I am for an Art - Claes Oldenburg Art Manifesto

From Store Days, 1967. 

Have A Modern, Jazzy Xmas

Take Your Mind - Mixcloud

Last mix of the year. Thanks for listening.

Take Your Mind by Timewriter on Mixcloud

Esquire Cartoon Album (William Heinemann 1958)

Recent find - the 25th anniversary volume. The cartoons range from 1933 to 1956, but sadly aren't dated and there are no credits. As you can imagine, it's a goldmine of quality illustration, so I'll be posting more later. Starting with the black and white work, these are only some of the best. I'm sure you'll agree that the art  transcends the idea of merely being a vehicle for a joke. Most of the jokes aren't that funny, but I do like the picketing fleas featured below, and the idea of the moon as advertising space.

Smith-Corona Christmas Ad 1967

Smith-Corona didn't kill off pencil (why not pen?) and paper...computers did that. But the portable electric probably helped nudge nations towards being unable to write by hand. I know how liberated I felt buying my first typewriter (manual), then the electric, which really made me feel like my fingers could keep up with my thoughts. I soon realised that my fingers were capable of moving faster than my thoughts, actually, although for a few months I pretended to be Kerouac on speed and henceforth typed all letters, as well as poems and terrible not-even-half-finished novels about neo-Beats in London on the dole listening to Jazz...kind of autobiographical, you might say.... 

Albums Of The Year Redux (With Extra Writing!)

After my first selection several stars from the underground music world contacted me to complain about being omitted and that was a cause of much embarrassment, as you can imagine. But it's so difficult, knowing them as I do, and in some cases enjoying their work, yet not believing them to be worthy of inclusion. How do you tell a friend they have BO? More to the point, how do you explain the fact that you left their work out of a selection such as this? So I ignored them. I refuse to allow personal connections to influence my choice because you deserve better. There will be no nepotism here! The result of these emails, however, was to prompt me to consider more albums from this year and realise that others did deserve to be mentioned. I should say that none featured below contacted me. I would never embarrass those who did in such a manner, but should they be reading this I say: try harder next year and keep on sending me free promo links. 

Andrzej Korzynski - Secret Enigma

Multi-genre-spanning magic compiled by Finders Keepers, the painfully fashionable label responsible for Latvian horror, Amish psyche and Pakistani metal comps (all of which you no doubt own). It was said on a forum I occasionally visit that simple lists were tiresome and that people should write about their selections, and I thought that was fair enough, so here I am writing....like this: 'Funky-pop, electronic, Easy, orchestral and other genres make up this high quality selection which, really, is akin to a box from Hotel Chocolat which your very best friends might buy you this Xmas, if they really like you, because the shop isn't cheap, and other comps are like Quality Street compared to this (although I'm perfectly willing to eat those too, especially when they're hand 'round the office...'cause when you're at work, you'll eat any shit to alleviate the boredom, won't you?)

Thought Broadcast - Emergency Stairway

Pound Shop fidelity so lo, you can't get under it - enigmatic, intriguing, Ravi Binning brings primary school collective workshop aesthetics to bear with some beats, bleeps, hisses and drones, the like of which were last heard on a radio play adapted from an Arthur C. Clarke story broadcast in 1941 that you heard on the car radio whilst driving through California during a torrential storm.

Kreng - Works For Abattoir Ferme 2007 - 2011 

To think I forgot to include this first time 'round - shame! I've pestered Pepijn to get his finger out (don't ask me where it's been stuck for years, it's too embarrassing) and make a new record, but does he listen? No. Does he care what I want? No. He's an awkward sod who refuses to feel obliged to make a new album even though the world (critics who know their stuff) wants one and has unanimously praised his previous work. I think it's all a plan to build anticipation to the point where when he does release a new album we'll go mad for it, even if it consists of video game bleeps and nothing else. Or he turns to Footwork, which is unlikely. Anyway, this set sold out on vinyl, but only three people in Austerity Britain bought it, probably. Music not made for home listening proves worthy of listening to, at home. Profound ambient orchestration, like all the moodiest parts of Wagner pieced together.

Asva & Philippe Petit - Empires Should Burn...

The 23-minute-long title track tells the tale of bunny rabbits running off to have an adventure only to be terrorised by a farmer called Empire and his family who shoot three of them before - I won't spoil it for you, except to say that it involves members of the loveable Leporidae family constructing a huge wicker man. It also includes me favourite title of the year, 'Sweet Dreams Asshole'...and a mess of extremely moody ambient nasty music...right up my street....

Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin - Instrumental Tourist

Probably the oddest record I heard all year, entailing as it does loose keyboard noodling over (or under) various forms of electronic noise, some of which reminds me of the Blade Runner soundtrack ('Racist Drone' and 'Grey Geisha'), whilst elsewhere, Sun Ra springs to mind, and though many have aspired to conjure up some of the spirit of His Cosmo Lordship, few do so successfully, and I suspect that Hecker and Lopatin have done so unconsciously or at least via embedded listening experiences surfacing uncontrollably...and if you understand what I mean, you're wiser than me.

Gabriel Saloman ~ Adhere

This album persists in being worthwhile no matter how many times I re-listen with a view to possibly deleting when I look at how much room is left on my hard drive and decide that something's got to go - and I can't say fairer than that...not when culling is a crucial part of keeping the computer running properly and so many have fallen by the wayside, or rather, been made to disappear in one click, which is one of the joys of a file over physical records 'cause, as you know, the duds amongst them have to be carried to a record shoppe (if you can find one) and you only get 50p for each...so...this is a damned good album which, as I say, persists...insists, even, on being heard...like a distant whisper saying something important...so listen...

Bee Mask - When We Were Eating Unripe Pears

This album's grown on me over the last few weeks. I did give it a mention without doing it justice, which is not to say it's a work of genius, but that the nostalgic tones weaved into maverick mosaics make me happy and remind me of sci-fi soundtracks of the 50s that never got made, not even in the wildest dreams of Louis and Bebe Barron should they be transported forward in time to liaise with Tim Hecker. Oh and, irony of ironies, I can't stand unripe pears...they must have some give in them when tested...

What's In My Collection? Doing The Music Shuffle

I'm nosey when it comes to what other people like, so here's a peak at my collection as revealed by the shuffle mode...see it as an invite into my room whereby you can take a quick look at my 'record collection' whilst I'm making the tea...

Against The Clock - The Simonsound - ooh, good start, retromaniac radiophonia, still sounds fine
Transition - Bernard Parmegiani - yes, yes!
Big bazar - Lionel Marchetti - love this musique concrete operatic vocal and all
Landing On The Moon - Peter Thomas - space-age penthouse perfection, eh?
Ritorno All'inizio - Ennio - cooking with psyche-Jazz soundtrack gas,man!
Occam - Monolake - golden oldie & good to hear again
Love Theme (Twin peaks) - Angelo Badalamenti - solo Rhodes version...classic
Africa - Sun Ra - cosmo-roots genius, of course
Diagonalam - Focus Group - brief beauty
More Difficult - The Tape Beatles - I love plunderphonics
Saturn - Gultskra Artikler - his ambient space-age work (and I still can't type his name without checking)
Dance Souer - A. Kalma - chirpy ditty a la audio librarian mode
Contrasts Essconic - Daphne Oram - oast house music (the only kind of house music for me)
A Hard Kill - (from Blade Runner, The Audio Cut) - Deckard and Pris get it on
LOiseau - Alain Goraguer - marvellous (trying to recall who sampled it, but can't)
Small-Time Charlie - Kenyon Hopkins - my love of Kenyon Hopkins knows no bounds
We Travel The Spaceways - Sun Ra - one of many versions of the definitive Ra song
Route 66 - Mike Hurst - excellent version
Sea Of Dreams - unknown - will I ever know?

Collage: My Teeth Are Rattling

What You've All Been Waiting For...Albums Of The Year

An outmoded concept 'cause we only listen to single tracks and can't recall most that we downloaded this year let alone go with the notion of Great Albums. And our music memory circuits have been blown by file overload. But demand from readers (flooding my inbox) was such that I finally decided to share what I believe to be some of the very best...

Ekoplekz -Skalectrikz

Nick Edwards' spiky radiophonic transmissions, rewiring home electronics in his inimitable style.

Gultskra Artikler - Abtu Anet

Alexey Devyanin should be acknowledged as a musical genius by anyone with ears. Here are ancient broken transmissions from before time - crusty electro-acoustic concrete slabs from the twilight zone. 

The Gaslamp Killer - Breakthrough

Ball-busting bass, breaks and FX designed for immediate impact when played loud on your hi-fidelity 

system.

Monolake - Ghosts

Assured hardstep finesse from a maestro moving through magnetic beat fields in an evolutionary fashion - fusing elements, the consummate alchemist.

 Howlround - Ghosts of Bush House

Ethereal tape manipulation of recordings that brilliantly capture the spirits of Daphne Oram, Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson et al.

 Demdike Stare - Elemental

Forget Raime, these dinosaurs of h**ntological drone rule the roost. Still.

Metek & Zreen Toyz - A Complex Brain In Confused Adventures

Free-range complexities of depth and artistry for psychonautical audio freeks.

Jason Lescalleet - Songs About Nothing

Big white noise post-punk electro power trip in minimum/maximum moods for blank generation beat(less)niks.

Egisto Macchi - I Futuribili

Vinyl reissue of electro-orchestral futurist magnificence.

Dariush Dolat-Shahi - Electronic Music, Tar & Sehtar

Great electronic music - ancient to the future.

Bruno Spoerri And Betha Sarasin - AX+BY+CZ+D=0

Sublime Jazz-infected tape/machine processing for intellectual bohemian androids. Obviously. 

On Being Followed By Mark Stewart

For two seconds I felt honoured, until I saw that he also follows 891 other contributors to Mixcloud. Then the awful realisation struck me that he 'follows' only to promote his name, not even his mixes, of which there are none. No 'Activity', zero. How he gets to chose the recipients of his name I cannot imagine. Is it random? So I looked at the first page listing those he follows and found that 11 of the 15 names have also contributed nothing to Mixcloud.

It's funny to think that I once followed Mark Stewart in that offline place we call the 'real world'. Yes, I went to many of his gigs, and still have damaged hearing to prove it. Oh, Mark, it has come to this...from the righteous scream of nihilist paranoia drenched in distorted rhythms, to fleeting virtual contact in the name of self-promotion. In a sense, I don't blame him. After all, the internet is fertile ground for self-seeding in the hope that a mighty oak of recognition will grow. Unfortunately, I'm not good at doing that. If I was, I would be following like crazy on Mixcloud just to prod strangers into looking at me. Perhaps I'll try doing that as an experiment.

Before the notification of Mark's activity I had, as it happened, been thinking about all this. I'd concluded that I would stand by the old-fashioned notion that you only like and show approval of something you actually do like. This olde-worlde idea is with me from the pre-PC era, of course. Some of you will remember it well. By showing an allegiance to an artist you made a statement about yourself. By following a band you joined others in mutual admiration, thereby cementing a bond as well as seeking reassurance that others also felt strongly about an artist like Mark Stewart. After all, he represented more than just good tunes. He stood for resistance and awareness, along with a special brand of musical avant-gardism.

But that was then. How could I have imagined that two decades later he would be following me, but not in a good way? I've decided to deal with this by pretending that he's played at least a couple of my mixes and concluded that I'm worth following. He has no agenda, but simply rates me as a virtual DJ. Yes, the legendary Mark Stewart is now a fan of mine. The tables have turned. Isn't that wonderful?

(Should you wish to hear what Mark is so excited about click on the 'Music Mixes' tab above)

Auto-Beatnik Poem No. 44 by A Computer

Life magazine, 1961.

Allen Ginsberg eat your heart out - look what a computer can do. I'd like to have been in that coffee house when a 'bearded scientist' performed. Who said the Beats were gullible? Did William Burroughs know about this, and if so, did he approve? I suspect he would have done. Look not for the soul in the machine, for it couldn't dig Charlie Parker, or play bongos. It did, however, bring a whole knew meaning to the term 'automatic writing'...

More here, presumably by the same computer.

Listen With Mother...To Sun Ra

Cultural education is an important part of raising children, and what they don't get at school must be supplied by parents who want their beloved offsprings to be hip kiddies. So here we see the perfect role model, in 1963, ensuring that her children are taught correctly. She is about to play them Cosmic Tones For Mental Therapy by Sun Ra, appropriately enough...

Otomo Yoshihide's New Jazz Orchestra - Out To Lunch (Doubtmusic)

You may have to be out to lunch to tackle Eric Dolphy's masterpiece from 1964, but as I've just discovered, Otomo Yoshihide's orchestra did a fantastic job in 2005. Although it was an Out There release by Blue Note standards, ONJO take it further into the realms of improvisational space. The rearrangements may be fierce, but the essence is retained. Since there are more players than on the original, the ensemble sections are muscular, and the players evoke outstanding moods, as on 'Something Sweet, Something Tender'. Laced with subtle electronics, it feels like Dolphy transformed for the future, his vision enlarged, although not always expanded in the actual duration of some tracks. Yet Yoshihide has great spatial awareness, organising time in a tight but never rigid fashion. He turns 'Gazzelloni' into a psychotic Free Jazz rocker, the only move I'm unsure about, but apart from that, all is so fine that I imagine Eric would approve.

Stop Or Go Diary - Fougasse (Methuen)

One crucial point Theodore Dalrymple didn't mention in his article about second-hand book shops is that compared to online buying the experience offers delightful surprises. You find things you never knew existed therefore could not have searched for on the internet. Here's one such book from a recent trip. On the cusp of World War Two, you'll note the references to fascism and war. Each day is filled with a satirical quip about imaginary people and organisations, but it's the illustrations that make it worthwhile.

More info on Fougasse here.

A joke which only those of a certain age will get.

Prescient re blogging?

Raime, Cassavetes Soundtrack, Bee Mask, Banabila & Machinefabriek

I wrote a lengthy review of Raime's Quarter Turns Over A Living Line album, but decided not to post it because Raime create such a feeling of uncertainty/ambiguity in me. This may be the desired effect if one takes certain claims seriously, and wishes to hear great depths of empty despair into their work. It could be the sound of austerity Britain rendered in audio angst for a blank generation of social welfare no-hopers, if you want to see it that way. I don't. To summarise: it feels underdeveloped to me; a series of interesting sketches, rather than proper portraits.

More pleasing for obvious reasons is Faces - Music From The Sound Track, (John Cassevetes,1968). Yes, the internet still holds treasures, but you knew that anyway. The opener, 'Love Is All You Really Want', has the same dreamy feel to it as Miles Davis' In A Silent Way, but with Teo Macero producing, that should be no surprise. I've no idea who the players are, but the solos suggest a few notches above standard session work. Could that even be Herbie Hancock on electric keyboard? There's a lot of late-60s, cool funkiness going on, along with melancholy moods made for mid-life marital trauma. You can get it here.  

Not much new material has excited me of late, but you know how fussy I am. Still, Bee Mask with When We Were Eating Unripe Pears on Spectrum Spools is worth hearing. Chris Madak makes intriguing sounds that morph as they move, and that's just what I enjoy. With so much music made by the ABC of Electronic Music rule book, the kind you can easily assess in tiny bites, it's refreshing to hear something that pays replays. He's not startlingly original, but who is? Influences range from the grand Kosmiche ('The Story Of Keys And Locks') to a Radiophonic feel infused with beefy outbursts of bass and blasts of noise (throughout). 

Whilst some of us were busy downloading treasures in file form, Michel Banabila and Rutger Zuydervelt (Machinefabriek) were swapping music files back and forth to work on each other's material and make an album called Banabila & Machinefabriek. OK, so the title may not stir your imagination, but the sounds will. These finely-tuned forays into hiss, crackle and anti-Pop are designed to play through as one long trip on the CD, but in digital form it's broken up into 9 tracks. All the same, it sounds seamless; ever-shifting sands of sound (!) seduce and spring surprises. Just as your lulled into a sense of security you get sucked into black holes like 'Frost' and 'Bad Wiring'. Even the calm is frequently fused with static unease, as on 'Slow Wave 1', which evolves to the point where a robot Fred Astaire taps across the sound stage. At least, that's what I imagine.