[4] Bob Hallucinations

[4] Bob Hallucination
Dog Hallucination. 3” CD
50 Copies



Thanks to Peel playing their 12”’s that went on for 20 minutes I did have a soft spot for The Orb [Andy Kershaw took him to task over such indulgence of course] but for me, at a time when things were going tits up music wise, their music was as welcome as a found fiver in an old coat pocket. Their trippy ambient beats filled with quirky samples floated from my speakers like mind melting ether and then they teamed up with Mike Oldfield and Steve Hillage and it all went horribly wrong.

The Orb were the first band to spring to mind whilst listening to all 23 minutes [natch] of [4] Bob Hallucinations. Bob Hallucinations may not like it but thats what you get for sending your releases to someone who used to listen to The Orb. The production is pristine, the guitars layer and fall like glistening slivers of icicle melt, the field recordings are sublime and well positioned [a nail factory by all accounts], the beats [when they eventually appear] are all Muslimgauze-y and when put into one whole it should work but with it being so overly polished I find it as gratifying as overfeeding on Quality Streets.

Perhaps Bob Hallucinations would prefer it if I mentioned them in the same breath as Column One which I would do if only they’d lay off the hours of mixing and editing and pruning and making sure it all sounds just right. Stripped down and raked out into an hours worth of material there’d be enough sounds in here to keep me happy for many an alcoholic afternoon but as it stands now I find this too condensed and overworked. Pretty when ugly is needed.



Contact:


www.intangiblecat.com/doghallucination

http://www.intangiblecat.com/releases/bobhal3.html

ESP Kinetic / Astral Social Club

Astral Social Club - V.E.N.U.S [For electronics and guitars, October 2011]
No label CDR

Astral Social Club - Generator Breaker
Dekorder LP.  Dekorder 055

ESP Kinetic - ‘Want Some Of This?’
Harbinger Sound LP.  Harbinger75


Contact:

astralsocialclub [at] hotmail.co.uk
www.dekorder.com





Eleven PM on a Saturday night is always a good time to grab some merch from the nodmeister. At the recent Ramleh gig he was chucking records about like confetti at a wedding. ‘Anybody not got one of these?’ says Campbell waving his arms about like a plane parker on acid. And all of a sudden it was like who cares about the Sabbath party band Campbell’s giving away records. Fortunately I’d scored the ESP earlier from the Underwood but the Dekorder and VENUS were received like golden tablets and carried home in the taxi like a new born baby.

I probably owe Campbell about sixteen gallons of beer by now and the upcoming tour of Cleck hostelries may redress the balance somewhat but In the meantime I’m still trying to link the stylistic bridge between Campbell’s first band ESP Kinetic and his current Astral Social Club project. There’s no point in trying of course. ESP Kinetic are early eighties Throbbing Gristle/Psychic TV/Genesis P-Orridge acolytes, all orange hair, mascara and black finger polish banging away on drums to heavily reverbed vocals in grotty pubs in Northampton whilst ASC emit celestial drone via a network of arteries that flow between the hearts of dance, techno, motorik, drone, noise and pure experimentation.

Following on from last years unearthing of Fleck Nor comes ‘Want Some of This?’ The moronic come on of every pissed up football hooligan in England seems an odd choice of title for an ESP Kinetic release and its hard to imagine our GPO loving troupe clad in Lacoste shell suits hiding around terraced corners waiting for the other crew to turn up but there you go. Its primitive stuff of course. Even more primitive than Fleck Nor which at least had the sense to veer toward early Fall like riffage and MES like delivery now and again [when they weren’t genuflecting GPO’s way of course]. ‘Want Some of This?’ has Casio poke industrial instrumental ditties and early TG carnage all sharing space on muddied straight to Memorex recordings. Theres a live side and a ‘at home’ side with the punch coming from the ‘home’ side most notably on the longer outing ‘Two Faces Collide’ in which a driving bass riff is the backbone to ranting muffled vocals and spacey keyboards all combining to produce a raucous tumult. It’s what Gen would’ve wanted.

Fast forward twenty seven years and we have Astral Social Club. Since leaving the Vibracathedral Orchestra to their own devices about ten years ago Campbell’s work under the ASC moniker has blossomed into an ever flowing, multiplying body of work. An increasingly important and welcome body of work it is too and unlike some artists whose work appears with all the regularity of a well oiled turd, ASC’s prolific offerings are to be sought after and welcomed.

Generator Breaker’s seven tracks begins with a vibrating four chord descent from which we find shimmering guitars and vibrating electronica emerging. ‘Wishaw’ has a four to the floor thump that shares groove space with glowing heat lamp drones. Somewhere in there are the speeded up samples of European classical music. When the frenetic insect drone rumble of ‘Splashdown’ segues into the final track ‘Breaker’ the beats dissolve to leave a  you adrift on a receding idyllic tide. This last, slowed down, ebbing away of residual drone and the final silence that follows had me flipping the damned thing numerous times.

Its hard trying to convey the sheer pleasure to be had from listening to Astral Social Club. After suffering a not inconsiderable amount of tosh in Brighton recently it was to something close to ASC that the weekend badly needed. Something beatific, life affirming, glowing, huggable, off your tits, nod your head drone. But its not all nod your head mindless boogie. Around the twenty minute mark on V.E.N.U.S a church organ like drone emerges from the beats thats precede it. For the next ten minutes it carries you off before breaking up into its constituent keyboard parts. Like this years earlier ASC release 'Scudding' this is a lengthy single.  And whilst not hitting the hour mark its half hours worth are further essential Astral minutes.

Razzle Dazzle

Glue Pour - Telepathy Shots/Preslav Literary School - Sonuna
Split LP. RzDz15. 300 Copies

Rouse Poussin - The Christmas Shots
CD. RzDz16. 80 Copies

Rubén Patiño - Eleven Stereo Moments
Cassette. RzDz17. 40 Copies

Michael Barthel - Noch Mehr Hölen
Cassette. RzDz18. 40 Copies

Contact: http://www.razzle-d.com/nw.html

I told Johnny Scar that I wasn’t going to mention Darksmith’s performance at this years Colour Out of Space fest but then my hurried answer was just as petulant as the performance we’d just seen. How could I not mention the fact that Darksmith, [Friday nights headline act] threw the teddy out of the cot five minutes into his set and spent the next twenty minutes or so exchanging ‘fuck you’s with the audience? Whilst stamping his feet, throwing his equipment about and drinking from a 2 liter plastic bottle of industrial strength cider he ranted, tore at his t-shirt, threw his chair about and generally behaved like a stroppy teenager whose just been grounded for a month. As acts of petulance go it was up there with the best John McEnroe moments but to see it unfold before my very eyes on the first night of a weekend of experimental music took some taking in. Some people said they enjoyed it but not for the sounds produced of course, which were intermittently interesting but on the whole so obviously chaotic.

And then there was the salad. I have this theory that the further south you go in England the more prevalent the green stuff on your plate. By the time you hit Brighton you need a machete to get through it. There must be thousands of rabbits starving to death due to the fact that the eateries of Brighton deem it compulsory to heap five handfuls of the stuff onto everything you order. I’m surprised its not used as a garnish with coffee. It was what probably pushed Darksmith over the edge to start with.

Colour Out of Space put me in the mood for Razzle Dazzle and a series of releases that cover electronica, tape experimentation, sound poetry and lap top bleep. I did play some of this to Phil T when he was here two weeks ago. It arrived on the same weekend of the Ramleh show. We sat and listened to Rose Poussin and what emerged from the speakers was a panning throb disguising various conversations. ‘Illusion of Safety’ said I. ‘Throbbing Gristle’ said Phil. ‘I bet the voices coming from beneath that panning throb are serial killers and sadists’ said I. But they weren’t. We were tricked into thinking this was homage to old school Industrial but when the voices became clear they talked about chess and the best way to hang a mirror. Disappointed we headed to the next track, another live one, this time a drone built on amp buzz and hiss. French voices appear. It ended. We left for Leeds.

Fortunately for me things improved in remarkable fashion when I played Michale Barthel’s Noch Mehr Hölen. Its a short trip but during it I heard voices as quiet as a mouses trot play with Clanger like voices, vocals mimic the exploding of a dirty bomb and a farmers field at five in the morning. On one track it sounds like they’ve gone down to the local Mental Institution and told everybody within mic reach to make daft noises. Some of it is so quiet that you really have to strain to make the most of it but that only adds to its surreal charm. Wonderful.

Rubén Patiño’s release is subtitled ‘stereo movements for a concert without performer’ and there is a certain air of detachment to these sounds. Most are single notes, test, tones, panned and pitched. Theres an air of 50’s electronic avant-gardism about it all giving the work a nostalgic feel which the format certainly benefits from. The two seconds of mock applause at its end shows that Patiño isn’t bereft of a sense of humour either.

Razzle Dazzle is a Berlin based label. Berlin becoming the emerging capital of experimental music. With the apartments of old East Berlin providing cheap rent for aspiring experimenters its no wonder that theres a plethora of artists and labels emerging from there. New York and London may have its fans but its to Berlin we head first. Preslav Literary School’s Adam Thomas and Glue Pours Benjamin l. Aman are both emigré sound artists working in Berlin. PLS’s work is cassette based, on Sonuna a pure church organ drone provides the basis for a layering of sounds that include child like voices, bird song and massed choirs. Such is the skill in mixing all this degraded sound that the end result becomes one amorphous globule of ghostly ethereal delight. Glue Pour’s end results lie in the same area but I guess that they arrive there via a different route. Telepathy Shots drone is one of electric current, held in check fizz, lost in space wilderness and while it didn't engage me as fully as PSL it still has enough depth to hold its own.


To Berlin then and no salad when we get there please.

The New Blockaders - Antimonia II

The New Blockaders - Antimonia II
Dot Dot Dot Music 7”


Contact: http://www.dotdotdotmusic.com




I’m not the only writer in this house you know. Mrs Fisher also dabbles with the keys, her chosen subject being travel. And whereas I amass records, CD’s and cassettes for my troubles Mrs Fisher amasses memories of travel. Since the advent of Ernest [the preferred name for her laptop] Mrs Fisher has been entering various travel writing competitions and the results have been rather welcome. The rewards for all this tapping of keys, besides various mentions in the Guardian Travel Tips pages, has been an iPad, a digital camera, £200 in foreign currency and two luxury breaks in the hotel of our choice. The luxury breaks are for next year and have already been booked. One is a night in the Devonshire Arms near Bolton Abbey North Yorkshire on the 30th of March and the other is two nights at the newly refurbed Marriott Hotel situated in Seven Dials central London the dates being the Bank Holiday weekend of May the 5th and 6th.

Observant TNB watchers will already be familiar with these dates. On the 31st of March TNB will play in Berlin along with Vagina Dentata Organ. On the weekend of the 4th to the 6th of May TNB will, at some point, play at the Broken Flag Festival in Tufnell Park London. You see my dilemma. With news that Jet2 are introducing flights from Leeds/Bradford airport to Berlin next year there is the very slim chance that there may just be a flight on the Saturday of that date that will get me to Berlin in time to see the TNB/VDO show [I could fly from Manchester but I could do without traversing the M62 as part of my escape]. With the London dates my chances are a little better. We’ll be there for the 5th and 6th but which night are TNB playing? We have a freebie dinner chucked in with the prize but which night to book it? Of course Mrs Fisher isn’t so cold hearted as to deprive me of at least one night at the BF Fest [attending both would create a permanent schism] but which one to attend and which night to book the dinner? Maybe they’re playing the Friday night and I’m screwed anyway? Its all finely balanced but at least there is hope.

In the meantime theres the slow trickle of quality TNB material to revel in. Antimonia II is two sides of prime TNB scrape in which the Rupenus brothers battle it out with seconds from seizing jet engines, lengths of rusty scaffolding pole, boxes of nuts and bolts and a pair of ball-peen tinning hammers. If anything these two short sides of primitive junk noise are even more visceral than the recently released early live works of which they share a great deal in construction. Perhaps then the seven inch vinyl single [an attractively flecked one too] is the perfect way to hear noise at this level of destruction? As ever its to The New Blockaders that we turn to for quality noise nihilism.

Not sure how many of these exist but the chances are that if you want one you’re already going to have to track down a copy at an inflated price to experience a further, essential, TNB thrill.

Protagonists of David Gadson

Protagonists of David Gadson - First Edition
no label CDR

Contact:

cupempty@gmail.com

www.reverbnation.com/protagonists

God is not Great



To the Wharf Chambers in Leeds to dish out ALAP badges like communion wafers. Which got me thinking. Funny thing religion. People eating bits of other people, babies having their genitals mutilated, animal sacrifice, Papal indulgences, suicide bombers. Of course you can do anything in the name of religion. I’ve been reading Christopher Hitchens splendid book ‘God is not Great - How Religions Poisons Everything’ and when you look at religion in the cold light of day, as you should, it all begins to unravel. Hitchens makes this unarguable point: if you or I were to cut the foreskin off a baby boy and suck the damaged member we’d be incarcerated but if you’re a Jewish ‘mohel’ you can cary out his procedure with the states backing. I could go on at length of course but then you’d never know what Ramleh were like. Buy the book for yourself and discover more.

Ramleh certainly thinned the crowd down at Wharf Chamber and this was the three piece ‘rock’ Ramleh not the two piece Power Electronics Ramleh. For the majority of the audience Ramleh’s three chord rock chug wasn’t their thing and at an hour I must admit to having my patience tested but this was my first time, the legendary Ramleh, who play very few gigs at all, Gary Mundy, in the flesh and then the Sabbath party band came on.

After the event I tried to reconcile my inner differences. Did I like it? Not really. In parts they sounded like an instrumental U2. At times they really hit a defiant stride and took you with them but it was only later that I realised that all my favourite Ramleh rock records have Phillip Best on them and tonight there was no Phillip Best. It left a gap that was the reason I couldn’t fully engage with them. At least we got see Early Hominids blast out a twenty minute piece of ultra throb. Early Hominids are beginning to hit their straps now and glueing big beats to the kind of bass throb that Merzbow excelled in is a direct way to my non religious black little heart. And due to a Manchester Skullflower gig being cancelled we got a last minute Voltiguers appearance in which Bower and friend whipped up a ten minute twin guitar wall of thrape. A perfect way to quick start your evening.

As ever, a pre gig snorter was arranged in the Duck and Drake. Shuffling homeless scruffs rubbed shoulders with shuffling home owning scruffs and as ever CD’s swapped hands. One such was given to me by someone called Jonas who had long hair and wore a brown storemans coat. He described the contents as mock jazz but I’d describe them more as quintessential English colonialist surreal humour in a Vivian Stanshall meets Diz Willis kind of way. Which seems pertinent as Diz’s name cropped up regularly during the late afternoon swiller.

Protagonists of David Gadson is four tracks of spoken word observations over backings of sax squawl, urban jazz and Jelly Roll Morton on a loop. I was particularly smitten with ‘Doom Radio with Reginald Ffolks’, in which someone with a plummy, lispy, English accent reminisces about his old records [Vera Lynne] and his Teddy Bear over the aforesaid Jelly Roll loop. The deadpan estuary English delivery and living in the city observations of the proletariat getting pissed and vomiting cheered me no end but it was all over too quick. 26 minute including silence leading up to the hidden track in which we get to find out that Steve’s favourite chord is D minor is way too short. More please.

Bad Suburban Nightmare

Bad Suburban Nightmare - Highways I
Must Die Records. CD. MDR 018





Two days of blissful wandering along the Rhine in the autumnal Dusseldorf sunshine had to have its downside and it arrived on the flight home. Crammed into the back of a 737 with the boisterous remains of a hen and stag ‘do’ desperately trying to make a pissed up weekend spin out until last orders we jointly gritted teeth and gave thanks to the fact the flight lasted less than an hour. The half dozen beers I’d had earlier in the day did the trick and I somehow managed to doze off leaving Mrs. Fisher to suffer the knob jokes, the shrieking laughter and the sounds of cans of beer being popped all to her good self. Before I dozed off I heard one of the stag party say in a loud and authoritative voice ‘I’m rounding the weekend off in style lads … I’m having a Stella’. Stella Artois being that essential watery anesthetic so beloved of those wishing to attain drunken nirvana in six easy steps. This, coming from someone who’d just spent two nights in one of the best brew cities in the world. Its enough to make you weep.

I didn’t take any music with me this time. I usually do but for once I’d thought I’d clear my head of the stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of Soft Machine lately you see [and Kevin Ayers of course] and I needed to cleanse the palette, start afresh, give the old shell likes a rest. Which is what I did. And then today I thought I’d give Bad Suburban Nightmare a spin and my ears came back all shiny and new.

BSN is one man and his guitar, [barring a few loose drum hits and the odd plonk of piano] who creates a desolate sound that flits between Ry Cooder, Keiji Heino, Neil Young, Phil Todd, and late era John Fahey. Armed with an electric guitar and the odd pedal or two BSN watches the tumbleweed go by to an accompaniment of whammied strings, lonely notes and harmonic strum. The sparse use of notes and the laid back atmosphere of it all gives the release a supreme sense of desolation. The maudlin vocals on the first and last track which become nothing more than mumbled nothings by the time of the third add further dust to an already windswept release. The longest track on here is the one that gets the Ry Cooder comparisons, ‘Rollerskate Highway’ is pure sun bleached lizard territory and not far from Ry Cooder’s Paris Texas soundtrack only with more distortion and added eeriness. ‘Thee Angels + Th Dark’ is where the Heino comparisons come in, lots of wailing upper neck frot and chin back angst. Its to the bookends of this release where it really sinks its hooks though. In a voice that makes Bob Dylan sound like choir boy BSN sings/moans/wails about death and dead bodies and the fit is perfect.

I don’t normally go in for introspective guitar noodling but this works. I found myself being strangely hypnotized by it all. Maybe I listened to too much American guitar based music as a kid and this has dragged me back to a time when anything American sounding was to be lapped up. Whatever, no more Soft Machine for a while though.

Amniotic

Amniotic - Unlover/Let The Dogs Erode
Caul Imprint. 2XCDR

Amniotic - Unit 63
Caul Imprint. 3”CDR


Contact: http://caul-imprint.blogspot.com




Amniotic is the work of solo female artist Johannah Henderson who, if I’m not mistaken, was last seen working alongside Jase Williams in the chaotic noise/rock/improv outfit The Mothers of the Third Reich. Here she ditches the random drum bashing of MOTTTR for a far more personal project involving birth. The results of which, in parts at least, are quite a revelation.

Hendersons songs are ghostly affairs, most of them featuring murky bass guitar runs as backbones upon which she layers guitar frills, apocalyptic spoken word prose, piano motifs and field recordings. But its Hendersons haunting vocal delivery and the blurred recording technique which leave the most memorable and affecting memories. Singing lyrics that only rarely appear she buries her voice deep in the mix so that it emerges at times either like a lost soul or a bewitching lorelie. Match this to songs which are at times stripped bare to nothing but single instruments and you have a very effecting delivery.

Its not often I get to review material such as this so this has been a salve of some sorts. I have to admit to fearing for the worst upon opening Johannah’s jiffy bag, Anybody who’s reviewed as many noise releases as me will know only too well the feeling that arrives with the emergence of hand painted CDR’s. I like to be proven wrong now and again though, it keeps you on your toes.

But back to the music.

I was lifted from my cups. I found myself humming certain bass riffs. I downloaded the 27 tracks onto the ipod for midweek consumption [all these tracks, as seems the norm these days, are available for download]. I pondered becoming some kind of Svengali figure taking Henderson from her south coast roots to transport her to worldwide stardom but I fear the reality is that a lot of people just wont get this music and entreuprenuriship doesn't sit easy with me either. These track work because the construction is experimental in approach with the results being entirely listenable in an across the board fashion. Give this to someone trying to wean themselves off indie pap and you have instant success. It works on many levels. The  blood red artwork, torn piece of birth certificate and snippets of paper all go towards making these three releases parts of one birthing whole.

On ‘The Number E’ [second track on UNIT 63] to a background of photocopier noise she bangs away like The Shaggs whilst moaning sweet, mumbled nothings. The track ebbs away on a sweet drooping bass guitar run. ‘The Valley of Wine’ is a simple song with a simple two chord strummed acoustic guitar run with a vocal sample that ends ‘come and see the blood on the streets’ the voice emerges from the murk with an eeriness that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The three instrumental triptychs on Let The Dogs Erode sound like a cross between Alan Bishop guitar twang and one of Tom Waits weirder interludes. The title track on ‘Unlover’ is built on a sample taken from some lolloping machine upon which she plays a dainty guitar refrain and sings, moans, whispers unintelligible sweet nothings. Its quite unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. All of it is recorded in a murk that makes you wonder if the masters have been dipped in some special ‘make it all sound like its been recorded in a strange space’ formula. And lets not forget the instrumental ‘Industrial’, a four minute slice of muted roar and stretched leather strapping that wouldn’t look out of place on a Column One release. ‘Kamikaze Citizen’ contains vocal work comparable with the Cocteau Twins Liz Fraser and just for good measure theres some seagull squawks and a beautifully melodic fiddle to drowse along to. Its mind boggling stuff.

But I try not to get too carried away with myself. On repeated listens I wondered if I’d tricked myself into thinking that this was better than it was and sure enough some of the tracks on ‘Unlover’ drop below the quality bar. Some tracks contain a certain naiveté that lightly scars the better work but this is small beer. There are times when Henderson’s vocal delivery seems to teeter on the edge of Japanese opera too especially on the track ‘Soliel’ but I can forgive her these slights because so much of whats on here is of such inventive quality.

Its not everyday I get to come across a talent at such an early stage of development. I feel as if I’m at the beginning with Johanna egging her on to produce more quality work but even if she never releases another thing she’ll have left us with these enigmatic jewels



[Let The Dogs Erode contains a video work but such is the nature of hand painted CDR’s that I fear placing them in a PC that I rely daily on - its not available on the download either. A vital missing part for which I can only apologise].

Sudden Infant - Noise In My Head

Sudden Infant - Noise In My Head [The Actionist Music and Art of Joke Lanz]

Published by Marhaug Forlag. Hard cover. 160 pages [16 colour].
300 copies
ISBN 978-82-998765-0-6


www.marhaugforlag.no

www.suddeninfant.com


A quick plug for Lasse Marhaug’s new publication venture Marhaug Forlag. Noise In My Head is a collection of essays and an interview with Joke Lanz coupled to numerous photos of Sudden Infant actions, Lanz artwork, concert posters and flyers. Theres also a visual discography and pictures of fans wearing Sudden Infant t-shirts. What more do you want? With only 300 copies out there though I guess there’s going to be a lot of disappointed Sudden Infant fans. Get one while you can.

Mixed Band Philanthropist / Broken Penis Orchestra

Mixed Band Philanthropist - The Impossible Humane [25th Anniversary Edition]
Hypnagogia Cassette. PN01. 200 copies

The Broken Penis Orchestra - Plays With Itself
Hypnagogia Cassette. PN02. 200 copies



Back in the mid nineties I decided to dabble in the art of making sounds from samples. The idea of creating something new from the bits of something old appealed to me and not in a Stars on 45 way either. Influenced by the likes of Illusion of Safety, Nurse With Wound and Aphasia I armed  myself with a Fostex 4 track, various music formats and a bottle of whiskey. Over the course of a few nights I sat and spun and edited and eventually made something new but alas not something worth listening to more than once.  I soon realised that I had neither the patience, skill or wherewithal to create anything of any longstanding merit and gave the whole thing up as a bad job.

Which is why I admire those that can do it. They make it seem so effortless when in reality some poor sod has had to spend the best part of a summer painstakingly splicing together and mixing an unending series of three second samples into something coherent and listenable, all without going mad.

In 1986 Mixed Band Philanthropist did what I could could never dream of doing and released ‘The Impossible Humane’. Thirty odd minutes of splatter collage created via samples originating from the likes of Merzbow, Smegma,Vortex Campaign, Organum, H.N.A.S, Etant Donnes, Andrew Chalk, Asmus Tietchens, Nurse With Wound, The New Blockaders and about twenty odd other artists working on the fringes of experimental music. Its car crash tape collage still stands today as one of the best examples of the genre. Its perpetual barrage of split second samples are a dizzying mess of sixties pop songs, scrapes, industrial whirr, uncategorizeable racket, ghostly voices, electronic beebles and burrs, sped up records, tape whizz, machine rumble, snatches of reggae, bucket damage, kazoo farts, disco spots and about three thousand or more [I’m guessing] other samples that really shouldn’t work but by some slight of hand or genius, actually do. Which is the thing that draws me to such work in the first place. On paper snatches of steel bands shouldn’t be found on the same side of tape as Geordie MC’s, Michael Jackson, pneumatic drills, early Merzbow muck and 50’s doo wop but on the Impossible Humane they do and again, it works. Totally. Then comes the added bonus of being able to listen to this to the point of ad nauseum, mainly due to the fact that there are so few reference points that every listen brings something new. And this is 1986 remember, none of that taken for granted home computer and digital editing fancy Dan stuff. You can put this down to the talents of Richard Rupenus, K. Jameson, and D. Lucas who, no doubt influenced by those twenty odd artists, put this thing of beauty together.

This release also gathers in the 2003 MBP single ‘The Man Who Mistook A Real Woman For His Muse And Acted Accordingly’ plus a reworking of this single by The Broken Penis Orchestra. ‘The Man Who’ … uses the same template as The Impossible Humane but this is more of a nudge nudge Friday night lads out affair with lots of knob jokes coupled to comedy sound effects - it wouldn’t have looked out of place stuck to the cover of Viz magazine or on the b side of a Stars on 45 Pints single, what with all the North East Geordie DJ gorm thrown into it. Rupenus R must have been busy with his pause/record button during many a late night Metro Radio session to have gathered together all the source material used here. Still, it works, thats the main thing and despite all the oo-er vicaryness of it all you still cant help but admire the damned thing.

Then we have The Broken Penis Orchestra. ‘Plays With Itself’ has seen the light of day twice now [both on CDR], once with PyschoChrist in an issue of 33 and once with Hypnagogia in an edition of a 100. Its worth releasing again though. BPO is Stan Reed of Blue Sabbath Black Cheer fame, or as he’s credited here Srad Tene and again its a kaleidoscopic array of sample mania. This time the samples sit a little longer allowing for the formation and reinforcement of ideas.  Samples drop out of the mix only to reappear moments later and despite the obvious Nurse With Wound influence I did detect bits of Negativland and Smegma. ‘Plays With Itself’ is almost as fevered as The Impossible Humane but with completely different samples of course [it was originally released in 2000]. Here you can expect, Melt Banana thrash, spoken word, Nintendo missiles, lonely sax solos, noise drone, flutter, jazz skronk bands, gospel choirs, rock drumming, heavy piano chords, R&B bass runs, twanging guitar, religious radio bollocks, struck tubular steel as modern gamelan all of it threaded together with reverb, echo and lots of industrial string. There’s also room for ‘Could Someone Please Turn This Off’ a track that appeared on the ‘Bone Tickling Nightmare Pig’ comp.  

What impresses me about both these releases is the inventiveness and patience thats needed to put such material together. The fact that even after 25 years The Impossible Humane hasn’t dated one tiny bit is further testament to its originality. Both are towering releases and ones that you really need to own. For those seeking further enlightenment I suggest digging around in the BPO back catalogue. ‘Testicle Difficulties’ still gets played around these parts on a regular basis.

I’ve reviewed some of this material before in a previous guise but its been nothing less than a sheer delight to hear it all once again.

Flux of Yellow Daises

Flux of Yellow Daises - ECT Disasters.
No label CDR


Contact: Cult.ofCthulhu [at] yahoo.co.uk


ECT [Electro Convulsive Treatment] is a rudimentary treatment to say the least. Having electricity pumped through your brain in the hope that it has a positive effect on your wellbeing seems to be up there with ice pick lobotomies in the prod and hope stakes. The adverse effects of ECT aren’t something you’d want either, amnesia and, some argue, brain damage. You wouldn’t give it to a dumb animal but apparently 12,000 people in the UK are given this treatment every year. According to my sources Tim Telsa has spent 20 years within the walls of the UK’s secure psychiatric hospitals and whilst he was a patient I’m assuming he was one of those 12,000.

Listening to ECT Disasters is a depressing affair. Bookended by two awful rudimentary death metal type tracks its 26 minutes and numerous tracks consist of the audio dubs of a television documentary on ECT highlighting one woman's treatment that went horribly wrong. These samples are then interspersed with basic noise blasts that I’m assuming are there to represent the treatment itself.  The whole thing is poorly recorded, as if it was taken down on a portable cassette radio with judicious use of the pause/record button. The packaging is shoddily put together with just a sticker affixed to the front of a CDR case with an A5 paper insert containing contact info and a ‘religious statement from the Cult of R’Lyeh’ whose prophet is of course Tim Telsa.

As a musical artifact it’s value is negligible. This is all but an aural documentary on the barbarity of ECT with some death metal chucked in as light relief. Its worth lies in highlighting ECT and Tim Telsa’s state of mind. You have to worry about both of them.

David Vélez

Many thanks to Colombian sound artist David Vélez who answered my call for factory field recordings. Whilst listening to the recent package of Gruenrekorder releases the thought came to me that there didn’t seem to be any artists working with factory sounds. Well, David is one such artist and having listened to some of his work I find the need to plug it with evangelical zeal.

http://www.con-v.org/cnv70.html

http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab017.htm

Both of the above links will take you pages where David’s work is available for download.

The first link will take you to ‘Memoria Fragmentada’ and the second to ‘Funza’. Both are brooding works that mix sounds taken from the countryside with those found in factories and cities. The factory sounds aren’t deep pummel industrial, this isn’t a Sheffield steel mill here, but more ‘one operator, one machine’. The results are a beguiling mix of distant rumble, traffic, rain and the rhythm of someone going about their daily work on a semi automatic machine. Industrial ambience fans are in for a huge treat. Some of it sounds as if David was stood recording all this at one end of a huge half empty factory whilst all the work went on at the other. The results are certainly eerie.

The above links will also take you to two fine labels; Impulsive Habitat and CONV both of whom have plenty of their catalogue available for sale and download.


 

Truant

Truant - The Truant Accord
Memoirs of a Flatworm. CDR. 100 copies.


Contact:  http://radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com/




Rob Hayler’s reintroduction into polite society has been a major boost not just for Leeds but for a wider thinking world where folks of a droning melody bent meet electronic dabblers of a nodding persuasion. Not only have we seen the re-emergence of some of his long forgotten solo material via a couple of small run three inch CDR’s we now have a lost Truant album to ease us into autumn with. Hayler’s solo project Midwich was an electronic wand with which he conjured drones and infectious motifs of a repetitive nature but he didn’t stop there. Back at the beginning of 2001 he chowed down with Phil Todd and the enigmatic ‘Cloughy’ to create Truant. They released one album and then went back to whatever they were doing in the first place.  Fast forward ten years and the masters of a lost second album turn up at Todd HQ and whaddayaknow its been worth digging up. Why have we been sat on this all this time they all cry? Well, nobody really knows.

I suppose you could stretch your imagination somewhat and call Truant a supergroup. Clough played in the short lived long running Krautrock influenced Rancid Poultry, the Toddmeister was heavily involved in Ashtray Navigations and Rob Hayler was holding down his keys with Midwich. When they met they produced something melancholy, drifting and with their first album a raga composed by Klaus Schulz [maybe]. That first album was one thirty eight minute track but this lost second release contains five tracks covering the same time span. Its as equally soporific as the first but really bursts into life with the introduction of Todd’s bleeding guitar work, especially on the last and longest track Animal Kingdom. Clough’s lazy bass runs on New River Apple set up meandering paths down which Hayler’s electronics shimmer like tarmac heat-waves. Illusion of Choice is probably the edgiest track here with the electronics becoming slightly more urgent and groaning before it all packs in like the batteries have died. ‘Nosed’ is a fifty second opener of keyboard skree and dumped guitar solo thats there to lull you into a false sense of security but once that wandering bass couples up to Todd’s wasted guitar and Hayler’s glowing electronics Truant Accord becomes something rather special. Maybe they really were a supergroup after all?




  

Olypmic Shit Man / Raionbashi & Kutzkelina

Raionbashi & Kutzkelina - Aktion 091216 Berlin
Harbinger Sound. One sided LP. Harbinger 089
100 regular copies + 50 artist enhanced copies

Olympic Shit Man - Supercharge
Harbinger Sound. Double LP + Magazine. Harbinger 065. Promo.




One of my lasting memories of Istanbul is seeing a couple of local youths walking around in t-shirts emblazoned with eagles above which read the words WEST YORKSHIRE. The first time I saw someone wearing one it stopped me in my tracks. The street was busy so that by the time the sight had registered with my brain and it had worked out a response he was long gone. Similarly the second time around, this time in a packed market street. My camera was buried under piles of tourist detritus, my brain all agog. Why are people walking around Istanbul wearing t-shirts that say WEST YORKSHIRE on them? I looked in clothes shops for one of my own but all in vain. Of course it doesn't matter what it says on the t-shirt if you cant read the language its written in. Its there for effect only. I have a couple of t-shirts with Japanese characters on them that mean absolutely nothing. They’re just designed to look like Japanese characters. Its the same thing with printed English to people who don’t understand English. Anyway.

Two releases from Harbinger Sound that are both firmly aboard the good ship noise but with each coming from vastly different angles. Olympic Shit Man was the short lived collaboration between Mark Durgan and Andy Bolus. I think they released next to nothing and did barely any gigs. As far as I know when you get this there’s not much left over. Supercharge originally came out as a cassette in the mid 90’s on Mother Savage Noise Productions. Such is Harbingers bent to release such obscure material it has to take shape over two LP’s with the fourth side showcasing two live events [one from 1994 and the other from 2006]. To add to the all round madness of it all you also get a decent sized magazine of Bolus drawn insanity to while away your listening minutes.
The live stuff I eventually found more rewarding but that takes nothing away from whats some prime mid nineties noise muck. The 1994 recording is a bit dodgy as you’d expect but it does reach a certain crescendo in a ‘lots of noise things going on at the same time kind of feel’. Bizarre as it sounds Durgan’s well oiled noise gadgets do indeed feel as one with Bolus’s lay out of v-techs abortions, toy guns and broken things that go kkkkrrrrrkkkk but its the 2006 show in Antwerp that hits the spot. At one stage it revives old school Jap noise but the odd tinkling, whirring, scratched records and burnt out fizzing PC stack feel to it gives the meat of thing a gravitas I’d have never given it credit for on first passing. Supercharge meanwhile is alive with TV and film samples, angular noise farts, socket abuse, dustbin torture, unidentified scrape, eruptions of speaker distortion, shortwave whine, high pitched skree. The onslaught is incessant but at times gaps do appear, presumably these being when Bolus’s equipment broke down and Durgan carried on in his own manly fashion. As the trawl through 90’s noise tape land continues expect more noise gems such as this to be unearthed.


For those of you yet to experience a live Raionbashi & Kutzkelina performances this one sided piece of plastic archiving of a recent Berlin show should be at the top of your shopping list. Raionbashi solo shows always did have an element of performance art in them but now that he’s hooked up with the phenomenally vocally gifted Kutzkelina things have blossomed. I saw them perform at last years Lowest Forms Festival and the performance had mutated into a full blown ritual; washing of hands, nailing of wood to the stage floor, the humbling act of drying each other and then of course the sounds themselves. Between them they combine a series of relatively mundane sounds into a whole that is extremely unsettling. On their own the sounds of barking dogs, snoring, female shouts and a lazy accordion may seem innocent enough but once they’re combined they transform into something thats quite bizarre and deeply unnerving. Beginning with a barely audible snore, a bell is introduced, a ringing bell, then female shouts, a few wheezing keyboard keys, as things begin to build a flattening blast of noise erupts and then pigs eating, eerie unidentifiable sounds and then Kutzkelina’s incredible yodeling and if you think yodeling doesn't belong here or has some kind of joke status then you couldn’t be more wrong. Out of all this a dizzying cacophony develops a maelstrom of head swimming tumult that eventually cuts to leave you back at something resembling normality. I wouldn’t mind a full blown Raionbashi & Kutzkelina DVD for these rituals. It needs to be seen as well as heard.









 

Astral Social Club/Tomutontuu

Astral Social Club - Wet Wheel/Hot Wheel
Tomutonttu - Syvät Sävyt
Tipped Bowler 12”. TB012

Astral Social Club - Snaefell/Mocne
Trensmat 7”. TR021

Astral Social Club - Scudding [For Electronics and Air July 2011]
No label CDR.



I have it on good authority from the Nodmeister himself that all of the above releases are singles. No problems there until you realise that Scudding runs to almost an hour in length. This is dangerous Orb territory. I’m happy to give up the argument before its started though, if Campbell says its a single then a single it is. For those with a three minute attention span though Scudding will be hard work. Taken as one elongated piece of work it sounds a little like the Campbell issue running amok in the Klang Klang studio whilst proud parents look on, arms folded smiling appreciatively. You can hear them throughout most of Scudding, playing, pulling Sellotape off its spools, making a mess and poking each other in the eye, all the things kids get up to. Over it all Campbell plays a broken beat that morphs into different guises, gets covered in various pops, whirrs and squeals before flourishing into an ecstatic dance orgasm at around the 40-odd minute mark. Its probably the most experimental thing I’ve heard from ASC and single or no single its up there with the best ASC work.

The Tipped Bowler release finds us in is more familiar ASC territory. A longer Wet Wheels becomes a sped up Mother Mallard synth fest where the pulse slowly builds into orgasmic glow stick waving proportions until it cuts straight into Hot Wheels and a short jam before the taxi arrives. A major ASC nod anthem for sure. Just make sure you play it at 45.

Syvät Sävyt sounds like David Lynch dance music. Someone went into the toy instrument department of Hambleys and set everything going at once, played it all backwards, forwards and sideways and gave it to Tipped Bowler. Sort of. By linking together what could be sections of sped up backwards and forwards loops of stuck grooves Tomutonttu has created something in very much the same vein as ASC only with an end result that sounds like the glueing together of much studio floor tape waste. And I mean that in the most sincerest way folks. Over all this forward and reverse madness are stuck quirky melodies played on bits of broken Casios. I could of course be totally mistaken. Fingers are applied to records on turntables with no belts and spun to insane speeds. Somehow it forms a whole that is danceable but only to those with the correct amount of drugs in them. Insane and totally refreshing.

For those of you not in the know Snaefell is the highest mountain on the Isle of Man. You can hear the sheep up there and on Mocne, you can also hear Campbell getting his wind back after getting to the top of its 2000 meters. Snaefell is shiny yellow sun bursts and starlike explosions, psychedelic techno, beats morphed into mangled head swim. Its also got a maddening keyboard run that’ll have you nodding before the first spins taken effect. Mocne is even more urgent. Play it in your car and impress the hoodies in your neighborhood, play it at you next Tupperware party, buy some whizz and dance around the garden in the middle of the afternoon. ASC can have this effect on you.

As ever trying to pigeonhole ASC becomes almost impossible. With a foot in the dance section, a foot in the experimental section and various limbs in genres that include ambient, drone, Motorik and maybe even noise, the job becomes an impossible task. At least ASC are still evolving, bringing something new with every visit. Your humble scribe doesn’t try to make sense of it all he just sits back and basks in its warmth. You should do the same.


Contact:

Tipped Bowler: www.tippedbowler.com

Trensmat: www.trensmat.com

ASC: astralsocialclub [at] hotmail.co.uk

Gruenrekorder

Ernst Karel - Swiss Mountain Transport Systems
Gruenrekorder CD.  Gruen 091

Tom Lawrence - Water Beetles of Pollardstown Fen
Gruenrekorder CD. Gruen 087

Andres Bick - Fire and Frost Pattern
Gruenrekorder CD. Gruen 074

Playing With Words - various artists
Gruenrekorder 2xCD. Gruen 065


Contact: www.gruenrekorder.de



The worst thing about the relapse [or the ‘Istanbul Goat Virus Round Two’ as its known round these parts] is that it robbed me of my powers of concentration. During the first phase of its manifestation two weeks ago all I needed was the strength to pull a CD from its sleeve and insert it into the stereo. During the more virulent second phase all I could manage was staring out of the window whilst listening to the cricket updates on Five Live Sports Extra.  As I slipped between coma and semi coma news of wickets falling in Somerset and Warickshire entered my head only to leave again moments later.  As a means of whiling away the days it was as good as it was going to get. For some strange reason the sound of any kind of music drove me to absolute torment. I decided it was best left alone.  These last few days then have given me some idea of what my retirement days might be like and if I ever make there in such lousy shape I may as well take up alcohol as a distraction.

Thankfully I’d become familiar with this batch of Gruenrekorder releases the first time around so it was a just a matter of working my way back in.

Gruenrekorder is a two man label stroke organisation dedicated to the promotion of experimental music and phonography. Phonography meaning ‘an acoustic experience loaden with musical sounds’.  Now I’ve always been a bit of a passenger when its come to Field Recordings [a term that Gruenrekorder also use], I do have some of Chris Watson’s work, some Touch releases that cover the same ground and the odd bit by various Schimpfluch members where they’ve stuck microphones hither and thither and recorded whatever’s emerged, but this is my first serious chance to get to grips with a label dedicated to such material and to give it a serious appraisal. 

At least with Field Recordings you know what you’re getting. It says it on the tin. Swiss Mountain Transport Systems is, as you’d expect, the sound of ski gondolas, funiculars and chair lifts all doing what they do up the sides of Swiss mountains. The genius of it all is finding the musicality within these things. So the door locks, the winding motors, the support towers, the funicular tracks and the non mechanical outside sounds such as cow bells and people al become part of a greater experience. It seems obvious but I want to point it out. The first and longest track here is probably Karel’s best; ‘Oberterzern-Unterterzern’ is a 12 minute piece [each track is, I’m assuming, a complete journey] which begins with the closing of the automatic door locks before emerging into open space and a wonderful hum drone. I guess that the suspended gondola is acting as an enclosed speaker with the wire becoming a conduit for the noise produced by the winding motors.  The pitch of the hum changes as the trip continues. The serenity is abruptly interrupted as the car passes over support towers. The hum builds and dies away only to be severely jolted by another support tower. Its an impressive piece of field work that will certainly appeal to anyone with a bent for Industrial ambience, which in a way, I suppose this is a pure version of. For a gondola ride alone its worth seeking out for its musicality, should you ever find yourself in Flumsberg please indulge. The other three gondola rides on here have their own idiosyncrasies but nothing as expansive as this. The funiculars are harsher affairs as you’d expect with the added bonus of stops along the way to pick up passengers. The eleven and a half minute chair lift ride that is ‘Oberdorf-Wiessenstien’ [now sadly defunct] is a white knuckle drone ride of buzzing inertia that builds in intensity as it nears the winding station and gently fades as it recedes. Its all recorded with incredible clarity and will reward anyone who takes pride in their playback equipment. My only gripe was track seven which is nothing but the sound of a helicopter transporting building material. Not what it said on the tin.

Pollardstown Fen is a calcium rich, spring fed fen in Ireland which has become home to all manner of wildlife including numerous species of water beetles. Tom Lawrence took his underwater microphone there and recorded what happened beneath the surface.  Apparently water beetles like to stridulate. Stridulation being the ability to announce ones presence by the rubbing one body part against another. Remarkably Lawrence recorded one particular water scorpion going at it for over nine hours at an incredible 110 decibels. Part of that experience is included here. My problem with Lawrence’s work here is that even though I find it all absolutely fascinating [ and the sleeve notes help a lot] the sounds eventually become grating and with over seventy minutes of it to go at its an arduous task. But you don’t have to play it all at once. Taken in small doses the delights of water beetles rubbing their nether regions together do reward the inquisitive listener.  Track two ‘Seven Springs’ is a cacophony of several beetle species all in ‘antagonistic high alert’ the results of which are comparable to electronically produced noise albeit, one of an especially repetitive nature. Think scratched Hecker CD. Interesting material just very, very demanding on the listener. 

My big problem with For ‘Fire And Frost Pattern’ is that it skates dangerously near to  ‘new age’. Its two compositions of ‘fire’ and ‘frost’ remind me of the days when doped up hippies used to sit and listen to whale sounds going yeah man and wheres the bean casserole.  Andreas Bick creates two almost thirty minute pieces, one representing heat and the other cold. As you can probably guess Fire Pattern contains the sounds of volcanoes but after that struggles a bit so includes the man made sounds of ‘singing flames’ [a kind of late 19th century flame organ] and alcohol burning in bottles. Its OK but not a patch on Frost Pattern which has far more depth to it.
I was lucky enough a few years back to experience one of the sounds included here; whilst walking around the edge of a lake in Sweden one morning I heard a high pitched sound followed by a low rumbling one. It turned out to be the air escaping from beneath the ice. The entire lake was frozen over, but was slowly melting. Maybe a mile in diameter and the entire piece of ice was floating, air escaping to its edges in small spurts. On a cold, still morning with no one around it was an experience I’ll never forget and one I’m grateful to Bick to be able experience again.
Ice, snow, frost, cleaving icebergs, Bick uses them all to good effect and incredible sounds they make too. Capturing the sound of falling snow flakes by attaching contact mics to sheets of tin foil also works.  If only I could shake off this new age thing maybe I could like it just that little bit more. I’d have been quite happy to have listened to all of these sounds as individual tracks. Collaging them into ‘suites’ or ‘symphonies’ or ‘patterns’ leaves me um … cold.


The various artist comp Playing With Words is release I got the most out of. Its a release that calls itself an ‘investigation into the spoken word’ and I call ‘one to take to the desert island with’.
It includes 42 artists over two discs, most of which are new to me, which means theres little room for detail here, but just to wallow in the majesty of voice, whatever the language, is sheer majesty. Once you’ve blown up all your electrical equipment and bust all you strings and gone partially deaf from all your noise gigs there’ll still be the human voice to entertain you. I’ve seen noise artist do gigs using nothing but their voice, I’ve seen Jaap Blonk do Ursontae, I’ve seen Phil Minton make gurgling sounds for half an hour and its all been totally sublime. OK, the genre does have its down side and can become very self indulgent. I’m happy to have forgotten the name of the American sound poet I once saw at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music fest but for every bad apple there are plenty of golden ones. Fortunately thats the case on Playing With Words and its not only words you get to hear. Jaap Blonks submission is a series of cascading voice samples that sound almost electronic. There’s the irrepressible and still sadly missed Bob Cobbing performing the 2000 version of Alphabet of Fishes along with David Toop and Paul Burwell. Barry Truax’s ‘Shaman Ascending’ is another vocals turned synth. There’s clips plucked straight from Radio 4, someone reading out the letter they’re writing with the sound of pen scratching on paper, there’s an incredible Trevor Wishart track that I’m desperate to share with anybody who’ll listen and a track by Salome Voegelin in which someone struggles to read a flyer with Welsh language in it in a supermarket cafe. Totally wonderful. Its a rewarding listen even if there are a few bumps along the way but the best thing about it is the fact that its available as a free download from the Gruenrekorder website. Plus, if you download it you wont have to strain your eyesight reading the tiniest writing I’ve seen on a CD release.

Gruenrekorder don’t just release Field Recordings and Sound Art though, you’ll find them investigating Soundscapes as well as running a workshop and an intermittent dual language downloadable PDF magazine called Field Notes. Its archived and worthy of your attention. Theres also a few more free downloadable albums beside the one I mentioned. Having never heard of Gruenrekorder a month ago I know find myself a fervant fan.

What interests me now is has anyone done any true ‘Industrial’ field recordings? I mean in actual working factories? I’ve been musing this for the last few days. I wonder if there are too many obstacles involved? Its not like you can just turn up at a factory with your equipment and say ‘I’d to record your machines please’. First you’d have to find out which machines makes the most interesting noises and that in itself would take months of ground work. Then you’d have to get the companies permission. The company involved would no doubt have to give you assistance as I’d doubt whether they’d just let you wander around their premises until you found what you wanted. The results could be interesting, just hard to collate.