nostradamus, quill in hand: rfm on street beers, ali robertson, dopaminos, feghoots, wizards of oi and richard youngs
November 1, 2017 at 9:15 am | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: alex drool, ali robertson, chocolate monk, collette robertson, collette robinson, dopaminos, drew wright, dwindling correspondence, eran sachs, evp, feghoots, giant tank, manuel padden, number stations, occam's hairbrush, ourodisc, pete cann, richard youngs, shortwave radio, street beers, voice text converter, wizards of oi, wizzard, wot is not
Street Beers – Seriously Hot (Chocolate Monk)
Ali Robertson & Guests (Giant Tank)
Dopaminos – Occam’s Hairbrush (Ourodisc)
Feghoots – Dwindling Correspondence (Chocolate Monk)
Wizards of Oi – Wot it is Not (Chocolate Monk)
Richard Youngs – For Shortwave Radio and Voice Text Converter (Chocolate Monk)
Street Beers – Seriously Hot (Chocolate Monk) CD-r
Newish jaxx from conceptualist, comic-lover and one half of the mighty Usurper – it’s Ali Robertson’s Street Beers.
A brief two-parter featuring a host of voices (Karen Constance [whose 100-page eye gouge ‘Optic Rabble Arouses’ is currently ripping my retina – search for copies sucka], Tina Krekels, Elkka Nyoukis, Dylan Nyoukis, Collette Robertson and one silent and unnamed Ice Cream seller) this disc meditates on the very British notion of a summer hit by recording a vicious wind blowing into a condenser mic and adding repetitive spoken word riffs via the synthetic marimba parts in Frank Zappa’s Jazz from Hell? Just like Whigfield did.
A German-speaking / English language / Scottish dialect text piece takes in mentions of Castle Greyskull and the Eurovision Song Contest in a stream of everyday observations glimpsed from beneath a heavy curly fringe. Powerful images are run through a clutch of mouths adding the particular emphasis and personal inflection that makes us all individual humans. It ain’t what you do eh?
In equal parts baffling yet academically vital this cleverly orchestrated confection is interrupted by one of the world’s greatest sounds – a ruler twanging off a desk – that somehow apes the massive and bassy reverberations of Sunn O))) or something.
It’s looped into abstraction. Captured chatter and accidental singing whirl through the massed ‘bbbbrrrrrrrrr’ in a dense fog.
Who needs dry ice with sounds so gaseous?
Ali Robertson & Guests (Giant Tank) CD-r in a greetings card-style package and free digital album
Three no-star jamz in exotic locations with erotic personnel.
First up it’s a sixteen minute table-top affair from Ali with heavy-hitting guests Alex Drool and Eran Sachs. Various gentle clutter-movements, simple tape-gasps and the presence of little mouths make this an almost ASMR-style listen. The crinkly crackle, busy pace and full-spectrum scrape are filling my tiny ears with tiny sounds but top-up my tiny brain with big, big pictures. Like staring at the Grand Canyon through a polo mint – the detail exists around the fragrant edges.
The cream in the sponge comes courtesy of our host with Manuel Padding and Collette Robertson. Without any of the oddball yuks this is a beautiful tape/performance piece of gentle clicks and solitary word play. The whirr of the tape engines adds a 100 tog warmth to the creaks, recorded footsteps and groans. Each word (Dutch possibly? I dunno) are spoken with the world-weariness of a sleep-deprived parent. Kindly but devastatingly hollow. Exactly the sort of thing slow radio was made for. CLASSIC!
The final hectic jam is a marvel of chunter and small talk. Pub bantz, motor racing raspberries and inane local newspaper junk is run through some form of goosey phone app by either Mr A Robertson or Mr Drew Wright (take your pick) to create a 5 min melange attempting to answer – ‘what are men actually for?’
Dopaminos – Occam’s Hairbrush (Ourodisc) CD and wee booklet and digital album
This mysterious disc was slipped into my hand at TUSK festival by a furtive shadow.
Warned, “It’s a bit of a one off.” I dropped this one into the playing slot as soon as was decent.
These eleven brief tracks of sketchy synth pop are pretty much all formed on some vintage YAMAHA PSS-570 machine found in the back of a leaky cupboard. This disc takes pre-sets to a new level of ‘fuh’. Digital noise clouds intrude on the bop-a-long rhythm settings, a ‘tiss…tiss…tiss’ snare sound and the ravaged mumble of some laid-back ‘singing.’
But what’s clear is the vision. A singular approach to wringing all that is good and great out of crappy equipment. Pushing at the boundaries of what is possible, probable and generally tasteful.
Examples? ‘Bosch in Crayola’ is a 9 speed-metal pianola on digital time. ‘Esoteric Voice Research’ could be the ultra-unknown Co Durham bedroom-band Guns R Great, ‘Primordial Soup Exotica’ the weed-drenched wobble of a teenage Ween. ‘VWL RMVR’ is undeniably attention-deficit rumba. But things become perfectly formed on ‘More Confident’ as it gets down and dark with hypnotic self-help tapes battling a twig-dry beat and the sound of men crying. The ludicrous melody quivers like tangerine jelly melting over hot chips.
File directly between Robert Ridley-Shackleton and Keyboard Money Mark.
Feghoots – Dwindling Correspondence (Chocolate Monk) CD-r
New booty from horror film aficionado and noise-music abbot Pete Cann.
For those expecting dramatic fuzz and explosive squeal you need to re-calibrate your lugs as Feghoots trades in small-scale weird.
Opener ‘Alif Showcase’ features the microscopic wrench of rubber gloves. Elsewhere a peanut is dropped into a decorative Turkish beaker as Pete opens and reseals one of those stiff Amazon cardboard envelopes (Let Down Hair).
A shifting polystyrene crunch forms the base layer of ‘Shy Vein’ making this the noisiest offer but with owls hooting in harmony over the top any fist-pumping gets strictly Autumn Watch… it’s as mesmerising as lumpy frogspawn sculptures.
Analogue breath clicks through dry lungs on ‘Stirrup Residue’ while your roommate cleans the toaster of congealed cheese slices. The ill-tempered scrape soon melts into antique electronics and domestic field recordings.
The penultimate piece ‘Tenderloiner’ features the lightsaber sparkle of Atsuhiro Ito with the timing of a bird in the hand. The flickering and flighty splutters mimic a barista’s recurring dreams of hot steamed milk. At one point I swear a double bass makes an entrance and I realise I’m getting randy for Feghoots and John Edwards to collaborate. We gotta make this happen my well-connected readers!
A finality is reached on ‘Adze Rotor’ which may or may not be the digital processing of foul water sounds captured in both Leeds and Bradford. The gently swinging coda sweeps away any unpleasantness to focus on the slow rush of oncoming sleep.
Add a notch – Feghoots makes me nod like a Moorhen.
Wizards of Oi – Wot it is Not (Chocolate Monk) CD-r
There’s something about this disc that makes me think of the much-missed kings of otherness Reynols.
Possibly they share the murkiness and free, looseness of that mind-bending crew but what do I know? It just sounds wonderfully slack to me.
While it is important to mention W.O.O are only two small bears (who ably manage to handle drums, trumpet, swanee-whistle, dirt-guitar, Wurlitzer and gloomy vocals between their four little paws) the songs are studio-enriched with foul chicken drippings.
Effects are fully ladled on to these jams landing exactly between Teo Macero and King Tubby so even the straightest opening ends up in a double valley of rainbow-reverb. Just try ‘#Trumpets of Jericho’ or ‘#Metal Gardening’ if you doubt me.
But delicious difference is the order of the day with the too-brief ‘#Cool Pizza and a Beer’ sounding like the birth of Ska replayed by Renaldo and The Loaf in a grain silo.
It’s immediately followed by ‘#Thunderbird Glossalia’; a study for squeezed rodent and the Wurlitzer in the sort of time signature that would make Moondog honk. When the dust clears super-distorted voices chant insistent curses while the boys sharpen their knives on sopping calf’s liver.
There’s no mercy! When stripped back to basics (guitar and drums) like on ‘#Crayolish Oisters’ it kicks no less brittle. As if 10 Years After lost their fingers in a blues-related accident – this is the sound of the milkman ruefully cleaning up.
Closer, the intricate ‘#Free Jatz’, couples carefully controlled amp-fritz/saxophone bink with a snare-less drum snatch. All the better for the boom!
Possibly contains a Volcano da’ Bunk or something placing this firmly on the creaking essential pile.
Richard Youngs – For Shortwave Radio and Voice Text Converter (Chocolate Monk) CD-r
Richard Young’s work has been a kind of shadow that’s floated around my head for about 25 years. Every time I think – that’s it – that’s the definitive Youngs he comes out with another idea to top the last. A chocolate fountain of a man he’s spewed out another rich brown mess too tasty to resist.
I guess this is what some beards would call a process piece. So RY follows his own instructions…
- Record a shortwave radio. I used anywhere on the dial that sounded pleasing.
2. Imitate the sound of the shortwave radio into a voice to text converter.
3. Cut and paste the resulting text into a text to speech converter.
4. Press play and record the result alongside original shortwave. Stretch to fit.
5. Repeat.
A clever approach for sure but snazzy brains don’t always make great music yeah? (see Brian Eno).
This is of course marvellous. Like the freakiest number stations or creepiest Electronic Voice Phenomena this exists in the limbo between found sound and dream logic.
Disembodied voices speak an almost-language, part-words form some yet-to-be-unencrypted dialect they pinch a brain node but leave any meaning wanting. Sweeping from ear to ear they sound like they are warning me of something and make me scratch my pate like Nostradamus, quill in hand, hot to translate.
The shortwave pulses flutter as a jammed signal – pitchy whoops and spelks high in my hearing range.
Imagine a ghost captured on camera but then you find out the ghost that’s been deliberately summoned.
How does that make you feel? How does that make you really feel?
-ooOOoo-
the 2015 zellaby awards
January 8, 2016 at 11:24 am | Posted in blog info, musings, new music, no audience underground | 2 CommentsTags: aas, alec cheer, ali robertson, alien passengers, andrew wild, andy crow, anla courtis, aqua dentata, ashtray navigations, bbblood, benjamin hallatt, blood stereo, bridget hayden, cardboard club, charlotte braun, chocolate monk, chrissie caulfield, claire potter, crow versus crow, culver, david chatton barker, david somló, delphine dora, dominic coppola, duncan harrison, e.y.e., expose your eyes, fake mistress, female:pressure, fort evil fruit, g.j de rook, giant tank, graham dunning, guttersnipe, hagman, hairdryer excommunication, half an abortion, hardworking families, helicopter quartet, ian watson, invisible city records, joe murray, john tuffen, joined by wire, jon collin, kay hill, kev sanders, kirigirisu recordings, know this, luke vollar, luminous monsters, macrowhisker, mantile records, marlo eggplant, mel o'dubhslaine, memoirs of an aesthete, midnight doctors, namke communications, no basement is deep enough, paul harrison, posset, power moves label, r.a.n, reckno, richard youngs, robert ridley-shackleton, rosemary krust, saboteuse, sabrina peña young, sam mcloughlin, saturn form essence, scke\\, shareholder, shredderghost, sindre bjerga, skatgobs, sonotanotanpenz, sophie cooper, steve lawson, steven ball, stuart chalmers, tabs out, the piss superstition, tom white, tutore burlato, va aa lr, whole voyald infinite light, winebox press, xazzaz, yol, zellaby awards
Hello friends and welcome to the 2015 Zellaby Awards and Radio Free Midwich end-of-year round-up. I’m very glad to see you. My apologies in advance to those long term readers expecting the usual introduction full of whimsical nonsense. There will be some of that, of course, but this year needs to be taken seriously and I’m going to start dark. Don’t worry though – spoiler alert – there will be joy and life-affirming redemption by the end: this piece is my It’s a Wonderful Life.
Firstly, it is not the job of this blog to comment on the wider world but aside from the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, our glorious future prime minister, 2015 was largely without hope. I wish you all good luck in navigating the coming End Times.
Personally, away from music, my year can be split into three four month long segments. For the first of these I was ill with non-stop, run-of-the-mill viruses. Nowt serious on its own but the cumulative effect of so many strung together – a necklace of snot – left me in a parlous state. My depression played cards with its fidgety cousin anxiety, waited until I was defenceless and then kicked in the door. The second four months were spent off work attempting to shift these unwelcome guests whilst maintaining a functioning family life. I’ve written about this debilitating effort elsewhere, no need for further details here. The final four months of 2015 were the tale of my recuperation and slow recovery following a change in medication and a breakthrough in both the treatment of my illness and my attitude towards it. After much grief, I left 2015 exhausted and resentful but hopeful that new ways of muzzling the black dog will allow me a lengthy period of peace and sanity.
When I was down in it, days, weeks even, passed when music seemed more trouble than it was worth. The list of releases submitted to RFM for review, plus other stuff that caught my bloodshot eye, became an untended vine cracking the panes of its greenhouse and desiccating the soil in its giant terracotta pot. I’d try to ignore it, slumped in my deckchair, but would be tickled awake by a tendril and look up to see something like Audrey II grinning down at me:
Or maybe one my colleagues – Joe, Chrissie, Sof, Luke, marlo – would arrive with a ladder, new glass, plant food, exotic orchids or intricate alpines to distract me, gawd bless ‘em. Looking back, I’m surprised at how often I actually did pick up the trowel – if only to wave hello, or whack Luke on the nose with it when I found him digging in the flower beds – and I’m quietly proud of maintaining this garden despite the inclement mental weather. During 2015 radiofreemidwich received approximately 32,000 visits – a new record. 93 posts were published, including the blog’s 500th, by half a dozen different authors. The most popular of which were last year’s Zellaby Awards and my no-audience underground ‘state of the notion’ address – most gratifying as both are heartfelt celebrations of the scene. Not bad, eh?
Now, at this point in the introduction I was going to get catty about my usual scratching posts, hit a few sacred cow arses with a banjo etc. but, looking down at the silted pavement and up at the grey sky, it’s clear that what the world needs now is love, sweet love – not smart alec remarks and passive-aggressive score settling. So let’s get the party started instead.
Here’s the rules: to be eligible in one of the following five categories this music needs to have been heard by one of us for the first time in 2015. It does not need to have been released in 2015. As the purpose of these awards is to spread the good news about as many quality releases as possible, should an artist win in one category they will not be placed in any of the others. I do not vote for my own stuff as midwich, nor any releases that I had a hand in (thus no Aqua Dentata on fencing flatworm – sorry Eddie). The team will avoid touting each others’ projects too – not because we care about conflict of interest (there isn’t any down here) but we do like to maintain at least a veneer of decorum. Aside from marlo, who has been nostril deep in PhD crap all year and thus didn’t feel qualified to contribute, the whole team has chipped in and I will be pasting their responses below. This year I am at least nodding in the direction of democracy when compiling the lists but, as editor, I am reserving final say. Don’t worry though – my dictatorship is benevolent and progressive.
Right then, time to pop some fucking corks…
—ooOoo—
Radio Free Midwich presents the 2015 Zellaby Awards
5. The “I’d never heard of you 10 minutes ago but now desperately need your whole back catalogue” New-to-RFM Award
Chrissie expresses doubts about the whole process then nails a perfect nomination:
I’m not much of a one for end of year retrospectives, forward is my preferred direction. Also I find it hard to compare music and place it in any sort of order. One day a particular piece or artist will be exactly what I need, another day it will have me screaming for the STOP button. Add to which I haven’t actually reviewed very much this year. Even when I found a (rather large, rich) niche to occupy I still take longer to complete a review than I’d really like. Still, I hate to disappoint, and I never miss a deadline so…
Even while reviewing one album, I couldn’t help mentioning tracks on other albums!
[Editor’s note: an extract from Chrissie’s review of Science Fiction & Horror Movie Soundtrack Collection: Strange Films of Sabrina Peña Young:]
‘Singularity’ is a whole Star Trek episode in miniature. It opens as an almost conventional, if nicely constructed piece of theme music, and gradually becomes something very much more. Going from the journey out, discovery of a possibly inhabited planet, then meeting an alien, trying to escape and the closing theme music again – a novella in seven minutes forty-three seconds! To be honest I’m pretty sure that that isn’t the actual narrative of ‘Singularity’ but I like to make things up as I’m listening and that idea seemed plausible at the time [Editor’s note: it’s the RFM way…]. What it’s really about is the rise of machine intelligence, of course; which is equally scary, possibly.
Joe speaks in italics:
Not for the first time, Serbia’s No Basement is Deep Enough label has pinned my lugs back and hotly tongued my ear. But this time it slipped a note in my pocket that read ‘G.J de Rook’ (but no phone number I notice!).
Gerrit’s considered gobble-de-gook on a and bla is the metallic-gravy I’m craving right now. The calm and pleasant gibber hits that sweet-spot of babies gurgling, a hummingbird’s gaudy thrum and the plastic pop of wrenched bubble-wrap. These are universal sounds; sounds enjoyed from the Mongolian deserts to the Seattle coffee-house scene. These are the sort of sounds we need to send into space – gaffer tape a CD-r to Voyager or something- for them bug-eyed overlords to ponder.
Although Gerrit’s wider discography is relatively thin and achingly expensive don’t worry readers, I have a plan in place to slurp slowly in discreet ‘o,o,o,o,o,oa,oa,oa,oa,eh,eh,eh,o,ooo,o-like’ sips. Think on.
Sof’s joy in discovery:
I heard and reviewed the album 3 by Sonotanotanpenz at the start of my Midwich employment and have since heard everything I can by them because, for me, they just tick all the right boxes. Cheers to Kirigirisu Records for pointing me in the right direction finding this stuff!
Luke forward/slashes:
Ben Hallatt – Kay Hill, scke//, KIKS/GFR – the sinister/minimal man, eerie urban horror with muted synth/tape work.
…and I say:
…that I haven’t had the wherewithal for the obsessive curiosity that usually makes it so easy and obvious to decide the winner of this category. I have a few interests bubbling under – that lovely, young Graham Dunning seems like an intriguing chap so maybe I’ll stalk him once I have the energy – but in the meantime I’m happy to to go along with Chrissie’s nomination of Sabrina Peña Young.
4. The “Stokoe Cup”, given for maintaining quality control over a huge body of work making it impossible to pick individual releases in an end of year round up
Sof ponders:
I don’t think I have an answer for this one, I can only think of Delphine Dora who released four albums this year which to me seems a huge amount! I’m not really into musicians who put out so much stuff that I can’t keep up. It puts me off if I’m honest, I like small and considered bodies of work. [Editor’s note: a very practical attitude – and Delphine should definitely be on everyone’s list anyway.]
Chrissie scratches her head too:
I’ve not really reviewed enough to come up with a suitable nomination for this. Similarly for the label award. I was tempted to nominate Steve Lawson for the Stokoe cup but he might be rather too ‘big’ for that to be sensible now and also I don’t believe he’s ever been reviewed here [Editor’s note: he is and he hasn’t but, hey, s’up to you – it’s an indication of where you are coming from too]. However he does release a considerable amount of material and it is of quite an amazingly high standard.
No doubts from Joe:
We’re all renaissance men and women now eh? Fingers in various pies yeah? You’re a composer/performer, a curator, a thinker, an archivist, a broadcaster, a hard-assed critic and goofy listener, a publisher and promoter? Scratch the N-AU and we bleed like colourful skittles.
This is all vital and impressive for sure. But the real trick is to weave all those various roles together with a broader sense of ‘who you are’, a central-unifying-theme and aesthetic that’s as real as Westeros fantasy shizzle. So with the powers invested in me by the fabled ‘Stokoe Cup’ I hereby recommend Andy Wild, the Crow versus Crow guy guy, as an upstanding exemplar of unified vision, industry and purpose.
Not only is Andy releasing beautifully packaged CDs on the CvC label, he’s keeping us up-to-date with a set of paintings and photography. He’s had a one-man exhibition, “You’re Gonna Need That Pure Religion, Halleloo” in his native Halifax. He’s researched, presented and broadcast almost 100 radio shows and curated a bunch of special one-off sessions (like John Peel yeah). And all this strikes me with a look and a feel that’s unmistakably CvC and unified. Here’s an example: as Andy dug deeper into old blues records spindly hiss and burr appeared on the paintings (and in the exhibition title). The smeared photos mirrored the abstract sound of worn vinyl. The shows became looser, the voice deeper and the mood darker. Do people still do mission statements? If so, is ‘be beautiful’ taken?
Luke starts on a theme:
A tough one this year with the above mentioned Ben Hallatt and the incredible Stuart Chalmers. My vote, however, has to go to Robert Ridley-Shackleton: the Oxfam prince, the cardboard king. He keeps on peaking, inhabiting his own corner. In a just universe he would be on the X Factor panel: he IS pop.
…and I say:
Well, Joe makes a compelling case for Andy Crow there and since being born from an egg on a mountaintop the nature of Shackleton is irrepressible, but I’m handing the trophy to a familiar name and previous Zellaby award winner: Kev Sanders.
Whilst not quite reaching the Stakhanovite release rate displayed in 2014, his productivity remains alarming high, as does the quality of his work. I’ve not reviewed a great deal of it, nor much else released on his label hairdryer excommunication (this collection of haiku from September being my main engagement) but it has been an ever-present background radiation.
If you picture the year as an autobahn, one which I have been stalled beside, hood up, engine steaming, then Kev’s music is a series of electricity pylons running alongside carrying cables buzzing with an intensity that is somehow both bleak and comforting. I wish him well with his coming move to that London and look forward to a chance to catch up whilst he is otherwise engaged. Now, like a casino bouncer chucking out a professional gambler, I’m banning him from winning anything else for a while. House rules.
3. The Special Contribution to Radio Free Midwich Award
Sof and Chrissie have a playground tussle over who gets to be teacher’s pet:
Sof: It’s no secret that Rob Hayler has had a rough year with his depression but his drive and passion for underground music has meant he’s kept up with this blog which I’m sure a lot of folks wouldn’t do under the same circumstances – fair play and respect to you!
Chrissie: At the risk of sounding like a spoilt kid sucking up to the boss, I’d like to nominate Rob for this award. In what has been a difficult year for him he’s hired three new writers, no small risk in itself, trusting our ability to actually deliver readable prose (well, in my case anyway) in usable quantities, not to mention editing it onto the blog in good shape and good time. He’s also put up with my erratic writing schedule and lack of enthusiasm to take anything off the review pile – preferring to go off on my own in a crusade to bring more female artists to the notice of our good and loyal readers.
[Editor’s note: it might appear shameless to include the above, and I admit it kinda is, but, as I’ve pointed out, it has been a tough year and I was touched. Let me have a little sugar, yeah?]
Luke picks an outlier:
Sorry gonna have to be Robert Ridley-Shackleton again [sings: “Return of the Shack! Here it is…!”]. A little quote from Robbie following a chat about tedious porn/bondage themes in noise:
To me noise is a positive thing, it fills my brain full of the joys. I don’t understand all the negative themes presented, to me it’s life affirming
Yeah baby!!!
[Editor’s note: R-Shack’s physical contribution to RFM is indeed notable as he sent copies of all his releases plus extra examples of his womble-on-ketamine junk art not just to RFMHQ but also personally to Joe and Luke too – a Knight of the Post.]
Joe rallies the troops:
As ever, I reckon this one belongs to everybody. Anyone that sent in a tape, clicked on a link, wrote a review, listened with intent, left a comment or gave a god-damn fuck. This one’s for you. It’s all of us that make this: writers, readers, editors…even you cynics (coz debate is good, yeah?). We’re all part of the oneness. No one hears a tree fall in an empty forest right?
…and I say:
Tempting as it is to fall into step and punch the air, nostrils flaring, there is an objectively true answer to the question and that is: Anne, my wife. Without her love, care and truly unbelievable strength this blog would not have continued to exist.
However, if we limit the word ‘contribution’ to meaning actual hands-on graft accounting for the endeavours of the no-audience underground then only one name can be engraved on this medal: Joe Murray.
Of the 93 posts published this year a huge proportion were by Joe and each of those usually contained reviews of numerous items sourced from far-flung corners of the outer reaches. Despite his hep prose poetry being the best music writing currently available – Richard Youngs himself described Joe’s review of his epic No Fans seven CD box set as ‘the definitive account’ – he is completely selfless in his unpretentious enthusiasm. He embodies the ethos of this blog.
[Editor’s note: hmmm… getting a bit lovey and self-congratulatory this isn’t it? Maybe I’ll rethink this category for next year <takes deep breath, dabs corner of eye> OK, on with the big gongs!]
2. The Label of the Year Award
Sof sticks to the point:
I’ve really enjoyed every release I’ve heard from Fort Evil Fruit this year, and most years, I think we must have the same taste in music.
Luke whittles on the porch:
Another tough one with old favourites like Chocolate Monk continuing to deliver the goods. However at a push it’d be Winebox Press, a fairly laid back work rate but always something to look forward to, can’t think of another label as aesthetically as well as sonically pleasing to me at least. Objects of cosmic power that’ll warm you from the inside out.
Joe’s takes a turn:
Let’s hear it for Cardboard Club. Why? For the dogged determination and other worldly logic of course. I have no idea what is going on in the disco/noise shire of Robert Ridley-Shackleton. All I know is that I like it, I like it a lot.
Robert’s singular vision is not so much outsider as out-rigger; a ghost on the pillion. The label spreads itself across media so the scrabbly zines, tape artwork and ‘pocket-jazz’ sound can only contain the RR-S, nothing else. But what made me giggle, what made me really smile was the recent move to vinyl. Some lame-o’s see the hallowed seven inch as a step up; a career move if you please! With that kind of attitude the battle is already lost and all ideals get mushed in ‘rock school’ production. None of this for our Cardboard Club… it sounds exactly the same! A hero for our troubled times.
…and I say:
Yep, all excellent selections deserving of your attention but, with hairdryer excommunication out of the way, I’m going to use editor’s privilege to share this year’s prize between two exemplary catalogues: Invisible City Records and Power Moves Label. Both are tape-plus-download labels based on Bandcamp, both have strong individual identities – in ethos and aesthetic – despite presenting diverse, intriguing rosters and both share impeccable no-audience underground credentials (PML’s slogan: ‘true bedroom recordings with delusions of grandeur’). It don’t hurt that the gents running each – Craig and Kev respectively – are polite, efficient and enthusiastic in their correspondence too. Anyone looking for a model as to how it should be done could do worse than sit at the front of their class and take careful notes.
[Editor’s note on the Editor’s note: yes, yes, I know that ICR re-released my epic masterpiece The Swift, thus making it the label of the year by default but I felt duty bound to mention it anyway. Shame on Tabs Out Podcast, by the way, for filling the first 135 places of their 2015 Top 200 with hype and industry payola. Glad to see sanity and integrity restored with #136.]
1. The Album of the Year Award
Chrissie kicks us off:
1. R.A.N
My first female:pressure review and the one I still listen to the most.
…not only are the individual tracks on this album good, but the ordering of them is exquisite. They follow on from each other in a wonderful, spooky narrative that runs smoothly and expertly from start to finish – the gaps between them allowing you to pause for breath before being dragged into the next hellmouth.
2. FAKE Mistress – entertainted
The opening track, ‘Appreciate the moment’s security’, will pull you in with its drama, heavy noise-based beats, spooky voicing and very punkish shouting but you’ll stay for the gentler opening of ‘You better trust’, intrigued by where it’s going. There’s harsh noise in the middle of this track and in lots of places on this album, but it’s never over-used. It’s here as a structural device to take you by surprise and drag you out of your complacency.
Luke casts his net wide:
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Self-Titled EP
Charlotte Braun – Happy Being Sad
Absurde, Chier – Absurde VS Chier
Skatgobs – Pointless
Blood Stereo – The Lure of Gurp
Alec Cheer – Autumn
Ali Robertson & His Conversations
Guttersnipe – Demo
xazzaz – descent / the crusher
VA AA LR – Ping Cone
Stuart Chalmers – Imaginary Musicks 3/4
Anla Courtis – B-Rain Folklore
S C K E / Kay Hill – Disclosure, TESSELLATION A/B, IN-GRAIN, Cold Title
Jon Collin – Wrong Moves / Dream Recall
Whole Voyald Infinite Light – Uncollected Recordings
Ashtray Navigations – Lemon Blossom Gently Pixelating In The Breeze
Melanie O’Dubhshlaine – Deformed Vowels
yol / posset – a watched pot never (no link – ask yol or Joe, they’ll sort you out)
half an abortion / yol – the designated driver
Shareholder – Jimmy Shan
[Editor’s note: blimey, eh? Luke also provided a ‘year in metal’ list too! Available on request.]
Sof’s impeccable taste displayed:
I’m going with Steven Ball’s Collected Local Songs which I reviewed earlier this year because it’s the one I’ve gone back to over and over, each listen revealing more to me. It’s such an original piece of work.
Originality is the theme of my list –
Saboteuse – Death, Of Course (this maaaaaaay, have come out last year!)
Bridget Hayden and Claire Potter – Mother To No Swimming Laughing Child
Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God
Guttersnipe – Demo
Rosemary Krust – Rosemary Krust
Sam McLoughlin & David Chatton Barker – Show Your Sketches
Delphine Dora – L’au-delà
Joe selects:
I fucking guarantee your serious music critics will moan and denounce 2015 as a fallow year for sounds. Fools! If you look around there’s an embarrassment of riches spilling out of the tape drawer, CD-r pile and download..er…folder?
I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable hurling my opinion of ‘what’s best’ around so, in the spirit of “non-competition and praise”, here’s what I’d play you right now if you were to pop round for sherry.
- yol – everyday rituals. When a record makes you run giddy for the Spanish/English dictionary you know something extraordinary is at work. You’re familiar with yol yeah? You’re not? Get a-fucking cracking pal. This is a truly explosive & genuine performance that makes your insipid rebellion look safe as milk.
- Duncan Harrison – Others Delete God. A super-subtle voice and tape work. What I love is the ‘too studio-fucked to be field recordings and too much punk-ass rush for fluxus’ approach. Natural and wonderfully blunted domestic, ‘Others…’ inhabits its own space – like a boil in the bag something served piping hot.
- Midnight Doctors – Through a Screen and Into a Hole. The merciless despot with a harmonium! Phil Begg’s steady hand guides a cavalcade of rough North East gonks through their paces to produce a timeless noir classic. It is equal parts soundtrack, accurate cop-show homage and mysterious new direction for tight-meshed ensemble. C’mon Hollywood… make that damn call.
- Shareholder – Jimmy Shan. Rock und Roll songs collapse in sharp slaggy heaps. Dirty explosions replace instruments (the guitar x 2 and drums) leaving us dazed in a no-man’s-land of stunning, blinding light and electricity. Ferocious and don’t-give-a-fuck all at once.
- Tom White – Reconstruction is tied, even-stevens, with Sindre Bjerga’s – Attractive Amplification. The world of violent tape abuse is one I follow avidly. But there’s nothing to separate these two outstanding tapes (of tapes, of tapes, of tapes). Both Tom and Sindre have the muscle memory and total mastery of their mediums (reel to reel and compact cassette) to wrench brown, sticky moans from the vintage equipment. It sounds belligerent, punch drunk and rum-sloppy to my ears. A perfect night out chaps!
…and finally, your humble editor:
Bubbling under: here are the releases that made my long list but not the countdown. Every one a cracker, presented here in alphabetical order to avoid squabbles breaking out in the car park:
Culver – Saps 76
David Somló – Movement
Delphine Dora and Sophie Cooper – Distance, Future
Dominic Coppola – Vogue Meditations
Hagman – Inundation
Hardworking Families – Happy Days
Ian Watson – Caermaen
joined by wire – universe allstars
Luminous Monsters – The Sun Tree
Robert Ridley-Shackleton – Self-Titled EP
Saturn Form Essence – Stratospheric Tower
Shredderghost – Golden Cell
yol – everyday rituals
[Editor’s note: I also have to make special mention of Askild Haugland and his peerless recordings as Taming Power. I’ve received two (I think, possibly three) parcels from him this year containing his work, all the way from Norway, and these recordings always have a profound and meditative effect. Some of it, for instance the 7” single Fragments of the Name of God, could quite possibly be perfect.]
OK, right – ooo! exciting! – here’s the top ten, presented in traditional reverse order:
10. E.Y.E – MD2015
…and what a joy it has been to have Paul Harrison back in the fray! Yes, after over a decade new material from Paul’s Expose Your Eyes project was finally made available via his new Bandcamp label Eye Fiend – a repository for much missed Fiend Recordings back catalogue (Mrs Cakehead has to be heard to be believed) and digital versions of the new stuff which is otherwise only available in tiny hand-splattered physical editions.
MD2015 is a four CD-r, four hour and twenty minute set comprising discordant synth clatters, decontextualized chanting (familiar to anyone into first wave industrial music), beats: pitter, patter – galloping hooves – factory presses, intoxicating loops, delirium (remember that footage of animals drunk on fermented fruit? This is the OST to a bootleg version of The Lion King that features those orgiastic scenes), repetition beyond human endurance / irresistible motoric groove, ‘proper’ noise – all primary sexual characteristics out and flapping in the breeze, and sorbet-refreshing shortwave-radio-ish pulse. It is a lot of fun.
9. AAS – Balancing Ritual
Y’know when your favourite stoner rock band lay down a super heavy, half-hour long, ego-obliterating, tethered crescendo but it isn’t quite enough so you and a hardy group of the suspicious break into one of the spaceships of a seemingly benevolent alien race currently visiting Earth and discover this playing inside? Yeah? A version of the above but clinical, steely, a step up from our humble efforts. It’s like that and I, for one, welcome our new drone overlords…
Graham Dunning offered to send me a tape of this, I visited Bandcamp for a sneaky preview and ended up so impressed that I’d bought the download and fallen in love before my exhausted postie even delivered the jiffy bag. I can count on the fingers of no fingers the other times that has happened recently.
8. Duncan Harrison, BBBlood, Aqua Dentata – “Ineluctable modality of the visible”
What an excellent three-fer. Not only occupying a wholly justified place in the chart but giving me the opportunity to praise Paul Watson (BBBlood), Duncan Harrison (who’s Others Delete God tape, so highly praised earlier, shamefully passed me by. Did I ever own it? Did I send it to Joe in a moment of madness? Ah, who knows?) and Eddie Nuttall (who, as Aqua Dentata, is producing amongst the finest work on my radar). Here’s some extracts from marlo’s review:
…But, damn you, Duncan Harrison! The first track immediately gets me back in my academic head! ‘(Je suis) La Loi’ makes me think of psychoanalytical linguist theorist Julia Kristeva and deconstructionist scholar Jacques Derrida. The use of breath and physiological sounds makes the listening an embodied experience. The listener feels present. It is hard not to notice if one’s lips are dry or if you possibly had too many coffees…
…In ‘Nexistence of Vividence’, BBBlood returns to more of the crunchy reeling and wheeling and dealing. It is a typhoon that builds and waits. Never fully collapsing, the sounds peters out like attempting to catch water running through fingers. Yet there is an ethereal resolution to the struggle and the listeners are laid to rest, an aural wiping of the brow. Time to rest after the long haul…
…Eddie Nuttall, a.k.a Aqua Dentata, is not from this planet. I honestly don’t think he is. His music feels like extraterrestrial communication from outside our universe. Like binaural beats and subconscious interfering hypnosis, his untitled track sounds like it is made of laser beams. As a listener, you feel like you merge with the frequency and question your ability to make cognitive sense. It isn’t because of a reliance in bombarding one with several sounds but rather a direct cerebral invasion…
7. The Piss Superstition – Garage Squall
Joe reviewed this one in the shape of a UFO. No, I don’t know why either but it is absolutely bang on:
Mag-lev trains.
The very best form of bluster.
As gentle as breath on a mirror,
Predator’s Answerphone message
The Velvet Underground trapped in a matchbox.
A map! Hectares of featureless crystalline crackle – zoom into mountains,
A corduroy vibe; not geography teacher clichés but that ribbed softness – a tickle on the fingernail.
Ride the world’s slowest roller-coaster taking 1000 years, cranking the incline.
Forbidden Planet strained with nourishing iron-rich greens,
A dream-tractor changing gear on the endless road.
Immense power restrained by gravity
A hit of strong, clean anaesthetic,
I’m counting backwards.
10, 9, 8…
6. Stuart Chalmers – Loop Phantasy No. 1, No. 2, No. 3
Joe again, not sparing the superlatives:
…But this time I throw my regular Northern caution and cynicism out the window and claim these three recordings THE MOST IMPORTANT SALVAGED TAPE LOOP RECORDINGS EVER YEAH.
What? Like…ever?
I hear you ask.
Yes
I answer with a calm, clear voice.
Like in the whole 100 year history of recorded music?
You probe,
even including the oft- mentioned high- water mark of looping Tom Recchion’s Chaotica?
You add. I merely smile and press play on the device of your choice.
You must listen, you must listen to truly understand
I chant with glassy eyes.
Anyway… fuck yeah! That’s what I’m saying. If you want to know where looping is right now in 2015/2016: PLAY THESE RECORDS. If you are looking for an instructional map of what’s possible with simple tape loops, a couple of pedals and some hot ears: PLAY THESE RECORDS. If you want to open up that valve in your stomach that helps you release gaseous tension: PLAY THESE RECORDS…
…Students of tape culture – your set-text has arrived. Screw in those earbuds and get seriously twisted.
5. Ashtray Navigations – A Shimmering Replica
A beautiful album in every respect and an entirely life-affirming experience. Terrific to see Phil and Mel get such a high-profile, flagship release in what was a high-profile, flagship year for the band. I will have more to say on this in a long-planned article which will be published around the eventual release date of the long-planned best of Ashtray Navigations 4CD box set. Coming soon! In the meantime: buy this.
4. Melanie O’Dubhshlaine – Deformed Vowels
Likewise, Mel’s remarkable solo venture deserves a much more detailed account than it is going to get here. Via a kind of meta-semi-improv (or something?) she continues on her utterly compelling, largely unheralded project to reinvent music on her own terms.
I imagine a Dr. Moreau style musical laboratory in which Mel cares for her cross bred instruments, incunabula parping their first notes, joyfully interacting with the sentient automata Mel has created to entertain them with. She dangles a microphone over the giant aquarium tank in which they all live and conducts this unique performance.
Unlike anything else I’ve heard this year, or maybe ever.
3. Helicopter Quartet – Ghost Machine
A peerless work, even within the band’s own faultless back catalogue. From my review:
It is difficult to write about Helicopter Quartet, the duo of RFM staffer Chrissie Caulfield (violin, synths) and Michael Capstick (guitars), because their music is so enveloping, so attention seizing, that when I’m listening the part of my brain I use to put words in a row is too awestruck to function. However, following many hours with it, I am certain this is their best album yet. That a work of such mature beauty, sculpted over months, is freely downloadable is surely further evidence that we are living in a golden age for self released music. It has the austere and magisterial presence of a glacier edge, the drama of that glacier calving into the sea.
If you ever act on anything I say then act on this: go get it.
2. Guttersnipe – Demo
Wow, this kicked the fucking doors in. With this CD-r and a series of explosive live performances Guttersnipe owned 2015 – they were either your new favourite band or you just hadn’t heard of them yet. Luke got to review this one, here’s an extract:
Guttersnipe whip up a frightening noise on drums, guitars, electronics and howled vocals that will have you reaching for the light switch. The cassette fidelity smudges the freejazzmetalhaze into a fog of terror from which emerges the fangs of a gaping gob ready to bite you. I’ve been listening to a lot of black metal recently and these vocals could have the corpse painted hordes crying for their mama. However, they are not the guttural grunts of the alpha male but more a feminine screech of desperation and disgust which the other two respond to by conjuring a blackened and unsettled miasma. Calling this disc demo leads me to believe that Guttersnipe are selling themselves short. This is impressively original material that comes over like a Xasthur/Skullflower hybrid with a hefty slug of secret ingredient. Marvellous job.
Amusingly, and presumably because he hadn’t seen them live at the time, he seems to imply this duo is a trio – a testament to their ferocity (and my skills as an editor…).
1. namke communications – 365/2015
Finally then, the winner of the Zellaby Award for album of the year presented by Radio Free Midwich is, in an unusually literal sense, the album of the year: 365/2015 by namke communications. Here’s some context from a piece I wrote in March:
…old-friend-of-RFM John Tuffen, in a project which recalls the conceptual bloodymindedness of Bill Drummond (who has raised ‘seeing it through’ to the level of art form), is recording a track every day throughout the whole of 2015 and adding them to the album [on Bandcamp] as the calendar marches on … each track is freshly produced on the day in question and, as might be expected, vary enormously in style, execution and instrumentation – there is guitar improv, electronica in various hues and field recording amongst other genres welcome ’round here…
Indeed, added to various forms of (usually light and expansive) improv and field and domestic recordings of life’s ebb and flow were many forays into sub-genres of electronica, techno as she is written, actual *ahem* songs, drones of many textures, experimental sketches with software and new toys, callbacks, the odd joke (all tracks in February had the duration 4’33” following a twitter exchange with me) and so on and so, unbelievably, on. I can’t claim to have heard all of it – of course I haven’t – and there are misfires – of course there are – but the level of quality maintained is gobsmacking given the scope of the exercise.
Each track was accompanied by notes, most with a picture and then a tweet announced its presence too. John was no slacker on the admin – I approve. In March I suggested:
This one I have no qualms about dipping into, in fact I would recommend constructing your own dipping strategies. As the year progresses you could build an album from the birthdays of your family, or never forget an anniversary again with a self-constructed namke communications love-bundle. Won a tenner on the lottery? Create your own three track EP with the numbers and paypal John a couple of quid. Or perhaps a five CD boxset called ‘Thursday Afternoon’, in homage to Brian Eno, containing everything released on that day of the week? Or condense the occult magic with a set comprising every 23rd track? Ah, the fun to be had. Or you could just listen to it on a daily basis until it becomes a welcome part of your routine…
I was at least half-joking at the time but engaging with 365/2015 has proved a unique way of experiencing an album. During the worst of my illness, as I spent nights trawling Twitter unable to sleep, it did become a valuable part of my daily routine. Literally a light in the darkness – Bandcamp page shining on the tablet as I lay in bed – John’s project, existing due to nothing but his crazy drive to create (the whole thing, 40+ hours, available as a ‘name your price’ download!), truly helped me through. A clear and worthy winner.
In conclusion…
So, that is that for another year. John’s prize, should he wish to take me up on it, is for namke communications to have the one and only release on the otherwise dormant fencing flatworm recordings some time in 2016. A surprise baby sister, perhaps, for his lovely available from namke communications released by me back in the day and now (I think) a teenager itself.
Many thanks to my fellow writers and to all who support us – for your time, patience and enthusiasm – it is much appreciated. Heartfelt best wishes for the New Year, comrades.
All is love.
Rob Hayler, January 2016.
—ooOoo—
domestic strangeness: joe murray on richard youngs
July 4, 2015 at 7:14 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: joe murray, no fans, richard youngs, vhf
Richard Youngs – NO FANS COMPENDIUM (7 x CD, VHF, vhf#137)
Note: Written over a series of long-long-long train journeys from Newcastle to London over the course of about 12 hours. It’s a big box, I wanted to give it time to seep into my lazy DNA.
Not a Rick, Rich or Dick. The brown-paper plainness of the moniker Richard Youngs seems to suggest an everyday everyman. The punk philosophy said everyone can do it. The No-Audience Underground proposes that everyone is doing it. And Richard is a patron saint, a twenty-year kinda guy releasing a shed load of N-A U essentials and the stone cold classics Lake and Advent that get regular, almost weekly, airings in Posset Mansions.
What I love about RY’s sound is its domestic strangeness. There’s none of the clichés. And, as much as I love demonic screaming, ritual slaughter and abandoned blotter-acid munching, the day-to-day oddness of libraries, baking and the sweet psychedelic of swirling tea leaves is so much more satisfying.
But so far I’ve only gulped down RY in relatively small doses. This seven-disc monster takes up a whole working day to swallow. So, like Man versus Food’s Adam Richman I starve myself of music for a while and dive into this beast in four enormous sittings.
Disc 1. 20th Century Jams
- 19 Used Postage Stamps – A crystal-clear recording of a guitar and smeared vocal mung set. The stretched out, elongated repetitions build like waves spilling over the levee. A very good start from 1987 St Albans.
- Inner Sky – Coloured sand from the Isle of Wight tumbling through an eggy-timer; sirens chant through yellow plastic drainage pipes.
- May Verses – European-style text piece or deconstructed madrigal? Hey man, why not both…at once. Two RY’s face-to-face dropping single, clear words into a perpetual motion machine. It revolves, frictionless, word balloons collecting in dense sound clouds. As pagan as you like without a cock ring in sight!
- Live in my Head. 19 minutes of cheap keyboards morphing into the tube/tunnel/barrel sounds Goldie and his Metalheads would use to evoke holes being punched though solid air. But better.
Disc 2. 21st Century Jams
- Live in Glasgow 2000 – Nu Feral Trax. Feeding time at the Owl Sanctuary while a wooden crate is wrenched apart – quite a spectacle in Sauciehall!
- Easter 2001 – The glass celestia pre-set on a knocked-off Casio fully flummoxed. A true experimental spirit as autoharp collapses in the boughs of electronic twinkle. It’s irresistible to the faeire folk but, unfortunately, deadly on consumption.
- This Life Gives Force – A scant 9 mins. This single note song has the barest bones allowing you to climb inside. RY asks us to ‘lay aside navigation’. Sure thing. I’m pinning my compass to this poem of emptiness.
- Sun Lay Lay – Pre-birth/post-opera. Star Trek door ‘visssh’ swarmed and scrumped. Hey Dani Filth – you need to get into this to properly scare the Home Counties.
Disc 3. Multi-tracked Shakuhachi/Live in Salford
- Multi-tracked Shakuhachi 1, 2 & 3 – Devastating Exotica that makes Martin Denny sound like an underground car park. The tones quiver like fat drops of cum. It is really super simple: breathy tubes, tumbling fibres and gentle sighing get carefully overlaid building up a pencil-line drawing all curves and slopes.
- Live in Salford – Swanee whistle masquerading as Shakuhachi perhaps? Twenty Eight minutes is a long time for a whistle solo! But brass balls for the uneasy silent patches making this like ASCII art in sound. The sea-blues shanty coda snaps everything back into sharp focus with the ghost of M.E.S living in the ‘Ah’s!’
Disc 4. Somerled/No Place Like Home
- Glasgow Device – Tortured Poundland organ fed through Hawkwind’s set-up (minus Stacia). The hammer-ons crack the brittle plastic keys and there’s some pitch knob twiddling to be sure. A benchmark for the home recording mafia.
- Mixolydian Sea Tone – A Bulgarian Choir, all with RY’s face (like Windowlicker yeah). Wordless sound arranged as tightly as a Roman tortoise, no room for a spear…fully armoured mate. Real World would poop to release this.
- Revolution Again – Re-creating the aimless drones of an organist warming up in a Methodist chapel. Single deep tones repeating and un-coiling as mosquitoes ‘sing’ above your ear flaps. Sleepy like nutmeg – count me in/out!
- Alarms 1 & 2 – Exactly the same as ‘Revolution Again’ but replace the Methodists with a shiny metal golf ball sprouting robot arms and hands.
- No Place Like Home – A mesmerising electric organ piece, the lag accumulator hijacked to marvellous effect. But you know what I’m hearing readers? The vacuum-inducing ‘whump’ of a beat from Astral Social Club fading in at about the 5 min mark and then Vast Aire spitting some grim verse. Blimey! I’m falling into the Youngs-hole.
Disc 5. Three Handed Star/Garden of Stones
- Three Handed Star – As different as you can imagine from anything else that’s happened before. RY leads a trembling chant – “Soul-Math-Mammoth-Soul” or something – with an accordion accompaniment. This is an ambitious piece with several distinct movements; from jaunty sing-a-long to wah-hah concertina, repetitive call and response to broken down leathery lungs. Gritty electronics gradually take over the air’s powdered huffing and the fractured voices get folded in. It’s all a bit festive, a wassail if you fancy it.
- Garden of Stones 1 – As heavy as Alice Coltrane gone Eddie Hazel. The N-A U Maggot Brain!
- Garden of Stones 2 – Just as effortlessly cosmic with none of the wah-wah. Sun worship through Dr Strange incantations (i.e. this is exactly what Dr Strange probably sounds like)
- Garden of Stones 3 – Marvellously slow and sedate, drawn-out like flu symptoms; Fushitsusha loops on the Buddha Box.
- Garden of Stones 4 – A sorbet of Dulcimer tones sharpened like a razorblade beneath a pyramid, nixed Nantucket Sleighride for a current affairs vibe!
- Garden of Stones 5 – A cousin to GoS 3 but with added dark rubber burns and sadness lines. Borstal dots weep.
Note: if you are looking for a place to dive into this massive boxed set I’d strongly suggest this here disc 5.
Disc 6. Harpenden!
- Green Milk – As skewiff as the Residents. An off-kilter waltz unhinged like the Overlook’s carpet. Django Reinhardt twiddles on the nylon strings whilst Danny Torrence slaps the xylophone as exact as a metronome.
- To the Hills – Oh my. This one takes the funeral pace of ‘Goat’ and the sound of 1000 cocktail sticks being dropped over and over again; Danny keeps his end up on the xylophone. An interruption on the vocal track at the 3 minute mark…
What? OK. Thank you.
…reminds you this was actually made in the, you know, real world. Not some odd zone at a slight tangent to the Earth. “Take me to the hills” is chanted over and over until I’m just about to snap and then a blissful violin scrape breaks the spell. It seems as natural as a brass hinge being bent back and forth. First one way, then the other: herrrr…huwwrrrr… herrrr…huwwrrrr…
- The Dead Fly – Recorded down a mossy tunnel with a hairy-trousered Pan, lonesome ‘ahhhhs’ bouncing off the dripping brickwork. Clip-clop goes our fleecy friend whispering in Gesualdo’s ear, “I’ve got an idea for you mate.”
- Setting for Voices – This is the proper Thomas Tallis shit. All holy rafters and gristly sibilance. The ‘chooo-chooo’ echo adding a delightful rhythm to the wordless choir of RY complete with round bellies, curly locks and apple cheeks. Quite, quite beautiful.
Disc 7. Thought Plane
- Thought Plane – The first thought that pops into my exhausted skull as I’m listening to this is ‘Blimey, I bet Chris Sage would love this.’ Chris, my unfeasibly tall friend, left Newcastle about 20 years ago. Just before he left he gave me a bunch of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno records, No Pussyfooting being one. I’d never heard of Fripp at the time and these records pretty much blew my tubes. Well Chris…if you are reading this I can confidently predict you’d love every minute of this hour-long granulated sparkle/crystal-tips workout. Dang it Chris…you’ll dig this whole boxed set man! The swooning loops change real slow, a gentle swirling of stars. Ladies and Gentlemen, if you look out the leftside portal you’ll see the Horsehead Nebula.
And in a funny sort of way ‘Thought Plane’ is a perfect ending to this No Fans behemoth, it being made up of all the different approaches on the 6 other discs: ritual repetition, acoustic patterning, wordless vocal jaxx, saw-tooth loops etc . For sure there’s some trepanning-strength psych effect in this box but it’s all balanced with the edge-of-the-bed recording techniques and Oliver Postgate cranks and ratchet.
But as this final disc gently fades out Richard digs deeper than ever before and opens his heart with a few clear and confident words. What does he say? Well, you’ll just have to travel the way of the No Fans Compendium. The journey’s long, readers, but jeepers… it’s worth every minute.
—ooOoo—
99 arguments for universal healthcare: in aid of tom carter
November 14, 2013 at 12:34 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: bardo pond, charalambides, core of the coalman, deserted village, drone, gavin prior, improv, mv & ee, new music, no audience underground, noise, psychedelia, richard youngs, sunburned hand of the man, the piss superstition, tom carter, vibracathedral orchestra
Various Artists – For Tom Carter (Bandcamp download, Deserted Village, DV44)
I imagine many of you that read this blog will be fans of the work of guitarist Tom Carter and the band Charalambides, of which he and Christina Carter form the core. Since the early 1990s the band has been mapping out their folk/psyche explorations and the atlas of their influential work is large, fascinating and worth poring over in detail. Many of you will also know of the unfortunate events that overtook them last year. Whilst on tour in Europe Tom caught pneumonia and was hospitalised in Berlin, eventually spending 15 days in a medically-induced coma as a treatment for sepsis, 40 days in total in the intensive care unit then several weeks in rehab. Fucking hell, eh? Thankfully, he has put this shocking trauma behind him but, despite having health insurance, still faces a staggering bill for the care he received.
Such is the loveliness of the experimental music community there has been much rallying around and heartening attempts to help take the edge off this ridiculous burden. One such project is the compilation album For Tom Carter, constructed by the top-notch label Deserted Village and available via their Bandcamp site. There, for a perfectly reasonable donation of seven and one half euros (or more), you can download no less than 99 (!) tracks in support of the cause.
Any review of such an epic undertaking could only scoop a fingerful of the cream atop this giant bowl of trifle so we’re not even going to attempt one. Suffice to say that there are plenty of ‘big’ names – Richard Youngs, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sun Burned Hand Of The Man, MV & EE, Bardo Pond etc. – plenty of comrades from the no-audience underground – The Piss Superstition, Core of the Coalman and so on – and dozens of names new to me that I will soon be crawling all over discogs to research. Tom is on it too, of course. The track listing has to be seen to be believed – an awesome effort fully deserving of your time and money.
…and whilst you are wandering around the Deserted Village why not check out Gavin Prior’s intriguing collage/document piece Babbleon Cork (DV43) which can be had for nowt.
accidental music: joe murray on richard youngs and ali robertson
August 22, 2013 at 9:40 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: accidental music, ali robertson, duff and robertson, giant tank, improv, joe murray, kazoo, kitchen sink improv, new music, no audience underground, noise, richard youngs, tapes, the a band, union pole, usurper
Richard Youngs & Friends – Kazoo Action (Union Pole, download)
The charming Union Pole label have been tweeting about this release for a few weeks and to be honest I’ve been thinking of luddite reasons not to buy it. Both pieces of the equation sound dandy: a long lost recording of Richard Youngs with A Band associates helping out; a single sound source, in this case kazoos, blasted, blown and banjaxed in a Rhys Chatham style mass orchestra. Yeah…all pretty spicy. Originally planned as a 7 inch this is now only available on download. I may be an old greybeard and I’m not adverse to the odd download, especially if it’s out-of-print whack off or a companion piece to the more present and physical record, tape or CD-R. But a download only! Man, this is clear blue waters for yours truly.
So, early one Sunday morning, the rest of the house swaddled in slumber I cough up the $1 (effectively 67p), hit the button and wait an anxious 20 seconds for the internet magic to happen. The download settles itself into a comfortable position on my hard drive in two dainty parts (a nod to the 7 inchness of the intended release I guess). There. I’ve done it.
I had enough faith in Richard Youngs to know that this was never going to stray into Temple City Kazoo Orchestra kitsch. And for once – I’m right. The blasts of kazoo are raw and rude for sure, with waves of spittle crashing over each other, ramping up the volume and intensity all over ‘side’ one. The brash, multiple tones, hum and fizz and shimmer until some synchronised changes in pitch break the cacophony and lend a primitive orchestral air. In fact it’s the primitive that seems to be celebrated here. Like some pre-history ritual, all tucked up in the tumulus, slack vibrations of pig skin shudder moist loam into nostrils and ears. I’ve had a long standing affection for the drawn-out huff of the sheng and its global relations and with this kazoo piece (yes learned reader – I know kazoos are membraphones and more closely related to the drum than it’s free reed cousins but shit man…this honks like a goddamn goose parliament!) Richard & co have captured the sweaty blast of tropical bamboo and then munged it out like Tamazepam shivers in the cold Edinburgh morning. ‘Side’ two has a Borebetomagus-esque structure of noise on/noise off with scarlet arses bent over and farted in brassy unison. There’s less structure, more freedom and instead of waves the honking cyclones up, up, up into the hard blue sky. It all ends with a chummy ‘Bravo…encore…’ that seems to come more from performers than audience, but you know what? I pressed that button and played the file again as instructed and it tasted gooood.
But now I’ve played and enjoyed the little fella I had to think what I wanted to do with him. Leave it all binary on the computer or allow him a better life, wild and free. So I stuck him on a CD-R with some other waifs & strays from that UbuWeb etc. May I suggest the gorgeous sounds of Dariush Dolat-Shahi and a selection from the superb Excavated Shellac site for company?
Ali Robertson – The Other Week (self-released, tape)
There’s no discernible title on the cover of this handwritten tape but a bit of detective work reveals this missive from Ali Robertson is called ‘the other week’. I guess the stream-of-consciousness diary entries, describing the recording process could have given me a clue ‘the other week:bought:afour-track recorder:in a pawn shop:on Leith Walk’. Sharp eyed readers will see Ali’s name and immediately link him with no-input/no-music interlopers Usurper. Yep. That’s right: it’s Ali going it solo.
Side one opens with multi-tracked plunking, rather like mice crawling over taut violin strings. Then we get some trouser-pocket-drop with coins pushed around the sort of glass-topped coffee table last seen in Miami Vice. Toffee is chewed with saliva squirting out a dribbling mouth as a biscuit tin (with tartan design) shuffles lonely squeaks and dull rattles. I imagine a midnight trip through the house, heavy feet trying not to wake folk with the occasional explosive stair ‘crack’ and cupboard ‘bong’ in the gloom. Muted percussion gives way to a milky cornflake munch and twanged ruler solo so careful and measured it becomes instant basic channel dub. Oh…to hear this through a 2k soundsystem!
Side two commences with the unwanted pissheid salutation. ‘erhm…mate…hear me…mate…erhm’ all chopped and munged to form a beautiful choir of purple tin. This is worth the price of admission alone. More quiet rumbles suggest the midnight kitchen again with a nudged spoon gradually coming to rest on a worktop. Coins add brilliant metallic flares like a mini John Bonham while Robert Plant mumbles off mic, ‘aye, aye’. The roadies continue the kerfuffle backstage, grumpily comparing string gauges and pyro etiquette simultaneously ripping up polystyrene packaging from the never released boxed set, ‘Zepplin…awkward murmurs and empty breaths’.
This is accidental music. By that I don’t mean it’s haphazard or thrown together. It’s like the sort of sound that lives between other musics….a milkman’s improvised whistle or the lavender humming of an old lady darning socks. This is the unconscious intent and dreaming rattle that unites all humans.
(Editor’s note: the web address for Ali’s label Giant Tank now appears to be squatted by some odd Japanese clickbait. According to a post on the Giant Tank facebook page the label is being wound down. Thus I’d suggest contacting the guy via the Duff & Robertson tumblr or facebook pages. If your life could do with more kazoo – is there ever enuff? – then Union Pole can be found at Union Pole. Easy.)
bells hill digital and george ferguson mckeating vol. 2
February 15, 2013 at 1:08 pm | Posted in new music, no audience underground | Leave a commentTags: actual songs, beccy owen, bells hill, bells hill digital, brian lavelle, drone, electronica, folk, guanoman, leyland kirby, matthew shaw, nev clay, new music, no audience underground, noise, richard youngs, scott mckeating, space weather, the radiation line
Various Artists – George Ferguson McKeating Vol. 2
(download, Bells Hill, Bells Hill Digital 2)
Scott McKeating’s Bells Hill, like other noise labels based in the North East such as Molotov, Matching Head and Fuckin’ Amateurs, prefers to keep it on the down-low. No need to advertise, no need for a flashy and substantial web presence, no clamour for ‘press’. Just dedicated fans and artists distributing releases amongst themselves and to a handful of grateful outsiders who have discovered their work. There’s nothing elitist or wilfully insular about this behaviour: these comrades simply don’t give a monkey’s about the trappings of ‘breaking big’ and are realistic about the limited appeal of their (mainly dark, metal and/or psych inspired) noise. They know that the curious will gravitate to them eventually. The unhurried self-sufficiency of this scene is a constant source of inspiration to me.
Some can’t help themselves, though. The indefatigable Joe Posset, RFM’s North East correspondent, is filled with evangelical zeal and heart-bursting enthusiasm and his dispatches from the frozen wastes of Newcastle have won many converts. Scott’s approach is more reserved. The guy is clearly omniscient in matters of North East noise. If you need to know a name, an email address or the ‘phone number of Mike Vest’s tailor then a one-line email or blog comment will quietly appear from him within hours of you mentioning this gap in your knowledge. In fact, the only time I have seen Scott in effusive mood is when valiantly defending the principles of this blog and the wider no-audience underground in a facebook discussion following that Simon Reynolds thing.
Likewise, packages containing stuff from Bells Hill arrive with little fanfare, despite the quality of their contents, and are thus guaranteed to be a pleasant surprise. The announcement of the new digital arm of Bells Hill, located inevitably on that Bandcamp, was a similar unexpected treat.
At the time of writing there are four releases to be found there. I shall talk a little about the one pictured above. Scott founded Bells Hill in order to release a compilation album to raise money for The Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund. Pancreatic Cancer is a particularly vicious and fast moving variant of the disease and almost always lethal. Sadly, it took Scott’s father. Hence the simple title and poignant cover photograph. Some brief thoughts from me on the first volume can be found here. The possibility occasioned by Bandcamp has spurred Scott on to complete a long planned second volume.
Happily, I can report that – as with Vol. 1 – this is excellent throughout and would be an essential purchase even without the cause behind it. It satisfies all criteria for a successful compilation. It is sequenced in a coherent, flowing way but is varied enough to create some lively juxtapositions. The quality control is consistently fierce so there are no barren patches to skip over. Many of the tracks – all of which are exclusives – are beautifully self contained and are eminently rewindable. The artists are a mixture of safe hands (for example: Brian Lavelle, Richard Youngs) and the mystifyingly new (to me, at least) that will have you scrabbling around the search engines looking for more. There is glittering shimmer, monastic spirituals, haunting atmospherics, apocalyptic noise metal, ecstatic bubble drone, even a couple of actual songs – y’know with lyrics and structures and everything – and very lovely they are too. What more is there to want?
The album is available in return for a donation to the PCRF. For full instructions of how to do this and secure your download code visit Bells Hill Digital here.
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