shuffling huffer: rfm on cannon bone, ivy nostrum, penance stare, depletion and neil campbell
November 10, 2017 at 4:29 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: at a canter, cannon bone, chocolate monk, depletion, genuflection maps, house of bastet, ivy nostrum, lost signals, matching head, neil campbell, nice chapeau records, penance stare, think not of the glasses but of the drink, virgin prunes
Cannon Bone – At a Canter (Nice Chapeau Records)
Ivy Nostrum – Genuflection Maps (No Label)
Penance Stare – House of Bastet (No Label)
Depletion – Lost Signals (Matching Head)
Neil Campbell – Think not of the Glasses but of the Drink (Chocolate Monk)
Cannon Bone – At a Canter (Nice Chapeau Records) Vinyl LP and digital album
Om, Lightning Bolt, Ruins.
Rocking bass and drums duos are thin on the ground eh? So add another much-needed twosome to this proud duo-pile. Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to introduce Cannon Bone.
Nottingham-based duo Daniel Murray (bass) and Rich Park (drums) reject the ubiquitous six-string and its ceaseless attention-seeking for a solid, dependable rhythm approach that still blisters like hot Szechuan pepper.
The riff becomes the king, repetition the queen and together they rule a land of lurid flexible strings and tightly wound skins.
Half instrumental / half traditional sung-song the ghosts of Roxy Music, Young Marble Giants and the aforementioned Ruins haunt tunes like ‘Seahorse’, ‘Is that OK?’ and ‘Progressive Dancing Shoe’ respectively.
Such an eclectic mix revels in the invention going back-to-basics requires so detail becomes focused on textures, the quality of the fuzz and the dry crack of a snare. It’s so easy to get lost in the canyons of fizzing electricity and compressed air each side plays in a sort of deceptive time-puddle. The more you poke your stick in the deeper it gets.
But all this is mere dressing to the powerfully muscular playing – a rigorous and elemental musical snarl as infectious as Darby Crash’s dental work.
The dynamics are indeed the key here so the punishing pounding is coupled with a delicate tom roll, the explosive bass-harmonix smother a melody that’s perfectly cherry, cherry.
Like a horseshoe in a boxing glove – K.O. to Cannon Bone!
Ivy Nostrum – Genuflection Maps (No Label) Lurid pink Cassette
Two side-long constructions pieced together by the fair hand of RFM scrivener Paul Margree.
The helpful sleeve notes say these pieces feature the autoharp (broken), domestic field recordings and free sound among other wonderful things. But what they don’t say is how damn lovely some of this is.
The autoharp pieces are bright and sunny; each broken pluck becomes a golden beam of light. The electronic bleats are neither too sharp nor too gritty and seem to be formed instead from fresh pink marzipan being all smooth and almondy.
Side B ‘We Weren’t Really Dressed for the Weather’ features some speech software rattling around like an embarrassed Orac in a ruptured poly tunnel until the autoharp make another Wicca appearance. Lo-impact movements clatter like Tupperware underneath some charming whistling.
But of course…like much musique concrète it’s the placement that makes the thing sing. I don’t know why a low undulating throb sits so perfectly with human-child chatter and bulbous metallic ringing. But it does…it most certainly does.
Not sure where you can even grab this pink tape – tweeting @PaulMargree might be a good place to start yeah.
Penance Stare – House of Bastet (No Label) Cassette and digital album
Ex-Etai Keshiki and Melting’s, ELN plays all manner of guitars, basses, synths, drum machines and effects boxes to create a super-dark compressed tablet of riffage on the mighty House of Bastet.
A true one-woman-black-metal-band she does what is seemingly impossible and makes a drum machine really swing on awesome closer ‘Bleaken’ as it well and truly admonishes the gas-bloated riffs. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
These four songs seem to blur the edges between industrial, shoegaze and black metal taking the most interesting elements of each and dousing it with lighter fluid. For an old duffer like me, who, although a fan, doesn’t listen to metal much anymore this is a breath of fresh air.
Opener ‘Persona Non Grata’ has the heft of Godflesh yet the brutal riffs are played with an almost funk sense of timing – it’s all about the accents and half-spaces; rejecting the 4/4 for a more freewheeling, loose attack. ‘A Lack of All Things’ and ‘Moon in Scorpio’ , are no-less heavy and feature ultra-disturbed vocals buried way, way deep in the mix so they sound almost like the wind rushing through nude branches.
This tape plays the same on both sides so before long I’m back to that killer fourth track ‘Bleaken’. And now I’m more accustomed to the black-grammar I can make out the faintest howls under that pulverising thrashing – squaring that circle, lighting the thirteenth candle.
Thanks – Andy Crow for extra journalistic brain-power on this one.
Depletion – Lost Signals (Matching Head) One-sided Cassette
Cold psychic disturbance from Depletion all wrapped up in black and grey photocopies.
Never one for pure noise-for-noise-sake Martyn Reid pitches his monochrome tones against each other creating deft occult harmonics.
The opener ‘Intra Muros’ sets up a warm baffling of feathered obstacles. The soft oily edges soon reveal sharp poisoned barbs but only after you realise your ankles are streaked with blood.
‘Elegy’ appears to be a gradually descending note made of brushed steel that’s being dragged down an underpass. The heavy throb of traffic makes the concrete rumble until all begins to vibrate in electric unison.
Machine thinking is captured on ‘Synthex 1’. Let’s be honest…it was never going to be the mechanical clanking predicted in the 1950s but more like this smooth logical curve – effortlessly coiling and unwinding picking up the stray debris of algebra and the universal language of mathematics. And what does that mean for ‘Synthex 2’? As this has an altogether more abrasive feel, toothed and barbaric in places even, I guess the machines have discovered capitalism.
The dramatic closer ‘Deaths Door’ finally seems to make sense of the cryptic dedication to Virginia Maskell mentioned on the sleeve. A shuffling huffer, there is no clean machinery or warm analogue here. This is the foul breath of an underground tube tunnel; meaty-moist and sweetly overpowering. The resulting shuddering shakes like a wet dog with arcs of spray as crooked as arthritic fingers.
Neil Campbell – Think not of the Glasses but of the Drink (Chocolate Monk) CD-r
When I was a young teen a dusty, many-dubbed tape circulated my group of friends. Handed down from an older brother or sister (I forget which) it contained songs by The Very Things, Alien Sex Fiend, Ausgang and The Virgin Prunes. For me this was a Rosetta Stone document. Being under 18 (and looking it) I had no way into the underground culture of clubs. Records were expensive and most zines I had access to ignored this fascinating middle ground between the chart pop I’d been brought up on and the weirdness I’d sniffed but couldn’t quite locate.
I’m guessing Neil Campbell had a similar moment but was obviously knocked hardest by The Virgin Prunes. Hard enough for him to claim them as his favourite band – and I’m sure you can all remember how important and considered that personal accolade is when you are a young person*.
But what does it all sound like? These are ‘re-imaginings and reactions to’ rather than straight covers I’m guessing. On ‘Political Problems’ Neil’s rich baritone voice intones a set of eldritch lines, at first reading like poetry and then slipping and sliding over each other to end up perilously looped ‘like a crazy singer in a band that’s lost for words’ over Neil’s signature wet electronic squelch.
Teasing us with an almost four minute fade-in ‘Red Metal’ conjures up micro-moments of guitar pick and electric squall in a lovely, lovely drift-piece. Gradually shifting like winter sunlight this warms up the bones like a good chicken soup and somehow makes me feel pretty darn Christmas-y!
The closer, a Bongwater-esque, ‘No Clouds were in the Sky’ is quite beautiful. A folk-tinged wriggle of acoustic guitar loops/looped vocals/spoken word/freak-out electricals all writhing like fresh chicks in a nest.
Innocent? You bet. And with innocence possibly one of the hardest emotions to get right in music I’m sure that Gavin Friday would be delighted.
*I’m assuming you are an oldster like me eh?
Cannon Bone Bandcamp / Cannon Bone World
-ooOOoo-
a yeasty upstairs room: rfm on blood stereo, stuart chalmers & neil campbell, rlw & dylan nyoukis and the custodians
July 23, 2017 at 3:42 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: blood stereo, chocolate monk, dylan nyoukis, gukuruguh, in the vicinity of the reversing pool, neil campbell, ralf wehowsky, stuart chalmers, the custodians, the grape that takes no prisoners, where there's raw grace in garbage
Blood Stereo – Where There’s Raw Grace in Garbage (Chocolate Monk)
Stuart Chalmers & Neil Campbell – In the Vicinity of the Reversing Pool (No Label)
RLW & Dylan Nyoukis – Gukuruguh (Chocolate Monk)
The Custodians – The Grape That Takes No Prisoners (Chocolate Monk)
Blood Stereo – Where There’s Raw Grace in Garbage (Chocolate Monk) CDr
The wet-slippage of malfunctioning MP3 files or possibly a functional electronic sound – say the alarm in an overloaded lift – starts this single 37 minute grunt.
Over the course of the next half hour there are more than a few moments to treasure…
- Cannibalised spoken word overlaps a low moaning (licked forefinger rubbed over smoked glass coffee table?) in perfect sympathy…a ghostly parrot chatters the syllables in strict timing.
- 10cc’s tape loops hijacked for the ‘oooooooo’s’ and pulled through Kolkata in a handcart.
- “What is this shadow in which we come?”asks an inquisitive voice.
- A brief movement scored for plastic packaging materials, ring modulator and rain on a tin roof.
- The matrix recording of coins dropped into hot syrup is re-mastered with a Joe Meek mind.
The sink gurgles and psychedelic reportage are kept to a minimum though to concentrate on rhythm in all its forms, for this is Blood Stereo’s most spacious record yet.
Dry, echoing ‘clonks’ and ‘squarks’ are placed carefully into the mix – but not with a dictator’s swagger stick. Rather the gardener’s crisp carrot! These, sounds are encouraged to grow, swell and bloom. The fullness of the harvest is a testament to this pair of green-thumbs, nipping and tweaking, composting and watering their bumper crop.
But fear not goofs! It’s not all serious trousers – there are still yuks in this mix. The family (sound) portraits and the occasional snot-nosed sniff make an appearance before the truly beautiful, final movement of antique telephone engaged-tones and exotic hot breath-waffles.
Blood Stereo’s statement is clear…from the trash I create diamonds, from the unheard and unloved I fashion unique listening flaps.
Aye. That’s the grace all right.
Stuart Chalmers & Neil Campbell – In the Vicinity of the Reversing Pool (no label) CDr and digital album
Two monarchs ruling together in the kingdom of the Reversing Pool.
This super-sick collaboration takes the idea of loops and propels it into the negative zone where all laws of physics are crudely tippexed out.
That’s not to imply it’s lumpen. No way! There’s a real delicacy to these swooping spirals, like a collection of rare ceramics spinning in a vortex. You catch the occasional blurred pattern, a hint of Royal Doulton perhaps, that you can hang your hat on but your brain is mostly taken up with the sheer majesty of complex, cyclical movement (deep in the reversing pool).
‘Star Camera’ must be a J-Pop K-Hole. The baffled drum loop, a soft beat, slipping in and out of reality as our avatar (probably dressed as Sailor Moon) squawks an electric fudge.
The whirling, swirling miasma doesn’t let up quickly. Even the slurred vocal starting ‘Slipping Slipping’ is part of a greater orbit. A sort of cosmic churning taking in smears of electric guitar and fizziling keyboard washes.
A reprieve is served on ‘Detitrus on Old Bank’ and ‘Migrating Dirge’. They are looser for sure but spinning just as fast creating sparks that ‘zip’ off my xylophone and makes me ring my bicycle bell with abandon. By the final minute ‘Detritus…’ has turned into solid jam. ‘…Dirge’ jingles like pennies in a sock; a curious bank or preparation for the borstal breakout?
A joyful noise unto the creator – you bettchya sweet cakes.
RLW & Dylan Nyoukis – Gukuruguh (Chocolate Monk) CDr
Stone-cold classic tape-werks from wonk-central: Chocolate Monk.
(adopts HBO voiceover pose)
“Previously on Chocolate Monk…
Dee Nyoukis shifts his spittle at the Nefertiti Jazz Club, Gothenburg six or seven years ago and pledges the live tapes to one Ralf Wehowsky, legendary thinker and doer who unleashes several gallons of whup, whup all over them.
The result is an interchangeable reality sauce, or something. “
The Nyoukis-vox tapes are a shadowy presence and tend to inhabit the corners and dado rails of this mix while RLW slathers on huge scoops of itchy sound. At times it’s a fine violin, a recognisable sound fragment that adds a kind of sign-post, indicating the way.
At others it’s a deep abstract scribble. Like an IRCAM-heavy squall the sheets of sound are utterly alien and yet comfortably retro-fitted. Before you can polish your specs a granulated ripping peppers things, spicing lengthy tracks ‘Left Shoe’ and ‘Right Shoe’ up hot!
Sounds tend to whizz more than I am used to filling up my room with blank swoops or popping-mud farts. Dylan’s strangulated vox get pinched further via squealing Ralf-manoeuvres; pitched up through your appendix scar and out via your nostril. A silver thread seems pulled through me aching Gulliver scrambling my mind eggs.
Can I mention Varèse in this punk-ass blog? Eek! I guess I did. Well some of the ‘Right Shoe’ movements are percussive clatter-boxes – part Ionisation part Goldie’s Metalheadz crew but all bookended with damp squelching like a thick milkshake being sucked.
A disc for damn voyagers and heroes.
The Custodians – The Grape That Takes No Prisoners (Chocolate Monk) CDr
Top-quality brain-scrape from double-saxed trio with added Bohman power!
If you were to do a google image search for ‘Englishness’ I’m sure the old clichés of well-oiled cricket pitches and fluffy cream teas get fetched up before long*.
But for me…nothing seems more English than a ragged mess of electronics/objects balanced on a pub table in a yeasty upstairs room.
Imagine the very polite anticipation as we stand around waiting for some beard (Adam Bohman) to rummage about in the confusion and wrench out an antique-shop clattering. Picture the sympathetic tones coaxed out of some saxophones (Adrian Northover & Sue Lynch) – but not too loud mind!
And in this way The Custodians are the most English of groups. Perhaps it’s the practice habitual orderly queuing creates that explains the space each player leaves making this an altogether charming listen.
But how do these Toby Jugs come together, what’s the chatter yeah?
A double-barrelled approach divides performances into either:
- thin sax tones floating over industrious sawing and dry chitter / picture Ronnie Scott’s after closing time with the roaches skittering around brass holes or…
- bi-narratives/tri-narratives weaving sense in, out and around both my pink ears like the dusty graveyard where radio plays go to die. These talking pieces make the tired old brain work HARD. It’s almost like there is a loop of text that keeps getting manipulated live between Adam, Adrian and Sue as painterly touches of soft-round brass spread buttery glee. No mercy!
The audacious tri-narrative; ‘King and Queen-Traction and Wine’ squeezes my head-sponge good with its three-fold reading text-loops, pitched squeal and wonderful steam train noises making it all tip-top and tally ho!
A real Babel is unleashed on ‘Tlotm variations’ where our three friends are joined by linguaphone tapes running backwards / forwards / sideways pressing all sense though a reality sieve until all that remains is a flapping jaw and soft wet tongue.
*don’t bother to check the validity of this – in reality a Google Image search for Englishness is predictably awful
Neil Campbell Big Cartel / Stuart Chalmers Bandcamp
-ooOOoo-
the 2016 zellaby awards
January 27, 2017 at 1:46 pm | Posted in blog info, musings, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: chrissie caulfield, death is not the end, east of the valley blues, helicopter quartet, joe henderson, joe murray, julian bradley, kevin cahill, luke vollar, marlo de lara, miguel perez, neil campbell, patrick cahill, power moves label, power moves library, skull mask, sophie cooper, tusk festival, zellaby awards
Ugh, those canapés must be really stale by now…
…I murmur, lying spread-eagled on the floor of the ballroom in Midwich Mansions. I look up at the tragically withered balloons, still held by the net hung from the chandeliers. I idly pick at the broken glass within reach and wonder if dry-cleaning can remove blood stains. The banging and rattling of the locked double doors has stopped, mercifully, as the neglected guests have given up and gone home (although I suspect a few recorded the racket and I’ll be invited to download versions from Bandcamp soon enough). When my beautiful Turkish servant boy climbed in a window left ajar and tried to rouse me I ordered him to flog himself for his insolence – I was too full of ennui and despair to raise the rod myself. A wave of nausea washes over me again as I think back to the utterly foolish reason for this gathering:
Who on Earth would want to celebrate 2016?
Last year was a time when everything from the largest of world situations (American Election, Syria, Brexit, Climate Change) to the tiniest, most personal events (a red spot on the tip of my nose became a cancer scare) seemed unrelentingly hostile. People important to me died including my Nan, my last remaining grandparent, aged 94. People important to all of us died. An anonymous tweet drifted past:
We cry when famous people die not because we knew them but because they helped us know ourselves.
…which I dismissed as trite, then was forced to concede the truth of it when I found myself reduced to a heaving, tear-drenched wretch by a pop song on the radio. There is more, a lot more – life has been tiring and complicated – but it’s stuff that even a hopelessly indiscreet blabbermouth like me recognises would be unwise to talk about in public.
What about music and this blog? In many ways it was a gala, firecracking year for the ideas behind this endeavour. Some examples: the notion of the ‘no-audience underground’ was the subject of a paper by Susan Fitzpatrick and Stuart Arnot (cultural heavyweights best known round these parts as Acrid Lactations) at a conference at Goldsmiths and was mentioned by conference organiser Stephen Graham in his book about underground music, my writing provided some context and inspiration for the Extraction Music all-dayer in Cardiff, organised by Ian Watson, which raised a grand for refugee charities, I was name-checked in the TUSK festival programme (more on that later) and interviewed at that event by Paul Margree for his We Need No Swords podcast. I could go on. All very flattering and inspiring, but much of my own writing from 2016 begins with an apology or contains a paragraph admitting I’ve been having trouble keeping up, maintaining enthusiasm.
I’ve been in denial about how burnt out I’ve been feeling and unrealistic about how much time I could commit due to work and, more importantly, family having to come first. Things need to change, at least temporarily. I’ll come back to this at the end of the post…
…because now, my reverie has been interrupted by a rustling noise! I turn to see Joe ‘Posset’ Murray, chief staff writer here at RFM, crawling towards me. I’m amazed that he still looks so sharp in his borrowed tuxedo despite his injuries. He slumps nearby clutching a handful of papers.
End of year pieces from everyone, boss…
…he whispers and passes them over before collapsing. Ah, excellent, I think – just the tonic! Let’s see what my RFM comrades have to say about it.
[Editor’s note: due to the weirdness of 2016, and a desire to shake things up a bit, I’ve abandoned the usual categories of the Zellaby Awards and allowed my contributors free reign. I’ve also cut down the number of links, tags and illustrations included to streamline matters – just keep your preferred search engine open in a nearby window. There will still be an album of the year though, so don’t fret.]
—ooOoo—
Firstly, RFM’s new recruit Joe Henderson takes the opportunity to introduce herself:
Hi, I’m new here and quite discerning with music and also a bit stingy with writing about music. Nevertheless, I’m writing this sat next to a set of homing pigeons who have just given birth to a pair of tiny weirdo’s on New Year’s Eve. The father, Moriarty, has taken over parental duties now. This set of birds were ‘rescued’ from Birling Gap having failed their mission. Homing birds are supposed to fly somewhere. These birds ain’t going no-where and correct me if I’m wrong, but are we not also foreseeing the long-term preparations for the death of The Queen? It’s been a strange year…
In the blurred Hyperreality of 2017, where Halloween is celebrated three days before the fact – in this post-truth-information-environment, people have been watching David Attenborough’s final rainforest. Well, seems like here’s some of the creatures and microcosms that were found, discovered and captured…
The Balustrade Ensemble – Capsules (Ominous Recordings, 2007)
Jessy Lanza – Pull my hair back (Hyperdub, 2013)
Dangerous Visions radio series (BBC Radio4, 2016)
Blanck Mass – Dumb Flesh (Sacred Bones Records, 2015)
Pimsleur’s audio language lessons (German, Polish & Norwegian)
Aesop Rock – The Impossible Kid (Rhymesayers Entertainment, 2016)
The Chris Morris Music Show (BBC Radio One, 1994)
6Music & Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service (NOW)
Time just doesn’t count anymore. It doesn’t. I doubt any of this could be pigeonholed as ‘no audience underground’. But none of this matters anymore, and you all know it. You see, it’s fallen, it’s all tilted. It’s 2017, and it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s gonna be a long come down, like George Michael’s ‘Faster Love’ playing whilst more than a hundred divers scour the sea. Crews of immunity-freaks lumbering thru the Waste-Waters of Brighton. Across the ocean an assassin throws down his hand of cards as the world is watching. That Christmas trucker sounds like sleigh-bells. Or an Air-raid siren. Pulsing. It’s missing airman hums ‘The Missing Persons Boogie’ in a cul-de-sac. In the Upside-Down land. Miles away from Brian Eno’s caste system, attached to the moon. With a Selfie-stick. Low down and shifty. Only those with energy begin to reclaim The Playground. And cordon it off. And pave over it. Eno still stumbling flamboyantly thru the withered fronds of his iEgo. Framed by the Sistine Chapel recreated in an Old Woman’s second bathroom.
“In this post-truth-information-environment” – do you know what we look like? From a distance, it looks like we have lost control, and are swaying almost like dancing to it all…
Blimey, eh? “You see, it’s fallen, it’s all tilted.” Brilliant. Quite some calling card. I shall look forward to her future contributions with great interest.
—ooOoo—
Next up, marlo de lara reminds us that the more personal it is, the more political it is:
as previously noted by my rfm family, 2016 was a doozy, a head spin, and a heartache. so without further ado, my 2016 moments of note:
1. death of heroes
there has already been a ton of writing about this and a lot of needless controversy over the mourning of musicians. to me, role models and inspiration are hard to come by and even harder to preserve as we watch these humans be human. prince and pauline olivieros were both highly influential in my life. prince’s ongoing, groundbreaking lived fusion of musical genres and his highly charged expression of androgyny and sexual desire was always intoxicating, all while self-identifying as a black musician. totally inspiring for me as a marginalized musician growing up in racialized america. pauline olivieros pushed me to reassess what I defined as sound, sound making, and intention. my spirituality and the ability to breathe through the making of music is completely attributed to this amazing woman. thank you for the inspiration.
2. ghost ship tragedy
despite living across an ocean from the noise family that helped me develop my sounds, i am constantly aware of the ongoing community struggles of those artists/musicians/promoters/supporters whose events and festivals create solidarity. on december 2nd, the oakland diy live/art space ghost ship went ablaze, killing 36 people. well-loved individuals who made, created, and supported the scene. as the noise community wept at the loss of our kin, america attacked warehouse/diy venues with a crackdown based on ‘safety’ whilst never addressing the underlying issue that those artists/musicians tolerate living spaces/venues like these because as a society we do not prioritize living wages and conditions for musicians to thrive. so we endure, infiltrate society and emotionally thrive despite the lack of funds.
on a personal note I want to mention joey casio and jsun adrian mccarty, both of whom were deeply loved in my community for their music and their spirit. joey casio was a mainstay of the pacific northwest electronic/weird music scene and i have always had a fondness for jsun’s art/music, particularly the live performance noise project styrofoam sanchez. i wish i had gotten to know joey since he was so well spoken of and jsun’s kind smile at noise festivals is deeply missed. love and respect always.
3. #pizzagate
the absurdity of politics reached an all-time high with the nonsense my dear friend arrington de dionyso (of malaikat dan singa and old time relijun) had to endure due to a mural he painted in a dc pizza parlour. his aesthetic and artistic style were misconstrued while he and his family were targeted by clinton conspiracy theorists and trump supporting nobheads. arrington survived by painting and creating sounds. but let’s all have a think about the ramifications of art and the volatile, inflammatory, conservative hot mess that we could all be victim too. arrington, you are a champion for dealing with it and blessings to you always.
stay awake. stay aware. make noise. xo, marlo
—ooOoo—
Luke Vollar now joins us via the open window to bellow about the stuff he likes:
Here is my end of year list, sticking only to what was released this year – mostly ‘no audience’ with a couple of ‘some audience’ releases thrown in and in no particular order. The low lights of 2016 were fairly obvious: the rise of the idiots and global face palm moments reaching new levels of guuh?! On a personal note I’ve been through some ghastly work related gubbins so I’m hoping 2017 picks up considerably. Music, as always, has offered a soothing balm and kept me (nearly) sane so here we go peeps I’ve probably forgotten some glaringly obvious choices as I often do. Such is the life of the discaholik.
Wormrot – Voices
Dead In The Dirt – The Blind Hole
Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree
Lovely Honkey – Completely Wastes Your Time
Dylan Nyoukis & Friends – Mind Yon Time?
Shurayuki-Hime – In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun
Pudern & Vomir – Split
Error Massage – Rooby
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Tupperwave
Moon – Diseasing Rock Who
F. Ampism – The Resolution Phase
Posset – Cooperation Makes Us Wise
Posset – The Gratitude Vest
Stuart Chalmers and yol – Junk Seance
Stuart Chalmers – Imaginary Musicks vol. 5
Stuart Chalmers – In the Heart of the Wilderness
Usurper – The Big Five
Culver / Fordell Research Unit – Culver: Prisoner of F.R.U.
Clive Henry – Hymns
The Skull Mask – Walls of Convenience
Triple Heater – Aurochs
The Custodians – Moribund Mules and Musket Fire
Yume Hayashi – What The Summer Rain Knows
My highlight of the year was watching Ashtray Navigations support Dinosaur Jr.
xx
—ooOoo—
Next, Chrissie Caulfield with the trademark thoughtful enthusiasm that always has me clicking through:
I’m quite glad that Rob decided to let us do a general review of the year rather than try and nominate several releases for awards. Looking back, I seem to have reviewed only three albums this year which would have made it merely a rehash of what I have already done. Sorry Rob. In my defence, I’ve had a busy year with gigs and filmmaking and several other things. Some of the gigs even had audiences, though they were usually the ones organised by other people, naturally. More on that later.
Of the three albums I reviewed it’s hard to pick a favourite because they were all quite different, and excellent in their own ways. But if pushed (and I was pushed, if only by myself, just now) I’d have to nominate Furchick’s “Trouble With a Capital T”. Its sheer joy and inventiveness, and joy of inventiveness is infectious and inspiring. If ever anyone wanted a masterclass on making music with found and/or mutilated objects, this was it.
My most memorable event of this year was a gig I played at, though that part is incidental, in Oxford. It was one of those authentic ‘no-audience underground’ gigs where the artists and their entourage outnumbered the paying audience by quite a large ratio. In fact the only paying audience was a relative of one of the artists and someone who rolled in off the streets half way through (He probably didn’t literally ‘roll in’ you understand, the street was cobbled, so that would be very uncomfortable). This lack of attendance was a huge shame because the gig itself featured two awesome acts – as well as ourselves, obviously. The great Lawrence Casserley was always expected to put on a fabulous show (in this instance with Martin Hackett) and certainly did so, but the act I got via the female:pressure mailing list exceeded expectations in a big way and I felt awful for not having delivered them an audience. TEARS|OV, led by Lori.E. Allen put on a great show of samples, synths and live played and sampled instruments that was just glorious, and I’m happy that at least I got to film it, even though I only had one decent camera and zero decent tripods with me. As almost nobody got to that gig I feel almost duty-bound to try and get as many people as possible to watch the video. You won’t regret it, it’s here.
Another special gig for me was also one I played at – and the fact that I did so was crucial to my understanding of what happened. This was “A Working Day of Drone”, put on by Dave Procter, eight hours of overlapping drone performances. I’ve never regarded myself as much of a drone fan to be honest but this event was a real eye opener. I think a lot (though not all, of course) of the drone acts I had seen in the past were of the ‘I’ve got some gear and it makes some noise’ type which, as a musician with years of practice and training, I find uninspiring and lacking in effort. Put like that it was odd, I suppose, for me to accept an offer to play at a long drone gig … but I did because I like to try new things and to challenge my own preconceptions.
And those preconceptions were not just challenged. They had a calfskin leather glove slapped in their face and a large sword whisked terrifyingly close to their ear by Cyrano de Bergerac himself. Those preconceptions are now lying sliced, diced and blood-soaked over a, slightly grubby, drain in LS2, just down the road from Shawarma. What I experienced that day was, for the most part, a lot of very high quality artistry and discipline and, yes, musicianship. There were guitarists, multi-instrumentalists, vocalists and laptop players with expertise, patience and discipline. And discipline is the word I really took away from that gig which is why I have already used it three times in this paragraph and will say it again it now in an attempt to make sure that Rob doesn’t sub-edit it out [Editor’s note: Why would I? Couldn’t agree more!]. Discipline, discipline, discipline. Playing for a whole hour while keeping the sense of a ‘drone’ requires intense concentration and a lot of improvisational forward planning that, to be honest, I felt inadequately prepared for when playing my set. For drone music as good as I heard that day, I am a convert.
And finally, my favourite thing of the year – which is something I invented though I take no credit for it – is Feminatronic Friday. On a Friday afternoon when I’m winding down from a busy week at work and want some new music to surprise, tickle and sometimes assault my ears, I point my browser at the feminatronic Soundcloud feed and just listen. Of course, not everything is to my taste, but there is a lot of high quality work being produced by talented women around the world that seems to be ignored by the most of the outlets for even alternative music. It’s also an excellent source of material that I should be reviewing and, as it’s Friday as I write this, that’s where I’m going now. Happy New Year.
—ooOoo—
Joe Murray himself takes a bullet-pointed turn:
Politically, economically and culturally 2016 has been a year of shocks, knocks and sickening lows. It’s hard to look forward and see anything resembling a ray of hope. Greater minds than mine will neatly package all this misery up into a bitter pill but me… I’m warming some delicate seeds in my palm.
Records and tapes of the year
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Hardworking Families – BA/LS/BN (Beartown Records) Like tin-cans learned to talk: a sharp knife splices individual ‘instants’ to wrap new listenings head-ward.
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Acrid Lactations & Gwilly Edmondez – You Have Not Learned To Play & Mock In The Psychic System (Chocolate Monk) Complex patterns and shifting sonic-sands from stalwarts and greats – a brave and ambitious concoction of Dixieland and pure munged goof. Instant calmer!
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Oliver Di Placido & Fritz Welch – Untitled (Human Sacrifice) The most crash-bang-whalloping record of the year by far. Knockout energy like TroubleFunk playing in a ruined skip.
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Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Tupperwave (Chocolate Monk) Effortless creative juice drips all over these dirty, dirty ditties from the Cardboard Prince… his Black Album?
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Lea Bertucci – Light Silence, Dark Speech (I Dischi Del Barone) Perfect like fresh frosty ferns, each sporangia a moment of potential beauty and enlightenment – one for all DJs.
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Lieutenant Caramel – Uberschallknall (Spam) For me the Lieutenant was an unknown. Now? A well-thumbed friend. Euro-collage/concrete that’s super classy and head-strainingly intense.
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Faniel Dord –Valentino (Cardboard Club) Another dirty boy with song-y songs played with hearty gusto and a wide-eyed innocence not seen since McCartney II.
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East of the Valley Blues – eotvb (Power Moves/No Label) Sun-bright double finger-picking that warmed up my cockles and fed miso soup to my rotten soul. Life affirming, beautiful and generous. No wonder it’s got a vinyl re-release for tomorrows people.
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Acrid Lactations & Jointhee – Chest (Tutore Burlato) You ask me about the future of ‘the song’ and I point you to this little tape of huge invention and heart. Not afraid to mix yuks with the high-brow, dream-logic and academic rigour. Never been so charmed ‘ave I?
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Tear Fet – Blabber (Chocolate Monk) Every single vocal-mung technique picked up and shaken like a snow-globe. One for all serious students of throat-guff.
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Yol – This Item Has Little Or No Scrap Value (Beartown Records) The mighty Yol’s most swingingest record of the year (and they have been legion and they have been good) that almost broke my rib with its accurately focused violence. A symphony of cuts and bruises.
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Shareholder – Five Mile Throwdowns (Know This) One of the few bands I get excited about. Blending the listless and freezing loch with espresso intensity; a pond-skipper balanced on the tricky meniscus – he’s not waving!
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Tom White – Automated Evangelism (Vitrine) and Commemoratives (Tutore Burlato) Double-entry for Tom White’s peerless technique and wonderfully intelligent ears. This very physical tape manipulation is strong enough to move giant boulders yet freaky enough to warp space. Without a doubt Tom wears the blue jersey in Star Trek.
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Grey Guides – Beast Mask Supremacists (Crow Versus Crow Editions) Taking skuzzy guitar and skunk-potent tape to some place indistinct; this ghost-memory of a record made me dream of Wuthering Heights oddly. The AR Kane of the NAU?
—ooOoo—
…and penultimately Sophie Cooper. Sof resigned her post on the RFM staff this year [Editor gnaws fist to hold back hot tears] but gamely agreed to contribute to the end of year jamboree anyway. Much to my delight she has submitted a 14 minute video of her chatting over some gubbins she reckons is cool. Watch it here. I think it is well charming and, if you agree, please contact her to say so – I’d like to butter her up to the point where this kind of video piece becomes a semi-regular feature. Hah! There is no escaping RFM! Gabba, gabba, we accept you! ONE OF US!
Oh, did I just type my evil plan out loud?
—ooOoo—
So that just leaves me. I’m going to mention one prolificist, give a top three albums of the year, lay some news on you, then end on a high. How’s that for showbiz? I may even haul myself to my feet and brush off the marie rose sauce that seems to have dried on the side of my face.
In previous years one of the Zellaby Award categories has been 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. I know I said I’d ditched these honours but this year there is such a clear winner that I cannot help but unlock the trophy cabinet.
The music of collagist, tape scaffolder and atmosphere technician Stuart Chalmers has been admired by everyone with a trustworthy opinion. His recent catalogue – solo or in collaboration – is an avalanche of stylistically divergent, technically perfect, emotionally resonant work. I highly recommend that you settle gently onto his Bandcamp site, like a probe landing on an exotic comet, and start drilling. The dude recently moved to Leeds too, how cool is that? He wins.
—ooOoo—
OK, now onto the main event: low numbers in reverse order. This year, in a classy piece of statesmanship, I’m leaving the listing to my colleagues above and am going to focus on just my top three.
[Editor’s note: If I’m honest I love these three more or less equally but, y’know, drama innit?]
Bronze: Julian Bradley and Neil Campbell – FOR LILA O
Flat out glorious from beginning to end. This album has the texture of pistachio flavoured Turkish delight. It is sweet, gelatinous, opaque, yielding to the bite but containing a satisfying savoury grit. If I were a betting man I’d wager Neil provided the caffeinated hyper-psych which was then slowed, burnished and blurred by Julian’s patented murkatronik obfuscator. Best to keep it mysterious though, eh? I’ve listened to this so frequently that I think now I’d have trouble remaining friends with anyone who didn’t groove on, say, the disco-for-writhing-foot-long-woodlice vibe of ‘giants in the electric nativity’.
Two non-musical reasons to be entertained too. Firstly, the Bandcamp photo is a nod to the cover illustration for an LP they recorded for American Tapes exactly one million years ago. The no-audience underground remembers. Secondly, it was released on 20th December, thus too late to be included on any of the ‘best of year’ lists published before the end of the year. Seeing as the premature way these lists are ejaculated has long annoyed me I was delighted to see JB & NC stitching ’em right up.
Silver: Helicopter Quartet – Electric Fence
Yeah, yeah, one half of Helicopter Quartet is RFM staffer Chrissie Caulfield but, as I’ve said many times, there is no such thing as conflict of interest down here. If we didn’t blow our own trumpets sometimes there would be no fanfare at all and, whoo boy, Mike and Chrissie deserve it.
Continuing a seemingly impossible run of each release topping the last, this album takes their austere, mournful aesthetic in an explicitly dystopian direction. The bleakness described by previous releases has called to mind slate grey stone walls on ageless moor land but Electric Fence has a more Ballardian edge.
I listen to the thrilling, Tubeway Army-ish title track and imagine the strings of Chrissie’s violin animated by Ralph Steadman – whipping away from us to form the boundary fence of a desert Army base, or a mud-choked refugee camp, realities that we’d rather not contemplate. Or maybe the fence is personal, invisible, internalised – a tragic defence mechanism that provides the illusion of safety at the cost of constant loneliness?
Powerful and important music, as ever. That work of this quality is freely downloadable remains remarkable.
Gold: East of the Valley Blues – EOVTB
The Zellaby Award for best album of 2016, presented in conjunction with radiofreemidwich, goes to East of the Valley Blues for EOVTB. Joe Murray wrote about this one back in April:
Wonderful! Wonderful, wonderful!
This tape was playing when the first rays of Spring sunshine shot like misty timbers through my window and the jazzy daffodils belched out warm yellow hugs. And no, I don’t think that’s any coincidence brothers & sisters.
This tape is a truly innocent joy. Why? Firstly, it’s the simplicity. We’ve got two guys, two Power Moves brothers, sitting on that metaphorical back porch finger-picking like the late great Jack Rose, improvising with a sibling’s sensibility at that slightly ragged speed we all associate with the beating heart in love.
Secondly, we’ve got notes that shimmer in a cascade; I’m getting nylon waterfalls as things tumble and tremble, roil and buckle as ten calloused fingertips gentle rustle the strings. This is all about the movement, the restlessness of a leaf caught in an eddy, the churn of water spilling from a red hand pump.
Finally there’s that slight sense of anticipation, a yearning that’s probably something technical to do with the key it’s all played in. But for a goof like me it just tweaks my memory zone; this music looks backwards at endless summers and looks towards bouncing grandchildren on the knee. This is music of time, its passage and its baggage; the highs and lows, the dusty wrinkles and the fumble in the sheets.
And am I noticing a slight change in the way time is behaving around me? Not so much time stopping but stretching, those strict minutes becoming supple like a cat’s arching back. Maybe reader maybe.
Lovers of this plaintive guitar-pick often yell out a challenge:
So… can I play this next to Ry Cooder & Vishwa Mohan Bhatt’s sublime A Meeting by the River? Does it hold its own beans compared to Phil Tyler’s exquisite banjo snaffle?
Me? I’m lost in the buttery light right now, light-headed with Beat road dreams,
If you heard it you wouldn’t have to ask… click the god-damn link and get heavy in the valley.
…and he is right, of course.
The brothers Joe refers to are twins Kevin and Patrick Cahill (the former best known ’round here for running Power Moves Label/Library) and the album’s genesis is covered in an excellent interview with Tristan Bath for Bandcamp Daily which can be read here.
All I need to add is that given the divisive and miserable nature of the year just gone, an album so beautiful, so spacious, so forgiving, so grounded in love and family could not be less ‘2016’ and thus could not be a more worthy winner. Congratulations, fellas.
—ooOoo—
A discographical note: this album has now been reissued by the excellent UK label Death Is Not The End and can be had as a download, tape or – get this – vinyl album via their Bandcamp site. For those wanting to take a punt without risking any dough, free downloads of some live shows can also be had here.
The prize for winning remains the, *ahem*, ‘great honour’ of being the only release on the otherwise dormant fencing flatworm recordings in 2017, should the brothers be interested in taking me up on it. Nowt fancy – CD-r plus download would usually suffice given the absence of any budget. Negotiations can commence anytime.
—ooOoo—
Right, let me just drag Joe Murray up into a chair as he needs to wave and smile during this bit. OK: some news. As of whenever we can sort out the logistics, Joe is going to take over from me as editor/publisher of RFM whilst I take an indefinite sabbatical. No need to worry – I am not ill again – I just need a break to attend to the real life stuff away from music I’ve been alluding to throughout the year. I have to apologise to those people who have sent emails, invitations to download, physical objects and whatnot and are still waiting for substantial responses. I’ll slowly catch up with personal stuff, forward all the blog stuff and my colleagues will soldier on in my absence. I’ll still be wandering around twitter and attending shows (Leeds people – see you at the Fractal Meat showcase on Feb 3rd, eh?) just won’t be at the helm here. Feels weird to be saying this after seven years but I’m sure this will prove a healthy decision and I’ll be back before ya know it.
—ooOoo—
Finally then, my musical highlight of the year: Miguel Perez playing as Skull Mask at the TUSK festival. Here’s an extract from my account of the weekend. In particular, I want to finish with the word ‘fuck’ so I’ll say goodbye now – those who know me won’t be surprised to see me slope off before the end of the last set.
Best wishes for 2017, folks, keep yourselves and each other safe.
All is love, Rob H x
Next up it was Miguel Perez, playing as Skull Mask … 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.
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!!!
—ooOoo—
buttery panes: joe murray on neil campbell, steve gregoropoulos, no artist, mel bentley, 010001111000
January 25, 2016 at 1:54 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: 010001111000, finnegan's wake, james joyce, joe campbell, mel bentley, neil campbell, no artist, steve gregoropoulos, vitrine, waywords and meansigns
Neil Campbell, Steve Gregoropoulos – chapters from WAYWORDS AND MEANSIGNS: Finnegans Wake set to music, unabridged (forthcoming download)
No Artist – Masochism (tape, Vitrine, VT18)
Mel Bentley – Red Green Blue (tape, Vitrine, VT17)
010001111000 – lmof (tape, Vitrine, VT16)
Neil Campbell, Steve Gregoropoulos – chapters from WAYWORDS AND MEANSIGNS: Finnegans Wake set to music, unabridged
Have you ever listened to an audio book readers?
I mean like, really listened. All the way though – from start to finish – taking a break from time to time to paint your nails or drink some tea? Have you listened in your best chair, on the bus, in the bath, in bed?
I tried to listen to Dawkins’ The God Delusion while I was decorating a house once and it kind of got super tedious, like a very lengthy monologue from a bad radio play. So much so I turned it off to listen to a real bad play on Radio 4 just to get the damn wallpaper off.
I’m no Luddite readers but I’ve found it hard to get my head round such modern fripperies like the Kindle and the Audio Book. It’s not like I’m a snob or nothing, I just can’t like… get with them. Know what I mean?
So it was with trepidation I accepted Rob Hayler’s Mission Impossible to take on two chapters from this mega-ambitious project to audio-ize the whole of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake… with words and music!
The tempter was seeing the name Neil (ASTRAL) Campbell among the contributors so I cleared some space in my diary, de-cored my headphones of earcheese and leapt right in.
The first thing about having a Campbell breathing into me lugs is… it feels super normal. Like we’re having an (admittedly one-sided) conversation or something. His reading is nicely paced, warmly English and with a fat daub of greasepaint that keeps me tuned into Joyce’s tumbling and rambunctious prose. The Astral accompaniment creeps slowly beneath the soft-linked words (I’m picturing sausages of language), a slight electric fizzle, birds singing next to a well, a tin-Casio going ‘tish, tish, tish’ matching the quiet intensity of the language… for over an hour!
After a while my mind starts to blur the boundaries between the steady cascade of words and the stream of endless sound until it all becomes a glorious oneness. I pick out the odd phrase or choice word but as a whole I’m goofing on the lo-fi rhythm of speech being another thread in this dense and colourful tapestry. At the end of the session my ears are going ‘shoop – shoop’ as Mr Campbell’s molars gash the endless!
Next up is a new name in my noggin, Steve Gregoropoulos who delivers a more theatrical performance from another chapter of oyster-fresh Joycean speech. Opening this hi-tech file (with a satisfying ping) brings forth a proper old flea-pit orchestra full of rank piano, goosey honks and creening bows and my oh my are they not whipping up a storm of lappit voices?
Is this like…Vaudeville?
I ask the ever vigilant Dook. She’s not sure (we never watched The Muppets) but things feel so real I fear a rash from the grotty flip-back seats and rub the armrest shiny with my corndog.
The prose of old man Joyce is a psychic conundrum laying ever-so-lightly over the Gregoropoulos burlesque. Again I’m finding the words stretch like sticky pizza dough, forming interesting new shapes between thick-fingered hands.
The further we venture the deeper we roll into Shimmy Disc territory. Guitars start to replace the flea-pit until an unhinged Dogbowl-style solo finally flips a switch in my head so Steve’s voice becomes John S. Hall’s reciting a teenage dream diary.
Another hour has passed and I realise I’ve been enjoying myself enormously, soaking up his black gravy. Gosh… I must be really getting into this audio-lark.
Checking the Waywords and Meansigns website I can see this is soon to be released in its entirety, the whole damn book and with the mighty Mike Watt adding his spiel to boot.
Three Quarks for Muster Mark!
No Artist – Masochism
010001111000 – lmof
Mel Bentley – Red Green Blue
While most gonks steer their ship far from the indistinct, the blurred, the unfinished and should-a-been, Vitrine stoke their hot engines and set a course at ‘ramming speed’ for the fog-shrouded islands of WTF!
They cannily know where the nuggets lie and have made a virtue of the smeared and miss-heard with a funky mission statement comprised of off-stage and occult sound.
These three tapes floated around my furnished rooms for about a month with the faintest whiff of camphor before I could dive in. But once I lit the incense a noxious cloud stole all the light from within the brocade drapes. Read on…
No Artist (AKA A long-time listening bell // a casket for one)
It’s them psychology experiments, the ones they tried to ban. A Manchurian candidate plays the hollow rasp of whirring tech, tape rushing through spools, the concentric fizzle of cheap condenser microphones – the very air feeding back into the plastic-coated mesh jammed with a decade of pocket crumbs.
A recording of a recording? A Xerox gradually being erased? The splendid hiss and fuss that made the oxygen in the room go [~~~*~~~~~~**~~~~]. Ung!
010001111000 (AKA The medical model // smudged with opium prints)
More dung honey for your money. A ripe and pregnant landscape yet delicate as rice paper. When be-bop was reborn it traded complexity for layering as fine as filo pastry; and that’s part of the story here. A circular fag end becomes the orange sun when viewed through these buttery panes – burning with a treacherous light and cruel heat.
No need to lean on ASMR for scalp tingles! Simply jam this tape on and insert a thumb in your ass.
Mel Bentley (AKA Moist vowels // the bravest of all approaches)
My first thoughts are of Phillips Records – circa 1963 when my Granddad worked in their Croydon factory. The bold cover design strikes the memory gong, delivering that Red/Blue/Green magic making my pale eyes work. Wrong-footed I swoon at the serene loveliness of a natural voice, well-paced and commanding. The pen proves its might (once again) as ink scratches summon new worlds and prickly sensation.
Mel talks to us. She gives Lana Del Rey a pasting and cuts-up office clippings like Burroughs until they “acquire patina and decay”. She reels calm, without enunciated drama, from a coffee bar so real you can hear this steamy ‘hishhh’ of the barista. Grunt-heads can get off on the augmented pieces that turn this from poetry to no-fi experimental sound gonk but I’m far too young to get hung up on bloody labels. I’m fucking melting here man with the sweet word-power…
your dog dies in an onion ring
Oh yeah!
—ooOoo—
Vitrine (Facebook)
Vitrine (Discogs)
neshening: new from neil campbell
January 21, 2016 at 12:21 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | 3 CommentsTags: astral social club, neil campbell
neil campbell – GOTH / NESH (self-released CD-r, edition of 20 or download)
So, in brief, it goes like this: I’ve known Neil since, what?, 1999 or something. His music, solo and with Vibracathedral Orchestra, taught me that noise didn’t need to be shrouded in a three-quarter length leather coat but instead could be a joyous, delirious, life-affirming experience. I cribbed shamelessly from his example – everything from my overall attitude to noise to the way I bob and weave whilst performing as midwich is, in part, due to his influence. Then, what?, in 2011 or something his work as Astral Social Club took a turn I didn’t approve of – the swirl of incense was replaced by a fug of burning plastic – and, like every entitled fanboy does when their hero moves on, I got the hump. This culminated in a falling out around Christmas 2014 due to me acting like a right bulb-end on Twitter and since then, whilst relations have been restored and we remain as friendly as we ever were, I’ve maintained a respectful distance from the music just, y’know, in case…
The upshot is that this CD-r (edition of 20, given away at a show celebrating the contribution of Pascal Ansell to the Leeds scene and wishing him well with his move to Lisbon) is the first release actually put into my hands by Neil in years. I accepted with gratitude/trepidation and had to ask what ‘nesh’ means (slang for ‘soft’ apparently). I saw that it was a ‘collage of unreleased/unfinished neil campbell music’ but nevertheless thought: I’m going to listen the fuck out of this.
I’m glad I did. Edited into one 42 minute piece, these various blobs of hand-made gelato melt and merge into a proper treat. There are (I presume) outtakes from the James Joyce project (more on that to come from Joe), a charming spoken dream about looking for the moon, some ominous radiophonics to chase you behind the sofa, a muezzin call accompanied by Cabaret Voltaireish elecktroplinkage and a beautiful, keening psych guitar outro worthy of that Phil Todd. Indeed, a question I ask myself when reviewing in order to counter any pre-existing bias is:
If this were on an Ashtray Navigations album how would I react?
…and the honest answer in this case is I’d be in raptures. Of particular note is a two minute section beginning around the 18 minute mark which seems to me the perfect bridge between the organic psychedelia I so loved and the robokrunch of Astral Social Club that so did my head in. I have sat re-re-rewinding this bit whilst staring out the window in amused bewilderment. It’s ace.
In conclusion: the second time I heard this all the way through it was just finishing as I arrived at work. I walked into the bogs, removed my ear buds and, at that very moment, the tail end spattering of the urinal’s auto-flush sounded like a round of applause.
That’s me told,
I thought. Now I’m telling you.
—ooOoo—
through the city, undetected: luke vollar on sheepscar light industrial and daniel thomas
March 16, 2015 at 1:59 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: ap martlet, astral social club, cherry row recordings, daniel thomas, dave thomas, drone, electronica, extraction music, field recording, hagman, luke vollar, michael clough, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, noise dads, sheepscar light industrial
Neil Campbell – Oystercatcher Salad (3” CD-r, Sheepscar Light Industrial, SLI.029, edition of 50 or download)
Michael Clough – MetaMachineMusic (3” CD-r, Sheepscar Light Industrial, SLI.028, edition of 50 or download)
Hagman – Inundation (3” CD-r, Sheepscar Light Industrial, SLI.030, edition of 50 or download)
Daniel Thomas – Visitors (CD-r, Cherry Row Recordings, CRR006, edition of 25 or download)
Here’s a common theme at Radio Free Midwich: middle aged dads with a burning passion for exotic ear wax carried from their formative years but with less time to listen. Gone (for now at least) are the days of staring out of the window, watching the trees sway, cradling a warming goblet of spiced absinthe and spinning the latest 13 inch lathe cut by Arse Bracket [Editor’s note: remember them, eh?], letting the sounds seep into your subconscious while the alcohol and powdered Arabian monkey husk seep into your blood stream…
…and so it is that I come to review four releases from the orbit of Daniel Thomas, not as the libertine dandy I (never) was but as a regular bloke with small children. Thus the quadruple offering is heard as a soundtrack to loading the dishwasher, unloading the washing machine and so on. I fear that if I were to pop a three inch CD-r in my car stereo (my guaranteed listening window en route to work) I wouldn’t see it again and so I grab opportunities when I can to listen, mostly on my small tablet. Wanting to do these discs the justice they deserve I have taken my time and returned to them whenever possible.
We’ll start with Neil Campbell’s Oystercatcher Salad. Birdsong, muffled chatter and guitars that wail like, erm…, whales make this an enjoyable twenty minutes from the original chatty man. I’m a big fan of electric guitars being left to do their own thing aside from being occasionally nudged and that is what we get here. Perhaps this is Campbell’s love song to The Dead C. Having said that, Neil seems to be aiming for a wide open vista, beach at sunset vibe and there’s part of me that thinks cutting back on the unnecessary clutter (the avian chatter gets a bit much) would improve the view.
Onwards to Michael Clough’s MetaMachineMusic and this is the kinda jus I know I’m gonna dig in seconds. Clough confounds with some very real audio trickery as we descend through a serpentine drone tunnel into the catacombs. Are we listening to a sleek silver panglobuloid insectular robovore as it flits through the city undetected (it can go invisible, ya dummy) picking up information through its unfeeling eyes to feed back to some dark overlord via a bank of TV screens and software that processes the data for the impending meltdown of civilization as we know it? Probably.
Inundation by Hagman is the best thing that the Thomas Brothers [Editor’s note: no relation] have produced thus far [Editor’s note: bold claim, comrade]. Delivered with exquisite economy and steely determination, the two patiently mould a glowing ember of sound into a pulsing ball of ectopic expression that radiates a nocturnal glow like a sleeping power plant in the rain. No bucolic birdsong or babbling brooks here – more an urban soundtrack to a concrete sprawl pulsing with electricity. It’s the kind of thing that our very own editor might instruct his chauffeur to play whilst being driven to Wharf Chambers, the slow methodical whump in time with the passing street lights reflected in his mirrored sunglasses. He surveys the city in transit: his face a mask, his grip on his ivory tipped cane steady and fixed.
Daniel Thomas’s Visitors maintains the high quality with a collection of stately pieces that are making my eyelids heavy as I try to write this (in the best possible way). Simple humming noises are left to run as smoke like tendrils escape into the aether, flickering machine sounds give birth to pure beams of light and ticker tape melodies play out to deserted car parks and services stations. Seems this CD-r is already gone and the other discs mentioned are, if not sold out then dwindling to their final copies. An indication of the growing audience for Sheepscar Light Industrial and Daniel Thomas’s own brand of extraction music and hardly surprising given the winning combination of low prices and immensely gratifying ear mung. Judging by this latest batch the quality remains on an upward trajectory.
—ooOoo—
sea, souvenirs, spice: luke vollar on grisha shakhnes, seth cooke and early hominids
January 8, 2015 at 11:28 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: early hominids, field recording, glistening examples, grisha shakhnes, jason lescalleet, luke vollar, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, organized music from thessaloniki, paul walsh, psychedelia, seth cooke, zanntone
Grisha Shakhnes – Distance and Decay (CD, organized music from thessaloniki, t24, edition of 200)
Seth Cooke – Sightseer (3” CD-r, organized music from thessaloniki, t25, edition of 100)
early hominids – palpate (CD-r, zanntone, 000)
Grisha Shakhnes is a Moscow born, Tel Aviv based individual. I’ve heard of him before as he has a record released on Glistening Examples, the label run by American tape fiddler and conceptualist Jason Lescalleet. There are some obvious similarities between the two as both use obsolete recording devices to blur and confuse what is recorded and what is an artefact of the recording – are we hearing the inner workings of a tape machine or is this a field recording made ghostly with ferric oxide?
There are no details provided with Grisha’s disc just the enigmatic, lovely artwork and title. There are sounds that hang in space as if suspended in water, their movements as slow and methodical as a giant sea creature. Indeed, when I try to put into words the sounds of this disc I invariably end up with an aquatic theme. At one point I imagined a mini-sub coming across a metropolis on the ocean floor, its occupants staring slack jawed at the enormous structures of neon lights and chrome towers churning out geysers of bubbling water. Later I hear a game of snooker played under a waterfall before the sad lament of a female voice in an alien tongue is buried beneath the gloop of machine malfunction. A somnambulant feeling is maintained throughout the 75 minute duration making it an unwise choice for your car stereo but a great soundtrack for full time dreamers.
Seth Cooke presents us with an entirely different beast on his little disc. He lists his tools as:
no recording, recording and no input field recording
No, me neither. Whilst ‘Cape Coast Seashell Bowed On Minster-on-Sea Shore’ informs us of its method of execution, the other titles reveal very little other than a rye [Editor’s note: sic, but what a great typo! I’m keeping that one in] sense of humour: ‘If You Only Listen To One FLAC This Year’ being a prime example. The mood is lonely, with voyeuristic overtones. At one point I could hear Seth releasing a caged pigeon to fly around a dimly lit multi-story car park. In other moments a faceless individual impassively views a seaside location, now devoid of human life. A sense of disquiet is achieved as a recording of, essentially, nothing is gradually enhanced with surgical precision only to be abruptly cut off just as it starts to become uncomfortable then switched for grizzled distortion swiftly followed by ghostly tones receding dimly. I have to say the more I listen to this, the more impressed I am with the craft and thought that has gone into it. Seth has used the format of a 3″ disc to fit in a lot of ideas though it never feels overcrowded.
Both artists make ample use of field recordings and both presumably use some form of processing for further confusion. Where Grisha’s sounds are in no hurry to get anywhere and are blurred by the use of cassette tapes, Seth’s sounds are clear and shrapnel sharp with abrupt editing and unexpected changes in colour and tone. Seth’s espresso to Grisha’s grande latte, if you will.
I’ve seen early hominids, the duo of Paul Walsh and Neil Campbell, play a few times and part of the pleasure is marveling at the collection of noise kit spread before them: a couple of light activated boxes that fizz and crackle in response to strobes, like an angry serpent disturbed from its slumber, and all manner of odd looking stuff, presumably soldered together in a shady basement with the fiendish duo shouting ‘it’s alive, ALIVE!’ as it bleeps itself awake. One show in particular sticks in my mind from a few years ago at the Fox and Newt in Leeds. Paul and Neil created a Technicolor psych noise juggernaut that vibrated the tiny room while threatening to levitate the whole darned boozer into another dimension. It was what I’d always hoped Incapacitants would sound like: noise as the ultimate euphoric wig flipper.
The boys are in a more restrained mood here but their electronic gadgets still stutter and belch as if barely controlled by their probing fingers. Rather than batter us with a relentless sonic barrage the sounds are allowed to rise and fall into pleasingly awkward shapes. As I am hypnotized and my head begins to nod I visualize the two of them face to face over a table of wires and boxes creating a slurry of rich and spicy noise blarts while occasionally reaching for the ever present ale that fuels them. ‘Tis good stuff I tell thee.
—ooOoo—
organized music from thessaloniki
not sure if the homs CD-r remains available – try contacting Paul via the zanntone bandcamp page or via that Twitter.
the 2014 zellaby awards
January 4, 2015 at 8:23 pm | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: adam bohman, albert materia, altar of waste, andy jarvis, ap martlet, aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, askild haugland, bbblood, beartown records, botanist, cherry row recordings, chrissie caulfield, ckdh, cory strand, crow versus crow, culver, daniel thomas, dave thomas, david keenan, dear beloved henry, death of the underground, duncan harrison, dylan nyoukis, early morning records, eye for detail, ezio piermattei, female borstal, forest of eyes, hagman, hairdryer excommunication, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, henry collins, hissing frames, joe murray, karina esp, kevin sanders, kirkstall dark matter, la mancha del pecado, lee stokoe, lf records, lucy johnson, luke vollar, luminous monsters, matching head, midwich, neil campbell, new band of the faint people, nihl, no basement is deep enough, pascal nichols, peak signal 2 noise, petals, phil smith, posset, robert ridley-shackleton, rotten tables golden meat, scott mckeating, she walks crooked, sheepscar light industrial, skullflower, smut, sophie cooper, spoils & relics, stamina nudes, stuart chalmers, taming power, the piss superstition, the red cross, the skull mask, the thomas family, the wire, tom bench, werewolf jerusalem, yol, yoni silver, zellaby awards
The deliberations are over, the ballots are burning. White smoke billows from the chimney here at Midwich Mansions. Ignore the salty wave of ‘best of 2014’ lists you saw prematurely ejaculated over an appalled December – here is the real thing. ‘Never finalised prior to January 1st’ – that’s the Zellaby pledge.
And what a conclave it has been! Scott turned up early and presented his nominations as a hyperlinked series of Discogs listings – he spoke using a vocoder throughout and would only answer our questions if we assigned them catalogue numbers. Joe’s effervescent enthusiasm remained undimmed despite a trip to Accident and Emergency following a foolhardy attempt to gargle Christmas tree baubles. New kid Luke seemed happy to fetch and carry despite our hazing pranks – oh, how we laughed sending him to Wilko’s for a tub of left handed CD-rs! All I had to do was sit in my wing-backed leather chair, fingers steepled, and pass Solomon-style judgement. My beautiful Turkish manservant took copious notes during procedures, of course, and whilst those are being transcribed I’m afraid I must begin with some sombre news: the underground is dead.
An article making this claim by David Keenan was published in the December issue of The Wire magazine and caused adverse weather in the crockery. Having finally read it I can confirm that it is, by and large, laughable. The friend who sent me a copy included this note:
Here it is. I will look forward to reading your response as it would be great to see his flimsy, self-obsessed nonsense getting torn apart.
Hmm, yeah, tempting as it is to to embark on a comprehensive rebuttal what does it really matter? I hate to disappoint but engaging with the wilful fucknuttery to be found in publications like The Wire is like arguing about the properties of phlogiston – it might be of vague historical or semantic interest to those with too much time on their hands but is ultimately pointless. My favourite response has been Tom Bench‘s (@TJDizzle) satirical summary of Keenan’s disdain, tweeted in reply to some genuine outrage from Duncan Harrison (@Young_Arms):
yr not tru underground because u have friends and sometimes talk to them about music
Lolz.
Some of the fallout has been quite interesting though. Just before Christmas, RFM started getting hits from an Italian language music site that was, on investigation, carrying an interview with Keenan in which he is asked specifically about the idea of the ‘no-audience underground’ as popularised by this blog. In his short response he manages to invent a barely recognizable straw man version of the notion, take a swing at it, miss, then step back as if he’d actually landed a punch. Admittedly, Google Translate may have knocked some nuance out of his answer but, as I was able to read it, it was good for a hearty chuckle and fuck all else.
Phil Smith, currently researching the history of Termite Club for a book chapter, wrote a thoughtful piece largely agreeing with Keenan that contained the following tragicomic scene:
One of the saddest moments of the year for me (on a lovely day) was Neil Campbell & John Tree talking about whether there was ever in our lifetime likely to be a music revolution like (say) punk again (one which Keenan seems to want), & shaking their heads in total ‘of course not’ resignation, the required kidz soaked in computer games & all manner of other entertainment drips & (I suppose) music, whatever it signifies to people, only ever welling up in such a way as part of a business move anyway.
I laughed out loud reading this. Not only have these rueful old geezers forgotten at least one revolution we’ve already had since punk (rave culture – musically game changing, actual laws passed to disrupt it) but the internet enabled golden age is orders of magnitude more significant than punk. Here’s a piece from yonks ago which begins to explain why and, for good measure, here’s another from double-yonks ago about why The Wire is hopeless too.
Neil Campbell, emboldened by Keenan’s piece and nostalgic memories of poorly received gigs unearthed in response to Phil’s Termite research, ramped up his usual silliness. On Twitter he lamented the lack of confrontation nowadays and took the piss with his #realnoaudienceunderground hashtag. I was interested to find out if there was any substance behind his bravado so devised an experiment. After waiting for Twitter to move on, I called Neil out on some random nonsense in a deliberately antagonistic manner. As expected, fight came there none. Indeed, after explaining what I was up to both publicly and via direct message (the latter, I admit, did contain the phrases ‘full of shit’ and ‘you ol’ fraud!’) I found myself unfollowed. Ah well, so much for confrontation.
(Aside: Neil has form for practice/preach discrepancy. After hearing him proclaim several times that he’d rather read a bad review than a good one I took him at his word and minced three Astral Social Club releases including the album Electric Yep. I did this with heavy heart and even ran it past Neil before posting. He replied with a jaunty ‘hey you know me, go ahead’ but after I did he deleted the RFM link from the list of friends on his Astral Social Club blog and has not submitted anything at all since. I was amused to find myself excommunicated for heresy. Ah well, so much for bad reviews.)
I get the impression that Neil might be a bit uneasy with his current status as universally loved sacred cow. Or maybe he digs it and is frustrated not to be a Wire mag cover star? Who knows? I love the guy, have done for about fifteen years, and hate to jeopardise a friendship with a shameless ad hominem attack over something so inconsequential but… dude has clearly forgotten how to take a kick to the udders.
So, in summary: those that say they want confrontation don’t, or rather only want it on their own terms or at a safe distance, those that lament the lack of revolution need only to open their eyes to what is happening around them and those that proclaim the underground dead are talking pish.
Before moving on a word about terms of engagement. Whilst I’ve enjoyed a few physical fights in the past (yeah, I may be short and out of shape but I’m fucking mental), I find this kind of swaggering jaw-jaw to be boring, childish and unproductive. Comment if you like but unless what is posted is novel, substantial and engaging I am unlikely to respond. I won’t be tweeting about it under any circumstances. I have washed my hands and will need an irresistible reason to get ’em dirty again.
—ooOoo—
BOY! WHERE ARE THOSE NOTES? Oh, thank you. Have a shortbread biscuit. Right then, shall we crack on with the fun bit?
—ooOoo—
Radio Free Midwich presents The Zellaby Awards 2014
Thank you for bearing with us. Firstly, an apology: due to, y’know, austerity n’ that, this year’s ceremony will be taking place on the swings in the playground at the muddy end of the estate. Nominations will be scratched into the paint of the railings and refreshments will be whatever cider Luke can prise from the grip of local vagrants.
Secondly, the rules: to be eligible in one of the following five categories this music needs to have been heard by one of us for the first time in 2014. It does not need to have been released in 2014. As the purpose of these awards is to spread the good news about as many quality releases as possible, should an artist win in one category they will not be placed in any of the others. I do not vote for any of my own releases, nor any releases that I had a hand in, er…, releasing (with one notable exception this year). My three comrades are free to ignore these rules and write about what they like. The price paid for this freedom is that I, as editor, have final say. Thus the awards are the product of the idiosyncratic taste of yours truly with input from my co-writers along the way.
A couple of omissions explained. Long term readers may be shocked to find no mention of previous winners Ashtray Navigations or the piss superstition. Phil and Mel have been preoccupied this year with moving house, full time unenjoyment and various celebrations of the AshNav 20th anniversary and have not been as prolific as nutcase fans such as myself would like. There has been one cassette of new material, Aero Infinite, which, to my shame, I only became aware of recently and do not yet own. Believe me, the pain is fierce. Bookies have already stopped taking bets on their planned four-disc retrospective winning everything next time out.
Julian and Paul have shared a split live tape with Broken Arm and had a CD-r, The Dialled Number, The Bone-Breaker, The Heavenly Sword, out on Sheepscar Light Industrial but, in my humble opinion, their defining release of 2014 was getting nothing to appear on the developed film, a mighty album which is sadly ineligible for this year’s awards because it was released by me on fencing flatworm recordings as their ‘prize’ for winning album of the year last time. See, complicated isn’t it?
There are also many releases on the guilt-inducing review pile that I suspect could have been contenders had I found time to digest them properly: apologies to Ian Watson, Prolonged Version, Troy Schafer, Seth Cooke etc. and thanks for your continued patience. For the first time, two entries in this year’s poptastic final chart are previously unreviewed on RFM. Mysterious, eh?
OK, enuff with the preamble. The first category is…
5. The “I’d never heard of you 10 minutes ago but now desperately need your whole back catalogue” New-to-RFM Award
Joe votes for Yoni Silver:
I heard Yoni Silver play a solo bass clarinet set on November 1st this year. Over the course of 20 minutes I blinked repeatedly and snapped my fingers; my mouth hung open like a codfish and eventually my eyes filled with hot tears. I’d emerged from a jazz-hole that ranged from barely-there, reductionist ‘hummmm’, to wet-chop dribble/spittle outta the brassy pipes, to full-bore Ayler-esque gospel skronk. It was so good I didn’t just clap and holla…I vowed to start a record label to immediately box this shit up. Yoni’s discs are thin on the ground but live shows with proper jazz cats and beards like PWHMOBS are gathering pace. Watch out!
Luke goes for Botanist:
Ever fantasized about a forest dwelling black metal troll singing songs about plant life on drums and hammered dulcimer only? Me too. Well, fantasize no longer: he exists. Just when your jaded ears smugly tell you they’ve heard it all along comes the Botanist.
…but anyone paying attention will have already guessed that the winner this year is Taming Power.
I might have indulged in some ill advised Campbell-baiting above but I am profoundly grateful to Neil for taking the time to introduce me to the world of Askild Haugland. This quiet Norwegian has amassed a sizeable back catalogue of tape and vinyl releases on his own Early Morning Records, most of which were recorded, edited and annotated around the turn of the century and have remained largely unheralded since. His work – created using tape recorders, cassette players, shortwave radios, electric guitars and the like – is perfection viewed from shifting angles, filtered through prisms. His patience and dedication to uncovering every nuance of his processes are truly inspiring. It has been an enormous pleasure to promote his music to a (slightly) wider audience – exactly what this blog is all about. The chap himself seems lovely too. Read more: Neil’s accidental guest post, reviews, more reviews, Early Morning Records catalogue.
…and when you return we can move on to…
4. The “Stokoe Cup”, given for maintaining quality control over a huge body of work making it impossible to pick individual releases in an end of year round up
Joe makes a compelling case for the Peak Signal 2 Noise broadcasts:
If Cathy Soreny and her Sheffield-based gladiators had released ten 25 minute compilation tapes in a year featuring the creamy froth of the N-AU we’d stand to attention and sing a rousing song. To create ‘visual cassettes’ for your telly and computer screen and navigate the machinations of the community TV industry and come up with such a thoroughly curated, imaginatively shot and god-damn funny series is just the bee’s knees. PS2N has opened another glossy window into the N-AU.
Luke keeps it pithy:
The Stokoe Cup should clearly go to Lee Stokoe. ‘The underground is dead ‘ announces David Keenan in The Wire this month ‘shut up you prat’ is the reply from Radio Free Midwich.
Scott agrees:
Predictable enough, I HAVE to say Lee Stokoe. Browsing my discogs list for 2014 acquisitions it’s virtually all Matching Head tapes – either the new ones or tapes from the 90s that I didn’t already have. Its consistent to the point of sheer ridiculousness.
However, the editor has other ideas. This year’s winner is Daniel Thomas.
Dan’s output in 2014 has been prodigious. He even wins in two categories that don’t exist: ‘1016’ the opener on Enemy Territory is my track of the year (go on, play it whilst reading the rest of this article) and the ‘flower press’ edition of That Which Sometimes Falls Between Us / As Light Fades put together by Dave Thomas (no relation) for its release on Kirkstall Dark Matter wins packaging of the year too. The latter album is perhaps the definitive expression of ‘extraction music‘ – the sub-genre I defined as a way of herding the work of Dan, Dave, Kev Sanders and other fellow travellers into a manageable fold of headspace – and one of at least three projects involving Dan that could have been album of the year. For the record, the other two are Hagman’s Number Mask on LF Records and the remarkable Dub Variations by The Thomas Family in another beautiful package hand crafted by Crow Versus Crow:
It is the bead of sweat on the brow of the tightrope walker. It is a time-lapse film of dew condensing onto a cobweb.
Dan shows no signs of slowing, nor of relinquishing his choke-tight quality control. I cannot wait to hear what he has for us in 2015.
…and now a favourite moment for the editor:
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award
Scott goes for a far-flung ambassador:
It has to be Miguel Pérez. For making RFM a global concern, and being full of passion, he’s the man.
Joe, as ever, finds this a tough one to pin down. He suggests…
…we should say a thank you to all the readers and contributors … to everyone who has waited patiently for a review/carried on reading without sending us hate mail…
…which is a sentiment I share, of course, but this year I think one particular set of contributors has to be recognized in this category. God knows how 27 different acts are going to share the gong though because the winners are…
The artists who submitted tracks to eye for detail – the midwich remixes album:
Andy Jarvis, ap martlet, Aqua Dentata, Breather, Brian Lavelle, Chrissie Caulfield (of RFM faves Helicopter Quartet), Clive Henry, Dale Cornish, Daniel Thomas, devotionalhallucinatic, DR:WR (Karl of The Zero Map), dsic, foldhead (Paul Walsh – who accidentally started it all), Hardworking Families (Tom Bench), In Fog (Scott McKeating of this parish), John Tuffen (of Orlando Ferguson), Michael Clough (who also provided cover art), Michael Gillham, Neil Campbell (Astral Social Club), Panelak, Paul Watson (BBBlood), posset (Joe Murray also of RFM), Simon Aulman (pyongyang plastics), the piss superstition, Van Appears, Yol, and ZN.
This year I finally joined Twitter which, as a wise-cracking, smart-arse, mentally unstable narcissist with self-esteem issues, turned out to be a perfect platform for me (though for those exact same reasons I think I’ll have to exercise a bit more caution with it in future). One of the first things that happened was a throwaway comment about a midwich remix project ballooning into an actual album that had to be retroactively called into existence. The final release six weeks later contained 27 re-workings of tracks from my back catalogue and lasted a total of 3 hours 40 minutes. The process was humbling, exhilarating, joyful and unprecedented in my personal experience.
The album remains available here (along with more detail as to its construction). If you don’t already have it, I recommend you treat yourself with that Christmas money from Gran. I’m charging a fiver for the download and all dough raised is being given to The Red Cross. The total donated so far, after PayPal and Bandcamp fees, is something like £180. When I reached a ton I had a giant-cheque-handing-over-ceremony, again following whims blurted out on Twitter.
Many, many thanks to all involved – you are elite members of the pantheon of the righteous.
—ooOoo—
BOY!! DIM THE LIGHTS. What? Oh yes, we’re outside aren’t we. Fetch me a shortbread biscuit then. What do you mean there are none left? Well, just give me the one you are holding. Gah! The impertinence! Anyway, finally we come to the two main categories…
—ooOoo—
2. The Label of the Year Award
Joe goes for No Basement is Deep Enough:
You could easily mistake No Basement is Deep Enough’s tape goof for a zany Zappa-esque prank. But peel away the layers; brush the fringe to one side, open that single plush tit and you are rewarded with some amazing music. Almost like a wonky Finders Keepers NBIDE have unveiled some new ghouls and re-released some remarkable old gizzards (Alvaro – The Chilean with the Singing Nose, Ludo Mich and Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson) in frankly outrageous packaging. Old or new, experimental classicists or gutter-dwelling hobo these gonks are pure trippin’ for ears.
Yeah, I’ve been involved as a one of these gonks this year but I think that means I can give you an extra bit of insight into how curator Ignace De Bruyn and designer Milja Radovanović are such wonderful human beings. I told them about getting some mentions in The Wire (Ed – you’ll love this) and they didn’t give a shit. “Ha, we always get mentioned in The Wire without any clue how, what, where, when” said Ignace, “and let’s keep it like that” he chortled into his waffle.
Luke narrows it down to two:
Beartown Records. A consistent champion of no audience sounds and nice and cheap, they sent me a parcel addressed to Luke ‘ the sick’ Vollar which contained a postcard with ‘sorry just sorry’ written on it. For this reason they are my label of the year.
Also a mention for Altar of Waste. I find it comforting to know that somewhere in North America there is a guy called Cory Strand transforming his favourite films / TV programmes / music into insanely limited and lovingly presented sets. Twenty disc drone interpretation of Harry Potter limited to five copies!? He also releases loads of drone/HNW discs that are lovely items to look at and listen to including my album of the year [SPOILER REMOVED – Ed]
Scott apologises:
Sorry, Matching Head again.
Luminous worthies, for sure, but I reckon my choice has been phosphorescent:
The winner is hairdryer excommunication.
The solo venture of Kevin Sanders has released, I believe, 26 items in the calendar year 2014. Unbelievably, during the same time, he has also had his creations released by other labels, has played live, has moved house and job along a lengthy diagonal line from North to South and has let fly with a gazillion opaque tweets. This guy’s heart must beat like a fucking sparrow’s.
But never mind the girth, feel the quality. Kev’s hairdryer excommunication sits alongside Lee Stokoe’s Matching Head as an absolute exemplar of the no-audience underground micro-label as expression of personal vision. Each release is a new page in the atlas mapping the world he is presenting to us; each trembling drone, each nihilistic/ecstatic scything fuzz is a contour line. Like all great labels, hXe is greater than the sum of its parts and only gets more compelling as those parts collect and combine. I appreciate that this might appear daunting for the newbie so here’s five to be starting with – you’ll thank me for it.
Now you see why I have to strictly enforce my ‘win allowable in only one category’ rule. I could have created a top 40 (!) that just contained releases by, or involving, Askild, Dan and Kev. Astonishing. So, leaving those guys sat chatting under the climbing frame, we finally come to the blue riband, best in show, gold medal event:
1. The Album of the Year Award
Woo! Lists! Click on the album title and you will be taken to the original RFM review (if such a thing exists) or another applicable page (if not) where you will find details of the release (label, whatnot) and, most importantly, how to go about hearing/purchasing these marvels.
First to the lectern is Mighty Joe Murray:
It’s taken a real effort to whittle this down but here’s my top 5 in order:
1. The New Band of the Faint People – The Man Who Looked at the Moon
Keep yr Wounded Nurse. These micro-pieces are stitched together with a domestic hand juggling fly agaric.
2. Rotten Tables, Golden Meat – My Nose is Broken
This cheeky release opened a new stomach pouch and gassed itself in…yeasty and fruity. Biggest smiles of the year.
3. Pascal – Nihilist Chakai House
It goes, “tk tk tk tk tk …. po/po/po – ping.” Blistering like hot metal pipes; fragile like seaweed.
4. Spoils & Relics – Embed and then Forget
Stream-of-consciousness becomes conscious itself…a living, breathing music as fresh as green parsley.
5. CKDH – Yr Putrid Eyeballs/Fungal Air Creeping Adders
The most violently restrained listen of the year by a long shot. Needle sharp. Music to break radios.
Scott briefly interjects:
Skullflower – Draconis
As sylph-like a heavyweight as you’re ever likely to hear.
Now over to the office junior Luke:
Album of the year…
Midwich – The Swift
Utterly sublime floating tones, get your cranky toddler off to sleep in minutes, limited to 15 copies only?! Madness. [Editor’s note: ha! What is more shameful? Luke sucking up to his editor or me for publishing it? Yes, I know its me – shut up.]
The rest:
Spoils & Relics – Embed and then Forget
culver & posset – black gash
Skullflower – Draconis
Aqua Dentata – The Cygnet Procambarus
Robert Ridley Shackleton / Werewolf Jerusalem / She Walks Crooked – April Fools
Ashtray Navigations – Aero Infinite
Yol – Headless Chicken Shits out Skull Shaped Egg
Dylan Nyoukis – Yellow Belly
Ezio Piermattei – Turismodentale
..and last of all, to your faithful editor. I have chosen twenty items (well, twenty three including cheats). The first half are presented in no particular order, the second set in the traditional ‘top ten run down’ ending with the actual, objectively verified best album of the year. In my opinion.
- Henry Collins – Music of Sound
- Smut – Vulgar Tongue
- Luminous Monsters – On Rubied Talons
- Forest of Eyes – Winter Wakeneth
- Adam Bohman – Music and words 2
- BBBlood – No Religion at the Salad Bar
- New Band of the Faint People – The Man Who Looked at the Moon
- Karina ESP – A single moment, repeated
- La Mancha Del Pecado – Witchskinner
- Stamina Nudes – Discipline of Exploding Bridges
10. NIHL / Female Borstal / Dear Beloved Henry / Albert Materia
The perils of the split tape, eh? I dug the Female Borstal side of the former, sadly didn’t get on with Albert Materia on the latter. However the sides by NIHL and Dear Beloved Henry were bloody marvellous and, if they’d appeared on the same object would have rocketed up these rankings. So I’m imagining an ideal world in which they did. NIHL got a haiku:
Seduced by darkness
beyond guttering arc-light –
like moths, like dead souls.
Praise for Dear Beloved Henry – equally heartfelt, less formatting:
…deceptively simple in execution: a flowing electronic drone groove with a vaguely East Asian feel – like 1970s Krautrock that has been listening to a bunch of gamelan LPs – works through the variations. However, every so often a magnetic pull distorts it off course and adds an intriguing, complicating layer of discordance. It’s like it was mastered to VHS and someone is now messing with the tracking. Is this an artefact of duping it to an old recycled tape or is this woosiness wholly intended? The result is magical either way.
9. Helicopter Quartet – Leading Edges
…the album expresses a profound vision with an austere but soulful beauty. Imagine a slate-blue version of Ashtray Navigations psychedelics or a restrained take on the intensity of, say, Swans without the self-loathing bombast. The band may jokingly self-describe as ‘semi-melodic mournfulness’ but this is a deeply serious music with, I think, plenty to say about the difficult, forlorn, wonderful, awe-inspiring condition we find ourselves in.
…Helicopter Quartet are, to my tired ears, a near-perfect example of how musicianship can be harnessed in a noise context. Chrissie and Mike balance their considerable skills with an understanding of how to use noise to pluck the soul of the listener and have it vibrate with a slightly discordant, emotionally complicated, seriously intended, profoundly satisfying resonance.
8. Sophie Cooper – Our Aquarius
When I wrote in the RFM Christmas message to the nation…
To be transported by a work of art – to be lifted from yourself, your surroundings and placed elsewhere for the duration – is a profound experience and, as someone who has trouble with self-sabotaging mental illness, one that I greatly appreciate. Catch me right and the bus to work is swapped for a magic carpet skimming the treetops. Find me in a susceptible mood and waiting at a pedestrian crossing becomes standing at the bedside of an elderly relative, brimful with a mixture of love and trepidation. Listening to music pans the muddy water sloshing inside my head, nuggets of gold and squirming, glistening creatures are uncovered. It – thus: you – is a constant source of revelation, of insight and of inspiration.
…it was no coincidence that I had been listening to this album a lot. My apologies to Sof for not getting around to reviewing it but, hey, Uncle Mark did over at Idwal Fishers. The cad suggests that it is ‘by no means a flawless release’ but if he dare repeat that in my vicinity I shall strike his cheek with my glove.
7. Stuart Chalmers – imaginary musicks vol. 1
The world his music describes is fully formed and the listener’s experience of it is immersive and ego-dissolving but carefully placed ticks – a filter echo, a moment of dictaphonic skwee – bring you back to the surface by foregrounding its artificiality. It’s like a South Sea Islands version of Philip K. Dick’s Time out of Joint. Imagine walking on the golden beach, admiring the dancing palms, looking out over the glassy ocean to the setting sun only for it all to suddenly disappear and be replaced with a featureless white room and a scrap of paper at your feet with the words ‘tropical paradise’ typed on it. As with all the very best stuff: the more I listen to it, the more I want to listen to it.
6. The Skull Mask – Nocturno Mar / Sunburn
Another terrific year for the prolific Miguel Pérez, RFM’s Mexican cousin. From the bloody-minded free noise of his improv duo ZN to the incense-and-bitumen ritual drone of The Will of Nin Girima (released on new label-to-watch Invisible City Records), I doubt a week has passed without me spending some time in his company.
My favourite of his projects is The Skull Mask and these two recordings were released either side of Miguel’s return to acoustic guitar. The former is made of enveloping, tidal drones containing half-submerged reversed vocals. It can prove oppressively menacing or hypnotically soothing depending on your mood as you encounter it. Just like the night sea it is named for. The latter is ravaged, desert psychedelia improvised with raw acoustic guitar. There is no shade under which Miguel, or the listener, can hide – this is completely exposed music and is riveting.
5. Yol – Headless Chicken Shits out Skull Shaped Egg
From the preamble to a review by Joe:
For the uninitiated Yol has carefully and modestly created his own footnote in the frantic world of kinetic poetry. Imagine tiny fragile words battered with broken bottles. Innocent syllables and posh sibilance swashes getting clotted and clumped together. Those classy phonics all chopped up and smashed; ground out like spent fags and stuttered wetly in a barely controlled rage…
Musical accompaniment is of the most primitive and brutal kind. Forget the chest-beating Harsh Noise dullards, this is frighteningly naked and exposed. Short blasts of destruction come from broken machinery, sheared plastic shards, bits of old hoover and burnt cutlery. A more dicky commentator would say recordings are made in carefully selected site specific locations. The truth? Yol’s breaking into empty factory units and shouting his rusty head off.
4. Spoils & Relics – Sins of Omission / Embed and then Forget
The closest the RFM staff come to ‘critical consensus’. I can’t decide which of these releases I prefer so you are getting ’em both. From my review of the former:
Their music denies narrative … The palette used is a largely abstract selection of found, domestic and field recordings as well as sound produced by the various electronic implements that make up their ‘kit’. The source of any given element is usually (and presumably deliberately) unclear. They are examining the innards of everything, poking around where noise happens and taking notes. It is more akin to the meta-musical experiments of AMM and their progeny.
Don’t be scared off – this music is not dry and scratchy, it is layered with humour (ranging from the wry raised eyebrow to banana skin slapstick), tension and a whip-smart self-awareness that speaks of the telepathic relationship between the band members when performing. A piece by Spoils & Relics is about sound in the same way a piece by Jackson Pollock is about paint.
From Joe’s review of the latter:
There is a constant flow of ideas all itchy with life; reminding me of a similar feeling – running your finger over a gravestone, nails gouging the names. I’m caught up in a multi-sensory melting of meaning into a constant ‘now’ … Listeners who favour that hi-fidelity will be delighted. Beards who dwell in the no-fi world of clanking tape jizz are going to be entranced. Skronk fans will be be-calmed. Zen droners will wake up refreshed and sharp.
3. Ap Martlet – Analog Computer
The title is perfect – it calls to mind a room-sized, valve-run difference engine humming with contented menace. These three tracks seem less compositions than iterations of an algorithm set in motion by a wonky punchcard being slotted into the machine upside-down. ‘Comdyna’ and ‘Thurlby’ are both rhythmic in an abstract sense – the latter being a low impact step aerobics class for retired ABC Warriors, the former an exercise in patience and discipline as a series of low-slung tones are held until they start to feedback, then released, then repeated. The final track, ‘Heathkit’, is a coruscating, brain-scouring, fuzz-drone. It is the kind of sound that in a workshop you would wear ear protectors to dampen but here it is presented for our contemplation and admiration.
2. culver – plague hand
[Editor’s note: a sudden attack of prudishness has stopped me from reproducing the covers of this release. Scans can be found accompanying the original review.]
I need to account for Matching Head catalogue number 200: plague hand by culver, a twin tape set containing four side-long tracks totalling, you guessed it, 200 minutes. Each of these four untitled pieces (the sides are labelled a,b,c, and d and that’s all you get) is a sombre Culvanian documentary: a long, wordless panoramic camera sweep taking in the scenery with an unblinking 360 degree turn. Each is different from the last, all are wholly involving and will have the attentive listener crowing ‘aww… man, I was digging that!’ and reaching to flip or rewind as soon as the track ends. I say ‘attentive listener’ but really there is no other kind because you have no choice in the matter. This isn’t background music – allow yourself to get caught and your ego will be dissolved like a fly in a pitcher plant. It is a masterwork and a fitting celebration of the numerically notable point it represents.
[Editor’s second note: Lee later told me that this is in fact all one track with various movements. Just so as you know.]
…and the winner of the Zellaby Award for Album of the Year 2014 is:
1. Aqua Dentata – The Cygnet Procambarus
My review took the form of a science fiction (very) short story. Eddie’s music does that kind of thing to your head. Here it is:
In some future hospital you are recovering from a horrible accident. Within a giant glass vitrine, you are suspended in a thick, healing gel – an amniotic fluid rich in bioengineered enzymes and nanotech bots all busy patching you up. From the waist down you are enmeshed in metal, a scaffold of stainless steel pins keeping your shape whilst the work continues. The first twenty minutes of Eddie’s half hour describes your semi-conscious state of prelapsarian bliss, played out over dark undertones of bitter irony: every moment spent healing is, of course, a moment closer to confronting the terrible event that put you there.
During the final ten minutes the tank empties, bizarrely, from the bottom up. Pins are pushed from healing wounds and tinkle and clatter as they collect below you. Attending staff shuffle nervously but maintain a respectful distance and near silence. As the gel clears your head, your eyes slowly peel open, the corners of your mouth twitch. You look out through the glass at the fishbowled figures in the room. You weakly test the restraints you suddenly feel holding you in place, and with a sickening flash it all comes back and you rememb———
No-one in what this blog lovingly refers to as the ‘no-audience underground’ is producing work as consistently brilliant as Eddie Nuttall. The back catalogue of his project Aqua Dentata – growing with the alien beauty and frustrating slowness of a coral reef – contains not a wasted moment. His work – quiet, long-form dronetronics with metallic punctuation – is executed with the patience and discipline of a zen monk watching a spider construct a cobweb. Best dressed man to feature on this blog too.
—ooOoo—
So, that is that. Eddie’s prize, should he wish to take me up on it, is for Aqua Dentata to have the one and only release on the otherwise dormant fencing flatworm recordings some time in 2015. I’ll keep you posted on negotiations.
Oh, and should any of you be interested in how this blog does – y’know, number of hits and all that – I’ve made the annual report provided by WordPress public and you can see it here.
Heartfelt best wishes for the New Year, comrades. All is love.
Rob Hayler, January 2015.
midwichmas: live at the radiofreemidwich 5th birthday shindig
December 2, 2014 at 12:57 pm | Posted in live music, midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: aqua dentata, daniel thomas, dave thomas, drone, eddie nuttall, electronica, forgets, hagman, human combustion engine, improv, john clyde-evans, kroyd, live music, mel o'dubhslaine, midwich, mitch, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, phil todd, psychedelia, shameless self-congratulation, uk muzzlers, wharf chambers
The Radio Free Midwich 5th Birthday Shindig: Hagman, Human Combustion Engine, midwich, UK Muzzlers, forgets live at Wharf Chambers, Leeds, 29th November 2014
So, yeah, it was a blast. Thanks to all who came and special, glowing thanks to Mitch of forgets who put it together then allowed me to hijack his efforts for my self-congratulation. All the sets were terrific and, despite the usual pre-gig nerves and some (fully justified) technical worries about crackling pots, I couldn’t be happier with how mine turned out. Good crowd too, despite ‘rival’ gigs nearby (PAH! <spits on floor> I HAVE NO RIVALS! <short pause, sheepishly looks around, cleans up spit>). Some of my typically half-arsed and incompetent photo-journalism follows below. Let’s face it, I was only really concerned that my t-shirt and balloon were documented…
Oh, and in reply to the two comrades who wondered if this was now going to be an annual event the answer is: no, not unless each year another benefactor wants to come along and organize it for me. That said, my vanity did bubble to the surface on receipt of this riff from Eddie Nuttall of Aqua Dentata:
I propose Midwichmas as a name for this. Midnight mass on Midwichmas Eve can adopt a tradition of no carol singing, but perhaps a 4-hour recital of sine waves, bowed baking trays, and warpy cassette hiss. This can be followed by the traditional exchange of photocopied collages, also known as Midwichmas cards.
On Midwichmas morning all the children will excitedly gather round the Midwichmas Tree (a petrified oak) to exchange CDRs in edition of 7 or something, usually recorded an hour or so prior. These are presented in the traditional Midwichmas wrapping paper substitute, heavily weathered Poundland Jiffy bags that have been recycled across England half a dozen times or more.
A traditional afternoon Midwichmas film would perhaps be like a Christmas film, but probably substituting Bing Crosby for Duncan Harrison.
Heh, wouldn’t that be glorious, eh?
OK, on with the showbusiness…
Trowser Carrier had to cancel (trapped in a giant laundry basket, apparently) so Hagman kicked off by recreating the pose from every other photo I’ve ever taken of Dave and Dan Thomas (no relation) ever. Their set was a gruff, bassy, throb – like the hot breath of a big cat as it licks you with its sandpaper tongue. I swayed purposefully.
Human Combustion Engine (Mel and Phil of Ashtray Navigations) teased out some tangerine psyche-synth with semi-improvised power moves. I slapped my thighs in time with the pulse. Occult science.
…and then:
…it was SHOWTIME folks!
I thanked everyone for their support and played a 20 minute set comprising two new ‘songs’. These have been recorded and will be released alongside their live versions on my Bandcamp site soon. You will be kept informed. About three minutes in I remembered the helium balloon I had stashed under my table and releasing it (see pic above) got a ripple of amused applause. This moment was such a coup de théâtre that my friend Alice later said it was…
…better than the Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Surely, no rational observer could disagree.
A word about my rad t-shirt. The logo reads ‘Sonic Circuits’ and the tagline runs thus: ‘Avant Garde Music For The No Audience Underground’. Yes! My philosophy vindicated with leisurewear! These garments were produced in celebration of the Sonic Circuits Festival 2014, organised by the genre-busting promoters of the same name based in Washington, DC. My twitter bro’ and extraordinary digi-crate-digger Phong Tran (@boxwalla) appears to have convinced ’em that the slogan was bang on and, in return for lifting the idea, a shirt winged its way across the Atlantic. So cool. Fits real nice too.
Next were ‘headliners’ UK Muzzlers. Neil Campbell and John Clyde-Evans played caveman Oi! over a hilarious tape collage. There was much whooping, thumping and brute racket. It was as if Happy Flowers had grown up but were still refusing to take their medication. The future of rock and roll, possibly.
Finally, Mitch, who organised the night, and Kroyd, who’d been on the door, dropped their admin roles, took to the stage and brought the evening to a close as forgets.
The noise purists don’t like this…
…Kroyd began, and, looking at the half dozen people who remained in the room, he clearly had a point. The throng appreciating UK Muzzlers had melted away into the ‘beer garden’, the bar or had sprinted for last trains and buses leaving just this attentive elite. Ah bollocks to the lot a’ya – I fucking love this band. This is what they do: Kroyd tells stories and recites semi-improvised prose poetry whilst Mitch soundtracks it with improv noise guitar. A comrade who shall remain nameless worried that Kroyd’s observations were ‘hit and miss’, which I concede, but it all adds to the cumulative effect of the performance. People who put their heads around the door and think ‘hmmm don’t fancy this’ are missing out on sharp, funny, sometimes very moving stories and, quite often, a fantastic crescendo of flailing, bewildered despair that tops out the set. I recommend sitting the fuck down and listening.
…and that was that so we packed up, said our goodbyes and tumbled out onto the street. Dan Thomas, taking pity on a tired old man who’d been up since 4.30am caring for his boy, made sure I got home safely. In the morning Thomas had a shiny helium balloon to play with…
—ooOoo—
UK Muzzlers (dunno – try via Astral Social Club)
best gig poster ever, innit?
November 25, 2014 at 11:10 am | Posted in live music, midwich, new music, no audience underground | 1 CommentTags: ashtray navigations, astral social club, daniel thomas, dave thomas, drone, electronica, forgets, hagman, human combustion engine, john clyde-evans, kroyd, mel o'dubhslaine, midwich, mitch, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, phil todd, shameless self-congratulation, trowser carrier, uk muzzlers, wharf chambers
Hey folks – just a final reminder that the above is happening this Saturday. Only midwich show of 2014! (Un)official RFM 5th birthday shindig! Also, rehijacked by Phil and Mel of Ashtray Navigations as their joint birthday party too! Check out this poster from gig promoter Mitch! It’s a design classic! Can you believe it only took him 15 minutes to make?! See y’all there!
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