scrap(p)ing the barrel (nut)
February 8, 2016 at 12:49 pm | Posted in art, blog info, no audience underground, not bloody music | Leave a commentTags: dex wright, dr. adolf steg, gary simmons, hiroshima yeah!, joe murray, joined by wire, julian bradley, mark ritchie, michael clough, microzine, paul walsh, stephen woolley, tape noise, the barrel nut, zanntone
Oh well,
[Editor sighs, picks at bits of glu-stik and newsprint stuck to his palms, sucks blood from site of paper cut]
…that was fun, eh?
It is with sadness that I announce that the new, long delayed, issue #14 of The Barrel Nut will be the last and, aside from a handful of paper copies for contributors, will be distributed in digital formats only. This is a drag but a triple whammy death blow has been dealt by a) time poverty b) my access to ‘free’ photocopying being curtailed by, *ahem*, circumstances and c) silly postal charges.
Regarding this final point, it is profoundly depressing to see the offline world of mail art, zine culture and other barter economies being constricted by the prohibitive cost of shifting physical objects. Plenty of fun remains to be had, of course, and I salute those still at it, but I am joining the retreat. Living with a privatised postal service sucks major donkey balls and if you reside in a country where your national service is being run down/softened up to make its flesh palatable to those vultures then I suggest you fight against it.
OK, freed from the obligations of its usual microzine format this issue is presented as a series of full page pdfs/jpegs to be downloaded and/or printed out by the reader. Featured artwork is a representative sample of remaining submissions and the names will be familiar to regular readers – I hope you are entertained. This, and all previous issues, will be available via the The Barrel Nut page (tabbed above) until the coming alien invasion unleashes its server-destroying electro-magnetic pulse. Roll call:
- The cover is by me,
- page two is more scanner/photocopier EVP phenomena filtered by Michael Clough,
- Dex Wright, a.k.a. Tape Noise, mauls ferric oxide on page three,
- weird symmetries by Zanntone’s Paul Walsh slide across page four,
- page five presents the collaged thoughts of Gary Simmons and Mark Ritchie of the print-only Hiroshima Yeah! zine (donbirnam@hotmail.com),
- Stephen Woolley of Joined By Wire leaves tire tracks across page six,
- deep-fried brainwaves crackle up and down page seven, courtesy of Adolf Steg
- …and lastly we have typographical and cut-up dada from Julian Bradley and RFM’s own Joe Murray to play over the credits.
It’s a belting finale, that’s for sure. Here’s the files – individual page scans are of better quality but the ‘whole thing as one pdf file’ is handier for those busy zine readers on the go:
Individual pages as jpegs:
Individual pages as pdfs:
14 – 5 – Gary Simmons and Mark Ritchie
14 – 8 – Julian Bradley and Joe Murray, credits
The whole thing as a pdf:
Many thanks to all those who have been involved – it’s been a right laugh.
—ooOoo—
murderous, telepathic, golden eyed, alien children the world over recommend the barrel nut #13!
April 15, 2015 at 9:58 am | Posted in art, no audience underground, not bloody music | Leave a commentTags: collage, cut-ups, dada, dr. adolf steg, foldhead, gary simmons, hiroshima yeah!, illustration, jake blanchard, mark ritchie, midwich cuckoos, paul walsh, posset, spon, village of the damned, visual art, zanntone, zines
Fellow travellers, pilgrims, pray sit and give thanks for the latest issue of The Barrel Nut. It appears from nowhere today, like manna from heaven, and offers a morsel of psychic sustenance in this desert of unsatisfying blandness.
Yep, the microzine voted ‘most likely to go through a spin cycle’ by The Agitator (samizdat journal of the anarcho-launderette network) is back to blow your mind for an instant, then be stuck in the back pocket of your jeans, then forgotten about, then washed, shredded and ruefully picked out of your soggy undies whilst sat on the kitchen floor. Life affirming stuff!
In lucky #13 you will find beaked appliances on the cover by me, a digi-kaleidoscope view of The Barrel Nun by zanntone‘s Paul Walsh (a fat-fingered Google search mistake treated as artistic opportunity), a hyperkinetic collage of speed and muscle by Dr. Adolf Steg culled (mainly) from the 2000AD comic strip Nemesis the Warlock – an ever relevant satire on intolerance and xenophobia, and and art/collage double-whammy combo cheerfully reminding us that life is full of pain by the Hiroshima Yeah! brothers Gary Simmons and Mark Ritchie. On the reverse, I am delighted to present a full-page poster by ace illustrator Jake Blanchard of Tor Press inspired by John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos (a key text for RFM, of course) and the film version Village of the Damned.
For those who might be new to this publishing phenomenon. Here’s the standard blurb:
The Barrel Nut is a single sheet of A4 paper cleverly folded to make an eight panel (per side), A7 pamphlet. Paper copies will be distributed to anyone who wants one, or who has expressed an interest in the past. I’ll bring some to gigs I attend and a bunch will be passed around by those with a similar love of the post.
Should you be so inclined then you are very welcome to download and print out your own. Links to the latest issue in jpeg and pdf formats are below (you may need to trim the print-out down one edge to make it fold properly). Some more context, assembly instructions and previous issues can be found on The Barrel Nut’s own page (tabbed above).
Should you wish to contribute artwork then I would be very grateful indeed. Submissions need to look OK when reproduced as a black and white photocopy and be 7cm by 10cm in size (or scalable to roughly those dimensions). Good quality scans attached to an email are fine, originals sent in the post ideal. Please get in touch.
Contributor and subscriber copies will be in the post ‘in due course’. For those who can’t wait, or don’t mind a bit of salt-and-shake style DIY, then print out your own from the links below:
The Barrel Nut issue #13 FRONT as a pdf file
The Barrel Nut issue #13 BACK as a pdf file
The Barrel Nut issue #13 FRONT as a jpeg file
The Barrel Nut issue #13 BACK as a jpeg file
Artwork for future issues always welcome – please feel free to drop me a line.
blood washed from the map: new from ashtray navigations
April 13, 2015 at 11:03 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ashtray navigations, mel o'dubhslaine, memoirs of an aesthete, new music, no audience underground, noise, paul walsh, phil todd, psychedelia, zanntone
Ashtray Navigations – Fluctuants (CD-r, Memoirs of an Aesthete, MOA 2014-1, edition of 75 or download)
Ashtray Navigations – Live on Planet Carpet (CD-r, Zanntone)
[Editor’s note: see my review of Aero Infinite for part one of this story. Sort of.]
This punch has been spiked,
thought the General. She looked over at the band – hard rocking some deep psych – and allowed herself a moment of wry amusement. She decided it must have been them, remembering similar pranks she’d played herself during a reckless youth. It didn’t matter – she had military grade nanotech scrubbing her blood clean at all times but she’d dialled back her biosecurity a notch – it was a party after all – and some of the more interesting side effects were making themselves felt. It was the second time today that she had been reminded of her childhood…
—
The invitation to negotiate had been a surprise. Everyone had welcomed the truce that calmed their warring nations but all could see it was fragile. Only the most optimistic strategists had thought it might be formalised. Yet here they were: safe passage had been guaranteed, an opulent setting secured. The week had gone well – teams on both sides were expertly prepared, aware of all the snagging points and ready with innovative compromises. Blood had been washed from the map.
Throughout proceedings the General, her presence important but largely symbolic, had been observing the actual play of power amongst the attendees. In particular she watched one man, modestly dressed in black, flit in and out of the shadows. This man was always present when a decision was made, always at the ear of his superiors. He knew what should be said, when and by whom and quietly ensured that it was. Not wanting to show her hand by asking his name the General referred to him privately as ‘the Clerk’.
How do I get him to work for me?
She wondered.
—
On this, the final day of the talks, the General rose early, as was her habit, and on a whim walked down to the banqueting hall which was already being decorated in preparation for the evening’s festivities. Her eye was caught by a large, deftly arranged wreath of flowers, stalks woven into a ring. It was maybe ten feet across and was lying flat on the floor awaiting servants with ladders to fix it to the wall. Her usual expression of unreadable authority – an accurate representation of her mirrorshaded soul – trembled for an instant. The corners of her mouth twitched.
EVERYONE OUT!
She shouted and the servants scattered faster than if warning shots had been fired over their heads.
There were only two types of bloom in this arrangement, though huge quantities of each. The first was the national flower of the host nation, common enough but only the most perfect specimens had been used. The other flower was native to the General’s homeland and almost nowhere else. It was difficult to cultivate and had become a signifier of power and beauty in that country. Indeed, the plant featured in the General’s family’s coat of arms and the sigil of her army. It’s scent was profound, delicious. Once sure the room was empty she fell to her knees and buried her face in the petals. She hadn’t smelt that smell in months, she hadn’t smelt that smell in such pure abundance since playing in her Grandmother’s palace gardens when she was a girl. When she sat up after what seemed like hours – but must have only been a few minutes – her face was wet with happy tears. Her self-monitoring bio-alert system scrabbled to process the unprecedented strangeness of this reaction.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a black figure silently exit the room through a door hidden behind a tapestry.
—
Back at the party, the General’s mild buzz was gently agitated by a polite cough at her shoulder. It was the Clerk.
I trust you are enjoying the music?
He whispered, somehow perfectly audible over the cacophony.
They’ve been transported from 21st Century Earth just for this occasion. My all time favourite band.
The General was amused at his informality, she gave a slight nod.
I understand you appreciated our floral tribute too,
he said, and this time the General glanced in his direction.
Well, well, a flaw! He is rather too pleased with himself for pulling off that stunt. A useful weakness,
she thought, instructing her software to make a note of that point in the evening’s AV feed.
Perhaps we could have a word in private? I have the only key to a fully cloaked ante-chamber behind the stage,
he said and held out his hand. The General slid back her chair, rose to her feet and smoothed the lap of her dress. She looked over again at Phil and Mel, both lost in the storm they were conducting. Leaning into the Clerk she offered her opinion:
By the beautiful blue arse of the Interstellar Buddha, this band are fucking great.
—ooOoo—
Ashtray Navigations on Bandcamp
Zanntone [Editor’s note: at the time of publication this site is, as we used to say, ‘under construction’ and details of the release remain elusive. The resourceful will find a way to contact Paul Walsh – for it is he – and I’ll update the link here when it is done.]
a craft ale with the bald heads of noise! the barrel nut issue #12!
February 23, 2015 at 12:58 pm | Posted in art, no audience underground, not bloody music | Leave a commentTags: collage, cut-ups, dada, foldhead, gary simmons, hiroshima yeah!, joe murray, mark ritchie, michael clough, paul walsh, photocopier art, posset, scanner art, visual art, zanntone, zines
Never one to miss an opportunity for collage fun, I spent the afternoon of a recent sick day coughing phlegm all over my cutting board (hey, at least I didn’t need a glue stick!) whilst assembling the dozenth issue of RFM’s atomic microzine. Glowingly described as a…
…momentary distraction from the hellish nothingness of the vortex…
…by Pyrrhic Victories magazine, previous editions of The Barrel Nut adorn the finest notice boards, untidy bedside zine piles and dustbins of the worldwide no-audience underground.
Should you not know what I’m barking about, or be overwhelmed by the self-indulgent whimsy of the preceding paragraph, here is a repeat of the usual explanatory bumpf:
The Barrel Nut is a single sheet of A4 paper cleverly folded to make an eight panel (per side), A7 pamphlet. Paper copies will be distributed to anyone who wants one, or who has expressed an interest in the past. I’ll bring some to gigs I attend and a bunch will be passed around by those with a similar love of the post.
Should you be so inclined then you are very welcome to download and print out your own. Links to the latest issue in jpeg and pdf formats are below (you may need to trim the print-out down one edge to make it fold properly). Some more context, assembly instructions and previous issues can be found on The Barrel Nut’s own page (tabbed above).
Should you wish to contribute artwork then I would be very grateful indeed. Submissions need to look OK when reproduced as a black and white photocopy and be 7cm by 10cm in size (or scalable to roughly those dimensions). Good quality scans attached to an email are fine, originals sent in the post ideal. Please get in touch.
So now you know. #12, the second DOUBLE-SIDED issue, features cover dada idiocy from yours truly (reproduced way larger than life and in glorious colour above), more of Michael Clough’s eerie ‘totem’ works – the scanner art equivalent of EVP recordings, a photo-memory of Summer boozing from everyone’s favourite drunken uncle Paul Walsh, some Zennish cut up hoodoo from RFM’s own Joe Murray and a pair of pieces by Gary Simmons and Mark Ritchie, the brothers responsible for Hiroshima Yeah! Gary gives us a microbial starscape of indeterminate origin and Mark entertains with an uplifting ophthalmic DIY collage. Unfold and turn over for a full page ‘Bald Heads of Noise’ cartoon by Mark Wharton of Idwal Fisher in which the notion of the no-audience underground is skewered hilariously in six panels. Unmissable.
Contributor and subscriber copies will be in the post ‘in due course’. For those who can’t wait, or don’t mind a bit of salt-and-shake style DIY, then print out your own from the links below:
The Barrel Nut issue #12 FRONT as a pdf file
The Barrel Nut issue #12 BACK as a pdf file
The Barrel Nut issue #12 FRONT as a jpeg file
The Barrel Nut issue #12 BACK as a jpeg file
Artwork for future issues always welcome – please feel free to drop me a line.
acting sane: panic dispelled by técieu, prolonged version, troy schafer and foldhead
January 29, 2015 at 11:59 am | Posted in musings, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: depression, drone, foldhead, fyh!records, new music, no audience underground, noise, panic, paul walsh, prolonged version, signal dreams, técieu, tekla mrozowicka, thejunkyardprocession, troy schafer, vinyl, william burroughs, zanntone
técieu – Miłość EP (3” CD-r, fyh!records, edition of 44 or download)
Prolonged Version – All watched over by machines with neurotic disorders (CD-r or download, thejunkyardprocession)
Troy Schafer – Untitled No. 1 (7″ single, Signal Dreams, edition of 300 or download)
foldhead – for William Burroughs (download, zanntone)
Throughout January I have been enduring a near-constant state of panic with fluctuating levels of intensity. During the holiday period I made the grave error of relaxing and my depression, seeing a soft (and substantial) underbelly exposed, decided to have a right good poke. There are physical symptoms: queasiness, light head, short breath but the really exhausting aspect is the constant inner repetition of three phrases: ‘I hate myself’, ‘when will this end?’ and ‘how will I cope?’. Like lampreys, these parasitic notions suck onto any thought or action no matter how sleek or fast moving it may be. In summary: depression is insisting that nothing matters, panic is screaming that everything matters and my sane middle, increasingly squeezed, sighs:
Will the pair of you just FUCK OFF.
Ugh. I mention it for two reasons. Firstly, talking about it robs it of (some of) its power – it withdraws its feeding tube like a blood-engorged tick touched with the tip of a lit cigarette. Secondly, this is part of a deliberate ‘no platform’ policy adopted to deny my illness the head-space it needs to operate. Trading blows with these thoughts rarely works – the panic loves a pagga as it puts me in a state susceptible to self-loathing. Instead, I’m learning that a sharper tactic is to crowd it out by accentuating the positive, by ‘counting my blessings’, by consciously attending to things that I know that I would enjoy when healthy. I am, in a sense, acting sane in order to counter what stops me from really being sane. Head spinning thought, eh? These are the games I have to play sometimes. It is very, very tiring.
The plus side, however, is that a consequence of trying to do things that I can be proud of and enjoy is that I occasionally actually do things that I can be proud of and enjoy. Here is where I have to thank music and its attendant distractions – yet again – for being such a restorative tonic. For example: the ‘hiring’ of RFM’s new writers was a joyful experience and, in its own humble way, politically positive. The practical upshot was that I was then able to farm out half of the review pile to my extended crew. This allowed me to listen to those recordings purely as a fan rather than as a, *ahem*, ‘writer’ and the experience has been so refreshing that I return to my own review ‘work’ invigorated.
In that spirit I now offer a bunch of short reviews of exceptional and entertaining work that was brought to my attention last year but has only been properly digested in the last month or so. My apologies to the artists for unconscionable delays. Better crack on, eh?
—ooOoo—
técieu – Miłość EP
técieu is the solo project of Polish lawyer, journalist, musician and gig promoter Tekla Mrozowicka. Miłość, which means ‘Love’ in English, is a 3″ CD-r or download from Polish label fyh!records comprising three tracks and totalling something over 15 minutes.
Despite apparently being created with nothing but software these three tracks have the rasp and roar of North East noise/drone and carry a substantial emotional heft. Indeed, grounding the fuzz and static in (what I perceive to be) synth line foundations lends a cinematic scope whilst short running times and attention to detail suggest admirable discipline.
This is nuance and restraint blown up to Imax scale. This is the inner conflict suggested by the flicker of a telling glance. This is the thousands of tons of rock and dirt implied by the thin stream of dust falling from a crack in the ceiling of the mine. When the throttle finally opens on the short last track the catharsis found in the squall is entirely earned and is deeply satisfying.
I recommend this very highly and fyh!records fully deserve your support – Piotr runs the outfit with soul, enthusiasm and an attitude that is bang-on.
Prolonged Version – All watched over by machines with neurotic disorders
One of four CD-rs in hand-made packaging that were hand-delivered by Karl Whiting of thejunkyardprocession – Leeds based label, zine publisher and gig promoter. Who doesn’t love the personal touch, eh? The album comprises four tracks and lasts about an hour in total.
What you get is a series of grinding, mechanical rhythms and arcing, shorting electronics that work to obliterate conscious thought by submerging it in sump oil. Processes vibrate free of their moorings and pulse with unreadable alien purpose. Listening is a duck/rabbit experience, a flickering gestalt switch: ecstatic ego-dissolving delirium / drowning panic. I realise this review is short but I don’t feel the need to overembelish this one: I found it remarkable. The closest comparison I can make is to the unmusic of the piss superstition which is, of course, high praise.
Troy Schafer – Untitled No. 1
Two tracks, totalling 11 minutes, to be found on various colours of 7″ vinyl or as a download for those thinking of moving house soon and despairing at the number of physical objects underfoot.
Side A is six minutes apparently culled from 36 hours of recording and I can only marvel at this superhuman feat of editorial rigour. In the circumstances you might expect a cartoonish strobing of splinter cuts but nope, instead you get drama, depth and invention with room for transitional flourishes and even the odd moment of near silence. Highlights include: scribbled violin interpreting a shredded Berhard Herrmann score, the groaning of a Lovecraftian Old One woken by volcanic activity raising its sunken city, dawn in a SF dystopia as directed by John Carpenter and a genuinely moving threnody for strings and junkyard scramble which builds to an ego-piercing, liquid silver climax.
Side B is a mournful performance by a lovelorn suitor on an unwieldy metal instrument he’s dragged into place under the balcony of his disinterested Juliet. As he bows, scrapes and rattles she is nowhere to be seen. For the final minute we cut to inside her apartment and find her attention darting between every screened device and radio in the place – all barking reports on an unprecedented electromagnetic storm engulfing more and more of the planet until…
I’ve listened to this a dozen times at least and feel there are still corners to poke into, densities to unravel. In some alternate universe this is the perfect pop single.
foldhead – for William Burroughs
Picture me as a 10 ten year old rummaging in a box on a market stall labelled ‘Science Fiction 20p’ and picking out a copy of The Naked Lunch that was nestled amongst the Asimovs and Bradburys.
What about this, Dad?
…I asked. My Dad – a librarian and well aware of its contents – chuckled and replied:
Better ask your Mum if you should read that one.
I didn’t, of course, and as soon as backs were turned I handed over my pocket money. Thus Burroughs, alongside albums like Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret – which my long-suffering Mum bought for me well before I knew what the word ‘erotic’ really meant – and the B(DSM)-sides of Adam and the Ants singles (‘Beat My Guest‘ etc.) introduced me to some ‘interesting’ aspects of the adult world. Explains a lot, eh?
Anyway, years later I finally heard Burroughs’s voice and everything fell into place – its dry crackle lighting a forest fire in my head. For many readers of radiofreemidwich it must be one of the most recognisable sounds of the Twentieth Century. Thus when I saw that Paul Walsh had used this unique source in a foldhead recording I was intrigued. The result is something of a shock, however, as it contains not a syllable of recognizable speech. Paul has instead dragged a snippet (I like to think it is one word – ‘sphincter’ maybe) through various patches and filters until what remains is a 23 (of course) minute long unnerving, dronetronic landscape of snow drifts shifted and reshaped by the wind. Perhaps this is what it feels like to overdose on mugwump jizz, metabolism slowing to an irreversible stop. On one listen I got so deep into this that I nearly walked under a car. What more do I need to say?
—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.
eye for detail: a long month passes quickly
November 2, 2014 at 10:09 pm | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, nick allen, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
It is now a month since eye for detail, the midwich remixes album, was released as a Bandcamp download. In that time there have been 35 purchases and well over a thousand plays of the individual tracks. More than £150 has been raised for The Red Cross as a result. I can only repeat how grateful and touched I am to those that contributed and to those that have supported it. Keep spreading the word.
Now that a little time has passed some critical reaction has started to bubble to the surface. Opinion first popped into being via Twitter, of course, and friends of RFM like Miguel Pérez and Paul Watson used their 140 characters to praise favourite pieces. Others have stepped out of the limelight to send me personal emails, such as the enigmatic Daniel Thomas. Paul Margree posted a welcome summary over at We need no swords – grinning and shrugging at the enormity of it and shooing his readership in this direction. Andy Wild has played extracts on the 81st edition of the Crow Versus Crow radio show too. The ‘scene’ has rallied around in a most heart-warming fashion.
Further to the above I have also, amazingly, had not one but two track-by-track accounts sent to me. The first of which is a collection of one-liners from the over-clocked, fizzing metaphor engine that is RFM’s own Joe Murray, the second a lengthier effort from my friend Nick Allen.
Joe needs little introduction but Nick is a new name here. We have been friends and work colleagues for many years. He is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic music fan and a frequent gig-goer but is by no means a noise head. He has listened in a tolerant, amused and open minded manner to me gabbing on about it all the while we’ve been sat in an office together and has done me the courtesy of coming to see me play live at Wharf Chambers. In return I have suffered no worse than occasional piss-taking which I consider fair exchange. Being a good sort he donated a tenner to the cause and, after dipping his toe in once or twice, decided that he was going to spend a Saturday afternoon immersed: listening to the whole lot, in order and making notes as he did so. Blimey.
Both sets of reactions are posted in full below. Why not open the eye for detail Bandcamp page in another window and listen along as you read?
Oh, and finally, Nick is an occasional writer of poetry and the combination of a glorious Yorkshire sunrise experienced whilst listening to the track by ZN inspired him to write ‘Juego de la Luz’ – also posted below. Should you enjoy it, Nick has a terrific 32 page, A6, self-published booklet of his work (called, with admirable brevity, ‘Poems’) available for nowt much so email him at the address at the foot of this post and make arrangements. I’m on my fourth copy because I keep wanting to pass them on to others I think will be interested – high praise.
First up – Joe:
Various Artists – Eye for Detail (The Midwich affair)
Micro-reviews/descriptions/impressions of each piece from the Now That’s What I Call Midwich smash hit.
Dale Cornish – Management. Hissing clicks like freshwater shrimps gone loco. Wonderfully sparse.
Aqua Denta – Natural Wastage. A glassy shroud wrapped round a tin body. After time rusty horns blow.
In Fog – Verdigris. A Mynah Bird enrols at IRCAM. This is her final project (informed by heartbreak).
Dsic – Procedures. The gods throw road mending equipment through a black hole.
Clive Henry – Witch Mania, Mend Gem. Scrabble tiles become sentient and form one-note Tangerine Dream tribute act.
Brian Lavelle – Slowly, we illuminate future truths. New Star Wars theme slowed down 1000 times.
Van Appears – Molluscs. Undersea skat. SCUBA improv. Oxygen/Nitrogen mix set to high
AP Martlet – New Plateaus. Elegy for out-of-date School Atlas (circa 1951).
Foldhead – Glacier. Super minimal like pink frost.
Chrissie Caulfield – oTo T50. A sharp intake of robot’s breath. Klezmer exhale.
DR:WR – Left Unresolved. Prison riot as heard through battered brass ear-trumpet.
Hardworking Families – Be to under weather to be. Sunshine distilled into individual waves, pickled then shook in a jar.
John Tuffen from Orlando Fergusson – Weather to be Under. As above but dubbed like On-U Sound.
Panelak – Irnwrks. Chipped-crockery-core! Salty blood runs over teeth staining them pink. Sharp to the touch.
Simon Aulamn – Too Early. A spitting porpoise (of course).
Paul Watson – Midwich. Sneak into the chapel. Stuff the organ pipe with potato. Hit the keys for chips.
Posset – A Moment of Stillness. Dictaphone frottage in Lovecraftian word jam.
The Piss Superstition – tinymuscle. The Detroit mass transport system scored for bic pens and pocket fluff.
Michael Clough – Left Unresolved. Thomas Tallis jumps in the Tardis and demands sexy-android motet.
Neil Campbell – MidwichMIX. Sly Stone comes round to polish yr Horsebrasses? Beware excessive Brasso fumes.
Devotionalhallucinatic – August in Ribblehead. Severe throttling. Barbed Wire snogs. Not a great first date.
Michael Gilham – oTo T22 Part II. Tractor beam vibrations, asteroid mining, dirty spacecracft.
Daniel Thomas – Striking Flint. Cast Iron Cello rubbed till the rivets pop out.
Breather – Floating. The real Pirate Radio material…stick that up your Skinner!
Yol – Stoma 2. Real-live stutter gob vs Jojouka horns (acid remix)
ZN – La Industria De La Luz. The Museum of Misery opens its doors. Churning machinery whirrs inside with dismal efficiency. In your pocket, an invitation…
Andy Jarvis – Bosky. Shit. Wish I’d thought of this. Pure vocal drone like some Pandit Pran Nath dude. Heavy vocal sludge gets more and more looped and freaky. God damn perfect!
—ooOoo—
OK, that’s that for Joe, over to Nick:
I know almost nothing about this music – so here goes – I have had one run through a week or so ago…in bits…when I picked out Cassie Caulfield and Michael Clough as early front runners, let’s see how they perform now its all in one sitting. It is 1.30pm on Saturday 18 October, press PLAY and let the spontaneous prosody begin:
Management – Dale Cornish
static bursts or restrained pissing…something frying long pauses…a message not reaching me
Natural Wastage – Aqua Dentata
outside…natural atmospheric background…perhaps a distant motorway…higher scratchings…spirals…low-level tinnitus…flying saucers from Plan B from Outer Space…an itching…something more coming into view…more solid…almost expect the screen to wobble a la transportation device of sci-fi TV…nevertheless a peaceful embracing enveloping atmosphere…also something of Sunday morning church bells (I can hear my dishwasher in the background glugging a rapid beat)…entering bat territory…higher higher pitch…like listening to a Turner painting, hearing colours…inside a sensory depravation tank with my eyes open…pulsing…meditative…a note, sustained…riding over, riding over…a crashed car with the horn jammed…a ferry…pulled out of calm…fade…stop
verdigris – In Fog
accidental musicality…placid…measured…sounds like a workshop…with an insect trapped…a guide bell…a mood reminiscent of the White Lunar album (N Cave and W Ellis)…fitfull/restful
Procedures – dsic
clamour…clamour…irregular jerking clamour…opening different doors in an industrial factory one after the other…working with the caffeine to increase heartbeat…I can’t help wondering why…space invaders!…and then a drill…all sent to annoy…some pre-recorded music and bleeping…finished and not sad
witch mania, mend gem – Clive Henry
digging, chipping…low backdrop…the sound of an insect invasion, walking…bricklaying…nothing restful…constantly constant…to a whistledown stop and something…walking on bubblewrap (question mark)…wet finger on a glass rim…paranoia perhaps…this could hurt…two apparently unrelated soundtracks…converging on an incoming tide…the hurricane winds battering the wooden window boards in downtown Florida somewhere
Slowly, we illuminate future truths – Brian Lavelle
revelation, and the clouds part…for the first time I close my eyes…a wider picture…within…too calm to be euphoric…there is a place, there is a place…boats passing boats, unseen – that’s something from Apocalypse Now, I’m sure…
Molluscs – Van Appears
Headunderwaterlistening…high tide perhaps…recorded dolphin speak but the voice has been disguised to protect their identity
New Plateaus – ap martlet
pressure build…irritation…a white noise box to mask traffic and city clamour…in a block of flats above an urban motorway, the JG Ballard flyover, and from the balcony you watch the lights swing following the same path, following the same path, lighted traction from the darkest fraction…a city in all its horror and glory…follow the red lights bead…the blinking white lines…sodium…it must all lead somewhere…repetition, the flow, of repetition…dementia…fractures our habits…the neverending nightcity hum…enter the void…there is a darkness beyond…still falling or climbing, hard to tell…exposure…try not to blink…water pressure builds…the last lost signal is broadcast – END
glacier – foldhead
less glacier, more fog, sea fret…immersion and low frequency vibration…soothe…calm intention…passed through some kind of body scanner…observed…minutely…for some reason whales come to mind…perhaps their song…I see in greens and blues…the Sea of Tranquility is green and bottomless and calm…adrift…dreamlike…slumber beckoning…sleep phantoms loom and pass harmless, soft creatures of the deep withstanding enormous gravity, eyeless blind…take an age, we grow…to achieve
oTo T50 – Chrissie Caulfield
outside or wind or…something landing…musical, structural almost a rhythm…there is a Who intro keyboard, slightly…violin-ish…and then cello…trepidation…a sense of lurking…before the trauma…Hitchcock’s Psycho…and so of course, blood in water…some message tapped out
left unresolved (short) – DR:WR
too many voices calling…cannot pick out a thread…interwoven…a sense of cacophony controlled…layers…no structure but mass…diminish…what will happen…
Be To Under the Weather to be – Hardworking Families
the start, the keyboard, the looping beat, then the skip, move up, shape, an invitation to dance, and to risk a beat, this is the dance track, played backwards, beats meet you out of sequence causing surprise, call and refrain, where are the horns, playful, happyhappy, repeatedly running towards me smiling in the video, definitely a song for spring not autumn
Weather to be Under (five is the number he is bounteous) – John Tuffen from Orlando Ferguson
Ibiza choon…arms waving through lights…risings…sunrise…this could pass for euphoria in a bleak world…where next though where next out of the loop…some scattered thoughts fleet and dash before being grabbed and harnessed…and so the loop, ever on, ever on with the loop…mobius sound…within sight of the place we started…zone in zone out…not boredom but the same effect of inattention…the focus is shattered…no, something softer than shattered…but the centre is nevertheless lost in all the rounding circularity…spirals…concentrated meandering always tethered…I’d like my drugs now please
Irnwks – Panelak
flckng rd sttns…nny nny…no pleasure to be had…Alex in Clockwork Orange had his eyelids pinned open…watching someone operate on a broken bone in your leg in your leg because they forgot the anaesthetic…followed by indecision…not unhinged, just hingeless…why would you…
remix of Midwich’s Too Early from Every Day is the same – Simon Aulman
(at 3 minutes this is the Ramones remix)…channelling paranoia…from a bad bad place…do less…much less…a longed for beat stop
Midwich (Hangover mix) – Paul Watson
lethargic crepuscular start…moving with a heavy heart…a car door?…in darkness water dripping…ripples and swirls…open the hands over the mouth and close again childhood megaphones…movement…through a corridor…listening from inside a cupboard afraid of detection…muffle…hiding, stay hidden…steps overhead, steps overheard…feels like ghosts…when you’re unsure
a moment of stillness – posset
verbal verbal…muttered words overlaid an aural mosaic senseless confusion I hear treacle but this is not glutinous it shatters and cracks and loops insensible a moment of stillness is sought, is noted a moment of stillness a moment a moment it is brave and compulsive I imagine him rocking rocking rocking without stop without eventually reaching for the wall like an exhausted swimmer
tinymuscle – the piss superstition
something organic growing one of those slo-mo shots of plants shoots emerging…the remnnants of a dance loop…an antiquity…dust on the needle…laboured breathing, perhaps emphysema, with an oxygen tank by the side of the chair…old industry…with a light touch…a hope…I start to imagine Ian Curtis’ voice…I’m at a loss as to why…
left unresolved cakemix edit – Michael Clough
a spaceship’s groans as it flexes…who would hear it…is it instead the magnified groanings of our knees as we stand again, cartilage upon cartilage…nevertheless it is a wave of sound that seems to enfold in an understated calm…something derived from the element of things…not quite the Buddhists’ chant of Om…closer less ethereal…I am reminded of the alien goo in Under the Skin, that absorbs men, erections and all…which all seems a long way from “cakemix”…the bringer of peace?
midwichMIX – Neil Campbell
tuning up…layers…not yet distressed enough to be Sonic Youth…as if you were touching a piece of metalwork and hearing the vibrations at its atomic level…there is a cohesive harmony but it is hidden among the density…such weight…occasional shafts of light penetrate
august in ribblehead – devotionalhallucinatic
(I like Ribblehead)…adrummerinthedistance…is the foundation…scraping away (an old Jam song)…an element of something happening over there… a show, a performance to be watched, passively…completely immersive
oTo T22 – Part II – Michael Giliham
gently meditative…not quite pastoral…slowly lifting…could be an interlude…so much scope, so much space…allows steady breathing…we float…unhurried…nothing seems immanent…the Northern Lights
Striking Flint – Daniel Thomas
deep echo…slowed dub electronica…all about the pattern on the cardiogram caused by the waves…the repeat and the variance…the approach and the retreat…the search for the optimal point…benign hypnosis…there must be a centre…standing on the shore of an avatar sea…watching the lights on the boats…knowing that the unknowable teems beneath…shoals…that pulse in light…thin filtered light…all this submerged beauty…beyond reach…beyond…timetracklost of…
throating (stomaching) – Breather
(almost) feedback…return nourishment…non-stomaching…which is of course vomit…not a reflection on the sounds, which are gastric at best…push a gurgle through a re-verb…insistent like an alarm…bike horns, he asks unsure…pleasant enough without cramping…
Stoma 2 – YOL
This sort of noise in a supermarket would make you skip to the next aisle and vow to yourself that next time you’ll do the shop on line.
La industria de la Luz – ZN
(this was partially responsible for a poem on the first hearing; see end, Juego de la Luz)
builds and builds…slow accumulation…uncertain pressure…pushing…
something below…an expectation builds…waiting…a chrysalis splitting…no clear view yet…never quite in focus…yet intense…perhaps it is a birth…waiting for what…it is breathing, it is everything, it is repetition it is grind and it is the turning day…the sound of white light at the end of the tunnel…
Bosky (AJ vocal remix) – Andrew Jarvis
…and so the last one…tibetan monk chanting lost behind feedback… something bizarre…squalls over mutterings…vague sense of it being something from another time…or unearthly or uninterpretable…an outtake from the White Album…if I hear a scouse twang I’ll believe it…comes a point where a rock song could climb and take off…but instead it meanders and fades…never less than interesting.
…and we’re done – at 17.23 – off to Fanny’s.*
[*Editor’s note: Fanny’s Ale House is a pub in Saltaire near where Nick lives. I thought it best not to leave that ambiguous…]
—ooOoo—
Juego de la Luz
Awash,
The tentative dawn spills gentle and golden
Sweeping the valley like euphoria
This is what I imagine a warm wind
Would look like, or a heart in love
Rising behind the mass of Windhill
As if a great dam is breaching
Making shadow theatre silhouettes of the radio mast
Which lacks only sails to ride out to sea
And the great chimneys of the ex-factories
Blackly loom exclaiming their redundancy
The lambent air is still, the river’s skin
Lies un-nipped and un-blistered
This gold slips warm and soft along
The singing overhead cables
While the melting iron of Dali’s tracks
Lead the sliced eye to flattened horizons
What will today bring. I suspect
The attentive heron knows, the drifting swan
And the bolting deer locked in their moment of
Stillness, will both know. I am gently enraptured
By this timorous dawn, under whispering mists,
That offers a promise of transcendence
On arriving in the city I find
I no longer understand traffic jams
—ooOoo–
Nick Allen: Panic@6haroldplace.co.uk
eye for detail, paul watson and a giant cardboard cheque
October 12, 2014 at 8:40 pm | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
Regular readers and Twitter followers will know that the 1st of October saw the release of eye for detail – the midwich remixes album. This Bandcamp download comprises 27 tracks by various no-audience underground luminaries each refiguring some section of my back catalogue. It totals three hours and forty minutes in length and can be bought for the knock-down price of five pounds. All proceeds are being donated to charity. The album has garnered universal love since its birth – making it even better than a royal baby – and has already been hailed as the album of the year by no less an authority than the voices in my head. The total plays for individual tracks topped 1000 in ten days. Further details as to its genesis can be read here and notes on its release can be read here.
The cause I have chosen to support is The British Red Cross. You may be aware of the front line medical help they supply in disaster situations but may not be familiar with the global network they have for tracing missing family members, or the support they provide to refugees in accessing services and adapting to life in a new country. You can read about what they do here. It is vital work.
Paul Watson, best known ’round these parts as BBBlood, contributed a handsome mix himself and then went on to earn limitless karma points by enthusiastically badgering punters into coughing up. In return for his help I somehow agreed to make my initial donation of £100 via one of those giant cheques you see in local newspaper photo opportunities – handshake n’all. I have to admit to being tickled by the idea and thought I could pop into a Red Cross charity shop and have a bit of a laugh with the volunteers there. Alas, a little research revealed that The Red Cross do not have such a business here in sunny Leeds and, in fact, their only office is a refugee assistance centre. A visit was nixed immediately – I’d feel a right knobber interrupting this crucial work by prancing about with my sheet of cardboard.
…and yet I still really wanted to get the felt-tips out and had a giant box that bits of a bed had been delivered in down in the cellar. What the hell, eh? I’d make my fake cheque, my 18 month old son Thomas could be The Red Cross’s representative during a symbolic ceremony and I’d do the actual transaction online.
Here are the stats: 25 sales of eye for detail at the time of writing raising £136.23, removing Bandcamp and PayPal fees leaves a donation of £109.01 which was handed over electronically prior to this post being written. My thanks and gratitude again to all those involved and to all those who have donated money. The compilation will remain available indefinitely and I will continue donating future proceeds on a regular basis.
The cheque measures 20″ by 38″ (piss superstition CD-r included in picture above for scale) and is now for sale. If you’d like to own this historic document in return for a further donation I’ll look into posting it – get in touch.
The Ceremony in pictures:
Visiting dignitaries take their seats.
Thomas takes a few photographs himself whilst waiting for it all to begin.
The presentation! Thomas is amazed at this princely sum.
The ceremonial handshake – Thomas a bit unsure about the etiquette.
…goes for the fistbump first…
…then the full celebratory shake…
…then subverts custom by presenting his foot to be shaken too. Kid has flair.
Worrying (with some justification) that Daddy can’t be trusted with money he is eager to get it safe…
…so immediately deposits it in the Bank of Shove-It-Behind-The-Sofa. Daddy retires to the study to do the real transaction online. A job well done. Thanks to Anne for taking the photos.
—ooOoo—
‘eye for detail’, the midwich remixes album, out now!
October 1, 2014 at 9:22 am | Posted in midwich, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: ap martlet, aqua dentata, astral social club, bbblood, breather, brian lavelle, chrissie caulfield, clive henry, dale cornish, daniel thomas, devotional hooligan, dr:wr, drone, dsic, eddie nuttall, electronica, foldhead, gerado picho, hagman, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, improv, in fog, joe murray, john tuffen, julian bradley, karl mv waugh, la mancha del pecado, michael clough, michael gillham, midwich, miguel perez, neil campbell, new music, no audience underground, noise, orlando ferguson, panelak, pascal ansell, paul walsh, paul watson, posset, psychedelia, pyongyang plastics, scott mckeating, shameless self-congratulation, simon aulman, the piss superstition, the red cross, the zero map, tom bench, van appears, yol, zn
Comrades! Light the bonfires! Blow those long, thin trumpets with banners hanging off ’em!
Radio Free Midwich is delighted to announce the release of eye for detail – the midwich remixes album.
About six weeks ago a passing comment on Twitter was tossed over the chalet balcony and started to roll down the mountainside. The resulting giant snowball crashed through the doors of my back catalogue and, within hours, a happy band of looters was ransacking the vault. An album was retroactively called into existence with a deadline and a charity cause adding some ‘oomph’ to proceedings. The cut off was the 30th September, the release date today. Such is the unfettered power of the no-audience underground.
I have been delighted with the number of responses, the enthusiasm with which contributors embraced the task and the breadth, quality and imagination shown in the submitted tracks. The artists featured represent a (partial at least) cross section of the ‘scene’ this blog reports on and the gathering of the clan has reminded me, more than once, of the ridiculous oTo tapes project I oversaw a decade ago (indeed, check out the title of Michael Gillham’s track – dude also has a long memory). It has been extremely flattering and morale boosting to see such art inspired by my own meagre output. I am humbled but beaming.
A few words about the album itself. There are 27 tracks in total and the combined running time is over three and a half hours. The artists included are (deep breath):
Andy Jarvis, ap martlet, Aqua Dentata, Breather, Brian Lavelle, Chrissie Caulfield (of RFM faves Helicopter Quartet), Clive Henry, Dale Cornish, Daniel Thomas, devotionalhallucinatic, DR:WR (Karl of The Zero Map), dsic, foldhead (Paul Walsh – who accidentally started it all), Hardworking Families (Tom Bench), In Fog (Scott McKeating of this parish), John Tuffen (of Orlando Ferguson), Michael Clough, Michael Gillham, Neil Campbell (Astral Social Club), Panelak, Paul Watson (BBBlood), posset (Joe Murray also of RFM), Simon Aulman (pyongyang plastics), the piss superstition, Van Appears, Yol, and ZN.
Phew, champion line up, eh? I have made a stab at organising a coherent running order but please feel free to chop and change according to your own mood. Over such a long time, and with so many different styles in play, some juxtapositions are going to grate for some listeners. I have done a little light-touch mastering – mainly just amping up a couple of tracks – but not much, most tracks are presented as they arrived. There are some variations in volume but SO BE IT – no unnecessary compression/loudness war crap here.
The cover photograph was donated by Michael Clough and I encourage all readers to regularly check his tumblr site for a stream of similar observational genius. The download includes a portfolio of a further seven photographs from Clough to accompany the release. Also in the bonus items is a document listing links to further information about the featured artists and, where possible, links to the midwich material that was the source for their track.
Finally then: the cause. It seemed appropriate to me to make this a charity release and chose the Red Cross as the beneficiary. You may be aware of the front line medical help they supply in disaster situations but may not be familiar with the global network they have for tracing missing family members, or the support they provide to refugees in accessing services and adapting to life in a new country. You can read about what they do here. All proceeds from this album will be heading their way.
—ooOoo—
eye for detail: the midwich remixes album
August 26, 2014 at 3:38 pm | Posted in midwich, no audience underground, not bloody music | Leave a commentTags: andrew jarvis, ap martlet, brian lavelle, clive henry, daniel thomas, drone, dsic, early hominids, electronica, eye for detail, foldhead, improv, joe murray, michael clough, midwich, new music, no audience underground, noise, paul walsh, posset, red cross, remix, the piss superstition, yol
The idea of a midwich remix project goes back a fair distance (indeed, the missing-in-action Trademark TM created a version of the second midwich album life underwater – called ‘life underwater in space‘ – back when we were still laughing at bewildered millenarians) but now, finally, its time has come and I am inviting you, dear reader, to be involved.
The story so far is simple: Paul Walsh (foldhead, early hominids) sent me ‘glacier’, a version of ‘stomach lining’ from october in yorkshire that had been knocking about his hard-drive for yonks and discovered in a clear-out. I liked it very much, mentioned it in passing on Twitter and within minutes had volunteers queuing up to submit their own remixes for an album I had to retroactively call into existence. That’s what Twitter is like, innit?
So here’s the plan: the album will be called ‘eye for detail’. The entire midwich back catalogue is up for grabs, much of which is freely downloadable via the midwich bandcamp page. Take what you want, do what you want with it and return the results to me ideally in wav format, ideally via WeTransfer (my email address can be found on the ‘about us…’ page). The deadline for submissions is Tuesday 30th September and it will be released in October as soon as I get it all sorted. To keep distribution simple and proceeds high the album will be download only via Bandcamp. The reason for wanting to keep proceeds high is that all money raised will be donated to the Red Cross.
(An aside: this organisation was chosen as it provides immediate medical help to those most in need around this shitty world that we live in. It has been brought to my attention that some may have issues with the Red Cross. I’m afraid I’m ignorant of the politics I might be accidentally wading into here, so if you have concerns please email me privately so I can address those concerns or make sure your donation is sent elsewhere)
So far the project has only existed on Twitter and in a few emails but already I couldn’t be more delighted with the response. As well as the foldhead track mentioned above and garnering permission to use existing tracks by Daniel Thomas, ap martlet and Andy Jarvis, brand new work by dsic, Clive Henry, the piss superstition, Yol and Brian Lavelle is jostling in a hard-drive folder. Others are hard at work. It’s very exciting and updates are being tweeted on the arrival of each new jewel for the treasure chest. Of particular note is Joe Murray’s Posset remix of this blog. Yes, instead of choosing a midwich track to molest he has clipped favourite passages from my more whimsical and/or threatening moments and has created a shadow narrative that sounds like Adam Bohman cutting up H.P. Lovecraft. Has to be heard to be believed. ‘Cover art’ will be provided by Michael Clough, who may be persuaded to submit some music too.
So: fancy being a part of this? I flatter myself (as always) but perhaps there seems to be something about the wide open spaces, the jokey bibbling or the simple pulses of my, *ahem*, ‘music’ that invites augmentation or reinterpretation. You’d be in terrific company and the cause is righteous so why not, eh? All submissions gratefully received.
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