Tuesday 30 November 2010

Voices of Dust – Demdike Stare / Samhain Slant Azimuth Vol 1 – Anworth Kirk & Demdike Stare

I have heard the future of post-hauntological industrial voodoo and its name is Demdike Stare.

Their third release is now out. This how the tracks might be described if it was an album of library music...

1.  Black Sun – ambient drone, deep bass
2.  Hashashin Chant – industrial, repetitive chant, percussion
3.  Repository of Light – gloomy droning, slow beat, techno rhythm,   increasingly noisy
4.  Of Decay and Shadows – menacing atmosphere, bass synthesizer throbbing pulse
5.  Rain and Shame – heavy ambient with techno rhythm on synthesizer
6.  Desert Ascetic - slow pounding beat, heavy bass, vocal chant, percussive
7.  Viento de Levanter – ambient, pounding percussion, male vocal, percussive
8.  Leptonic Matter – ambient, dark atmosphere
9.  Tale of Sand – ambient, sinister atmosphere









Also available, a CD mix made by DS and AK, comprising of many samples from obscure cinematic and record sources, thus creating the perfect soundtrack to a horror film in your head. Amazing.

Monday 29 November 2010

The Book Of Bond - Or Every Man His Own 007

One from the vaults...I'm not a huge fan of Bond but this book is brilliant. Published by Jonathan Cape in 1965. The reversable cover comes in very handy when on top secret operations, as you can imagine. I particularly like the 'Culture' section and the fact that you're only at the theatre 'because the man you're following is too', along with tolerating 'cabaret-style voodoo drumming' - don't we all? The smoking section's great too...'smoke hard' and 'enjoy it' - sixty a day! But 'Treat it as a pleasure, not a habit'...


 

 

 

 

 

 


Sunday 28 November 2010

The Seance at Hobs Lane - Mount Vernon Arts Lab

Yes, I love a pleasant surprise...like Chelsea winning, or conversing with a stranger on a bus who is not a lunatic, and of course, such sonic delights as this, which I came across whilst mooching around the digital shopping aisles the other day. It’s up there with finding that pound coin under my desk the other week – it’s that good.
   Drew Holland is the man behind it, collaborating here with Barry 7 and Adrian Utley among others. Seeing titles such as ‘The Vauxhall Labyrinth’, ‘While London Sleeps’, and ‘Sir Keith At Lambeth’, you might expect a translation of English eccentricity and spooky fog-bound streets into a series of lighter quirkiness rendered by way of quaint analogue contraptions. Instead, this album frequently plummets the darkest, hardest depths of sound, evoking more of a Ripper nightmare than 60s TV sci-fi or cavorting noblemen of the Hellfire Club. ‘Dashwood’s Reverie’, for instance, has nothing of the 18th century about it, unless Sir Francis imagines himself being abducted by aliens whilst in a drunken stupor. Still, the club’s motto was ‘Do what thou wilt’, and Mulholland has, allowing his imagination to roam free, and the results are fantastic.
   'Sir Keith At Lambeth’ is a blizzard of white noise made all the more disturbing and effective by a refusal to embellish or deviate from the direct drive of this devilish noise. One brilliant and apparently contradictory element here is the inclusion of a saxophone on ‘The Vauxhall Labyrinth’, which is more likely to evoke images of futurist LA than submerged London, yet something about the playing does conjure up fog horns of ships on the Thames. No matter, the music is a fascinating combination of the acoustic and electronic throb.
   The sax-playing on ‘Percy Toplis’ (a British criminal in the 1920s) is much more in the ‘free’ mode and, again, the sound bears no relation to the title, but that makes it more intriguing. It could have been called ‘Dan Dare’, or ‘Snake Plissken’. The rhythm is relentless over 14mins, and the horn-playing, whilst not quite on a par with Archie Shepp, serves to enhance the disorientating mood. ‘The Black Drop’, with its bowed and plucked cello rhythm, truly conjures up the past, albeit in the mode of, say, Michael Nyman, and ‘Hobgoblins’ also sounds more like the kind of thing you would expect from the titles, being much more of a quirky, fairground waltz into a world of nasty little creatures playing tricks with your mind. ‘Warminster 4’ perhaps captures the expected mood most perfectly: a Morse code message from beyond a grave of the next century, grounded in folklore by the flute, but distorted out of time by sombre synthesizers. Yet it’s the refusal to follow predictable paths that makes this project so captivating. As in the labyrinths of Vauxhall, you never know quite where you’ll end up.

(By the way, this was made in 2001 and reissued by Ghost Box in 2007)

Saturday 27 November 2010

Marquee Club Flyers - See The Jam for £1.50!

Whilst going through the vast archive of cultural treasures (that’s a couples of cardboard boxes at the bottom of a cupboard) here in the bunker I came across these and thought some of you kids might like to see what went on in ye olde days, or older kids may enjoy the nostalgia. Yes, you could have seen The Jam for £1.50, or better still, The Lurkers for 65p (Ha! Joke for my friend Richard). I think I went to see The Boys, who I was pretty keen on. Like the 60s, if you remember Punk, you weren’t drunk enough (something like that), and as I demonstrated in my piece on The Clash gig, I was usually drunk. I don’t know who I saw the following month, but it’s funny to see Dire Straits there, for 70p. As we used say about acts we didn’t like back then, I wouldn’t draw the curtains if they were playing in the back garden.


 

Friday 26 November 2010

L'Etrange Mr Whinster - Horrific Child

Jean-Pierre Massiera’s bonkers but brilliant album from ’76, released by crate-diggers extraordinaire, Finders Keepers. It’s been out since March, so I don’t know why The Wire has only just got around to reviewing it in the December issue. Still, it prompted me to listen again and discover once more just how amazing this album is. ‘Frayeur’ and ‘H.I.A’ are the best of the three tracks – total sensory derangement. ‘Frayeur’ combines bursts of proto-Punk rock spliced in with tribal chants and ghoulish vocals. It’s like Serge gone horrorcore, and talking of SG, this belongs in the same sphere of French eccentricity/genius. Imagine SG’s ‘Percussions’ album on acid. In a way, it prefigures a lot of what was to follow in terms of mixing the tribal sounds and tape technology by the likes of 23 Skidoo. ‘H.I.A’ is even more astonishing, a 16min soundtrack to your nightmare which features the voice of what sounds like Alpha 60 as the protagonist opens creaking doors, hears a gothic organ, runs for his life and so on. It’s ‘Alphaville’ meets Hammer horror. Massiera was way ahead of the ‘Hauntology’ scene, and this has no doubt influenced many of its practitioners. Around the halfway mark the spooked vocals are accompanied by the clip-clop of a horse and hoot of an owl – what the hell is going on? It appears to be a story, of sorts, but you have to make it up yourself.

Thursday 25 November 2010

There's Never Enough

There are two ways to get enough: one is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

   - G.K. Chesterton



 

 

 

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Recent Additions To The Book Collection

That Kiki was quite a girl...Hemingway, Cocteau and Man Ray are all featured.

 


How's this for smut? Ms Carson did not, as far as I can tell, mix in artistic circles.

 


Another to add to the Cheyney Fontana collection...I don't know who the artist was but they're all superb.

 


Great cover. According to The New York Sunday Times 'Your reading diet lacks essential vitamins' if you overlook Matt Helm.

 

Tuesday 23 November 2010

Ghetto Sci-Fi - Ras G & The Afrikan Space Progam

‘The Ra ship has landed’ – sampling from the source of inspiration for all intergalactic artists, Ras G can’t resist hitching a ride on Sonny Blount’s rocket ship. After all he is, and always will be, the premier space pilot of the sonic sound world. Sun Ra, self-made solar myth and musical magician, conjured up artforms from both the old and new worlds, and Ras G does likewise, less by visionary acumen, more by borrowing Soul, Jazz and Reggae at the push of a button. Well, without an orchestral palette at his disposal, what else can he do?
   From Ra’s tireless DIY discipline to the Do It All Yourself ethos of one man and his machine, Ras G’s chopped-up chunks of rhythm, and raw production smell more of Punk spirit than the classic craftsmanship of jazz pioneers. That’s a good thing. A little scat here, sampled marimba there – hey presto! – the Afro-Jazz cut’n’paste collage works perfectly for these times, as do tracks which on this album never run longer than 3.39.
   But Ras G isn’t only about black American Afronautical inspiration, as he demonstrates with the Jamaican toasting sample which kicks of ‘Staring Riddim’, proof positive that along with the slow jams and blunted bass beats he can reconfigure classic dub construction with great success. As an advert for Ras G’s Black Star Liner bound for Saturn, ‘Sign Me Up’ is a fine one, beginning with the same kind of comical helium vocal employed by Hendrix on ‘EXP’ before getting into a good groove. The background squiggle is the sound of machines programming their own beats until they fade away leaving them to sing electro acapella.
   ‘Ghetto Sci-Fi’ is, as you’d expect from the title, jeep jive rewritten for the 22nd century wherein the poor can only cruise in battered wagons that were once symbolic of material success whilst whitey’s evacuated a post-apocalypse Earth and taken up residence on the moon. ‘Sloooooow Doooooown’ does just that, not for a relaxing trip, but more of a gravity (ie beatless)-free floatation experience somewhere Out There, perilously close to a black hole.
   Although ‘El Saturn Day’ supplies the last reference to Sun Ra, it plays out as a simple beat bumping over the crackle of ancient vinyl once the producer has responded to an enquiry about what he’s doing by saying that he’s ‘mixing, trying some new stuff'. In that respect, Ras G continues very much in the spirit of his main musical inspiration.

Monday 22 November 2010

Happiness In Industry

If you have not yet found the job you like, Huntley, Boorne & Stevens Ltd invite you to read this little booklet. During working hours in the Factory, MUSIC is relayed throughout the Works.




Sunday 21 November 2010

Jack's Return Home - Ted Lewis

I’ve been tempted to pick this up a few times over the years but finally did so recently. The reason I hadn’t before was that I thought it would be a run-of-the-mill crime novel. I was wrong; it’s a very good crime novel, even though the film was constantly being projected onto the back of my mind, and the image of Michael Caine was Jack impossible to shake off. A film being projected is pertinent to the story, as you probably know. It turns out that, despite not being a Northerner, Caine was a superb choice, which is obvious from the film, but when you read the book you realise how right he was, being the king of ice-cool detachment whether he’s waving away a blubbering ‘bird’ or dishing out the violence.
   Mike Hodges made a few changes when he rewrote the book for the screen, but nothing that really betrayed the source. The now legendary line Jack says to Cliff Brumby in the film: ‘You're a big man, but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full time job. Now behave yourself.’ Was originally ‘Cliff, you’re a big bloke – you’re in good shape. But I know more than you do.’ Brumby’s demise is less dramatic in the book too. Jack almost throws him over the edge of a balcony instead of actually throwing him from a multi-storey car park. Jack’s final scene is also different in the novel and I don’t understand why that was changed, but I’ll say no more in case you read it.
   What you get in the novel is a sense of Jack’s roots in the North and his relationship with his brother. Since the medium of film necessitates brevity these elements are lost. Watching ‘Get Carter’ I actually forget that he’s a Northerner, but it would have been too much to expect Caine to come up with a London accent tinged with a Northern one.
   One of the pleasures of the book is the feeling you get for the culture of the times. On the walls of Doreen’s bedroom there are ‘pictures of The Beatles, and the Moody Blues, and the Tremeloes and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich’. In Frank’s room there are books by J. T. Edson, Louis L’amour, Alistair Maclean and Victor Canning, amongst other paperbacks. The presence of Maclean resonates strongly with me since his novels were always appearing in our house around the same time. His records include Mel Torme, Band of the Coldstream Guards, Ted Heath, Frankie Laine and This is Hancock – such details are what novels can deliver and films rarely do, these markers of a person’s taste which represent something of their character. ‘Yobboes’ have ‘Open-necked shirts and Walker Brothers’ hair cuts’, which seem a little outdated by ’69, but that’s the North for you (ha-ha). Jack drives past ‘Woolworth’s and British Home Stores and Millet’s and Willerby’s’. Then there’s The Cecil pub, of which somebody had once said ‘they should advertise it as having ‘Singing till ten, fighting till eleven.’’ Well, perhaps nothing’s changed in that respect.

Saturday 20 November 2010

Religious Artefacts (?)

Yes, we're all curious about other people's collections, so here are some images of mine...



Oh, that's bit of a tease, I know...can you recognise anything?


No? Well how about this album on the deck? If you can name it, you get...er...marks for good taste...and perhaps even a prize.




Here, you can actually read some of these...


Friday 19 November 2010

The Limits Of Control (Jim Jarmusch, 2009)



It’s supposed to be enigmatic, Zen-like, profound, mysterious, stylish...it’s ‘The  Limits Of Control’, Jim Jarmusch’s film...and it wants to be all those things, but as far as I could see managed only a couple. Yes, it’s mysterious, and I’m mystified as to how it got the green light. I’m also mystified by the ‘plot’, which either makes me too stupid to understand, or it too stupid to succeed. Yes, it is stylish, and Jarmusch crafts some sumptuous shots, especially of the Milan hotel the Lone Man stays in, but that’s a stylish place to start with. Halfway through, the limits of my patience had been tested but I persevered, then I started fast-forwarding until something happened. What happens, mostly, is that he meets a series of people who talk profoundly before giving him a matchbox containing a set of codes on a small piece of paper, which he screws up and washes down with an espresso. He insists on always ordering two espressos, by the way. Remember that because it could be pertinent to the riddle. The Lone Man says very little. A woman appears in his hotel room and follows him some of the way. She’s up for a shag, but he isn’t. One of the strangers he meets is Blonde, played by Tilda Swinton. At one point she says she doesn’t even mind films where people sit and say nothing. This is Jim’s little joke about the fact that most of the time the Lone Man sits and says nothing. He follows a trail across Spain, finds the heavily guarded place he’s supposed to get into, and does so by ‘imagination’. Well, that’s one way of solving the problem. He couldn’t get in by stealth, intelligence or violence, least of all violence because that would make the finale too much like an ordinary film with, you know, some sense of climax. Bill Murray plays the intended target. It turns out he represents....who? The New Order? A powerful, secret organisation? Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t matter. By the end, I thought none of it mattered.  

Thursday 18 November 2010

Chamber Music - Raudive

You know when Ornette plays violin, what it sounds like...a right ol’ racket, yes? Well, imagine that put a beat, a thumping repetitive beat, along with a persistent bass line and handclap. It couldn’t, shouldn’t work, surely? But, you know, on Raudive’s album, ‘Chamber Music’, he makes it work. And it’s wonderful. It’s Oliver Ho under another name. There are female vocals here too, but I don’t know what they’re saying. They don’t say much, or very often. And there’s a little keyboard stab too. The violin isn’t quite like Ornette’s playing, but he sprang to mind. It’s what you might call ‘avant-garde’ playing, you see. And the more it plays against the rigid rhythm, the greater effect it has. I’ve played it a few times now and it’s power grows every time. The track’s called ‘Paper’.
   On ‘Is It Dark In Here?’ Ho works wonders again with a limited palette - percussion, vocals, a beefed up rhythm halfway through, and that Voice Of Doom favoured by the likes of UR simply saying ‘Release’ (I think). On ‘Cone’ he employs a saxophone back in the mix, lending it that bluesy round about midnight feel, along with abstract tinkling on the piano.
   Minimalist Techno, or House? I don’t know if those terms apply. But who buys it? You know, I imagine they wear black a lot, polo-necks...read William Gibson, and only buy Apple technology...and live in ‘apartments’, not flats...apartments with minimalist interiors, of course...apartments in New York, Berlin, Tokyo...surely.
   ‘Tul’ uses the kind of rhythm employed by 23 Skidoo on one track, I don’t recall which. It features sax-playing again, but you wouldn’t call it jazzy...more as an atmospheric enhancement...and there are sparsely-used vocals saying more words that I can’t understand, which enhances the experience.
   If Steve Reich went to a club with Terry Riley and enjoyed it so much that they said ‘Let’s have a go at that, after all, we fucking invented minimal repetitive rhythms!’ they might produce something like ‘Brittle’.
   The two beatless tracks, ‘Over’ and ‘Sienna’ are also effective, the former especially, using as it does a staccato violin for rhythm, a cello (?), and other strings to create the background waves of disorientation.
   It’s a finely-tuned album, as minimalism must be, and I find that combination of subtle techno flourishes topped with sounds from another musical world altogether most alluring.

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Where Does Your Mind Go? - Expo 70

My mind keeps going blank when I try to talk about this album. I’ve had several small crises (is that possible?) over the last few days, relating to the very nature of describing music; nature, meaning and validity, I might add. That’s personal validity of course as opposed to general because writing about music in review-form will always be valid....won’t it? Maybe not, now that we’re often able to hear previews for ourselves.
   There’s a quote about writing and music which uses dancing to architecture as an analogy, if I remember rightly. At time like these it seems apt and true.
   Here are some lines previously written about this album:

‘James Wright sets the controls for the heart of his musical universe and you’re in for a 74min journey of super-stereo sounds that shimmer, drone, pulsate and float through four stages on this homage to the golden age of synthesised dreams.’

‘Ordinarily I wouldn’t trust anyone who calls a track ‘Ancient Hawk Soul Takes Flight’. Would you?’

‘Japan’s Expo 70 slogan was ‘Progress and Harmony for Mankind’, which is a noble but meaningless ideal.’

‘One may use this album to enhance a journey through the doors of perception, and engage in transcendental meditation with the aid of chemicals, but I don’t, being the down-to-earth type who prefers a cup of tea.’

‘If, as appears to be the case when I flick through the musical mediascape, 80s synth music exerts a strong influence today, the previous decade’s Moog voyagers also make themselves heard, channelled through the likes of Oneohtrix Point Never Return, Arp and here, especially, in Expo 70.’

‘Ancient Hawk Soul Takes Flight’ (I do forgive him that title) arrives at a very interesting place about 6mins in, where it becomes less about California dreamin’ than cosmic disorientation which increases until it becomes something like a sonic representation of the cosmonaut’s trip in ‘2001’.’

‘...on ‘Transgressing Outward Which Is Inward’, piano-playing which evokes Alice Coltrane’s ethereal sound rewritten for the future as it was, in 1970, of course.’
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