Deserted Village

The Primal Barber Trio - BARBERarberbarbr
Deserted Village. DV44
3”CDR/DL

Toymonger - The Night Vision
Deserted Village.
LP/DL [Released in 2007]

United Bible Studies - The Kitchen Session
Deserted Village.
LP/Free Download EP [Released in 2011]

United Bible Studies & Jozef Van Wissem - Downland
Deserted Village.
LP/DL


It took me a bit of time to work out that the one CDR and various bits of paper that Deserted Village sent me meant I could listen to all these releases via the medium of internet. You see, I’m like John Peel, in that I feel more at ease with records and physical formats, streaming and downloading are fine but give me a record any day. Perhaps its just as well that Peel never got to be confused by downloads, CD’s nearly did him in as it was. But I do like a nice record. They’re round and full of grooves and when you spin them and put a needle on them music comes out.

And yes I know I said I don't review downloads and I’m not going to start either [sort of] but Deserted Village put that Tom Carter benefit release up on their Bandcamp page a while back [which I’m still listening to by the way seeing as how there's nearly a hundred tracks to absorb] and whilst listening to The Primal Barber Trio I got drawn into the whole Deserted Village streaming/downloading thing and thought maybe this isn't such a bad way to go after all. Put aside your grumpy complaints I said unto myself and revel in this new found technology. A technology that enables you to listen to lots of lovely things for not very much money at all and in some cases bugger all money.

To be fair to Deserted Village they do back up their downloads with a physical presence which is to be applauded and it is to this that I turn first. Except it wont play. I’m cursed with the non playing 3” CDR.  They do look cute and you can get 20 minutes of music on them, which is like one side of an LP, but getting them to play is a different matter. My PC wont take them, my Walkman dithers as does my stereo which leaves me back at the Deserted Village Bandcamp page where I listen to The Primal Barber Trio via streaming heaven and whilst I’m at it the rest of this lot.

Primal Barber Trio are Stuart Geelon, Gavin Prior and Aonghus McEvoy. A three way vocal improv outfit a-gurgling and a-groaning their way through the Irish undergrowth like Blood Stereo, Phil Minton, Jaap Blonk, Trevor Wishart and some more people whose names'll come to me when I’ve posted this. Described as ‘No polite improv snoozefest, only  deranged ritual’ gives you some idea of what they're up to and to what Irish improv sounds like. Totally bonkers. Far more maddening than Blonk, far rougher round the edges than Minton and further down the road of drunken roar than Blood Stereo. The drunken yelling even reminds me of Humberside’s premier tourettes championeer YOL in places. And then theres the dictaphone abuse.

When solo, drunken roars appear to no one in particular. Together they sound like a gang of workmen trying to urge each other on whilst digging a hole. Sometimes the shouting reaches a crescendo and then it becomes quite frightening. Dictaphone abuse fills in the background somewhat with sweeping swirls of chaos, looped static and clunking loops. Mumbles, nonsense words, lunatic crying, the rattle of jail cell chains.

All this emerging from a ‘layered and collaged’ process courtesy of Prior the end results fitting in somewhere between a Stuart Chalmers tape improv session and a fight between Minton and Wishart in the bogs of the Duncan. Heady stuff. I urge them to do more.

The rest I listened to whilst dotting around the Deserted Village website. United Bible Studies are a folk group that incorporate synths and bizarre as that sounds it does work. Like Vashti Bunyan teaming up with Edgar Froese. The Toymonger release is almost seven years old now but worth a listen. Described as Ireland’s first noise 12” its anything but [noise that is]. What it is, is scrape and drone with Prior again in the thick of it producing brooding atmospheres across four tracks.

The Deserted Village Bandcamp page, not a bad place to end up. 

 
 



Deserted Village