October 23, 2016 at 8:22 pm | Posted in live music, midwich, musings, new music, no audience underground | 8 Comments
Tags: ashtray navigations, culver, daniel thomas, dark tusk, giant tank, guttersnipe, invisible city records, jen parry, joe murray, la mancha del pecado, lee stokoe, matching head, midwich, miguel perez, mp wood, neck vs throat, oppenheimer, paul margree, rachel lancaster, sage gateshead, senyawa, silent servant, skull mask, stuart arnot, the soundroom, tony conrad, tusk festival, usurper, we need no swords, wolfgang voigt, xazzaz, yol
TUSK Festival 2016, Sage Gateshead, October 14 – 16

Hmmm… ‘Long, Authoritative List Of Everything That Happened’? Nah, not really my style. How about ‘Epic Musing On Life, Music And What It All Means’? Oof, maybe later.
Let’s just start with the car.
Dan(iel Thomas – well known in this parish) kindly agreed to drive me, Sarah and Lisa to our digs in Newcastle. Here we are setting off:




Dan looking handsome, a vision in stubble, Sarah in holiday mode, Lisa appalled at Sarah’s story about someone whose retina fell out and me giving it some cheek. What could go wrong, eh? Well, Dan’s back is crook and went into spasm on the A19. At one point I had to shift gears for him because he couldn’t reach down to the stick. Given that I only hold a license to drive an automatic this was a fraught moment that I had to be talked through. Still, my slight embarrassment was as nothing to the agony Dan was clearly suffering. After gliding into some grim services so Dan could walk it off, Sarah drove the rest of the way.
Luckily, when we arrived a retinue of servants rushed to carry Dan into the fluffy opulence of Malmaison and I was roughly directed to Premier Inn, where I would be KEEPING IT REAL. As I trundled the wheelie case containing my band and my clothes along Quayside the air started to crackle. I looked up and saw – fuck me! – the trio of Mike ‘Xazzaz’ Simpson, Lee ‘Culver’ Stokoe and MIGUEL ‘SKULL MASK’ PEREZ walking towards me (all in black, natch).
Is this Rob? This is Rob!
Miguel said, lunging in for the bear hug. Mike, who refuses to be photographed despite being a strikingly handsome guy, helpfully took this soon-to-be-iconic picture. Left to right: Miguel, me, Lee. Tyne Bridge in the background. Cool, eh?

I’ve already written something about how important Miguel’s visit is to me and will return to the theme later so for now I’ll keep to the narrative. Suffice to say I have rarely, if ever, seen anyone so pleased to be somewhere. The huddle broke up so Miguel could soundcheck and I could settle into my (actually very pleasant) hotel room.
Soon I was trotting back over the Millennium Bridge to Gateshead and up the fuckloads of steps you need to climb to get to Sage:

My feelings about Sage were fluid and contradictory. On some levels it is profoundly impressive – an arts-for-all enterprise on a huge scale, proudly publicly funded, run by friendly and enthusiastic staff – but at other times it felt like a vast airport lounge from a Ballardian near-future dystopia. From across the river it looks like a reclining figure from the title sequence of a cheapo James Bond knock-off (‘Silverfinger’?), on the inside it’s a Duplo play set, lit in sugary, boiled sweet colours. For a structure so enormous it has little heft. I could easily imagine the giant struts (one is cutting across the corner of the first picture below) hauling back the whole silver facade on a sunny day, like opening a roll-top bread-bin. I did get pretty comfortable (institutionalised?) over the three days but there was definitely culture shock to contend with.



An example: as I entered Hall 2, the main TUSK venue (middle picture above), for the first time on Friday an usher used a torch to show me down the stairs. The room was dark aside from the stage lights illuminating the band currently playing. Oh, I thought, it’s going to be like that is it? Theatre.
Feeling discombobulated and out of my element I leaned myself up against a tousle-haired giant and enjoyed the crunktronik drama of Bad@Maths. When the house lights went up at the end of their set I realised I was clutching onto:

…Joe ‘Posset’ Murray – my RFM comrade-in-arms! Always a delight to be in his company, likewise:

yol! Another who fears photography will remove biopsy snippets from his soul but I was NOT TO BE DENIED. We soon became festival buds and hung out throughout proceedings. Now though, I was so excited about seeing Miguel play that all I could do was babble and take photos of my new boots. I’m not joking:

[Editor’s note: at this point, after I’ve started introducing people but before I start rhapsodising about Skull Mask etc., I’m going to apologise in advance for not mentioning everyone I spoke to. This is partly because my notes are sketchy (and my memory worse) but mainly because I’m uncomfortable assigning some conversations to this ‘highlights package’ and some not. The social aspect of this trip was a thrill – from meeting people for the first time, to catching up with rarely seen friends, to chewing the fat with the regular crowd but outside of our normal context. It was all very inspiring. In short: if we talked, rest assured that I enjoyed our conversation and want to talk to you again. Likewise I’m not busting a gut to account for every band, nor provide comprehensive links and tags – that isn’t the purpose of the exercise. A quick net search should fill in any gaps. There will be one Get Carter joke.]

Next up it was Miguel Perez, playing as Skull Mask (apologies for crappy picture, I still had the flash on my camera from the boot pics and once he got started I didn’t think to try again). This was what I was here to see and his set – just man and guitar – was astounding. Flamenco flourishes, desert folk, improv spikiness and metal hammering flowed, pressed and burst like a time-lapse film of jungle flowers opening, like lava flow, like clouds of starlings at dusk, like liquid mercury. Miguel is one of the most technically adept guitarists I have ever seen but all that virtuosity is in service of one thing: the truth. To say the music of Skull Mask is heartfelt or sincere is to understate the raw beauty of what it reveals: a soul. Miguel’s soul.
Stood at the front I found myself having an out of body experience. Part of me was enjoying it on an absolutely visceral level, unwaveringly engaged, but another part of me was floating above thinking about what the experience meant. I’ve had a hard time with music this year. I’ve not listened to much and have been in denial about how burnt out I’d got keeping this blog afloat whilst juggling the demands of ‘real life’. I’d been hoping that this event would prove to be a big purge and cleanse and that I’d be returned to music rinsed clean and ready to GO. That didn’t happen, but something better did.
Watching the performance unfold, I started thinking about how beautiful life can be despite, sometimes because of, how hard it can be. I thought about the miraculous combination of factors – hard work, friendship, sheer bloody luck – that led to us all being in this room at this time. A strange, accepting calm enveloped me whilst at the same time the more present, grounded part of me was yelling (internally – I do have some control):
HOLY FUCKING CHRIST!! MIGUEL IS SAT RIGHT IN FUCKING FRONT OF ME PLAYING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THAT FUCKING GUITAR!! FUCK!!!
At the end of the set I felt myself tearing up.
Outside, shortly after, Miguel was holding court talking ten-to-the-dozen. I’ve never seen anyone more stoked – his heart must have been beating like a sparrow’s. He explained his philosophy of life, about living in the moment but appreciating the steps that have brought you to it, about the Mexican relationship with the dead, about the music he had just played. I couldn’t keep up – my mind had been blown – but luckily it didn’t matter that I couldn’t say anything, as Miguel, beer can in hand, couldn’t quiet down. And why the hell should he? It had been a triumph.


A short time later I found myself stood next to Miguel watching Guttersnipe (how wonderful to be able to type that sentence). I had predicted that their set would be amongst the most talked about at TUSK and they certainly left the crowd open mouthed, wide eyed, ears ringing. I feel like I could write reams about this band, scribble profane codices, letterpress manifestos, paint placards to be carried in protest or celebration but when I actually sit down to type… it’s confounding. The strength of Gretchen’s personality – gentle, thoughtful, keenly intelligent, enabled by a seemingly (to this fat, middle aged man) unbounded energy explodes on stage into a writhing conduit for, what? Rage? Despair? Whatever it is, it feels like unmediated access to the same rooms that Miguel opened doors to. Likewise, Rob’s unassuming, cheerful manner translates into the most glorious, life-affirming, pushing-a-shopping-trolley-down-the-concrete-stairs-of-a-car-park, free-punk drumming I’ve ever heard. Afterwards, Paul Margree, of the We Need No Swords blog, tried to praise his technique and, in typical self-deprecating fashion, Rob disagreed:
My technique is shit, there is just a lot of it, and fast.
Love it. This pair are unique, the band are important and you have to check them out.
Wandering in a daze after this I was collared by the very lovely Jen Parry who wanted to show me the exhibition of Matching Head artwork that she had put together, which was hidden under a staircase around the corner from the main entrances to Hall 2:



I really dug this and thought Jen had captured the vibe of Lee’s cut-and-paste aesthetic very cleverly. The exhibit was interactive in that you could make yourself comfortable and listen to Matching Head releases on the tape recorders provided. On the leather sofa (bottom picture) there was a hammer (and some goggles – health and safety!) which I assumed was also there for punters so I used it to whale on some of the tapes and tape cases that were artfully scattered about. It seemed appropriate at the time, though I’ve noticed a disapproving tweet from Andy Wood about the smashed cases since. In my defence the artist was there egging me on and taking photos of me doing it! My apologies if I got the art wrong – difficult to tell nowadays <winking emoji>…
About this time I realised I was shot for the day and silently drifted away. Back at the hotel I half-watched Dredd on Film4 whilst sorting out stuff for the next day’s gig. In my pants.
—ooOoo—

On Saturday I woke from from the dream-free sleep of the righteous and padded downstairs to gorge on obscene amounts of breakfast in a room with a view of the underside of Tyne Bridge. Glorious. As I was tucking into my second plateful, I noticed that I had been name checked by Dawn Bothwell in the introduction to the festival programme. Blimey! I nearly spat out my bubble and squeak. It all added to a cheerful, woozy calm, a kind of blown-out relaxation that I hadn’t felt since sitting on Low Newton beach in Northumberland with my wife Anne and son Thomas back in May:

Aside from feeling sheepish about instigating a complicated, 6-way conversation about how we were all getting there (the more tired I am the more insistent I am about knowing WHAT HAPPENS NEXT), I was also relaxed about performing. My band was packed (see picture above, midwich fits in a rucksack), I was sweet smelling, fully medicated and my cheek pouches were bulging with spare breakfast. LET’S GO!
Well, let’s all see Wolfgang Voigt first. This involved sitting in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall, feeling like I was in a dream version of a school assembly, with the headmaster replaced by an anonymous, unannounced middle-aged man giving a wordless, non-performance whilst illuminated by his laptop screen. The sound – an ambient, computer-musicish drone, augmented by airy and/or brittle vibes familiar to those who know his work as, say, Gas – was perfectly lovely but I doubt it would have held my attention without Rachel Lancaster’s terrific visuals.
Rachel’s film was perfectly measured to draw out the best in the music. We were reminded that there is nothing more sublimely beautiful than smoke rising in still air (‘Patrons are requested to smoke only on the right hand side of the auditorium’ – remember that?), unless the smoke is thick enough to resemble glaciers calving, or liquids of different densities spiralling into each other, or the pearlescent quality of crocodile scales as the creature lies semi-submerged and glistening…
Right then, NOW let’s go.

‘Dark Tusk’ was set up by Lee Stokoe as a fringe event to help make the most of Miguel’s visit. Here’s the blurb:
With the arrival of Miguel Perez in the UK to perform as Skull Mask at TUSK, it would be unthinkable to let him escape back to Mexico without congregating with some of his closest conspirators from the Northern noise void.
Culver & La Mancha del Pecado: with six collaborations to date and numerous splits and joints amassed, a live collaboration between these 2 horror drone obsessives was inevitable…
Midwich: one of Miguel’s most ardent advocates via his Radio Free Midwich blog, this is a mega-rare live performance from Rob Hayler’s solo electronic machine-dream.
NeckvsThroat: an ongoing postal duo of Miguel and Yol, binding guitar and voice with barbed wire and discarded steel.
Xazzaz: sinkhole drones, guitar fog and harsh dives from darkest Northumberland.
Plus sound installation by MP Wood.
2pm till 5pm at the Soundroom, Cuthbert Street, Gateshead, NE8 1PH. 15 min walk from Sage Gateshead.
Free with Tusk pass, £3 without.
The Soundroom
Cool, eh? I love a matinee performance, me. Miguel, yol and I met up with Jamie (if you don’t know his recordings as ‘Wrest’ you should check them out immediately) and his pal Steve who had kindly offered to drive us to the venue from Sage. Miguel spent the journey telling us about how he had fended off two shitfaced Glaswegians in the hotel bar the night before. They had offered him drugs (‘the hardest in Glasgow!’) in full view of two coppers who also happened to be there. He wanted no part of it, fearing he was being set up, but Jamie assured him:
Nah, that kind of thing just happens around here…
…and expanded on similar topics whilst Steve forlornly tried to get him to concentrate on the journey and offer directions. Never mind, we got there.
The Soundroom is a community centre/rehearsal space/gig venue sat in isolation in Gateshead. I suspect most of us scuzzball, dog-eared, D.I.Y., no-audience underground types found it much easier to breath there than in the airy atrium of Sage and it is well equipped with a very decent PA.
Turn out was good, including – fuck me! – is that…

…erstwhile RFM colleague, Discogs obsessive and near-hermit Scott McKeating? Yes, it is! Just one of many hands from the pantheon of the righteous I shook during proceedings. You know who you are.
Once underway, the gig proved a joy. First up was Neck vs Throat, the duo of Miguel and yol, playing with the lights on for full kid’s-birthday-party-at-local-church-hall effect:



I needn’t say too much about this one as, amazingly, a video exists of the performance – filmed by Pete Cann (who, being an absolute darling, had come up from Leeds just for the afternoon) on his ‘phone. Sound quality is hardly crystal but fuck that – it’s a document.
What truly boggled the noggin was how fluid and natural the partnership appeared. Prior to that very afternoon the project had only existed as a transatlantic file swap. Now it felt like a psychic connection, the product of long hours of rehearsal. Miguel’s fingers-in-the-soundhole grappling, like a wheelbarrow of gravel being dropped into molasses, perfectly in sync with yol’s clattering, guttural retching and bleakly comic exhortations.
Next was Xazzaz and Mike treated us to the best set-that-wasn’t-Skull-Mask of the weekend. As has already been noted, he forbids photography so all I have is this snap of his set-up, snatched prior to the show beginning:

Mike used two (maybe three?) guitars and three (maybe four? Five?) amplifiers to create a drone/roar of ego-obliterating purity and intensity. All the Xazzaz recordings I’ve heard have been exceptional but actually being there as it unfolds live was a shortcut to… I dunno? Enlightenment? For something as heavy as watching a gigantic dinosaur thrash its last and slowly sink into a tar pit it was a strangely life-affirming, awe-inspiring experience. North-Eastern drone-metal of this quality is pretty much my favourite thing in all the world. Fucking hell, I thought, I’ve got to follow that…


…and so it came to pass. I thanked all who were there and those involved in setting it up, had a quick word about the two tracks I was about to play – one inspired by a dismissal of our music by Miguel’s daughter, one a version of my track from a split CD-r I shared with Miguel, dedicated the set to him and… faded up a recording of my son snoring. The rest was thick, chewy, throbbing drone at pleasingly high volume that would have gone entirely to plan if I could have stopped myself fiddling with the cut-off. Anyway, it seemed to go down well and I was rubbery with relief once all was packed away. Enjoyed the opportunity to bounce about on my seat too.


Finally then: Culver and La Mancha Del Pecado. Another unique opportunity to see a transatlantic tape-swap project in the flesh and this time the one that kicked it all off. Miguel later told me that, like so many of us who end up in noise, he found himself looking for something without knowing exactly what that something was. He discovered Skullflower, read up about it, saw Culver mentioned, found a rip of a CD-r in a shady spot on the internet, listened to it and heard the contents of his own head reflected back at him. Soon they were collaborating on a series of beautifully sustained, utterly nihilistic, implacably menacing ‘horror drones’ and the rest is willpower and logistics. This set was an absolute masterclass.
…and it wasn’t even 5pm.


I have to admit that the evening programme back at Sage was something of a blur after that. My highlights were the early doors sets from Usurper (above above) and Ashtray Navigations (above).
Surprising myself, I realised that this was the first time I had seen Ali and Malcy go at it live despite having heard many of their releases and eyeballing numerous zines and comics over the years (indeed, one of my collages can be found in Giant Tank Offline #4). My usual reaction to their work – amused bewilderment – was swept away by a far more concrete admiration for the Dada lunacy of the performance.
For example: crouched under a table, each took a turn deliberately and repeatedly banging their head as if trying to get up and forgetting the obstacle above them. I thought that the yellow objects taped to their heads were something like washing-up sponges to soften the blow but was later informed by Stuart Arnot (of Acrid Lactations, who was roped in to their gig at the last minute) that it was butter and that the stink in their hair afterwards was rank. Idiocy or commitment to the art? Or both? Oh, you decide.
After the first few minutes of Ashtray Navigations starting, Miguel, who had been leaning on the stage, came over to shout in my ear…
Now I know why everyone loves them!
…and I had to grin because he was right: it was, from the off, a performance full of heart that encouraged a reciprocal response from an eager, affectionate crowd. Phil pulled out one heart-stoppingly preposterous solo after another whilst Mel – resplendent in glittered Converse – held down the electronics and laughed at the site of Gretchen Guttersnipe and RFM’s own marlo eggplant wigging out front and centre. Much as I enjoyed the bubbletroniks and nostril-flaring bombast I think my favourite track was a lengthy ambient piece halfway through during which Phil folded himself up and sat on the floor. It was spacious and woozy but had a crisp brittleness to it that kept it fresh and engaging throughout. Have I heard this before? Probably, but I couldn’t name it. Shameful, I know, considering my placing in the AshNav fan club. What can I say? I’m a big man, but I’m out of shape.
The evening culminated with me, Dan, Lisa and Sarah reconvening and rolling up to my second fringe event of the day. This time at The Old Police Station (a venue I was told is ‘borrowed’ from the council?), a ten minute walk up the hill behind Sage. The place was already full when we got there at about 1am and there was a great squat gig vibe with people spilling out into the street, sat on the pavement talking loudly, drinking and smoking. For me it felt like travelling back in time 25+ years to my misspent youth in Brighton, a bittersweet feeling I was reluctant to embrace until someone appeared, like Scooter in the Muppet Show, shouted…
C’mon Miguel you’re on!
(or something like that) and we all piled in to a tiny front room to see Oppenheimer play. Seriously, there must have been 30-40 people plus a four piece band in a space more suited to two sofas and a telly. Once over the initial crush panic, it was awesome.
Oppenheimer are the aforementioned Jamie (drums), Lee (bass) and Mike (guitar), this night augmented with Miguel (also on bass) and they play, Christ, how to describe it? Super-basic, long-form, thug-punk, primal-metal. Whatever it is, it had the packed crowd bent at the waist, rocking in unison. It is a crying shame that Mike doesn’t allow photos because when he was stepped on by a drunken and oblivious punter the look of lupine ferocity he threw was fucking terrifying. I did get this pic of Jamie, Miguel and Lee though, which, as a piece of reportage, is my favourite of all the photos I took over the weekend.

After the set I waved goodbye to my sweaty comrades and walked back to the hotel. I put a music channel on the TV as I got ready for bed. Every video looked like a film by Matthew Barney. Lights out: 3am.
—ooOoo—

On Sunday morning I felt exhilarated after the remarkable day before but old and tired after the late night. Oof, I don’t intentionally go to bed at 3am ever nowadays. Thus another war-on-the-buffet, gargantuan breakfast was warranted before I stumbled to Sage in order to meet Paul ‘Pops’ Margree, still of the We Need No Swords blog, who wished to interview me for his podcast. I’d met Paul for the first time this weekend, we’d hit it off and were already chatting in a free and easy fashion. However, when the tape recorder was switched on something stamped on a fuzz pedal between what I was thinking and what I was saying. Oh well, here’s hoping he can salvage something coherent.
We adjourned upstairs to the Northern Rock Foundation Hall (where Voigt played) to see yol at midday. This was easily the weirdest programming kink of the festival – both venue and timing – but a fair few people had turned up to see yol take his turn as headmaster-gone-wrong at the front of assembly. The gig was intense, muscular, poised. The venue adding a unusual theatricality to the bulging veins and growling stutters. I always look around at the audience during a yol show, relishing the expressions of appalled fascination, but the stage lighting made it difficult to gauge reactions. His comic timing was faultless though, plenty of half-laughs as we appreciated him diffusing the tension with a funny line then realising that what he had just said was easily as bleak, nihilistic even, as the rest of the performance. To describe his total commitment to expressing his vision I need to reclaim a debased word and re-inflate it with meaning: yol is an artist.
Feeling some trepidation about lasting the day I decided to accompany the men in black (Jamie, Mike, Lee, Miguel) back over the river and had a laugh walking with them through the Quayside market as far as my hotel. I cocooned myself there until it was time to go see Tony Conrad: Completely In The Present. Cuddling up with Joe Murray in the back row, this turned out to be a beautifully measured and life-affirming documentary about a charming and fascinating artist, surpassing all my (fairly high) expectations. I loved it, and can only praise the transparency of the film-making – the director Tyler Hubby does an excellent job of standing back and allowing the story to be told by Conrad himself, a wise decision when your subject is such an intriguing raconteur. With a voice and demeanour like a cross between William Burroughs and John Waters, Conrad chuckles through a life of iconoclasm, innovation and determination in a way that can’t help but be awe-inspiring. There is also an hilarious section about what a total bell-end La Monte Young is. I don’t want to get into any more detail about the content as you really should track this down – you’ll be rewarded. The film was clearly a hit with Tuskers and provoked much discussion afterwards. I was lucky enough to see Conrad live twice and boasted of it many times during the rest of the night.
During the evening programme I made the effort to give every act a fair shake, a decision made easier by the fact that my brain was shot and I found myself in a state of happy bewilderment wherever I was standing. Highlights for me were probably Silent Servant and the final act Senyawa.

Tall table for a short guy, eh? Must share Dan’s back problems. Silent Servant – American producer Juan Mendez – was notable for changing the atmosphere in Hall 2. Suddenly all the middle-aged beardies (like myself) found themselves at a club night. Advertised in the programme as ‘grinding, irresistible techno’ I actually best enjoyed the bits where he veered into Electronic Body Music territory – the kind of high camp, leather bound pounding that our Belgian friends were so good at in the late 80s. yol was tempted in, amused by the prospect of seeing me dance, and guarded my handbag and coat whilst I stomped and flailed in tragic approximation of my twenty-something self. The ‘pit’ of Hall 2 was soon lined with middle-aged beardies (like myself) leaning on the wall, sweating and clutching at their chests. Whoo boy, haven’t danced for any length of time in a while. The young and beautiful looked on in amusement.

The last act on Sunday, and thus of the festival as a whole, was the Indonesian duo Senyawa. Vocalist Rully Herman powered through a scouring range of timbres and techniques, hands grasping the mic stand or raised up in Black Metal claws. Fuck me, the swagger on this dude. Wukir Suryadi held his own playing an apparently hand-made instrument called the bambuwukir which resembled a giant phallus, stringed and pegged, which he could pick or bow to create anything from the most delicately augmented silence to brutal shredding. I suspect they personify exactly the type of high-quality, cross-cultural, what-the-fuckery that TUSK wishes to promote and that their place on the bill was no accident. Having them headline the whole shebang was programming genius. After their set, under the cruel house lights, Lee Stokoe and I exchanged the kind of blasted/delighted look that Lee Etherington, creative director of TUSK, must design the festival to provoke. Congratulations, mate – mission accomplished.
All that was left to do was say goodbye. Handshakes were exchanged, gratitude expressed, Miguel was hugged, wished well, hugged again, wished well again but now with a distinct wobble in my voice. I nearly fell down the stairs in my hurry to get into the fresh air.
We’ll see each other again sometime, right?
Yes. We will.
—ooOoo—
Postscript:
a) We got home safely, as did Miguel. Dan recovers.
b) Two Skull Mask tapes were made available to coincide with Miguel’s visit, one released by Invisible City Records (hello Craig) and one on Lee Stokoe’s Matching Head. I’ve been listening to them as I typed this article and I reckon you should buy both. Lee also has some rad Skull Mask t-shirts for sale. Hit him up via the contact details on the Matching Head Discogs page. All the discerning blog editors are wearing ’em – an Autumn wardrobe essential.
c) Last year the live-streamed sets from TUSK were made available after the event via the Archive page of the TUSK website. I shall be keeping an eye on this, and on Lee Etherington’s Twitter feed (@tusk_music), in the hope of similar generosity with this year’s recordings.
—ooOoo—
TUSK Festival
September 2, 2016 at 12:22 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | 5 Comments
Tags: joe murray, miguel perez, neck vs throat, pascal nichols, skull mask, tusk festival, yol
TUSK Festival 2016, 14-16th October, Sage Gateshead
Skull Mask – Alzhared (self-released download)
Skull Mask – Sin Nada (self-released download)
Skull Mask – Aura (self-released download)
NECK VS THROAT VOLUME 3 (self-released CD-r and download)

HOLY LIVING FUCK!! MIGUEL PEREZ IS COMING TO THE UK IN OCTOBER AND PLAYING AS SKULL MASK AT CAFE OTO IN LONDON AND TUSK FESTIVAL IN GATESHEAD. CLEAR YOUR DIARIES, BOOK YOUR TICKETS! BE THERE, BE THERE, BE THERE!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IS THIS FOR REAL? BLIMEY, FOLKS: IT IS!
*Ahem, OK, deep breath, damp flannel on forehead*
Let’s have a little think about what’s happened.
—ooOoo—
Why are the stamps on post from Hull never franked? A mystery I pondered as I carefully opened the latest jiffy bag from yol and tipped his letter and a CD-r copy of NvT3 onto the kitchen table. He wrote:
How are things? Here is the NVT physical thing, figured you should be one of the first to get one seeing as it’s your fault.
This made me laugh. To what extent can credit (or blame) be claimed in what this blog refers to as the ‘no-audience underground‘? Most of the work we cover is the product of the singular vision of artists driven to create on their own, or in small groups, yet the whole thing exists as a (more or less) self-sufficient network. We are friendly and sociable loners, well-connected outsiders – it’s a satisfyingly odd set up. To claim credit for the work of others, for making something happen without actually booking the acts, folding the J-cards or whatever yourself, is to place yourself above the milieu. This doesn’t seem right – I loath writers who consider themselves ‘gatekeepers’, the pretension is nauseating – yet things have happened/are happening partly as a result of radiofreemidwich. It feels a bit wierd.

Take NECK VS THROAT for example. It was perhaps inevitable that compulsive collaborators yol and Miguel would sext up a transatlantic relationship. All RFM did initially was drunkenly encourage the swapping of numbers. However, once the first volume won the prestigious Zellaby award for album of the year in 2012 and Vol 2 was released on my own fencing flatworm recordings they have been a house band. The addition of Joe ‘Posset’ Murray on squigglephonic dictaduties strengthens the RFM connection and makes Vol 3 an even more bizarre experience. Hilarious and unnerving in turn, like a gestalt switch duck/rabbit picture, this is essential listening and unlike anything else. If this is my fault, it is in the same sense that the baboon turned inside out by a gone-wrong transporter experiment is Seth Brundle’s fault.

But all this is burying the lead isn’t it? Check this out from the TUSK festival website (review quote by Joe):
SKULL MASK is Mexico’s Miguel Perez, emitting stream-of-consciousness compositions via steel-strung acoustic guitar, melding with dub and found sound interactions. Residing squarely on the US/Mexico border, Skull Mask came to us via the fevered advocacy of the Radio Free Midwich blog (you all need to bookmark that site when you get home). As RFM describe his sound:
“Miguel Perez … packs his atlas and strolls the deserts of this world (and the next) on the sun-damaged Artificio y Fetiche. The taught and springy acoustic steel-string has a slight reverb warble as Miguel conjures up the skitter of a green lizard’s quick limbs, the poisonous spines of a cactus and the glassy psychedelics found in handfuls of sand.
This is a desert that’s teeming with life, studded with microscopic activity, scuttling and slithering between the bone-dry gullies.”
There are parallels with Sir Richard Bishop but Perez’s approach is more languid, starkly sun-baked and deeply preoccupied with his own journey to wherever he’ll take the guitar and his audience. He comes to the UK for the first time to perform at TUSK.
Wow, ‘influence’, eh? Some of you may be amused, or rolling your eyes, at how blown my mind is by these circumstances. Sure, you may think, Rob knows people who know people who all read RFM occasionally. It’s a small pond so this kind of thing is likely to happen sometimes, right? It’s also the case that Miguel hasn’t exactly been sitting on his hands waiting for that big break email – he’s the hardest working guy in dronebusiness. So what’s the big deal? Well, it’s that the opinions expressed by this blog – alongside the actual hard work of many other people – have led to a commitment to transatlantic travel, to an expenditure in the hundreds of pounds and, most importantly to the opportunity for the ‘scene’ to meet one of its most enthusiastic members in person. I’m going to shake the dude’s hand for five minutes straight. I’m going to shake EVERYONE’s hand!
So, feet back on the ground, what should you expect? Miguel’s Skull Mask project is succinctly described above and plenty of reviews of his releases can be found by clicking on the tag at the top of this article. With a background in metal as well as improv, Miguel is an exceptionally talented musician and whilst fans of, say, Jon Collin, will recognize the vibe Miguel’s take is uniquely colourful and richly textured.
The three releases listed above are his most recent and representative. I’d recommend taking these daily, like medicine. Miguel will be looked after during his brief visit but he will have to meet some unavoidable expenses himself. Thus, if you can afford to donate a couple of quid, a few euros or dollars for these downloads via his Bandcamp site then I’m sure he would be very grateful – as would I. If you enjoy RFM then you could consider buying something from Miguel a type of ‘subscription’ to the blog. Go on, everyone’s got a wierd little amount in the bottom of their PayPal account – give it to him.
This feels like a fresh start. Those following the blog will know I’ve had a bit of a crisis of confidence which, coupled with a gruelling time in ‘real life’, has kept me quiet and the blog more or less inactive for a few weeks. My roving reporters have been busy filing copy whilst I’ve been ‘out of the office’ so I’ll try and use this energy to get a bunch of their posts published. In-between now and TUSK I’m hoping for a flurry of articles. Can’t let the blog idle now can we? We’re awfully important, don’tchaknow?
—ooOoo—
TUSK Festival (Miguel plays on the Friday 14th)
Cafe OTO (Miguel plays on Thursday 13th)
Skull Mask
NECK VS THROAT
January 4, 2013 at 1:59 pm | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | 11 Comments
Tags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, astral social club, bbblood, castrato attack group, cathal rodgers, culver, daniel thomas, drone, eddie nuttall, electronica, etai keshiki, fordell research unit, hairdryer excommunication, half an abortion, hasan gaylani, hobo sonn, improv, joe murray, joined by wire, kev sanders, kieron piercy, lee stokoe, live music, melanie o'dubhslaine, michael clough, miguel perez, neck vs throat, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, paul watson, petals, popular radiation, posset, shameless self-congratulation, sheepscar light industrial, space victim, spoils and relics, star turbine, striate cortex, tapes, the skull mask, truant, wharf chambers, yol, zellaby awards

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the second annual Zellaby Awards, presented in association with Radio Free Midwich and hosted, via satellite link-up, from the quarantine ward at Midwich Mansions.
And what a year, eh? From watching Mel O’Dubhslaine reinventing music in Kieron Piercy’s basement through to laughing out loud on the bus as I listened to BBBlood’s breaking glass tape, the year in music has been remarkable.
Whilst the emphasis in these awards is on bloggable recorded music, the live performances I saw in 2012 could warrant a whole other sack of prizes – such was the astounding quality on offer. Congratulations to the venues and promoters of my fair city of Leeds for making them happen. Truly there is a renaissance at hand and anyone with a fiver who lives within commutable distance of Wharf Chambers can come and see it.
On a personal level, this has been my most satisfying and successful year in music since I first leant my elbow on a keyboard. I was delighted and humbled by the reception that met my return as midwich both as a live act and over a series of well-received (and largely sold-out) releases. The reanimation of Truant has proved most entertaining too. I’ve been careful to watch and learn from my betters and may finally, after twelve years on and off, be getting somewhere with this drone business…
OK, enuff with the vague preamble! It’s time to carve the turkey and dish out some meat!
—ooOoo—
Almost. First, some methodological asides:
One: the music mentioned below may not have been released in 2012, although most of it was. To qualify it just had to be heard by me for the first time in the calendar year 2012.
Two: I have taken the editorial decision to exclude releases that I feature on. Modesty is not a virtue I can be accused of but awarding myself prizes is a bit much even for me. This led to an interesting conundrum when making the big decision in the final category…
Three: there are the same five award categories as last time. 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 as excellence as possible. No-one should get the hump as I love all my children just the same.
—ooOoo—
Now if you’d kindly take your seat, the ceremony is finally about to begin…
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…
Aqua Dentata

(with special mentions for BBBlood and Spoils and Relics.)
A lot of brusque, hard-bitten and jaded noise types have found themselves swooning like 12 year old Justin Bieber fans over the work of Eddie Nuttall this year. His small but perfectly formed back catalogue has the fascinating, alien charm of a pea-green lizard, eyeballing you from behind the glass of a reinforced aquarium. In an age of excess, the austere control he exercises over his minimal music is as refreshing as snow. You should have seen me elbow grandma out of the way to get hold of his latest. Big things still to come, I hope.
4. The “Astral Social Club” Award, 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…
Petals

(with honourable credit afforded to Lee Stokoe.)
The work of Kevin Sanders sounds like nothing but itself. Sure, a less conscientious commentator could categorize it as ‘drone’ or ‘noise’, even ‘improv’ in places, but these are just reference points that Kev politely nods to on his way past to somewhere else. Each dispatch from his own label, hairdryer excommunication, or guest appearance elsewhere, is another segment of alternative cartography, another section of the map he is constructing that overlays the everyday, revealing previously hidden connections, secret tunnels. This is why it is impossible to pick out individual releases for special comment but why every little bit is essential.
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award goes to…
Daniel Thomas

(also in the frame being Joe Posset and Miguel Perez.)
My burgeoning bromance with Daniel Thomas (who I knew previously by his given name) has been the talk of the no-audience underground in 2012. Our friendship has spurred me on in my creative endeavour and has led to an overhaul in the way I think about midwich and the place of this blog in the big/small scheme of things. The immediate success of his label Sheepscar Light Industrial was due to a carefully thought through ‘business model’ that has breathed new life into the ‘micro-label’ format. I’ve been sorely tempted back in that direction as a result – he makes it look so effortless (lolz etc.). The chap is a force for the good and well deserves this public pat on the back.
Likewise Joe and Miguel whose infectious enthusiasm has been great for morale all through 2012. An email from either is always a soul-lifting treat. Special thanks to Joe for actually contributing to RFM in the most practical way: 3,000 words of terrific reviews. His whole end of year account can now be read (in six parts, it totals 32,000 words!) here.
2. The Label of the Year Award goes to…
Striate Cortex

(with Sheepscar Light Industrial manfully accepting silver.)
For the second year running. I needn’t go on at great length: Andy Robinson’s vision, integrity and hard work led to a world-enhancing series of releases. A package from him is always a drop-everything-else cause for celebration. He also released the undisputed album of the year in the Victorian Electronics box – a four CD set, exquisitely packaged with astounding care and attention to detail – featuring four artists at the height of their powers. It led to a celebratory gig at Wharf Chambers which is generally held to be one of the highlights of the musical year and the edition sold out in a couple of days. I hope that it will be reissued in some form some day but in the meantime it remains a perfect historical document. So how come I’m talking about it here? Well, one of the featured artists is midwich so it is disqualified from the big prize. Tough, I know, but thems the rules. Hopefully being the only two-time winner will soften the blow for Andy. Congratulations, man.
1. The Album of the Year Award
There is so much to choose from this year that it is almost embarrassing. First, in no particular order, are those that would have been in the top twenty if it wasn’t for the brutal fact that a top ten is much more dramatically satisfying…









All terrific stuff, click on each to read my thoughts at length and for contact/buying details.
Now on with the top ten, in reverse order of course:
10. castratoattackgroupetaikeshiki

The adrenal rush of these punk vignettes is as focussed as toothache and as effective as a blow-dart to the neck (Etai Keshiki)
…and…
It is a life-affirming, nostrils flaring, magnificent wig-out … There are no lulls, no tricksy passages of noodling, no lumpy transitions. This is, ironically given the name of the band, completely balls out from beginning to end (Castrato Attack Group).
9. BBBlood / Half an Abortion

It is, as you’d expect from these two, artfully constructed, nuanced and textured as well being totally balls-out gonzo in places. Clinking-plinking-tinkling, smashing, grinding, crunching, squeaking, that kind of ‘pouring sharps’ noise as the pieces settle – like the apocryphal Eskimo having 40 words for snow, a specialist vocabulary is needed to describe the effects these chaps pull from their single sound source…
8. The Skull Mask – Sahomerio

This is heroic stuff, recorded simply and cheaply with a red-raw honesty … Miguel was amused to see this described as ‘bluesy’ in Vital Weekly but during Part Three, the epic nine minute centrepiece, it isn’t hard to imagine him standing at the crossroads, his loose-fingered raga whipping the desert dust into strange, dancing anthropomorphic shapes. The pieces either side illustrate the expressive power of Miguel’s technique: sore-eyed from the campfire or crackling and mysterious or solemn and contemplative.
7. Daniel Thomas – Delighted in Isolation

Leaving dinosaur-related whimsy aside let me lean across the table, look you in the eye and conclude thus: Delighted in Isolation is an accomplished and deeply satisfying set. The impressive technical savvy with which it is composed and compiled is never an end in itself but instead always serves the flow. There are stand-out tracks – I’ve listened to that final section god knows how many times – but more importantly there is a coherence, a unifying aesthetic, throughout which allows for a sophisticated emotional response from the listener. Dan is a storyteller.
6. Michael Clough – Atem Tanz

A gloriously super-minimal analogue throb. When listened to at the appropriate volume, that is: so loud as to be consciousness threatening, it sounds like the sewing machine that God used when she was stitching up creation. Fucking amazing.
5. Space Victim – Psychotropic Mind Murder

Passages of this album are properly fried. The psychonauts amongst you may be reminded of the ‘chameleon’ stage of an acid trip: peaking like crazy, your senses fizzing like sherbet fireworks, your skin rippling and morphing to mimic your surroundings, your eyes bulging and swivelling independently of each other. Or so I hear. I wouldn’t know, of course.
4. Mel O’Dubhslaine – I Can Remember the Faces of All the Grebs at My School

Absolutely extraordinary, nothing like anything else I’ve ever been sent. Thirteen tiny tracks, each properly titled, of spiky, squirming surrealism played on bizarre cross-pollinated hybrid instruments. …Grebs… is a unified collection expressing something wonderfully unfathomable.
3. Aqua Dentata – March Hare, Kraken Mare

This is precise, slow-moving, crisply defined and unafraid of periods of silence. It has an attention diverting flow and an interestingly oblique rhythm. The rise and fall is like the breathing of a quarantined astronaut, infected by some spaceborne virus which is now busy reconfiguring his DNA.
The other-worldliness is especially evident on the short second track when what sounds like a recorder is used as an unplugged analogue for the pulls and throbs of electronic feedback. The first and final tracks employ the near perfect length and despite being created with, y’know, instruments and that, have an unmistakeably ‘Lilithian’ xenobiological vibe. I trust that by now I have established this is a very, very good thing indeed.
2. Cathal Rodgers – Thirty-Nine Years Of Decay

Thirty-Nine Years Of Decay is artfully constructed, beautifully evocative and emotionally harmonious. It is melancholy without being maudlin or sentimental, gruffly realistic without being unkind or gratuitous. It is the sound of someone trying to process difficult notions about time, about aging, about mortality and taking seriously the enormity of the challenge. For the record: I am talking about layers of pedal-loop throbbing, scything guitar and/or synth drones, high tension metallic pulses all beautifully recorded and elegantly balanced. A point is being made eloquently and convincingly.
…and drum roll please as the golden envelope is opened… Ladies and gentlemen, the Zellaby Award for album of the year 2012 goes to:
1. NECK VS. THROAT

Forgive me quoting myself at such length but the story is a good one…
Earlier this year me and Miguel Pérez, RFM’s correspondent of the Americas, produced a split CD-r: Miguel in his psychedelic raga guise as The Skull Mask, I contributed a throb-heavy Midwich track. Fifty copies were manufactured and offered to friends and to those willing to trade or brave enough to express an interest. One of those who kindly responded was Yol – see below for my thoughts on his art – who sent a copy of PUSHTOSHOVE in return. I was mighty impressed and threw some mp3s of it across the Atlantic to Miguel who found himself just as appreciative. Those two got in touch with each other.
Soon files were being swapped and neighbours unnerved. The work was fashioned into shape with machine tools, willpower and spit and now the results of this experiment in transatlantic improv can be revealed. It’s a fucking triumph.
To be specific: what we have is a five track, 32 minute CD-r, packaged in another example of Yol’s winningly stark graphic style. Two of the pieces are Miguel improvising over material provided by Yol, the other three vice versa. I think the difference between the two sets of tracks is marked and interesting. One is furious, claustrophobic, the other has more air to it, a little more room in it to pace nervously up and down. I’m not going to tell you which are which, though, as I think it might be fun to try and work it out for yourself.
Yol’s contribution is aptly described as ‘Throat Attack & Smashing of Objects’ on the back of the CD-r. His vocalisations range from the almost conversational to horrifying bellowing to teeth-clenched, spittle-flecked groaning. It is remarkable – unlike anything else I’ve been sent. His utter commitment to the physicality of the performance is awesome. Scraping, crashing, the dropping of metal objects augment and divide the stuttering tirade, like punctuation.
Miguel’s part is described as ‘Guitar Neck, Hair Sticks & String Damage’ and his style here is similar to that on recent recordings released under his own name. No effects, no overdubs, rarely even sustain, hard picked, unforgiving in its discipline yet nuanced, subtle and compelling. There is no ornament to it because none is needed.
The collaboration is a success, meaning the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Miguel underscores the rhythms and cadence of Yol’s glossolalia. Yol’s furious delivery both bounces off of and is contained by Miguel’s guitar, like the steel ball bearing on a pinball table.
…and there we have it. Another magnificent year.
The Award Ceremony
Well, given that Yol is in Hull and Miguel is on the other side of the world in Mexico I quickly gave up on the logistics of actually handing over a prize. Instead of a voucher (as won by Ashtray Navigations last year) I will be putting an equivalent amount of money behind the release of the second Neck Vs. Throat album in the New Year. Yes, I’m getting my hands dirty with this one. Is it the return of fencing flatworm recordings? Watch this space!
Right, everything that isn’t music to be summarised in part two…