Third and final part of this particular missive interspersed with musings from a lost missive from March. Well that was the plan at least. Thee are in fact two missives currently languishing on abandoned hard drives – both are refusing to give up their goodies despite applying every known persuasion – usually involving hot solders, hammers and a trusty chisel. The point is we are having to physically re-write them – which as you can imagine is time consuming, labour driven and further complicated by the fact that the laptop in question with the issues has a tendency to overheat and switch itself off and that, after taking an age to boot up. I know some of you out there will be saying ‘have you tried’, ‘tried that’ etc…believe you me we’ve exhausted possibilities. The top and bottom of it – there’s some archive stuff (there’s something like 30,000 words worth all told) so we’ll just sneak these in to all forthcoming missives as and when we can.
So with that an extended final part of the Volume XII then – Volume XIII will appear later in the week same place just a different day.
Contact details – for those who keep asking (we’ll put them at the start instead of at the tail end – I’m gathering most of you haven’t the stamina to trawl through these thesis styled musings so –
Snail – Mark, 71 Pennsylvania Road, Liverpool, L13 9BA
Email – [email protected]
face book – www.facebook.com/thesundayexperience
Wordpress – marklosingtoday.wordpress.com
Twitter – @marklosingtoday
The third part of this extended tales from the attic yarn. This features reviews rescued from one of the great lost missives following laptop system failures a few months ago – so expect stuff here that’s a few months passed their expiry date – still top sounds all the same.
This missives contents go thus……
Noblesse Oblige, Future Primitif, Cuushe, Princess Chelsea, Lvls, Gibby Haynes, Hero and Leander, Bromheads, Terry Emms, Raikes Parade, Negra Branca, Dwellings, Druss, Gnod, No Joy, Eccentronic Research Counci, Boardwalk, Dead Flowers, Jay Tausig, Kramies, Plankton Wat, expo 70, Hot head show, Liam Singer, Backwater Records, Teals records, Future kings of England, The Lumerians, Gora Sou, A Giant Fern records, Derek Rogers, Terry Malts, Chantal acda, fossil collective, cave, Oranssi Pazuzu, dragon noir, Dead Wolf Club, Eleanor Rigby, Laraaji, Black Neck Band of the common loon, Valley of Capsules, Bacon Industries, Astral Social Club, Tape Cuts Tape, AWSTS, lightning glove, l pierre, Tokolosh, RG Morrison, Lux Harmonium, x ray pop, trase, finders keepers, black Saturn, black tempest
This may well be the sexiest thing orbiting planet pop right at this moment. Due out shortly via Beatport on 19th April where it’ll be exclusively available for one week only before going everywhere. Noblesse Oblige admired, nay adored are these here parts are set to release a new platter. Entitled ‘runaway’ this breezes in steeled in a sensual yearn sugar kissed in a sumptuous retro glaze, like imagining a deviant Dollar awash in the sounds of guilty pleasures from the late 70’s and mid 80’s all rebooted and retooled in full on HD and luxuriously fashioned on to a wickedly infectious buzz sawing Moroder back bone and bliss kissed with the saccharine delights o the beloved in a loving embrace with animotion with the subtle airbrushing of Cerrone motifs for added impact. Best thing we’ve heard since those debuting Salon Boris and White Rose Movement platters from yesteryear.
Video goes like this…..
Added update – here’s the video showcasing the darker ‘electro sexual’ remix….
If your easily upset at the appearance of your dad taking to the dance floor at family functions in full view of your friends and peers then maybe you might want to view this one with the audio racked up and the visuals turned down to save on the occasional wincing moments of embarrassment. A truly special release it has to be said from Futur Primitif entitled ’Digital Space’ – a self described electro duo made up of former low anthem man Daniel Lefkowitz and Jared Elmore. Now signed to integrity there’s an album kicking around entitled ’machine teeth’ which is being made available as a limited run CD housed in screen printed covers that I suspect we need to hear fairly soon if only to stave off the threat of spontaneous combustion. As to ‘digital space’ an absolute gem, pressed in that trademark slow burn smoulder and fondly tied in an alluring feel good aura that teeters between quietly majestic and tenderly torn and forlorn, caressed in a smoky spectral folk framing and cradled in a hand crafted hymnal hue, there’s something wistful and yearning about its ghost like visitations that attracts and arrests like a spiritual variant of Low at a campfire summit hidden in some mountain retreat swapping notes with the earlies.
Moving picture goes like this….
Update – futur primitifs latest is mentioned a little later on…..
From adoring to adorable ‘I love you’ offers a sneak peak at what to expect nuzzled upon the grooves of Cuushe’s forthcoming though as yet untitled sophomore full length for the flau imprint in the summer. Delicately euphoric and ushered in upon a blissfully shimmer toned caress of celestial choruses all hypnotically swirled in a fond carousel of mesmeric mirages, Cuushe daydreams her way through the airless ether murmuring sweetly teased love notes that dissolve, dissipate and demur to enchant, beguile and dispatch ghostly kisses upon your headspace much like a shy eyed and smitten moomLooo all of which ought to appeal to those of you attuned to the forlorn electro delights of the loaf / lo recordings stable most notably the early work of grimes….
www.soundcloud.com/flaurecords/cuushe-I-love-you
Here’s Cuushe in session covering the track – incidentally the album is just out on flau entitled ’butterfly case’
This honey has been the cause of many a smitten glance since descending upon our listening space. The return to these pages of Princess Chelsea who the keen eye among you with a want for taking notes may recall had us wowed with the divinely dippy ‘cigarette duet’ EP last year and its accompanying full length ‘lil golden book’. news abound that there’s a new platter in the offing tentatively titled ‘the great cybernetic depression’ currently at the finishing stage and mourns a society in social decline at the reliance on technology – hello we are already here aren’t we given that we’ve a growing nation in look a like hoodies reduced to communicating by a series of grunts immersed in a false belief of their own importance that necessitates them telling a yawning world by way of twitter that they’ve just put the kettle on. Now I don’t know about you but it saddens the heart and makes you fear that your breathing the same air knowing that some geek with a cyber pen name pulled from a naff star wars flick has just typed a Neanderthal communique out of 140 characters telling the world they’ve just voted to urge the government to build an orbiting death star. Is it really unfeasible to impose a stupid I wonder. Any how enough and back to Princes Chelsea who as reported previously has a new album looming on the horizon along with a new single. ’we’re so lost’ be its name – an absolute angelic beauty it is to, framed as it amid a sweetly arresting orbiting torch cortege smudged in an ethereal fog and twinkled in quite a fetching demurring detachment of ghostly sepia soaked 50’s girl pop garlands and an achingly forlorn hymnal hue all dinked in oceanic sprays of dream weaved wooziness presaged in monochromatic Meek like mercurial motifs which leave you hollowed and humbled and yet strangely beguiled. That said we here a pretty cock a hoop about the flip side ’when the world turns grey’ which is dimpled in a gorgeously souring frailty that recalls a mournfully head bowed and vulnerable Dubstar at the height of their powers and which features if I’m not mistaken the much underused and under appreciated Theremin – a fact alone that in our view elevates it to an essential listening experience. Out via lil chief.
Alas absolutely no information about this lot, even their website is a tad vague and tight lipped but they are called the LVLS which in case your not au fait with text speak and other such things is short for loveless. We’re assuming there’s recorded output afoot shortly because there’s been a short burst of activity released via their sound cloud page in the shape of a brace of cuts titled ’church steps’ and ’it’s only love’. now at this point I should say we’ve grown a little fond of the former not least because its arrested in a slow to burn framing that’s trimmed in the delicate snowfall of crystalline chimes steeled in the softly measured lilt of statuesque grandeur which had us here imagining a bliss chilled romantically inclined Chameleons shimmying up to the Church the latter of whom become a more obvious focal point of reference on the second cut ’its only love’ itself a nocturnally purring drive time lovely which appears to be reverse gearing back to the 80’s – how strange. Tasty all the same. www.soundcloud.com/wearetheloveless
Just a little word of warning – if you haven’t heard it yet that is – an absolute mental slab of deranged head butting dumb fucked goodness from that man Gibby Haynes entitled ’Paul’s not home’ – via Jack White’s groovy third man imprint – guaranteed to have going ga ga…..here’s a sound file…..
www.soundcloud.com/thirdmanrecords/pauls-not-home-full
Scrunch up the eyes and open your ears for just out now via the perfectly formed tapete imprint you’ll stumble across the debuting full length from London / Essex beat pop combo Hero and Leander. Maybe we should have had the pop bit adorned in huge bold italics for maximum effect for it seems this lot have an incurably irresistible knack for knocking out knee trembling love dazed dandies as though they are fast going out of fashion. Garnished in soaring pulse racing ditties, walloping ear candy hook laden chorus’ and dashed with a surrendering shy eyed demeanour, Hero and Leander flex the kind of pristine pop prowess not heard around thee parts since both the heartstrings and morton valence adorned and lest it be said adored our turntable. Arriving in something of a tailspin this eleven track aside being a bit of a darling that incidentally holds its head among comparisons to frente and the Sundays did despite its sugared dusting of saccharine soft pop overtures clearly have us reeling on our listening perch. Oozing romance and coyness and seductively pressed in a fond effervescent shrill whose obscure camera references clearly come home to roost on the excitably affectionate sun glowed ‘light of my night’ as it simultaneously shimmies with the kind of twee breeziness much loved on releases bearing the name free design upon their hides, hero and leander seduce and arrest with an assured purred pop precision. Subtle showers of Bacharach and David daintily drizzle the grooves this being best exemplified on the beautified musicalia of ‘here comes the sun’ while the crystal tipped love note harmonies smouldering amid ‘in any given day’ are gracefully scored with a becoming forlorn frailness succulently kissed in wintry symphonia. Falling headlong into the kind of pop clarity and classicism found shadowing the maturing moments of a prefab sprout back catalogue is the aching resignation and reflection eclipsing the grooves of ‘everything will be’. elsewhere there’s the smoking cool soul exotica funk swagger of the kooky ’soul to soul’ while the white hot razor sharpened ’collider’ muscles in with the kind of breathless swoon that imagines an on top of their game latter career Dexy’s returning to their debuting former selves while acutely dovetailing the first love innocence of the lotus eaters is the alluring ’one three four’. deceptively perfect if you ask me.
Total running time less than 24 minutes. that’s what we love around here, albums that come along do what they need to say and then happily bugger off in the time it takes you to have a lengthy tea break and a quick fag and catch up chat. Nothing more annoying that CD albums that go on for what appears an infinity during the course of whose playing your clothes have gone and come back into fashion and you had the chance to grown a beard of biblical proportions. Anyway enough of the grumbling which before you say has already been noted as becoming something of a recurring theme of late in these missives. New album from the bromheadss who the badge winning eagle eyed spotters among you might recall many years ago used to be known as the bromhead jacket and did occasion these pages to much fond words of recommendation via releases for – if we’re not much mistaken – the sorely missed marquis cha cha imprint well it seems Sheffield’s finest have since last hearing them shrunk their name put out an album ’the lamp sessions’ which was made available for fans to download for free in monthly bite sized portions. Now proudly boasting a new full length set ’choro’ which is due for counter action in a matter of days via townsend / universal, the band have by all accounts turned in a blistering 11 track punk pop growler – we say by all accounts because we’re at present downloading the blighter for a loser inspection and us being hooked to the frankly laughably inconsistent BT server – it should be available for listening enjoyment sometime October at this rate. Anyhow current single ’gonna let you melt’ leads the charging assault to provide a kiss cool power punk rumble that seesaws with an anthemic adeptness that’s bolted to an acutely towering hook hung melodic axis that swerves and dives like some snot nosed scuzzed out rising from the gritty abandon of the streets and comes possessed of enough wallop to get daytime airwave schedules all a frenzy whilst simultaneously joining the dots between chron gen and green day. Nuff said.
Now we here we’re tempted to ignore this given we reviewed his last platter – incidentally titled ’gently’ – in these very pages and was promised promo copies which disappointingly failed to materialise. So gnashing teeth aside we here don’t hold grudges – well not for life – we just idle away the hours of darkness whittling out waxen effigy’s to be punctured at will and whim by hot needles whilst uttering dark curses. But enough of our nocturnal habits and back to Mr Emm who it appears has an as yet untitled – well untitled in so far as the press release doesn’t mention it by name – third album due soon via the azez imprint from which the first fruits culled come in the shape of the head bowed ’loved and never lost’. now I know its spring and we here are still locked into a winter whose cold grip refuses to loosen, but it still strikes as strangely un-seasonal to have this little cutie defrosting as were into our listening space and giving up its charms. Arresting, lilting and homely are no doubt the three descriptive words that you’ll find attaching themselves to the various reviews that are sure to follow in the wake of this mournfully reflective soul, cradled softly as it is in a deeply alluring candlelit folk motif, there’s a sensitive smoulder and an ageless maturity awaiting release here buoyed by the sighing swirl of surrendering string signatures and the kind of wintry fuzzy glow more accustomed to twinkling releases at yuletide. If there’s any cause for concern here it does at the odd interval veer ever so worryingly close to paul McCartney’s ’no more lonely nights’ something which we found haunting our headspace on more occasions that I dare count – that said nothing a little electro shock treatment couldn’t cure. www.soundcloud.com/terryemm/loved-and-never-lost
And so to Gnod wherein there’s been a hive of activity of late not least with the release of two sets – one a repackaged collection of hard to find archive materials and the other a tasty something from the trensmat imprint. But before all that a quick word advising you to get yourself an earful of strange groove courtesy of the teals tapes imprint. Now if we’ve got our information right this imprint serves as an outlet for all the various members and acquaintances of the extended Gnod network family. To date there’s been a smattering of releases all coming in ultra limited issue – 4 last count though I could be wrong – first of which is by raikes parade. According to the blurb when he’s not sorting out the Gnod sound, raikes can often be found skulking off to partake in some extra curricula activities with herbal sessions and dub smugglers. Limited to just 50 cassettes and entitle ’crossing paths to find new footprints’ this release features – what can best be described – as seriously smoked out head massages of super cooled cosmic dubtronics, the lead out cut – imaginatively titled ’side a’ sounds to these ears like some huge pulsating head trip presided over by a convening studio alliance comprised of the Orb, Depth Charge, Bill Laswell and Steve Hillage types and sounding not unlike the kind of stuff once upon a time slipping the shackles from out of the metal postcard imprint. Best of the collection to date in our much humbled opinion is Negra Branca’s two track limited to just 50 copies self titled cassette. Now no one’s going to budge me from the belief that this really is something else, ’duro’ / ’beira beira’ the main event is a hypno chilled astral projecting slice of transcendental trippiness replete with meditative finger bell chimes and celestial chorals that all converge to slipstream into something deliriously woozy and airless whilst navigating to the nether regions of the minds inner eye aboard a psychotropic drift wind. Six minutes in and the mood shimmers and shifts no doubt with the onset of the ’beira beira’ sequence of the set, here the melodies are equipped in a near waking from dream state fogginess wherein the senses an shapes are in a state of disorientation and flux, the sounds assuming a floaty arabesque vibe to recall as were a mind probing muslim gauze dinked by the Dadaist playfulness of takako minewaka. We here want a copy urgently. Dwelling provide the other half of the Gnod bass machine, again limited to just 50 cassettes ’don’t say nothing’ is the more subterranic species of the Gnod network, ’frame speed’ in particular subtly aligning itself to the mainframe of a youthful boards of Canada albeit as though immersed in the ever deepening and darkening voids of techno and appreciably taking the guiding hand of truth about frank along for the ride, best filed under post apocalyptic drone. Druss are / is the circle forming ying to dwellings yang, this is heavy and intense stuff, loosely recalling to mind bass communion and again for the second time this review alone Muslim Gauze as if found head tripping with wagon christ and concocting shape shifting ethnic patternia in an attempt to rewire your neuron receptors. Recommended for closer inspection. www.teslatapes.bandcamp.com
**originally written a few months ago – there’s a teals tapes update later this missive wherein dwellings among the many are mentioned to fuller detail.
And so to trensmat records, now we here are a little heavy of heart of late, our prised trensmat collection is sadly wallowing and missing a few friends what with the missing copies of cloudland canyon and AM outings, the former going astray at the hands of those hapless hams at royal mail. To this end a sizeable and seemingly worrying looking gap is now emerging in what was once a flawless run of works of art. The concern is only heightened by the fact that this next one is already – we believe – sold at source and in the prepping for a limited repress. Just 400 of these pressed up on 12 inches of heavy duty gold coloured wax all housed in black and white sleeves all coming replete with download links of the cuts pressed upon the grooves within. ’Gnod presents a Dwellings and Druss’ is a bit of a misnomer – though I’m convinced I have this completely right – as those of you who bothered to cast an eye over the collectives Tesla imprint mention will no doubt realise, its not Gnod though then again it is Gnod if you loosely get my drift, not the collective stoned out psyche charge of the unit as a whle but selective elements of the hive – like say Wire and all their various extra curricula off shoots. Two cuts from the Dwellings side of the hive mind and one from Druss with – per the download bundle – what we gather is a mammoth 50 minute face off featuring a live mix set recorded last November. Dwellings kicks off proceedings with ’revelation 9’ – a solid state sub electroid psyche immersion, murmuring pulsars usher and utter to a subterranic tongue, the melodic mainframe coded in binary blips tap out a galactic calling card into the darkening voids, like some silver skinned minimalist variant of wagon christ there lurks here an ever so subtle subtronic funk detailing crafted and cooled in darkly remote hyper-real techno. Druss take up the baton with ’20 sides a minute’ again scratched in a sparsely minimalist flavouring and grounded in dubbed out psychotropic techno drone., amid its sub 9 minute voyage its deceptive skin shedding form busies itself cloaking its sound craft in intricate textures showered in solar rays and terra-formic pulsars to preside over a head phonic effect that’s akin to having the contents of your head dissolving to its hypnotic brainwashing cycles. Best of the groove gouged trio is Dwellings ’defeatism’ – a 16 minute orbiting opus awash and lonesome drifting the vast oceanic cosmic voids majestically inscribed in lushly hollowed forlorn backdrops as though fading distress calls from a long dead galactic outpost and courting towards its final gasp an oblique ’terminator’ esque collage retooled as were by John Carpenter. As said subscribers to the vinyl edition get download codes which aside including the three aforementioned tracks for digital drop also feature a mammoth live mix. Titled ’in orbit’ it’s a hulking motorik head trip aboard the hyper galactic Gnod super cruiser for a non returning guaranteed voyage into space dub techno’s black hole.
Time and space, not to mention the small but necessary detail that at present we can’t put our hand to our copy, we’ll just briefly make you aware that there’s a limited gathering of Gnod recordings collected upon ’chaudelande’ via rocket recordings. A slab of badness that features recordings found stumbling into the sunlight for a short brief period via tamed on two separate vinyl volumes now handily work into one jaw dropping platter featuring 6 monolithic slabs of fucked up and wasted primordial groove with added mind altering psychotropic white out sequences. Consider yourselves fair warned.
More trensmat here – but later…….
We would love to show you (hearing would be even better) the new video accompanying spanking brand new thing by No Joy for their ‘blue neck Riviera’ single but it seems we’ve been sent the wrong version – or at least a version that requires passwords etc….since it still set to private. Ho hum – anyhow prized from their acclaimed ’wait to pleasure’ full length earlier this year via Mexican summer – a label who despite frequent mentions here see fit never to send us anything – anyway think we mentioned the album in passing ages ago – and it was quite nice, bet this is the same but of course we can’t prove it because we haven’t got the video blighter – ah well.
What we have got – at least half of it anyway are the sound files for one side of an upcoming pop platter from Eccentronic Research Council who you may recall had us in swooning fits and much demurred at the appearance and I should say wooing of our turn table courtesy of their debuting long player ’1612 underture’. yep this is the one sneaked out last year via finders keepers or one of their many hipster sub imprints, was about the witches of Pendle and featured a sterling gust vocal spot by Maxine Peake doing strange kraftwerkian things albeit had Kraftwerk been born oop north and fed on a diet of black puds, barm cakes and mike harding – and pagan sing song. It was perhaps our favourite most moment of that year. Seems the blighters are back with Ms Peake in tow doing even stranger things on vinyl. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of ‘the dreams’ sound collage and of course to pay homage to its author the late Delia Derbyshire, those ERC dudes have set up audio communications via the desolate pools imprint and armed with banks of analogue electronic equipment to start transmitting weird loveliness hither and thither. This here ultra limited 7 inch features Maxine uttering forth strangely warping streams of consciousness of on the spare of the moment jaunts to Ibiza. atop a whirling Wurlitzer motif pepper corned in the tender drift spin of lunar lullabies masquerading as cosmic ice cream vans Ms Peake recites a surrealist account of fracturing mindsets and blurring recollections dissipated in a dream like fog, quite kooky if you ask me and quite desirably essential especially when we tell you that over on t’flip pye corner audio of ghost box fame are drafted in to the revelry along with Carol Morley and that there’s a special limited edition – just 60 copies to boot that come handmade, hand stamped and hand stamped in the form of a 10 track cassette featuring other dreamy starlets doing woozy things to ERC’s backing tuneage….
www.soundcloud.com/the_e_r_c/maxines-dream-eccentronics
Staying with the ERC boys it seems the blighters sneaked out a single a little while back that somehow managed to evade our usually reliably keen eyed radar – eyed upon their band camp page said artefact was discovered wooing all, traversing a vintage / retro groove much like that of the resource centre the excellently titled ’bun fight in the open university staff room’ EP kind of sums up for us exactly what lurks once you pull back the curtain. Featuring four tracks these delightful suites tune in to the very heart of electronic golden age, title track ‘bun fight in the open university staff room‘ being silkily swooned in the lilting recline of lunar waltz motifs much teased through an 70‘s viewfinder while the spectral ‘when you are woozy, mind your language cutie’ is playfully cosy toed in a minimalist industrial brushing to sound like an impish Autechre being scrambled by the tigerbeat6 crew. On the ‘inner thoughts of D.Cameron’ its more the notion rather than the sounds that appear creepy – imagine that – its bad enough listening to the silver spoon licking toff tory toss pot without having to wonder what he really thinks of us – anyhow admirers of the truth about frank will be most satiated. Most upbeat of the quartet comes with the parting ‘everyone loves a triumphant medieval joust’ which nicks its central coda from some distantly familiar pop hit from the past whose name annoyingly escapes me which beside that is effervescently primed in a kind of ‘it’s a knockout’ at the empire ballroom styled vintage organ soiree – damn fine listening for purveyors of radiophonic and chin stroking high brow 70’s TV theme enthusiasts, more we say. www.electronicresearchcouncil.bandcamp.com
Absolutely smitten with this, we’ve only heard a handful of tracks but are suitably surrendered to what we’ve sampled so much so that we’ve fired begging missives to their pr people in the hope of securing CD’s for lengthier review because as you all know CD’s sound better than download / digital – better still on vinyl what ho. Anyway Boardwalk hail from Los Angeles are a duo Amber and Mike, their debuting self titled platter is about to drop into out of stones throw shortly where it’ll dip and swerve beneath your defences and straight to your heart. First hearing and opening track has had us all a swooning for ‘I’m not myself’ is finitely cut with an ice dripped cool that blends 60’s shimmers and Spector-esque harmonies moored upon fading sunsets a glowing over far flung idyllic hideaways all dreamily traced in bitter sweet bouquets of spectral opines, add in some gorgeously woven brittle 50’s riff motifs that ooze Marr like charm albeit steeled in the kind of mooching aspect that Johnny Thunders turned his craft to on his cover of ’love is strange’ and you have yourself something of an ethereal lovely that impossible to resist.
No spotters prizes for guessing why this got picked up for attention, we’re old school, odd looking vinyl, tasty looking sleeves, labels we’ve never heard of are usually the attractors that get our attention when we are off and about on record buying sprees or simple sound scouting expeditions around the net, in this case it was the bands name. dead flowers conjures – you’d hope – something special, perhaps something deep psyche or loosely wired garage. As it happens on this occasion – its something rather more stoked in a smoking majesty which apart from instantly recalling the likes of the Tindersticks, the palace brothers and a bit of Leonard of the Cohen variety had us a glow in the kind of feel good vibe that you imagine would befall you upon a visitation from some heavenly being. Had us cowed in floods of tears I don’t mind admitting and was the sole cause of us reacquainting ourselves with a lost childhood love – that being the rooting out of our copy of the ‘paint your wagon’ soundtrack namely for the classic show stealing afforded by Lee Marvin’s bruising ‘wandering star’ spot. Out on the hee haw imprint shortly, Dead Flowers ‘midnight at the wheel club’ promises to put classically turned in Americana back on the affectionate map, the album faultless is heralded by ’the beach’ currently doing the rounds as the lead off single. What can I say, deeply intimate, hurting and shrouded in a souring glow that tenderly creaks and yawns to a hymnal reverence of monochromatic wheezing strings and organs all headed up by a vocal that sounds as though its being fermenting in the finest bourbon these last 30 years making Tom Waits sound positively upbeat and choir boy like. We hang fire with a full album review until we get a proper CD copy – can’t be done with these sound cloud links as much we love them for convenience we hopelessly forget and lose them.
We are buggers for detail not that you’d notice the fact reading through these hastily cobbled missives, but I mean how finite and precise the information does your heart desire to know. For example this the latest opus by Jay Tausig was recorded spontaneously on September 17th 2013 at 4.55 am and posted sometime early this morning – September 19th at 12.25 am – not to posted with the kind of casualness and almost matter of fact heralding that you’d be forgiven for sympathising with bands ploughing similar sonic environs who’d decided to turn it in on the spot and go delving the situations vacant columns post haste. Now if this is what he does just off the cuff then imagine what he’d turn out if he actually worked on it. Of course we here are being a tad flippant for Mr Tausig has already been noted in these pages on previous occasions of being a most precocious talent, recent efforts have seen him commit to an exhaustive album a month schedule wherein he’s invited like minded souls at various intervals to collaborate and guest on what will form a humungous 12 hour plus astrological journey – ‘scorpio – water dragon firebird’ the latest being the 10th in the series and finding him paired up with helios creed among others. ‘gravity waves’ is as it says on the tin, an ever expanding cosmic flotilla and dare we say a beautifully crafted slice of mind expansive out there star crossed symphonics which unless our ears do deceive sounds not unlike an orbital paradise in some far flung galactic star belt frequented by a summit meeting headed up by Jarre whose ’magnetic fields’ finds itself sumptuously retooled by Vangelis and tangerine dream and given a trip-a-delic rephrasing that comes sugar dusted in the silken tying of a pulsar serenade bow.
Eyed this somewhere or other being sneaked into sound world, the latest from Expo 70 whose previous visitations to these pages you’ll recall from our various references to trensmat (releases from whom feature a many in the next missive) and old school my space mentions from many moons ago. This split 12 inch release sees him sharing groove space with plankton wat who better known to friends and family as Dewey Mahood expressed an interest in collaborating with Justin Wright – he who is Expo 70 – in an interview to which sharp eyed Sam Melancon head honcho of Seattle based debacle records spotted. So while we go issuing forth begging missives in the hope of securing high quality download links just a brief mention then to what you can expect. Eight tracks in all are festooned upon these grooves, plankton wat takes up residence on one side with 5 offerings leaving Expo 70 occupying his own side space to which he admirably utilises by way of three cosmic suites the most intriguing of which is the parting 13 minute colossus that is ‘the often re-entry forming an exit strategy’. stripped bare and sparse in tonality, this monolith slowly builds upon an imposing droning hum, patient and measured the slow snake wind of a pulsing riff duskily opines in the distance to emerge out of the foggy haze, the image is one of a barren lifeless wasteland sucked dry by an unforgiving punishing sun, as the arid riffing mantra comes closer into view the dynamic changes in both depth and density, the vibe one of mesmeric as it terraforms and navigates into A grade Roy Montgomery territories with the vapour trailing delta signatures becoming blurred and out of it to reach a point of bliss fractured meltdown. Not so much Floyd at the dark side but Floyd out of orbit and voyaging the unknown. As to plankton wat we were much taken by ‘land’s end’ aside sounding not unlike a coolly chilled ‘untitled #23’ era Church, there’s much here to seduce those admiring of the fuzzy fog bound blues codas of the late sadly departed jack rose to be found here, the stylising parched and primitive is blessed with the detached lonesome persona of a mid career Flying Saucer Attack and yet echoes and quietly howls to the primal growl of Link Wray albeit removed of the speaker shredding reverb and found shimmying up to an ‘eldorado’ era Neil Young – further listening investigations are dutifully recommended. www.debaclerecords.bandcamp.com/album/expo-70-plankton-wat
A much welcomed and fairly lengthy email from Cam of the much loved hidden shoal imprint reached us from afar, well Australia, to touch base and include an assortment of download lovelies currently demurring one and all plucked from their well heeled catalogue. Now old time observers may well recall the wares of hidden shoal frequently gracing the lines of our former singled out missives some years back. Anyhow Cam kindly sent a wealth of downloads for us to be seduced by – among the list new stuff by Monocle, jumpel, tangled star, Liam singer and the I razor soundtrack. All will be featured in varying degrees the next missive out however in time honoured fashion and us being awkward blighters we’ve casually side stepped those for now what with the appearance on our player of the kramies. ’the wooden heart’ comes prized from the EP of the same name which is due for release next month via hidden shoal, alas not the Presley tat of old but something seductively shimmered and sugar spun in swathes of dream draped demur. Pressed upon celestial arcs that usher in distant memories of the mercurial melodic musings of slowdive and chapterhouse at their most fragile and angelic peaks, ’the wooden heart’ is wrapped longingly in snow bursting showers of dream dipped porcelain signatures so intricately woven, airless and frail that you fear they will shatter just by your closeness in earshot of them, a beautified aural apparition teased in yearning introspection and sweetly glazed in the kind of unworldly rapture that suggests its author is well versed in the songbook craft of the crimea and mirror mirror. www.soundcloud.com/hidden_shoal/kramies-the-wooden-heart
Okay we lied – more loveliness fro the hidden shoal stable – frankly we couldn’t resist this – culled from his current set ‘arc iris’ which should be available at all decent and discerning record emporiums near you and if not then just a click away on that there interweb facility, ’stranger I know’ is the latest single from Liam Singer – who as described by the press release is ’a Queens based chamber pop experimentalist’. now this honey kookily bumbles along to a delightfully lolloping tip toe like springing string serenade and a distractively cute crooked time signature that pushes and pulls giving way to a playful charm that suggests it was hatched in a nursery room, add to that the choral arrangements, the twinkling bell chimes and the peek a boo wind instrumentations which eventually all collide and collude to adorn the listening space in enchantment, in short beautifully crafted pastoral pop whittled together in a classical handicraft and turn by an archaic melodic tongue, fans of Serafina Steer and the like will swoon a tad. www.soundcloud.com/hidden_shoal/liam-singer-stranger-I-know
It was upon hearing the previous cut by Liam Singer that we were loosely reminded of Reb Capper whose ‘half elf’ EP from a year or two ago was greeted with bouts of adoring swoons we still have her hand written note that came with the release about our personage and kept pride of place in the corner of our record room wherein all the magical music delights are stored. We’re not sure whether we ever got to hear the follow up ’voodoo doll’ it seems that her label backwater – who frequently once upon a time – featured to much regale in these pages – simply fell off our radar. There was talk of an album – again not quite sure whatever become of that. So why do I mention all this you’d be rightly forgiven for asking – well simply because it seems the backwater imprint has broken cover and posted a sampler type compilation on sound cloud which in our much humbled opinion you really are advised to check in and hear not least because it features Reb Capper, exit 13, jamie clements and uncle black all of whom whose releases where lapped up and loved here on release as well as the future kings of England quite possibly the most scandalous oversight by the music press in the last 10 years – these guys should have been massive their only crime perhaps was perching themselves on a prog axis just when prog was still considered a dirty word (sad to say we now have a gaping hole in our record collection with the discovery of our missing out on their fourth opus ‘who is this who is coming‘ – apparently a creepier vision that previou outings that loosely based on a short story by M R James entitled ‘oh, whistle and I‘ll come to you my lad‘). Elsewhere tuneage aplenty from osian rhys and chris lockington and a real treat from ted Sheldrake who opens the account with the sepia soured introspection of the achingly sorrowful ’my old bike’. www.soundcloud.com/backwater-records
Update – just had a message from Steve Backwater saying the Reb Capper album is finally about to emerge sometime next month, promos are on their way so expect fond words.
Literally just dropped upon us via a forwarded email and quite frankly having heard the contents of the link therein – a damn good call we reckon. Strange new thing by Hot Head Show who I’m mortified to say we have absolutely no information about though I’m gathering are garnering affection from all quarters of musical globe though some of that I deeply suspect being somewhat paired with moments of bewilderment on the faces of said scribes whilst being met by cries of ‘what the f*** was that?!’. obviously abandoned off spring of the great Beefheart, ’chopstickabean’ is – I can safely say – quite possibly the most demented, deranged and dumb**ked ditty you’ll hear all year not withstanding some new groove emerging from the Dalmatian Rex contingent. A jarring and jabbing jamboree of acutely angular art rock psychosis is I guess the best way to describe the aural action painting belching out of the speakers. schizoid and spasmodic, scarcely a thought for time signatures which as we are on the subject are so acutely tight you’d need a protractor to record them, the kind of stuff that once upon a time tiger trap kicked out with alarming regularity (another label who appear to have kicked us off their mailing list ho hum). Bleaching intricate jazz nuances – yes jazz – as in jazz done by Brand X on acid with a heavy load of cardiacs, henry cow, apatt and a youthful plans and apologies thrown in for scalded measure – with a rule book ripping art rock ambition these blighters appear to be blessed with a perversely impish ability to turn out alarmingly catchy sonic shrapnel at the drop of a hat not withstanding that the buggers groove will trepan you in the process.
There’s an insane video to view which doesn’t quite achieve the brain damaged psychosis of the cut it showcases – features blokes in rabbit suits – you have been warned.
Determined as we are not to be outdone or left lagging behind, we’ve fired off missives in the hope of securing copies of the Future kings of England newie – see just a little to the above in case you’ve forgotten what we’re on about – though not before tripping across this little sound clip of ‘a face of crumpled linen’ from the ‘who is this who is coming’ set. My haven’t the kings matured since we last heard them not that creative immaturity has ever been an issue with this lot given they’ve always been ahead of the musical curve crafting such sublime aural canvas’ that perhaps only the sounds and crafted spirit of porcupine tree ever seemed on equal merit. This is a serious head trip, atmospherically charged, brooding, beautiful and touched in expectant disturbia to sound not unlike the kind of psychorama groove that adorned Brit / Italo horror flicks in the latter 60’s and early 70’s, it comes gorgeously woven into a trippy odyssey and brushed with a full on cinematic presence that hints at Goblin at the height of their mercurial powers in the eye of a Godspeed storm.
Here’s a bit of a blast from the past. Several years ago we happened upon an email from a young band making their first forays into the heady world of space rock, much fondness was bestowed upon these young stellar cadets and their debuting EP proved such a blast that we entrusted it with the rarely awarded single of the missive accolade. And then nothing. Fast forward several years and it appears the blighters have been knocking out releases like no ones business all of which to much disturbed and perturbed grumbling and the occasional gnashing of teeth we’ve missed out on. The Lumerians – for it is they to who we refer – cut a sizeable swoon on that five track debut – sonic boo love children crafting a deeply intoxicating aural alchemy that fused brian Jonestown with the black angels and beyond. Pulled from their recent ‘the high frontier’ set for partisan, ‘smokie and the lady chorus’ is a heavy set big bearded galactic opus that dips into the tripping backwaters of walking seeds oft criminally overlooked ‘bad orb…whirling ball’, lysergically kissed looping motifs whittle an out there and blissed cosmicalia that’s lushly sugar dipped in old school beatnik phrased primitive kraut grooved psych prog a la cluster et al. that said its not often we make reference of a accompanying video but this is quite explicit, exceptional and well quite bizarre. A surreal futuro sci-fi fantasia artistically choreographed by the ultra hip Lillemon art house collective which before you dive into we should say features such animated matter as fish porn and patricide – a kind of cartoon Jeremy Kyle grab bag if you like which I’m gathering won’t be appearing any day soon on daytime pop playing TV schedules that’s if there are any. Are there any now I come to think of it.
Those fancying checking out the praise we heaped upon the lumerians debuting platter for the subterranean elephants imprint are advised to go to www.marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/singled-out-missive-149/
Derek Rogers last loomed up on our radar way back a few years ago courtesy of an ultra limited cassette release put out by those lovely people at Scotch Tapes who to much heavy heartedness we must mourn their lack of activity of late, those packages from Al where indeed things eagerly opened and fondly savoured on the speaker system in what was the losing today record shed. We always admired his impeccable knack of introducing us to the strange, the weird and quite often the unmistakable. And so back to Mr Rogers, ‘below three’ is taken fro his latest ultra limited cassette outing for A Giant Fern – another label of whom I’m gathering we need to acquaint ourselves with fairly sharpishly, entitled ‘signifying memory’ I‘m certain I‘ve seen somewhere that there‘s only 50 copies so you’d better get your skates on if you want to nail one. Features two lengthy ambient / drone suites recorded live at origami vinyl in Echo Park earlier this year and utilise field recordings gathered by Montreal resident Lorrie Edmonds. Delicate and finitely balanced ‘below three’ is immersed in shimmer toned garlands, reverberating hums of bowed opines induce a spectral almost enchanted calm, the precision craft of the magnified manipulations are exquisite and refined, stilled atmospherics usher forth to the toll of distant church bells whose charmed peel equates a mood changing impending charge to matters as they draw ever nearer with a threatening clang. And then in an abrupt eye blinking moment of silence enters stage left a distorted Cathedral procession fractured and torn in minimalist bliss hissed skree to take centre stage to shower all in a celestial after burn before fading out in to the ether www.soundcloud.com/agiantfern/derek-rogers-below-three
Future A Giant Fern taste making cassettes are expected from german army, ichtyor tides, sindre bjerga and missives favourites roadside picnic of whom we await with baited breath at the arrival of a bumper package of goodies – no sign yet alas. Should you still be with us at this juncture latest cassette release sees duas semicolcheias invertidas in a face off with cangarra – admittedly I’ll put my hands up in saying I have absolutely no idea what is going on here, the former mentioned imps seem at ease to beat the crap out of whatever object happens to have the misfortune of being in reach at that precise given moment, a cacophonous slab of atonal freeform with post no wave attributes and a fair wallop of agit groove goo, quite frankly all over the shop, a serious head butting assault that sounds like something the impish Andy Pyne in his various incarnations has had a crack at, literally everything is thrown into this molten maelstrom – fried jazz, art rock, maddening math core teased out by detuned festering riffage and near critical meltdown electronics – and that’s just the first 20 seconds – 8 minutes in it all goes weird jazz for a minute or so before seemingly submitting and surrendering to a squalling full throttle skree scarring whiteout. Good luck with that. Slightly more together and less erratic are cangarra, well I say less erratic and more together – I should really have qualified that by warning you that this is flame retardant and liable to scorch your speaker system to ash and cinders, a bearded beatnik bastard with ambitions to be a nuclear variant of blue cheer, so out there and shit faced as it veers towards the dark side of the telescopes and circle, should appeal to noise disciples endeared by those marathon trensmat workouts and the endurance pushing white out psychosis of the Acid Mothers. www.agiantfern.tumblr.com
I’ve often lay awake at night imagining the sounds pressed upon vinyl had Mr Jarre attended the same school as Tangerine Dream spending their lesson times behind the bicycle shed smoking tabs and swapping dreams of futuristic utopias I’m sure you have to as is Gora Sou whose new incoming cassette due on the sic sic imprint entitled – we believe – ’troposphere themes’ is gorgeously daubed in mellowing tides of 70’s retro analogue swirls and dream drifting cosmicalia not to mention forlornly spirited celestial opines, alas we only have but a short snippet to go by but enough for you to get the general flavour of what to expect. www.soundcloud.com/sicsic/sicsic068-gora-sou-troposphere
New soon on slumber land is the latest platter from Terry Malts entitled ‘nobody realizes this is nowhere’ – and well we could lavish you with oodles upon oodles of nifty info about it – but we here are guessing you’d prefer to dispense with the flannel and get straight to the nitty gritty especially when you find out that included in the first few hundred copies there’s a killer flexi disc enclosed. Don’t you just feel for the kids of today, first they were introduced to the concept of vinyl and after a while of convincing them that there wasn’t a super duper album sized tray they could get from maplins to usb into their PC and that these black round things were played on turntables, then we sneaked back out into fashion the much derided cassette. Now the mirth has died down and the once neglected tape has now been commemorated with its own ‘store day’ – then what of the flexi. Now as much as I love the flexi disc in terms of the turntable evolutionary scale they rank just below the dreaded lathe cuts, on a practical scale they never suffered from deterioration, where less demanding in the care quotient than the trusty old vinyl. however sometimes you’d need to tape a coin for ballast purposes and then there was the always check your stylus for the merest speck of dust or else said record arm would venture spindle way in a neat and attractive arc. Point of all well said flexi – yes flexi – features Terry Malts blistering cover of the Altered Images forevermore classic ‘I could be happy’ – the Alt’s much loved around these parts of course have their dinky pop gem stripped bare to the bone and sent packing with a rocket up its rear end by the Malts man who applies to it an almost Buzzcockian vibe amid which replaces Ms Grogan’s almost casually dippy I’m only joking mannerisms with a meaningful two fingered salute that stings with the fuzzy monochrome iciness of the JMC. So cool I could kiss the blighter. www.soundcloud.com/slumberland-records/terry-malts-I-could-be-happy
Stepping out of her sleepingdog shadow, Chantal Acda is shortly to release her debut solo offering. Pencilled for November release schedules on the gizeh imprint, ’let your hands be my guide’ finds this exceptional talent gathering together a small select band of like minded souls into her inner sanctum (Peter Broderick, Nils Frahm, Shahzad Ismaily and Mum’s Gyda Valtysdottir) to craft something intimate and vulnerable. Lead out track ’Jason’ has been despatched as a teaser herald to serve notice of what to expect. Lovingly rubbed in the kind of softly spectral willowy aura of a breaking morn, this nature bound pretty coos and chimes shyly dazed in dreamy folk folds teased in a beguiling longing, Acda’s vocals hushed and carefree swell and recline with a bitter sweet ache to cast a spellbinding enchantment that’s aided and vividly coloured by the mellowing tip toeing key treads and the playful pastoral pirouettes of the peek a boo string arrangement who gathered together embellish it with an affectionate disarming warmth. Need I say more. www.soundcloud.com/gizeh/chantal-acda-jason
Bet this lot don’t suffer fools gladly, described by their press folk as ’a cerebral mix of avant-garde space rock and black metal’ – Finnish dark cadets Oranssi Pazuzu are shortly due to drop a mother load of densely choking squalling groove courtesy of their ’valonielu’ full length for Svart from which we managed to nab opening salvo ’vino verso’ to seduce your discerning ear. We say seduce merely as a wheeze quite frankly its liable to strip the top three layers of your face skin clean off without a so much as a by your leave. Hell stricken apocalyptic psyche if our ears do not deceive that imagines an insanely retribution venting ‘Jesus built my hotrod’ era ministry skull fucking the Brian Jonestown and Black Angels contingent, this skree scowling bad ’un comes curdled by way of a howling despair gouged sandblasting armoury of festering locked groove monochromatics all surgically wired to a formidable mutant kraut underpin and headed up by a singer who from sound alone you’d imagine had been dragged back from beyond the veil. Stunning and seismic. www.soundcloud.com/earsplit/oranssi-pazuzu-vino-verso
Blimey Cave in funky groove shock, drag city full length incoming soon titled ’threace’, ’shikaakwa’ lifted from that set and adorned by a suitably trippy video directed by Nick Ciontea is Cave like you never heard them before, loose – well tightly / loosely if you get my drift, loveable and dare we say strangely exotic or should that be tropical not withstanding coming on as though they’ve just dropped through a time portal straight out of some hipster groove late 60’s jazz lounge hive, the trademark slow propulsive looping mantras are still in place though here invested with a degree of lightly tempered beard stroking vibes and featuring flutes, yes flutes which all add together to give it a killer minimalist styled trancey head trip.
Bloody hell I’m welling up already and that’s just the opening 25 seconds however will I make it to the 3.28 run out. The fossil collective are indeed adored around these parts, on the occasions they’ve appeared on our sound system we’ve dutifully despatched said gems with a hearty recommendation and a tear in the eye. Due soon a new EP entitled ‘the water’ via dirty hit maintains the surrendering yearn of earlier outings per the teaser title cut, sounding not unlike a distressed and vulnerable lo-fi Simon and Garfunkel, duo jonny (hooker) and david (fendick) cut from the finest of folk’s timeless tapestry to turn in something ethereal, elegant and borderline spiritual, softly spun harmonies sweetly caressed by the merest of melodic detailing crushes with a hymnal ache rarely heard so hurtful and captivating since the emergence and passing of the low anthem. Expect a full on visitation in forthcoming missives.
And did we just mention the low anthem, well here’s the latest nugget from former LA singer Daniel Lefkowitz under his newfound guise as future primitif. Not the first time we’ve had the pleasure of featuring Futur Primitif in these pages, ’time’ slated for release on integrity next month is culled from his debuting ’machineteeth’ set released a little while ago. An absolute gem that’s cut with such sparse technique that its best viewed in the sleeping still of the night that way it avoids the hectic hustle and bustle of day time routine and into the bargain allows the song to breath and fill the listening space with its sweet seduction. Draped in all manner of shimmering sepia trims, this dreamy ballad waltzes with a beguiling ghostly elegance like an apparition riding aloft an airless dreamy wave amid mallowy reverb rushes all speckled in a vintage 50’s framing, utterly adorable.
So damn catchy we keep breaking into a rash every time it comes into earshot. Debuting single from a Congolese trio with added vocal chemistry from Tamara Schlesinger – Dragon Noir – is accompanied by oodles of information of artists going AWOL in a modern day Rodriguez way, missing vocals and talk of newly hatched Afro-Kraut hybrids being forged in studios, oh and the mere fact that its been all told three years in the planning. Out soon via freaksville – a label headed up by a certain Benjamin Schoos who last regaled these pages causing all manner of swooning fits when he invited Stereolab’s Laatitia Sadier to guest on his kooky 60’s French pop homage ’je ne vois que vous’ – ’black dragon’ courts with a frankly addictive friskiness, into the melting pot a crooked stew formed out of long lost 70’s children’s TV signatures are softly smouldered and turned on to a distractively laid back and funky phrasing that waltzes along on dreamy waves of tropicalia calypsos all sweetly sugared by a lilting light headed and lost in the moment airy coos of a Ms Schlesinger doing her best Lily Allen’s. irresistible in short. www.soundcloud.com/freaksvillerecords/le-dragon-noir-blackdragon/s-e5BDE
If I was in the hunt for a new favourite band this week and scribbling out reviews with one eye on the advertising potential for certain newsstand musical publications and the other on how I could conceivably wrap this write up in one nifty catchy line without actually having hearing the record – no names but you know who you are – this weeks honorary award for saviours of the great lost guitar wielding indie kids with floppy fringes cause would undoubtedly go to Dead Wolf Club. Pressed upon 10 inches of heavy duty wax – coloured at that in green and white and featuring a by all accounts tasty fanzine – the ’healer’ EP is about to break cover via the big tea imprint. An absolute drop dead gorgeous 4 track epic which I’m suspecting a younger former self would have greeted with all the festooning of bunting and pulse racing euphoria as though it was the last ever record before the end. Heady words you might say, but I’ll fire back that there’s something here that fuses the angular, the atonal, the schizoid, the blissful and the edgy into a brittle teen spirited pop persona and draws upon the essences of a well heeled record collection as though a grab bagging mix tape, yet amid all this rigidly retaining their own identity and sound. As said 4 tracks lurk within, opening salvo ‘flood’ hitting the ground running and having us scurrying for comparisons with the mighty th’ faith healers and quick space albeit colluding together to concoct a bastardised mash out of old Pixies sound parts and possessed of a disquieting rumble that’s prone to snowburst into euphoric flurries of bliss rupturing feedback skree all sumptuously cast adrift amid a wiring armoury of punctuated volatile struts. The hollowing and harrowing ‘metropolis’ is classic Fiction era Cure before the mascara and big hair, brooding, forlorn and coiled to an austere bleaching all beset by a synth back-dropping majesty you’d be hard pushed to hear better outside of a Chameleons platter. Traversing a similar generic ley-line ‘melt’ emotionally fractures from withdrawn to an effervescent bruising in the blink of an eye amid the jarring spectral riffage a spiked heads down no nonsense attrition looms to the surface garnished in icy post punk signatures trimmed in an austere framing and cooled by the appearance of swooning fuzzed twang sighs. ‘17’ rounds up the set catching the vapour trail left by the wilde club collective and shoehorning between its finite grooving some stratospheric scorching a la early Ride and Moose that translates seductively into adrenaline charged halos of bliss kissed rapture. Goes without saying we want one of these cuties doing damage on our hi-fi – what of it then press people?
Quick mention for this, eyed on the activity listings on face book. it’s the latest outing from Eleanor Rigby – okay a re-issue of sorts, alas annoyingly only available via download. Now I’m certain we’ve a few Eleanor Rigby platters festooned about our person, seem to recall a couple of re-issued 7’s appearing and disappearing in a flash during the mid 90’s (that if I’m not very much mistaken we ordered from fogy notion which if memory serves was a mail order thing run by two chaps who used to publish a little update fanzine which so impressed was given pride of place after much thumbing in our record room – alas we don’t have them now given they fell foul of a very spiteful ex). Anyhow back with Eleanor Rigby this is the flipside to the current release ‘I’m not like anyone else’. mod queen and scooter boy pin up, Eleanor’s brief foray in pop’s history books was brief though seismic, a lasting legacy that trailed a finite precious blaze in the mid 80’s and a name ushered by the more clued up indie community that sprang up during the brit pop flowering in the 90’s. one album and a handful of singles left in the wake of her ‘retirement’ just at the point when her career was set to go orbital. ‘up the junction’ is simply pure class, traced to a delirious symphonic pop hush whose inspired and faultless 60’s trimming hints of it being dropped straight out of a Bill Naughton penned kitchen sink drama, imbibed with the enchanted floral pirouette of a delicately teased harpsichord and serviced with a sleek and slender seductive soft psych lilt that trembles and coos to a sun sparked shimmer that recalls some sunny soundtrack bliss out blending Dusty and Lulu.
A short video ‘self portrait’ with Andy Weatherall…..
Another quick one, legendary experimental label All Saints are shortly to embark on a massive re-issue campaign – details and press release can be viewed via www.marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/information – the schedule begins with the unearthing of two long out of print Laraaji sets from 1992 and 1995 (’flow goes the universe’ and ’the way out is the way in’) that’ll feature on a groove packed two disc set also featuring ’essence / universe’ – the re-issue campaign will continue to mine the vaults with extensive retrospectives on Roger Eno and Harold Budd. For now and serving as a taster here’s a docu-video interview with Laraaji along with a previously unreleased track from 1981 entitled ’I am ocean’…enjoy…
www.vimeo.com/75415290
www.soundcloud.com/all-saints-records/laraaji-I-am-ocean-1981/s-bJaRB
Littered amongst the sonic debris that we here mirthfully refer to as the tales from the attic record room you’ll note several references to a certain Andy Pyne. Who the bloody hell is Andy Pyne you are probably all wondering as you scratch your heads and give quizzical grimaces of puzzled curiosity – and we know you because big brother who is watching you told us so. Mr Pyne is with friends and accomplices a kind of one man music factory kicking out sounds plastered to limited edition CD’s like no ones business via his imprint foolproof projects. Long been on the radar of these musings since the distant days of puffin boy and braer rabbit he has in recent years ventured out as kellar, medicine and duty, raised by wolves and the black neck band of the common loon whose 5th outing we have here doing strange things on the player. The Loon are a freeform collective of revolving door membership this opus featuring blue pin and Jason Williams – the former named per the credits slip within on hand to play drums, piano, violin and whine – presumably not at the same time though I wouldn‘t put it past him. Strictly limited to just 100 copies along with unlimited download variants, ‘the fleshing beam’ finds our trio of intrepid imps evermore scaling the aural boundaries of the unknown to plant flags and colonise musical worlds as yet unmapped let alone on any known radar. So far left of this heat it nearly falls off the viewfinder (the decidedly wired and skittish ‘I‘d remember if I was another me‘ putting paid to that and sounding not unlike Bablicon in a nightmarish Japcore headlock), agitate and annoy appear to be the key watch words to the Loon philosophy, resolutely refusing to adhere to any tick box generic regime instead preferring to pummel and puzzle enquiring heads alike amid a jarring ju-ju jamboree made up of 8 freakish mutants (which don’t come any freakier it should said than on ‘force feeding the flock’) which at moments touch base unsettlingly with previously cited reference markers so that you get a terraforming stew into which elements of art rock, no wave, acid jazz, primitive folk and earth beat cross match, repulse to form new aural DNA strains with somewhere here old favourite Albert Ayler being for one heavily indebted to and dutifully lapped up on the chaotic fried jazz squall that is ’bead spitter’ whilst older listeners keenly aware of Volcano the Bear back in the day when they where too weird for the Wire might fancy a little casual re-acquainting Loon style that is via the mildly trippy though deranged crooked earth beat improv of ‘static pleasure’ while the pursuing ‘looning song’ has it seems taken more than an odd spin of the Volcano dudes ‘yak folk’s y’are’ as it concocts a darkening stew of Residents like sonic sorcery that’s all at once odd, deeply unsettling and transposed in an archaic druid like tongue. For long time admirers of the Loon there’s even a vocal moment, a very rare occurrence to those well versed in Foolproof Project groove courtesy of ‘open mouth mouthing’ which in case your taking notes sounds not unlike a deep fried art prog afro kraut bad boy which leaves the quite frankly shit faced and gone ‘the fleshing beam’ to see things ominously out with a sinister display of torch jazz noir which at intervals put us in mind of trunk’s excellent ‘voodoo sessions’ albeit of course as though fractured and recalibrated by the mischievous hand of Stockhausen with Moondog on side for added strangeness.
We got a message from Paddy over at Tesla the spiritual sonic home if you like of Gnod alerting us to all manner of head melting groove currently residing on the imprint, if we don’t get to it here in this write up then we’ll definitely earmark for listening action next missive out. I mention all this not just because we wanted to put it out there in a ’do not adjust your sets’ type of way but because it reminded us to follow up something we’ve been meaning to do for ages but as yet have struggled time wise with, namely a little peak at what’s been happening over at trensmat of late. So how does one remind you of the other you might rightly wonder – simply the fact that the latest limited outing from Ireland’s finest psych noise experimentalist imprint comes courtesy of Dwellings – the exploratory vehicle of Chris Haslam and part of the ever expanding Gnod family circle. As ever strictly limited – and if its anything like previous releases – sold out at pre sale, the ‘don’t say nothing’ comes pressed up on heavy duty coloured vinyl each copy housing digital download codes for the cuts wax stamped within along with an additional exclusive to the release 17 minute opus entitled ’under gun metal skies’. for your troubles a colossal 5 track trip meister awaits to plug its receptors into the core of your cerebrum. Originally appearing earlier this year on the Tesla imprint (another mention – you’d think I was on commission) in an uber limited 50 cassettes only pressing and something we did in fact touch on via our sister Sunday Experience word press blog way back in March, ’don’t say nothing’ is your subterranic bass machine side to the Gnod hive mind, first impressions viewing the set as a whole in one sitting would procure a vision drizzled in apocalyptic drone but scratch away a little deeper and within the mesmeric shards of opener ’frame speed’ there’s a playful twist of Detroit techno being recalibrated and submerged into an austere and minimalist monochrome framing that echoes early Cabaret Voltaire and translates as though a very youthful Boards of Canada found marooned in some blade runner styled future world in a parallel dimension are hastily sending out distress calls to which somewhere here the truth about Frank are coding. ’drone invasion’ is curved in a decidedly frisky mutant funk casing whereupon through the blurring and frantic haze of mainframe consoles achieving critical mass the digitised purr of tigerbeat6 styled mind morphing mantras skittishly surfaces, though if you ask me its liable to send kitchen appliances into feverish ecstasy. Next up ’holographic mirror’ perhaps all said the most approachable cut here to newfound Gnod heads, as the press release rightly asserts loosely that is a tranced out gem than mainlines on a mutoid Moroder mindset albeit here relocated and rephrased in an early 80’s club land under the watchful eye of Arthur Baker. ’wave propagation’ bring the vinyl content to a close courtesy of a sublimely forlorn galactic dronal suite that reboots the textures explored on the opening ’frame speed’ and in so doing completing the circle so to speak though not before entrancing all in hulking swathes of serene star drifts. Turning you out into the cold the menacingly oblique ‘under gun metal skies’ sees matters to an ominous closure channelling directly into Dwellings dark heart to carve out a nightmarish vision of dread futures desolate and devastated, the foreboding ceremonial procession of unrelenting metallic clangs, industrial propulsions and the groaning pulsars only serve to heavily set this monolithic mantra in an ice stilled atmospheric forged in the hostile eye of the Snape collective to draw upon a withering and unforgiving glimpse of tomorrow through the viewfinder of Wizards Tell Lies.
We’ve been listening to this in tandem with their Trensmat release – which hang on we are just checking – should by rights feature later in this missive or else the next should it have fallen off the schedule. Astral Social Club like you’ve never heard them before, well at least not for a while, these days found piloting voyages to the outer reaches of the musical cosmos this gorgeously trippy face off between ASC flight commander Mr Campbell and Mr Owen here under the guise Bacon Industries entitled ‘sweetheart’. A three part celestial bliss kissing suite which per the credit notes is a song about leaving your sweetheart which translates sonically as 12 minutes of out there wooziness all seductively wrapped in forlorn cascades of starry eyed euphoria, ethereal chorals, mind warping mantras and dissolving riff raptures which for the best part lend themselves to moments likened to finding yourself amid some surreal dreamy collage wherein at various passages things begin to fracture, dissipate and blur together into a thick mind morphing mallowy landscape, will appeal in the first instance to admirers of FSA and Sonic Boom in his Spectrum hat. In short the sound of a celestial tumble drier with the setting hiked up to heavenly.
We’d love to give you a link to said sound cloud clip but our frankly petulant works programme is refusing to copy and paste so with that in mind hop along to marklosingtoday.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/astral-social-club-vs.-bacon-industries/
Eyed whilst listening to the ASC / Bacon Industries collab was something oddly eerie and darkly seductive from Valley of Capsules entitled ‘the flying of dot 39’, a superbly panoramic slab of subterannic ambience which loosely veers in the sonic sphere of both John 3:16 and the Snape collective (again) as was, fusing poem excerpts interspersed with free sounds and then woven into a thing of ever darkening beauty that fuses glassy shimmers, orbital swathes and ambient lilts into a deeply serene and ghostly collage. Alas no information but safe to say we’ll be keeping a watchful out for further communications. www.soundcloud.com/valley-of-capsules/the-flying-of-dot-39
I’m a tad mildly surprised at not seeing tape cuts tape figuring in Andy and Jerry’s top 11 Jezus Factory choice cuts as published in a recent edition of the record collector as part of the magazines – er – celebrated label of love feature, didn’t we do one of those type spotlight things in an earlier incarnation for record mart and buyer – thought so. As said no mention for their two outings – the previous ’pagan recorder’ warmly received here many moons ago and this one – ’black mould’ – mind you that said 60 odd releases to their name and scarcely one putting a foot wrong, Jezus Factory have attained a reputation for time and time again being able to source sounds that are just a little on the special side. Now us here have a particular fondness for tape cuts tape, agreed you are probably wondering why this hasn’t therefore featured in lights long before now, well its that old cliché – fell out of love with music, lost interest an issue heightened considerably by killing off a handful of laptops and then losing a seriously lengthy missive a little while back and I guess more pertinent in the case of Tape Cuts Tape – their CD went on a walk as CD’s are prone to do especially ones that find home here. All we can say is thank heavens for spotify because no sooner did we turn this up – by pure accident I hasten to add – then up re-appeared the CD – with sleeve and press release intact – believe you me such instances are rare events around here. Eight sumptuous suites lounge within ‘black mold’ and I say lounge deliberately because it seems in the years between this and their last opus these dudes have been a chilling and refining their sound to a smokily seductive signature. That said much like their last offering TCT have an undeniable knack for changing the listening landscape at the drop of a hat and just when your getting comfy – happy to say ‘black mold‘ manages to clearly signpost its want for mixing things up by seemingly pairing together the differing personas so that it’s the back end of the set where things get a little deep and playfully mind arranging leaving the earlier moments freely absorbed in crafting the radio friendly ear candy like for instance the title track and opening salvo. Touching the 13 minute ticker tape which to the less adventurous might seem on first viewing a bit of handful but believe me once your knee deep in you never want this honey to end. Sound wise its appearance awakened the feelings I had when first hearing ’birthday’ by the sugarcubes shuffling through the radio static on the late night Peel musical wingding, that same strange romance and sense of something not quite complete slowly evolving and shifting focus with the attending parts converging in such a magical motion as to emerge fully formed. Purely a lights dimmed affair, there’s a sweet sensual sophistication brokered here that’s teased by a patient smoothness of slow build raptures coiling together a lullaby like spell craft softly dappled in a sultry sepia tweaked cosmicalia. The slinky ’deep garden’ is attractively lulled by a dizzying snake winding riff atop of which Lynn Cassiers wooing torch trimmed mantra aches with ethereal seduction to cut a musical shape that wouldn’t look to out of place on Musetta’s ’mice to meet you’ set. Aptly titled ’sludge’ the sets sore thumb channels the mood to a different level, stoner dub fuzz with a thing for a spot of kraut, this cold wave slab of minimalism loosely touches base with a youthful Cabaret Voltaire albeit that’ll be the Cabs re-editing old school Killing Joke / Brilliant flip sides at the wrong speed with a seriously out of it Echoboy invited along to add warped weirdness. Its at this point where the aforementioned deeper edged phrasing comes to pass with ’loose thought’ finding itself rooted in a gorgeously locked grooved primitive kraut dialect while ’rundfunk’ again serviced upon a subterannic dub palette mooches ominously cast adrift in some trippy psych induced nightmare to sound not unlike any one of the many Gnod offspring. The obliquely ambient and criminally brief ’moon over beach’ rounds matters out to an end though not before the applying of some hollowed and sparsely stilled David Lynch styled atmospherics bade you farewell and leave you cowed with a feeling of eerie disquiet.
The first sneak peak airings of the forthcoming ‘shrunken heads’ single due soon on fruits de mer, the double pack single a kind of after glowing comedown emerging from the smoky haze of the labels critically acclaimed kraut comp ‘head music’ features dandified cover re-drills of tangerine, faust, brain ticket and gong grooves by a familiar returning crop of space cadets namely black tempest, vespero, Frobisher neck and jay Tausig – however it’s the latter that gets an early call on this preview excerpt – Jay Tausig should need no introductions here, a workaholic psychedelic overlord here doing weird warping things to Gong’s ‘the glorious OM riff’ – Gong of course again in need of no introduction back in the day carved out what can only be described as aural acid tabs – so strap in and prepare for the next two minutes to have your listening space redecorated in lysergic ally tripped out mushroom mirages……
And back with Tesla, this incidentally came highly recommended by the label folk. Second cassette release from lightning glove who hail from Czech Republic who by all accounts according to the labels shop window page slayed the mighty Gnod on a recent visit to Prague where they were invited along to support. As previously this release comes strictly limited to just 50 tapes ‘raving peacock’s tail’ is no doubt long sold out and quite frankly deserving of closer inspection especially from those of you whose preferred sonic tastes veer towards the collective pool waded in by the likes of Coil and Throbbing Gristle. Four cuts sit menacingly and glower from within. This is chilling stuff and by chilling I mean edgy, disquieting, neglected and abandoned, not I should add for the feint of heart or those expecting an easy ride. This is brutal though not so much in an agit core or spiteful way, more psychosis driven, the tension and intolerance literally drips off it, here there’s a sense of the patiently calculating, the watching, the waiting, the assessing upon which a brief moment will appear to allow for a break of cover. I must admit this is more in punks true essence and nature than all your stupid badges, naff high street regalia and gang mentality. Fused upon a bleak canvas of industrial reverbs and soured and scarred in a withering austere minimalist dialect, ‘one step further’ harrowingly lurches forth, a darkening ceremony sucking all joy dry like some pulsating and impenetrable black hole, likewise with the sets most accessible sounding cut ‘HTRV’, the clinically cold sparseness echoes to a youthful Cabaret Voltaire albeit recoded and invested with a withering industrial dub tongue by an out of it and recalcitrant sounding gathering of SPK, play dead and Revolutionary Corps of Teenage Jesus types out of which somewhere mid way through emerges from out of the silvery reverb shards something very much funkliy mutant in a PIL in cosmic dub type way. ‘plastic zone’ arrives shrouded in a gripping atmospheric eeriness much recalling of those found loitering on the flip sides of old Bauhaus platters and while it might conceivably win over the horror phonic kudos with its bleak blank walled iciness and have you scampering for the rear of the settee it’s the parting ‘endless tides of weathered soda’ that casts its dark dread shadow with its groaning monastic chants and incessant beat pulsars to spook like something rarely heard around these parts since those classic cuts from UK Decay. This is not life this is merely existence.
Be honest Disney themes are love them or loathe them hotwired into your psyche, they are your earliest memory revisited upon every Christmas. They are synonymous with notions of feel good. But what if someone – shall we say – fucked with them, skewed them up to make twisted facsimiles of them. What would it be like, would it be an attack or a subversion of our morals, perhaps everything we hold dear or would it be far worse akin say to the defilement of that evermore Capra classic ‘it’s a wonderful life’ as in Blatty’s ‘Exorcist III’ where the chilling daubing of ‘wonderfull’ mocks thus. But hey bollocks to all that – just trying to jimmy this up a bit for L. Pierre who used to be Lucky and before that was an Arab Strap as in the band and not the sex aid wherein he was plain old Aidan Moffat which as it happens he still is but only on days with a y in – has cobbled together a collage of old Disney tunes and spun them into a pretty nifty mix set. Alas some wag mentioned nightmarish another trippy both of which I’m sorry to say don’t look like pudding proofing any day soon. Still it is at times mildly surreal and I guess psych-ee and I must admit hearing all these disembodied vocals flickering through the speakers during darkness is mildly disconcerting. Anyhow Dazed Digital are hosting this.
www.soundcloud.com/dazedandconfused
This one has been sitting in the wings chirping away like an excitable impish infant demanding attention and play. The latest from the mighty bearsuit empire crookedly begins its descent in digital space with the arrival of AWSTS – or Anata Wa Sukkari Tsukarete Shimai to give them their full unedited moniker – now try gettin
