Lenka Lente

Alfredo Costa Monteiro - Anima

Lenka Lente
40 pp poem + CD in de-bossed box.
ISBN : 979-10-94601-03-7
50 copies

Charles Plymell/Bill Nace - Apocalypse Rose
Lenka Lente
Book + CD. ISBN : 979-10-94601-02-0

Moondog - 50 Couplets
Lenka Lente
Book. ISBN : 979-10-94601-06-8


French label Lenka Lente mix sound and poetry like no other label I know. I mean there must be other labels and what with me getting all proud over home grown poets like Tony Harrison and Ted Hughes of late, I think there should be more. A slim volume of Ted Hughes poems with accompanying sounds courtesy of Guttersnipe perhaps, Tony Harrison coupled with Vibracathedral Orchestra, Simon Armitage and Piss Superstition. I live and dream but for now its to France and the exquisite Lenka Lente for our sound and word fix.   

After pairing Nurse With Wound with André Salmon, Adolf Wölfli and Charles-Louis Phillipe we now have Bill Nace rubbing shoulders with American Beat poet and writer Charles Plymell. These tiny books, about the size of your average smart phone are a sheer delight, perfect carriers for works such as this. Plymell’s Apocalypse Rose is a series of poems that first saw light of day in 1967:

I’m over here of course
melting in war stories
playing a sweet mournful tune
on a hollow flute made from
the bones of dead junkies

Which inspires Bill Nace, last seen rubbing guitar strings with Kimmy G, to create a loop from the intro to Jim Reeve’s Distant Drums [at least that's what it sounds like to me] a meditative peice that slowly evolves and transforms and disappears leaving traces of well being.

Alfredo Costa Monteiro’s ‘Anima’ is a fifteen minute sound poem using Spanish, French and Portuguese words, mainly alliterative, all combining to create a dark and menacing atmosphere. The 40 pages of the poem are elegantly printed on single sheets and placed into a debossed box along with the CD. An artefact worth owning and one that I’m glad to give shelf space to. Monteiro’s recitation is close up to the mic and sounds particularly good on headphones where the words are slowly released into your ear canal in short bursts; grunts can be heard, petite morts and the satisfied sound you make when a particularly difficult stool exits the bowels. Twice during its course an industrial hum appears and when it leaves Monteiro’s voice sounds even more sinister.

Moondog’s 50 Couplets are something that I knew never existed. 50 rhyming couplets in measured iambic parameters of 14 syllables each. Some are witty, some are sad and some just downright odd:

An armoured knight fell off a ship and sank into the blue.
He looked a lobster in the eye and said ‘you’re armoured to?’ [sic]

She bought a cover to cover the seat; but the cover was so nice,
She bought a cover to cover the cover; and now its covered twice.

You couldn't tell me more than when you looked into my eyes.
Now, you are there and I am here; and hope within me dies.
  
Rush the beach, good Anglemen, and stop the Norman landing.
Use what strategy you will, but leave no Norman standing.



Costing a mere €5, the Moondog book is far cheaper than a small glass of beer at a Gare Du Nord cafe, as cheap as frites and and much better for you. These may not be the deepest thoughts ever committed to page but I'm glad they exist, on paper, in a slim book, not on ebook, Kindle, laptop, phone. 



http://www.lenkalente.com/products

Consumer Electronics - Dollhouse Songs

Consumer Electronics - Dollhouse Songs
Harbinger Sound. HS152. LP


The last time I saw Phillip Best he was drooling spit on to his sweaty man paps. This larger than life character was winding up an audience of Americans who, you couldn’t help feel, had little idea as to what exactly was going on. Soon to jettison his leather jacket and shirt, but keeping on his shades, Best did what he does best and antagonized his audience with lengthy ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’ gestures as a snarling, bent almost double, Dominik Fernow delivered contorted noises via laptop. I didn’t get every word of his delivery but the word ‘cunt’ could be heard approximately every third word, most of them aimed at the audience who he seemed to be treating with total disrespect. Being called a cunt by a beer bellied wank spanner may not be everybody's idea of a good night out but you’d be surprised at how many people are prepared to have their hearing damaged by 40 continuous minutes by Consumer Electronics noise. Not that I’m that a big fan I must admit. I much preferred Best in his earlier CE forays when he was still employed as part of Whitehouse, when he used to keep his shirt on [double cuffed too] reading his lyrics from a huge book that he waved in front of his ever sweating face.

All this aggression is part of the show of course. Off stage Best is head of Philosophy at Texas University. He’s written dissertations on the noise scene in Montenegro, chaired debates with Richard Dawkins and has a personal library that contains three miles of shelving. None of that is true but you kind of get the feeling that it could be. His favourite word is ‘cunt’ and his favourite writer is Thomas Pynchon. That much may be true. He’s an intelligent man and all that drooling on to his tits is there to wind you up. On record he’s all failed social systems, broken lives and suicidal teenage girls. And noise of course. 

Unlike the last two more recent-ish CE albums I’ve heard: ‘Nobody’s Ugly’, two sides of noise drone and ‘Estuary English’, 23 minutes worth of rabid delivery spread over two sides of vinyl, Dollhouse Songs feels more like a complete album. Perhaps the best CE album to date that I’ve heard. Maybe its the arrival of Russell Haswell on electronics or Sarah Froelich on screaming or the Trevor Brown sleeve art but somehow this feels like the one to wave at your mates and go ‘see, it can be done’, noise turns into art with lyrics that you can sing along to. Well almost.

His ranting, rabid, spittle flecked delivery is at one with the whatever hideous noises are being created. If you told me Best records these things rolling around the floor of a padded cell with a hypo sticking out of his arse I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised. What does come as a surprise is that the best track on here is also the quietest. ‘Colour Climax’, [infamous Danish porn empire in case you didn’t know], finds Best quietly speaking over but the lightest of noise flotsam, his words somehow appearing all the more menacing than when in full tilt, and at its end this:


tested like a witch in the dirty old river
feeling ruined fucked off
bed looks pissed in
skin dried hard and thin
strapped with sternal wire
abattoir-quartered
hung in joints and sides

this is it
the bare life
it feels like love
doesn’t it?

So its not all hammer and tongs, even though there is plenty of that. ‘History of Sleepwalking’ erupts into the kind of electronic snare drum hits that make you feel like your tweeters are going to pop. ‘Knives Cut’ is all subtle low end rumble with Haswell skreeing circuit abuse all over it. On ‘Condition of a Hole’ and ‘Murder Your Masters’ Froelich tries to outdo Best by screaming her lungs raw. A constant deluge of forced words delivered to a series of monotonous rapid pulse beats. ‘Nothing Natural’ has no words and appears to be the space where Haswell get to flex his muscles, it sounds like Tangerine Dream on a noise trip and ends with someone orgasming.

Consumer Electronics reveal the social dystopia that lies in wait. A world brought about by the ubiquity of freely available antidepressants and pain killers. A world where the excessive consumption of cheap alcohol and Class A drugs leads to family rupture, suicide and self harm. A future of uncaring governments, war, death and pestilence. Its not a pretty world but then neither are Consumer Electronics. 



http://harbingersound.bigcartel.com/












 

TNB Orchestra

TNB Orchestra - Eine Kleine Nichtsmusik
Hypnagogia. GIA08. 300 copies.


On discovering that Eine Kleine Nichtsmusik consisted of two almost forty minute tracks I had the review written before I’d even played it. My mind ran to the hideous nature of Harsh Noise Wall [so noise isn’t ‘noise’ enough for ya hey punk?’] and works of a maximalist nature that no doubt exist on 16 gigabyte flash drives and run until your head falls off or your hardware malfunctions. I mean how much noise can one person take in a single sitting? Eighty minutes all in one go? Are you insane? I’m a traditionalist in these matters though and TNB don’t make music to wash the dishes to. I want to sit and listen to your release in the nature that it was intended. I will sit and listen to this all in one go and I will bloody well suffer for it. It comes with the job.

I trawled Twitter and found Japanese noise fans complaining that Eine Kleine Nichtsmusik was over long and difficult to get through in one-er. If it was too much for the Japanese then what chance did I have? And then I remembered Paul Watson’s comment that you could probably fit every noise fan in the world into a football stadium and wouldn’t it be great if we could all be nice to each other, there’s not many of us after all, we need to stick together, one big happy family sitting side by side on piano’s making horrible noises. And yes that is a noble sentiment except that I was thinking more National League North while Watson was probably thinking Championship. But how many in that ground are getting a kick out of an eighty minute noise release? How many people, even those who claim to be rabid noise fans, are getting their kicks out an 80 minute noise release? By now we’re down to those in the dug out and the queue for the half time Bovril. The audience is getting smaller as the tracks get louder and longer.

Then I played it reminding myself that this is, after all, The New Blockaders, or to be more precise TNB Orchestra. What the difference is I have no idea, the sleeve leaves no clue,  the tracks aren’t even given titles. So the only thing left to do is play it. I’ve been putting it off for long enough and here goes and ... well, that wasn’t so bad was it? Too much for some but not for me. It was like rolling in Chanel scented moss as Raquel Welch fed me plump grapes, it was like having the best sleep of my life. It wasn’t and certainly never will be Harsh Noise Wall or whatever the fuck that is. It does creep up on you though. The first thirty minutes are some of the most inventive TNB material I’ve heard with shortwave hiss and computer chatter slathered over a low end rumble and at around the fifteen minute mark Daleks but ever so slowly the chaos takes hold until you realise you’re trapped in a vortex of spiraling, out of control noise. TNB trademark clatter and squeak can just about make itself heard and sometimes voices making ghostly sounds for this is alive with all manner flotsam. An exhilarating joy.  But thats the peak. After reaching the summit the downhill descent of track two is less interesting as gas leaks, astronaut breathing and the wind howling outside eventually develop into a flat-lining assault. At its very end it collapses in on itself revealing the dying spasms of a malfunctioning android and the muffled, struggling puff of a steam fed funicular.

TNB releases now appear to follow a familiar pattern whereby a limited run of handmade CDR’s are sold to rabid collectors which then goes to fund the larger release. I dare say that those at TNB towers have an eye on a double LP for this somewhere down the line and I for one would buy it. Not exactly the Metal Machine Music of noise but still worthy of your time. See you in the Bovril queue.


Buy here

Dieter Müh

Dieter Müh - Hanging the Blind Dog.
Hanson Records. HN257

Dieter Müh - Live at Gängeviertel
Soundholes. Live #005.


There’s always been an air of menace to Dieter Müh releases; the unsettling atmospheres, the Yorkshire Ripper victim confessional slowed to such a degree that you think the hammer must have done more damaged than originally thought. And no rolling of the eyes at the back please, Dieter Müh are an industrial outfit, an ‘Industrial Ambience’ outfit if you like [I have no idea if its in operational use but its the one I prefer] and as such are entitled to use such samples with impunity. It comes with the territory and the fact that Dieter Müh use transgressive material such as this to powerful effect is because the source is heavily disguised, this is no gay porn fisting video at a Power Electronics gig, this is subtle and as such cranks up the gravitas, its chewing your ears up without you even knowing it.

The Dieter Müh sound has altered very little over the 20 odd years its been coming through this door. Which is somewhat surprising when you learn that from three original members there now survives just the one; Steve Cammack. And while Dieter Müh releases may not arrive with the regularity they once did, the one thing you can be sure of is that when they do, they don’t lack quality. A testament to Steve Cammack and his impeccable quality control.

These two cassettes contain three live performances from a couple of years back one of which is, I’m pretty certain, the 2012 Rammel Club Festival set. Its the one that begins with the Maureen Long interview her voice slowed down to such an extent that it becomes a hideous slur and then a sudden eruption, a pounding rhythmic pummeling and you're off. I was there, the room moved from silent attention to heart thumping rush within a second. Its what Dieter Müh do. Its what they’ve always been capable of, holding audiences rapt with gently unfolding rhythms before unleashing a barrage of rhythmic fury at the end of which you'll sometimes hear a menacing voice intoning the words ‘we’re not happy, ‘till your not happy’. The flip begins with dolphin squeals, a bowl ring drone and a gently unfolding, overlapping, enveloping rhythm that develops into an ever more out of control monster, until the tapes cuts it and then silence.

‘Live at Gängeviertel’ repeats the same both sides, a single twenty two and half minute track that moves through two distinct phases starting with layered vocal samples and somebody whispering ‘nobody’. Buried voices appearing out of the silence, voices appear for one word and then disappear, panicked radio communications with an Eraserhead-esque Wurlitzer organ playing out some 1920’s ditty in the distant background, the ‘nobody’s’ get louder, a blizzard make itself heard, drunken WWI soldiers sing, Enochian recitations. Mysterious atmospheres, darkness and unease. Dieter Müh at their very best.     




Soundholes

Hanson

Ceramic Hobs / Disco Mental

The Ceramic Hobs - 50 Shades of Snuff/Welcome to Malaysia Airlines
Disco Mental - Never Can Say Goodbye
Smith Research SRV21. 7”


I’ve been digging through my singles of late, spinning a few and wondering why I still keep those that I either don’t like anymore or have no idea whats on them. I’m not the worlds biggest single fan but I do have an abiding admiration for a format that is unmistakably of itself. Its a single. It has a single on it. Once upon a time, in a dark and miserable past, they contained a track taken from the album and a b-side that was the instrumental version, a cheap and shoddy way for uncaring record companies to pump product on to an uncaring and easily pleased consumer base. At their best they’re visceral slices of a moment in time, the perfect piece of plastic that for a few minutes is the best thing in the whole world.

Over the years I’ve accumulated several Ceramic Hobs singles including one that I had a hand in [read; sent Steve a cheque and six months later received a hundred singles in return] which’ll be Shaolin Master, which I still claim to be one of my all time favourite seven inchers, there was that flexi on Pumf’ ‘The Stoat Rides Out’, the lathe cut with Greasy Walter and the Razors [who were probably just the Hobs under another name and who sang a Neil Young song to a Led Zeppelin tune], ‘72 Hour Drink Binge Alco Pop Madness’ and more lately ‘33 Trapped Chilean Miners’. There’s no doubting that Ceramic Hobs singles have certainly got darker around the edges as the years have passed.

Which is hardly surprising. Their guitarist Nigel Joseph died of a drug overdose in 2014, various members have seen the insides of psychiatric units and one peripheral member was found washed up on the Fylde coast, drink is a constant, sanity seems as far away as Mars but still they make decent records. It must be the Blackpool sea air that does it.

There is no instrumental on ‘50 Shades of Snuff’. There’s no b-side either, for this is a split single, one side of which is Disco Mental; a one off collaboration between Hobs man Morris and the recently departed John Several who between them do an almost straight cover of Never Can Say Goodbye. A song most famously given a disco backing by Gloria Gaynor but here given a cheesy synth drum preset 4/4 beat by Several with Morris singing over the top [in more than one sense] though tons of echo, a performance that disintegrates and becomes ever more tortured as the needle progresses. So we have a dying John Several, a man whose name you thought would never end up in the same sentence as word ‘disco’, recording a disco track thats being sung, almost as in eulogy, by the singer of a band who have either all been sectioned or who are dead? As black humour goes this is as dark as its possible to get.

The doom factor is further in evidence on ‘50 Shades of Snuff’ a track book-ended by recordings made at the inquest into former Hobs guitarist Nigel Joseph’s death from a drug overdose [here given his real name Keiron Wilmot]. Both tracks finds the Hobs staring into a black mirror whilst chugging out stop, start, cracked riffs. Morris’s vocal delivery is, as ever, a thing apart, a raw vibration from the diaphragm, a fag smoked patina hoarse shout, the sound of vocal chords being gripped by pliers. What ‘Welcome to Malaysia Airlines’ is all about I have no idea, apart from the obvious. Morris says at its onset ‘Acid’s groovy’. Lets leave it at that.

I get the feeling that however many of these singles exist have now all been covered in Dr Steg artwork and sent out to loving homes. My copy arrived bearing a postcard I’d sent to Dr Steg many years ago. I slide it in next to ‘33 Trapped Chilean Miners’ and wonder how much darker the Hobs can get before they eventually collapse into a Blackpool sized black hole?

http://smithresearch.blogspot.co.uk/

Mark Wynn - Singles

Mark Wynn - ‘Singles - But They're not Really Singles, I just sent them to the Screen and said they were Singles’.

Harbinger Sound. Harbinger158. LP + 20pp A4 Zine. 500 copies.




Its not often I see the names of those I’ve reviewed getting a mention in the local paper but there was Mark Wynn’s name next to Burts Trad Jazz Band at The Wickham Wednesday night 8.00pm as appears every week in the Spenborough Guardian's ‘Whats On’ column. This, not long after he’d sent me one of his CDR/zine releases packed to brimming with two minute guitar strum avant punkish wit, everyday observations, one sided conversations and a cut and paste zine the likes of which I thought had died out forty years ago.

I did my research for that release and discovered that Wynn had a previous life in which he fingerpicked blues and country songs, the sort of thing that would appeal to those who attend Heckmondwike’s Comrades club and their once a month Crown of Lights acoustic night. The sort of evening where people sit around candle lit tables listening to wannabee Suzanne Vegas, Billy Braggs and Noel Gallaghers. So me and Mrs Fisher went along knowing full well that Wynn had left behind his fingerpicking past and was now supporting Sleaford Mods and was taking to the stage with a ghetto blaster that played his pre-recorded songs to which he sings/talks whilst stripped to the waist, an emaciated Jaques Tati on mind bending drugs, Iggy Pop from York, a deranged, bare chested Frank Spencer.

After a Suzanne Vega and her partner had chimed their way through 20 minutes of heartfelt whimsy as written in a Welsh cottage on holiday in the middle of winter 2010 and Billy Bragg had channeled Joe Strummer with a maraca tied to his left foot it was Wynn’s turn. As he plonked his ghetto blaster on the stage I heard one of his friends shout ‘where’s your guitar?’, a comment which was soon drowned out by whatever it was Wynn had recorded which could have been the energetic ‘ She Fancies Me That One In Age Concern’. As is the norm the whip thin Wynn stripped to his waist within three minutes of taking, not the stage but the floor, and was posturing his way around the scattered punters blowing out each of their tea lights in turn to which many stood up and beat a hasty retreat to the snooker room. By now me and Mrs Fisher were rolling around in mirth hoping he’d keep this up for the rest of the night but no, it was all over in about ten minutes. Wynn pressed stop on his ghetto blaster and told his audience that that was his last song to which there was a smattering of polite applause and a very audible ‘thank fuck for that’ before he shouted ‘ONLY JOKING’ and pressed play once more regaling us all with his instant classic, ‘Rip Off The Fall’. Our amiable Irish host took to the floor with his radio mic and tried to make light of what had just happened by saying something along the lines off ‘well, you never know what to expect from Mark Wynn do you, oh oh oh?’ It was a night I shall never forget.

The next time I saw Wynn was September last year supporting Sleaford Mods at the Irish Centre in Leeds. Same sort of get up but this time he’s even thinner and is sporting a child’s tiara. He’s got all his gear set up on a small table to which he occasionally sits and twiddles something as he eats grapes before leaping up and walking around the stage delivering songs in rapid fire succession in what feels like an almost stream of consciousness delivery.

I get the feeling that he’s an artist incapable of stemming the constant flow of ideas racing through his head. Take the cover of his latest ‘Singles’ LP which is in part a letter to Harbinger Sound supremo Steve Underwood apologising for not offering up a proper cover.  All handwritten in caps and worrying about whether  Rowntrees should have an apostrophe and whether ‘color’ should have a ‘u’ in it. There is of course the obligatory photos of himself staring into the camera [he’s made for the camera], shirtless of course and with a picture of his grandfather on the reverse for good measure.

Wynn takes his cue from the Versatile Newts, the Popticians, the TV Personalities, Desperate Bicycles, a very English kind of DIY punk aesthetic but right here and now in 2016. Think Patrick Fitzgerald having an urge to write songs about Battenburg and Bukowski. An unstoppable force of creativity. I dare say you could put Wynn in a white room with five objects and before the night was out he’d have the beginnings of a new album. 

There are 18 songs here [not all singles of course that was Steve’s idea as you can read about on the cover] and have titles like ‘I Just Don’t Understand Nick Cave’, ‘Real Sausages Made by a Real Butcher’, ‘The Girl Who Looked Like Bobby Gillespie’, ‘Your Nan is Not an Invalid’, ‘She’s My Baby And She Makes Me Die Inside’.  ‘I Just Don’t Understand Nick Cave’ begins with a hard strummed electric guitar and Wynn shouting ‘I’m not even that drunk’. Its probably all over in less than a minute. Most songs are just the retelling of things that happened accompanied by handclaps, tambourines and primitive drums and did I say they were catchy? His songs are as catchy as ebola. He sings in a talking voice. Listening to him is like catching a conversation across a table in a greasy spoon. Some nifty guitar work on ‘Houses on the Green Grass’ give away his previous incarnation in a song that is about … about what? I have no idea but its as catchy as hell and mentions Leeds. ‘Your Nan is Not an Invalid’ mentions New Earswick and Halifax. I’ve heard songs of his that mention Batley. I saw him in Heckmondwike. I doubt I’ll get the opportunity again. ‘John Tries To Buy Some New Tappers - A Movement in Three Parts’ is about his friend going to work in his socks because he has no shoes. ‘Battenburg’ is about Battenburg and has Wynn shouting ‘MULL OF KINTYRE’ in it. ‘Knee Socks’ … you get the idea. ‘She’s My Baby And She Makes Me Die Inside’ sounds like the Stooges with Wynn singing through a bullhorn. And its all utterly brilliant and as fresh as a newly opened packet of GV.

All 18 tracks on 'Singles' were culled from the last two years worth of Wynn's numerous self released CDR's, so what I suggest is this; buy 'Singles', play it to death and whilst you're at it buy up all those CDR's because you're going to need those too.  

Mark Wynn



Harbinger Sound

Tactile - Deep Immersion Electronics

Tactile - Deep Immersion Electronics
Sentrax Corporation. 2XLP with download code.


This stunning looking double LP white vinyl set finally arrived at Idwal Towers after spending a month in a neighbours house whose kids had taken it in and duly forgot about it. And then I had to dismantle the Hi-Fi because new gear was purchased and then the new rack didn’t arrive for a month so for all this time I was playing the MP3 version, which I now realise, after hearing the vinyl for the first time this week, is like trying to appreciate Stockhausen’s Hymnen through a partition wall. Once installed, the new system made me appreciate the fact that music of this nature, electronic music of a droning nature [in fact most music in general it has to be said] is far superior on vinyl to that of MP3 or any of its variants. Don’t argue. You lose. A marvelous object and a beautiful listen. I’m cheering you all the way.

John Everall’s Tactile project has lurked in the undergrowth ever since its inception, as befits someone whose name has been attached to the likes of Coil. His name usually crops up in conversations along with the words Sentrax Corporation, the label he started in the early 90’s that became home to God and people like Justin Broadrick, Mick Harris, James Plotkin. And then in 2014 John Everall [now known as Several] passed away making Deep Immersion Electronics his posthumous release.

Not being too familiar with John Everall’s Tactile project, I relished the chance to fully indulged in his twin synth drones and supped heartily from his droning cup. A listen that when coupled to the fact that he was working on this up until his death, added a certain poignancy to the proceedings.

So we have nine tracks, all numbered, all created from twin cycling analogue synths giving, not surprisingly, a very deep electronic immersion; gently throbbing pulses, sunspot transmissions, data churn, beetling emissions over which sinewy oscillations weave their way across an all encompassing spectrum. At nine minutes in length the longest tracks here ‘D.I.E. VIII’ and ‘D.I.E IX’ go for that deep, deep churn, the relentless onward march of a robot army with but a single fluxing synth note weaving its way across it. Immersive music for immersive people.

My only qualm is that these tracks aren’t immersive enough, at nine minutes I’m just getting in to it and those three minute tracks are but mere tasters, the amuse bouche. I’m thinking triple album here with a track each side. I’m not saying Several hasn’t done his job but the chance to explore these themes further is tantalizing but lost. 

This was Several’s sixth Tactile release and my first. A release that had me exploring corners of Youtube that I don’t normally get to. Another door opened.




http://www.sentrax.co.uk/

Pascal Nichols Leaves Leeds

Has as been kindly pointed out me, I’ve gone and got my Pascal’s mixed up in the below review. Pascal Ansel is a Tiggerish young man bursting with enthusiasm, youth and energy, he’s the one whose leaving Leeds for Lisbon. Pascal Nichols is the gentleman who plays in Stuckometer. This much I now know. I leave the review as is, a monument to an aging brain and testament to my continuing ability to not get even the simplest of facts right. I like to think of myself as the John Peel of reviewing, always playing records at the wrong speed, always getting my facts wrong but not really caring that much and still happy in the knowledge that I have the ability to engage brain and hands from which words appear on a screen. Here’s to old age.



Stuckometer - Rainbow Beads Excretion
Total Vermin 60. CDR

Luke Poot/Lovely Honkey - Shame 3
Angurosakuson 008. CDR

So farewell then Pascal Nichols. You gave us lots of memorable noisy live performances like when you stripped to your knickers and poured beer over you head in the Wharf Chambers. You were making some godawful racket that sounded like Stock Aitken and Waterman channeling Whitehouse and it was grrrrrrreat. Your enthusiasm gave those of us with flat batteries an unexpected recharge, you even took up the improv baton in Leeds while those around you looked to their shoes and mumbled words like ‘thats the night I wash my hair’ and erm ... ummm ... you run a label with an unpronounceable name [unless you're Japanese and then it makes a lot more sense] and now you leave Leeds for Lisbon which makes us sad.

Having listened to these two releases over the last couple of nights I cant help get the feeling that Nichols feels most at home with his improv cap on. I mean making noises in your underpants is a good way to pass a Sunday afternoon on but improv has a certain gravitas to it which Nichols fits comfortably well.

Rainbow Beads Excretion sees Nichols join David Birchall and Karl Sveinsson for two approximately thirty minute-ish tracks of outrageously good guitar, bass and drum flail. Coming in at the more cerebral end of the improv spectrum this is no Unky Thurst send them all packing at midnight last act on lets see hows many’s left when the lights come up teeth bared molten lead earbleed-a-thon, even if it does have its Keiji Haino moments. Which is where we begin but things soon plateau so as we can experience the rub of bass, the scratch of bridge strings, the rattle of drum, the wheeze of keyboard feedback, the clang of chord. All I ask of improv of this nature is for to be carried along, to be not bored, to not think that oh that bit sounded a tad cliched, I think they were running out of ideas, they were bored, they fell asleep. I felt none of that with this. Second track ‘Fill Fill Fill’ begins with jack plug abuse, squeals of metal against metal, tiny bells, the clang of tubular bell-like things and distant whoops. An austere atmosphere that feels like the soundtrack to a difficult avant gard film form 1950’s France thats punctuated twice along its length by two mighty buffets of improv storm.

Who Luke Poot and Lovely Honkey are I have no idea but just to hear once again that mildly racist term of abuse as last seen in the 70’s sitcom Love Thy Neighbour has raised my spirits no end. I hear Scottish accents and the first track is all muffled mutter words and shouting, drunk people calling to each other across a public park while trying to get a noise gadget to work. There then follows three live segments as recorded for On North Manchester FM in which Mr Poot affects emphysema, wind and baby gurgles while playing  snatches from a cassette that contains samples taken from Match of the Day including David Taylor saying ‘do I not like that’. I’m assuming that the producers at On North Manchester FM have sympathetic producers and are used to people coming in to their studios and shouting ‘STREPSILS’ as people have their breath sucked out of them. Last track ‘Happy, Yeah?’ is another live one, three odd minutes worth of odd sounds, film dialogue, scuffling, squeaking but mainly film dialogue which makes me wonder what Poot and Honkey were up to all this time? Watching the films? Were they displayed? We need to know. For whats coming at me now makes about as much sense as freezing lettuce. At least the audience liked it. And Pascal.


Total Vermin [not been updated for a couple of years]


Angurosakuson      

Grim Enema

Grim Enema
Must Die Records. MDR 38. CDR

We must look forward by first looking back. Unless you’re the Italian driving an open top Ferrari in the 1976 film ‘The Gumball Rally’; a no hold’s barred, totally illegal road race that starts in Time Square and ends up thousands of miles later when the road runs out at the Pacific Ocean. In it, the Italian looks to his co-driver and intones the immortal words ‘First rule of Italian driving; whats behind is not important’ before ripping off the rear view mirror and chucking it on to the back seat.

I didn’t see Nigel Joseph in any of the end of the year lists of those we have lost. I did see Lemmy and Philthy, Ornette Coleman, John Renbourne, Chris Squires, Rod McKuen, Demis Roussos, Mick Lynch, Edgar Froese and plenty of other musicians including Ward Swingle who you really must search online for but no mention of Nigel Joseph.

He didn’t have any hit singles, or write any classic tunes. He was in the Ceramic Hobs though. He used to play the Hoover or more conventionally the guitar, even if he did play sat down at the front of the stage. I’ve written about his solo releases on these pages before and retold tales of how he used to send me letters regarding news of his latest noise release including one that was going to be a one off of a hundred tapes sewn into a dogs carcass and when I got one [not the one in the dog obvs as that was only released for one second on one day and then went away for ever] it was just a distortion of a blues cassette which sounds really cheap and crass but was actually quite good in its own raw way. I interviewed him once too. Another tale I’ve told before but one that I like to mention because I don’t like interviewing people as I don’t like asking intrusive questions but Joseph was quite happy to answer questions regarding his fragile mental state and the amount of spine numbing drugs he was taking. For someone who was supposed to be ‘mad’ [a word I’m not happy using but its the one that was bandied about most when talk moved to Joseph] he seemed a lot saner than some of the idiots I have had the displeasure of sharing my working time with.

I think Grim Enema arrived just before Nigel Joseph died which was in the middle of 2015. It seems appropriate that it appears on the totally un-ironically named Must Die Records, a local Blackpool label that also found room for his migraine inducing un-danceable drug music release 'Radioactive Snuff' and of course the still tragically underrated Ceramic Hobs LP 'Spirit World Circle Jerk'. And on the same week that I take delivery of the new Ceramic Hobs single ‘50 Shades of Snuff’ [which I dare say features Joseph in some way or another] I thought it about time I paid my respects by highlighting Nigel Joseph’s Grim Enema.

Except its not just him. A scribbled note mentions the name Ben Stephenson which means nothing to me. So its a collaboration. A full blown band maybe. The MDR website has no further info but it does include, as does the CD, a list of around 30 or so books which I took the liberty to search for online. Its a list that swings all the way from erotic fiction to knot tying manuals to the Koran to Irish politics to the properties of concrete and if I didn’t know better then I’d guess that its a list of books as found on Nigel Joesph’s bookshelf.

But what of what we get to hear? Thankfully for me its not the monged out drug induced beat fug that was Radioactive Snuff, neither is it the throwaway noise of ‘1,2,3’ what we do have is jumbled mass of Sunn O))) type guitars as recorded in a drafty Blackpool bedsit when the tide was out and the drugs were in. Endlessly reverbing chords of heaviness, the Cocteau Twins on Largactyl minus Liz Fraser. Three tracks and forty odd minutes worth of lo-fi  Blackpool drooooooooooong with a Dr. Steg cover and a juxtaposed list of books. As a goodbye statement from Nigel Joseph, one time Hob, one time filler of dead dogs with noise cassettes its seems perfectly pitched.  


http://mustdierecords.co.uk/

Yol

Yol - Everyday Rituals
CDR. No Label.

Yol & Posset - A Watched Pot Never
CDR. No Label.

Yol & Half an Abortion - The Designated Driver
CDR. No Label.



I get the feeling that if you ever invited Yol around for tea he’d be out of his chair as soon as your back was turned clanging together the fire hearth brush and pan set or screaming up the chimney to check out the acoustics. I’m not saying he’s a lunatic or not fully house trained yet but I do get the feeling he’s on a constant mission to create noise at all times and is forever curious as to what does what and what makes what. If you see what I mean. If you’ve yet to come across Yol [and if you’ve been reading these pages over the last couple of years then you really have no excuse] he’s the man from Hull who’s a cross between an angry Phil Minton and The New Blockaders. Now read on.

The noises he makes with his mouth combine strangulated gurgles and Tourettes outbursts with wails of anguish and kitchen utensil abuse. He’s a man forever losing his temper with a stubborn jam jar lid, he’s pushing a mop bucket around a tiled floor, he’s dropping things, clanging things but most of the time he’s emptying his lungs in the most violent manner you could ever possibly imagine. If you thought Junko was extreme then you need to hear some Yol.

Even after all these years, well three, since what was Neck Vs Throat I’ve been held in awe at the sheer aliveness of Yol’s work. His live performances are short, abrupt things where you begin to wonder if he’s in need of some kind of psychiatric help. Its a rare thing to find someone who gives so much of themselves in the live situation, which goes some way to explain why his performances are over and done with within the space of ten minutes. If you’ve gone to the bar and then for a piss you’ve usually missed half of it at least.

I’ve seen him live a couple of times now, once solo and once most memorably, with the Filthy Turd who’s natural ability to cause both unease and hilarity amongst audiences fitted in well with a writhing, angular, intense Yol. Its natural that musicians and performers should choose to collaborate and it would appear that Yol has no shortage of willing accomplices. With both Posset [dictaphone, cassettes] and Half an Abortion [noise, what else] he’s found two who’d invite him around for tea any day.

‘A Watched Pot Never’ finds Yol gurgling/shouting in a now trademark almost stutter shout as Posset strains the capstans with a smear of squeals and flutter; that’s ‘Pigeon Film’, ‘Inappropriate Pause’ hits the feedback button and sees Yol go for the Jap noise vocal dollar as Possett weaves in all manner of cassette fuckery with short bursts of this and slowed down bits of that. ‘Sit Down and Shut Up’ feels almost cerebral in comparison until we’re back in the TNB shed with the scraping and rattling of things, mainly cymbal like, mainly noisy, never dull. 

Two live tracks bookend ‘The Designated Driver’ with the first ‘Sicked Up’ finding Yol in the midst of some, at times, fierce blasts of distorted ice cream van toons shouting, ‘SICKED UP BURGER!’ before releasing a stomach deep scream that would be the envy of any death metal band. If anything the title track is even more visceral with Yol struggling with the words ‘Im the designated driver’ until eventually he spits out ‘YOU BASTARD!’ in what, it has to be said is a rare outing of profanity. Pete Cann [Half an Abortion] layers on plenty of muck until at its end there’s just Yol struggling with his last wretch. When all goes quiet you hear Cann in a surprised voice say ’where are you going?’ The two tracks sandwiched between finds Cann rummaging about in a box of knick knacks as Yol suffers a heart attack, bits of words stuttering out of his mouth, foam gathering at its edges, mouthing angry baby words, dying and being resurrected just in time to wretch it one more time. The longest track on here ‘Bang’ wanders into violin scrape Dada absurdist territory which for once is respite.

When sailing under his own steam Yol tends to introduce more verbal dexterity into the mix hence such gripping lines as ‘Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye’ [on ‘Fun and Games’] which was probably recorded at the Wharf Chambers and which it looks like I missed. What makes Yol stand out from the rest of the noise merchants and leads me to believe we have real talent here are tracks such as ‘Poundshop Gamelan’ which highlights Yol's febrile imagination and creates in two and half minutes a link between performance artist, austerity Britain and a grimy Hull meets exotic Java. A sentence I thought I’d never write. Last track ‘Bucket Ritual’ is as you’d expect Yol versus bucket in another live outing. As Yol rattles and smashes to the ground a galvanized mop bucket he screams, growls, yelps and stutters. Words are spat out; ‘the rain is expected to get HEAVIER AS THE DAY GOES ON’. Sometimes he struggles to get the words out, gasping for breath, a small string of bells tinkle, the bucket goes to the floor once again. ‘ITS JUST A BIT OF BANTER’ as a bastard file goes down the side of the bucket releasing painful, grating squeals. The cut short audience response at its end is genuinely enthusiastic. Go see him live should you get the chance or invite him round to scream up your chimney.

https://yolnoise.bandcamp.com/

Beetroot Toilet Terror

Beetroot Toilet Terror
Cassette. No label.



Having just made, for the first time in my life, some meat free Ukrainian Borscht it would seem appropriate to review Beetroot Toilet Terror. No matter that I received this just last week and that I have a cluttered backlog of review material that forever teeters Tower of Pisa like, for Beetroot Toilet Terror the time is now.

So who is this purveyor of Beetroots? This Toilet Terror who comes without any information whatsoever bar the words Beetroot Toilet Terror. That it came from Mirfield and had a note from that man Campbell we deduce that what we have here is Neil Campbell doing it Old Skool Stylee, dubbing cassettes at home whilst knocking out some printed labels that get glued to card sleeve daubed in red paint. Even the cassettes are red. Its the way to do it of course. Bypass the pressing plant, get some jiffy bags, cassettes, make some music and mail it out.

But here’s the word ‘collab’ as hurriedly scribbled on enclosed note. But with who? I know not. Whoever it is they’ve certainly put the brakes on the Campbell express slowing down the runaway beserker pub disco going through a ruptured tweeter sound to something far downbeat and spacey.

It could be ‘Toilet’ or Terror’ it doesn’t really matter but here’s a squidgy thing all bleeps and bloops and a lolloping backbeat that you’d need a big bifter to fully appreciate. And here’s something that's totally spaced out man, KLF on Mogadon with meteor showers for company. ‘Beetroot’ [one of them] opens with a familiar ASC 4/4 thud but quickly becomes another sludge trawl.

What makes these six tracks so damned repeatable is the way the two layers combine with ASC thudge/sludge acting as backbone to various synth motifs and other celestial happenings. There’s a tad of reverb too and in places a dubby atmosphere. All of it quite wonderful in a drug fueled way. I'm guessing.

Who this celestial collaboration maestro is we can only guess at for now, but whoever it is they’ve helped create a curio that made my post prandial borscht hour all the more pleasurable.

No download then. No digital manifestation. No CD to rip from. The best you can do is go and make some borscht, find Beetroot Toilet Terror and make your own beetroot toilet terror.



Borscht Lovers Unite.

Gabba Gabba Hey

Ali Robertson + Friends
Giant Tank. GTNK025. Cassette.

Ali Robertson + His Conversations.
Giant Tank. GTNK026. CDR. 50 Copies.

Fritz Welch - Nothing To Offer
Singing Knives Records. Cassette.

Papal Bull - Argot of Incomprehension
Singing Knives/Discombobulate BOB007/SK023. CD

Papal Bull - In Ceres a Pig With Human Hands and Feet Were Born.
Chocolate Monk. Choc 253. CDR



The world of Gurglecore is but a small one [we can thank Phil Todd for the term]. People who make sounds with their mouths and sometimes pots and pans and the odd drum and sometimes electronica and the squeak of chair or the drop of stick. Choke and Clanger merchants, gobollallia, logorrhea lunatics. Gurglecore.

A small group of people in a tiny venue in Manchester accessed by a narrow flight of stairs from street level, twenty people sat around Phil Minton and Tony Oxley one with gob the other with drums and its just jaw dropping. It happened to me. An epiphany. Even the brother-in-law liked it and he’d only come for the beer. I’ve been here before but not often. Its a small world.

Several releases then that you could throw under a large-ish Emin embroidered vocal improv Dictaphone abuse noise Gurglecore blanket cover. Its not something I usually dig out on a Sunday evening but there’s no denying that certain factions within the vocal improv Dictaphone abuse noise Gurglecore world have a way of producing sounds that are of a nature that is like no other and is thus of a very satisfactory relaxing type sound, well some of it is. I think its the fact that you are listening to someone gurgle, or mash up their lips or scream or squawk or whisper, mumble, whistle, moan, groan, raspberry or just plain old talk that makes a refreshing change from the music or sounds that I usually reach for. Perhaps its the connection between speaker and listener, like listening to Stephen Fry reading from one of his books as you crawl through the M1 road works, a familiarity that brings comfort.  Like listening to Collette Robertson’s Scottish brogue intoning the words ‘if only you could put a little bit of yourself into the work’ against the sound of traffic noise.

Its the simplest of instruments. If you’ve walked alone down a long corridor or under a motorway bridge full of echo and not whistled or barked like a dog or shouted out rude words then you are a very sad person indeed.

Ali Robertson likes to talk. As do his friends. After a walk with Collette by the side of a busy road ‘his conversations’ is just that with a recording device sat on the mantlepiece catching the talk which segues into someone spitting ‘P’s’ and straining to rid themselves of a stiff shit which is, if nothing else, light relief from the garbled mass of conversations over which someone sometimes makes wibble noises.

His ‘& Friends’ finds Barry Esson, Bryony McIntyre, Ash Reid and Murdock Robertson involved in some kind of parlor word game, the rules of which I couldn’t fathom, in which the participants recite a certain phrase joining in at the right moment until you get them all talking at once or not at all. The other side has the village idiot having a coughing fit at an Irish jig and some kind of no-fi Bohman-esque scrapings. It's all rather mesmerizing and I have no idea why.

Taking these sounds into the art space can and usually does result in the kind of performance where you find yourself checking your phone or gnawing your wrist off in a bid to distract yourself from the pain resulting from what your eyes and ears are telling you. I’ve seen enough American sound poets to last me a lifetime each one of them making me wish I had a fully loaded Taser on my belt. Fritz Welch isn’t an American sound poet but he is American and his name is one that jingles the memory bank and I’m not sure if its in a good way. One side of his ‘Nothing to Offer’ [the gods of irony look down upon me] was recorded in a synagogue in Italy and consists of Welch hitting lots of drums and percussion type instruments in a haphazard fashion all whilst making noises with his mouth. The flip was recorded in a sauna in Edinburgh and moves along similar lines but is much sparser and all the better for it with Welch managing to create a truly surreal atmosphere with his rubbing and moaning. I’m just glad I didn’t have to watch it.

On the more suitably titled “Argot of Incomprehension’ we have Jon Marshall and Joe Murray going at it hammer and tongs under the Papal Bull banner. Here its all Michael Bentine’s Potty Time meets Captain Beefheart chewing on a hot sausage. I’m assuming it’s Marshall Touretting with the vocals as Murray scatters his Dictaphone wanderings hither and thither but I could be wrong. The rather splendidly scribbled and smudged inner sleeve mentions such exotic instrumenti as tres cubano, a xaphook, escalator and sheng amongst the more ubiquitous junk percussion, harmonica and shruti box. All this makes for a splendid near on 40 minutes worth of utter madness with Marshall and Murray constructing actual songs with actual song titles; ‘Snout Leather is Softest’, ‘Wand Erection’, Sadly Not Teeth Trees or Demons Piled on a Step’ which leads me to believe we have some wonderfully inventive minds at work. The way they distort the shruti box, brings to mind Mick Flower’s destruction of his Japanese banjo and with it the same kind of intensity. Chuck in the kind of demonic possession sounds as last seen on the Exorcist and you have the last track ‘Spangled Rag of the Butchers Apron’. Marshall and Murray are the perfect match, the jam roly-poly and custard  of the improv world. Definitely one of the highlights of the year.                        

An earlier work from 2012/13 appears courtesy of Chocolate Monk and with it a leaning to the noisier end of the scale albeit it with smidges of gob gabble interspersed within. ‘Bourgeois Blues’ is all distorted to buggery tape manipulations eventually giving way to vocal gurgles and an ice cream van playing the theme from Match of the Day v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. Then there's the eleven minute ‘Sniff Out Where the Boar is Hiding’ where the cycling grind in one ear is matched by the screeching grind in the other, the shorter ‘Esther Mung, the Tenderloin’ [I just can’t help myself typing out these song titles] is more all-in wrestling grunt and gurn and all the better for it while the last track ‘Only the Mouth and Nose, and this last a Substitute for a Phallus’ reverts back once more to feedback and churn and a climax of moaning groaning voices.

I feel tempted to chuck in some Yol reviews here and further extend the joy to be had from working with the gob but it’ll have to wait.

So we go from conversations in Scotland to drum scrape to Beefheartian noise work outs and its all sounding enthusiastic and lunatic and bloody marvelous. Gurgletastic in fact.
 

Giant Tank
 
Singing Knives
 
Discombobulate Records


Chocolate Monk

Merzbow - Ecobondage

Merzbow - Ecobondage
Menstrual Recordings. DLP+CD. 250 copies.


I got a phone call from my uncle. It was the early 80’s, October and I was out of work and had been so for the last six months. I was as skint as a skint thing, borrowing money against my dole cheque so as I could go out drinking, something which I took great pleasure in those days, that's the drinking not the borrowing. My uncle told me that there was a job going for me if I wanted it at the local coal tar enamel plant and that if I went and asked for his bridge playing mate Ernest he’d promise me enough work to last until Christmas. The thought of having enough money to see me through a solid week of drinking at Christmas and new year without having to borrow or get in debt drove from my mind whatever disapproving thoughts I had of the job being totally shit and instead went to see Ernest.

So I did and one cold and dark Sunday night at the back end of October I arrived at 6.30pm and reported to the foreman and five of us sat in a rotted Portakabin drinking tea until it was time to start work. Work involved the re-sleeving of coal tar enamel kegs whose wrappers and had become sodden through years of outdoor storage. Someone made the new wrappers, someone brought in pallets of old wet, soggy wrapped kegs and we all replaced them with new ones before putting a bag over them, strapping them to a new, less soggy, less rotted pallet before storing them outside again for shipping to Iraq where they were going to cover their lovely new pipeline with it.

It was tedious work made worse by the rotten sleeves springing cold dank water on to you when you split them and the people I was working with, which barring one, were worn down middle aged married men no doubt wondering how they’d managed to end up in a freezing cold shed doing a shit boring job for 72 hours a week. I was about 18 years old and was happy to be bringing home a tax free £300 [having been out of work for so long I didn’t have to pay tax until I reached my earnings threshold] a princely sum and after two months of it I soon had more money than I knew what to do with. When it came around to Christmas I knew that even after a weeks drinking I would still have plenty of cash left for what I wanted more than anything, a decent Hi-Fi system.

So I went to a shop in Bradford called Amriks and paid about a weeks wages for a Pioneer separates system that came in its own black MDF, glass fronted cabinet which had space underneath it for about 50 LP’s.

As of 2015 I still have the speakers, the turntable and the amp. A testimony to Pioneer’s build quality seeing has how these units have been used almost daily ever since. The sad fact is though that my trusty Pioneer separates as bought in Amrik’s 30-odd years ago now sound about as high fidelity as two bean tins with a bit of string running through them. It’ll still push relatively quiet music through its system but get anywhere near the noisier end of the spectrum and it all starts to sound mushy and horrible. Which in this job is about as much use as an ashtray on a bike.

The only thing to be done of course is to invest in some new equipment. So I spent three weeks trawling the websites of various Hi-Fi retailers and equipment manufacturers and pretty soon I realised that the world of Hi-Fi had moved on somewhat since I’d last bought a CD player to augment my Pioneer-ing bits. I now know that there is such a thing as a phono amp, a dedicated amp for your turntable because, obviously, the signal from your cartridge is a very weak one and you need something to increase it before its gets to your amp proper. So I bought one of those and a Pro-Ject turntable and a Marantz amp and some oak racking on which to sit it all and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ll replace the speakers too after some sound testing but for now I’m trying not to hyperventilate at the thought of all this coming together and filling my days forever more with the most wondrous sound reproduction.

And here it all sits bar the oak racking which is probably still on a joiners desk in Rutland or getting lost by Fed Ex or the Big Green Parcel Machine so instead I sit and play the CD that came with Ecobondage because it appears that you can’t buy an LP these days without it coming with a CD or a download link.

The thought of hearing vinyl through, what will be probably known for the next thirty years as ‘the new system’ gets me so giddy I find myself buying a Merzbow record, something I haven’t done for a very long time. Its a reissue of a late 80’s release through the charmingly named Menstrual Recordings label. Because all the best Merzbow material has already been made. If only he’d have packed in a round ’96/’97 chipping out with Pulse Demon and Venerology, Merzbow at his screaming, crunching best before lap tops and the ubiquity of the internet and the resultant queue of labels intent on seeing Masami deliver on his promise of a thousand releases. 

The last Merzbow release I reviewed was Kamadhenu four years ago, a review in which I kind of said goodbye to Merzbow. But that was before everybody went reissue mad and I got a new Hi-Fi, still without a rack, probably on a Big Green Parcel Machine and found myself with money burning a hole in my pocket and me wanting to hear some late 80’s Merzbow again. It’s a good time to be listening to early Merzbow thanks to the reissue market and labels like Vinyl-on-Demand putting 10LP’s of Masami’s very earliest work into a silk screened wooden box that'll cost you a £150. Truth be told I’ve been listening to quite a bit of Merzbow of late, mainly as an aid to blocking out unwanted work conversations at break times. My favourite find has been the ten minute track Peaches Red Indian which originally appeared on the 1983 release Mechanization Takes Command and sounds a lot like Vice Versa only with the vocals replaced by a boinging machine.

But back to Ecobondage which on the accompanying CD is to be found in its original two sided C60 form. Two tracks that show just how inventive and wide ranging a sound Masami was capable of creating before he set about trying to bore us all to death. Here we have everything from TNB like junk scrape to needle abuse to balloon squeak noise to didgeridoo honk to mournful soundscapes containing hidden conversations to dustbin shuffle and just the merest nod towards all out noise. The last ten minutes proved so popular that Autechre sought to remix it for the their contribution to the Russell Haswell collated release Scumtron, although I prefer what we have here which sits in Aphex Twin/Einstürzende Neubauten territory, a muffled rhythm played out on felted pipework with a layer sound disappearing and appearing again by use of a volume control.   

Ecobondage and the randomness of an iPod shuffle have resulted in something I thought might never happen, the reawakening of my interest in all things noisy. After a while out in the noiseless wastelands its good to be back. I’ll let you know what it sounds like on the ‘new system’.



http://menstrualrecordings.org/

Troum

Troum - Mare Morphosis
Transgredient Records. TR-09. CD

Troum & Yen Pox - Mnemonic Induction
Transgredient Records. TR-11. CD




Once upon a time there was a cassette only label called Direction Music run by a man called Peter Harrison. Direction Music released music by the likes of Vidna Obmana and Morphogenesis, Nurse With Wound appeared on an early compilation tape and Colin Potter seemed to be heavily involved as producer, contributor and tape duplicator. I used to write to Peter and send him money and in return I’d receive some of his tapes and more often than not a long hand written letter detailing all the music he’d bought recently, usually expensive Miles Davies and John Coltrane box sets. The man was a true music fan and like all good label owners and music fans he only ever released music that he truly loved.

I bought Maeror Tri releases from Peter because I liked their ambience and used to carry their cassettes around with me in an Eno-esqu bid to create my own ambiences and then one day in 2000 Peter Harrison sadly died leaving behind a back catalogue of 28 releases and that was that.

Maeror Tri morphed in to Troum who I sort of kept tabs on for a while but eventually, as is my directionless way, I found myself wandering down different avenues of musical exploration. So it was with some sense of glee that I opened a package containing two Troum releases and wondered how they were getting on.

What happened next can only be described as a moment of earth shattering devastation. It was as if the foundations of my very being had been rent asunder. For some reason Troum had recorded something so utterly awful, so ear displeasingly bad that I had to remind myself that this was in fact Troum and not some Black Metal Symphonic Rock hybrid the result of a very drunken conversation between a Norwegian Death Metal band and someone who had a trumpet who one night, after far too many Jagerbombs decided to make a record together.   

I am talking of Mare Morphosis [itself a clunky linking of the shortening of ‘nightmare’ and ‘Morphosis, unless this has something to do with horses and I’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick completely] an almost hour long battle between pounding drums, climaxing bass runs and heavy synth breathing. It has, in all honesty, to be one of the most disfiguring hours I’ve ever spent in my entire life, a thing so lumpy and ungainly and so horrible to listen to that I want to be not to be able to recall it ever again as long as I live.

What Troum have created with Mare Morphosis [the third and final installment in the Power Romantic series I’ve just discovered] is a kind of hideous New Age Ambient Symphonic Rock, as if ever such an ungodly thing could ever exist. A thirteen minute intro of those drums followed by some noodley atmospheric snyth and some deep breathing before the sodding drums come back to pound my senses into submission once more. My jaw doth drop open.

As you can imagine, inserting the Yen Pox collaboration into the player shortly afterwards was nothing less than traumatic but thankfully the results less than harmful.

Mnemonic Induction is of the throbbing bass rumble undertow school of ambient and the kind of droning ambience that benefits from having a decent hi-fi up so as to capture the power of low end drone. The kind of drone as heard in the cargo hold of propeller planes as you make your way across vast expanses of ocean, the kind of drone upon which you can layer all manner of atmospheres [some like to say ‘textures but I find that word difficult to use seeing as how it conjures up images of things you can touch not hear] that go towards creating the kind of ethereal rumble I so used to enjoy on La Bradford records, the way they used to give the bass guitar five minutes to play ten notes. Empty spaces filled with roaring drones. Not bad and after what had gone before, nothing short of a miracle.

What we have here is a reworking by Yen Pox of a fifteen year old Troum work. Perhaps we have Yen Pox to thank for this not being the self indulgent twaddle that Mare Morphosis is. Either way this had me digging around for those old Maeror Tri cassettes until I remembered that I sold them to a Russian collector a few years back. Life goes on.



Transgredient Records

     
 

  

Bridget Hayden - Just Ideas/The Night’s Veins

Bridget Hayden - Just Ideas/The Night’s Veins
Singing Knives Records.
100 copies.


Did I tell you about the time I got blind drunk at one of Campbell’s parties? Apparently I was dancing around the living room to Sun Ra flapping my arms about like a loon before eventually staggering to a taxi rank and from there my mind is a blank. I do have vague memories of talking to Bridget Hayden, drunken, incoherent ramblings on my part. I’m a terrible blathering idiot drunk which is one of the reasons I tend stay clear of overindulgence these days but after way too many vodkas, or whatever it was I was shoveling down my neck that night, I was no doubt in full throng, extolling the virtues of The Incapacitants or the night flights to New Delhi on Virgins new Airbuses or some other nonsense. I have no clear recollection of the chosen topic of conversation but I do remember talking to her, or as is probably more accurate annoying her. So I’m now taking this opportunity to apologise to Bridget for any offense I caused on the occasion of one of Campbell’s parties many, many years ago. I'm a good boy now honest. Just ask Neil.

So here comes the glowing review of a cassette that features seven tracks of Hayden’s solo material as recorded between the years 2002 and 2007.

Work that veers from all out guitar noise to Yoko Ono type moaning as accompaniment to, not surprisingly, Vibracathedral Orchestra type improv work outs with drones created from out of breath harmoniums and fluttering flutes. The latter are from the ‘Just Ideas’ side, a title which gives you some indication of whats going on here. Its the best side with wheedling, squealing violin creating short overtone bursts that have an almost ethnic feel to them and then overdubbed slide guitar and moans and that almost Astral Social Club rapid beat feel as from a Casio keyboard drum machine preset set to max. ‘The Night’s Veins’ two tracks begins with some full on guitar racket with Hayden shredding strings amidst a cacophony of feedback. What follows are ethereal voices, radio transmissions, tapes in reverse, Chinese State Radio broadcasts at three a.m. Just ideas and pretty good ones at that.

Hayden is perhaps better know for her involvement with Leeds droners Vibracathedral Orchestra and she also takes part in the rare collaboration, I’ve dug out the Delaney/Todd/Hayden release ‘Freeway Alabama’ so as to re-familiarise myself with its luxurious expanses. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her live on more than one occasion too, hunched over a guitar wreaking havoc from it but I may have been drunk and can only half remember. Those days have gone. Did I mention this before?

    

http://www.singingknivesrecords.co.uk/

Ice Yacht - Pole of Cold

Ice Yacht - Pole of Cold
Fragment Factory. FRAG34. C40



The recent resurgence in all things analogue synth has led to a small flood of Klaus Schultze wannabes. Which is good news to ears like mine brought up on Jean Michel Jarre and Tomita but not all of its good news. Because for every Emeralds there will be a Onehotrix Point Never and no matter how much audio mulch electronic labels churn out I'll still be far happier getting my hands dirty in the obscure back catalogs of DIY labels from the late 70’s early 80's.
 
Like Ice Yacht. Originally appearing in 1981 on the Storm Bugs own Snatch Tapes label it has since languished in obscurity only for it to be given a new lease via Fragment Factory and for that we can all be grateful.

This is the story; a release inspired by the 19th century Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and that a copy of this very tape was discovered and brought back from the frozen north before being defrosted, baked and sprinkled with wuffle dust which thus restored it to its now playable status. Which is complete bollocks of course. Phillip Sanderson is the producer here and since he’s one half of Storm Bugs, that late 70’s early 80’s, since reformed in the 2000’s DIY experimental outfit of some renown, then I would hazard a guess that this is indeed the man himself. But this is mere sideshow.

My knowledge of Storm Bugs is hazy. I have a couple of releases here, reissues of their early stuff which was for the most part was lost in that stampede of creative late 70’s post punk experimentalism years. I once saw them play The Rammel club in Nottingham a couple of years back, synths and gadgets and things and all good and Ice Yacht isn’t too much of a departure from that vein. Not that I’m an expert or anything.

Its touted on the Fragment Factory website as an ‘austere piece of drum loop and drone music’ which isn’t far from the mark but I’d add that some tracks remind me of early Schultze and Froese with those forever driving pulsing overlapping synth rhythms that kept Tangerine Dream fans nodding away for hours on end ['Pole of Cold' and 'Racing in the Arctic Shadow'] except that with this being England [or the North Pole] in the early 80’s this has a far more urban feel to it.  Not exactly Chris Carter but definitely more Deptford than Berlin, while ‘Summer With Snow and Bees’ moves in distinctly Aphex Twin ‘Selected Ambient’ territory. ‘Vostock Station Hallucinations’ is Martin Denny meets the shimmering, going in reverse piano plonk of Keith Jarrett and if you think that sounds weird thats because it is.

When I originally played this all those months ago [apologies to all involved] I found a couple of tracks veered into Industrial plod territory, something which I felt gave this release a lopsided feel. I can forgive this explorer these minor indiscretions tho, this was after all 1981 and whats good for synth lovers then is good for synth lovers now.

 

Fragment Factory

  

Reflections/Imaginations

Reflections - Original Instrumental Hits
CBS. Various Artists LP

Imaginations - Further Reflections
CBS. Various Artists LP



The chazzas have been kind to me of late. At a time when most of the review pile lies in a moribund heap sighing at me like a bored teenager I take great comfort from the plunder to be had in Cleck’s chazzas. And Brighouse, whose Oxfam furnished me with two half decent Be Bop Deluxe albums ['Modern Music' and their last 'Drastic Plastic'] and Bill Nelson’s second solo album ‘Quit Dreaming …’ but it was the hometown chazzas that once again saw me returning home with a bulging organic cotton tote bag.

Someone must have been down to Kirky Hospice with their dads old LP’s and who am I to resist? For there on a crammed shelf [which I had to get down on my haunches to inspect of course] lay ‘The Fifth Chasidic Song Festival 1973' and beside it something called 'Geulah Songs' by the Jerusalem Orchestra and all in Hebrew with a sepia picture of some smiling cherubs by the Wailing Wall. There was ‘Turning the Tides’ by Moon a jazz rock outfit from the 70's who are simply awful and ‘Air Pocket’ by Roger Powell a 1980 schmock rock LP [featuring Todd Rundgren on e-bow vomit] which I struggled to play all the way through but those covers and the fact that I’d never heard of these people and for the sake of 50p I could have in my hands some kind of lost classic but no it was all rubbish but hey ho they takes your money. But I’ve not finished, there was the Stanley Clarke ‘Journey to Love’ LP from 1975 which was all grubby and gritty but after being carefully washed with hand soap under warm running water it came up a treat - I can thoroughly recommend this method of cleaning records and the pleasure to be had in feeling those minuscule bits of grit wash away under your fingertips and the triumphal return to the turntable of a once more gleaming record where, as if by magic, most of the crackle has disappeared.

Its these two LP’s of instrumental hits that have had the most plays over recent weeks. Released in the early 80’s by CBS they capitalised on the continuing public appetite for all things film and TV themed, here a moment in time buoyed by the success of the likes of breathy New Age folksters Clannad and Greek keyboard prodder Vangelis whose ability to churn out twee tunes made him a household name and far more money than playing prog with Aphrodite’s Child. He has three contributions over the two here here but for what I'm presuming are contractual reasons his Chariots of Fire theme is played by a totally unknown to mankind outfit going by the name of Hawk & Co. 

There are two reasons why I like these kind of 'instrumental' comps, one is that they contain music that I find oddly emotional and the other is the bizarre juxtaposition of artists and composers, its only on compilations such as these that you will find Phillip Glass [with ‘Facades’ au natural] sharing the same billing as Acker Bilk, Riuchi Sakamoto with Richard Clayderman, The Shadows with an Orchestra conducted by Geoffrey Burgon.

Imaginations contains my favourite Elton John track, ‘Song For Guy’. Favourite because I liked it as a kid when I heard it on the radio and favourite because he hardly sings on it [and like Clannad he does sing, a dint in the ‘instrumental’ lie]. Reflections also has the only Abba track I’ll admit to liking which is ‘Arrival’, a pop droner if ever there was one. Sakamoto’s Theme From Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence is still one of the saddest things I’ll probably ever hear and is simplicity itself but not all of its good of course. Comps are never perfect but the good stuff far outweighs the dross. Dross being panpipe music, which once upon a time used to be the default chazza background music until they all went upmarket and started having their own radio stations with Diddy David Hamilton dishing out tips on how to stay warm in between spinning Cliff tunes. So we have to have Flight of the Condor because you can't have a [supposed] instrumental album without Flight of the Bloody Condor on it or Cavatina, or sodding Albatross. I’ll even let them have American jazz twiddler Lee Ritenour playing ‘Love Theme from an Officer and a Gentlemen’ because I’d rather have his instrumental version than the original which is of course far superior.

You have to have some ying to your yang and this is my way of offsetting the hours spent at the foot of the review pile. After an hours worth of light classical and a smattering of Andreas Vollenweider’s harp I feel like I could tackle a Merzbow box set. Maybe that's going too far but you know what I mean.