Kleistwahr/Never Say When/Broken Flag Weekend Festival

Never Say When - 30 Years of Broken Flag

London. Friday May 4th – Sunday May 6th
The Dome, 178 Junction Road, Tufnell Park, N19 5QQ

http://www.facebook.com/events/110573319054726/

http://forum.noiseguide.com/viewtopic.php?t=10420&sid=95aa44b4c9f51fef154f02dcae07f8b7

Kleistwahr - Myth
Harbinger Sound. Harbinger 102. LP

Kleistwahr - Arsonicide
Harbinger Sound. Harbinger 103. LP

[unsure of pressing run for either of these releases]


With Broken Flag passing me by the first time around I’m always keen to hear whether the reissues add weight to the legendary label or whether they’re just the work of die hard fanboys.

But first a plug for the up coming Never Say When/Broken Flag weekend festival. I’ll be there for the last night and a line up that runs like this: 

THE NEW BLOCKADERS
RAMLEH (rock set)
GIANCARLO TONIUTTI
SIGILLUM S
CLUB MORAL
PUTREFIER
VORTEX CAMPAIGN
+ other TBC
 

Not bad eh? Hopefully this time I wont have to dodge any flying TNB debris. The other two nights are as equally beneficial and I urge you to check out the lineups and buy tickets using the above links.


Kleistwahr was Gary Mundy’s solo project. An attritional barrage of indecipherable angst and misanthropy that's now seen as classic Power Electronics.

Myth definitely sounds the more primitive work of the two [and there are big distinctions between them]. On Myth there are rapid oscillations that sound like someone rolling a control knob backwards and forward in an attempt to produce something disorientating. Its a murky sea of electronic squiggles and reverberating, moaned, unintelligible, barked lyrics that occasionally form walls of sound and occasionally collapse into equipment frotting. 

I found Arsonicide’s more minimalist approach worked better than Myth’s all out blare and bluster. Here the vocals are much more prominent even though they’re still delivered in a muffled, threatening style [this on ‘III’ - all tracks on both releases are untitled] which when matched to single wobbling notes or slowly developing seas of static and hiss produce a much more balanced work.  A much more controlled affair and one I find myself increasingly drawn back to.

Hearing these releases in their original early 80’s cassette state must have been quite an experience for the lucky few managing to find a way into that most underground of labels. Hearing them on glorious vinyl has more than made up for my loss.

Gary Mundy’s label continues to grow in stature with every passing year,. We still might be here when the 50th anniversary of Broken Flag rolls around..

See you in London.

The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults

The Sounds of American Doomsday Cults Volume 14

Faithways International CD.


The thing that amazes me about religion is that if there isn’t one suited to your specific needs you can always start your own. Like Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Days Saints who one day went for a walk in the woods and came across an angel who showed him some golden tablets with funny words and pictures written on them. He took these tablets home and used them as source material to write the book of Mormon. This he did by putting a stone in the bottom of his hat, and dictating what he saw in it to a third party. Then he upset some people and was put in prison where he died of gunshot wounds. And then theres Scientology; a money making machine founded by a humdrum Sci-fi writer, the Unification Church; Christianity and Korean folklore cobbled together  and lets not forget the Hare Krishna’s or as I like to call them ‘The Hinduism For Westerners Movement’. The list goes on. And, inevitably, on.

But its those far out fruitcakes that amuse and shock the most. Reverend Jim Jones and David Koresh [such a big fan of Onanism that he was dubbed by one critic as the ‘masturbating messiah’] should need no introduction at all but what about The Family [sex mad], The Solar Temple [baby killers awaiting alien abduction] and Pastor Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church who encourages his congregation to picket the funerals of American soldiers and whose hellfire preaching and strict interpretation of the Bible [that cobbled together, rewritten multi-translated tome of mass murder and begatting] has left most of America bemused and disgusted. And lets not forget sarin sprinkler Soko Ashara and his Supreme Truth religion, an outfit that managed to mix together Yoga, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and the writings of Nostradamus, Charles Bukowksi and Jilly Cooper [OK, I made the last two up].

The reason I’m reviewing this is because Seymour Glass sent it to me as part of a larger package containing the work of the Bren’t Lewiis Ensemble and the Glands of External Secretion. Whilst I cogitate on these I feel compelled to write about The Church Universal and Triumphant whose bizarre services are featured here. Firstly because I find religion fascinating and secondly because this is one of the most unbelievably weird recordings it has ever been my pleasure to sit and listen to. Its no surprise that their services circulated on bootleg tapes long before they became more easily available via Faithways.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet founded The Church Universal and Triumphant in 1975 as an outgrowth of a religion founded by her husband 17 years earlier. Wiki gives this description of the church’s beliefs; ‘The church's theology is a syncretic belief system, including elements of Buddhism, Christianity, esoteric mysticism, the paranormal and alchemy, with a belief in angels, elves, fairies, and other beings it calls elementals (or spirits of nature)’. Prophet predicted the outbreak of a nuclear war in the early 1990’s and encouraged her followers to build bomb shelters to survive the blast in their Montana settlement. When the big one failed to materialise she claimed that it was their prayers that had prevented it. There's lots of other shit too but of more interest to me [and I’m assuming Faithways International] is the way Prophet delivers her sermons and for the fact that they hated Rock Music. Really, really hated Rock Music. They blamed Rock Music for all life’s modern ills and went out of their way to rail against it at every given opportunity.

Prophet delivers her sermons in a speaking in tongues style that comes across more like a livestock auctioneer with a high nasal twang than preacher trying to get a message across. Its impressive, especially when the congregation joins in. On ‘Invocation For Judgement Against The Destruction of Rock Music’ her pastor reads out a list of rock bands, movies and TV channels all of which get the blame for getting the world in such a mess. Those named as being in league with Lucifer include Bananarama, Fleetwood Mac, The Thompson Twins, Band Aid [!?], Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, Dean Martin, Olivia Newton John and the film Ghostbusters. The list isn’t exhaustive [obviously - wot no Black Sabbath, they’ll be sooooo upset] which is why we get the rejoinder ‘ and all individual groups or individual artist who vibrate in consonance with them’. There then follows a 27 minute decree that's one of the biggest mindfucks you’re ever likely to hear. Intense polyphonic speaking in tongues with Prophet and her pastor dropping out on occasion leaving the eerie sound of the congregation going for it on their own. Certainly one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever heard and all the more reason to get interested in religion … so long as you don’t go so far as believing any of it that is.

Midwich - Skull Mask

Midwich & The Skull Mask
3” CDR. 50 copies.

Midwich - Running Repairs
Sriate Cortex. s.c.46. CDR. 60 copies.



Having succumbed to a variation of the dreaded Turkish Goat Flu I’ve been away from the keys of late. Three weeks of fluctuating body temperatures coupled to a cough that had me rattling to the core, both hands clasped firmly about the upper thighs in support, left me in no mood for tackling the review pile. The review pile that has been building of late. The recent trip to Northumberland, where we spent mornings filling our lungs with fresh air in a bid to rid me of said malaise, was as usual a music free trip. Apart from the odd bit of Radio 3 or 4 in the background, music there was none, walking there was plenty.

Its been the official stance for quite some time now. Having spent 12 nights in a hotel in the middle of nowhere India listening to nothing but Putrefier and Ashtray Navigations for days on end I can honestly say that it just doesn't suit the travelers mood, not this one at any rate. Trying to cogitate on the inner goings on of the minds of certain noise and drone makers whilst being served tea by a turbaned waiter never really worked for me so I just gave it up as a bad job and came to realise that unless I was at home, in the comfort of my own Poang, keyboard, pen and paper at the ready, there just wasn’t any point.

Its not until I return home that I realise how much I do miss the review pile though.We got back yesterday and once the chores were out of the way I spent the next eight hours lost in a world of drone and noise. A world where 3” CDRs come with exhortations to distribute freely, a world where Broken Flag cassettes get the vinyl treatment, a world where people do extraordinary things with Nick Cave songs, a world where Gruenrekorder send me a release containing a meditative work composed on a mountain top sanctuary which had the entirely predictable effect of sending me into a deep and restful afternoon kip.

I’d had the 3” CDR Midwich/Skull Mask for a while before Turkish Goat Flu II hit but never got round to inflicting words upon it. When I returned there was another Midwich release lying on the doormat. I felt I could kill two birds with one stone and besides, I’m a Midwich fan and words tend to come easier when the work on offer is something I'm familiar with.

And then I played Running Repairs which is probably the most remarkable Midwich release to date. A tiny two minute segment of buried voices and howling wind is sandwiched between a slowly evolving granular melody and a single oscillating note both of which run to over twenty minutes.

Where are the dainty pulses and head bobbing melodies? Drifting pastel coloured bubbles there was none. Delicate, floating flowers of tranquility had disappeared to be replaced with harsh and grating drones the likes of which appear to be new pathways for Midwich to explore. Familiarity there was none.

The hardest track to get through on Running Repairs is Bosky. Bosky is 25 minutes of a note taken for a walk. A primitive industrial buzz that had me wondering if I’d fallen asleep and woken up instead to the Kleistwhar LP’s. I went back and back again and still couldn’t make my mind up as to whether this was stimulating or annoying. Its certainly hypnotic and it is drone but of the kind that only people on Largactil would appreciate.

The opener New Territories is equally as hypnotic but much easier on the ear. A controlled amount of background fuzz over which a rapid and urgent industrial rhythm slowly mutates along its length until it dies out in a helicopter lift off. Maybe the clue is in the title?

The two shorter Midwich tracks on the Skull Mask split lie in similar New Territories territory all of which leaves me wondering whether Midwich has been digging out his Broken Flag cassettes or whether he just fancied a meatier work out.

Skull Mask sound like a gang of John Fahey’s fighting over six out of tune Bazoukis in a Greek taverna whilst Midwich Rob drones in the background. This is the work of Miguel Pérez who I think hails from Mexico and is now part of the Rob Hayler/Midwich/Radio Free Midwich ‘Deranged Nodders Alliance’. You can join too but you have to be seen to be actively involved. Passing participation is OK I assume but getting your hand dirty is much more fun.

But this is what happens when you venture into the world of the ‘no audience underground’. The 3” CDR encourages duplication, distribution, expression and review. Each unit is unique. Something to be encouraged in a world where ‘stick it on Soundcloud and hope for the best’ is fast becoming the norm. The Striate Cortex packaging is a thing of hand made joy with hand splodged thick card outer and arty inner, printed CDR, OBI strip and four measly quid to boot. Most of this is available for download I assume but backing it up with hand made-ness makes these objects of desire and for someone whose been out of the loop for a while, items to be treasured and mulled over.



Midwich - www.radiofreemidwich.wordpress.com
Sriate Cortex - www.sriatecortex.wordpress.com
Skull Mask - www.oraclenetlabel.blogspot.co.uk

Ceramic Hobs

Ceramic Hobs - 33 Trapped Chilean Miners [Parts 1 - 3]
Must Die records. MDR/033. 7” Single.

Contact: www.mustdierecords.co.uk


It would appear that as the Ceramic Hobs hurtle towards their demise their every release becomes ever more important. Their self imposed immolation, promised after a series of releases all named Oz Oz Alice, may still be a prophecy too far but if it urges them into a creative corner as good as this then their last days are going to be the icing on a very big cake.

Within the epicenter of the Hobs there now revolves the furtive brain of Simon Morris, their original and [after 20 odd {odd?} years] only surviving member. 33 Trapped Chilean Miners may credit nine other players but its thanks to Morris, unfettered and reveling in his own muck since the departure of long standing member Stan Batcow, that we have to thank for their slow descent into a peculiar psychedelia that comes tinged with DIY drugs, the Freemasons and feedback.

And it all comes out of Blackpool of course, their hometown with which they will be forever inextricably linked. This festering pit of forced jollification has more prescriptions for anti depressants than it has residents, plus a permanent trade in day trippers hell bent on getting pissed as quickly as possible. Its the perfect place for the Hob sound to evolve from pop punk beginnings to todays much darker goings on. For by now the drugs must have seeped into the very atoms that make up the Hobs brain. The brain that seeps freemasonry, Blackpool, Power Electronics, the Illuminati, religion, pandemics, psychiatry and middle of the road bland as a boiled tripe rock.


33 Trapped Chilean Miners revolves around the number 33. I know this because I not only have the single but I also have the accompanying video courtesy of Youtube. For once the visuals have come to the aid of the audio.

Taken as a stand alone single its impressive as it is; a straight off guitar thrash with Morris screaming ‘33 trapped Chilean miners’ to a background of hammered drums and government advice on what to do in case the big one drops. After a brief glimpse of Telly Savalas singing ‘If’ the next seven minutes become a much darker beast with the whole thing churning into a stygian morass of mushed power chords against which Morris hangs out his favourite bits of washing to dry. This is where the video comes into its own. Not only do you get to listen to all three parts in one lump you get juxtaposed images that include a decaying Blackpool, a loony tunes Pope, Rowan Williams, traffic accident footage, some builders, a black woman in the depths of a voodoo transmogrification, two blokes asleep in a pub ... scattered amongst this are looped shots of Morris himself, headphones donned and obviously in a doped up rapture to whatever it is he’s listening to. As the single ventures ever further into its deeper ends Morris talks of hidden motorway exists [Junction 5 on the M65] and their old favourites the Freemasons [the sleeve and single mention the Masonic injunction I.T.N.O.T.H.A.U.T. which no amount of Googling translates but which I’ll stab at translating as ‘In the name of the …].

And then there’s the number 33 itself. Its the speed at which the record plays of course but to some its also an auspicious number, its also the highest degree of rank in the Freemasons, the age at which Jesus supposedly died and then theres the KKK [eleventh letter x 3].

Not just a mere single then but an almanac of Hobs interest with some fine bad drug music to go with it. As ever I’ve only just scratched the surface in regards to hidden meanings and the various samples included [the three parts are broken with schmaltz pop with some unknown joining Telly Savalas as interlude makers]. For those with more time on their hands than me a whole new world lies in wait.


We’ll miss em when they’ve gone.

Rammel Weekender

Rammel Weekender

9-11 March 2012.

The Chameleon Club, Nottingham.



It’s 3.30am and Nyoukis is serenading the departing punters with a heartfelt rendition of what can only be a Laughing Len song. Its six inches from my left ear and the beer fumes and the delivery are pure drunk Sauchiehall Street not that Nyoukis is Glasgwegian. I made this mistake and got FUCKING WEST LOTHIAN MAAAAN in both ears as a spittled rebut. The beer fumes again. BLACKBURN, PURE SUBO COUNTRY. SUBO SINGING CAGE SONGS MAAAAN. THATS WHAT I’M FUCKING SAYING MAAAAN.

Its one of the highlights of the weekend. That and getting hit on the head by flying debris courtesy of The New Blockaders. TNB are Saturday nights surprise guests and for once the surprise is genuine. Maybe a warm up for the upcoming Berlin show? At once its visceral and edgy with sawing metal abuse, high pitched frequencies, the audience getting a little nervous maybe, TNB feeding off this with one masked provocateur hurling a wooden table into the throng where it flies tracer like onto my bald pate. Somehow I’m not too drunk or tired and manage to get a hand in the way and it drops harmlessly to the floor where it sits for two seconds before someone picks it up and hurls it back, along with a few beer cans spraying their emptying contents for good measure.

As weekend experimental/noise/whatever fests go, the Notts Rammel Club/Harbinger Sound weekender circa 2012 will live long in the memory. Mainly because it wasn’t just another experimental/noise/whatever fest. Acts as diverse as heavy doomers Bong found themselves sharing the bill with 50 year old existentialist punks Patrik Fitzgerald, Power Electronics stalwarts Con-Dom and council estate gobbers the Sleaford Mods. .

Friday kicked off with Makakarooma - a Filthy Turd side project. The Turdster stood on a table with a malevolent grin on his face that suggested more escaped borstal glue abuser than one of England’s finest gutter trash troubadours. One of his band played the bass wearing a KKK like hood, bare feet, hammering out a plod rhythm, one with an LP cover on his head hitting a side drum repeatedly, guitarist with lost look on face. The Turdster played single notes on a pocket rubber horn until he got fed up and got out a talking machine that worked off a pulled cord. A fine start indeed.

For once I get to see most acts as I’m sort of off the bottle and find this leads to enhanced music appreciation. Its only during Patrik Fitzgerald’s set of poignant songs that the legs begin to ache and the eyes drop. Kogumaza are a local band of guitar shimmers that are never going to my cup of Earl Grey but Durgan and Wall are. The PA manages to pick out subtle nuances in the sounds they create, high end squeaks, deep rumble with only the middle disappearing now and again. Wall’s lap top proves to have issues but once they’re underway its a taught ride. Friday’s headliner is Design A Wave which proves to be a a bloke with long hair and a beard stood behind a keyboard playing what I learn to be ‘Mutant Disco’. Coming from an era where blokes with long hair and beards were in the Allman Brothers Band I find this slightly disturbing. Couple this to lots of young people dancing about and I find that I may have stumbled into some kind of time warp where all manner of musical genres and stereotypes have been mixed up by the sound gods.

The one thing that put the biggest smile on my face was the fact that the three nights attracted an audience that covered all ages and both sexes. Having rubbed shoulders with beery blokes at all weekend noise fests and found myself in the midst of more men than women on more than one similar occasion it was heartening to see a higher ratio of the fairer sex. Watching slight females clearly grooving to Con-Dom was a revelation of sorts. Seeing young men with shampooed hair and full beards is also a new one. I should get out more. Get out of Cleckheaton more too.

I missed parts of Saturdays line up but it was hard to ignore the headliners Heatsick who played for what seemed like two hours. By now I’d disappeared back downstairs to the sanctuary of the bar driven out by the incessant thud thud thud interspersed with the odd cheer at every shift in tempo. It was quite a sight to watch Heatsick’s Warwick keep an audience on the hoof for such a length of time armed with nothing more than a John Shuttleworth keyboard.

Previously the Storm Bugs came out of retirement for their first gig  in over 30 years. They took their time to warm up [which is to be expected] but once they hit their straps their DIY songs, held together with [I think], analogue synth and various other odds and ends took me with them.

Saturday was dominated by the Sleaford Mods twin attack of council estate angst mixed with laptop bass beat meets John Cooper Clark type delivery. Lines and lyrics that are pure urban poetry. Sample lyric ‘ I don’t like Northern Soul …….. [pauses for effect, eyes crowd disdainfully] ….. it reminds me of Motown on the dole'.  And on another ‘ What have I got?…… piss pot’. They seem to be genuinely annoyed that people are enjoying them and laughing at them. ‘What are you fucking laughing at?’ says the jutted jawed one. ‘Jongleurs is up the fucking road if you wanna have a laugh’. If they ever venture further than Nottingham they’d murder the likes of media friendly Mike Skinner and The Streets. Whether they’re taking the piss or not remains to be seen.

Mentions in dispatches should be made to Bill Kouligas and Spoils & Relics. The rest I missed. Sorry.

If anything Sunday was the best night of the lot. As any weekend experimental/noise/whatever attendee will tell you though, the last night is the hardest. After two days and nights of too much drinking, too much crap food and too little sleep the enthusiasm levels are at an all time low and only the sight of a big name will pull the wearied festival goer from their stupor. But this is the new me and I can give detailed reports of the best night of the week.

An early afternoon start saw Sightings fumble until they found their feet with some synth vocals, SWLLWS [Swallows?] was three chord keyboard progression female vocal eeriness, These Feathers Have Plumes was drones made from wine glass rub, Nacht Und Nebel  were noise/drone/electro-acoustic maybe, Modulator ESP was a spacier Klaus Schulz in disguise [but if only he’d let things sit for a while instead of constantly altering every little dial and button] and then the big boys; John Wiese with a blistering set that had other noise artists making serious mental notes as to how they were going to sell their equipment on eBay when they got home, Dieter Müh with some seriously deep and stomach churning depth charges coupled to Maureen Long’s account of how she survived a Ripper attack and then to Con-Dom with a splenetic attack that defied the years and gave the younger members of the audience much to think about. Its been a while since I’ve seen Con-Dom in such violent form and I’d forgotten what an effect a Con-Dom performance can have on an audience; high pitched, ultra shrill sonic attack lined with bare chested, wild eyed vehemence, a shoving and a pushing into the punters and them shoving back. Quite stunning. Phillip Julian’s Cheapmachines set saw him sit blankly in front of his equipment as he unfolded another quality noise set. The disinterested stare at odds with what he was producing. My noise ears have been reopened and I’m finding my appetite for it once more.

And then came Bong whose take on the eternal doom chord you could experience from the bar [me] or in front of the hefty PA system [most everyone else]. I’ve never taken to the Earth/Sunn O))) axis of sounds and I don’t suppose I ever will but with such a varied bill you’re unlikely to like everything and so it proved.

Untold thanks go to all involved especially the Undermeister and Mrs A who put me up for the weekend the former asking me to DJ thus giving me the opportunity to drive everyone batshit with my collection of charity shop raids. Put my name down for next year.


[Approximate running order as I remember it]


Friday

Makakarooma
Kogumaza
Blood Stereo
Patrik Fitzgerald
John Wall & Mark Durgan
Design a Wave


Saturday

Nick Jonah Davis
Belied Gunaiko
Bill Kouligas
Spolis & Relics
The New Blockaders
Sleaford Mods
Storm Bugs
Ekoplekz
Heatsick

Sunday

Surfacing
SWLLWS
These Feathers Have Plumes
Nacht Und Nebel
Modulator ESP
John Wiese
Dieter Muh
Con-Dom
Cheapmachines
Bong



www.rammelclub.org









  

Idwal Fisher

Growing up in the early seventies I’d see curtain-sided wagons pass me by with the words ‘Idwal Fisher’ writ large upon their sides. I thought the words a slightly odd pairing not realising that Idwal was actually an old Welsh Christian name and that Idwal Fisher was a retired rugby league player running a fruit and veg business.

I mention this for two reasons; one, that people often ask me where the name Idwal Fisher originated and the other because Idwal died last month at the age of 76. Its only fitting that I pay tribute to him on the blog that carries his name.

Idwal was a Welshman who played Rugby Union for Swansea in the early sixties. Warrington must have seen some potential in this big second rower and signed him up bringing him north to play in the rival ‘League’ code. I never saw him play as I was too young but years later I saw his brother Tony coach a Doncaster side into the top flight. During his playing career Tony had a fearsome reputation as a hard as nails number nine and his features were a testimony to that position, a position that existed when contested scrums were still the norm. If Idwal had the same characteristics as his brother he must have been a formidable presence.

As I grew older I became more and more enamored with Rugby League. The honest toil of a simple game played in mainly northern towns appealed to provincial tendencies.  After years of throwing my money away on a football team full of fanny dancers the switch to RL was an epiphany. Its a game often described as ‘chess with muscles’ an analogy which isn’t too far off the mark. Its a game played by tough men for a discerning crowd on terraces where fans mingle and trouble is rare. Its a game that I never tire of watching and one for which I have the utmost respect for players both past and present.


wikipedia entry

obituary

Midwich

 

Midwich - Cut Flowers
Memoirs of an Aesthete CDR.

Midwich - October in Yorkshire
Zanntone. 3” CDR. 50 Copies.

Midwich - Faraday Cage
Matching Head. Cassette. [C90] MH176.





According to Rob Hayler’s account of the evening everyone had a marvelous time at the recent Midwich return to live action gig. The dusting of snow that was enough to keep me in front of a roaring log fire ten miles away wasn’t enough to deter other, more hardened, punters from heading into West Yorkshire for the gig of the year thus far. Including intrepid traveller Simon DDDD who made the 500 mile round trip from Southampton and a few others who crossed the Pennines and trailed up the M6 with little or no hope [I presume] of retuning to their beds that night. All huddled in an camaradic embrace of alcoholic warmth they droned and made noises at deafening volumes until the bar staff chucked them out into the cold and crispy night at closing time.

But I don’t do regret. It eats away at you like a disease. Instead I take great satisfaction in the fact that Mr Hayler was kind enough to forward me the fruits of his most recent labours in the shape of the above. Armed with these three releases I was able to recreate, in the comfort of my own sitting room, what it would have been like to bob my head surrounded by the good and knowing of the ‘Northern drone scene’ [©] with a glass of Malbec by my side.

What’s interesting here [apart from the re-emergence of Midwich after a few years hiatus of course] is Zanntone. This being the newest label to appear from that hotbed of West Yorkshire experimentation - Mirfield. Whether the world needs another small run 3”CDR label is a question that can only be answered with the appearance of further releases but its not a bad start; the second track on ‘October in Yorkshire’ [Silver Lining] being an absolute stormer of the no nonsense head down mindless boogie, thumbs in belt loops, fractured beat bust that takes a simple keyboard motif, layers it with a drone and cranks it up until it scatters into a thousand digital fragments that dissolve like dying Alka Seltzer.

Having listened to quite a bit of Midwich material over the years I detect a game of two halves; one being the breaking apart head nodding trancelike repetitive melody as fingered on a tiny keyboard and as witnessed on Silver Lining and the other being the overhead passing prop plane drone with all manner of layered nuance for company. In both, subtle shifts in harmonics occur which act in a drug like fashion putting the listener into a soporific eye rolling stasis.  All these releases contain examples of the two and if you know your labels you’ll know that the Matching Head release will be suitably grimy and that the Memoirs one will be suitably deteriorated. With new label Zanntone seemingly putting a price on production values you can now listen to Midwich in whatever form of reproduction value suits your mood.

A more detailed look at ‘Cut Flowers’ will see a 47 second opener that you might be able to dance to [First Impressions], a fourteen minute prop plane droner [Mitigating Circumstances], a seven minute head bobber [Queen Olive] and a bow out track that runs to twelve minutes worth of shimmering drone that drifts across your vision like fag smoke in a tap room.

Matching Head appear to have got up to release number 176 with nothing more complicated than a tape duper and a photocopier for company. In a world becoming ever more dominated by all things digital its the Luddism of labels like Lee Stokoe’s that are the ones standing out from the crowd. No emails, no web site, no CDR’s just cassettes and black and white photocopies covers. Faraday Cage contains three longish trips of barely shifting, mesmeric, drone. Its dirty and hypnotic and its perfect for the label, me and hopefully you.

Without any shadow of a doubt, Mr. Hayler is one of the most wonderful people ever put on to this spinning globe of muck and water. I say this with hand on beating heart for I know it to be true. His reemergence on to the Leeds music scene has only heightened the emptiness caused by his recent [too long] absence. Lets hope he’s here to stay this time, here to fill our lives with his music and his words [for he can write too, his blog is a wondrous and charismatic map charting that most nebulous of genres, the ‘no audience underground’]. If you see him at the bar he will be the one smiling the widest, give his beard a playful tug and tell him that Idwal sent you.


Contact:

Rob's blog and portal to all manner of wondrousness
Zanntone
Memoirs of an Aesthete

Shit Music For Shit People

Apophallation + Nxfxtxex - True Stereo Split
Shit Music For Shit People. SMfSP 30. CDR. 5 copies.

Gravhund - Caffeine Overkill
Shit Music For Shit People. SMfSP 37. 3” CDR. 20 Copies

Zebra Mu - Broken Creative Manifesto
Shit Music For Shit People. SMfSP 35. 3” CDR. 20 Copies





It would appear that every time I get a noise release to review these days I find myself pondering questions that lie beyond the more immediate ‘is this a good noise release?’ This basic question is down to personal taste anyway of course, what worries me now is that I’m asking myself a much deeper question; ‘what has noise got left to offer me?’

There was a time when any noise release that came this way was greeted with open arms and given hours of unadulterated indulgence. Anyone who comes across noise for the first time will know this feeling. And then complacency sets in.

Unless you are one of those people whose taste in music never deviates from the stuff listened to as a teenager [these people are usually the ones seen buying their music along with the weekly shopping] you are probably of an inquisitive nature and constantly on the lookout for that something new and a bit special, something original, from someone who’s twisted this and torn that out of that and mixed it with the other and there’s that German with the unpronounceable name whose teamed up with the Argentinean cymbalist who’s put out this amazing double album that’s like Sun Ra collaborating with Macronympha and its on SPUNK records out of Albania and for once theres someone actually doing something that makes me want to buy it. Unfortunately for me that feeling comes rarely these days.

Which makes me wonder whether noise has lots its sparkle or whether its me whose lost mine? Maybe thats why I spend so much of my time rooting about in the past either familiarising myself with what has gone before or wondering whether I should investigate the Klezmer section on Amazon.

Noise will be around forever of course. Once a musical genre becomes established its there for good so you might as well get used to it. Its here where you take your noise release, review it and tell it like it is because although a noise release may no longer be the earthshaking event it once was its still a noise release and maybe, just maybe, it contains something earth shattering.

Alas there were no moments of earth shattering epiphany here. Shit Music For Shit People is a label name that says it all. They’re not here to stretch peoples imagination or fill their lives with thought provoking and genre bending releases, they’re here to have a good time and who can deny them that?

Gravhund wallow in their incompetence and admit as much on the sleeve. Twelve tracks in 23 minutes worth of sped up and slowed down Loony Tune cartoons, with coughing fits, barking dogs, pedal abuse, keyboard prod, vocals fed through make-you-sound-dumb- effects and of course flat out noise. Not a billion miles away from Evil Moisture in delivery and for that alone worthy of attention.

Perhaps the best effort here is the one truly all out noise affair. Zebra Mu is Michael Ridge who uses contact mics, metal and various pedals to produce noise of a bludgeoning nature so beloved of your 90’s Jap noister.

One of the the things I still like about noise is the practice of labels releasing things in ridiculously limited editions. The Apophallation/Nxfxtxex release mentioned here exists in just five copies. Never mind that its the weakest release of the three, there's just five people in the entire world [thats five people out of almost seven billion souls], who besides me, the label owner, the two people involved and just one other lucky person has a copy of ‘True Stereo Split’. The truth of the matter may be that one of those five souls may listen to this six minutes of split channel noise parp no more than once before chucking it in a box never to see the light of day again but don’t let that put you off tracking this down on Discogs and eBay in a futile attempts to complete your Shit Music For Shit People collection. Which is another thing I like about noise; dumb noise label names; Smell The Stench, Alcoholic Narcolepsy, Total Vermin, Harbinger Sound. And the format? Noise labels are at the forefront of keeping dead formats alive in a number of colourful ways; cassettes filled with dirt, cassettes attached to oversized sponges, records filled with locked grooves and here, a small circle of digital information at the center of five inches [or if you prefer 12cms] of clear round plastic. If nothing else you could show this to your friends and explain to them what it actually is. So you see, noise hasn’t given up the ghost yet.

I think that my biggest failing in this dip of interest in noise of mine is in trying to read more into it than what there is. There’s enough room in noise for the chin strokers and the good time boys and the amateurs and the hippies and drunks and the sad bloke tapping keys trying to think up things to say about it all. It is what it is and its here and there's no getting away from the fact.





Contact: http://shitcore.dk/smfsp/index.html

Nackt Insecten - Reality Bridge

Nackt Insecten - Reality Bridge
Blackest Rainbow Records. LP



For the English a snow storm lasting thirty minutes is enough to trigger apocalyptic headlines and a shortage of rock salt deep enough to give local councilors a restless nights sleep. Its snowing outside as I write and I know that even a depth of an eighth of an inch is going to be enough to stop me from seeing Midwich play in Leeds tonight. A journey of around 10 miles laid waste by a flurry of snow. I know I’m pathetic and that I should pull on my stout walking boots and head out of the door chin first into the tumult like Scott of the Antarctic but when given a straight choice between a night in with a bottle of Rioja, some glowing coals, a Porter Wagoner LP, today's Guardian, some freshly made vegetable soup, crusty bread, butter, salt, pepper, the cat, Mrs Fisher against the chance of being stranded in Leeds then … sorry Rob.You wait years and years for the return of the mighty Midwich only for the first significant snowfall of the year to bomb it like an avalanche. Bugger.

Tonight then I shall drown my sorrows in front of the glowing coals with the help of a bottle of the aforesaid Rioja and [after the Wagoner] another luxurious infusion of the latest Nackt Insecten LP.

I’ve been indulging in the new Nackster for a couple of weeks now and to say its pulled me out of a moribund hole is something of an understatement. Its as if I’ve been acting the Terry Waite part for ten years when along comes the jailor and chucks me the keys to a DB8 and says ‘here you go lad take her for a spin’. And deep, deep down I’d been hoping that this was going to be a drone album and a drone album it is. With massive knobs on. Not that I disliked Nackt Insecten’s past noise works [and not being familiar with the previous Quantum Odyssey] but having heard the droning contribution to the recent Pjorn comp I was secretly hoping that what I held was an LP’s worth of an extension of that work and so it proved.

I bumped into Mr. Ruaraidh Sanachan Nackt Insecten in Brighton recently. He’d made the long trip from Scotland and told me he’d been working for WFMU which as jobs go is up there with the best of them [helping out a New York freeform radio station versus sticking your finger up a criminals bum ...] that trip must have had an effect for out goes the noise and in comes the drone. But its not just the drone itself, its the manner of delivery: kissable vinyl, a sleeve that reeks of late 60’s psychedelia, a Led Zeppelin font. Its a nostalgia trip for sure but after getting all grumpy over the last two uninspiring review offerings this has come at just the right time.


There are no duds on this album. There are no dead minutes, no areas of murky limbo where your attention wanders. From the first it grips like a warm wet blanket. ‘Solar Plexus Skyscraper’ is all organ swell and dirty granulating overdubs of random key stabs that erupt like volcano plops. ‘Deathcatcher’ is an eastern tinged collaborative affair with finger cymbals, shruti box and twanged  tambura. ‘The Atomic Age’ sees more organ swell but this time with disintegrating top end key abuse that breaks down and dissolves only to emerge again and again. ‘Suicide Overdrive’ is the choicest cut of all - a chugging Motorik monster of a driving beat complete with layered high fret guitar wank that has me in mind of Neu!, Chris Carter, Tangerine Dream and the lords of Leeds, Ashtray Navigations. Its incessant beat never deviating, a relentless beast that lolls round until its eventual and unwelcome collapse.

Easily the best release to pass through these hands this year and the one most likely to be still being played when the snows return in November.




Contact:

http://www.blackest-rainbow.moonfruit.com/
http://www.myspace.com/nacktinsecten

Kufuki

Kufuki
Wonderyou CD. WNDU006


Still in Japan, still pointless. Whats with the Japs? Has all that radiation gone to their heads [feet,arms,internal organs?]. The Orient used to be a place of mystery and intrigue, now it seems like the home of half baked ideas and ill thought out processes.

Kufuki are a Japanese trio using traditional instruments, treated vocals, analouge synths and electronics. The results sound like the sort of aimless early 90’s overproduced, dub beat, ethnic farts as churned out by rote from the likes of Future Sound Of London and The Orb. To make matters worse somebody thought it would be a terrific idea to include messages of support from Kufuki fans around the globe so in between every other track there's someones recorded message - the first of which is delivered by some hyperactive teenage Japanese girl whose over enthusing was so painful to my sensibilities that it made me shout SHUT UP at the speakers. Lots of fun for Kufuki, not so for this listener. One track in particular stood out as being particularly awful [a triumph itself on a release littered with awfulness] - it sounded like a Japanese version of the Tom Tom Club’s ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ with the lyrics spoken by a Japanese robot while a zillion squiggly electronic effects swarm all over a moronic dum dum dum beat.

Its quite possible that this maybe one of the worst releases I’ve ever heard in my entire life and I don’t see how sitting here thinking up different ways to abuse it is going to make me feel any better so its best that I just stop now. Another one for the box [see previous post].

All of this makes the inclusion of an Astral Social Club remix all the more baffling. Its the last track and I dutifully sat through this muck in order to get to it. Was it worth it? Was it fuck.


Contact: http://www.naturebliss.jp/WNDU/wndu006en

Creative Destruction

Creative Destruction
Various Artists
Hypnagogia. GIA07. 2XCD. 300 Copies



Featuring:

Kazuma Kubota
Government Alpha
Incapacitants
Defektro
Thirdorgan
K2
Astro
Guilty C



If I’d have been handed a Jap noise comp 15 years ago I’d have probably squealed like a girl and spent the next ten minutes dancing in a tiny circle on tippy toes. In 2012 its a different story. I’m often asked if I still listen to noise and the honest answer is that apart from when I’m given something to review I rarely do. Thats not to say I don’t enjoy the chance to indulge but as the years march on I find my appetite for it diminishing at an alarming rate. I still enjoy a live show of course and I feel that this is where noise still has the chance to flex its muscles but given a double CD of it to peruse I’m finding it hard to generate any enthusiasm.

[As an aside - in a recent bout of shelf clearance I took all my CD’s and hid them in boxes. Its my take on the Blue Peter time capsule thing in which you take a number of everyday items, bury them in a box and wait 50 years for someone to discover it hoping that they’ll marvel at the bizarreness of the contents - vinyl was being neglected and the balance had to be addressed - numerous noise CD’s had the lid shut on them for the good of my well being and into a dark future they went.]

Not the best time then to be handed a double disc set of Jap noise but with curiosity forever lurking I took the bait. And half way through the second disc I ejected and decided that I really had lost it. I could have waited until I was in a more receptive mood but then that could be a very long way off. I did though [eventually] dutifully listen and decided that there was neither anything very bad on here but equally, and more importantly, there wasn’t anything really remarkable. I made detailed notes. I watched youtube videos. I ventured on to various websites. I started writing what I consider to be the bog standard noise review .. sounds like this … slap of metal …  ear shred par excellence … but it wasn’t working. All that came through was the realisation that at this moment in time a double CD of Jap noise just wasn’t doing it for me.

Anybody who knows their Jap noise artists will know what to expect here. A dodgy Incaps track aside theres some fine noise being made here and in the case of Guilty C a terrific 16 minutes worth of noise drone that eventually managed to lift me from my cups but by then my mind was made up. Into the box it goes.

Rammel Weekender Nottingham 9-11 March

The first weekender of the year gives us hope that there is light at the end of the dark winter months. Yours truly will be spinning some records on one of these nights. Tickets are limited.

Astral Social Club
Bill Kouligas
Blood Stereo
Bong
Cheapmachines
Con-Dom
Dieter Muh
Ekoplekz
Ellen Mary McGhee & Sophie Mary Cooper
Heatsick
John Wall
John Wiese
Kogumaza
Mark Durgan
Modulator ESP
Nacht Und Nebel
Nick Jonah Davis
Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides
Patrick Farmer
Patrik Fitzgerald
Sleaford Mods
Spoils and Relics
Storm Bugs
Surfacing
Swallows
These Feathers Have Plumes 

 TICKETS

RAMMEL CLUB

Must Die Records / Wrested Thread / Bedawang

Wrested Thread
Must Die Records. CD. MDR 017

Bedawang - Skin=Deception
Must Die Records. CD. MDR 020


Contact: http://mustdierecords.co.uk/


The war against CD’s began in earnest with an offloading of a bag of MDR stuff to Campbell HQ. I had an inkling that he’d take to Nigel Joseph’s Mogodon beats and as it happened I was right. Those thick, syrupy doom laden beats layered all over with hundreds and thousands of diddly diddly guitar notes, the soundtracks to numerous nights in on the Fylde coast with nothing more than prescription drugs for company and the bang bang bang of someone hitting their head against a council flat wall went down like a stripper on a stag do.

And after having my negative thoughts regarding MDR checked somewhat by the sublime Bad Suburban Nightmare I was hoping for something heading more into that kind of territory [think esoteric, tumbleweed, Ry Cooder on a windswept Morecambe Bay in January kind of feel] what I got instead was one middling work of muddling noise and one 
of a rather more rewarding experimental nature.

Wrested Thread got off to a bad start after I visited the MDR website during a spot of pre-listening fact checking. There I was met by these words ‘“…pure aural abuse – certainly not one for the faint hearted”. Labeling your work with such an epithet I regard as rather foolhardy for there is no way on earth that you are ever going to fulfill such a claim. Pure aural abuse is what you get from the missus for coming home at seven in the morning pissed out of your brains minus a shoe with vomit down your shirt. Pure aural abuse is what The New Blockaders sound like coming at you through a 5000 watt PA system. Pure aural abuse is not what I got from Wrested Thread. What I did get was Astral Social Club on Blackpool drugs. Segue the tracks, replace painkillers with Timothy Taylors and you have a rather dull Astral Social Club album. I didn’t even approach it with caution, such is my nonchalance and lack of self preservation when inserting CD’s.

Things improved no end with Bedawang. Bedawang being the Belgian experimenter Christof Becu [who carries no epithets at all on the MDR website]. Not surprisingly I was more inclined to linger longer in Christof’s world seeing as how it contained sounds that were of recurring interest. The 24 minute closer ‘Blaschko’s Lines’ is the pick of the bunch; a taught affair in which the radiating therms of banked glow lamps buckle and fizz giving us a tempered noise drone that hardly alters through its course. The five preceding, and shorter, tracks range from star pulse radiation glitch to Sähkö like analogue beat. Becu sails close to the apocalyptic wasteland shores as created by the likes of Mika Vainio and encapsulates some of that feeling whilst adding touches of industrial ambience; half lidded pulses, deep rhythms, astronauts breathing, keeping the whole sixty minutes interesting enough to warrant return visits. More from Mr Becu please.


Must Die Records, even if they're only getting it half right are at least worthy of attention.






  

Merzouga - Mekong Morning Glory

Merzouga - Mekong Morning Glory
Gruenrekorder. Gruen 092. CD + Booklet


Mekong Morning Glory is a 49 minute journey in which the duo that is Merzouga transport the listener along the Mekong River taking in gentle wind chimes, screeching exotic birds and the sound of the Mekong itself emptying into the South China Sea. Its a delightful listen that is a relaxing as it is rewarding and made all the more so by the knowledge that the duo took their 2008 field recordings back to the studio in Cologne and mixed in prepared electronic bass [Jano Hanushevsky] and electronic sounds [Eva Pöppelin]. Pöppelin also takes on the producing duties and her results are a sonic adventurers delight.

Pöppelin has to take credit for the way in which she has matched the field recordings to the work done in the studio. Taught bass strings plucked like pizzicato violins are a match for the sounds of flocks of birds taking off, water fowl squawks could be electronic glitches, crowing cocks sit cheek by jowl with the haunting riff pulled from a two note bass string. When children’s voices appear the bass notes drop a tone and if you’d have told me I was in the midst of an Industrial Ambient release I wouldn’t have argued.

The journey unfolds at such an elegiac pace that I found it hard to sit through this release without nodding off and if you think this is being dismissive then you are wrong. In the space of about ten days I have played this every single night and without fail I’ve succumbed to its soporific charms. Upon waking I found myself at various stops along the way and it was as if I were being treated to some new found conflagration of bass pluck, torrential rain, children’s voices, whimpering dogs, waterfalls … 

Its at about the half hour mark that Merzouga eventually encounter mass civilization and the field recordings capture this; outboard motors, mopeds, Hari Krishnas, floating markets, the sound of chopping, crowds, conversations, traffic cop whistles, car horns, Vietnamese pop, people jumping in the river and when the wind chimes reemerge to the sound of the gushing sea you know your journey is at an end.

I was mesmerized by Mekong Morning Glory in a way that I haven’t felt by a piece of music for a long time. I may be a tad behind the times here but the way in which the natural world and the recording studio have combined here is a sheer delight. For the patient listener its rewards are immense.

Gruenrekorder have encouraged me to listen to a number of their other releases which are available for download and even though I’m no big fan of downloads I’ve been so overwhelmed by Mekong Morning Glory that I feel that to ignore them would be a grave mistake.


 Contact: www.gruenrekorder.de

Grey Park / Dear Beloved Henry / Albert Materia

Grey Park - Three Notes On Stockholm Palindrome
267 Lattajjaa. LTJ104. CDR
5€/8$



Dear Beloved Henry / Albert Materia
Split release on recycled cassette.
Hyster. Hyster13. 50 copies. 2€





Grey Park releases arrive like birthday cards with tenners in. Having said that Stockholm Palindrome doesn’t surpass The Odyssey of Juri Gagarin [which came in an inverted coffee bean bag] or Planned Confusion [which was … gasp, choke, a proper CD] it still manages to arrive covered in Finnish hoar frost though. These sparse deliveries from the Nordic climes are most welcome seeing as how I feel they convey the true spirit of the lone sonic adventurer - Yuri Gagarin was all Soviet radio broadcasts [in reverse], with star radiation pulse for company. Planned Confusion was lightly flecked experimental drone made with stuff kicking about on the floor. There was the odd single and cassette too but these two releases are the ones that are usually floating around here [mainly due to the fact that the coffee bag is so prominent].

Most GP releases have some kind of radio flicking going on in them, usually around the shortwave band, along with the feeling of having been stuck in a lonely house watching the snow come down. By treading a plank that wobbles between bedroom knob twiddler and art space pro Grey Park have managed to retain my interest over quite a number of years now.

Stockholm Palindrome’s three tracks have a mild leaning towards Industrialism especially with an opening of heavy machinery drone in which a deeply buried generator fights it out with a buffeting wind. A mild aversion to all things Industrial is no bad thing indeed and Grey Park’s daubing in the medium are fine things to indulge in. The needle stuck in a run out groove, the TV voices, the morose drones, tape reverse, air raid warnings, the lonely mariachi trumpet wail of the climax to Morricone’s Fistful of Dollars soundtrack layered, looped and morphed into new weirdness and then a noisy burst before spoken voices, a madman singing, Diamanda Galas being strangled, all of it petering out like a dying Geiger counter. Chuck in some enigmatic track titles [M.2.T.2010, 2.2.T.P.A., F.A.F.O.D] and its another winner.


Hyster are Finnish too. I remember them for a particularly impressive live Dieter Müh release and for the fact that all their releases arrive on recycled cassette. Who Dear Beloved Henry is I have no idea though. Here he give us a single 24 minute track of tape spool drone, sea side organ slowed and distorted, fingers on fast running capstans until a revelation of its source; a Casio thump beat, a two chord keyboard chug with plenty of right hand plink to while away the dying minutes.

Albert Materia’s mainly piano built songs sound like Cecil Taylor doing a David Sylvian impression in French. On the first track you can actually hear him approach the piano and take a drink before cracking his knuckles and launching into a song in which each machine gun strike of the piano matches a vocal utterance.

Anyone familiar with David Sylvian’s more out there moments will feel a similarity with the eleven minute, self explanatory ‘Lullaby’. The French [?] accent, the mournful, wobbling delivery, the minor chords, the sense that I feel Materia is making this up as he goes along all adds to the charm of the piece. With his voice wavering between a dithering falsetto and a stuttering fa fa fa f-f-f-f-resh-ness he manages to imbue his songs with a naivety thats rarely found these days. His lyrics are also worth hearing:

I am the people
Where is my heart?
I am the chatter
I am the the noise, noise
I am the springtime noise

Its all rather marvelous. Somebody should give him a recording contract.






Contact: 267 Lattajjaa



Contact: Hyster

Asymptotem

Asymptotem - Four Lines Cross
Total Vermin 58. Cassette





According to the Total Vermin blog Asymptotem were missing one vital ingredient the day these two tracks were recorded; Joincey. The peripatetic experimental drone pop maestro who finds his path crossing Manchester, Oxford and Stoke on Trent, whilst dabbling in more groups and recordings than seems humanly possible, was denied his place at the table due to the vagaries of the British rail network. Which is sad but having said that these two twenty minute pieces of achingly beautiful and whimsical folky oh so English drone are so damned perfect that we’ll just have to pretend he was there all along.

With a six piece line up containing two Sculptress members as well as TV boss Stuart Arnot I took an educated guess as to where these two tracks would be heading before insertion and playback but this still didn’t prepare me for what lay within. Both sides dwell in similar Sculptress territory; flutes, random drums hit with muffled mallets, the odd moaned vocal, kids toys, but here we have added beefed up and droning electric guitar, a drone that had me in mind of Matthew Bower playing from beneath a damp horse blanket. His droning guitar was there but made to stand at the back giving the other instruments space in which to be heard. But this is only on one side.

I don’t know which side it is which now but its the one that begins with a delightful twin flute duet before various of the above elements are added culminating in a crescendo of electric guitar wail that disappears into a trumpet squeak, amp buzz field of gorgeous emptiness. The other begins with blown tubes, Swannee whistles, sawn strings, softly hit drums, the piece held in suspension before the sound of Tuvan throat like moaning/singing and another flurry of drums. At times sparse Edgar Froese or maybe a more avant-garde Whicker Man soundtrack. However you want to compare it these are two tracks of outstanding beauty and creativity.

And it really is all so utterly delightful and for some reason so utterly English. Both tracks were recorded late on a summers day, maybe a rare warm one with ale in reach and bare arms on display. Maybe a picture of the Queen on the cover would have been more appropriate? Made me want to make a cup of tea, lay the floor with a map of England and look wondering if there were lay lines linking Stoke and Manchester.




Contact: http://totalvermin.blogspot.com/

Pjorn 72 comp

Various Artists - Songs About Dying
Pjorn 72 CDR. PjornCD0023


I was amused by a survey in which 3,000 of Greggs customers were asked a number of questions relating to the festival that is Christmas. Ten percent of those asked ‘What is Christmas?’ thought that it was an invention brought about so that we could all give each other presents. Others thought we ate turkey at Christmas because thats where Mary and Joseph were born and another large portion of up to date, finger on the pulse human beings thought that the first day of Christmas was the 1st of December. And on it went. The true meaning of Christmas disappeared a long time ago and with each passing year gets buried deeper and deeper under a man made mountain of Argos ads, well worn Xmas singles and celebrity chef programmes. If you want to find the true meaning of Christmas these days head to your local out of town shopping center or sit glued to your 50 inch plasma TV for two weeks.

Like most people I’m just glad of the break at this time of year. Its a chance to overdo it on the wine and victuals without having to worry about an alarm clock going off and theres always the prospect of a bracing mid afternoon walk with a nip of whisky to warm you along the way. Of course the telly is shite. The TV companies would have you believe that Christmas time is two weeks of televisual bliss, fun for all the family, a televisual feast the likes of which we haven’t seen since the year before and when you switch it on its just a turd with a bit of tinsel on it.

I prefer to spend Christmas in the kitchen cooking meals to a background of contemplative Bob with the odd Harry Smith comp thrown in for counterpoint. As the wine works its way into my system the songs become more familiar, the vocal accompaniments more heartfelt and the food more forgotten. And then its to the Poang for an evening of Late Bottle Vintage Port and the review pile which I must admit has, in general, been of an outstanding quality this year.

I think my audience knows what I like by now and word has got round. You could argue that this is a bad thing - giving me what I like in the expectant return of praise - it could make me complacent. I prefer to see it this way - I could be wallowing in a sea of self indulgent, underworked, badly copied CDR’s with lousy art work, work that has little in the way of edification and has about as much chance of entertaining me as the Strictly Come Dancing final and the Hairy Bikers Christmas Special all rolled into one. I prefer the former.

Songs About Dying slips into the former category, but only just. The artwork doesn’t do much for me, theres nothing in the way of information and the CDR is badly recorded - it has those annoying digital clicks that curse many a rushed CD job [I overcame this by playing it at a low volume on the PC].

Fifteen artists then with most of them chipping in with something worthwhile - not a bad result for any comp really. Those that can hang their heads in shame though are UFO Antler Band with a contribution that sounds like a PE track recorded inside a Space Invader machine and Incest Whore who sound like a thrash doom band recorded in a paper cup. The rest brings much delight, especially the Nackt Insecten track with its slowly drifting seven minutes worth of organ drone purity [when did the Nackster drop the noise baton?]. Other highlights include Dead Labour Process who sound remarkably like Milovan Srdenovic, Andy Jarvis with a luscious keyboard/guitar drone thats more than a match for the emeraldic Mark McGuire, Usurper with a recording of a board game in progress, Jazzfinger, the ever wonderful Culver, Blood Stereo and Grant Smith.

Without going to the trouble of Googling all the artists involved here I’m pretty sure that they’re all UK based. Pjorn, for whatever reason they deem fit, have put this out into the world with little in the way of information. Pjorn must assume that the listener, with a PC and internet connection, will do the leg work for them. In pre-internet days [dons grumpy old bastard stance] you provided contact information for the benefit of the artists and listener alike but with social networking the norm this is leading to laziness and in my mind an impression of another release out of the way, let the buggers do it for themselves.

As a snapshot of whats happening in the UK today [again I’m assuming this is a fairly recent release] you’d gather that theres some people dabbling in drone, some in Dada like Schimpfuckery and some in deconstructed thrash but without recourse to a computer you'd be left pretty much in the dark as to anything but the track listing.  Still, it beats watching the Hairy Bikers.

Christopher Hitchens and The New Blockaders

The New Blockaders - Simphonie in X Major
Hypagogia. Cassette. PN03. 200 copies.


I first became aware of Christopher Hitchens earlier this year in an article written for the Observer newspaper. The article in question was written by his long time friend and author Martin Amis, in it you discover that Hitchens was a polemicist, an atheist [or as he would have preferred ‘an anti-theist’], an intellectual, a journalist, a writer, a documentary maker, contrarian, a thorn in the side of hypocrisy and the kind of person who would never suffer fools [The article is offline now but theres the great story of Amis and Hitchens enjoying a restaurant meal at the height of Thatcherism. As they were eating their meal a group of yuppies arrived one of whom decided to take it upon himself to arrange the tables to suit his liking. It soon became apparent to the pair that this fop haired product of materialism would need their table for his own devices. The man dropped to his haunches beside Hitchens and said ‘I know you’re going to hate me for this ..’ to which Hitchens cut in ‘you’re wrong, we already hate you’]. I don’t normally buy a Sunday paper but we were on holiday in Northumberland and with a lazy day stretching ahead in front of me I bought the Observer and read every word of Amis’s piece until  somewhere deep in my skull a sticky went up with ‘buy some of Hitchens work’ written on it. It wasn’t until a few months had passed that the sticky popped up in my head and I bought ‘God Is Not Great’, where Hitchens, with his subtle humour and giant intellect, dismantles religion and in the process left this humble reader wondering why I had wasted so many years not reading Hitchens. Not that there are many writers like Hitchens.

Hitchens passed away on Friday the 15th of December after succumbing to a cancer no doubt brought on by his huge appetite for whisky and cigarettes. At the time of his dying I was reading a collection of his essays [Love, Poverty & War], when I opened his book on Friday morning this was at the top of the next page:

“The moral superiority of atheism … is often less stressed than its intellectual superiority. The intellectual advantage hardly needs elaboration: we do not normally accept unprovable assertions at face value, however devoutly they are maintained, and we posses increasingly convincing explanations for matters that once lay within the province of the supernatural. Skepticism and inquiry and doubt are the means by which we have established such a civilisation as we posses, professions of sheer faith are a hindrance to investigation both moral and material.”

Its typical Hitchens and the kind of thinking that gets even the slightest inquisitive mind fishing about for a drive gear.

In the same book you find this:

"[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."

And in 'God Is Not Great' this:

"My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either."

The really sad thing about Hitchens passing is that he had reached the time in life when he was just about able to sit and bask in the reflective glow of his body of work.

I could go on for a while here, theres the dismantling of Henry Kissenger, The Clintons, Mother Theresa, his shift of political stance after 9/11, the heavy drinking, his verbal battles with lumps like George Galloway and numerous American TV news show presenters .. its best that you investigate him yourself. May he rest in peace.

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Simphonie in X Major is another TNB release getting the 20th anniversary treatment from Hypnagogia and the only thing thats running through my mind is how much reissue treatment can one man take? Its worth remembering that once upon a time things used to get deleted forever but in the 21st century you’re nobody until the carcass of your back catalogue has been picked over, remixed, enhanced, put on the latest format and [in the case of Pink Floyd] shoved in a box with a bag of marbles, a scarf and some coasters. Not that I’m comparing the picking over of the the Pink Floyd corpse with a cassette reissue of a noise classic from 1991. I’m still certain though that any self respecting TNB fan will already have a copy of Simphonie in X Major be it on the original Hypnagogia LP or as part of the 4CD Gesamtnichtswerk. To have it on cassette is worthwhile though. Its two twenty minute-ish tracks contain all that is good in the world of TNB and by extension the noise world at large. Listening back to it on headphones is an aural delight that takes in massive amounts of junk scrape, reversed tapes, buckets of nails, cutlery wars, medieval catapults being drawn taught all of it harnessed into a framework of surroundsound tumult. I do recommend headphones for this by the way - there are moments on first movement when the sounds panning from ear to ear leave a gorgeous space of wasteland somewhere just about where your nose should be.

Seeing as how the obverse to X Major has already been dealt with by Harbinger Sound its a shame that O Minor will probably not now see the light of day on cassette which is a shame. Hiss or crackle? You decide.