corn toes throb: rfm on diatribes, yearning kru, sophie cooper & julian bradley, sam andreae/david birchall/otto willberg and kay hill
April 27, 2017 at 5:30 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | 1 CommentTags: david birchall, diatribes, heavy petting, invisible city records, julian bradley, kay hill, luke vollar, mantile records, mappa editions, otto willberg, sam andreae, sophie cooper, strange rules, the slowest lift, vernacular recordings, yearning kru
Diatribes – Sistere (Mappa Editions)
Yearning Kru – Swumpengelf (Mantile Records)
Sophie Cooper & Julian Bradley – The Blow Volume 3 (Front & Follow)
Sam Andreae/David Birchall/Otto Willberg – Hair in the Chimney (Heavy Petting/Vernacular Recordings)
Kay Hill – ANARAK (Invisible City Records)
Kay Hill – Summit Tapes pt 2 (Strange Rules)
Diatribes – Sistere (Mappa Editions) Handsomely-boxed C40 tape and digital album
A new-to-me name, Diatribes, are a Swiss improvising duo – D’incise & Cyril Bondi – who offer us two damn-fine, side-long, ritualistic explorations.
‘Tabi-Tabi’, this woozily hypnotic twenty-minute rhythm workout starts like a boredoms drum-circle with a handful of percussion (bells, shaker, bamboo claves, half bag of rice and those damn shell contraptions) round a campfire and stays near enough in that vein for the duration. Off-kilter electronic fingering appears around the edges and new shaken textures begin swooping in over the central heartbeat.
A lazier reviewer would play the Steve Reich card but this seems in no way minimal. Sure there’s not much in terms of shifting sonic content but the arrangement and variety of dryness verses simple clattering brass is filling my soft head with little tinkles like I done an ASMR youtube marathon.
The pulse never changes…but just when I think “I’m about to leave my earthly body, swooped to heaven with winged heels…” a series of thin ringing tones guides my soul back into this slumped form on a silver wire.
I’m a cotton-mouth shaman!
The contrast of ‘Utsara – Utsara’ couldn’t be more pronounced. Double-deep floor-tom beats in half-time with a sultry resonance. It sounds human-played with deft smears and deep-red ringing.
Imagine your favourite gamelan record slowed down and ironed out to a single fragrant strike repeated over and over again while something lurks behind the mix hissing and spitting.
This is the music of waiting for bad things to happen and listening is an uneasy, spiritually distant experience – there is no euphoria in the repetition – just slowly creeping dread like the crops failed and goat milk has gone sour. Why’s everyone looking at me?
I’m a cowering villager!
Yearning Kru – Swumpengelf (Mantile Records) tape and download
What the Dickens tape-mulch that sounds like a super-high-gloss production being ruined by an unexpected plutonium pulse and scrambled forever.
This tape is such a delight because of it’s extremely twisted DNA. No sound is left unmolested for a moment – each digital bang or gritty slump is smothered in maximal oddness, then wrung out, then laid out on another freakish griddle.
I’ll try to make sense of it for you but I fear I’m too old…
- Swooshing, the colour of Vogue Magazine – all fleshy beige (Canisters in the Marsh). A three-part structure is implied but never enforced: smeared samples, a clock ticks backwards drips behind, smashed glassy tinkles blink.
- Unpleasant whalloping (Gulping Boulders) and dropped iron vases. Corn toes throb.
- Beamed direct from Hell (Nightbrightener) as Dante attempts to sing his way out over a barrage of malfunctioning bass machines and melting RAM.
- One recognisable mbira is a brief oasis (Tattoo (Petrol)) until my bratty breath is looped (The Address) like no human mouth could ever, ever, ever…it ends in desperate scratchin’.
- This is no conventional medley (U Neva Glissend) but a hint of Sunday School organ gone random while the bad kids glitch and moan in the pews.
[Ed’s not: despite the computer-led approach, Cronx’ Yearning Kru leads directly to Hull’s Yol on my why-aye-player and the segue into gritty, real demolition sounds perfect – hey people – let’s make it happen!]
Fans of Guttersnipe and Autechre form a queue please…
Sophie Cooper & Julian Bradley – The Blow Volume 3 (Front & Follow) tape and digital album
RFM’s very own Sophie Cooper and his Excellency the Julian Bradley have been creating soft bubbles of weirdness for many years ploughing fuxxed-electronics, vocal grease and guitar-moff in a variety of solo trips, swift duos and long-lived freakbands. Pledging their troth to the way-out they formed The Slowest Lift (check press for details) but on this fayre tape they play under their own names. No less sloe! No less lifting!!
OK…that’s the scene set. What you’ve got here is two sides of ferric huss that runs the gamut from ‘thundering whale barnacles’ to ‘cardamom fueled intoxication.’ The controls are jammed into the red from the off with maximum distortion, reverb and delay of a type so strong it begins to punch through the fog that obscures the river bank that I’m squatting beside.
Details?
Tracks like ‘Wish Me to Forget You’ a gruff-electronic-folk-sonnet wonders what became of the hangman’s beautiful daughter. ‘The Body’ considers the mysteries of the fallow field. Full of shuddering wormy detail and slowly rejuvenating with essential nitrates!
Super-slow and re-imagined ‘Greenhead’ is as catchy as Under Mi Sleng Teng and fair forms a crust with them steel-pan clonks that count it out…5,4,3,2,1.
The three-part movements of ‘Nowhere from the Water to Go’ starts with (1) misty-eyed spirals of multiple guitars picked in the spirit of Portugal’s Manuel Mota – rugged plucking looped over thumbs like cat’s cradle – until (2) all sin is washed clean with thick, bassy waves of caustic tone spitting like a red-hot poker plunged into rough cider. The coda (3) haunts in its brevity – a pickled pepper of all that’s gone before.
Up-to-the-minute tape-scroll and scratch-jaxx infects the short neighbours ‘My Muscles’ and ‘The Mirror’. The former a black-dark fustering of synth-tones, dragged copse and dislocated voice the later a bona performance of séance gymnastics. Lo!
The spookiest of the bunch, ‘Congratulations,’ showcases floating twin vocals becoming an almost-ghost. No doubt a terrible tale is being told over a tune as loose as a Bardo Pond jam from way back.
Seriously delightful, yet quivering with restraint. Sort of like sweeping an experienced hand over the powerful flanks of a gelding.
Sam Andreae/David Birchall/Otto Willberg – Hair in the Chimney (Heavy Petting/Vernacular Recordings) CD
Ecstatic three-way improv shunting with many fingers.
That idea of complex gets a bad rap eh? In a world where simplification and convenience are sleepwalking us into some sort of human stasis we often shove anything difficult or involved on to tomorrows ‘to-do’ list.
Those real-gone physics-beards have got the right idea though. They claim even the thorniest, knottiest equation can be beautiful. A problem so complex so wide and deep and long that most of us mere mortals can’t even understand the damn question gets wrapped up and buffed into a solution all brief and balanced – achieving beauty.
So along with the Prof Yaffles: Sam Andreae/David Birchall/Otto Willburg invite us to smudge their chalky equation with our fresh ears.
Hair in the Chimney is an ultra-complex, lovingly-layered and nuanced peak into a virtually infinite system of sax, guitar and double bass techniques.
Don’t get your Zappa out! These techniques are a million miles from prog’s privileged meanderings (and for that matter refreshingly free of improv cliché) and almost telepathic as any squeak, belch or ‘boing’ travels from sax to guitar to bass in a second.
There’s three lengthy pieces here, long enough to get dug in and explore an ever changing landscape of some new improv patois. The textures move from brittle and broken to bulbous and ripe over the course on each imagination.
And though you might expect that with two string-bringers there’s an overreliance on pluck. Not so! The guitar and bass are as happy to hum and wobble as the sax is evidently delighted to quietly pop from time to time.
Of course it’s not all about speed and mimicry. The sympathetic support of each instrument and player is super-palpable as each voice is selfless enough to bring out the best in each other. Be that a slow dripping, almost Sonic Youth-style, electric gamelan or a razor-sharp ladder of tones, each essential to the overall sculpture.
Floats as easy as lubricated conversation.
Kay Hill – ANARAK (Invisible City Records) C20 tape and digital download
A welcome return from Ben Hallatt. A fine player who first ruffled my feathers a coupla years back at the glorious Crater Lake festival – then proceeded to gently massage my shoulders, taking great care to conceal a syringe of potent sedative that could be plunged into my neck when least expected via a slew of marvelous releases.
Here under the Kay Hill moniker he continues with what I previously described as eerie-urban-horror with muted synth and tape work.
On the mysteriously illusive ‘ANARAK’ (no info save from the artist and title) Ben offers two sides of insistent minimalism that flick with cold urgency like Morse code distress signals. The stately and austere construction of these pieces nudges Ben further away from the noise-dingus camp into a zone of bespectacled academia and ultra-minimal electronics with the implied threat of early Wolf Eyes/American Tapes/Hanson releases.
I guess the rotating orbs we hear are reels of analogue tape floating with thudding rhythms that are offset by smears of static gristle and clunk. Ben constructs his tracks like a plate spinning exercise of noises, his timing and flair for adding and subtracting sounds at the right time is impeccable. (Luke Vollar)
Kay Hill – Summit Tapes pt 2 (Strange Rules) C20 and digital download
‘Summit Tapes pt 2’ continues the engrossing drama with high lonesome tones smooshed with low key grunk and fleck.
The forlorn, barely-there conclusion of the first side sounds, for all the world, like the slow journey through an underground cave-river to an unknown conclusion. A dim light illuminating the craggy rock and the knowledge that you may well be facing the end alone.
The subtle and eerie unraveling of the second side has a slow and steady whistle rising like Doctor Octopus’ steely tentacles within a claustrophobic vortex . I keep going back to horror as a comparison but it does seem appropriate with Kay Hill as he has a gift for building tension and dread that, like the best horror films, focuses on the drawn-out suspense and fear – not the grisly climax.
So it’s fitting that there is no grisly climax to be found on either of these Hill tapes; and as the muted keys whir and crunch, half remembered voices play out ‘side b’ like a waterlogged fifth-generation tangerine cassette.
I am again extremely impressed. (Luke Vollar)
Heavy Petting / Vernacular Recordings
-ooOoo-
new vistas of nada: luke vollar on jake meginsky, ben gwilliam, gold soundz all-stars
February 11, 2016 at 1:05 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ben gwilliam, f. ampism, gold soundz, håkon lie, ian watson, jake meginsky, luke vollar, mantile records, sindre bjerga
Jake Meginsky – Kasper Struabe Stencil Cycles (tape, Mantile Records, #029, edition of 50)
Ben Gwilliam – Breakdownspedup (tape, Mantile Records, #030, edition of 50)
Various Artists – Magnetic Decay (recycled tape, Gold Soundz, GS#128, edition of 25)
Jake Meginsky – Kasper Struabe Stencil Cycles
The excellent Mantile Records takes a side-step out of the noise ghetto for a hunk of sweetie pie that has one loafer on the dance floor and the other in the electro-acoustic treasury club. It’s the kind of furtive brain music that brings to mind the mighty Autechre; swoops of silvery bloop disappear down a rainbow precipice to emerge body popping in peacock finery, too dazzling to behold without shades. The strobing percussives towards the end are really something. No word of a lie – I am presently nodding my head and NOT stroking my chin.
Ben Gwilliam – Breakdownspedup
Various recordings made by placing Dictaphones inside freezers until the cassette slows and the mechanism seizes. Remember that bit in Shallow Grave when the bad guys finish off another guy by casually sticking him in a chest freezer and leave heavy sacks on the lid which make it impossible for him to escape? Brr, still gives me the heebie jeebies now. Thankfully this isn’t a recording of a human being stopped with low temperature (don’t even think about it transgressive readers) rather the impassive sound of a small machine slowed by inertia, a different type of nothing: from grainy speckles of frost-gripped audio to bassy and glacial hum. But, just as I’m preparing to stick this artifact into the ‘interesting experiments’ section, the recording morphs into a complex strata of textures as the freezer and the Dictaphone seem to sing to each other like whales in a vast ocean, mournful and melancholy. Flip it over and we’re in a chilly no mind zone witnessing the birth of a new micro genre: cold noise wall (CNW?)
Various Artists – Magnetic Decay
More fertile goosh from the cold lands of Norway (good link eh?) and the mecca of all things no-audience: Gold Soundz.
No idea who Håkon Lie is, I’m presuming he’s not the Norwegian politician who passed away in 2009 [Editor’s note: Google journalism at its finest there]. Live tape manipulations are extrapolated into new vistas of nada while battery operated toys are triggered with buttocks. Recognizable chunks of popular music are fed into the belly of the beast and coughed out as garish and slightly frightening splats of wha?? An American instructional tape finishes the set by intoning:
we become what we think about
…followed by a smattering of applause.
Ian Watson next with some suitably oppressive grey drizzled doomscapes; sound art that sticks to your fingers like clay. It has the same inexplicable feel for lonely English landscapes as Xazzaz. My favourite track is the last one, ‘times wiped’, which sounds like a tape loop of wind chimes excavated after being buried in the wet earth for a long while.
F. Ampism is a Brighton based beard who has been knitting intoxicating ear brews for a number of years now. By being excellent and largely ignored he makes for the perfect dinner guest at RFMHQ. Whilst an electronic and tape concoction is present, so too is a bewildering arsenal of clunks, rattles and bubbles left to bob merrily amongst the purple blueberry foam. As huge goblets of the strange but delicious cocktail are handed out by pink elephants we make our way downstream through the dense jungle as the chatter of wildlife becomes a thrum of forward motion, centipedes as big as a horse, amphibians playing thumb pianos… you get the picture.
The compilation is closed by label head-honcho Sindre Bjerga, a guy who seems to literally spend his entire life soaking up spilt beer with his trousers whilst horsing about with his collection of outdated and redundant stuff: tape players, tiny microphones and the like. He makes something out of nothing and does it spontaneously brain-to-hand-to-gob-and-back-to-brain.
Whilst I can’t lie and say that I’m unconcerned about the impact his floor based activities will have on his joints in advancing years (‘noise knee’ can now be found listed as a genuine ailment in up to date medical journals) he should be commended for his ceaseless activities. ‘They’ say that to be truly great at anything (or at least to stand a chance) you have to do it a lot. So I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Sindre is the goddam Hendrix of the Dictaphone and this is another fine addition to his humongous back catalogue.
What a splendid compilation, procure yourself a copy at once.
—ooOoo—
Gold Soundz [Editor’s note: good luck…]
the 2015 zellaby awards
January 8, 2016 at 11:24 am | Posted in blog info, musings, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: aas, alec cheer, ali robertson, alien passengers, andrew wild, andy crow, anla courtis, aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, bbblood, benjamin hallatt, blood stereo, bridget hayden, cardboard club, charlotte braun, chocolate monk, chrissie caulfield, claire potter, crow versus crow, culver, david chatton barker, david somló, delphine dora, dominic coppola, duncan harrison, e.y.e., expose your eyes, fake mistress, female:pressure, fort evil fruit, g.j de rook, giant tank, graham dunning, guttersnipe, hagman, hairdryer excommunication, half an abortion, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, ian watson, invisible city records, joe murray, john tuffen, joined by wire, jon collin, kay hill, kev sanders, kirigirisu recordings, know this, luke vollar, luminous monsters, macrowhisker, mantile records, marlo eggplant, mel o'dubhslaine, memoirs of an aesthete, midnight doctors, namke communications, no basement is deep enough, paul harrison, posset, power moves label, r.a.n, reckno, richard youngs, robert ridley-shackleton, rosemary krust, saboteuse, sabrina peña young, sam mcloughlin, saturn form essence, scke\\, shareholder, shredderghost, sindre bjerga, skatgobs, sonotanotanpenz, sophie cooper, steve lawson, steven ball, stuart chalmers, tabs out, the piss superstition, tom white, tutore burlato, va aa lr, whole voyald infinite light, winebox press, xazzaz, yol, zellaby awards
Hello friends and welcome to the 2015 Zellaby Awards and Radio Free Midwich end-of-year round-up. I’m very glad to see you. My apologies in advance to those long term readers expecting the usual introduction full of whimsical nonsense. There will be some of that, of course, but this year needs to be taken seriously and I’m going to start dark. Don’t worry though – spoiler alert – there will be joy and life-affirming redemption by the end: this piece is my It’s a Wonderful Life.
Firstly, it is not the job of this blog to comment on the wider world but aside from the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, our glorious future prime minister, 2015 was largely without hope. I wish you all good luck in navigating the coming End Times.
Personally, away from music, my year can be split into three four month long segments. For the first of these I was ill with non-stop, run-of-the-mill viruses. Nowt serious on its own but the cumulative effect of so many strung together – a necklace of snot – left me in a parlous state. My depression played cards with its fidgety cousin anxiety, waited until I was defenceless and then kicked in the door. The second four months were spent off work attempting to shift these unwelcome guests whilst maintaining a functioning family life. I’ve written about this debilitating effort elsewhere, no need for further details here. The final four months of 2015 were the tale of my recuperation and slow recovery following a change in medication and a breakthrough in both the treatment of my illness and my attitude towards it. After much grief, I left 2015 exhausted and resentful but hopeful that new ways of muzzling the black dog will allow me a lengthy period of peace and sanity.
When I was down in it, days, weeks even, passed when music seemed more trouble than it was worth. The list of releases submitted to RFM for review, plus other stuff that caught my bloodshot eye, became an untended vine cracking the panes of its greenhouse and desiccating the soil in its giant terracotta pot. I’d try to ignore it, slumped in my deckchair, but would be tickled awake by a tendril and look up to see something like Audrey II grinning down at me:
Or maybe one my colleagues – Joe, Chrissie, Sof, Luke, marlo – would arrive with a ladder, new glass, plant food, exotic orchids or intricate alpines to distract me, gawd bless ‘em. Looking back, I’m surprised at how often I actually did pick up the trowel – if only to wave hello, or whack Luke on the nose with it when I found him digging in the flower beds – and I’m quietly proud of maintaining this garden despite the inclement mental weather. During 2015 radiofreemidwich received approximately 32,000 visits – a new record. 93 posts were published, including the blog’s 500th, by half a dozen different authors. The most popular of which were last year’s Zellaby Awards and my no-audience underground ‘state of the notion’ address – most gratifying as both are heartfelt celebrations of the scene. Not bad, eh?
Now, at this point in the introduction I was going to get catty about my usual scratching posts, hit a few sacred cow arses with a banjo etc. but, looking down at the silted pavement and up at the grey sky, it’s clear that what the world needs now is love, sweet love – not smart alec remarks and passive-aggressive score settling. So let’s get the party started instead.
Here’s the rules: to be eligible in one of the following five categories this music needs to have been heard by one of us for the first time in 2015. It does not need to have been released in 2015. As the purpose of these awards is to spread the good news about as many quality releases as possible, should an artist win in one category they will not be placed in any of the others. I do not vote for my own stuff as midwich, nor any releases that I had a hand in (thus no Aqua Dentata on fencing flatworm – sorry Eddie). The team will avoid touting each others’ projects too – not because we care about conflict of interest (there isn’t any down here) but we do like to maintain at least a veneer of decorum. Aside from marlo, who has been nostril deep in PhD crap all year and thus didn’t feel qualified to contribute, the whole team has chipped in and I will be pasting their responses below. This year I am at least nodding in the direction of democracy when compiling the lists but, as editor, I am reserving final say. Don’t worry though – my dictatorship is benevolent and progressive.
Right then, time to pop some fucking corks…
—ooOoo—
Radio Free Midwich presents the 2015 Zellaby Awards
5. The “I’d never heard of you 10 minutes ago but now desperately need your whole back catalogue” New-to-RFM Award
Chrissie expresses doubts about the whole process then nails a perfect nomination:
I’m not much of a one for end of year retrospectives, forward is my preferred direction. Also I find it hard to compare music and place it in any sort of order. One day a particular piece or artist will be exactly what I need, another day it will have me screaming for the STOP button. Add to which I haven’t actually reviewed very much this year. Even when I found a (rather large, rich) niche to occupy I still take longer to complete a review than I’d really like. Still, I hate to disappoint, and I never miss a deadline so…
Even while reviewing one album, I couldn’t help mentioning tracks on other albums!
[Editor’s note: an extract from Chrissie’s review of Science Fiction & Horror Movie Soundtrack Collection: Strange Films of Sabrina Peña Young:]
‘Singularity’ is a whole Star Trek episode in miniature. It opens as an almost conventional, if nicely constructed piece of theme music, and gradually becomes something very much more. Going from the journey out, discovery of a possibly inhabited planet, then meeting an alien, trying to escape and the closing theme music again – a novella in seven minutes forty-three seconds! To be honest I’m pretty sure that that isn’t the actual narrative of ‘Singularity’ but I like to make things up as I’m listening and that idea seemed plausible at the time [Editor’s note: it’s the RFM way…]. What it’s really about is the rise of machine intelligence, of course; which is equally scary, possibly.
Joe speaks in italics:
Not for the first time, Serbia’s No Basement is Deep Enough label has pinned my lugs back and hotly tongued my ear. But this time it slipped a note in my pocket that read ‘G.J de Rook’ (but no phone number I notice!).
Gerrit’s considered gobble-de-gook on a and bla is the metallic-gravy I’m craving right now. The calm and pleasant gibber hits that sweet-spot of babies gurgling, a hummingbird’s gaudy thrum and the plastic pop of wrenched bubble-wrap. These are universal sounds; sounds enjoyed from the Mongolian deserts to the Seattle coffee-house scene. These are the sort of sounds we need to send into space – gaffer tape a CD-r to Voyager or something- for them bug-eyed overlords to ponder.
Although Gerrit’s wider discography is relatively thin and achingly expensive don’t worry readers, I have a plan in place to slurp slowly in discreet ‘o,o,o,o,o,oa,oa,oa,oa,eh,eh,eh,o,ooo,o-like’ sips. Think on.
Sof’s joy in discovery:
I heard and reviewed the album 3 by Sonotanotanpenz at the start of my Midwich employment and have since heard everything I can by them because, for me, they just tick all the right boxes. Cheers to Kirigirisu Records for pointing me in the right direction finding this stuff!
Luke forward/slashes:
Ben Hallatt – Kay Hill, scke//, KIKS/GFR – the sinister/minimal man, eerie urban horror with muted synth/tape work.
…and I say:
…that I haven’t had the wherewithal for the obsessive curiosity that usually makes it so easy and obvious to decide the winner of this category. I have a few interests bubbling under – that lovely, young Graham Dunning seems like an intriguing chap so maybe I’ll stalk him once I have the energy – but in the meantime I’m happy to to go along with Chrissie’s nomination of Sabrina Peña Young.
4. The “Stokoe Cup”, given for maintaining quality control over a huge body of work making it impossible to pick individual releases in an end of year round up
Sof ponders:
I don’t think I have an answer for this one, I can only think of Delphine Dora who released four albums this year which to me seems a huge amount! I’m not really into musicians who put out so much stuff that I can’t keep up. It puts me off if I’m honest, I like small and considered bodies of work. [Editor’s note: a very practical attitude – and Delphine should definitely be on everyone’s list anyway.]
Chrissie scratches her head too:
I’ve not really reviewed enough to come up with a suitable nomination for this. Similarly for the label award. I was tempted to nominate Steve Lawson for the Stokoe cup but he might be rather too ‘big’ for that to be sensible now and also I don’t believe he’s ever been reviewed here [Editor’s note: he is and he hasn’t but, hey, s’up to you – it’s an indication of where you are coming from too]. However he does release a considerable amount of material and it is of quite an amazingly high standard.
No doubts from Joe:
We’re all renaissance men and women now eh? Fingers in various pies yeah? You’re a composer/performer, a curator, a thinker, an archivist, a broadcaster, a hard-assed critic and goofy listener, a publisher and promoter? Scratch the N-AU and we bleed like colourful skittles.
This is all vital and impressive for sure. But the real trick is to weave all those various roles together with a broader sense of ‘who you are’, a central-unifying-theme and aesthetic that’s as real as Westeros fantasy shizzle. So with the powers invested in me by the fabled ‘Stokoe Cup’ I hereby recommend Andy Wild, the Crow versus Crow guy guy, as an upstanding exemplar of unified vision, industry and purpose.
Not only is Andy releasing beautifully packaged CDs on the CvC label, he’s keeping us up-to-date with a set of paintings and photography. He’s had a one-man exhibition, “You’re Gonna Need That Pure Religion, Halleloo” in his native Halifax. He’s researched, presented and broadcast almost 100 radio shows and curated a bunch of special one-off sessions (like John Peel yeah). And all this strikes me with a look and a feel that’s unmistakably CvC and unified. Here’s an example: as Andy dug deeper into old blues records spindly hiss and burr appeared on the paintings (and in the exhibition title). The smeared photos mirrored the abstract sound of worn vinyl. The shows became looser, the voice deeper and the mood darker. Do people still do mission statements? If so, is ‘be beautiful’ taken?
Luke starts on a theme:
A tough one this year with the above mentioned Ben Hallatt and the incredible Stuart Chalmers. My vote, however, has to go to Robert Ridley-Shackleton: the Oxfam prince, the cardboard king. He keeps on peaking, inhabiting his own corner. In a just universe he would be on the X Factor panel: he IS pop.
…and I say:
Well, Joe makes a compelling case for Andy Crow there and since being born from an egg on a mountaintop the nature of Shackleton is irrepressible, but I’m handing the trophy to a familiar name and previous Zellaby award winner: Kev Sanders.
Whilst not quite reaching the Stakhanovite release rate displayed in 2014, his productivity remains alarming high, as does the quality of his work. I’ve not reviewed a great deal of it, nor much else released on his label hairdryer excommunication (this collection of haiku from September being my main engagement) but it has been an ever-present background radiation.
If you picture the year as an autobahn, one which I have been stalled beside, hood up, engine steaming, then Kev’s music is a series of electricity pylons running alongside carrying cables buzzing with an intensity that is somehow both bleak and comforting. I wish him well with his coming move to that London and look forward to a chance to catch up whilst he is otherwise engaged. Now, like a casino bouncer chucking out a professional gambler, I’m banning him from winning anything else for a while. House rules.
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award
Sof and Chrissie have a playground tussle over who gets to be teacher’s pet:
Sof: It’s no secret that Rob Hayler has had a rough year with his depression but his drive and passion for underground music has meant he’s kept up with this blog which I’m sure a lot of folks wouldn’t do under the same circumstances – fair play and respect to you!
Chrissie: At the risk of sounding like a spoilt kid sucking up to the boss, I’d like to nominate Rob for this award. In what has been a difficult year for him he’s hired three new writers, no small risk in itself, trusting our ability to actually deliver readable prose (well, in my case anyway) in usable quantities, not to mention editing it onto the blog in good shape and good time. He’s also put up with my erratic writing schedule and lack of enthusiasm to take anything off the review pile – preferring to go off on my own in a crusade to bring more female artists to the notice of our good and loyal readers.
[Editor’s note: it might appear shameless to include the above, and I admit it kinda is, but, as I’ve pointed out, it has been a tough year and I was touched. Let me have a little sugar, yeah?]
Luke picks an outlier:
Sorry gonna have to be Robert Ridley-Shackleton again [sings: “Return of the Shack! Here it is…!”]. A little quote from Robbie following a chat about tedious porn/bondage themes in noise:
To me noise is a positive thing, it fills my brain full of the joys. I don’t understand all the negative themes presented, to me it’s life affirming
Yeah baby!!!
[Editor’s note: R-Shack’s physical contribution to RFM is indeed notable as he sent copies of all his releases plus extra examples of his womble-on-ketamine junk art not just to RFMHQ but also personally to Joe and Luke too – a Knight of the Post.]
Joe rallies the troops:
As ever, I reckon this one belongs to everybody. Anyone that sent in a tape, clicked on a link, wrote a review, listened with intent, left a comment or gave a god-damn fuck. This one’s for you. It’s all of us that make this: writers, readers, editors…even you cynics (coz debate is good, yeah?). We’re all part of the oneness. No one hears a tree fall in an empty forest right?
…and I say:
Tempting as it is to fall into step and punch the air, nostrils flaring, there is an objectively true answer to the question and that is: Anne, my wife. Without her love, care and truly unbelievable strength this blog would not have continued to exist.
However, if we limit the word ‘contribution’ to meaning actual hands-on graft accounting for the endeavours of the no-audience underground then only one name can be engraved on this medal: Joe Murray.
Of the 93 posts published this year a huge proportion were by Joe and each of those usually contained reviews of numerous items sourced from far-flung corners of the outer reaches. Despite his hep prose poetry being the best music writing currently available – Richard Youngs himself described Joe’s review of his epic No Fans seven CD box set as ‘the definitive account’ – he is completely selfless in his unpretentious enthusiasm. He embodies the ethos of this blog.
[Editor’s note: hmmm… getting a bit lovey and self-congratulatory this isn’t it? Maybe I’ll rethink this category for next year <takes deep breath, dabs corner of eye> OK, on with the big gongs!]
2. The Label of the Year Award
Sof sticks to the point:
I’ve really enjoyed every release I’ve heard from Fort Evil Fruit this year, and most years, I think we must have the same taste in music.
Luke whittles on the porch:
Another tough one with old favourites like Chocolate Monk continuing to deliver the goods. However at a push it’d be Winebox Press, a fairly laid back work rate but always something to look forward to, can’t think of another label as aesthetically as well as sonically pleasing to me at least. Objects of cosmic power that’ll warm you from the inside out.
Joe’s takes a turn:
Let’s hear it for Cardboard Club. Why? For the dogged determination and other worldly logic of course. I have no idea what is going on in the disco/noise shire of Robert Ridley-Shackleton. All I know is that I like it, I like it a lot.
Robert’s singular vision is not so much outsider as out-rigger; a ghost on the pillion. The label spreads itself across media so the scrabbly zines, tape artwork and ‘pocket-jazz’ sound can only contain the RR-S, nothing else. But what made me giggle, what made me really smile was the recent move to vinyl. Some lame-o’s see the hallowed seven inch as a step up; a career move if you please! With that kind of attitude the battle is already lost and all ideals get mushed in ‘rock school’ production. None of this for our Cardboard Club… it sounds exactly the same! A hero for our troubled times.
…and I say:
Yep, all excellent selections deserving of your attention but, with hairdryer excommunication out of the way, I’m going to use editor’s privilege to share this year’s prize between two exemplary catalogues: Invisible City Records and Power Moves Label. Both are tape-plus-download labels based on Bandcamp, both have strong individual identities – in ethos and aesthetic – despite presenting diverse, intriguing rosters and both share impeccable no-audience underground credentials (PML’s slogan: ‘true bedroom recordings with delusions of grandeur’). It don’t hurt that the gents running each – Craig and Kev respectively – are polite, efficient and enthusiastic in their correspondence too. Anyone looking for a model as to how it should be done could do worse than sit at the front of their class and take careful notes.
[Editor’s note on the Editor’s note: yes, yes, I know that ICR re-released my epic masterpiece The Swift, thus making it the label of the year by default but I felt duty bound to mention it anyway. Shame on Tabs Out Podcast, by the way, for filling the first 135 places of their 2015 Top 200 with hype and industry payola. Glad to see sanity and integrity restored with #136.]
1. The Album of the Year Award
Chrissie kicks us off:
1. R.A.N
My first female:pressure review and the one I still listen to the most.
…not only are the individual tracks on this album good, but the ordering of them is exquisite. They follow on from each other in a wonderful, spooky narrative that runs smoothly and expertly from start to finish – the gaps between them allowing you to pause for breath before being dragged into the next hellmouth.
2. FAKE Mistress – entertainted
The opening track, ‘Appreciate the moment’s security’, will pull you in with its drama, heavy noise-based beats, spooky voicing and very punkish shouting but you’ll stay for the gentler opening of ‘You better trust’, intrigued by where it’s going. There’s harsh noise in the middle of this track and in lots of places on this album, but it’s never over-used. It’s here as a structural device to take you by surprise and drag you out of your complacency.
Luke casts his net wide:
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Self-Titled EP
Charlotte Braun – Happy Being Sad
Absurde, Chier – Absurde VS Chier
Skatgobs – Pointless
Blood Stereo – The Lure of Gurp
Alec Cheer – Autumn
Ali Robertson & His Conversations
Guttersnipe – Demo
xazzaz – descent / the crusher
VA AA LR – Ping Cone
Stuart Chalmers – Imaginary Musicks 3/4
Anla Courtis – B-Rain Folklore
S C K E / Kay Hill – Disclosure, TESSELLATION A/B, IN-GRAIN, Cold Title
Jon Collin – Wrong Moves / Dream Recall
Whole Voyald Infinite Light – Uncollected Recordings
Ashtray Navigations – Lemon Blossom Gently Pixelating In The Breeze
Melanie O’Dubhshlaine – Deformed Vowels
yol / posset – a watched pot never (no link – ask yol or Joe, they’ll sort you out)
half an abortion / yol – the designated driver
Shareholder – Jimmy Shan
[Editor’s note: blimey, eh? Luke also provided a ‘year in metal’ list too! Available on request.]
Sof’s impeccable taste displayed:
I’m going with Steven Ball’s Collected Local Songs which I reviewed earlier this year because it’s the one I’ve gone back to over and over, each listen revealing more to me. It’s such an original piece of work.
Originality is the theme of my list –
Saboteuse – Death, Of Course (this maaaaaaay, have come out last year!)
Bridget Hayden and Claire Potter – Mother To No Swimming Laughing Child
Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God
Guttersnipe – Demo
Rosemary Krust – Rosemary Krust
Sam McLoughlin & David Chatton Barker – Show Your Sketches
Delphine Dora – L’au-delà
Joe selects:
I fucking guarantee your serious music critics will moan and denounce 2015 as a fallow year for sounds. Fools! If you look around there’s an embarrassment of riches spilling out of the tape drawer, CD-r pile and download..er…folder?
I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable hurling my opinion of ‘what’s best’ around so, in the spirit of “non-competition and praise”, here’s what I’d play you right now if you were to pop round for sherry.
- yol – everyday rituals. When a record makes you run giddy for the Spanish/English dictionary you know something extraordinary is at work. You’re familiar with yol yeah? You’re not? Get a-fucking cracking pal. This is a truly explosive & genuine performance that makes your insipid rebellion look safe as milk.
- Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God. A super-subtle voice and tape work. What I love is the ‘too studio-fucked to be field recordings and too much punk-ass rush for fluxus’ approach. Natural and wonderfully blunted domestic, ‘Others…’ inhabits its own space – like a boil in the bag something served piping hot.
- Midnight Doctors – Through a Screen and Into a Hole. The merciless despot with a harmonium! Phil Begg’s steady hand guides a cavalcade of rough North East gonks through their paces to produce a timeless noir classic. It is equal parts soundtrack, accurate cop-show homage and mysterious new direction for tight-meshed ensemble. C’mon Hollywood… make that damn call.
- Shareholder – Jimmy Shan. Rock und Roll songs collapse in sharp slaggy heaps. Dirty explosions replace instruments (the guitar x 2 and drums) leaving us dazed in a no-man’s-land of stunning, blinding light and electricity. Ferocious and don’t-give-a-fuck all at once.
- Tom White – Reconstruction is tied, even-stevens, with Sindre Bjerga’s – Attractive Amplification. The world of violent tape abuse is one I follow avidly. But there’s nothing to separate these two outstanding tapes (of tapes, of tapes, of tapes). Both Tom and Sindre have the muscle memory and total mastery of their mediums (reel to reel and compact cassette) to wrench brown, sticky moans from the vintage equipment. It sounds belligerent, punch drunk and rum-sloppy to my ears. A perfect night out chaps!
…and finally, your humble editor:
Bubbling under: here are the releases that made my long list but not the countdown. Every one a cracker, presented here in alphabetical order to avoid squabbles breaking out in the car park:
Culver – Saps 76
David Somló – Movement
Delphine Dora and Sophie Cooper – Distance, Future
Dominic Coppola – Vogue Meditations
Hagman – Inundation
Hardworking Families – Happy Days
Ian Watson – Caermaen
joined by wire – universe allstars
Luminous Monsters – The Sun Tree
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Self-Titled EP
Saturn Form Essence – Stratospheric Tower
Shredderghost – Golden Cell
yol – everyday rituals
[Editor’s note: I also have to make special mention of Askild Haugland and his peerless recordings as Taming Power. I’ve received two (I think, possibly three) parcels from him this year containing his work, all the way from Norway, and these recordings always have a profound and meditative effect. Some of it, for instance the 7” single Fragments of the Name of God, could quite possibly be perfect.]
OK, right – ooo! exciting! – here’s the top ten, presented in traditional reverse order:
10. E.Y.E – MD2015
…and what a joy it has been to have Paul Harrison back in the fray! Yes, after over a decade new material from Paul’s Expose Your Eyes project was finally made available via his new Bandcamp label Eye Fiend – a repository for much missed Fiend Recordings back catalogue (Mrs Cakehead has to be heard to be believed) and digital versions of the new stuff which is otherwise only available in tiny hand-splattered physical editions.
MD2015 is a four CD-r, four hour and twenty minute set comprising discordant synth clatters, decontextualized chanting (familiar to anyone into first wave industrial music), beats: pitter, patter – galloping hooves – factory presses, intoxicating loops, delirium (remember that footage of animals drunk on fermented fruit? This is the OST to a bootleg version of The Lion King that features those orgiastic scenes), repetition beyond human endurance / irresistible motoric groove, ‘proper’ noise – all primary sexual characteristics out and flapping in the breeze, and sorbet-refreshing shortwave-radio-ish pulse. It is a lot of fun.
9. AAS – Balancing Ritual
Y’know when your favourite stoner rock band lay down a super heavy, half-hour long, ego-obliterating, tethered crescendo but it isn’t quite enough so you and a hardy group of the suspicious break into one of the spaceships of a seemingly benevolent alien race currently visiting Earth and discover this playing inside? Yeah? A version of the above but clinical, steely, a step up from our humble efforts. It’s like that and I, for one, welcome our new drone overlords…
Graham Dunning offered to send me a tape of this, I visited Bandcamp for a sneaky preview and ended up so impressed that I’d bought the download and fallen in love before my exhausted postie even delivered the jiffy bag. I can count on the fingers of no fingers the other times that has happened recently.
8. Duncan Harrison, BBBlood, Aqua Dentata – “Ineluctable modality of the visible”
What an excellent three-fer. Not only occupying a wholly justified place in the chart but giving me the opportunity to praise Paul Watson (BBBlood), Duncan Harrison (who’s Others Delete God tape, so highly praised earlier, shamefully passed me by. Did I ever own it? Did I send it to Joe in a moment of madness? Ah, who knows?) and Eddie Nuttall (who, as Aqua Dentata, is producing amongst the finest work on my radar). Here’s some extracts from marlo’s review:
…But, damn you, Duncan Harrison! The first track immediately gets me back in my academic head! ‘(Je suis) La Loi’ makes me think of psychoanalytical linguist theorist Julia Kristeva and deconstructionist scholar Jacques Derrida. The use of breath and physiological sounds makes the listening an embodied experience. The listener feels present. It is hard not to notice if one’s lips are dry or if you possibly had too many coffees…
…In ‘Nexistence of Vividence’, BBBlood returns to more of the crunchy reeling and wheeling and dealing. It is a typhoon that builds and waits. Never fully collapsing, the sounds peters out like attempting to catch water running through fingers. Yet there is an ethereal resolution to the struggle and the listeners are laid to rest, an aural wiping of the brow. Time to rest after the long haul…
…Eddie Nuttall, a.k.a Aqua Dentata, is not from this planet. I honestly don’t think he is. His music feels like extraterrestrial communication from outside our universe. Like binaural beats and subconscious interfering hypnosis, his untitled track sounds like it is made of laser beams. As a listener, you feel like you merge with the frequency and question your ability to make cognitive sense. It isn’t because of a reliance in bombarding one with several sounds but rather a direct cerebral invasion…
7. The Piss Superstition – Garage Squall
Joe reviewed this one in the shape of a UFO. No, I don’t know why either but it is absolutely bang on:
Mag-lev trains.
The very best form of bluster.
As gentle as breath on a mirror,
Predator’s Answerphone message
The Velvet Underground trapped in a matchbox.
A map! Hectares of featureless crystalline crackle – zoom into mountains,
A corduroy vibe; not geography teacher clichés but that ribbed softness – a tickle on the fingernail.
Ride the world’s slowest roller-coaster taking 1000 years, cranking the incline.
Forbidden Planet strained with nourishing iron-rich greens,
A dream-tractor changing gear on the endless road.
Immense power restrained by gravity
A hit of strong, clean anaesthetic,
I’m counting backwards.
10, 9, 8…
6. Stuart Chalmers – Loop Phantasy No. 1, No. 2, No. 3
Joe again, not sparing the superlatives:
…But this time I throw my regular Northern caution and cynicism out the window and claim these three recordings THE MOST IMPORTANT SALVAGED TAPE LOOP RECORDINGS EVER YEAH.
What? Like…ever?
I hear you ask.
Yes
I answer with a calm, clear voice.
Like in the whole 100 year history of recorded music?
You probe,
even including the oft- mentioned high- water mark of looping Tom Recchion’s Chaotica?
You add. I merely smile and press play on the device of your choice.
You must listen, you must listen to truly understand
I chant with glassy eyes.
Anyway… fuck yeah! That’s what I’m saying. If you want to know where looping is right now in 2015/2016: PLAY THESE RECORDS. If you are looking for an instructional map of what’s possible with simple tape loops, a couple of pedals and some hot ears: PLAY THESE RECORDS. If you want to open up that valve in your stomach that helps you release gaseous tension: PLAY THESE RECORDS…
…Students of tape culture – your set-text has arrived. Screw in those earbuds and get seriously twisted.
5. Ashtray Navigations – A Shimmering Replica
A beautiful album in every respect and an entirely life-affirming experience. Terrific to see Phil and Mel get such a high-profile, flagship release in what was a high-profile, flagship year for the band. I will have more to say on this in a long-planned article which will be published around the eventual release date of the long-planned best of Ashtray Navigations 4CD box set. Coming soon! In the meantime: buy this.
4. Melanie O’Dubhshlaine – Deformed Vowels
Likewise, Mel’s remarkable solo venture deserves a much more detailed account than it is going to get here. Via a kind of meta-semi-improv (or something?) she continues on her utterly compelling, largely unheralded project to reinvent music on her own terms.
I imagine a Dr. Moreau style musical laboratory in which Mel cares for her cross bred instruments, incunabula parping their first notes, joyfully interacting with the sentient automata Mel has created to entertain them with. She dangles a microphone over the giant aquarium tank in which they all live and conducts this unique performance.
Unlike anything else I’ve heard this year, or maybe ever.
3. Helicopter Quartet – Ghost Machine
A peerless work, even within the band’s own faultless back catalogue. From my review:
It is difficult to write about Helicopter Quartet, the duo of RFM staffer Chrissie Caulfield (violin, synths) and Michael Capstick (guitars), because their music is so enveloping, so attention seizing, that when I’m listening the part of my brain I use to put words in a row is too awestruck to function. However, following many hours with it, I am certain this is their best album yet. That a work of such mature beauty, sculpted over months, is freely downloadable is surely further evidence that we are living in a golden age for self released music. It has the austere and magisterial presence of a glacier edge, the drama of that glacier calving into the sea.
If you ever act on anything I say then act on this: go get it.
2. Guttersnipe – Demo
Wow, this kicked the fucking doors in. With this CD-r and a series of explosive live performances Guttersnipe owned 2015 – they were either your new favourite band or you just hadn’t heard of them yet. Luke got to review this one, here’s an extract:
Guttersnipe whip up a frightening noise on drums, guitars, electronics and howled vocals that will have you reaching for the light switch. The cassette fidelity smudges the freejazzmetalhaze into a fog of terror from which emerges the fangs of a gaping gob ready to bite you. I’ve been listening to a lot of black metal recently and these vocals could have the corpse painted hordes crying for their mama. However, they are not the guttural grunts of the alpha male but more a feminine screech of desperation and disgust which the other two respond to by conjuring a blackened and unsettled miasma. Calling this disc demo leads me to believe that Guttersnipe are selling themselves short. This is impressively original material that comes over like a Xasthur/Skullflower hybrid with a hefty slug of secret ingredient. Marvellous job.
Amusingly, and presumably because he hadn’t seen them live at the time, he seems to imply this duo is a trio – a testament to their ferocity (and my skills as an editor…).
1. namke communications – 365/2015
Finally then, the winner of the Zellaby Award for album of the year presented by Radio Free Midwich is, in an unusually literal sense, the album of the year: 365/2015 by namke communications. Here’s some context from a piece I wrote in March:
…old-friend-of-RFM John Tuffen, in a project which recalls the conceptual bloodymindedness of Bill Drummond (who has raised ‘seeing it through’ to the level of art form), is recording a track every day throughout the whole of 2015 and adding them to the album [on Bandcamp] as the calendar marches on … each track is freshly produced on the day in question and, as might be expected, vary enormously in style, execution and instrumentation – there is guitar improv, electronica in various hues and field recording amongst other genres welcome ’round here…
Indeed, added to various forms of (usually light and expansive) improv and field and domestic recordings of life’s ebb and flow were many forays into sub-genres of electronica, techno as she is written, actual *ahem* songs, drones of many textures, experimental sketches with software and new toys, callbacks, the odd joke (all tracks in February had the duration 4’33” following a twitter exchange with me) and so on and so, unbelievably, on. I can’t claim to have heard all of it – of course I haven’t – and there are misfires – of course there are – but the level of quality maintained is gobsmacking given the scope of the exercise.
Each track was accompanied by notes, most with a picture and then a tweet announced its presence too. John was no slacker on the admin – I approve. In March I suggested:
This one I have no qualms about dipping into, in fact I would recommend constructing your own dipping strategies. As the year progresses you could build an album from the birthdays of your family, or never forget an anniversary again with a self-constructed namke communications love-bundle. Won a tenner on the lottery? Create your own three track EP with the numbers and paypal John a couple of quid. Or perhaps a five CD boxset called ‘Thursday Afternoon’, in homage to Brian Eno, containing everything released on that day of the week? Or condense the occult magic with a set comprising every 23rd track? Ah, the fun to be had. Or you could just listen to it on a daily basis until it becomes a welcome part of your routine…
I was at least half-joking at the time but engaging with 365/2015 has proved a unique way of experiencing an album. During the worst of my illness, as I spent nights trawling Twitter unable to sleep, it did become a valuable part of my daily routine. Literally a light in the darkness – Bandcamp page shining on the tablet as I lay in bed – John’s project, existing due to nothing but his crazy drive to create (the whole thing, 40+ hours, available as a ‘name your price’ download!), truly helped me through. A clear and worthy winner.
In conclusion…
So, that is that for another year. John’s prize, should he wish to take me up on it, is for namke communications to have the one and only release on the otherwise dormant fencing flatworm recordings some time in 2016. A surprise baby sister, perhaps, for his lovely available from namke communications released by me back in the day and now (I think) a teenager itself.
Many thanks to my fellow writers and to all who support us – for your time, patience and enthusiasm – it is much appreciated. Heartfelt best wishes for the New Year, comrades.
All is love.
Rob Hayler, January 2016.
—ooOoo—
detritus maestros: luke vollar on va aa lr, guttersnipe, xazzaz
August 6, 2015 at 3:52 pm | Posted in no audience underground, not bloody music | 1 CommentTags: guttersnipe, luke vollar, mantile records, matching head, va aa lr, xazzaz
VA AA LR – Ping Cone (tape, Mantile Records, #028, edition of 50)
Guttersnipe – Demo (CD-r or download, self-released)
xazzaz – descent / the crusher (tape, matching head, matching head 209)
VA AA LR – Ping Cone
VA AA LR are a trio of London based improvisers who make a confounding and ludicrous noise on all manner of non-musical items. The most obvious comparison would be with that other trio of detritus maestros Spoils & Relics, as they also have a weird grasp of group dynamics and a fearless trust in the communal brain. No coincidence that the tape is released on Mantile Records – (the smallest Spoils member) Johnny Scarr’s label.
Abrupt cuts and volume drops entice the curious into the rusty thicket, it’s just you’re more likely to get a spoke in your ass than a sloppy kiss. What starts as hesitant and probing gradually becomes the lopsided half jam of a cola slurping rusted robot making its way down a filthy, ruined corridor – a strobe occasionally lighting the dismal scene.
Yes, we could talk about the lineage of AMM and the principles of improvisation and experimentation being ingested and regurgitated by a new generation but something tells me that these boys would be more interested in yanking your pants down in public and laughing at your bare ass than discussing Eddie Prevost’s latest musings.
Guttersnipe – Demo
Now this li’l disc arrived with me via a man who quite possibly has the most perfect name for a punk drummer ever: Rob Glew, a.k.a. ‘The Ginger Tornado; a.k.a. ‘Spaghetti Limbs’ a.k.a. ‘Bobby Sticks’. Ex- of sadly defunct righteous punk squawkers etai keshiki, a band who shared a tape with my groop Castrato Attack Group (*ahem*, still available for gigs). An unlikely comradery developed betwixt both bands: the skinny shit kickers and the receding, beer bellied sludgemonauts – a cosmic alignment if you will. Hell, Bobby even guested on sticks for one Castrato show. But enough of Ol’ Vollars reminiscing, etai keshiki have ceased to be but all members have to my knowledge continued to pursue musical activities. For instance…
Guttersnipe whip up a frightening noise on drums, guitars, electronics and howled vocals that will have you reaching for the light switch. The cassette fidelity smudges the freejazzmetalhaze into a fog of terror from which emerges the fangs of a gaping gob ready to bite you. I’ve been listening to a lot of black metal recently and these vocals could have the corpse painted hordes crying for their mama. However, they are not the guttural grunts of the alpha male but more a feminine screech of desperation and disgust which the other two respond to by conjuring a blackened and unsettled miasma. Calling this disc demo leads me to believe that Guttersnipe are selling themselves short. This is impressively original material that comes over like a Xasthur/Skullflower hybrid with a hefty slug of secret ingredient. Marvellous job.
xazzaz – descent / the crusher
Another missive from the North East primitives on the none-more-black Matching Head: tape only, no internet presence, all regular readers know the drill. Xazzaz has elegantly stroked my lobes in the past with fine, nourished noise loopholes. This one coughed up in a plastic rectangle from the Northumberland swamps is a sidestep that shows another feather in his headdress.
The fidelity is gloriously wrong, as if a ball of fluff the size of a tennis ball was hanging off the needle of your record player. A hypnotic loop comes in and out of focus like the black oily cogs lowering you beneath the surface. Frenzied string abuse compelling forward (or downward) motion also blurs and sharpens. A similar theme is maintained over both sides with a strong atmosphere of anxiety, as if our man is descending into unknown and inky depths with only his battered guitar and amp on the plinth, trying to wring as much from the rusty strings as his cold damp fingers will allow. There is a darkly compelling isolationist bent to this tape that is as inviting as the warm glow of a stranger’s window on a pitch black night. A bit of research tells me that Xazzaz has his first proper CD now available from Turgid Animal. Just try and stop me.
—ooOoo—
slurred morse: nameless city haiku compiled
September 9, 2014 at 12:01 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: agorafobia, andrew jarvis, culver, drone, female borstal, george proctor, gerado picho, h.p. lovecraft, improv, inseminoid, la mancha del pecado, lee stokoe, mantile records, matching head, miguel perez, new music, nihl, no audience underground, noise, psychedelia, tapes, the dead end street band, xtul, zn
Culver – Prophecy Of The Black Spider (tape, Mantile Records, #027, edition of 50)
Culver – “Kitty” (tape, Agorafobia Tapes, #31)
ZN – Carniceria (CD-r or download, self-released)
The Dead End Street Band – Bombs Rain Down on Innsmouth (tape, Agorafobia Tapes, #29)
La Mancha Del Pecado – Witchskinner (tape, Agorafobia Tapes, #28)
Inseminoid – Gemma’s Sacred Waters (tape, Matching Head, MH204)
Xtul – Black Holes of Stellar Mass (CD-r, self-released, edition of 30)
Female Borstal / NIHL – Split (tape, matching head, mh206)
…and so for the second anthology of my recent haiku reviews. This time I’m addressing the Tyneside noise/drone scene and its transatlantic outpost in Juárez, Mexico. Picture Lee Stokoe (of Culver and Matching Head tapes) sitting in a dark grey throne room that giddies the senses with its non-Euclidean geometry. On the other side of the Atlantic Miguel Perez (of La Mancha Del Pecado and Agorafobia Tapes) sits cross-legged on the floor of his desert cave whistling along to the howling wind. Eschewing the internet, they commune via crystal balls each containing a burning eye…
I needn’t go into the sound or aesthetic of this music at any length here as thousands of words I’ve written previously are available at the click of a tag (see above). Suffice to say the gist can be garnered from the following exchange. Imagine Lee casting a withering look over two brightly coloured art-school types setting up their gear prior to a gig.
C’mon, Lee!
I say,
…it doesn’t have to be all doomy blackness does it?
The withering look is transferred to me, with a slight twinkle added to his eye:
Yes Rob, it does.
…he replies. Tongue in cheek, perhaps, but there you have it: the final word. True story.
Initially the following poems were tossed into the overcrowded public swimming pool that is Twitter (@radiomidwich) but, knowing all that shouting and splashing is not conducive to contemplation, I’ve fished ’em out, dried ’em off and present this leather-bound blog post for your leisurely perusal.
It might seem disrespectful to reduce these releases to seventeen syllables apiece – the Xtul album is a whole hour of glorious psych noise, the La Mancha tape is one of Miguel’s best, the NIHL side of that split is possibly the best thing I’ve heard all year and so on – but I put a lot of thought into these compositions and I hope the impressions expressed are, in their own way, accurate and useful. The title I used for the series, ‘Nameless City’, is, of course, a nod to the Geordie scene’s obsession with Lovecraft but is also apt for Miguel due to the desert setting of the story.
Click on the band name/album title to be taken to an appropriate webpage. Matching Head has no official internet presence as such but contact details can be found via the Discogs listings for the label – maintained (largely) by Scott McKeating of this parish.
—ooOoo—
No. 1:
Culver – Prophecy Of The Black Spider
Polished steel mirror
examined by microscope:
metallic tundra.
No. 2:
Gremlin on plane wing
observes sleeping passengers
leans into the roar…
No. 3:
Grisly truth unpicked:
Cannibal horror movie?
Documentary.
No. 4:
The Dead End Street Band – Bombs Rain Down On Innsmouth
Smothered radio,
ragged semaphore, slurred morse
lost to riot seas
No. 5:
La Mancha Del Pecado – Witchskinner
Flesh machinery
processes blind consumption:
cattle eat cattle…
No. 6:
Inseminoid – Gemma’s Sacred Waters
Dunes bombed into glass.
Tank tracks shatter windowed earth.
Sand returned to sand.
No. 7:
Xtul – Black Holes Of Stellar Mass
Existence confirmed:
selfhood undeniable
…when thrown from a ‘plane
No. 8a: Female Borstal side
Dredging a channel
up silt fouled estuary mouth
takes brute, swinging force
No. 8b: NIHL side
Seduced by darkness
beyond guttering arc-light –
like moths, like dead souls.
—ooOoo—
EDIT: Matching Head Catalogue September 2014 as a pdf document.
sorting the lego part one: soundtracks for graded tasks
November 29, 2013 at 2:10 pm | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ashtray navigations, chump tapes, crater lake sound, daria ramone, david barton, depression, dex wright, dictaphonics, etai keshiki, feral tapes, graded tasks, hissing frames, improv, joe murray, mantile records, melanie o'dubhslaine, new music, nick edwards, no audience underground, noise, pete cann, phil todd, posset, psychedelia, robert ridley-shackleton, stuart chalmers, tapenoise, tapes, visual art, zines
Tape Noise – Journey to the Centre of the Worth (tape, self-released, edition of 1?)
Robert Ridley-Shackleton & David Barton – Surge (30 page pamphlet with card covers, ISBN 978-1-907546-52-5)
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Nov 8th 2013 (C15 tape, hissing frames)
Ashtray Navigations – axe attack in 3D / unfuck you (tape, Crater Lake Sound, CL004)
Posset – Goose Shat Silver Dollars (tape in hand-stamped cover, Mantile Records, #024 or download)
Posset – the teenage virus (CD-r, chump tapes, chump #6 or bootleg below)
Stuart Chalmers/Nick Edwards – split (tape, Feral Tapes, C60, edition of 80)
As regular readers and correspondents will already know, I am currently off work enduring a nasty bout of depression. In the past I have written about my history with the illness, its symptoms and its effects on my life – click on the ‘depression’ tag above should you be interested – but not today. Instead I wish to briefly mention two coping strategies – exercise and the ‘graded task’ – explain how the music of the no-audience underground is helping me with both and offer a few brief accounts of my listening in that context.
Firstly, exercise needs no explanation. Much as we potatoes are loathe to admit it, getting moving helps with pretty much everything, especially depression. To adapt Funkadelic: free your ass and your mind will follow. For me this means walking, mainly around the neighbourhood. Secondly, the idea of the ‘graded task’ might need a little clarification. Originating, I think, from the cognitive behavioural therapy side of counselling, ‘graded task’ is used to describe a physical activity that can be completed in discrete, manageable but notable chunks. The idea being that the job takes you out of yourself for a while, can be scaled according to your energy levels and can be looked back upon when completed with a sense of undeniable achievement: I did that. For example, when I kept an allotment I dug it over one square metre at a time, currently I am cleaning Midwich Mansions (a series of chores sadly neglected since the baby arrived) and during one particularly debilitating episode a few years ago I ordered a vast collection of second hand Lego from eBay and spent days sorting it all out and bagging it up according to categories of brick. Whatever, man – it helped.
At the moment my energy levels are such that I cannot rely on physical activity alone to lighten the darkness. I simply can’t work up the sweat needed to turn my brain off entirely. Thus I need some help and that is where you lot come in. Whilst out walking, or doing a chore, I have been accompanied unswervingly by my mp3 player and/or tape walkman and music from the review pile has been keeping me company. However, it wouldn’t be fair to use your art just as elaborate wallpaper to cover the cracks in my psyche so I have been trying to consider it too. This has the added benefit of flexing mental muscles that the depression has sat on. Forming an opinion heaves the fucking thing off me for a second and fans away the fug. So, in the first of what I hope will be several similar articles, here are some short pieces (with what I was doing whilst listening in parentheses, in italics) about stuff picked more or less at random over the last few days.
OK, firstly I have to apologise to Dex Wright of Tape Noise for sleeping on Journey to the Centre of the Worth (heard as I walked through Gledhow Woods) for months. It is no reflection on its quality, it just slipped down the back of everything else for a while. Dex is the outsider’s outsider. His preferred method of distribution – hand-decorating tapes and recycled inlay cards and selling his warez in editions of (apparently) one on eBay is unique amongst those artists celebrated on this blog. He seems perfectly content to groove his own way utterly independent of any concern other than the production of his art. The music herein is his usual mix of first-wave-industrial-style echoing vocals and pattering noise-tronics and all-embracing collage. There is hard-puffed jazzy flute, chugging rock guitar, snatches of conversation – children playing in the background, squalling electrics, an episode of bass that will balloon your ear canals and a break for some Current 93ish folk/psyche prose poetry. This might sound garbled but I assure you it is perfectly coherent. It is all clearly the product of that singular mind to be found shielded by that polka-dot bowler hat.
Next, two items picked at random from the latest wildly generous parcel received from RFM’s other favourite oddity-generator Robert Ridley-Shackleton. Surge (meditated on in an attempt to clear my head and go to sleep) is a 30 (approx) page A5 booklet containing drawings by Robert and collaborator David Barton. The former’s pages are like Joan Miró’s Hope of a Condemned Man endlessly reworked in crayon and masking tape, drawn on pages pulled from a recluse’s empty scrapbook. The latter’s pages contain line drawings of the human form, agitated to the brink of collapse. Incompleteness and uncertainty are depicted with definite and furious energy. The honours are shared.
Nov 8th 2013 (heard whilst hoovering the stairs) is a brief noise tape. Side A is mechanical peristalsis with alarms sounding whenever an indigestible lump is passed from duct to duct. Side B is electrical scouring, like an R2D2 class droid frantically trying to reconstruct its memory after an EMP attack.
Two live sets (walking in Gledhow Woods again, trip to the pharmacy) by Ashtray Navigations (here mysteriously billed as ‘Ashtray Navigations (l.a.m.f.)’ – I don’t know why) from Autumn of last year. The first is dominated by an exquisite psyche guitar indulgence that devolves into a deeply satisfying scything drone: whirling blades, molten silver. The second is a curious beast. Phil and Mel are joined by Daria Ramone of peerless punksters Etai Keshiki on guitar and by Pete Cann of Half an Abortion and Crater Lake (the label putting this out – buy here) on noise. Despite beginning with a bellowed ‘1,2,3,4’ this takes quite a while to gel. In fact it doesn’t really cohere until they give up on cohering and instead surrender themselves to a group freak-out and non-linear crescendo which makes up most of the second half. Love the underpinning robo-warble.
Goose Shat Silver Dollars by Posset (heard whilst cleaning the bathroom) was a fitting accompaniment to my chores as it appears to be constructed largely from domestic recordings made around the Posset household. Slow-motion vocals mirror my own strained attempts to follow conversation whilst my brain swirls in the fug. The plinkplonkiness elsewhere has the same indecipherable feel (to the untutored western ear) as traditional Japanese music. Indeed, in that context the sounds of liquid – pans being filled? Teeth brushed? – could well be the lanquid tricklings of a water feature in an oriental garden.
Someone (Derek Bailey?) once complained that the turntable-as-musical-instrument has as limited a range as the bagpipes. I always thought that this focus on the ‘wick-wick-wack’ scratch noise was missing the point entirely. The turntablist has a century of recorded music to play with – try matching that by waggling your fingers in the sound box of your guitar, dumb ass. A similarly incorrect complaint could be made about the dictaphone, Joe’s weapon of choice. Yes, the skwee and scrubble of pressing-more-than-one-button-at-once is its signature sound, but the dictaphonist also has all audible noise within range of the device potentially in their saddlebag. Beat that. You think you are just hearing Joe’s kids chuckle but actually these humble, clever, funny recordings are intimations of infinite possibility!
Hmmm… or maybe I’m just a bit mad at the moment. One or the other. Or both.
Anyway, Joe also sent a copy of his CD-r the teenage virus which he created to be given away at the Colour Out Of Space festival (li’l networker, eh?). It is great stuff and on the insert he insists we are free to bootleg it as desired so, in that punk spirit, here are the four tracks in good quality mp3 format for you to download as you wish. Help yourselves (descriptions are mine):
- the carriage of spirits (possetronic dictamatics)
- at the end of the day (snatched recording of pub piano, possified)
- learning the restaurant trade (full flowing posset, live set from Bar Loco)
- he loves me so (riff on that tear-jerking endurance test by Gavin Bryars)
I’ll not be assessing the split tape from Stuart Chalmers / Nick Edwards (trip to Co-Op for Sunny Start Baby Porridge, Banana flavour, hanging out laundry) as I find myself in word-for-word agreement with Uncle Mark over at Idwal Fisher and you can read his review here. Though, unlike that shirker, I did at least listen to all of it. Tut. In short: Chalmers = terrific, Edwards = not so much.
OK, more as my energy levels allow.
my week with mantile records: burd, fossils, kayaka, brood ma, spoils & relics
January 17, 2013 at 7:12 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: brood ma, burd, electronica, fossils, improv, kayaka, mantile records, new music, no audience underground, noise, spoils & relics, tapes
Burd – Wild Saloone (Cassette, C36 approx, Mantile, #019)
Fossils – What A Drag (Cassette, C46 approx, Mantile, #020)
Kayaka – Operation Deep Freeze (Cassette, C52 approx, Mantile, #021)
Brood Ma – F I S S I O N (Cassette, C25 approx, Mantile, #022)
Spoils & Relics – Stammer Challis (Cassette, C38 approx, Mantile, #023)
Ah… tape. If you aren’t already grooving on this new medium taking the no-audience underground by storm then let me explain. Tape cassettes are only a little smaller than a smart phone but, brilliantly, do not contain tiresome apps, nor can anyone ring you on one. Instead, they reproduce musical content via mechanics, magnetics and, er… magic? When played, instead of ominous silence or immediate racket there is a soothing low volume hiss of white noise to settle you into an appreciative mood. They occupy physical space and so must be contemplated, unlike vulgar mp3s which breed unloved and unnoticed until your hard-drive is awash with them – like bacteria sneezed into a breadbin. It’s a thoroughly civilised mode of transport for your musical endeavour, yet totally democratic and still punk as fuck despite attempts at appropriation by ghastly hipsters.
Here’s an example of how it should be done. Back in the dying days of 2012, the magnificently named Johnny Scarr (1970s wrestler in mask and leotard? 1870s Wild West frontier mining town bar owner? 1950s leather clad biker?) sent me a generous package containing five releases from his label Mantile Records. I’ve been taking bites out of these since they arrived – like the hungry caterpillar that I am, chomping on anything nearby – but sensed it was time to knuckle down, do a bit of proper musical appreciation and decide what I thought. Thus they have been keeping me company this week.
Taking ’em in catalogue order: first up is Wild Saloone by Burd. It is lovely. Imagine a day in the far future in which I am old(er) and grey(er). I am chatting to a young musical prodigy I happen to know as we step from our floating car, in togas. As is to be expected from an elderly music bore, I have been banging on about the history of electronic music in exhaustive detail. I have described the airy, utopian feel of that side of mid-1970s Krautrock, the boundary-busting excitement of the 1990s electronica boom, and the woosy, euphoric rush of post-rave sophisticates.
As we sit down in the restaurant and order our food pills my young companion throws a few apps into the air between us, thinks for a second, says ‘like this you mean?’ and improvises the whole thing off the top of his head. ‘Yes’ I reply, at the end of this remarkable 35 minute performance, gobsmacked, ‘pretty much like that.’
Next we have What a Drag by Fossils, a cousin-in-noise to meta-musical label-mates Spoils & Relics. You will hear lo-fi field recorded clatter, dictaphonic skwibbling, the beautiful trilling of the sadly endangered short wave radio (a lovely creature with beautiful red fur and pointy ears being harassed into extinction by its grey, rat-like digital competitors), tape loops cruelly garbled with some finger-on-the-spindle action and, to finish, a section of pop music stretched out and poked with screwdrivers. The second half of the second half may be from a live performance or the intro could have just been chopped and dropped in three quarters of the way through proceedings. Who knows? It doesn’t matter – much of interest to be found herein. It helped me stave off fury during a lunchtime trip to a crowded and ineptly managed post office.
Now there are two tapes featuring, y’know, ‘albums’ I believe they have been called traditionally. Each contains nine tracks with titles (see insert with former, snaffle a download to see details of the latter). Operation Deep Freeze by Kayaka, that is Kaya Kamijo, takes a leisurely 52 minutes to complete its run. F I S S I O N by Brood Ma, that is James B. Stringer, is rattled through in a breakneck 25.
Operation Deep Freeze (a series of scientific/military expeditions made to Antarctica by the USA according to Wikipedia and an audio documentary clip in the title track) shuffles through various sub-genres, some meditative but mainly those concerned with crunching and stomping. When this works, as it does with the caveman strut of ‘Feeding Centipede at a pond of blood’ or the balls-out racket of ‘Screaming hair on a road’, it makes you want to throw rocks at tanks but, as a whole, I had some trouble getting with it. I am a weary old man and value coherence. Whilst this is undeniably the work of a single aesthetic (as revealed by repeat listens and for want of a better phrase) the genre-hopping, tone-changing, feet-finding track-to-track experimentation will be appreciated by some more than me. Worth giving several chances though – each time around pulls out something else.
F I S S I O N is fringe electronica crackling with nervous energy. Imagine a master sushi chef tricked by a rival into taking a vast amount of amphetamine. The dishes he goes on to prepare contain not only the expected ingredients but also bits of his fingers. They are presented with a ragged, blood-splattered over-enthusiasm. Everything is bite-sized too so you are never more than a few minutes from a palate cleansing recombination. No doubts here: the quick-fire combo of inventiveness and dark humour had me convinced from the off.
Finally comes Stammer Challis by Spoils & Relics. Over the last year or so this trio of Johnny Scarr, Gary Myles and Kieron Piercy have become one of my favourite bands. I have stood in awed concentration monitoring the psychic flow between them at their all too rare live appearances. I have studied their recorded work with the same obsessive drive that led me to colour in my favourite black and white panels from 2000AD comic 30 years ago. I am a fan. One of the things I dig about their approach is that they offer the listener few clues. The entire blurb provided on the label website for this release is as follows:
Now I know where to bring my raspberry pies. Yes, send them to the Blessed one.
Gnomic, eh? The rewards, and they are manifold, come from turning this stuff over, from figuring it out. This particular tape starts with an angry, aggressive passage then, once its feathers have been smoothed, flies over an unfathomable soundscape, parts of which seem almost recognizable from cracked and faded memory. There is enough variation to give momentum but not so much that it is looney toons, enough coherence to give dramatic flow without being prescriptive and enough nuance and sophistication to get you poking at the rewind button the second it finishes. Terrific stuff.
A word on the packaging. Tapes from Mantile have a uniform design: hand made/hand stamped J-cards with monochrome illustration and minimal detail. I like it very much. Its simplicity does not swamp the content though its identity is fiercely unmistakable. They look well satisfying in a line on a shelf too. Downloads are available on a donations/honesty box basis but I’d go for the physical objects if I were you.
wired for sound part 25: three tapes by spoils & relics
April 15, 2012 at 9:41 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: improv, mantile records, new music, no audience underground, noise, sick head, spoils & relics, tapes
- Spoils & Relics – Dependent Arising (Mantile, #015, cassette, edition of 50, 2010)
- Spoils & Relics – A.O.N. (Mantile, #016, cassette, edition of 50, 2010)
- Spoils and Relics – Ammonium Bulb (Sick Head Tapes, #32, cassette, 2011)
Back in the day, I was sat upstairs at what is now The Library pub here in Leeds listening to an improvising trio who were first on at a noise gig. Three lads, guitar laid on the floor, shortwave radio, toy instruments etc. Their set (in fact the whole night – I’ve no clue who headlined) was only memorable due to a very short exchange I had with the guy sat next to me as they finished. He was obviously impressed, and I knew him to be affiliated with the band, so when he asked what I thought of their set I was polite: “not for me,” I ventured, “a bit too unstructured.” “Well,” he said with obvious disdain, “it’s not for everyone I suppose” and he literally turned his back on me. At the time I was amused by this attempt at a snub and let it ride. However, thinking it over on the walk home (always a mistake) left me infuriated. At the time I was neck-deep in fencing flatworm recordings and Termite Club and could well have replied as follows:
Now look here, my good man, I’m not having that. Barely a week goes by without two or three CD-rs of this type of amusical improv/semi-improv landing on my doormat. I have spent hundreds of hours over several years listening to it both recorded and performed live and have formed a finely-tuned and rigorous set of opinions as to what makes one piece better than another. I have accidentally become an aficionado of such things and if I say your band is no good then I speak from a position of expertise etc. etc.
Oh well, probably best that I didn’t say anything like that on the night because I would have come across as a pompous oaf. Still, it was all true and now, years later, I have an opportunity to present a perfect example of how it really should be done. Ladies and gentlemen: Spoils & Relics.
This three piece (not, I hasten to add, the band mentioned in the story above) of Johnny Scarr, Gary Myles and Kieron Piercy produce improv collage constructed from found noise, field recordings, occasional voices, various sounds of a more or less musical nature and thoughtfully selected electronics. Here’s how they tick my boxes.
Firstly, they maintain a compelling balance between tension and abandon. Brooding atmospherics set the scene for bursts of craziness which in turn relieve the pressure. These twists give the tracks a persuasive momentum. Secondly, this momentum provides a sense of drama. By ‘drama’ I don’t necessarily mean narrative, just a sense that the work is carrying me somewhere. Like a great train journey can have drama without having to have a story. This aspect makes me think a fair amount of planning and rehearsal, work in other words, has gone into the production.
Thirdly, it has coherence, identity. The same informing ideas can be heard throughout as can the same wry, dark sense of humour. Fourthly, finally and tying all the above together is its technical proficiency. All has been recorded with an eye on the levels and, if you’ll forgive me getting all ‘What Hi-Fi?’ for a second, the sounds have clarity, depth and immediacy.
In summary then: this stuff is fucking great.
I realise that these three tapes are from 2010-11 but radiofreemidwich is not obsessed with novelty – only quality matters here. Ammonium Bulb is apparently still available direct from Sick Head and comes in a nostalgia-inducing squishy case the like of which early computer game tapes were packaged in. A.O.N. and Dependent Arising are both now sold out in a physical form. However, all three releases can be had as downloads on a ‘pay what you like’ basis from the Spoils & Relics Bandcamp page. Be generous and do check out the other stuff available from Mantile Records too.
A sheepish P.S.: I now have reason to believe that the underwhelming set mentioned in the opening paragraph was an early performance by the subsequently lovely Lanterns. This is amusingly apposite as A.O.N. is dedicated to Rhid Williams, a member of that very band. What a small pond we swim about in, eh? My apologies…
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