SPON 33

SPON 33 - The Digital Issue

What you are about to see is a collaboration between Dr. Steg and the Ceramic Hobs guitarist Jake Halliwell.

Dr. Steg is working on the covers for the new Hobs album and is a busy man so this new SPON is in full on glorious digital. Makes a a change from bags of rubbish I suppose. More SPON coming soon.

Dr. Steg

Todmorden

Human Combustion Engine
Vile Plumage
Daniel Weaver

Todmorden Unitarian Church, July 27th 2013



It was only as we were passing through Hebden Bridge that I realised I’d never been to Todmorden in my entire life. All I knew of Todmorden was that Andy Kershaw had recently moved there and that the place itself was either in Lancashire of Yorkshire depending on where the boundary fell during any particular political struggle. Tod [as it usually gets called] is a down to earth, no nonsense stone built market town on the edge of the Pennines, a more lived in place to my mind, whereas Hebden Bridge just a few miles down the road is a more Guardian-ista lesbian knit your own cannabis yoghurt kind of town chock full of day trippers buying tricolour pasta at £5 a bag.

Things got off to a good start when we passed a burning bus outside Shibden Hall. Having passed a burning bus on the way to see Smell & Quim this could only have been an auspicious sign. After discovering Tod we parked behind the train station and made our way to the White Hart, a Weatherspoons pub inhabiting what looked like a 16th century coaching inn with a huge stone fireplace and drunk locals. After asking one of the friendly drunk locals which way the church was we were soon climbing the steady slope to the impressive late Gothic edifice that is Todmorden Unitarian Church.

And it is impressive. As church’s were meant to be. I always feel sorry for worshipers who have to kneel in prefab boxes built in the 1960’s, the kind of places that are usually built on the edges of housing estates and have flat roofs covered in rolls of barbed wire and appear to be more locked down survivalist bolt holes rather than places of worship. And there was food on offer, roasted potatoes with rosemary, grilled eggplant with garlic, couscous, beetroot with goats cheese and various other examples of the vegetarian art. There was beer and cider and wine and soft drinks for those not imbibing and TWO TOILETS. These things are important.

It was four quid in and even though the turn out wasn’t what you could call massive by any stretch of the imagination, I bet everybody present enjoyed themselves immensely and will be back for further Tor Booking events.  But perhaps not the six Americans who turned up with ten minutes to go.

Because this being a church we were all off and running by 6.30pm so we could all be back on the streets of Tod by 9pm. First up was Daniel Weaver who played electric guitar, first with ashtrays and then bits of bubble wrap [I’m guessing, I was sat on a rear pew] and then with a violin bow. Moving around picking things up and making noises with them. Three pieces the first being more adventurous in an experimental stood erect tuned up Keith Rowe kind of way before moving into more melodic looped melody mode that my accomplice Big Joe described as a cross between Twin Peaks and a twisted blues.

Vile Plumage looked suitably demonic and suitably at home in their church surroundings with their oxen head and skull mask. Hammer Horror came to Tod with a continuous blast of destroyed tapes played through an old school cassette deck [literally old school - it was saved from the skip as part of an equipment upgrade]. Two cassette players lined into this old box then mixed to produce a constant ugly dirge that is the sound of the streets of Burslem brought to life in a 150 year old West Yorkshire church. It was the longest Vile Plumage set I’ve witnessed and all the better for it with the chance for Skull and Ox to wander amongst the congregation with prayer bells and a general air of menace. At its end various cassette players were ripped from the box until just one totally crumbled vocal mantra was left wailing away.

But there was to be no Todd in Tod, thus depriving me of my my chance to use a thin joke. One half of Human Combustion Engine was on his sick bed leaving Mel to tackle the set on her own. Sat once again near the rear of the church the acoustics of the place finally revealed themselves. With only a small PA [Vile Plumage didn’t even use it] the slowly evolving synth motifs rang from the wooden rafters with a distinct clarity making you wonder what it must have been like to witness Tangerine Dream play York Minster in 1975. And while there wasn’t as much going on TD wise [and I’m not in anyway shape or form going to compare HCE with TD] the chance to hear synths [it was a synth wasn’t it? sat at the back couldn’t see didn’t investigate] in this most magnificent of structures was a memory that will live with me for a long time. These were very gentle structures that eventually morphed out into something larger but never harsher, eventually disappearing like smoke form a snuffed out candle. And there were plenty of candles to snuff.

A great gig in a great venue in a great town with amazing food and beer and happy punters [six Americans notwithstanding]. 

On the way home the recent heatwave came to a crashing end when a thunderstorm of Biblical proportions descended. I bet it put the bus out no problem.

Soundholes

BBBlood - Lazar House
Sound Holes 036. Cassette
70 Copies.

Duncan Harrison - 80 Ghosts
Sound Holes 038. Cassette
58 Copies.

Tina Turner - Tidal Wave
Sound Holes 042. Cassette
57 Copies.

Roadside Picnic - Where Is The Rented Forest?
Sound Holes 046. Cassette
55 Copies.

Journey Of The Mind - Salt Rubber
Sound Holes 055. Cassette
71 Copies.

U Boat - The Snake Needs A Tatty Cage.
Sound Holes 056. Cassette
61 Copies.

Being - Hunters Fingers
Sound Holes 057. Cassette
82 Copies.

Sound Holes Sampler #1
CDR


The inability of the English to cope with the extremes of temperature is a well known one. Two days of the mercury rising is enough for most whilst two weeks of 25C+ is considered to be something of a national emergency worthy of headline news, continuous 18 point header fonts in the Daily Express and tips from the government on how to keep cool. I have to admit that while I do like to get out of bed in the morning knowing that my wardrobe for the day will consist of nothing more than a pair of shorts and short sleeve shirt I do find the heat to be somewhat draining. Thus it is was that last Friday afternoon I found myself sat in a queue of traffic with sweat rolling down my face all caused by me having to do nothing more than strenuous than breathing. Not having air conditioning and swimming pool here at Idwal Towers I find myself resorting to gin and tonics, I.P.A.’s, decent lagers and several open windows as an aid to fighting what we in England call ‘a scorcher’ and what in many countries is called ‘just another day’.

The small dark room from whence these missives emerge becomes so hot I sometimes wonder if it has a tin roof. Upon entering the room beads of sweat appear unbidden on my forehead and my clothes begin to stick to me. After two or three sweaty gasps I’ll grab whatever it is I’m after and make for the Poang and for what passes as breeze coming in through the front door. Thus armed with a pile of review material I’ll forgo the outdoor festivities that seem to consist of annoying everyone else with barbecue smoke and shit music and instead don headphones to soak up some vibes.


Seven cassettes and a CDR sampler later I emerge happier for knowing that with Soundholes we have someone who mans [womans?] an eclectic cassette label. I like Soundholes for the format and the aesthetics, for its genre scope and that it introduces new artists/bands to me.That some of them may be made up names or people going under various monikers only adds to my enjoyment and happy confusion.

As evinced by trying to Google tape loop constructivist Tina Turner whose two sides of Basinski like decay, are along with ‘Journey of the Mind’ the highlight of this particular package. Both decompositions have that wonderful languorous feel of being adrift on a mill pond, voices drifting in and out of your consciousness, chamber orchestras being deflated and sunk, things going by slowly in reverse. One side of Journey of the Mind also brings to mind Gavin Bryars soporific mid 70’s classic ‘The Sinking of the Titanic’, another colossus of decayed drone with the all too easy ability to pull you under. Perhaps the Tina Turner work is more forceful and less relaxing, a bit more urgent and star burst-y, think cycling multi-key Nitsch drones recorded on to Boots C120’s and degraded all the way down to a series of rough utterances.

More tape manipulation comes in the shape of Duncan Harrison but here the end result is harsher in parts and more chaotic overall with an array of wailing sirens, church bells, Islamic chant, reversed vocals and general tomfuckery [all ending in a TNB-ish trash noise-a-thon] being the ying to a yang that begins all spectral vocally but soon ends in a murky noise/drone. 

And there is noise too, because where there is tape there is noise. BBBlood with some steam train noise, bubbling lava subwoofer noise, cresting waves noise, each side book ended with some kind of chill out ambience. ‘Being’ is also noise, needle fluff noise, Jap noise, everything in the red noise and then you turn it over and its even more in the red noise than the other side.

Roadside Picnic have ‘out there’ keyboard dabblings and spacey synth dabs, space age Noh music, low end rumbles and giant sized Sci-Fi organs emitting monstrous farts. One of the several tracks that they’ve managed to cram on to this C46 is all but silence as recorded in the middle of a nighttime forest with distant nocturnal birds and the spatter of light rain on tent sides.

Perhaps the stand alone release here comes from U Boat with some vocal explorations aided and abetted by sparse drum rattles, small gongs and wooden blocks. Like Sunny Murray sparring with Phil Minton. The vocals are of the running out of breath variety or what the Toddmiester might call ‘gurglecore’, as if some Lithuanian witch was casting spells in a rhyming kind of hymnal way and although I was left mightily non-plussed by it all I couldn’t help but like them for what they’ve achieved. Perhaps best listened to alone, at night, in the dark, when you're in a very receptive frame of mind.

Which leaves the sampler CD. Ten tracks all segued into one 46 minute lump where you can try and spot Optrex Ten Pints Never in and amongst BBBlood, Merit, Developer, Pax Titania and KPLR amongst a few others. Noise, drone, lots of things in-between and Oneohtrix doing the analogue boogie synth bit. Not bad at all and available to stream from the Soundholes


[Yesterday there was an old woman in the pet shop. She was sat on a bag of feed worn out by the heat. A cup of refreshing hot tea to hand brought to her by the shopkeeper kept her from keeling over completely. She looked up at me and said in a weary voice ‘eeee its too ‘ot for me, I’ll be happier when it cools down a bit, I like a breeze you see’. This is probably the same woman who 16 weeks ago complained that it was too cold and that snow in March was evidence that the world had gone mad and that we were all better off when Labour were in power. And now the heatwave is no more. Thunderstorms and three inches of rain in eight hours last night. She'll be happier now.]



http://www.sndhls.com/

Smell & Quim Gullivers Manchester 13th July 2013

Smell & Quim
Barbarians
Chalaque
Septacaemic Vomit
Smut
Evil Man


Gullivers, Oldham Street, Manchester, 13 July 2013



Apparently the landlord at Gullivers is a mate of Mark E Smiths, a regular of sorts who is immune from being barred. You can see why MES likes this end of Manchester which is touted to anyone entering the city as ‘Northern Bohemian Chic’ but is in reality a sea of drunks, rotting buildings and hen parties tottering around on unfeasibly large heels.

Finding somewhere to park the limo is proving difficult due to half of Oldham Street being ablaze. Smoke drifts down the streets 9/11 style and the smell of burning wood permeates everything. Drunks stagger around holding bottles of wine and cans of beer, one of them is escorted from Gullivers in a state that appears to be one sip from total collapse. Walklett swears blind he’s seen someone talking to a lamppost, there’s feral kids chewing on burgers whilst begging for cash and around the corner William Bennett is spinning Italian disco platters. On the way over, dropping down off Saddleworth Moor, there's a coach ablaze on the hard shoulder. Flames are pouring out from underneath its back end as a group of Chinese students look on from five feet away. As we pass there are still people sat on the coach. Everything appears to be in place for a Smell & Quim gig.

Stewart Walden is talking costumes which is of course the main topic of conversation pre S&Q gig. He’s opting for boxing gloves and bananas. There’s talk of mock ups of the ‘Have You Seen Shannon Matthews’ t-shirts that appeared around the time of the little mites ‘disappearance’. Fred and Rose West, Jimmy Savile, and the little mites abductor Michael Donovan loom large.

But first to the room above Gullivers which like many rooms above a pub is a grotty as fuck but whose complaining? You can have the room for not much moolah and make as much noise as you want. There’s a bar in the corner, ledges propped up with mannequins legs and rock icon posters down one wall upon which Dr. Steg appears to be scribbling something with a pen. Dr Steg has been drafted in as a member of Smell & Quim for the evening and will spend the entire set sat two foot away from the right hand stack spray painting his stencil paintings that contain messages like ‘I’VE NEVER BEEN SEXUALLY ABUSED BY JIMMY SAVILE’ and ‘GORDON BROWN IS A CUNT’ some of which are given out to the audience during the set, some of which are to be seen adorning the back of the bar upon leaving.

But first to first act who is Mutant George and female companion who throw beer bottles into a wicker basket, scrape violins and generally make an ungodly racket. The bottles explode upon contact, bits of glass flying, there must be a contact mic in there. George pulls the wicker basket towards him and smashes everything around a bit more for good measure. I think that was Evil Man. Band names appear to have been made up for the night and I’ve not heard of any of them except The Barbarians and Smell & Quim so forgive me my lack of knowledge.
Someone plays a guitar like Gerry Garcia, lots of high end finger frotting and electric beats.  This could be Smut. The high notes are designed to reach right down into my ear channel and cause immense discomfort so I decide to get some fresh[ish] air and check out the DJ downstairs who has a huge silver chain around his neck and is spinning James Brown and Joni Mitchell tunes to a crowd of middle aged punters all downing pints of lager in a bid to keep cool during the hottest night of the year so far.

Somewhere along the line there’s a twin guitar attack who could be Smut, Evil Man or Chalaque. Not exactly Solmania but the screaming is effective in a oh-isn’t that-hurting-my-ears-kind-of-way. One stood, one crouched, one nearly deaf. 

Next up is some kind of thrown together three piece death metal band fronted by a bare chested [and footed] man who growls into his mic as guitar and drums thrape away. Obscenities are shouted at the audience which only makes them like it more. To be honest I’ve never got thrash whateveryoucallit but people are grooving to it [if that's what you do to death thrash doom metal].

The Barbarians have prayed at the Smell & Quim altar for long enough for the vibes to have seeped through outer membranes. When a 45 gallon drum is rolled into place its apparent that things will be pretty chaotic and so it proves. 45 gallon drum is hit with a piece of wood until the wood splinters, person with paper head shroud screams, person at back of stage screams, someone stage front twiddles knobs, what could be a deflated dinghy is dragged into the fray and worn by various members of band and audience. Drunk audience members join in, chucking and hitting things and falling over. The surge in noise levels is such that it has the power to make me momentarily lose my balance. My inner ear is once again being attacked.

And whilst everybody is outside having a fag and watching the drunks roll up and down Oldham Street Smell & Quim start their set with a good old religious tune. As played from a 60 year old gramophone deck that looks extremely vulnerable in this enclosed space. Someone [Nigel Joseph?] is dressed in an inflatable clown get up and is playing a babies head. Morris is stripped down to underwear and is wearing a Jimmy Savile mask and wandering between audience members. Kate Fear is wearing a Rosemary West mask as cod piece. Stewart Walden is waving his banana-boxing glove combo about. Walklett is bending over to reveal no undergarments whilst wearing a Fred West mask and black curly hair wig. He picks up an angle grinder and takes on a metal disc at stage edge whose sparks cause several audience members sat too near stage front to leap put of the way. Morris collides with them and knocks them over. Drinks are spilt. Dr. Steg sits stage right and spray paints his pictures. I collar him at the end of the night to ask him if he enjoyed his stint as S&Q member and he cant hear me. ‘Can’t hear a fucking thing’ he shouts even though its now quiet. I notice that Gullivers bouncer has appeared and is looking anxiously over peoples shoulders trying to see what all the fuss is, this just seconds after the angle grinder has been dropped in favour of a baseball bat and the demise of a microwave oven. He leaves suitably satisfied that nobody is getting murdered. It is of course a horrible noise and at around the fifteen minute mark perfectly judged. At its end the hymns appear once again and there’s a swaying joining in from Walden and Morris and of course more warm and appreciative applause.

Gullivers is a great room above a pub venue. The PA is spot on, the back drop of Public Information Films [one showing Jimmy Savile and another Rolf Harris] triggered lots of childhood memories for me, the music they play in-between acts [Faust, Happy Flowers, The Fall, Lightning Bolt] lifts the spirits as does the music played downstairs early doors [Manc based Indie]. Thanks to all involved for a memorable evening and for cleaning all that shit up afterwards.

As we make for the limo the smoke is still swirling around Oldham Street, the beggars are still trying their luck and Dr Steg is adding to the litter by chucking his artwork to the floor. A drunk staggers out of Gullivers and life goes on. The car is still there and the hills are calling.

Lasse-Marc Riek / Daniel Blinkhorn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lasse-Marc Riek - Helgoland
Gruenrekorder CD. Gruen 109
[Field Recording Series]

Daniel Blinkhorn - Terra Subfónica
Gruenrekorder CD. Gruen 117
[Soundscape Series]


Gruenrekorder releases have the uncanny knack of sending me deep into the arms of Morpheus like no other label I know. Its happened before, sometimes on a Greek island, usually at home, feet up, headphones on, a small glass of something alcoholic to hand, the review playlist whirring away only for each track and album to morph into one big blob of half remembered sounds and tracks that are finally recalled when played back compos mentis.

Lasse-Marc Riek’s homage to Helgoland [thats the Germans spelling, everybody else, including us, the Brits, who used to rule the island until we gave it back to the Germans after the second world war, but not before blowing it to smithereens, call it Heligoland]. A small island off the German coast thats home to about a thousand people and well over three hundred species of sea bird. Over the course of three years and many trips to Helgoland Riek gathered over thirty hours of field recordings the edited results of which we have here.

Riek bookend his release with what you get when arriving on Helgoland and what you get when leaving. So its the wind blowing across the sand, the surf and then at the end of your visit a light aircraft warming up its prop before take off leaving behind the lonesome moan of a grey seal. In-between we have the raucous sound of hundreds [more like thousands] of Guillemots, Gannett’s, Black Legged Kittiwakes, Arctic Turns and Black Headed Gulls all doing what sea birds do best, which is of course make one almighty racket. Their is some light relief in the shape of young Guillemot chicks fledging, their parents calling to them from the sea as the chicks pluck up courage to leave their cliff-face nest and there you can hear the splash and the no doubt contented squawk of a parent.

All this bird clatter can become quite dizzying and I guess that is the intended effect. Far more disturbing is the cry of a grey seal, a truly unsettling sound that’s like that of a child in distress. So with the wind and the birds and the crashing waves and the seals we have a labour of love here from Mr. Riek [who I think used to go to Helgoland for family holidays]. Strange place though, no cars or bikes are allowed, no pollen either so a great place for hay fever sufferers. In 1947 the Royal Navy detonated 6,700 tonnes of explosive on it in a bid to obliterate it from the map and failing spectacularly. As a stand alone sound I feel it would have made for a rather interesting Gruenrekorder release.

You’ll find Daniel Blinkhorn in Gruenrekorder’s ‘Soundscape’ department. On Terra Subfónica he’s created 19 short-ish compositions each one dealing with the way in which we, as creatures of hearing, go about our daily routines without taking in the really interesting sounds that are going on all around us. Take for instance the way in which you may be able to hear your neighbours children playing through your incredibly thin poorly built walls. Blinkhorn recreates the event by recording his children at play, playing the results back through some speakers and recording the whole thing from a different room through a drinking glass with a contact mic attached to its base. There are 19 such examples of what Blinkhorn calls ‘sub sound’ each one a startling revelation, each one carrying with it extensive explanations of its purpose and genesis within the accompanying booklet.

There’s a sea scape tryptich the second installment of which records the sounds of a colony of hermit crabs underwater, the insides of a desktop PC where Blinkhorn takes the casing off his computer and records whats going on in there with several [no doubt highly sensitive microphones], ‘Tape Junk’  composed from the outtakes of jazz guitar recordings [big reveal - it sounds nothing like outtakes from jazz guitar recordings], ‘Sub Chron II’ a work made with clocks, ‘Voix Sous’ from whispers. And on it goes.

The results are a stunning. An embarrassment of riches. Blinkhorn not only finds delight in ‘sub sounds’, he knows how to develop them into greater things, make them even more of a delight for the listener. Dip in anywhere on this release, turn up the volume and prepare to be entranced. You might be listening to crabs scramble over each other in their underwater habitat but what you’re hearing is the gentle clack of exoskeleton, like gentle rain hitting a thin sheet of tin. The sounds culled from inside Blinkhorn’s PC become digital micro chatter, overloaded information highways. In ‘[Sub]Urban Mantra’ we find the hum of the city playing host to a powerful throb, voices come and go, distant traffic can be heard and then birds. And on it goes.

Terra Subfónica is one of the most impressive environmental sound/electroacousitc works yet to come this way. The last track is probably the best [I’m saving the best for last] ‘Place/Space Threnody’ finds Blinkhorn playing an array of instruments including the piano which are then processed, clipped edited, reworked, whatever it is he does with these sounds, until we arrive at something that sounds like a cross between Arvo Pärt, David Sylvian’s more esoteric moments and Austrian laptop/guitar dabbler Christian Fennesz. A sublime piece of work.

Blinkhorn’s CV runs to soundtrack work, installations, orchestral work, chamber orchestra, symphonies, radiophonic pieces, he’s been lauded with international prizes and his works are performed worldwide. Its a pleasure to have been introduced to him.


Helgoland comes in a printed cardboard fold out job, both releases contain excellent booklets. Quality abounds.



Contact:

Blinkhorn

Lasse-Marc Riek

Gruenrekorder