know everything about the current crop of indie rock lovelies, eh? As folks keep yammering on it’s all on the internet, for free, forever. Yup…the internet might be a portal to everythingness but you still need to peak in the right window – you dig.
I took the recent bloat-fest Glastonbury to be my window on the world. The BBC kindly chopped up footage into easily digestible mouthfuls so I could taste the best the indie rock world had to offer whilst sat in comfort at home. What a treat! These truly must be the best of times. I settled back with tea and a selection of biscuits, giddy with the knowledge I was bound to discover some rare breed, some slinky mink that had passed me by while I had my eye lowered to the grubby underground.
And I waited, and waited, and waited some more. I know Jonah Jameson (Editor’s note: very funny – you’re sacked) don’t like no negatives so I can’t really go into detail here. Let’s just say I watched 6 hours of footage and the only act that excited me was some bass and drum duo. And that’s just coz they sound like my brothers band.
So… I tried, I really tried; but with my scientist head on I can say the experiment failed. The indie rock mainstream is not for me, doesn’t want me, can’t stand me and its back to the underground I hop.
I slip on the next tape in the review pile from Lovely Honkey and his Acrid Lactations.
Now this is telling us something right from the off. Like Cliff & the Shadows or Mike and his Mechanics this is presenting us with a handy sonic-perspective, a clue even. I picture some formation; a bizarre food pyramid with Luke Poot as its king carnivore, his golden mane flowing in the hot Serengeti wind with Sue Fitzpatrick and Stuart Arnot scarfing antelope at his shoulders.
That’s set me a visual. But musically, how does this Robin Hood and Merry Men scenario unfold?
Immediately three, really wet mouths are coughing in phlegmy unison! ‘Hierarchies of Spirit’ slurps and spits, moans and whimpers its way through a spellbinding array of lip-smacks and bloats. The genius touch is a two note drone on dusty keyboard (or cracked violin) that anchors the gurgling mouths from setting alight. Such glorious tension.
‘Gulch Reflexion’ is a whole load of trouble deeper in the throat with pre-language babble (via Sue) over the severed epiglottis explosion. In fact the best advice I can give you to build up a mental picture for this is take any Carcass song title and shave off its hair. Naked and pink yet? You got it.
Take a baking tray half full of water tapped with ritualistic seriousness as your baseline for ‘Snails in the foundry of the Demiurge’. Beat in a dozen Delia’s getting loaded on sticky Madeira and Babel hollas a gibber. Coda: the distinctive cracks and pops of a Glasgow tenement building coming to rest after a violent Hogmany.
The longer pieces ‘Obedient Refexion’ and ‘(Briny) Expiant and (Milky) Redemptive’ grace side two with a calmer mung.
My first listening summons up visions of Shhh/Peaceful scored for gibbering monks and played back through medieval Dictaphones:
The illumination is all greasy from burning candles but the brilliant colours shine through. The fabric may be rough but the needlepoint is detailed.
An insistent rhythm is heard from outside the Monastery walls (Tony Williams on tea-caddy?) as the wails of limp-berserkers float in on the mist. Some joker messes with the intro to Iron Man (Sabbs not Marvel) and Wayne Shorter swaps his horn for marbles that he drops into a bucket.
Phew…you’ll surely admit to some Miles Davis/Viking invasion thing going on here. It’s not just me is it?
…as the mental-mists clear I realise this is what I’ve been missing with all that flaccid indie rock. There’s no pictures, no sizzled synapse leaps… just the dull plod, plod, plod of the verse and the tedious plod, plod, plod to anthemic chorus. But the Lovely Honkey and his Acrid Lactations my fine friends are as magnetic and shiny as an Aaliyah video (Editor’s note: that’s more like it – you’re hired again, back to work).
And if you don’t agree I hex you with the curse of never-ending Elbow.
—ooOoo—
(Editor’s final note: at the time of writing the TV blog is way out of date, so hit up Stuart directly via smearcampaign@hotmail.com or on one of them social networks and he is sure to oblige.)
the 2013 zellaby awards
January 4, 2014 at 8:52 pm | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | 4 CommentsTags: aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, beartown, billy sprague, bjerga/iversen, black sun roof, blue yodel, ceramic hobs, culver, daniel thomas, drone, duff/nyoukis/robertson/shaw, electronica, foldhead, galena, gary simmons, hairdryer excommunication, half an abortion, helicopter quartet, hiroshima yeah!, hissing frames, id m theft able, idwal fisher, improv, joe murray, kevin sanders, kirkstall dark matter, knurr & spell, la mancha del pecado, lee stokoe, lost wax, lovely honkey, lucy johnson, mark ritchie, mark wharton, mastery, matching head, melanie o'dubhslaine, memoirs of an aesthete, miguel perez, moral holiday, new music, no audience underground, noise, ocelocelot, paul walsh, people-eaters, phil todd, plurals, poor mouth, psychedelia, robert ridley-shackleton, sanity muffin, scott mckeating, seth cooke, shareholder, sheepscar light industrial, shemboid, shoganai, skullflower, smut, somália, spoils & relics, starlite coffins, tapes, the piss superstition, thomas james hayler, union pole, vocal improvisation, winebox press, witchblood, xazzaz, yol, zellaby awards
Ladies and gentlemen, dear readers all, welcome to the hotly anticipated Zellaby Awards for 2013. The show, in its third annual outing, is presented in association with Radio Free Midwich and hosted by the editor from his comfortably-appointed padded cell in the basement of Midwich Mansions.
In previous years the awards have formed part one of a two part round-up of cultural highlights. However this year I can easily roll what would usually be part two into this preamble. Why? Three words: Thomas James Hayler. The birth of our son in March was an epoch-defining, paradigm-shattering, life-forever-altering event for all of us – I’m sure you’ll remember the moon turning a fire red that evening – but looking after the kid (y’know: issuing orders to the nannies, sorting through the mountains of flowers, cards and teddy-bears left at the gate of the estate, that kind of thing) has rather cut into the time and energy afforded to culture in general.
It was interesting to experience how looking after a baby pares life down to the essentials. I now do my bit to help with Thomas, I look after my wife Anne as best I can too, I keep up with my friends and family (more or less), I go to work (when healthy) and I think about music. That’s all I have but, crucially, it is all I want. Sure, we could do with more money and better health – who couldn’t? – but establishing this balance has been refreshing and revelatory. I can sincerely state, all joking and archness to one side, that Thomas joining us has made 2013 the best year of my life so far. By some distance.
<stares wistfully into middle distance, wipes tear from stubbled cheek, returns to business at hand>
I did get to read a handful of books, of which HHhH by Laurent Binet, about a 1942 mission to assassinate Richard Heydrich, chief of the Gestapo, was the most compelling, original and intriguing. I even stole a line from it to use in a review. I think I read the entire of Museum Without Walls, a collection of essays and television scripts by polemicist, architecture critic and commentator Jonathan Meades. I say ‘I think’ because it was mainly done in sleepy five page chunks in the middle of the night. Otherwise I kept my membership of the bourgeoisie fresh by reading the London Review of Books and took my news mainly from Private Eye which, despite its many faults, holds power to account at least some of the time thus making it unique in the mainstream. I pretty much gave up on film and television aside from using the boy as an excuse to watch Regular Show and Adventure Time on Cartoon Network. Oh, and Game of Thrones series 3 was fun too if you like that sort of thing.
Down here in the no-audience underground I devoured, as ever, anything posted by Uncle Mark over at the essential Idwal Fisher blog and cover-to-covered the no-less essential Hiroshima Yeah! the moment it arrived in the mail. Congratulations to the latter on reaching its 100th issue this year, no mean feat with one of its two editors in prison… Also in the realm of the self-published, a pamphlet of poetry by my good friend and comrade Nick Allen has been on my bedside table since he surprised me with it at work one morning and has been well-thumbed and repeatedly enjoyed.
It has been another golden year for music, both live and recorded. A couple of my all-time favourite gigs occurred in the last 12 months and my ‘long list’ for best album contained 34 contenders! Never mind those bullshit ‘end of year’ polls you see in print magazines that you know were proofread over ice-creams in August, never mind those ‘best albums of the last fifteen minutes’ you see on internet based blogzine snore-fests. This is the real deal: compiled whilst the New Year is still bellowing after being slapped into life. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – we need to trot through a few methodological points, then the ceremony can commence.
Firstly, the music mentioned below may not have been released in 2013, although most of it was. To qualify it had to be heard by RFM for the first time in the calendar year 2013. Secondly, releases featuring the staff of RFM (me, Scott McKeating, Joe Murray) are excluded. Modesty is not a virtue I can be accused of but awarding ourselves prizes is a bit much even for me. Thirdly there are the same five award categories as last time (although one has had to be renamed…). Should an artist win big in one of them they may appear overlooked in others. This is deliberately done in the interests of plugging as much excellence as possible and thus no-one should get the hump. Finally, I did invite the aforementioned Scott and Joe to contribute nominations but the final decisions are mine. Think of me as a benign dictator listening carefully to his advisers before passing judgement.
OK, shush now – the house lights are dimming… Time for the first category!
—ooOoo—
5. The “I’d never heard of you 10 minutes ago but now desperately need your whole back catalogue” New-to-RFM Award goes to…
(with honourable mentions for Joe’s choice: WANDA GROUP, “the absolute master of steamy hiss and non-linear edit”)
Here’s a extract from the lengthy overview of Lucy’s back catalogue that I posted back in July:
One of the refreshing things about what I playfully refer to as the ‘no-audience underground’ is that it is not full of self-aggrandising blabbermouths. There are a few – me, for example – and an acceptable level of self-absorption is common, but many artists quietly get on with producing excellent work mainly, it seems, for their own gratification and the pleasure of their circle.
This situation allows for the gradual discovery of that most mysterious of creatures: the unsung hero. Names are pencilled in – an aside from the omniscient Scott McKeating, a credit on a Matching Head insert, say – then repeated until they become underlined in bold and further investigation becomes inevitable. Such has been the case with Lucy Johnson.
I had, of course, already praised Space Victim, her duo with Mike Vest, to the hilt (they featured in RFM’s best of 2012 list) and more recently did the same for the Witchblood tape, her duo with Lee Stokoe, on Matching Head. A comment from Miguel Perez led to me picking up her tapes as Smut and hearing those led to me finally paying some proper attention. Over the last few weeks I have been putting two and two together via Discogs, the Turgid Animal site and various other rune-casting activities and have been gathering up examples of her work. She records solo as Smut and Esk, is half of the aforementioned duos, is the vocalist for black metal band Rife, and is also in the bands Obey and Dark Bargain (as reviewed by Scott below). Her artwork adorns covers and T-shirts and has recently been made available to buy as prints. Most of this stuff is available from the label and distributor Turgid Animal which (according to that same review by Scott) she co-runs. Blimey, eh?
Can’t wait to hear what comes next. There is at least one more Smut tape to pick up and the Obey album to look forward to as well…
Next is…
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 goes to…
(with honourable mentions for Kevin Sanders whose consistency proves awe-inspiring, Bjerga/Iversen’s album-per-month Bandcamp project, Joe’s choice Hapsburg Braganza and, of course, Lee Stokoe, who was also Scott’s choice)
Given that I went from not knowing who he is to hearing/seeing around 50 objects produced by him during the course of a few months Robbie was odds-on favourite in this category. That said, I realise that it is a controversial choice as ‘quality control’ may not be an entirely appropriate concept to apply to this gushing, unstoppable flow. I suppose one man’s drivel fountain is another man’s exuberant exploration of an outsider vision. As I wrote in my first overview piece about his stuff:
Call it an ‘aesthetic’, a ‘vision’ if you like, but it becomes clear during the perusal of these artefacts that this is Robert’s world – a dimensionless jiffy bag containing a wonky, distorted universe – and that the rest of us are tourists within it.
For what it is worth, The Butterfly Farm, the tape pictured above released by Beartown Records, is as good a place to start as any.
On to…
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award goes to…
Joe Murray and Scott McKeating
(with honourable mentions for Dan Thomas and Miguel Perez who both understand what friendship is really about. Cheers fellas.)
Obviously. In May Scott offered to help out, I bit his hand off. This gave me the idea of asking Joe, who bit my hand off. Once these appendages had been sewn back on we shook them vigorously and got down to the typing. I like to think that the house style at RFM sits somewhere between the jazzed exuberance of Joe and the more meticulous, journalistic work of Scott. Thus between us we offer a comprehensive ‘three bears’ account of this remarkable scene. Being able to lean on these guys has kept the porridge at a perfect temperature during some pretty distracted times, especially baby- and illness-related, and I am beyond grateful for their contributions.
Now we have…
2. The Label of the Year Award which goes to…
(with honourable mentions for, well, see below…)
This was a very, very hotly disputed category. I was tempted to be perverse and, in the style of Time magazine’s mirror cover, proclaim label of the year to be ‘self-released’. Certainly, in this Bandcamp enabled age the idea has to be considered seriously. But that ain’t much fun is it? Let’s have an argument instead! Joe stepped up for Winebox Press:
Jon Collin’s labour of love has presented some amazing music this year (Vampire Blues, Lost Wax, and his own gorgeous schizzle) all nailed to hand-sanded wooden chunks. This extra detail might make things difficult to file but the soft hand-feel makes me return again and again to these loose spools of joy.
Scott proclaimed Matching Head, natch:
Same as every other year. Lee Stokoe keeps it prolific, adding new regulars to a strong cast of returning cassette-friendly noise/drone/wtf artists.
Both excellent choices, of course, but what of the Sheepscar Light Industrial, last year’s runner up, or Kirkstall Dark Matter – a blood feud between Leeds postcodes? Or is the glorious return of Sanity Muffin gong-worthy? Speaking of returns, was any more welcome or surprising than that of Union Pole which made a long-gone 76 item back catalogue available to download for the total of one dollar? Or what about Hissing Frames or hairdryer excommunication, the content-pumps of Robbie and Kev respectively?
The choice seemed impossible so I left the scribbled lists and did a couple of those things that you only see people do in the movies: splashed my face with water then stared into the bathroom mirror, took a cold can out of the fridge and held it against my cheek etc. Soon clarity was restored. For not putting a foot wrong, for never having even a single hair our of place, it had to be Memoirs of an Aesthete. Phil Todd’s label has released one belter after another this year and has probably clocked up more minutes playing time in Midwich Mansions than any rival. If it has Phil’s seal of approval on it then you should buy it. Simple really.
…and finally…
1. The Album of the Year Award
Risking accusations of hyperbole, I have claimed once or twice over the course of 2013 that we were living in a golden age. Revisiting the releases I heard during the year I feel absolutely vindicated. Add my long list to the short lists provided by Scott and Joe and you have a total of over 40 titles without even counting much not-really-released-as-such-but-still-magnificent work such as the soundcloud presence of, say, ap martlet. Scott mentioned…
Black Sun Roof – 4 Black Suns & A Sinister Rainbow (Handmade Birds) – Davies and Bower make noise ritual a rhythm thing.
Skullflower / Mastery – Split (Cold Spring) – Black metal soundtracks.
Joe added:
Duff/Nyoukis/Robertson/Shaw – Acetate Robots (Giant Tank) – Soft Scottish mumble, sweet as tablet.
Poor Mouth – S/T (Total Vermin) – Stream of consciousness wonk-out in proud Estuary English.
Lost Wax – My Sore Daad Heap’d (Winebox Press) – Environmental sounds lashed into a bivouac as the sun rises.
ID M Theft Able – Babb’s Bridge (Veglia, King Fondue, Zeikzak, Taped Sounds) – Like Manson’s internal monologue as knives get knotty.
Blue Yodel & Lovely Honkey – Poppies & Cocks (Chocolate Monk) – Mooooggg, hummm…voosh. Boo-fffff.
Both lists pleasantly indicative of the interests of my comrades, I think. Take note. Right then, as I did last year I have whittled my choices down to twenty with the first half presented in no particular order, linked to the original RFM reviews. Here we go:
- Witchblood – Eponine
- La Mancha Del Pecado & Culver – collaboration 6
- Spoils & Relics – Angels Trumpet Over Moonbeams
- Plurals – Gland Extraction
- The Ceramic Hobs – Spirit World Circle Jerk
- Aqua Dentata – Ten Thousand Wooden Faces
- Half an Abortion – Small Scale Demystification Quandary
- starlite coffins – medicine eagle
- Galena – Buried Finch
- people-eaters – imprecate
Every one a winner. Click on the above for further thoughts and for contact/purchasing info. Now on with the top ten, in reverse order…
10. Xazzaz – Untitled (Molotov 20)
This was reviewed twice on RFM this year. Firstly Joe said:
…a melodic pitch-shifting that recalls those tremolo-heavy vibes from MBV…except this time the jazz electricity comes via belt sanders, floor polishers and hammer-action drills rather than sappy guitars. The crashing continues, churning up plankton and hurling it on the zinc-coated rocks until, at around the 11 minute mark a large rusty anchor is thrown overboard and is dragged nosily (sic – it was more fun to keep the typo than correct it – RH) across a rocky sea bed. Grrrgrgggrgggrgghhhhhh! After a while your ear hairs can bristle no more and I had to settle back to accept this Black Metal take on Frippertronics as an astringent lullaby…
…then I pitched in with:
Mike’s music causes my edges to crumble, then crevaces to open, then huge thoughtbergs to calve from my mental glaciers. He isn’t averse to roar, of course, and can stamp on pedals if need be, but it is the subtleties and nuance that make it so compelling. He listens patiently, he understands what is going on. He knows what to do.
Check out the Molotov catalogue now distributed by Turgid Animal.
9. Shareholder – The Backwards Glance volumes 1, 2 and 3
Joe turned me on to this one. He wrote:
The Backwards Glance is ten god-damn years of recordings all wrapped up in beguiling drawings, elastic bands and creepy collage work. Sandy has taken the Faust approach and jams are cut-up hard against each other so you lurch between approaches, styles, themes and moods … My advice is to block out a few hours in your schedule, settle yourself in your preferred listening area and drink this special brew in deep. As in the dog-eat-dog world of high finance the Shareholder is always looking for a unique selling point. This USP for these clever little tapes is their god-damn addictiveness!
Joe also beat me to this one too and came up with the best simile of the year, damn him:
Culver is a master of the dark art of static movement. In the same way smoke will fill a room to the corners, too thick to see thorough but fragile enough to part with the wave of a hand, Culver plays that hard/soft, full/empty, maximal/minimal dichotomy like Erich Von Daniken’s ancient astronauts. Always working on the edge of being there and not being there this piece, this relatively brief drone called ‘seven human hairs’ is like watching ink boil … Somália is some mysterious Portuguese music maker who, on ‘das cordas’ takes a melancholic Satie riff (Gnossienne No. 1 I think) and loops it over and over again with a grimy patina of tape murk. That’s it. No speeding up or slowing down. No descent into beats or basslines. Just a gradual fade into the muck collected round the capstans. Super simple and super effective. It works at times (and I have to point out here I have played this tape a lot!) like dark canvas, swallowing the light but freeing up the subconscious. This is dreaming music.
The spec is simple enough, a single track of about fifteen minutes in length, but its ingredients are tricky to separate out. I suspect the noise that sounds like a swarm of angry wasps flying into a juddering extractor fan may be a vibrating implement set upon a drum skin. The buzz is malevolent – like tapping the glass of a giant tank full of insects only to have them all turn in unison, give you a hard stare and then start working together to get the tank’s lid off… Some abrasive electronics are then set loose in order to scour and gouge the source noise whilst a bucket of low end catches the swarf. The concluding crescendo is visceral, tough and as sparkling as your peripheral vision after a sharp smack to the back of the head. Yeah: awesome.
Joe is a true believer:
I think it was the mighty Stan Lee/Jack Kirby axis that came up with the Incredible Hulk to explore the untamed, brutish side to mankind. The trick Yol has turned is to take this Yahoo Hulk and transplant it into the damp and bland world of Northern Britain – 2013. This is no Marvel Universe magic realism but the dark perverted land of a bent cop, conflicted priest or overworked teacher. It’s a post-Saville world where celebrity corrupts and no one can really trust each other. Yol gives a voice to the bitter and bleak, the misplaced righteousness and revenge that most of us keep buttoned up tight. The inner struggle is played out in vivid crimson, choked out, spat into the gutter and stamped on with spite.
The fella behind this project, remaining semi-anonymous for his own reasons, has produced a piece of work so ambitious and accomplished that the fact that it is available to download on a pay-what-you-like basis from that Bandcamp left me stupefied … Some details: your download will contain nine tracks spanning 41 minutes. These episodes are clearly the product of a single aesthetic but vary in construction. There is computerborne surrealism, the programme code distorted by a horseshoe magnet ordered from the Acme catalogue, there is deep-fried tropical psychedelia the like of which wouldn’t be out of place on a Space Victim or AshNav album, and there is the cooing and squawking of an alien menagerie, recorded rooting and strutting about the forest floor on a distant, poisonous world.
4. Helicopter Quartet – Where have all the aliens gone?
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 it is epic on a human scale.
Four tracks, each about twenty minutes long, by four different solo artists. First is veteran Leeds scenester Shem Sharples, recording as his robotic alter ego Shemboid, who kicks things off with ‘myths of the prehistoric future’ – a Ballardian pun well suited to this blistering, splintering track. Shem is an aficionado of the garage psych sound and his skyscraping fuzz/wah guitar illuminates the rubble like harsh Californian sunshine.
Next is ‘bontempi bastet’ by Ocelocelot, Mel O’Dubhslaine’s noise/drone endeavour. The track is remarkable: an ectoplasmic gumbo, a thick electronic soup spiced and seasoned to make the corners of your eyes twitch. Or is it an evocation of heaven? Mel is a serious artist quietly and brilliantly re-purposing music to serve her own mysterious ends. She does this with good humour and modesty and I think she might be my hero.
Third is ‘no forks’ by Moral Holiday, Phil Todd’s affectionate homage to first wave industrial music. The backing is brittle, unforgiving, stark. Phil has taken the bucolic feel of the most utopian electronic Krautrock, frogmarched it to a grimly urban setting and then recorded it amongst the glass and concrete, mutating to fit its new surroundings.
Finally, we have ‘taser delerium’ (sic) from Paul Walsh’s foldhead. Perhaps you could imagine spiking the punch at a convention of shortwave radio enthusiasts then getting the fried participants to improvise a jam using nothing but the guttering warbles of atmospheric interference. Life affirming stuff – joyful noise wall. Like an intruder appearing at the foot of your bed, paralysing you with a swift injection to the sole of your foot, then draping his cock across your forehead as you lie prone and immobile, it is a perversely calming experience.
In summary: this album is damn near perfect.
2. Ashtray Navigations – Cloud Come Cadaver
Previous winners come oh-so-close once more. I wrote a lengthy psychedelic ramble accounting for each track in turn which you can read by clicking on the title above. For now I need only quote the final remarks:
It’s like a ‘Comfortably Numb’ for the psych/noise underground but defiant, without a trace of self pity. It could accompany the ‘ages of man’ sequence at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Did I mention that Ashtray Navigations are my favourite band? This is why.
Absolutely magnificent.
…and finally, the RFM Zellaby Award for Album of the Year 2013 goes to…
1. The Piss Superstition – Vocal Learning
Back in May I had a moment of prophetic clarity:
The music suggests systems gone wrong, like some guy pushed in a punch card upside down and then went to lunch leaving everything running. Yet heavy, juddering electrics describe arcane symbols as they spiral through the iterations of this garbled instruction set. Something truly wierd is being revealed. The serrated buzzing suggests saw mill equipment escaping its moorings and consuming itself as one bladed machine vibrates into the path of another. But again, there is nothing random about this movement. All is being conducted by an unfamiliar intelligence for some unknowable purpose. In the end though, all metaphors, similes, superlatives and whimsy just slide off this band or, at best, get caught in the gears and mashed – such is the beauty, mystery and power of their output. They do not sound like anyone else and yet, somehow, it turns out that this sound is exactly what I wanted to hear. Its value can only be calculated by fumbling with an alien currency, glinting strangely in my palm.
Thus: Vocal Learning is the best album of the year so far. Why? Because it is – I said so.
…and there we have it. The End. Well, not quite. There is a prize should the winners wish to claim it: a release on the fabled fencing flatworm recordings. Yes, in a tradition stretching all the way back to one year ago I decided to reanimate my legendary label to issue one release a year which could only be by the winner of the Best Album Zellaby Award. So, JB & Paul, how about it? Drop me a line if the idea tickles you both and we’ll talk turkey.
RFM’s ongoing account of the no-audience underground’s creative endeavour will continue shortly. We wish you all a very happy New Year!
holy confectionery: joe murray eats chocolate monks with a singing knife
August 2, 2013 at 7:57 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: blue yodel, chocolate monk, human heads, improv, joe murray, lovely honkey, luke poot, marvo men, new music, no audience underground, noise, singing knives, tapes, usurper, vocal improvisation
Usurper – Fishing for Tripe (CD-r, Chocolate Monk, choc.261)
Blue Yodel & Lovely Honkey – Poppies & Cocks (CD-r, Chocolate Monk, choc.249)
Marvo Men – Give Some Idea of the Boys at Work (CD-r, Chocolate Monk, choc.251)
Human Heads – The Beauticinist (C38 tape, Singing Knives, SK020)
Usurper – Fishing for Tripe
The Hinge & Bracket of the no-instrument underground break the fourth wall in the opening seconds of this tasty McNugget. A noisy enamel-mug clash ends with a giggle and the beardy-burr ‘Shall I stop it and start it again?’
We are in Usurper territory instantly where tables, cutlery, marbles, cardboard boxes, billiard balls all become an orchestra for this pair of Ritalin Simon Rattles. The skringle is close and dense but with enough room to breathe and flex with layers of fuss and bother laid over Tourette’s tick and shiver.
Things are neatly compartmentalised with track one (there is no song titles baby! Malcy’s drawings depict a series of numbered stomach aches in lieu of numerals), the aforementioned symphonic scratter, setting a firm and reliable base layer. Track two is pure vocal radge with mouth farts snuggling up brownly with warm guffs and moany choams. This dark throaty gurgle is kept, pretty much, behind the teeth balancing control against the promise of chaos. Track three…a play in three acts (1) if rats were made of polythene they would recognise their brothers squeezing through the plumbing and answer in kind, (2) dry twigs evolve sap-like fingers and stretch blindly down narrow ginnels, (3) the idea of hard electric weather. Track four is Usurper’s Take Five, like Joe Morello traded in his traps for a ‘pencil rattling in jam jar’ solo but ends up in a space previously occupied by Zaire’s cacophony of electrified mbiras and full moon moaning. Track five is a proper sound poetry blow-out exactly halfway between Alvin Lucier’s ‘I am sitting in a room’ and a round of ‘London’s Burning ‘sung by year 4 of the Ivor Cutler Primary School. Not only does this sound delicious and minty on the ear it delivers a brief history of the group leaving us with a shy but heartfelt ‘cheers man.’ Fishing for Tripe – music to stack a dishwasher to.
Postscript…I’m writing this in the cafe of a snooty Health Club (just don’t ask) and next on my crap laptop playlist, after Usurper, is Venom and their legendary between-song banter from their first US tour (1986). I almost leap out my chair as Cronos dribbles his bullshit about Newcastle Brown Ale, ‘kicking your balls off’ and mixing up the names of his own songs, ‘Blood lust? Blood what?’ We don’t have a song called that.’ I don’t know how but this somehow strangely fits into Usurper’s world: making magic out of nothing, rejoicing in the vernacular, pointing at windmills and laughing at their ridiculousness.
Blue Yodel & Lovely Honkey – Poppies & Cocks
This is going to be a weird one to write about as Yodel & Honkey make up the Sheffield arm of my underground family and have housed me, watered me and popped falafel into my weary gob-hole on many an occasion. What if I don’t like their offering? Will I be able to face them again? I’ve always been a worrier, and as usual, it’s a groundless concern. Poppies & Cocks is a piquant little caperberry overflowing with sour juice!
A true pairing. This is no trad jazz duo, out-honking each other, desperate for the solo – the group mind has taken over. Practiced over endless cups of herbal tea Poot/Honkey is less snotty than usual suggesting a new linctus approach. Yodel’s joyful humming is downtuned, dark and graveyardy.
A quick note on the recording quality. Some people have unfairly tarred the sub-underground with the ‘lo-fi’ brush. While I’m a fan of lo-fi’s qualities this little disc is by no means low in fidelity or intent. It fairly roars out the speakers and fills the room with clotted curses.
There are several approaches here. The open-mouthed mung-out that seems to be chuffed direct to tape and then played back at volume (although your ears may pick put more than my cloth cabbages) revelling in the spittle-flecked abandon of hurling your head back and letting the pre-language gasps and hucks spring fresh from the subconscious. On occasion there is a more feather-light feel with barren electronics needling horse-faced snorts with toothpick-thin shards of feedback gilding the outer reaches of the spectrum. The clever use of hiss and near silence makes these humps almost painterly. And then, and this could be totally off beam, there seems to be a secret recording thread; like some pieces were recorded in the dark, alone, trying not to wake the sleepers camped out next door. In this case frantic gasps and exhalations seem to stretch and mutate, expanding to fill the scant space between gob and condenser mic. Fingers search blindly for buttons to nudge and pause, smudging the grain further leaving a burred snapshot. Those dicks on The Apprentice might say – ‘Yodel & Honkey – multiple mouths make morbid murmurs!’ Fuckin’ saps…this is an essential disc for all students of the wild northern weird.
Marvo Men – Give Some Idea of the Boys at Work
More mouth-based lunacy. But don’t automatically think glottal coughs or lippy trimphones! The untitled opener is pure cut-up tape abstraction. Beautiful and brilliant the ‘aughs and absenthh, wah’ sing chicken noodle soup into my ear, nourishing my jaded soul and filling me with pearl barley goodness. I’m beaming like the golden shimmer on saffron infused rice. Track two is a more physical attack with two mouths jamming up against each other, like roof tiles they interlock but it’s not fragile. This sound bends and forms new rude shapes in expanded foam. The cloisters are never far away as monk-like groans hiss like hot drizzle on a freshly shaven tonsure. Half the fun of this kinda goof is the theatre of it, the gurn and posture, the sinews standing proud on effort-rouged neck. But the Marvo Men have marked their territory well with a strongly scented musk leading you like a pissy Bisto kid, round the saplings and into the glade they have prepared with dusky boughs and cracking grass. The closer takes us back into a multi-tracked tape nightmare that sounds like…and I’m not kidding here…some nugget from that Beatles Anthology cash in. You can hear the Fab Four, directed by the ever-correct Yoko, to lose their inhibitions and ‘make like the universe’. Ringo gets it first (of course) neighing like a Bootle donkey then letting Mr Martin rewind and play the noise backwards. George gets in on the transatlantic ‘Ohm’ leaving bloody John and bloody Paul to throw their caps into the ring; reluctant at first but with rising confidence whispering harmonious nonsense with one hand on the Abbey Road Ampex (then state of the art, now retro/vintage). The voices and chortles are corralled together to create one neon stream of liquid sound, rising in density, a dark-eyed sister to that orchestral bit in ‘A Day in the Life’. Hey man…this is what Revolution Number Nine should have sounded like.
Human Heads – The Beauticinist
Classic and domestic fung-poetry! Like a pie chart: stream of consciousness verb & strum (37%), interrupted field recordings (45%) and aching vowels (18%) this pretty pink tape clearly displays the everyday psychedelic for all to see. The faint whiff of petrol (aphrodisiac to some, emetic to others) clings to The Beauticinist with its see-sawing collection of spoken word rambles and delicately knitted tones and recordings. Tarnished beauty seems to be a central theme; from the hard gloss of grotty nail bars to the washboard stomach of a tabloid personality we are asked, as beholders, what do you see?
Among the stuttering speech patterns lays a rotating burr (slo-mo dentist drill?) and wheezy brackets (harmonium?) as dice are casually thrown and a ghost leaves by the squeaky door. Sometimes words are picked apart phonetically; each snatch of un-sound rolled round the gob like a fine brandy then spat unceremoniously into the festering slop-bucket beneath the table. Although these sounds are presented simply, sometimes with the gentlest of echoes, there is a steely confidence here. Human Heads brush a demure fringe to one side and look you straight in the face…worship me like you worship the distant buttery sunlight of youth, it seems to say!
If you are looking for easy references and comparisons the closest cousin would be sub-underground giants The Shadow Ring whose slack halfarsedness rattled brain boxes before I started shaving. But, make no mistake – this is no backwards-looking retro shit…I’d put a dollar on Human Heads lasting the full 12 rounds with a Hype Williams style outfit any day of the week. In other words – it’s tasty.
In this post-noise world it’s the tiny things matter most and Human Heads put an expert eye to the microscope. Like boffins they examine the brittle grain of speech patterns, greasy tape huss and the clatter of finger bones, presenting them, ‘OU style’ to you dear listener.
Note: Human Heads…contain two Helhesten Heads/Psykick Dancehall bods too.
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