Sunday, June 14, 2020

brb>voicecoil, Palestine and the clouds above Outlane.







brb>voicecoil - Occupation by Killers
Muzamuza. MM24
One sided lathe cut LP + inserts/DL
22 copies.

With one of any number of current shit-storms to choose from its not surprising that the current situation in Palestine has been shoved off the agenda to some degree [though I do remember reading yet another story of an unarmed Palestinian being shot at a border checkpoint the other week]. What can I tell you about the Palestinian situation? Not much. I know that once upon a time they had some land and then they had it taken off them and since then theres been nothing but trouble. Whoda thunk that one eh? Oh and the British were involved of course. We just love trampling all over countries and then handing them back in worst state once we’ve done with them. Its what made this nation great.

Its a situation I feel I’ll never have a full grip on. I find the Northern Island ‘situation’ hard to fathom too. Once you realize that it all stems from Henry VIII deciding he fancied giving his first wife the Spanish Archer [El Bow] you have to think to yourself, surely you’ve sorted this one out already? Thats Henry VIII, the 16th century’s Donald Trump who is himself Hitler in an orange skin. Which brings us nicely around to todays surreal situation, something that involves a killer virus, statues to slave traders, racial equality, the environment, Brexit, police brutality, JK Rowling and whether Americans can make a cup of tea using a microwave. 

Did you see the idiots in Parliament Square yesterday? I’m still trying to find out what they were doing there in the first place? Maybe its because the footballs off and it was a sunny day, perfect weather for spitting on people having a picnic in Hyde Park, pissing up against memorials to police offers killed in the line of duty and having a ‘row’ with the riot police. Someone said they were there to protect ‘our monuments’ but seeing has how most of them had been covered up anyway it would appear the authorities had already done that job for them. I have the unfortunate pleasure of having to work with such people, the kind who get upset that Doctor Who’s a woman and that a meals not a meal unless it involves a huge lump of meat, the kind who will quite happily spill Stella down their Stone Island zippy top while pledging death, hate and destruction to anything that even sniffs of the continent.

I escape by reading and listening to music. Theres been much more of the former than the latter of late. I don’t know why this should be so. It goes in circles. The review pile is a quite healthy one but I’ve been putting it off, much preferring to retrace my Bennett, Bukowksi, Burroughs, Ballard, Beckett and Kelman steps [notice how most of my favourite authors have surnames beginning with the letter ‘B’? I tend to spend most of my time in secondhand bookshops near the door where bookshop owners eye me nervously no doubt thinking that I’m going to do a runner with an old paperback copy of Murphy].

‘Occupation by Killers’ pulled me out of the loop due to it arriving in stunning translucent blue vinyl. A single sided lathe cut thing of magnificence that hugs the sides of my turntable to absolute perfection. No label, just a twelve inch slab of wax with some grooves on one side. If you want digital then fine, you can have it, you can get the entire MuzaMuza back catalogue for a pound less than what this will set you back but then you’ll have digital and I’ll have a thing of beauty, a release that will probably never leave these four walls until I either move house or die, something that will remind me of the day Trump struggled to drink a  glass of water with one hand and the weekend we drove up to the moors above Huddersfield for the first time in months only to discover the views were obscured by low cloud past Outlane.

brb>voicecoil is Kevin Wilkinson, a long time ‘environmental audio manipulator’ from Newcastle whose label MuzaMuza releases sounds of a similar bent and in similar limited, most desirous editions. The twenty minutes of ‘Occupation by Killers’ originally saw the light of day in 2009 when issued as a three inch CDR on Muzzedia Verhead but is now forever encased in blue vinyl, or white, or clear or red depending upon your choice. All sounds are sourced from moulded plastic on wood and crushed tin on concrete the results being a masterclass in sound manipulation where you’re never quite sure what you’re hearing, a sound-world full of material stresses and tensions, the friction between surfaces creating an energy that dissipates slowly as the track reaches its conclusion. Its a termites nest or its Pan Sonic gigging from heaven. I know not.