The PowerString Game

The PowerString Game
Henk Van Mierlo Kreative Kommunikatie BV. LP


Have you noticed how the charity shop record bins are changing? Admittedly you wont have to dig far before you come across a Jim Reeves record or something by Bert Kaempfert but all those records that were bought in the 60’s by people who were dying in the 90’s are slowly drying up to be replaced by people ditching their bland 80’s and 90’s pop 12 inchers. Now I’m starting to see a smattering of battered pop tunes and Donna Summer LP’s. Not that bad in itself and perhaps worth a ten bob punt should you be in the mood but those Jim Reeves records wont be around forever and while Sid Vicious may have been a fan I can’t see myself ever buying one.

I used to buy lots of chazza vinyl and some of it I bought just because I liked the gaudy cover or reckoned that what lay within would be much better than the sleeve showing three beardy blokes stood in a field with banjoes and fiddles. I cut right back when I realised I had nowhere to put them and took about a hundred of them back to where they came from vowing to be more stringent in my chazza choices in future.

And to a larger extent I have been a good boy and left behind what I would have normally taken but that's not to say I’ve stopped looking. How could I? The lure of a charity shop record bin is as strong as ever. The thought that behind that Shirley Bassey album may lie something by Asmus Tietchens [something that did once happen to me in the Red Cross in Heckmondiwke] and its not as if I’m just digging around for rare Hamster Record releases. My love of the absurd and weird is something that goes hand in hand with charity shop record bins. You could trawl eBay and Discogs but the real buzz is to be had in finding something like The PowerString Game, which is essentially a promotional tool for the PS Hy-O-Sheep oil filled tennis racket string with added cheesy music.

Rescued from Mind in Brighouse on Saturday morning [along with three Greek Rebetika records and a lap steel LP by Rod King, perhaps of which more later] The PowerString Game contains one 14 minute track of promotional guff for the strings and 11 tracks of music to inspire the tennis player. These being, amongst others, easy listening versions of The Old Fashioned Way, Mack The Knife, You Are The Sunshine of My Life, Magic Fly [?] and two lounge-core instrumentals; one called ‘PowerString’ the other ‘Another Ace’ both of which were written by someone called P. Elsterre who nobody has heard of but some sad completeist on Discogs where six entries are to be found against his name.

So far so odd but its the 14 minute PowerString opener that features the Brass Band of the Royal Guards, Chris Evert Lloyd, Jimmy Connors, a Wimbledon speaker, an umpire and a commentator that separates this one from the rest. Part of that 14 minute track contains a set of tennis being played with no commentary, the announcement of the scores by the umpire and applause being your only guide. Another section goes into the technical detail of the PS Hy-O-Sheep oil filled tennis racket string, repeating the words PS Hy-O-Sheep oil filled tennis racket string every ten seconds like they were trying to brain wash you into buying the PS Hy-O-Sheep oil filled tennis racket string in a not so subtle way before reminding you that point of sale material will be place in every sports shop in the land while the tennis match between Evert and Connors continues in the background. And now on to those inspirational instrumentals.

Even the back cover is weird. A tennis player holding a racket like he’s got the left side of a marching banner in his hand, hands far apart, racket in front of face, grimaced as if it was nuclear device he was trying to fend off and not a fluffy tennis ball.

Sadly my order form is missing from the record. I know it should be there because the man who’s doing his best to sell me PS Hy-O-Sheep oil filled tennis racket strings tells me so. My life is incomplete. There’s one for sale on Discogs for 67p but it doesn't state whether the insert is there. Perhaps I could get in touch. Perhaps I could get a life.

Twilit Grotto - Holiday Snaps

Twilit Grotto - Holiday Snaps
Beartown Records. Cassette.
30 Copies.


Should you judge a book by its cover? Should you judge a crap noise cassette by its cover? I do? And for my prejudice I pay the price. Thus the twisted gargoyle on the front of Twilit Grotto’s Holiday Snaps release has remained unplayed for many months just because I took an instance dislike to their twisted gargoyle cover and, it has to be said, the rather daft name [which also appears to be the name of an archive of esoteric writings - perhaps there is some connection, perhaps I care, perhaps I don’t]. If I’d been a proper music journalist [ … ] it would have gone on to a prepared list whereupon it would have received clinical attention six months ago and then, and then you would have been able to buy a copy. Because buy a copy you will want to do after I tell you all about it.

Forget the gargoyle [to be found on the walls of an insane asylum in Ghent and the very mask of one its former patients] and instead think analogue synths and rather bizarrely a mixture of folk and synth drone and some kind of twisted power electronics, finger in ear folk drone, Keith Emerson Daggers and the synth stabs of early Soft Machine albums drone folk sing thing. Whatever this is I don’t have a name for it and that I rather like.

Twilit Grotto is the project of the ludicrously named Mr. M Shit who describes what he does as Heavy Electronic Evacuations. Which is certainly true of ‘Old City Walls’ which begins with some seriously delightful synth squeals before Mr Shit begins singing in a voice more often to be heard in folky pubs intoning the virtues of old boats and the value of the fiddle drill. Folk Electronics anyone? The way this track escalates into a wall of screaming frequencies while being anchored to a twin bass bomb drop made me wonder if this was a first for the melding of two very opposite genres?

The side long ‘Bats in the Cave’ has Mr Shit phasing that same vocal folk drone over Wasp like synth throbs that pan through each ear before spiraling out of control with ever more frantic and delirious energy. Like an electronic firework display soundtracked by Steelye Span and a Moog Orchestra.

First track ‘Digging The Sunken Palace’ is probably the weakest of the three seeing as how it sounds for the most part like the end of ‘Bats in the Cave’ but who am I to complain? I just found myself a whole new genre.

But now the sad news. Due to my dislike of gargoyles on covers the measly 30 copies of this have long since gone. The good news is that you can still get this as a download. Hello Mr Shit.


http://www.beartownrecords.com/
       

https://twilitgrotto.bandcamp.com/releases


 

Sleaford Mods - Key Markets

Sleaford Mods - Key Markets
Harbinger Sound CD/LP/DL


I now find myself in the curious position of reviewing a release that has already found itself the recipient of glowing reviews in the The Guardian, The Times and of all things The Daily Telegraph. How did that happen? Witness then the curious rise of Sleaford Mods and Harbinger Sound, from never made a penny noise label putting out 100 run LP’s by the likes of Pain Jerk and Contagious Orgasm to home of arguably the most important band the UK.  And all this without the aid of fat brown envelopes, glitzy websites or an ever churning Twitter account.  

Ever since an Austerity Dogs test press turned up one Saturday morning and I spent the rest of the day listening to the thing on repeat, rapt and rapidly trying to write down the lyrics for a lame review, I soon began asking myself ‘how far can they take this thing’? I mean its that simple its laughable. Two blokes and a laptop? Is that it? A Suicide for austerity Britain? Kraftwerk after half of them have been laid off? How far can you take such a simple set up before it all rolls back on itself and the punters move on to the next big thing? One album? Two? A small tour and a support slot and back to the Rammel Club until thirty years down the line you’re on the bill at the Barbican with Terry Riley and some African thumb piano merchants.

And then Divide and Exit came along and with it some of their strongest material to date. Tweet, Tweet, Tweet hit a zeitgeist bullseye not seen since The Specials Ghost Town and while it may not have shot up the charts and embedded itself into a nations psyche [yet - these are dark days for the charts] it at least further propelled them into the welcoming arms of jaded music journos tired of reviewing the new Bjork and interviewing floppy hatted singer songwriters with a million Twitter followers.

It wasn’t until they got a mention in the Daily Mail that I knew they’d truly made it. These foul mouthed Wreckers of Civilization who dare to knock Boris off his bike and don’t forget Saturdays paper and its free 16 track CD soundtrack to the summer featuring Katrina and the Waves and Men Without Hats singing The Safety Dance. You can dance if you want to.

And so it came to pass that their third album for Harbinger Sound appeared and with it bigger venues, Glasto slots and DM’s from The Prodigy and Leftfield, [not fogetting th book of lyrics, art shows on late night BBC2 and endorsements from Stewart Lee and Iggy Pop] Personally I’d like to see them in the charts, get an airway ban followed by a full page spread in the Mail with Fearn and Williamson spoiling middle England’s breakfast. We live and dream.

I needn’t have worried about Key Markets being a duffer. It was what I feared the most, having to choose my words carefully and point to the floor fillers while skipping over the also rans. If anything its their more complete work. Williamson’s vocal delivery has become, and I mean this most sincerely folks, more refined. As have his targets. Compare the guttural, spit flecked wage slave rants of ‘Fizzy’ to the more laconic delivery of ‘Rupert Trousers’ and its withering observations of Boris and his brick and the cheese making Blur-ites. Compare the slinky grooving bass of Tarantula Deadly Cargo with the rattling bass of Routine Dean.

Key Markets is perhaps the most confident Sleaford Mods album so far, the one that sees them move further out into an orbit of their own, creating a world where the stream of consciousness lyrics live cheek by jowl with pin sharp jabs at Tory jokers and those who choose to wear £200 wellies. Its the album I feel they’d be happiest with. Its the one where Williamson’s urgent studio written lyrics are the accompaniment to a killer beat as formulated by Fearn.

Witness ‘Silly Me’;

And then the crap kicks in makes everything go thin, lost out square grout, weather bangs on my door, experts come out, the dud work, chirping on about ya music moves, you run a crap club in brum you loose, I won, I won.

Any idea what thats about? Me neither.

Witness ‘The Blob’;

Ready! In Service fuck me its a pity party ebola people in masks airport motorola hey motto tripping over the toblerones near victoria’s not very good secret they’re knickers mate ice box challenge and all the aeros I like mine in a packet mint flavour no zeros, have it culture! Organic farting in the pool what a waste I like a bit of smell I like a bit of taste stroll around the grounds the garden every house used to have one in 1965 now look at us oh what a fucking life!! 

Witness ‘In Quite Streets’:

Weaning it on my angle you fucking satanist its not a pentangle, arthur! No druids out of date barrel fluids I go large for a pound and regret it greasy, a sharp contrast from the newly adopted organic nice mate easy variety is the lie of life no lonely hearts club just a collection of moose faced bastards.

Witness ‘Cunt Make It Up’

Its the wannabe show and you always wanna be the same, posy shit and leather jacket, motorbikes from the 50’s you live in carlton you twat you’re not snake fucking plissken!

And while the press home in on the Tory bashing elements hence:

Boris on a bike, quick knock the cunt over. [Face to Faces]

Most forget the humour:

Gary Coopers on the glue cos he stuck to his guns [Bronx in a Six]

Key Markets has its punk moments; No Ones Bothered, the crowd chanting intro to first track to ‘Live Tonight’. In Quiet Streets rattles along for four minutes until you realise it has an outro chorus thats one of the best things they’ve done. These things creep up on you. The lounge piano that opens Tarantula Deadly Cargo is the precursor to some languid bass and was the song they finished their set with the last time I saw them in Leeds on a night where Williamson nearly lost his voice and everyone still went home brimming with verve and happiness. They’re having the times of their lives. Finish your set off with a slow one about people fleeing persecution. ‘Just one Cornetto mate’.

Rupert Trousers is all louche with Williamson sat watching the Tory Party conference where Tory joker in Wolfs clothing Boris Johnson brought out a house brick to make a point on housing during his ‘oh isn’t he soooo funny speech’ to the faithful [I was actually in Birmingham during the Tory Party Conference and outside the media tent, a tent wrapped in the Tory motto ‘Securing A Better Future’ lay a homeless man in a sleeping bag who security deemed to be of such low risk they left him there for me to take pictures of]. But I digress.

They’ll change of course. They have to. They jagged their jobs in so they could tour and record unhindered by alarm clocks and managers and supervisors and targets. But if Key Markets is a product of this new found freedom then its a win win situation. Not for them the coke filled difficult third album [I’m deliberately forgetting the pre Fearn releases here] instead an album that further cements their reputation as the best band in Britain.


I could go on but y'know.


Key Markets is out on Friday.

Expose Your Eyes - Micronnitus

Expose Your Eyes - Micronnitus
No Label. CDR. Comes in VHS box.
20 Copies.



Without Expose Your Eyes there would be no Idwal Fisher. Of that there is no doubt. It was all a long time ago now but in the days when flyers fell out of jiffy bags like confetti, an Expose Your Eyes flyer stood out due to a contact address that said Featherstone. This once proud mining town, about a twenty minute drive down the motorway from here, is the kind of place I’m always happy to leave. With pound shops, Booze Busters, numerous Class A pick up shops masquerading as take-aways and a newsagent that likes to remind everyone passing that they once sold a winning lottery ticket, its high street is a vivid reminder of how desperate a town can become. Having been there on numerous occasions to watch Batley get battered by Featherstone Rovers I wondered how this one horse town could ever be the home to someone peddling noise. So I wrote. What happened next was a twenty year musical odyssey that still continues to this day.

I soon became the recipient of what seemed like an endless stream of Expose Your Eyes cassettes. I guess Featherstone can do that to a man. I also became a regular correspondent with Paul Harrison, the man behind Expose Your Eyes. But it wasn’t long before the inevitable happened and Harrison left Featherstone for Sowerby Bridge. A move that resulted in an inevitable collision with Smell & Quim and then, after a few more years of sonic exploration, a virtual silence. And then a move to Hebden Bridge where Paul let Expose Your Eyes die a natural death. After what seemed like years of stasis I was alerted to Expose Your Eyes videos appearing on Youtube, said videos looked like visual versions of Expose Your Eyes, all in and out zooms of cows in fields to a background of spacey weirdness. Mr. Harrison was back.

And then someone suggested an afternoon drink in Halifax. So a few of us meet up once or twice a year and drink and talk rubbish and after about the fourth or fifth meeting here comes Micronnitus.

Being handed a paint splattered video box containing a noise CDR immediately brought on one of those Proustian madeleine moments and the talk soon turned to the days when the sight of such things was a common sight on any noise buyers doormat. Me being almost allergic to home made noise CDR’s these days, my immediate thought was ‘how long does the thing run for?’ Rather unkindly of course, but having long since put to bed the noise release as evening entertainment the thought of sitting through 80 minutes worth of insane screwed lunacy [that I know Harrison is perfectly capable of] appealed to me about as much as drilling my own teeth. This isn’t 1993 anymore. I am no longer an eager thirty something looking for ‘out there’ audio kicks anymore. I know how noise works. I know that there is a noise fan for every noise artist. I also know that trying to shift a noise release is as easy as getting rid of Ebola. I also know that Discogs is the rest home for every kind of noise detritus known to mankind since the year dot. But this was from Paul H. The man without whom.

And then I found myself with a Saturday all to myself so I dug out the review pile and sat through all manner of crud and not so crud and discovered that when the alcohol to blood ratio is at just the right level I find myself still curiously drawn to such things. Especially those given to me by someone who I used to correspond with on a regular basis and whose noise cassettes I used to devour with a mixture of awe and incomprehensibility.  So I played the damned thing and cranked up the volume and yes. It. Was. Noise. Far noisier than I was expecting to be honest like Harrison had managed to get his hands on some old Pain Jerk equipment.

And now you want me to expand on that very simple comparison don’t you? You want me to tell you how it held me rapt for its entire running length [I cant remember its running time, I was a bit pissed], or how I was held in my recumbent position like an astronaut on take off, held firm by the howling gale emerging from my speakers, the highs, the lows, the spectrum it works in, the way it made the woofers go all wobbly. But all of that doesn’t really matter to me at this present moment in time. I’ve reviewed more noise releases than you can shake a Merzbow fan at and its like dancing about archeology anyway. Its pointless.  All that does matter is that Paul Harrison made some noise, put it on a CDR and stuck it inside a purple paint splattered VHS cassette box that was dished out to his mates in Dirty Dicks one Saturday afternoon in June.

These are the facts. Forget the mechanics. Its not important. I played it once. It didn’t last that long. Its over. Its finished. And now I’ll put it on a shelf, or in a box, where it will linger for a very long time. All I’m left with is the memory of it and the knowledge that the man without whom is once again making horrible noises.

No Thumbs, Shepherds of Cats, Panelak.

No Thumbs - Slug Birth
Tutore Burlato 01. Cassette. 50 copies.

Shepherds of Cats & Panelak - Muscle Atrophy in a Squirrels Left Leg.
Fanfare CD04. Free DL.
100 copies.

Panelak - The Om Tragicord
LF Records. LF046. CDR


I was about halfway through listening to Slug Birth when the thought struck me that I could actually be listening to Taming Power, whose review I started to write many months ago and which has since slipped from my memory. These things happen. My mind wanders. I’m easily distracted. I also know from previous experience that whatever it is that Pascal Ansell puts his hands to results in a hideous noise. The kind of hideous noise that I’ve been shying away from for many months now.

But for whatever reason I found myself with a long Saturday in front of me and the urge to join the throngs at the Cleckheaton Folk Fest didn’t appeal so I thought, well, why not. I’ll have my own Anti-Folk Fest right here and for once I’ll play myself some hideous noise.

So I did and guess what? It was hideous. But me being in a stalwart mood I persevered right on through the first track of Slug Birth even if it did sound like the worst piece of enthusiasm over talent racket I’d ever heard right up until my headache started which was about the same time that mixing with the hordes at the Cleckheaton Folk Festival began to sound appealing. The sun was out. I was thirsty. What was I doing? So I turned it off for a while and went back to it later when my disposition became a little more amenable to such travails and guess what? It got better. Much to my amazement what was once a hideous racket had somehow transformed itself into an Amon Dull jam where someone repeatedly hits simultaneous notes on a cheap keyboard as a thousand scribbles of an electronic nature form the kind of background swirl as seen on the more delirious sections of Astral Social Club releases. Side two continued in much the same vein until it returned to the regular enthusiasm over talent, heavy drone, noisier K2 in the background, chopped edits, rumbles, destroyed speaker fart feel territory that I have now become accustomed to.

‘No Thumbs’ is Ansell and Jon Marshall [of whom I have to say I know nought] but its Ansell who for me is the fly in the ointment here. As I type these words he’s in Leeds promoting a Termite Club gig which I should really be supporting but due to the nature of my very being I find difficult to attend. Playing tonight are an Anglo/Polish improv trio  going by the name of ‘Shepherds of Cats’ who I shall forgive the jokey name and the jokey title of their release just for the fact that they’ve made it all the way to Leeds to play in front of what, all things being as they usually are, will be a crowd of around 20 people [this is Tuesday, an improv gig on a Tuesday night in Leeds, when its warm outside]. I’m also instantly attracted to the Polish label Fanfare due to the fact that the front page of their website shows scrolling footage of ghostly fell runners on what has to be that lonely stretch of tarmac ribbon that weaves along the misty moors above Huddersfield. I’m now thinking I should maybe ditch my hesitation, get the car out, drive to Leeds, park on the double yellow lines outside The Fenton and declare my undying love for an Anglo/Polish collective and a nutter from Leeds who likes to perform naked whilst pouring beer over his head. But I digress.

Ansell’s project Panelak adds ‘electronics and field recordings’ to the 53 minute single track that is Shepherds of Cats ‘Muscle Atrophy …’. He also adds his own voice which was no doubt unintentional but in true improv style stays within the recording. Having played this a while back and returning to it now I recall my original thoughts being that the piece flowed wonderfully without ever stretching my patience or aural stamina. Not being the biggest fan of improv in the world this is all I ask of it. It has space, it has ‘small blowable things’ it also has scraped strings, plucked bridge strings which is what I kind of expect from improv but it also has rather to its credit, tender passages where Ansell’s electronica appears as complimentary background hiss to back of the throat ghost moans. A violin seems to be an angry wasp and rattle of drum rims plays host to fridge hum and spastic electronic noodles. Singing of sorts, a drunk at a bus stop singing his own thoughts. I could go on but its what you’re left with at the discs end that matters to me most and the fact that I’ve now played this several times and would like to return to it again is more than I can say for any of the Derek Bailey solo recordings I’ve heard [not that this is an exact comparison of course but just the way I feel]. 

After my temporal shepherding duties I approached the return to Panelak and The Om Tragichord with about the same enthusiasm I reserve for going to the dentist. But after a predictable early bout of ADHD noise edits the man actually settles down and records something that I might actually want to listen to more than once. Perhaps there is something here. And so it proves. Its track two ‘Sarcomere’ a Japanese like off kilter plod of odd keyboard prods that has classical violin samples and ear tickling tape squelch at its end that lifts me from my ennui. From there we head off into the kind of fun territory that you’re more likely to find on an early Faust albums or those Jim O’Rourke solo outings where a robust guitar chord wraps itself around the same sad bass note over and over again. Last track Bactograil reminds me of those deranged albums that Joincey used to spew out using only a Casio and a condenser mic only here with the vocals replaced by a cheap harmonium which is probably a fridge. Again.

Say hello to The Fenton from me and thank you for listening.




http://tutoreburlato.blogspot.co.uk/

www.fanfarefanfare.com

http://www.lfrecords.autmusic.com/

Woven Skull, The Sunken Hum, Tarracóir.

Woven Skull - Fat Baby Blues
Deserted Village. DV51. Cassette [Cassettes sold out and now available as a free download]

The Sunken Hum - Vol 1 Field Recordings of Rhythms & Drones
Deserted Village. DV51. Cassette

Tarracóir - Growth.
Deserted Village. CD/DL


Its the word ‘awesome’ that does it for me. A word favoured by vocabulary deficient American teenage noise artists that grates like sand between my rotten teeth. I see it here on Deserted Village’s press release for Woven Skull, a trio of souls who are chucking Irish folk, gamelan and drone into the air to see what happens. To be fair to Woven Skull the word ‘awesome’ is used in conjunction with a music festival going by the name of Hunter’s Moon [which, coincidentally, is the name of a house I once to a party to in Gomersal where someone carved their name in the wooden bog seat before knocking a hole in the wall big enough to crawl through]. But I digress. Deserted Village, yes, they’ve sent me decent work in the past but for some reason I took against the the three headed skull motif on Tarracoir and the name Tarracoir itself which makes them sound like a third rate thrash band. And whats with the miserable looking kids on the Woven Skull release. Sheesh, you’re supposed to draw me in not put me off. And theres another one sat on top of a car dressed in a Santa outfit giving what could be the Heavy Metal two fingered devils horn thing except of course it isn’t.

So lets forget ‘awesome’, thrash metal and miserable kids and concentrate on Deserted Village who sent me two tapes and a CD so long ago that I can’t remember what they sounded like in the first place. And when I do its not good news. Again. Like what the what the. They doing it to me on purpoise? They used to send me good stuff now all I’ve got is people with beards twanging guitars, really fast, twangy with a delay on the twangs. Horrible. Its horrible. So I turn it off and then the cassette sticks so I get fed up and download the damned thing and side two, well, side two opens up into something completely different. I’ve been listening to Alvarius B and Cerberus Shoal and this gives me that same feeling. That feeling of being smothered in lots of warm blankets, layered over whilst you sink deeper into a comfy bed. A comfy bed to end all comfy beds. Its glorious. A slow sinking into comfort feeling made from rasped strings and smooth round stones being knocked together before being dropped, plop, into deep still waters, a sound that I bet hasn’t been touched up making it all the more remarkable. A drone of sorts with seashells being rummaged and wind chimes and an aching two note draw on a bass and someone smashing up orange boxes for firewood. It doth tickle my ears. Just don’t mention the first side.

The Sunken Hum collect various field recordings including an auctioneer at a cattle market, waves crashing, running water, …. you get the idea, which were all recorded as part of a sound art project wherein a two minute field recording was taken everyday for a year. Budgies, hums, things frying, photocopiers, someone sweeping up, traffic, people in a pub, someone walking over a shingle beach, popcorn being made, the best sound I found started at around the two minute mark on side two where Pete Hook was playing a digeridoo at 33RPM until someone turned the speed up to 45 RPM. I have to admit to having fallen out with found sounds of late. I want songs in my life once more.

Which brings us to Tarracóir. This from the press release ‘ Tarracóir’s genre is ‘Base Metal’ - the listener is the alchemist. You will hear elements of Free Jazz, Death Metal and the blare & clatter of Tibetan Buddhist demon-chasing rituals’, and across the bottom in caps ‘LET’S GET READY TO FUMBLE!’ And then the computer spat the CD out saying it was an unrecoginsed format or somesuch. So I found the download on DV’s Bandcamp page and I played it thinking this is going to be easy, two lines about how I hate thrash metal or Base Metal or whatever it is they’re calling it today and I’ll be back to my Prefab Sprout in no time. And then something remarkable happened. I found myself wanting to hear more of it. Here I am fourth track in and I may be getting my noise schtick back. So its not Normcore [as they say on the press release - like what the fuck would I know] but it is a half decent racket that isn’t all full on BLEURGH with the drummers arms going a blur and a thousand guitars dying a death. Electronics can be heard, parps and squeaks, trombones even, garden hose even more even. I could be a fan.







https://desertedvillage.bandcamp.com/album/growth


 http://www.desertedvillage.com/index.php

Sleaford Mods - Talk Bollocks/Little Ditty/Grammar Wanker

Sleaford Mods - Talk Bollocks/No Ones Bothered

Salon Alter Hammer/In A Car. 7”

Sleaford Mods - A little Ditty/I’m Shit At It
Emotional Response. 7” [Inc DL code]

Jason Williamson - Grammar Wanker. Sleaford Mods 2007-2014
Bracket Press.



If you’ve ever had to work with a temp you will know the sinking feeling that accompanies the ‘Here’s Kevin, you’ll be working with him today’ feeling. At 6.30 in the morning with a long 12 hour stretch ahead of you and a numpty staring you in the face, ‘Here’s Kevin, you’ll be working with him today’ are the last words you want to hear.

I’ve had my share. The ones who like to do donuts on the fork truck, the ones who chuck good material in the skip and take the crap stuff to the warehouse, the ones who try to pick up 4 meter wide material with a sack cart, the ones who’ve been getting out of bed at 2.30 in the afternoon for the last six months and cant get their head around the fact that at 6.30 in the morning they have to be switched on, not off. I worked with one temp, a teenage stoner with lank hair and bad breadth, who liked to sit back and rest his feet on the work station until one day the MD walked round and asked him what exactly it was he was doing? ’Just chilling’ came the reply, which I think were the last words I ever heard him say. I worked with a temp who fell asleep in a drainage channel. The same temp took to skinning rabbits, whilst working, or not working as the case may be. There was the Phantom Shitter who liked the leave the toilet unflushed. The old guy who poked his tongue out like a budgie and coughed every two minutes. And then there's the temp who at 11.30 every morning shouted ‘COME ON DINNER!’ like he was cheering in a 50 to 1 winner. Some temps have walked out. Others gone to the chippie never to return. I’ve worked with South Africans, Ethiopians, Romanians, Hungarians, Australians, ballet dancers, circus strong men, banned from driving HGV drivers, blobbers, murderers, muggers, heroin addicts, alcoholics,t tea-totallers, Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims, born again Christians, manslaughter-ers, squaddies and those who like to spend at least three months of the off season in the less than salubrious bars of Manila. There was the guy who  turned up for work on his daughters bike, a pink one with tassels on the end of the handlebars. Those who have knocked down walls or put holes through them with the pointy end of a pole truck are too numerous to mention here. There’s the spillers, the wreckers, the manglers, the fucker-uppers, the lazy, the dying, the smelly, the fat, the thin and the bent in half how the fuck is he going to manage? The ones having heart attacks, the ones who disappear for a crafty fag just when its getting busy, the ones who fall asleep in the canteen, the ones who turn up totally unprepared. The almost blind, the almost deaf, the farters, the burpers, the ones who take their boots off at break time and rub the soles of their feet like Laurel and Hardy did in Sons of the Desert.

I began to wonder if there were temping agencies who specialize in strange people. But then again I think, perhaps its just life. Best to get on with it. Not all of them are ding dongs of course, every now and again you find someone who you can actually have a conversation with, but then they’re usually just passing through, killing a few weeks before a proper job turns up.

Thanks to the Sleaford Mods I now have a song to sing to these people.

‘I’m shit at it!’

‘Can’t even work in a chippy’

‘Chips peas and gravy’

‘I’m shit at it!’

‘It ain’t fucking rocket science’,

‘Heston Fucking Blumen Cunt’,

‘I’m shit at it!’,

‘Can’t even answer the phone’.

‘I’m shit at it!’

'Can’t even butter a cob right’.

Which is the line that gets repeated as I sing along my singy song.

Can’t even butter a fucking cob right you fucking numpty. COME ON DINNER! Cant even butter a cob right you fucking cock end.

Its these little things that keep you going in a factory environment where the only fun to be had is laughing at each other. Taking the piss. Laughing at the fat lad and the lass in the office with the bent nose and the plastic tits. The gaffer with a head like a five pound onion who cant drive for shit and likes to show us his ski boots like we fucking care. Bell End.

Its songs like these that keep you going through long shitty days. Its something to cling to when you're looking at that sleepy eyed numpty with nothing but a chicken nugget between his ears.

Sleaford Mods have been lobbing small plastic bombs about in the run up to the release of their imminent new album ‘Key Markets’. Like all good bands these singles aren’t just filler or contractual obligation crap but proper teasers, Talk Bollocks being sold on a recent short German tour [and now fetching silly sums on eBay]. Talk Bollocks has a bit of cheesy working mens club keyboard as intro and a chorus that speaks for itself. Here we have Williamson bemoaning the shit that gets talked on tour and the mundanity of it all. No One’s Bothered [Slow Version] is a stream of consciousness observations ‘Victory for no one Hates as much as bleeds The dark through the go on Dead up from the knees An hip shake shake it I been round The grass in the dug out.’ all to an ultra slow Fearn inspired slave boat beat. The faster version that's doing the rounds rips up a storm and if that's the version that's on Key Markets I’m already down on one with head bowed.

A Little Ditty is the rapid and catchy two and half a minutes that begins with a burp and ends with Williamson saying off mic ‘that end bit's shit’. You know all about this one already so its to the b-side and the unapologetic existentialist ‘I’m Shit At It’ which is the bees knees, the motherlode, the track that shows Sleaford Mods at their very best. A track that comes from nowhere, has no precedent, has no mother or father, no smarmy right on DJ plugging it, or dollar backed label pushing it. This is where we all get to rub our tummys and laugh like drains.

Here we see the return of fellow Nottingham resident John Paul for a spot of verbal sparring with Williamson. It starts thus;

John Paul: I’m shit at it. Can’t work for no one telling me what to do.

Williamson: [off mic] I’m shit at it.

John Paul: Can’t work for mesen. I’m shit at it. Can’t even work in a chippie

Williamson: Chips peas and gravy

John Paul: I’m shit at it

(and then the sound of someone making rasping noises, close up to the mic, raspberry fashion]

And on it goes until Fearn’s solid beats kick in and Williamson walks up to the mic and just gives it to us. John Paul finishes things off solo style; ‘ … I’m like an hit man on 20 Marlboro menthol, like Diamond Lights with Hoddle and Waddle, you don’t need tattoos to be a footballer mate, just a shit hair cut and a page three model’ And then, after more than half a minute of silence he returns with a few rabid lines about ‘G Star dads, heads to toe in the stuff ...’ and the dross to be found in pubs. Perfecto.

I’ve been flicking through that book too. Not keeping it all pristine so I can sell it on when I’m skint. When John Harris reviewed Grammar Wanker for the paper version of the Guardian it appeared below a review of Tory posho William Waldegrave’s memoirs and opposite a review of Nigel Farage’s autobiography. The picture of Farage accompanying the piece was one taken from below, a deliberately unflattering photograph that made him look like a maniacal Punch. Waldegrave was pictured attempting to milk a goat, perhaps the one and only time in his life that he ever got his hands dirty. Williamson appears at mic, bottle of water to hand the very faintest outline of scribbled tats visible. I know which one I'd trust.  

I have my favourites; ‘Rollatruc’, ‘Swarfega’, The Wage Don’t Fit’, Donkey ['Hold on hold on, bought rock ‘n’ roll what a con'], Trixie [who writes songs about prostitutes these days?]. Life on the factory floor, the shitty pub, the litter strewn streets, minimum wage, no job, shit job. Life as it is for a lot of people, everyday folk - not Ambridge. I used to have Bukowski but now I’ve got Williamson too. Life's raw and open wounds.

Guillaume Bellhomme, Guillaume Tarche.

Item - Guillaume Belhomme, Guillaume Tarche
Published by Lenka Lente

78 pp
10 x 15 CM
100 copies
ISBN :  978-2-9545845-7-7


L’enveloppe - Guillaume Belhomme
Published by Lenka Lente

32 pp
10 X 15 CM
300 copies
ISBN : 978-2-9545845-0-8


Remember that odd little book I got sent a while back? The one about the size of a packet of Marlboro 100’s that contained nothing but lots of black and white pictures of avant garde/improv/jazz/electronica record covers juxtaposed against things ordinary like say an Ornette Coleman LP stood beside a picture of a card with the words ‘Et maintenant’ printed on it? Well, there's another book that's almost EXACTLY the same except its called ‘Item’. Same cover, same font, same authors [authors? There’s no writing in this book except for the back cover where, as in ‘Time’ there exists a list of all the people whose work appears between the covers]. So I do my job as ace reviewer and scan some of the more interesting photos and let you judge for yourself. As to whether this is a work of love or the work of someone with too much money and a huge avant garde/improv/jazz/electronica record collection at their fingertips is for you to decide. I point you in the direction of my last review and the connection between improvisation and composition. I look forward to ‘Emit’.

Guillaume Belhomme is also the author of L’enveloppe, an even slimmer tome that I’m thinking originally came with a Michael Esposito 3” CD which knowing Esposito probably contained some EVP recordings - so maybe the two are linked but seeing as how my French is about as good as my Japanese I can’t tell you very much about it. Except that it may be about an envelope. Or enveloping. Or something. Its definitely fiction. What I can tell you is that the few reviews in French that exist online are all nothing less than totally effusive. Belhomme is also a journalist and author of books on John Coltrane and a Jazz anthology. My money is on him being the man behind all this.

More interestingly [for English speakers at any rate] are the Nurse With Wound and Adolf Wölfli releases. I keep dropping these hints but y’know ...


http://www.lenkalente.com/products

Time

Southwark Mental Health News/Continuity Mad Pride

Southwark Mental Health News 127 
w/ Continuity Mad Pride v/a CD. 1000 copies

Made with the help of a £750 grant from the South London & Maudsley Trustees ‘Smile’ fund this Continuity Mad Pride various artists CD defied all my expectations and turned out to be actually rather good. In a ‘all the way through good’. Well most of it anyway. I’ve had these Mad Pride CD’s through my hands before and I don’t remember the others being as … um ... cohesive. Perhaps time has erased some of my grey blobs of remembrance but nope I don’t think I was as royally entertained by Continuity Mad Pride as I was with the others.

I played it through twice while making comments to myself along the lines of of well whodathunkit, theres me liking a UNIT track [mainly because it had a William Burroughs sample on it], and there’s Hiroshima Yeah! zines head cheese Mark Ritchie hovering between greatness and busker like someone doing a bad Leonard Cohen cover but it actually sounding better than Laughing Len himself. His voice has that really sad ache to it that gets you right there. There. And there’s Jim MacDougall who was last seen being arrested somewhere no doubt, probably for popping bank windows or somesuch and Fes Parker [R.I.P.] with a rollicking The History. Of course I don’t know who half of these people are but what struck me was the way they’d created sounds that went down my earhole and reached my brain without me having to make pained expressions of the kind that has one side of my mouth going higher than the other making one eye shut in a grimace.

And then the CD refused to play. No doubt some Mad Pride hidden agenda designed to turn you in to frothy mouthed UKIP voter. I played it on my PC and the third time I inserted it into its slot the little pointy thing just went down all the tracks in split second and stopped. So I took it out and rubbed it on my sleeve and put it back in but no, it was no more. But I do remember being held in thrall by The Ceramic Hobs ‘33 Trapped Chilean Miners’. A single from last year that I'm most familiar with and is without doubt the track that has the biggest ‘what the fuck’ factor. That the Hobs continue to record such remarkable rock churn with little in the way of recognition remains one of life’s mysteries. We live in hope.

Of the rest I’m relying on memory. It seemed to get spacier as it went along of that there is no doubt, was the last track by Esther Leslie a poetry reading as given to a Dada inspired parp band? I think it may have been. The Astronauts rocked it. Thank you Mr Astronaut. Alternative TV. You know about them. And DJ Unfit For Work. Come on down your time is nigh.

Southwark Mental Health News itself is an A4 paper zine of sorts containing lots of information as regarding drop in centers, gigs, marches, help groups and the dodgy Braham Kumaris pseudo religious cult who believe that the world is going to end soon [now theres a surprise] and that only India will be left standing [yawn], theres a cartoon strip about Raffy the psychiatric Labrador, a lengthy piece entitled Capitalism Is Bad For Your Health by Robert Dellar, a small review section and an appreciation of Nikki Sudden, some poems, thats about it. The only thing I cant tell you is how to get hold of a copy seeing as how these are given away to the artists and those members of the Southwark Association for Mental Health. You could try their website.


Southwark Mental health

Or their FB page

Facebook

Dr. Steg and the ‘Redundant Teeth of the Afterlife’

If I’ve learnt one thing over the years its that you can rid yourself of writers block by writing about Dr Steg. Because, as some of you may have noticed, this thing, this thing that I do [I don’t particularly like the word ‘blog’ but it serves a purpose], this thing that I do that I, and others, sometimes call ‘a blog’, is a definite hit and miss affair. Words wise I mean. And I dare say quality, though I rarely re-read anything I write leaving the thing [that thing again] up there for eternity and history to judge, use and abuse.

I’ve been giving the blog [blog bog fucking bog] some serious thought of late. Again. A serious rethink is once more underway. This after I realised I’d painted myself into the corner of a room by foolishly promising I’d review everything I got sent and not only that, reviewing everything I got sent after listening to it in great depth. And then I get sent a CD/DVD/CD-ROM/BOOK from Gruenrekorder thats a pean to a remote island off the Canadian coast or somewhere equally remote that I have to admit to not taking much interest in due to being overcome with the enormity of a task that involves not only reading a 300 page book but taking in a DVD that contains hours of field recordings and an interactive CD-Rom that no doubt contains instructions for making toggles. I just don’t have the time fellas. I’ll send you it back I promise.

And then I found myself thinking, but I’m just reviewing the same stuff over and over again. Only a fool would complain at getting sent vinyl from the [genuflects in all directions] Taming Power and I’m not going to here but there’s only so much I can say about something no matter how good it is. My biggest fear is being sent the same thing over and over again and trying in vain to find a gear with which to start the brain moving. Thats not to say I don’t enjoy listening to the stuff I get sent its just that the mere thought of having to critique whilst listening is now spoiling my enjoyment of the listening experience. I’m getting to the stage in life where actually not thinking about what I’m listening to is becoming the more preferable option. Gone now are the days where I used to sit with pen and paper, nib poised as the needle hit the record and within instants the words would appear. Perhaps I have the onset of early dementia? My brain is definitely on the dip and for evidence you only have to ask Mrs Fisher about the numerous instances in which I’ve clear forgotten the one thing it was I was supposed to remember. Whatever it was.

So here I am once more thinking up things to say about Dr Steg. But here its about what you see and read [although he did enclose a couple of OKOK Society releases in with his latest package that I’ve been listening to all night and which have stirred such memories of days of yore that I feel as if I’ve been transported back in time to 1994 - more on these later perhaps - after much not thinking]. With Dr Steg its about what the eye sees and in this instance its a Dr Steg postcard showing a picture of someone called Brindley Dummett, a fold out poster of sort thats folded like a Hayler-esque Barrel Nut Zine, a small sketch book that looks as if it was a pictorial diary of a visit to Paris in 2002 and another of Dr Steg’s surreal diaries in which he doffs his cap to the likes of Viv Stanshall and Michael Bentine.

This wasn’t the only things he sent me. Resplendent upon the walls of Idwal Towers there now resides yet another Dr Steg canvas. Given the title ‘Redundant Teeth of the Afterlife’ said canvas depicts the words ‘IDWAL FISHER’ as made from children’s toy plastic letters atop a construct of various oddities including a half set of false teeth, animal bones, kids toys and other detritus as no doubt found on Dr Stegs many travels around the west coast of the north of England and his home environs. To say that I was honored to receive such work is an understatement of a magnitude measurable on the Richter scale. In my many years of being sent review items, books, records, and  CDFUCKINGDVDFUCKINGCD-ROMFUCKINGBOOK box sets and Filthy Turd releases wrapped in rancid fried rice this work of art tops the lot. I may have rare records lurking on the shelves here that I didn’t pay for and accepted in lieu of a review and are now probably worth sums that will one day bolster my rather piss poor pension pot but this picture, this work of art this ‘Redundant Teeth of the Afterlife’ I will treasure until my dying day. It will be there on the wall of my sheltered accommodation, my care home, it will sit atop my coffin as the thing disappears in to the flames to the sound of Roy Harper’s mournful ‘When an old Cricketer Leaves the Crease’. Its ashes will become mine as they’re shot into the sky inside a Standard Fireworks rocket Hunter S Thompson stylee.

It goes without saying that I am a fan of Dr Steg’s work. The man himself is as unpredictable as sweaty dynamite. I’ve bumped into him at a couple of Smell & Quim gigs and he’s by far been the drunkest person in the room - no mean feat at a Smell & Quim gig. At the Gullivers gig in Manchester he nearly got the place shut down after waving a dagger about and declaring that the Green Room was toast [said dagger was actually a Steg spray painted letter opener cum blade with no edge to be used as a Smell & Quim prop but nobody was really paying that much attention and when a drunken lunatic comes at you waving something like that the details get lost]. When I saw him at the Sleaford Mods gig in Blackpool he was already reeling drunk by about 7pm and spent the entire gig either dancing like a fool or covering himself, the furniture and the walls in stickers that carried this blog’s url [the calls never came]. I later found out that he made it home via a casino where he lost all his money and an all night garage whereupon he fell into a point of sale display.

He’s good at getting the words flowing again too.

Sleaford Mods, JB Barrington, Ceramic Hobs

Brudenell Social Club, Leeds, May 16th 2015

Having been to many a noise gig at the Brudenell, in the days where a gathering of 25 was deemed a success, I’m more than a little alarmed to find myself pushed up against the back wall with one arse cheek clinging to a bit of seat backing for purchase. The last time I was here they had tables set out cabaret style, now its just shiny black contract flooring and later, a wash of crushed plastic pint pots and Red Stripe cans. They have proper door staff  too and Underwood has his work cut out manning the merch table. Am I still in the Brudenell or have I, by some mystery of the space time continuum, been transported to a parallel universe where rabid punters throw tenners at you for band t-shirts and the band actually mean something and have worth and gravitas and could spend the night pissing up against the posters advertising the upcoming non-entities and nobody here would complain. Well, not much.

From my precarious perch at the back of a crammed Brudenell it soon becomes apparent that Jase Williamson’s voice is teetering on the brink of disintegration. Months of hard touring has done its damage but the audience appears unconcerned instead singing along with unfettered joy whilst producing football terrace chants with which to raise a plastic pint pot to.

But first the Ceramic Hobs who by their very nature are either falling out, falling in, crashing down the side of a drunken wave, dying, being sectioned or being unpredictably brilliant. Tonight, with a decent sound system to work through, they manage to produce a performance that bridges gaps between punk, rock and psychedelic insanity. The chords are chunky, the clown rubbing the babies head is spitting electronic sparks, the keyboard player doesn’t play it with her arse, singer Simon Morris wears a Grateful Dead baseball cap, a Venetian opera mask and a Whitehouse t-shirt and reminds us that he has one of the best voices in the business. He’s also singing in his underwear. The drummer keeps time, especially on the tricky Hong Kong Goolagong [a sexually ambiguous Australian Aboriginal hitchhiking demon, if you must know] which wavers all over the road like a drunk driver with no air in his passenger side tyre. The guitarist stage left throws playing cards into the air with random words written on them. Morris holds up a small Dr Steg canvas with a cutting from the local Blackpool press documenting the case of an old lady who committed suicide on Christmas Eve. As they've been doing for a while now Morris ends things with an a capella version of Mr Blue Sky. This is the kind of band that needs to be on the Sleaford Mods support list. There is no more room in this life for indie landfill, bored rock, prima donna wank guitarist who think that their next big break is just around the corner. Give us the Ceramic Hobs and Makakarooma and their ilk and leave that tired indie shit to the students and the sales reps.

But I digress.

JB Barrington is the Manchester poet I last saw supporting Sleaford Mods in Hebden Bridge. He’s John Cooper Clark crossed with a Tourettes afflicted Tom O’Connor. His best poem is his first which is about greed and the predictability of everything being done for moneys sake [ever wondered why your local’s now a Tescos Express, ever wondered why wars are always fought in oil rich countries..’]. At Hebden Bridge he got heckled by a feminist who took exception to him using the ‘C’ word in a derogatory manner and like all pros its now in his set. As is the odd gag and biting social observations. And after a short fifteen minutes worth Andrew Fearn appears with his laptop.


Witnessing the rise of Sleaford Mods is a new one for me. The kind of bands I take to normally wander around in the darkened corridors of obscurity until they eventually die of disinterest or boredom all while making horrible noises. To see Sleaford Mods being praised in the media, selling out tours and most importantly, making the most relevant music this country has heard since the early 80’s gives me a warm feeling inside that can only be replicated by several brandies and cat videos on Youtube. I’ve never been to a gig before where people recite sections of lyrics to each other whilst making their way from the venue. Something is happening here. In several fleeting years Sleaford Mods have quickly risen from obscure label curiosity to arguably the most important band in the country. In fact, take away the arguably, I can think of no other band that are as culturally relevant at a time where, as a country, we are staring down the barrel of another five years of Tory governance. Is it too much of an exaggeration to say that we could be at the start of something big here?  Two blokes and a laptop are making 99% of music being made today sound irrelevant. And that's because it is. Our airwaves are a constant stream of spongy blobs of nothingness, servers are crammed with the meaningless twaddle of dilettantes, ears are filled with the inconsequential drivel of faded rock stars, socialites, wannabee’s and never will be’s, people so far detached from the comings and goings of ordinary people, so surrounded by a constant coterie of fawning acolytes and blind fans that they mistake what they do for worth. It has no worth. It is worth-less.   

Sleaford Mods have taken a sharp axe to the tree of rock and have felled it before our very eyes shitting on the stump as they do so, ’twenty five years its taken me to get here and its fucking shit’ croaks Willaimson. As they come out for their three song encore the real juice of the evening is in the second and new track ‘Tarantula’, a more mellower offering from the new album that, if I got this right, is about those poor bastards risking life and limb aboard leaky boats trying to escape misery and tyranny. How many bands do you know writing songs about that?

That Williamson manages to get to the end of the quick hours worth of a gig is a miracle of sorts. I half expect his voice to just disappear, his jaw going up and down with nothing but the odd squeak emerging. The full house at the Brudenell wouldn’t have given a toss. They’d have swept the pair up carried them through the street of LS6 like kings aloft singing Jolly Fucker and Tweet, Tweet, Tweet and any other of what are now becoming classics until they came across a slop shop and bought them curry and beer until the sun came up.

Fish From Tahiti - Decal Baby

Fish From Tahiti - Decal Baby
Harbinger Sound LP


Who are these Feeshes from Tahiti? Leetle Feeshes. From Taheeeti. Obscure beyond words. A band with no web presence on a label with virtually no web presence, or presence that's of any use [HS website front page is still showing the flyer for last years Soundclash show in Belgium]. Type in ‘Fish From Tahiti’ and you will get just shy of a million hits with just shy of a million of them being information and pictures about fish from Tahiti but there at the top of the pile is a Youtube video of a Fish From Tahiti release called  ‘Weird Noise E.P.' Which since being uploaded two years ago has garnered a meagre 304 hits and the one comment [‘Top’] which totally un-oddly enough doesn't appear on this collection of obscure beyond words singles and compilation submissions and unreleased material.

So far so normal then for the label that has for years been more than comfortable shuffling around in the brick gaps of the, dare I even say it, ‘underground’.

What better to confound those who have come to Harbinger Sound via the Sleaford Mods. I am a Sleaford Mods fan hence I go out and buy everything that appears on their label because, QED, I must like everything that label puts out. But this is no Sub Pop here, no Domino. If you are a Sleaford Mod fan on the bus home with Decal Baby under your arm you are going to be baffled, confounded and perhaps upset when you get home to find that your two pronged social despair attack and angst has been replaced by 14 tracks of looped dub upon which straight lifts from language tapes have been layered.

Its not all like that of course, although I must admit to liking the French and Mandarin voices I’m hearing. In some instances there are rapid drum and bass assaults and things that sounds like Milk From Cheltenham outtakes and 1930’s jazz dance bands but for the most part we’re in crumbly loops of dub with added things territory. Things being either squiggles of electronica, or English lessons as read by 50’s BBC announcers or just plain old weirdness. Depending on your point of view this is either the bastard offspring of Paul Hardcastle’s ’19’ or the demented re-workings of the Art of Noise by people who went to Dada School.

What lifts this from such drollery is its obscurity and repeat play-a-bility. I dare say that the Fish From Tahiti fan club could easily fit into a Volkswagen Polo. A car that could take them to gigs that they’ve never played or record fairs where their records never turn up. In the meantime you have this LP. Just don’t ask me where you can buy it.

Sheepscar Light Industrial 28/29/30

Michael Clough - MetaMachineMusic
Sheepscar Light Industrial. 3” CDR. SLI028

Neil Campbell - Oystercatcher Salad
Sheepscar Light Industrial. 3” CDR. SLI029

Hagman - Inundation
Sheepscar Light Industrial. 3” CDR. SLI030



Daniel Thomas’ Sheepscar Light Industrial label keeps to its perfectly timed release schedule with three more perfectly timed releases. I’ve reviewed the previous 27 and as far as my now rapidly withering braincells recall I don’t remember reviewing a duff one. Or even a less than interesting one. Horrible word ‘interesting’. How do you like my new coat? Oh, its interesting. A noncommittal weasel word that gets you out of a hole when needs be. Like here.

Sheepscar Light Industrial is what I think of when I see the dead pubs at the side of the M621, or the rain making the suburbs of Leeds look grimmer than they already are. Its the same grimness felt from reading David Peace’s Red Riding Quartet [and if you haven’t and your penchant for uber noir Yorkshire grime runs deep then I urge you to investigate]. I see the stark brutalist edifice that is Millgarth police station and I think of David Peace’s 1974 and Sheepscar Light Industrial and the sodium lights that barely brighten the flyovers in Beeston and Hunslet. Leeds and its Ballardian industrial estates and edge of town shopping centers and overpasses and the long road down through Hunslet past the Tommy Wass where it always rains. This is where Sheepscar Light Industrial fits in. Its what comes to mind when I hear something by Daniel Thomas or David Thomas who together are Hagman or with any [and many] of their multitudinous formations and labels.

Hagman - The two Thomas’s with two ancient computers talking to each other. The gentle beetling of corrupt data chatter. Information exchange eventually morphing into something that is a dysfunctional rhythm. Something giving you just enough to hold on to, to help you carry you along on your trip from Sheepscar to Mabgate.

Michael Clough’s MetaMachineMusic is all pneumatic drill’s combining in to a two way drone where the analogue cycling is underpinned by a flat out shortwave radio line that phases and undulates throughout. I think it was Seth Cooke who took to task the council workers digging up his road at 7.30 in the morning by taking that drilling sound and turning it in to something far more listenable. Clough, a one time resident of Leeds and no stranger to its murky edges, has done the same here albeit ending up with something that modulates into something with far smoother edges. I dare say that an analogue synth has played its part here ironing out that drill until its a munched up mess of shortwave fizz and out there drone.

Campbell’s work under his own name is shorn of the far more in your face electronics of his Astral Social Club stuff and here is no exception. Hear a one second vocal stutter, an electric guitar played with a sawing horse hair bow, chirpy birds, a clanging drone. Like being stuck inside Big Ben with your grannies budgie at midnight. Here you can luxuriate in the grates and grinds. This is no disco remix. But it is, I’m reliably informed, an edit of a recent live performance. I hear the words ‘fish and chips’ as the thing beast disappears around the corner.

I have been quiet for quite some time and physical copies of these will have no doubt long since gone, but fear not for reward can still be found online.


http://sheepscar.blogspot.co.uk/

Black Love

Black Love - Soundtrack For Black Power
Hertz-Lion. Cassette. HL-2.

On Saturday Morning, as is my habit, I set off on my hunter gathering duties. As I turned the key in the ignition the radio came to life and the speakers regaled me with that drippy hippy west coast anthem; America's 'Ventura Highway' [how the car radio came to be tuned to Radio 2 is a mystery I shall have to solve at a later date. What with me being permanently stuck in the R4/R3 ditch these days the sound of Anneka Rice's inane babblings towards the tracks end was enough to have me swerving all over the road desperately trying to hit the ‘4’ button on the display without crashing. Something I have no wish to repeat].

Having fulfilled my hunter gathering duties I returned home to find ‘Black Love - Soundtrack For Black Power’ awaiting me and there, stamped upon its return address, the words Ventura CA.

We were destined to like each other. I was going to smother this release in critical kisses from the off, adopt it as one of my own, take it to parties with me, introduce it to friends, give it a Buddhist name and register it with the Wine Society. We were going to be more than friends, we were going to be travelers through life. And then I discovered that the package contained a cassette and my love increased a thousand fold. I was floating on air. My eyes twirled in delight. My heart felt lighter. A skip came to my step and everything seemed covered in lovely dust. With a ‘Bank of Hell’ 20 note stuck to the inside of the case my love increased another thousandfold. When I discovered that it had a running time of 2.23 seconds I had all on not to involuntary ejaculate into my M&S boxers. And then, and then ... the climax … no web presence. No web presence. Can you handle that fact? Here we are again in 1992 and Bill Gates still hasn’t thought that a web browser would be a good idea. We’re in writing to each other territory folks. Just the return address on the jiffy bag and little ol’ me. I mean, even if it sounded like shit it was going to get ten thumbs up. Possibly more.

I read the press release, something about a performance at REDCAT in LA in 2008 involving Sarah Best, David Cotner and a Segovia. No, not that one. Transpires said cassette is actually the data for a 1981 Texas Instrument game called Strange Odyssey. This being a time in gaming pre-history when gamers needed to load data from cassettes to get their pixelated, simple beyond idiocy games to work.

You could of course play these data cassettes on Walkmans and boomboxes, the results being a constant stream of computer chatter. Noise in other words. What Cotner, Segovia and Best did [Best running point on logistics, it says here] is combine these sounds with those of other amplified tape sounds, these tapes being duct tape, Scotch tape and er ... 'magic tape'? Each being torn, ripped and no doubt used to strangle passers by with within the darkness of the venue, as a measuring tape twanged back in to its protective case from one end of the venue to the other for added effect.

I doubt whether these sounds are incorporated in to the sounds I'm hearing now though. This is code dissonance, a conceptual release and nothing else.

The cassette itself appears to be an original Texas Instrument release but this could be the work of Hertz-Lion industry. That is all I know.

The delight in such absurdist releases as this are multifarious and should be replicated in large doses so that we may venture in to the world of noise at more regular intervals. A case in point - I have three Pain Jerk CD's here that have remained virtually unlistened to since their arrival a couple of months back. A two and a half minute noise cassette, be it data chatter, Merzbow or The New Blockaders, in this format and at this running length, should be applauded. The best sub three minute noise cassette I've heard since Cock E.S.P.'s legendary 'You Know What They Say About Guy's With Short Sets'. And far better for the morale than Ventura Highway.

Contact:

Hertz-Lion Releasing
Post Office Box 1211
Ventura
California
93002