Tales from the Attic - Scene VI: Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind.

Tales from the Attic – Scene VI: Revolutions of a 33 and 45 kind.

timemachinezine

Uh. Oh. Er. Hello. Us again. Good eh…we’re getting the hang of these missive things now, this being the third in as many weeks. Mind you we have rifled our way through something like 350 of them if you count its sister Singled Out spot. And yet for all these musings we’ve cobbled out over the years this has to be the 23rd best of the bunch. So proud of it we are that we’ve decided to give this little baby a name – Cecilia. So everyone say hello to Cecilia – Cecilia say hello to everyone. Now play nicely.

This missive features incidentally – fuzzy things, witchy things, spacey things, noisy things, psychy things, poppy things, trippy things, post punky things, pre post punky things, proggy things, folky things, psychy prog folky things, spectral things, woozy things, spectrally woozy things and woozily spectral things – you can tell I’m losing the will to live – more of the same though not the same probably next week or later this week if you are really unlucky – I’m edging my bets that on the latter. Faffing aside we do recommend you check out the wonderful live take of the murder of crows tagged to the backside of this missive – you will be wooed and seduced that’s not to say we are encouraging you to skip the bits in the middle because you’ll miss all those proggy, punky, post punk, pre post punk, witchy, fuzzy………things and anyhow what’s a little eye ache amongst friends….contact details at the foot of this….

By far one of the finest things we’ve had the pleasure of hearing all year is the umpteenth full length from Woods. You may well question our flippancy and even mistake it for laziness but this lot have strayed well beneath our radar sneaking out over the years would be classics that have been the cause of swooning and feinting fits amid the more in tuned underground cognoscenti. First appearing on our player scarcely a few weeks ago with the arrival of their limited 7 inch ’Cali in a Cup’ – I won’t deny I was a tad mortified to find that I’d actually managed to get through the days ignorant of their existence, one listen of said single was enough to have us smitten and adoring, the bleached blast of harmonica fanfares marooned upon the lolloping stumble into sun caressed west coast environs – which just for standing in earshot of the blighter gave you a golden self tan – clipped it with the kind of feel good effervescence that you suspect where it to be bottled and traded over chemist counters would render a populace overdosing on happiness. So taken were we that no sooner had we spied their Shrimper released split set with Amps for Christ looking lonesome and unloved in the record rack it was setting our hi-fi all a glow in the kind of fond misty eyed wonder normally reserved for the likes of the Beach Boys and the Byrds with admiring glances being particularly afforded to the side stealing ‘wind was the wine’ – incidentally featured here – being smouldered and turned in the kind of mercurial majesty that hinted at a young and impressionable Mr Wilson peaking enviably at the Gibbs songbook whilst applying a kaleidoscopic re-phrasing of the wares of Left Banke.

Everything about ‘Bend Beyond’ works, it never tires on repeat listens, instead it reveals more with each additional peek, our copy even came pre scratched – I kid you not – which despite arriving sealed and shrink wrapped kind of added to fun, the set housed in an attractive gatefold sleeve comes replete with a download code card for all those heathens who swapped your turntable for a naff mp3 player – bet you feel swizzed now. ’bend beyond’ trades to a blissfully beautified coalescence of fading summers and bitter sweet crushes, at once longing and homely, it provides for a master class in breathless simplicity, perched upon a genteel lilt that shimmies and swerves between soft psych and laid back porch rocking sereneness (the parting ‘something surreal‘), the melodies rolled in honey crusted rubs sweetly enhanced by the drifting harmonies make for an alluring acquisition.

Reference wise it trades admiring nods to Buffalo Springfield and a youthful Neil Young canon (not least the opening title track with its swathing of camp fire lit lilts and off centred psych fried wonkiness) , elements of Gram Parsons and Michael Nesmith arrest the grooves, better still and this is where things get clever its softly marinated psych tweaking imagines the entire output of the Elephant 6 collective carefully condensed, honed and fractured into its best moments, likewise with the Doleful Lions (see the homely moon glowed sepia lit ‘back to the stone’) while admirers of the early career offerings of summer hymns (the gorgeously sun kissed and cruise controlled ‘impossible sky’ being the case in point) and mid career Mercury Rev most notably ‘Deserter’s Songs’ are heartily advised to delve into its warming delights.

Amid these grooves stir lost gems – the fragile and wide open vulnerability of the opining ’It Ain’t Easy’ cuts deep with tearful realisation The frazzled and fried handiwork of Mr Meek courses through the fuzz framed arabesque mantra that is the briefly out of step ‘Cascade’. All said nothing quite comes close to the softly purring burn of ‘Find them Empty’ and the wigged out ’Size meets the Sound’ – the former sounding as though its just stumbled blurry eyed off one of those essential vault opening 60‘s garage compilations, this slab of ethereal ear candy shimmers to the blessed out spectral haze of sonic searchlights and the subtle encoding of shade adorned struts – frankly the best thing that the Eyes and Wimple Witch never recorded. As to the latter a cool as f*** slice of smoked out kaleidoscopic head expanding freak beat dropkicked out of a heyday UFO. An utterly necessary purchase – nuff said.

Next up on the you must get this recommended list is a delightful curio from Finders Keepers offshoot imprint Bird. ‘1612 Underture’ by the eccentronic Research Council…..here’s a wee video to get your appetites wetted and your head space prepped…

Easily proving to be the most extraordinary and thoughtfully worked release to emerge from the extended finders keepers collective to date in so far as the various aims, ideas and its ultimate realisation come to manifest upon the grooves within. On a personal note ‘1612 underture’ has been drifting in and out of our ear space for a few weeks now and its only in recent days that we were able to nail a finished copy. Available on both vinyl and CD, the wax version comes housed in a heavy carded hand made textured sleeve whose minimalist design aside being eye catching gives broad hints of a melodic vision steadfastly grounded in an early 70’s analogue age. Described by the sleeve notes as a ‘theatrical fakeloric sound poem’ inscribed by part socio / political and feminist manifesto commentary, a ’homage to the legendary Lancasterian sisterhood’ that questions, points and prods at the injustice of events arising exactly 400 years ago, the Eccentronic Research Council – Messrs Adrian Flanagan of kings have long arms fame and I Monster’s Dean Hohner invite Maxine Peake and a select number of acquaintances into their inner circle to engage in a psycho graphical drama or rather more a haunting fantasia that sweeps back and forth across a 400 year old timeline, one minute re-imaging the trial through the eyes of the 12 accused – the Pendle Witches’ – the next re-posited in a modern day context holding a mirror and drawing, disturbingly, parallels in today’s society in so much as the lot of the working class being crushed underfoot by the uncharitable demands, greed and suspicion of a landed class system and the blue blood establishment. Both haunting and at times humorous – (the sly tucking in of points of truth of falsehoods pertaining to potions and herbal remedies once the rite of trial today the bread and butter (or should that be dripping) of your local chemist) ‘1612 Underture‘ is possessed of a frothing labyrinth of reference markers as English as pie and chips that positively ooze of Northern grit as it feeds on a healthy dietary incidence of 70‘s TV culture and 70’s Brit horror soundtracks Fuse to this template the subtle skirting and nibbling around the kind of aural hideaways frequented by those hauntologist practitioners the advisory circle, focus group et al and populate the melodic ley lines with an operatic musicalia of woozy radiophonic workshop weirdness (especially the hide behind the sofa ‘malkin cat trapped behind a wall’ – being much tuned into the fragmented isolationism of the sound-scapes used on ‘Dr Who and the Daemons’) and proggy fugues (as on ‘no hackney cab to gallows hill’ – itself atmospherically charged to a deeply alluring and ever darkening gothic groomed chambertronic suite that imagines a macabre murder in the dark musical chairs played out by Add N to X and Bronnt Industries Kapital with add on classic Broadcast framing). Elsewhere a nod to kraut rock materialises on ‘autobahn 666’ wherein by way of casual glances to the psycho graphical musicality of Swimmer one’s ’dead orchestras’ and Nigel Kneale’s ’Quatermass and the pit’ a pulsating motorik groove over which is layered Peake’s as a matter of fact spoken word delivery blends to spell craft a devil’s drive by. Centrepiece of the set comes with the arrival of the gloriously soft macabre shimmer toned spectral psych wicker-esque chant of ‘another witch is dead’ which with a sensual mercurial deftness waltzes through a circus styled carnival led from the fore by a flame torch toting Morton Valence. Essential for those who prefer their pop intake slightly skewed and off the beaten track.

Those of you fancying a spot of additional research are minded to take a stroll to the collectives sound cloud page where you can download the extended ear turning and hip wiggling sample tonic stew entitled ‘spools for net abusers 1’ – .http://soundcloud.com/the_e_r_c

Goes without saying that if you like the eccentronic research council and all that gubbins then you may be equally turned on by the Project Moonbase team. Airing on a weekly basis from some secret sound shed at the end of a long winding path leading to a rickety door marked ’keep out – burn your head experiments in progress’, impish duo DJ Bongoboy and MC Zirconium – clearly not their birth names you understand and hiding beneath pseudo identities to protect the innocent – hold the nation to ransom by playing their latest finds rooted out from the back of unloved record racks, flea markets, house clearances and charity emporiums to light up the dull and staid interweb airwaves amid a positive cornucopia of kooky strangeness that encompasses all bases from the eccentric to the esoteric with occasional embarrassing thrown in for lively discussion. Current transmission is the infamous ’yo ho ho’ special which invites all to hoist the jolly roger and set sail to partake in dastardly deeds across the sonic high seas for a hearty swashbuckling adventure of shanties, sea faring salvos and n’er do tuneage. Previous edition – personal space’ was a spacey disco special featuring new tunes by giant claw and sone institute which alas haven’t so far troubled our hi-fi but rest assured various demands have been issued henceforth. http://www.projectmoonbase.com/

Also on a similar note Jonny Trunk of Trunk records fame hosts a weekly two hour extravaganza entitled ’OST’ which typically serves as a freaky feast of library exotica, TV soundtracks, strange film scores, radiophonic weirdness and manner of lounge, psyche, public broadcast idents – alas no updated pod casts to download – the last being the ’I’d format’ special aired the end of June – that said scroll down a little and you’ll be suitably engaged in an ITC TV inspired cars and spies soiree – http://podcasts.resonancefm.com/archives/category/shows/ost – staying with resonance fm a little while longer – the exotic pylon returns after a summer break and features a very special live recording of sone institute – second mention this missive alone – begging letters dispatched for that new ‘a model life’ set – alas no pod casts or streams at present – http://exoticpylon.com/radioshow/

Returning briefly back to the finders keepers label – we should have mentioned this one ages ago given we picked up the blighter on sight at a local record emporium and only now regret not returning later to nab its partner release ‘possession’. typically attractive looking in terms of sleeve design which incidentally comes with extensive retro set sleeve notes on the flip cover, Andrzej Korzynski’s ‘third part of the night’ comes sumptuously pressed up on 10 inches of heavy duty wax. As said 1 of 2 releases drawn from the Korzynski sonic vault the other the ‘possession’ OST from ‘81 we missed out on the day due to limited funds – there where in fact three collaborations between director Zulawski and this most inspirational of Polish composers the third being the as yet unreleased ‘diabel‘. hitting the cinemas in ‘71 ‘third part of the night’ is adorned with one of the most wigged out fuzz fringed freak outs ever to have opened a flick for ‘czolowica’ is stewed in a buzz sawing head trip of frazzled stoner beatnik accents which may well have a few of you beat grizzled heads out there simply all a swoon with admiring jaws agape not least down to the fact that into the melting pop is served a fried cocktail of blaxploitation themeology and barking slabs of fried prog jazz jamborees – certainly something for those who recently plugged into that excellent and criminally under-publicised Witch box set entitled ‘we intend to cause havoc’ which if we think on and remember we’ll mention more about later this missive. From thereon in the set takes a more lush passage of aural activity, seductive string swirls, full on smouldering lounge lilts and the sophisticat mirage of heartstring tugging torch trimmed motifs whose creative radar plugs succinctly in the sensuous dream-scaped artistry of Komeda, Vannier, Barry (not least the string sequences ‘na strychu’ and ‘szpital’ – both utterly bewitching) and Mancini – here you’ll find the cosmic vibrancy of the eloquent ’tango’ trading beguiled blows with the noir scratched spy theme exotica of ’w instyucie’ and the tension racked atmospherics of the fragmenting ’Dworek’ the latter ably finding one suspects the admiring ear of Philippe Petit fans.

Out right now on the new finders keepers imprint cache cache – a label dedicated to the issuing of lost post punk treasures – is a pretty nifty compilation that seeks to scratch the surface and bring to the living rooms of a wider populace a few lost fragments from a once vibrant Irish post punk scene. 12 forgotten acts and 14 lost nuggets muddy and chill this superbly curated set. Entitled ’strange passion – explorations in Irish post punk, DIY and electronic music 1980 – 1983’ this collection shines a deserving light on those who strayed beneath the radar following the imploding of the punk and new wave and the ensuing fall out, Virgin Prunes being the most well known given their connection with U2’s Bono and the Edge, one of the most erratic and quite frankly skewed bands of their time, a mutant cabaret, it’d be safe to say that the Prunes were ahead of the curve in terms of style, compositional crafting and their general waywardness in refusing to kowtow to the usual verse chorus verse template – here found represented by the manic panic pop skree of ’twenty tens – I’ve been smoking all night’ which if anything ought to find admiring glances from fans of the sex gang children. Blending minimalist electronics and chill gripped atmospherics this set centres on a unique period in pop‘s development, the fall out from punk and the pursuing new wave scenes had opened people’s minds to possibilities, new technologies vis a vis electronic sound mediums had begun to be more freely available, mirroring the tiny scenes emerging in the likes of Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool – Ireland to was birthing a creativity new breed, a strong musical home grown press and a dedicated forward thinking national radio station gave free reign, a voice and much needed support and exposure to the emerging talents stumbling out of tiny bedrooms back dropped by battle scarred landscapes resulting from the intensifying troubles. A perfect companion release to those extensive recent memory releases by the loved Weird imprint – SM Corporation particularly catching the ear with ‘accentuate’ and ‘fire from above’ the former cleverly trimmed to a pulsating Kraftwerk-ian rhythm, ’strange passion’ sounds like a prime cut Peel play list from the day (especially chant chant chant’s play safe’ which rumbles to an austerely edgy aural canvas bled from the body parts of and also the trees, artery and clock dva) and collects together 14 forgotten gems from yesteryear, for the best part each steeled with a heavy presence that nods to Joy Division not least the Peridots ’no water’ and the threat’s ‘high cost of living’ – the former dourly dipped in a gloomy minimalist fracturing to which admirers of modern eon and b-movie ought to duly check out as a matter of urgency while the latter hints at a split persona whose creative DNA tweaks to a sparsely chilled austerity that needles a ’transmission’ era JD whilst simultaneously absorbing the shrill psychosis of magazine albeit here replete with a hefty PIL detox. ’last days’ by PH should satiate the needs of those whose listening radar wobbles to the sound of Human League Mk 1 and the early adventures of the Passage while responsible for much grooving in the gaff was major thinkers frankly manic and schizoid ’avenue b’ that manages to blend demented Devo dialects with Robert Palmer’s ’looking for clues’ and a smattering of magazine motifs and then mixes the melee into a thunderously addictive party packing frisky jamboree. Somewhere else lurks tripper humane whose fractured and frailly minimalist ’discoland’ sounds like an early 80’s DIY drilled synth doodled wet dream all deadpan vocals and the Normal like voidness whilst Stano’s ’town’ is a deceptively funky little blighter that had us reaching for our 10 benson vinyl – kind of the Fall in a head on with telex if you ask me. Admittedly we here are much smitten by choice’s ’always in danger’ sounding like its fell off the groove markers of cherry red’s legendary ’pillows and prayers’ compilation and reminding this particular scribe of a readily more shy eyed ex post facto. all said best moments of the set are dogmatic elements ’just friends’ a bitter sweetly turned lo-fi lovely predating the whole sarah / twee pop phenomenon by several years and the fading glamour of operating theatre’s ’Austrian’ mainly due to the fact that it twists and turns sublimely from hysterical, to heavenly to hip wiggling in the blink of an eye.

Those of you wishing to gen up your irish post punk hardcore / noise scenes of times a present and long past are heartily recommended to check out http://diyirishhardcorepunkarchive.blogspot.co.uk/

Now for a brief picture show interlude….big in japan – an absolute classic…..

And finally from finders keepers we really must try and nail a copy of the Gary Sloan and Clone’s curio ’harmonitalk’ which is currently doing the rounds on the collectives cache cache imprint – gets confusing I know – anyway this originally appeared in 1980 as one of those private press type things in a limited 1000 only run – now I only mention this because Mr Sloan is an Alaskan harmonica enthusiast and well regular readers will be all too aware that we kind of go all gooey when we hear harmonicas littering wax grooves – anyhow here’s an album that littered with all manner of harmonica montages trimmed to a synth soaked mutant boogie that literally frazzles the head with its broad spectrum application of minimalist electro, prog, new age and technoid tinkering – sound clips via http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/discog_cache04.html – whereupon we suggest you plug into the Vangelis adrift sereneness of the sea faring ’good Indian’.

Incoming on static caravan – though we haven’t seen finished articles yet or for that matter entire sound clips given we’ve just had a sneak peek at a few excerpts on their sound cloud page – will be the first of three ultra limited 7 inch releases from a Manchester collective boasting members of the Earlies and the Whip amid their ranks. Tokolosh be their name – apparently an impish spirit who can go invisible on swallowing a pebble – you see its not just the music you get here its pointless facts that may well come in handy on some naff tea time TV quiz show no names – oh alright you’ve twisted my arm – pointless – which as I’m here mentioning it can I just ask what the hell do the BBC spend our licence fee on – certainly not new studio sets that’s for certain because I swear I eyed these on ’going for gold’ many lives ago. Enough of the grumbling – Manchester band about to release debut seven inch – entitled ’tokohorse’ which – oops is the b-side and which from the 54 seconds we’ve so far managed to salvage is stoked sumptuously in a gorgeously head bowed heart heavy spectral soul sophistication all framed in the hushed sweep of majestic string arrangements and sighing harmonies – which I bet just after the clip fades charge up into a head butting bastard speed trash boogie – or maybe not. The a side – based on a very brief 30 second dosage – ’the hollow’ is a colossal head expanding psych prog folk pill drawing heavily on the ingredients of rush, jon Anderson and Jefferson airplane and pharmaceutically mixed and packed by the yellow moon band – though I could be wrong. http://soundcloud.com/tokolosh

Seamless link time – former static caravan and finders keepers charge beth jeans Houghton – see how we did that – hours of careful planning – oh alright you’ve sussed us – kind of tripped over this by accident – newie from the as previously advertised Beth Jeans Houghton – here with the hooves of destiny – something of a welcoming return to these pages given we adored in print her debuting brace of platters for the esteemed imprints mentioned above. These days relocated to Mute this one being her forthcoming single – entitled ‘Dodecahedron’ – there’s something divinely spectral about this celestial sortie, its hushed timbres, fluttering flurries of angel song, twinkling chimes and sense of shy like wonder captivates and plugs into the genus pool of Ms Bush’s ’hounds of love’ to adorn it in all manner of frosted fondants and winter-bound warmth, me I feel as though I should be decorating the in house Christmas tree – given its strangely becoming festive seasoning – and a nut roasting in front of an crackling open fire. Adorably enchanting as though that’d come as a surprise.

Strange picture show for it follows here –

Following on from our recent rummaging around the book shelf – mentioned here last dispatch – we’ve now re-read Kadwu Eshun’s excellent ‘more briliant than the sun’ tome and have now uprooted and started flicking through Ian Shirley’s ‘meet the residents’ biography – well I say biography – my ever sympathy to Mr Shirley in so much as what must have seemed like chasing a shadow – from the preface you are put on high alert as to what he’d set himself up against with cryptic messages emanating from the band refuting the notion that they’d given interviews over the years. Not sure whether the publication has been updated in recent years this re-edited copy originally saw the light in 1998 via SAF and takes the journey as far as the collectives 25th anniversary. Mixing art, culture, humour and a fair degree of avant surrealism the Residents have maintained a curious at odds relationship with pop viewing it with a predatorily aloofness and in doing things on their terms armed with a total disregard for compositional presets they have gone some way to re-mapping our appreciation of sound being seen more than a mere fashion pap or a convenient backdrop source. these days granting licence to Mute they are immersed in the possibilities of multi media regularly touring shows that are becoming evermore lavish and surreal……here they are at their most impish, playful and brutal – their butchering of the Stones ’satisfaction’….

Found straying off our somewhat unguarded and seemingly unsighted radar of late is the much loved bearsuit imprint. Purveyors of the weird, the wired, the wayward and quite frankly wonky, this collective prides itself on scouring the global airwaves for strange sonic communications and offering safe haven to those aural alchemists operating on the distant outer post markers of pops cosmos – or Japan as the case proves. Of course this lot should be no strangers to long time observers of these musings such similar compilations as this one have brought to our attention such gem like oddities as Whizz kid, Harold Nono and Taub all of whom I’m happy to announce feature amid the fracturing grooves of ‘run over by an elevator‘ – alas no Kirameki, Pdnc or Moomlooo this time but in their absence a whole host of other impish talent from the electronica divides with which to playfully mess with you head space are to be found shoehorned upon the enclosed 16 tracks. An absolute cornucopia of curios for here you’ll encounter the opening ambit and suitably bombastic greeting of Auskeur’s ’open ground’ as it looms with chilling potent with its elephantine fanfares much rooted in the sonic psyche of Jerry Goldsmith. The ethereal dream drift of Haq whose sighing bittersweet ’bees in my feet’ provides probably one of the sets stand out moments by far will melt hearts on first listen and sounds it has to be said not unlike a divinely ghost like and wounded broadcast in some romantic tryst with komeda and should equally arrest those who took heed of our recommendations a few years back and plugged into the smouldering seduction of musetta. Equally frazzling the ear candy sensations is N-qia‘s ‘managemente‘ a sumptuous and frankly schizoid jitterbugging demented doodle trading on low end bass pulsars and a sense of apocryphal collapse over which a siren-esque cortege sweetly drapes the imploding friction in weeping detachment. The aforementioned Whiz Kid – to clever by half and adored around these here parts set to task with a little tomfoolery in the kitchen sink, all chiming pots and pans wheezing and creaking upon a crooked child like key motif which soon blossoms into an extraordinary and dare I say desirable sweetheart that’s spectrally trimmed to a shy eyed graceful waltz like Francophile musical box poise that had us here imagining some magical meeting of l’augmentation and pram minds. Similarly traced in sophisticated romance is the mellowing tease of Harold nono and hidekazu wakabayeshi’s ’Family’ which glides along to a sublime purr that much recalled landshipping of old Its quite clear to us that eneme spend restless nights getting high on a frazzled cocktail of herbie hancock era ‘rock it’, art of noise and tiger beat platters for what else could explain the mutant funk glitch-tronica zoid intonations bleeding erratically from the skittish buzz burping beauty of the skewed ’Mosquito Bites’. Now maybe its just me but Bunny and the Horsemen’s ‘Chikyu Wa Mawaru’ really does like a prime slice of pop struggling to loosen itself from its wiring restraints, a dizzying array of mindsets seemingly playing from different pages of the same song book and forever going off message – still get past the chuckling samples the crooked time signatures and general discordance and something quite beautifully untamed and enchanting ghosts into view – we could I suspect grow to adore these fried souls. Suppa micro pamchopp are I suspect gold card carrying Cornelius fans or more pertinently sonic disciples of his wife Takako Minekawa for ‘people today started runrun’ is kookily framed in a cutely cosy tide of disconnected Dadaist accents and wig flipped hiccupping motifs all served into a frantic slice of subterranean funk. Memories of the early works of both maps and diagrams and minotaur shock come flooding through with the appearance of emlp’s delightfully sparsely dinked lo-fi snow globe that is ‘descending’ – a loveable lunar lullaby that lilts genteelly to a underpin of shuffling trip hop rhythms and a woozily becalming stillness whose occasionally key twinkling noir passages tweaked our inch time radar. Like some spectral and lovelorn distress call teleported from the far reaches of the voids the twinkling chime cortege of pleq’s ’metamorphosis part 1’ truly is a thing of demurring ice sculptured loveliness all opining sighs and glitch gulps. Somewhere else there’s the mournful and tender like aural apparition that is the excellently titled ‘lost in the forest of blank sportswear’ from anata wa sukkari tsukareta shimai which shyly stumbles amid a fuzz frosted longing landscape that admirers of early Tex La Homa grooves may well swoon to. Those fancying their aural delights tempted with bowed chimes and twinkle some trims lush in the celestial hushed reverence of a prayer garden and dream dipped in celestial swathes will do well to tune into Antonio de Braga’s simply arresting ’comp no.208’ not least because it stirs almost sleepy eyed amid a disarming though subtly haunting Komeda like artistry. And lest we forget to mention our fondness for Taub’s ’5-foot on the flipside’ – slow to burn, this darkly rain drizzled elegant darling assumes depth and dimension with the trickery of a magician’s hand, delicately dimpled in a souring down tempo timbre and channelled to a noir like spy themed persona there’s the feint though audible essence of Budd stalking its shadowy walkways. Emerging from the fog like some passing ghost ship are the frozen vaults whose ’first moments’ is coded in a twilight like aura and opines with the kind of head bowed majesty of set fire to flames. ‘moth’ by Doug Seidel is the collections sore thumb, that’s not to say the worst tracks I hasten to add – rather more the strangest – a kind of looned out archaic folk fanfare heralding some would town visit of a freak circus as were cobbled together by the freakishly zany mindset grouping of the Goons and Vivien Stanshall doing extra curricula sounds capes for those weird and wired eastern European animations of the early 70‘s. Its left to the aging children to close proceedings with ’the kennel club’ – a wonderfully sleepy headed murmuring lullaby that should leave eyelids a heaving and had us here subdued in a misty eyed remembrance of 70’s children’s TV notably ’bagpuss’ et al. more of the same and quick about it.

News reaches us from across the cyber waves that the first fold imprint will shortly be thawing into action with two releases being added to their esteemed and highly admired catalogue – both no strangers to these musings the first being a new set from wizards tell lies entitled ‘the failed science’ and something from Ben Sadler – better known to the music loving fraternity as them use them – in fact we got an email from just this morning from Ben giving us a heads up and dropping by an early viewing of ’the muse, the mountain’ via a download link – which rest assured is being adored as I write and will be up on the inspection blocks in time for the next missive. Now we’ve made a point of mentioning first fold because we owe them something of a small apology – two recent releases sent way back in the mists of time have seen fit to return home, into eye shot and straight onto the turntable. First up from Arc Vel, entitled ‘Orrery’ this eleven track multi genre bending suite is the work of Paul Wood a UK based electro alchemist whose application of mood, atmosphere and ear candy arrangements appears second to none. Now in the dim and dancey mists of time we used to get sent shed loads of stuff like this from the once ridiculously loved rednetic and smallfish imprints – sadly both appear of late to have gone into hiding though fear not we’ve placed missing in action requests and expect to hear news shortly. I mention this because in the initial moments of ‘orrery’ there’s a healthy nod towards a 90’s club culture, schooled no doubt in the aural artistry of techno / house godfathers the future sound of London, 808 state (especially on ‘maths textbook’ which its oceanic cascades and locomotif rhythmic squirreling) and Biosphere et al not least on the opening cuts ‘alpaca’ and ‘bedsidde’ the latter sumptuously caressed in a lilting framing of oriental charms and demurred cosmic flotillas of orbiting swirls, Wood smothers and arrests his sonic solitudes in starry eyed shimmers of feel good effervescence with the result that these milky mosaics pulsate, pop and purr to interlope seductively with serene sophistication. Best viewed in an after hours setting ‘orrery’ provides for a gloriously Technicolor headphonic trip, the melodies smooth, sleek and spacious translate a mesmeric transcendental calm – best experienced on the smokily mooched murmur of ‘LIN’. Here you’ll find the glitch tripped frost framed moonage of ‘f-trans’ impishly piloting the cosmic heavens while subtly channelling and powering itself on the tail smoke of Cornelius contrasting considerably with the divinely lonesome hollowing pastoral ache of ‘reframing things’ itself deftly eyeing a shy eyed and head bowed Vini Reilly back catalogue. Elsewhere there’s a genteel Balearic afterglow coursing throughout ‘Hippocampus’ as it tripwires and mutates upon a 360° axis to blossom into a sweetly delectable funky bruiser. That said matters take up a more intimate and introspective persona for the latter half, the yearning crystal tipped emerging with the assistance of Lisa Waldron on guest vocals who opining to serve some misty eyed folk magic dust is sat precariously atop a chattering collage of tripping beats and noodling wizardry.

Sticking with first fold for that aforementioned second lost album, this one arrived as it happens on a dinky little memory stick – quite cute it has to be said coming replete with a handy little – well what can I call it – a cotton neck chain type thing with which to carry said release around.- and impress your friends and be the envy of those who happily skulk around with work badges and stuff. Where I’m going with this is beyond me – back to safer ground – Boss Turbo doesn’t afraid of anything is the alter ego of one Phil Duckworth and not David who we initially mistakenly read it to be – David in case your thinking ‘has he lost it’ did feature at one time in these pages and was if I recall rightly connected to the Enraptured imprint scheme of things. Look – promise – I will not go off track again from this point on. Anyway Mr Duckworth or Boss Turbo doesn’t afraid of anything as he likes to be known may be better recognised as one half of Juneau projects of whom I’m embarrassed to admit haven’t as yet subdued our listening space. Any how the EP’s called ’learn dark basic’ and showcases BTDAoA’s aural manipulations by way of processed guitars, distorted vocals and an array of plug in software, the set inspired according to the press release by the moods and textures of cyberpunk author William Gibson gathers together 6 tracks – all of which if I’m perfectly honest we here are a tad smitten by and one of which is a sneakily hidden gem – more about that in a second. Utilising guitar / vocals and drums the five part ‘learn dark basic’ suite cosmically waltzes with a demurring at ease genteelness, pressed with a distinct sense of innocence and a fondness for retro the set opens to the fluffy pop precision of ’make light I’ purring atop a roving motorik underpin opines from some hitherto un-chartered outer marker chipped to a glowing celestial carnival motif serviced by a shy eyed star kissed ‘sparky and his magic piano’. More experimental is ’dark ghost object’ built upon a frosted and dislocated axis that hints at nocturnal regale by impishly snoozing toys once the lights and all sits still in the nursery while ‘make object cube’ with its ice chimed flotillas sounds like an impressionable ISAN of old ensconced in the Radiophonic Workshop recycling old open university and children’s instruction themes from a 70’s TV goggle box. Most alluring is the parting ethereal ‘do artificial intelligence’ – built upon a framing so frail and fragile that you suspect the merest tremble might cause it to shatter given its dimpled in all manner of wispy and woozy astral orbs upon which the lovelorn chattering caress of heavenly harmonics flitter and flutter making starry eyed glances at each other. All said it’s the sneakily hidden ’the god whale’ that had us all a woozy and purring in fondness, apparently a sample from a possibly intended ‘everybody builds a robot’ release – alas no information to confirm / deny or otherwise – what you get is a gloriously atonal nugget of sun scorched skree much attuned to a late 80’s New Zealand scene – Russell, Montgomery et al in some cataclysmic head on with Bill Horist interspersed with moments of Arabesque lucidity featuring a femme fronted Natasha Atlas styled mantra weathering against the arid aural atmospherics fracturing beneath.

Should also mention at this juncture that issue 2 of premier pli is now available to purchase, read and play – alas we haven’t spied a copy at the time of cobbling this together but what we can say is that it looks fine and dandy and well worth exchanging your hard earned dosh for – this issue features contributions from first fold’s extended family and includes for your listening appreciation an 11 track CD featuring john brooks, the resource centre, matt bower, matt saunders, golau glau and more – the collective will also be attending the Birmingham Zine Festival in Birmingham next month whereupon should you shuffle up to their stall there’ll be an assortment of rare audio and visual goodies as well as an array of eye catching posters – all of which we want.

Maybe its because I’m sitting illuminated by the ghostly glow of my trusted and near expiring laptop at exactly 2.03 in the morning, all is still outside, not a sound, even the breeze that has for the best part of the day chilled the warming effect of the Autumnal sun has retired to slumber, indeed maybe it’s that aforementioned stillness, the solitude and the quiet that’s affected my appreciation of Wall’s spectral like ’Magazine’ and caused me to hit the repeat button on more than one occasion in the last 15 minutes for through that solemn silence the spell is broken and softly beguiling our ear space is the murmuring yearn of the mysterious London based songstress Walls who armed with the merest electronic accompaniment whittles out the most effectually disarming and beautifully bruised sweetheart you’ll hear in a long time, agreed its almost non existent a bit like a whisper carried on a gentle night breeze neglected and dinked in fading hope, but it’s the minimalist application, its frail and fragile persona that breathes a fulsome warmth upon its hollowing and sparse framing as it crackles and fizzes that ensures its alluring ambition. Of course revealed in the cruel hustle and bustle of the daylight sun you fear for its tender tremble being crushed under foot. Incidentally its out via black cab sessions. http://soundcloud.com/wall100/magazine-single-version-wav

Its been an absolute age since we felt obliged to decorate the gaff in bunting to herald the appearance in these pages of something new from Hafdis Huld – the last time may well have been – if I recall rightly – us encouraging you in the general direction of a intimate acoustic set recorded from her kitchen last Xmas or thereabouts. Of course in need of no introduction in these musings for the former Gus Gus starlet has since carved out a considerable solo back catalogue and has to this scribes mind and indeed ears recorded two of the dinkiest and dippiest sweethearts to have arrested us in recent years in the guise of the clearly bonkers and lolloping ‘Tomoko’ and the Cute Cutie ’Action Man’. news reaches us that Simon Latham assisted by Lesko and Quano have been busy in the studio giving the aforementioned ’Action Man’ an up-tempo house style re-tweaking which okay admittedly sadly dispenses with the originals dreamy dizziness and alarmingly irresistible vulnerability but in its place enlists to its canvas something of that sense of frantic heart pounding that threatens to burst out of your chest each tine you see the object of your desires with all this coming haloed in a beautiful cosmic dinking – did we mention its quite cute – no – well its quite cute – arrives in four variations. Sneak listens here – http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_14593224?eid=A312428_14678374_31523098_lnk1001

Hopefully all being well we should have a stack of Kranky / Southern Lord releases gracing these pages next time out, for now though once on Kranky and now signed to Southern Lord, after a 10 year absence from our hi fidelity players the mighty Fontanelle return to action with a by all accounts spiffing set entitled ’Vitamin F’. gathering together the original line up of ex Jessamine’rs and bolstered by appearance by Earth, Jackie o’ motherfucker and eagle twin types ’when the fire hit’s the forest’ has been sneaked into cyberspace to serve as a taster of what to expect. No more noodling slo-core jams of old folks for this 7 minute opiate opus is a head expanding colossus of freakish retro groove that licks onto its sprawling lushly vibrant canvas a zonked out beard stroking bastardised beatnik babe grizzled and grooved in wah wah’s and shit faced out there-ness – in short a psyched out jazz juiced ju-ju of stoned out supercollider proportions. http://www.spin.com/articles/hear-the-first-music-from-fontanelle-in-a-decade

I’m certain we mentioned Mr Fogg’s ’Tightrope’ last time out, well it seems that London based glitch guru Crewdson has been busying himself re-wiring said sortie by candlelight into a demurring twinkle some musical box all sanded down in frosty snow skins and kissed with a most desirably affectionate lullaby lilt that’s scrunched longingly in trippy flurries of crunchy beats and ethereal wisps which when gathered together adeptly ghost past your defences and tug ever so gently on your inner child’s starry eyed wonderment. A link to the track whereupon you can grab yourself a free download to cuddle can be found by re-aligning your navigational radar somewhere towards here –
http://soundcloud.com/mrfogg/tightrope-crewdson-remix – expect to see his sophomore set ‘eleven’ featured in near future musings

Just can’t get enough of this, wrapped in 60’s honeycombs and sun screened with a definitive Spector like aura Opossum’s ’Girl’ is a sunny strutting shakedown with more wiggle than a 60’s teen thrilled beat grooving TV transmission and possessed of an infectiously itchy feel good effervescence that you suspect ought to arrive with its own sun screen – think of an endless summer styled twinning of Avi Buffalo and Soundcarrier types concocting sonic happy pills . Nuff said.

Happy clappy moving picture show here – prescribed daily dosage recommended……

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgh0RY-2Sg

Soundcarriers also have an ultra limited outing for the seldom seen great pop supplement imprint – I say seldom seen because the blighters fly off the racks at such speed its put you in a tailspin. Nevertheless 2 new 7’s from GPS – alas no links or ‘owt upon which to comment safe to say that the Soundcarriers release is entitled ‘boiling point’ and comes pressed on white wax in a limited run of 500 only copies replete with a Soundcarriers turntable strobe pack – really – just don’t ask – sounds intriguing all the same. The other 7 inch comes courtesy of Wirral based hazy pop purveyors by the sea – ’dream waters’ heads up a forthcoming debut long playing platter and arrives on two tone colour vinyl – again limited to 500 and bound to vacate the shelves quicker than you can say ’

A quick message from Rich of Gizeh records advises us that a new Glissando platter is on its way which kind of gives us a good excuse to have a root through the forthcoming attractions being offered by our favourite Leeds based imprint. The album ‘The world without us’ is the eagerly awaited follow up to 2008’s epic debut ‘with our arms wide open we march towards the burning sea’ – essentially a collective built around duo Rich Knox and Elly May Irving their sound at once seduces and scars with an exacting emotional range that soothes, soars and sorrowfully aches with alluring precision to sit upon a listening axis that with genteel majesty shimmers between the haunting, the harrowing and the divinely hymnal – ’companion’ featured via http://www.gizehrecords.com/gzh40.html and ripped teasingly from the new set encapsulates perfectly their sweetly sorrowed and distressed despair, tearfully enigmatic and unrivalled in terms of elegance, tenderness and hollowing heartache. The same track also opens up the latest Gizeh pod cast or as they call it gizehcast – now up to episode #4 and delivered via mix cloud http://www.mixcloud.com/GizehRadio/gizehcast-4/ this self styled occasional transmission showcases the labels current projects as well as featuring like minded sonic souls with this particular set featuring among its hour plus broadcast cuts from loscil, set fire to flames, bing and ruth, sleeping dog, james blackshaw whose ‘cross’ is as good an excuse as any to tune in and fieldhead along with many more. Fieldhead incidentally have a new full length due soon entitled ’a correction’ which by all accounts is wowing the ambient community – somewhere below you’ll find tucked in a dinky little video to accompany the track ’stolen’ – utterly captivating. Moving swiftly along the label has expanded its gift ideas for the obsessive record buying pundit to include an ultra limited Gizeh coffee mug with which to get your caffeine hits whilst listening to the labels latest release in their criminally limited tape only series. This offering finds Knox and Oberland the rustle in the stars project bearing fruits via a live appearance in April at the Sacred Trinity Church in Manchester – just 32 of these all with inserts and download codes with the cassette capturing the collective in full unedited glory – from what we’ve heard of ’part II’ available here http://www.gizehrecords.com/index.html by way of a teaser taster it should appeal in the main to admirers of Kranky’s early career back catalogue notably Stars of the Lid and La Bradford.

Here’s that promised Fieldhead video –

We had a press release type email thing for this which annoyingly we’ve managed to mislay / delete – so no reams and reams of useful information as to what fantastically wonderful things these people are doing at this moment, all we can say is that this quite loveable cutie is about to emerge on the brain feeder imprint sometime midway through next month by way of an EP called ’Some other time’ – featuring the becoming talents of Lapalux – who on this occasion is / are accompanied by Kerry Leatham for the simply divinely demurring ’forgetting and learning again’ – an absolute gemstone of nocturnally set orbiting chorals dimpled delicately in cosmic seas of bespoke down tempo seduction all sumptuously caressed in a sepia framing of star twinkling loveliness that could easily be an uber chilled shortwave set on some kind of loved up lunar swathed odyssey with those musetta types. One for the after hours and chilling brigade. http://lapalux.bandcamp.com/track/forgetting-and-learning-again-ft-kerry-leatham

Returning for a brief moment back to Tokolosh – remember them – tucked elsewhere here between Gary Sloan and Beth Jeans Houghton, named after an impish spirit who turns invisible on eating pebbles and featuring ex members of the Earlies – the band that is and not the spirit – well it seems their press people have now posted the full version of the forthcoming ‘The Hollow’ platter which when pressed will be introduced to the record adoring world via static caravan. A stirring psyche progged folk nugget which frankly we can’t get enough of here and which where there any nearby maypoles we’d be happily dancing around with our wicker man styled come animals from farthing wood cut out and keep masks to the rustle of jingling tambourines. Alas there aren’t so instead we’ll quaff a flagon or two of mead and get on with scribbling a furious missive to the local press whilst in the meantime partaking in a dandified jig to the richly archaic musicality oozing through our speakers, melodies that spake of a sonic spell crafting cobbled together by a band of roving minstrels versed in the ways of old school drafted variously on a diet of Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Airplane, Rush and Jon Anderson and led merrily across the land by a pied piper like Yellow Moon Band. We could have easily signed it off by saying it was the dogs danders but it wouldn’t have been half as much fun. http://soundcloud.com/tokolosh/thehollowfullength

35 years after its original release ‘Holidays in the sun’ – to my mind the best of the Pistols pack – finally gets an official promotional video. Cobbled together by Julien Temple and fusing previously soundless footage taken from a Pistols appearance in Penzance in ‘77 – wherein the band took to the stage unannounced and without any advertised fanfare – with John Tiberi’s promo shots of the band in Berlin, it was the only Pistols single never to be credited with a promo – there was at the time mooted plans to knock out a spoof collage mimicking holiday adverts of the day but the idea was shelved. It marks a continued round of activities in the Pistols camp what with the release of a deluxe ’Bollocks’ box set and a series of ultra limited t-shits designed by John Lydon going up for sale via concert live……

Due imminently on Memphis industries who we’ve neglected in recent years , well I say we’ve neglected its more of a case that we fell off their mailing list once they started going stellar, not that we here hold grudges (anyone fancy buying the labels early back catalogue – 10p and three bazookas Joe’s and they are yours). We couldn’t resist this though – this may or may not on the duo’s latest EP ‘Pure Bathing Culture’ which incidentally is also the bands name, anyhow ‘ivory coast’ is your everyday tale of a lonely girl in motor home meets alien, falls in love with alien, has alien baby who then pops off with dad – who incidentally all this time has been perfecting his ocean blue tan while building a Christmas tree out of quartz – for quick rummage around the stars leaving mum home alone. Now I’m sure there’s some kind of secret message to be taken from all this but quite frankly the oversized blue pencil top geezer in the video is putting me off. As to the actual ditty itself – a lilting serenade of trembling honeyed 50’s motifs tinged longingly and basking beautifully in a glowing South Pacific like radiance all swirled and star lit in a beguiling spectral haze is probably the best way to describe the effect swooning from our speaker stacks – don’t believe me well check out the aforementioned video below…..

http://vimeo.com/49330356

Literally just got the nod on this and I’ll be buggered if this hasn’t had us wide eyed in admiration. Found stirring from out the bottom of a glass of bourbon at the end of a bar at the last chance saloon, Burning Condors’ debuting platter ’Honey Trap’ rumbles wearily to a skin scratched raw and tempestuous smoked blues soul scalped scowl, a howling and haunted victim of a love no more that’s crippled and cropped with searing harmonica shrieks and a death rattling off centring torch-a-billy boogie all bleached in a despairing detail that ruptures and weeps to a grizzled late night bar hogging table gathering of Gallon Drunk, Flaming Stars and Godfathers types. An album is currently stewing for tentative release early next year. Out via snakehand – sound clips via http://burningcondors.bandcamp.com/

We here are not normally given to overtly poppy pretties but I’ll admit that we were quite taken by this new thang from the Wild Belle which once on the player kind of caught us off guard. ’it’s too late’ via Columbia is the latest outing from new york siblings Natalie and Elliot Bergman and comes following hot on the heels of their independently released ’keep you’ which by all accounts turned a fair few heads on its appearance on wax earlier this year. Flavoured with a sassily skanking underpin and awash in idyllic sea breezes imported from some far off exotic sun kissed island, ’it’s too late’ smooches and seductively shuffles its way intoxicating the listening space with attractively tuned warming glow. Hook up to their sound cloud page and you’ll find the aforementioned ’keep you’ which admittedly a much better proposition is slinky and found sashaying to a gorgeously wonky reggae motif that’s dappled in an array of cosmic orbs and twinkle turned star crusting – go to http://soundcloud.com/wildbelle/its-too-late

Video type thing here……

Okay I’m hearing what you are saying – that I’m sticking out my neck when I say that for a label that has had it waxen groove offerings graced by the likes of say Acid Mothers, Mudhoney, white hills, bardo pond, cave, circle, kinski and whoever else you fancy throwing in to the pan – that their forthcoming vinyl platter may well be their finest to date. Alright let’s qualify that a little by saying it’s the labels most immediate and accessible release to date and should see them getting some deserved airplay and affectionate nods from those who’ve previously looked upon the trademark trenSmat sound as not so much being left field but rather more in a field of its own. Not that we here have complained, each passing release has managed to up the quality control and stir the affections time and time again. But then Cloudland Canyon arrived. Docking at trenSmat and delivering their cosmic freight load, which sometime in November will arrest, mesmerise and trance out the turntables of those fortunate enough to have beaten the rush and acknowledged their interest in the pre order window. pressed up on 12 inch of heavy duty wax – we assume coloured wax – and housed in a silk screened sleeve, Cloudland Canyon return earthbound with a mother-load of reality morphing cosmic contraband which upon the grooves are pressed two colossal 10 minute motorik suites that will simply send you to the cosmos’ deepest reaches. Here you’ll find the deeply tranced out futuro retro groove of ’born blonde’ luxuriously re-translating the galactic tongues of a relocated to some mechanoid ruled dystopia Goblin and Zombi in full techno-colourised panoramic glory. And just when your neurons are suitably swooned and at near bliss kissed states the blighter shape shifts at the 7 minute mark and terra-forms to emerge from out of the decaying debris as a wig flipping horny slab of coolly coded buzz sawed mutant psych electro all draped and remodelled as a chicly tripped out hypno hyper gliding club floor destroyer. Equally tasty is ’sea cycles’ which imagines Vangelis’ ’blade runner’ soundtrack trip-wired to a darkly alluring android discothèque where fragments of a civilisations long abandoned past are preserved in piecemeal fashion by way of a rummaging of refuge sites whereupon a badly scratched and overplayed to near expiration copy of Moroder / Summer’s ’I feel love’ is wired to stutter to a dream weaving locked groove. Additional aural delights come by way of 2 downloads bolstering the set to a bulging all in 35 minute lunar odyssey where ’four fold phase’ hooks seductively onto the dreamy blessed out cascades of Jean Michel Jarre’s ’magnetic fields’ and the lulling lunar lullaby that is ’sunbirds’ stitches together with a seamless starry eyed fondness the heavenly night sky glowing fault-lines that connect Sonic Boom’s experimental audio research with the silver apples. Utterly essential ear candy.

Silver Apples – did we just mention them in passing. Currently touring Europe and dropping into the UK this week for a short but welcoming visit, Silver Apples have since their re-activation in the mid 90’s been rightly affirmed as the true godfathers of electro / ambience. A recent tour of China served only to increase Simeon’s currency and standing as a pioneer. In conjunction with the current Euro tour their near lost third full length ’the garden’ is re-released and comes replete with original artwork and pressed up in limited numbers of yellow wax – reviews of course will be forthcoming in a near future missive. Also available on the dates will be a specially packaged tour single gathering together live recordings culled from appearances in both New York and New Orleans earlier this year and featuring crowd favourite ‘fractal flow’ and the newly penned ‘the edge of wonder’ a title of which lends itself to the name of the tour. The cut – a sublime slice of classic era Silver Apples which for intent and purposes could have easily fallen off the edge of their legendary self titled debut platter – a woozy affair of whirring and oscillating dream draped electro kaleidoscopia shimmering through the ethereal mists of the cosmos if I didn‘t know better I’d say it was the greeting lullaby that backdrops your final rest – whatever the case its quite amazing stuff. ,

You can hear said cuts along with tracks culled from last years exclusive tour single – ’a pox on you’ and ’I don’t care’ recorded on the Beijing dates on the latest enraptured sound cloud jukebox which incidentally also features the recent Tonfedd Oren and UMA singles (which as it happens has Simeon Silver Apple guesting on) put out by the imprint and both mentioned fondly in previous musings – http://soundcloud.com/enraptured-rec/sets/enraptured-player

Here’s ’I don’t care what the people say’ taken from ’the garden’

.I must admit we here are missing our once regular listening diet of beta lactam ring sounds, so much so in fact that we’ve been promising for ages to drop by and check what manner of strangeness they were spooking the record buying populace with. And if its strangeness you’re after then things don’t get any stranger than the curiously named Armchair Migraine Journey. Briefly touched on in long distant dispatches, Armchair Migraine Journey continues his voyage in the void, our chosen listening accompaniment for the trip being the starkly sparse and sparingly sinister sounding ’space is disgraced’ – be warned not for the feint of heart for this is sombrely chilling to the bone. Culled from the forthcoming ’cosmic space drone’ set – available in wax and tape variations with additional ultra limited hand signed prints – this 18 minute leviathanic beast is pure head expanding creep out groove, that said I must admit that the kitchen appliances in our gaff appeared suitably turned on for built upon a hypnotic pulse of murmuring mechanical hums a disconnected robotic voice offers sinister sexual favours with the mood changing at the10 minute mark wherein everything gets shall we say a little raunchy and funky – worryingly uncomfortable. Also current via Beta Lactam Ring is the latest opus from Chilean collective Un Festin Sagital – those with long memories may recall us being blown away by their frankly extraordinary ‘epitafio a la permanencia’ set a few years back. Now up looms – on brief sneak peeks – the mightily impressive 2 disc ’sic deus dilexit mundum’ – a quick peek at ’el nino ateo’ reveals a hulking terra-forming multi-generic hybrid of lost monastic chants, soupy spacey nothingness, whispering motoriks, forgotten ceremonial tribal tongues and super scary atmospherics and deeply intoxicating horror themeology blended into a mind melting spell crafting brew of deeply alluring cosmic psyche prog out there-ness – only 400 copies pressed up each coming with a bonus ’muerte solar’ album all housed in a trademark BLRR book styled gatefold sleeve that’s adorned with artwork by Jesse Peper. Those wanting more mutant sounds are minded to check out the labels latest pod cast which variously features selections with sets by the aforementioned Un Festin Sagital, earth monkey, Edward ka spell and natural slow buildings darkly demurring the airwaves that said we appear to have clicked and been navigated to an earlier transmission from June this year featuring troum and pepe wismeer the latter of whom has a must have release by the name ’un’ doing the rounds which quite frankly deserving diligent investigation – we are currently being beguiled by ’sanity belt’ from said set a beautiful thing it is, all lilting frost tipped oriental chimes and mourning piano motifs solemnly chipped in lonesome introspection which midway through unexpectedly fracture and .erupt in a glorious haze of sun bursting ripples before petering out to curl up cosily to sleep. http://www.blrrecords.com/

And so to this particular missives apologies due spot – I fear a regular thing – perhaps we ought to have a separate spot eh….anyway way back in the very long and dim past we were kindly sent three copies of timemazine – a truly zonked out occasional publication hailing from Greece and put out by three self styled Timelords who responsible for transmitting a psych orientated radio show – time machine be its name operating on 91.5FM tripolis Greece – felt they wanted to cast their net a little further and with no relevant publications around with which to feed their love of all things 60’s and lysergic they decided like all right minded folks to start their own. And so in 2006 TimeMazine was born, style wise modelled on that much loved and sadly much missed Freak Beat magazine – remember them older listeners put out by those Delirium dudes way back in the late 80’s and early 90’s – an essential read whose hallucinogenic graphics and way out flexi and vinyl freebies where guaranteed to give you the easiest trip of your life with the added bonus of no nasty after effects. Back with TimeMazine – as said we’ve three copies here – issues 1, 2 and 3 in case your taking notes, each coming replete with a speaker swooning CD which includes upon its considerable track listing an ear candy smorgasbord of rare unreleased, some exclusive and others alternate takes of lost nuggets from the decade of psych teen beat – in typical time honoured fashion we’ve managed to mislay issue 2 – the blighters around here somewhere but issue 1 shoehorns in a stellar gathering of legends of old, what we like about the publication is that it tends to steer clear of the usual commercial pack preferring to bring to a wider audience a cornucopia of seriously underground mavericks and fringe players from the scene so much so that in their inaugural print Silver Apples rub shoulders with the Remains, the CA Quintet, Sopwith Camel and the Open Mind while #3 includes a very, very rare interview with Ultimate Spinach man Ian Bruce Douglas who by all accounts has deemed to grant as many interviews as fingers on one hand since the bands demise and the ensuing fall out resulting therein. Elsewhere the trio catch up with NY psychedelicists Odyssey and Savage Resurrection while new kids on the block – as they were then – and purveyors of all things psych and lysergic – Vibravoid drop by to chew the fat along with Scandinavia’s finest garage imprint Bad Afro with head honcho Lars strapped to the interrogation seat to discuss the sounds that turn him on. Then there’s your required dietary intake of head phonic grooves by way of an extensive review section with spots for the esteemed sundazed, sunbeam, world of sound and shadoks plus a round up of equally minded zines vying and indeed deserving of your fond attention – lost in tyme, peace frog and rumble skunk will I guarantee be getting some interest from us. http://en-gb.facebook.com/timelordmichalis

Staying with things psych, flowery and lysergic many thanks to Mr Curvey of the Luck of Eden Hall for sending over a copy of the bands ultra limited ‘alligators eat gumdrops’ set, there are only 200 of these babies and each come in a gatefold sleeve individually hand embossed and numbered by the great man himself. Should be of need of introductions in these pages for the luck of eden hall have seemingly been embraced into the inner circle of fruits de mer’s extended family making ea catching appearances on the labels key note compilations as well as the issue of a the odd sought after long sold out 7 inch platter. ‘alligators eat gumdrops’ follows hard on the heels of the bands acclaimed two volume ‘butterfly revolutions’ set and marks itself out as arguably their finest and most defining to date. Crackling and fizzing with ambition, these eleven cuts flip switch between strut drilled hook happy transistor tormentors and demurring orchestral tweaked psymphonic psyche curios. Upon these grooves you’ll be treated to the frantic buzz sawed sitar saturated ‘Bangalore’ as it whips up a frenzied strut zapped lather as though imagining a prime time Soft Boys relocated to the Marrakesh while the unravelling and rampant ‘ten meters over the ground’ is groomed in a hazily glazed casing all showered in the frothing euphoria of blazing brass fanfares provided for by Mars Williams. It takes only the briefest of listens to realise quickly that the Eden Hall haven’t simply made a psych record per se but have added to their artistry a sonic carnival lushly colourfully and vibrant, a musicalia that fizzes and sizzles on a high end soundboard that freewheels between pummelling power pop, buzz sawing white outs and an emphatic appreciation of a mercurially turned hook heavy pop persona, amid this kaleidoscopic garden of delights a pic n’ mix diet of Van Dyke Parks, Todd Rundgren, soft boys (‘the dream weaving good night anne berlin’ a subtle case in point) epicycle and Roy Wood (more pertinently the Move as on the trace lines bared upon ’green fairy’) are found feeding heavy in the melodic matrix with the first on the mentioned list irrefutably ID’d on the opening ‘high heeled flippers’ whereupon he’s relocated to the psych prog overtures of porcupine tree’s immensely grand ‘stupid dream’ platter albeit as though dipped first of all in the dissipating folds of the murmurs from irma’s warping floyd vision. Somewhere else the wispily pastoral ’summertime girl’ is charmed in the dainty breeze of a lo-fi minimalism that much recalls Freed Unit’s ’gigglegoo’ set while ‘amoreena had enough yesterday’ is so lulled in quiet majesty that it acts as a perfect bed fellow to the bands aforementioned ‘butterfly revolutions’ opus (incidentally Volume 1 in case you were wanting specifics). Those fancying something a little up close and personal will do well to investigate the bullish and scowling ‘Alligators eat gumdrops’ as it ruptures to a db’s mainlining on the Move motif while all said in our much humbled opinion the sets two best moments come tucked near the end grooves. The flange framed ‘this is strange’ ricochets addictively to a power pop throbbed undercarriage that jags, spars and shimmers to a haloing psyche dayglo aura frazzled by a searing grizzled grooving beatnik wooziness that imagines a full on and potent Sweet Apple on a Velvet Crush transfusion while the emotionally sapping ‘ a carney’s dream’ may just leave the meeker amid you needing counselling for as the sets crowning glory this crestfallen psyche glam nugget is ablaze and caressed as a sumptuous symphonic gem lush in tear stained introspection that’s cradled and bruised in heart heavy hurt and buoyed by an enigmatic and deeply alluring aftertaste of a hope beyond. Utterly arresting. Available via the groups band camp site where you can also pick up a poster – something I fancy would look well smart hanging on my wall – hint hint. http://theluckofedenhall.bandcamp.com/album/alligators-eat-gumdrops

And given we mentioned fruits de mer in passing we’ve just eyed that they’ve partly announced their Xmas schedule which – alas no detailed information as yet – hints tentatively at a double disc 2013 annual, another double set simply titled ‘the white’ EP, a 7 inch from the league of psychedelic gentlemen and of course the now legendary fan club only set – again no information as to what prescribed format this will emerge as – but its called ‘the crab sells out’ – all info via http://www.fruitsdemerrecords.com/discography.html

By the way there will be more of this in the next missive. A perfect way we’d like to think to wrap up these particular musings. We’re currently trying to nail a copy of their forthcoming EP entitled ‘imperfecta’ – features Low’s Alan Sparhawk sparring with Gaelynn Lea – believe you me this will humble you…..till next take care of yourselves – we still love records which you can send along with marriage requests and blank cheques to Mark, 71 Pennsylvania Road, LIVERPOOL, L13 9BA or via email [email protected] or if you are really desperate you can amble over to the update page www.facebook.com/thesundayexperience for a virtual beer or three….till whenever here’s that promised video – gorgeous or did I already say that…

Mark
x

 

End credits – next time out stuff from bordellos and relate, loadsa roadside picnic, moon glyph stuff, cranky gear aplenty, magic arm, plank, vacant kiss, tim burgess, princess charlie, lupen crook, foolproof projects, ultrasound, candidate, swimmer one and friends, plank, happy orange balloon, witch, stumbliene and whatever else falls our way like the moon duo album – hint bloody hint and the murder of crows – whose video is above and quite nice it is to……

God is in the TV is an online music and culture fanzine founded in Cardiff by the editor Bill Cummings in 2003. GIITTV Bill has developed the site with the aid of a team of sub-editors and writers from across Britain, covering a wide range of music from unsigned and independent artists to major releases.