Tuesday 30 July 2013

The Scottie Book of Space Travel - Arthur C. Clarke (Transworld, 1957)

Take me to your place in space...I'm sick and tired of the rat race...

Yes, space mates, lets go. Why not? 

Arthur C. Clarke wrote: 'If one made a survey among scientists and engineers working in the rocket field, one would find very few who consider it likely that we shall reach the Moon within the next thirty years.'

Oh ye of little faith! The Cold War space race saw to that. 

Major Robert H. Lawrence, America's First African American Astronaut,
killed on December 8, 1967 during flight training

In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron saw the Moon landing in a more cynical light, comparing the cost of space programmes to poverty in the USA. 


But the black American outer space experience came to us music-lovers from another source...the cosmic imagination of Sun Ra, Parliament and many other less dedicated Afronauts of sound seeking to cash in on the post-Apollo 11 space-age.


So here's a nice little book I found a few weeks back...









Monday 29 July 2013

Rashad Becker - Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. I (PAN)



Field recordings from a distant planet; one that's inhabited by bio-mechanical mutant varieties of flying, crawling, slithering, walking, climbing beasts, in a jungle filled with exotic and terrifying plants capable of consuming humans attracted to the irresistible odours they emit, which resemble chocolate, and Chanel No.5. 

Here, as heard on Theme IV, one-eyed, furry babies come gurgling and crying into the world, wrenched from vomiting mechanical-human hybrids, watched over by hovering robo-doctors courtesy of Benway Incorporated.

Dances I presents music from an orchestra of psychotic automatons playing free-form on rusty trombones and cracked computers as well as vocalising; all spliced together by Pierre Schaeffer's ghost and viewed in a hall of mirrors. On Dances II they are joined by a cellist bred from the genes of Paul Tortelier and the Predator.

A fantasmagorical thrill for open ears.

Rashad Becker also makes other people's music sound good as an employee of Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin. If you want to know his thoughts on the process read this interview conducted by Robert Henke.


Saturday 27 July 2013

Basic House - Caim In Bird Form (Digitalis)


Basic House. Basic House? A moniker so dubious it piqued my interest....

Long ago I'd be in my natural habitat, the record shop, and boys would be in there because that's was where boys liked to be, a stack of Dance Music 12s on the counter, the assistant playing snippets of them - the start and middle, awaiting the nod or shake of the customer's head. Next! And so on - fascinating to me since all those House records sounded the same - basic House to these ears...

Now with a trillion files to hear the surfeit of sound sucks us into snippet listening - click - 20 seconds - click - 20 seconds - click - thinking appraisal is possible in the briefest of sonic encounters and for us more experienced listeners, it usually is, but even the best ears can be wrong. We test sound via samples on sites like Boomkat, determined to endure their embedded bleep, presumably created to prevent...what, exactly? Someone downloading a 1min 30sec sample?

Boomkat is where I spotted Basic House, of course, being my favourite 'shop', these days. This week they recommended Caim In Bird Form, which has just been reissued by Digitalis, originally being on limited cassette. Basic House is Stephen Bishop, whose Opal Tapes label specialised in limited cassettes before recently moving on to vinyl. I welcome this new digital(is) release, not being one for collecting tapes or vinyl. I say that with some shame, after all, I wholly support the DIY ethic in printed or sonic form, theoretically. But like many of you, perhaps, that support seldom stretches to actually purchasing products, especially musical ones, on awkward formats such as tape, and olde-revived vinyl.

Bishop is one of those types lurking in the shadows at the metaphorical club, not dancing, watching, shrewdly listening out for something special. Between the dance floor and the depths of sound beyond, these creatures swim to and fro, hybridising something in their heads that might acknowledge both worlds without strictly belonging to either. The pop mechanics of mutated sound is made manifest by the likes of Nick Edwards and Dominick Fernow's Vatican Shadow, connecting with Modern Love and their sound world, where Techno, Drone and Avant-Electronics are alchemised.

Whilst supposedly 'experimental' or 'progressive' forms of any genre frequently take the form of mild tinkering that belies the limited vision and creative ability of aspiring artists, Bishop's Caim In Bird Form is better than that. Aspirin Telepath's dark, psychotic speech sample slowed right down lends it a feeling of the best horror soundtracks before we're dragged into I Found U. Despite the Prince-like title, it's anything but Funky or romantic, more I-found-you-in-the-darkest-corner-of-a-nightmare, and a such, delivers a restrained exercise in dread electronics. I Don't Remember Acid (if you remember Acid House, you weren't there?) paints a picture of the come-down experience in the ruins of Detroit via Mars, perhaps. 64 Bummer (another reference to bad tripping?) maintains the mired-in-electro-murk mood, with more depth plus mind-strafing effects.

So it goes, never really faltering in quality, from the post-Kosmische (TV Illness) to the Subotnik-inspired Ultra-Misted. The stand-out title track taps into Horror again and matches the best of Demdike Stare, complete with what sounds like knives being sharpened. Any critics hearing this album shouldn't be sharpening theirs.



Friday 26 July 2013

Combat Rock - On The Decks at The Rumpus Room



Yes, that's me DJing at The Rumpus Room circa '96, combat trousers and all. I was a trooper in the sonic artillery division known as The Merry Pranksters, fighting Dance Music drudgery on all fronts. We won, of course. In the forefront is our MC, Mark, who would regular improvise the chat whilst I struggled to mix Jungle/D&B.

The photo's from a 'zine called Phasis. 

More sounds from then here.  Meanwhile, let's go back, way back...remember Breakbeat? Clear was a favourite label of ours, owners Clare and Hal being regulars in The Room. Here are some classics...





Thursday 25 July 2013

Wednesday 24 July 2013

The Robots Are Among Us - Rolf Strehl (Arco, 1955)


Yes, the robots are among us...Robots R Us. We must all adhere to a robotic routine (Work) for fear of slipping into the abyss of Freedom wherein we shall languish, getting fat and feeble-minded on daytime TV - that or become free-spirited beatniks living life on the edge (of poverty) in a bongo-fuelled, poetry-reading frenzy.

Robots have a bad name. It's not their fault that humans who 'mechanically' act as if programmed by a cabal of consumerist overlords are likened to them. Like sheeple, they only do what they're told and unlike them, they have no capacity for real independent thought. The robots are among us to a greater extent than we know....

This book is a recent find, for a mere £2.99. 'At the crossways of civilization - to where are they leading?' Indeed...















Tuesday 23 July 2013

Savage Paris - Emile Zola (Elek Books Ltd, 1955)


What a cover. The artist is uncredited, sadly, but the figure depicted seems to represent a certain breed of outsider...bookish, effete...a brother of Joris-Karl Huysmans' creation, Jean Des Esseintes, perhaps. Reading the blurb inside, however, I see that the central character is an ex-political prisoner, therefore not the type to stay in all day contemplating the quality of his wallpaper. 

Originally published as Le Ventre de Paris in 1873, it's also known as The Belly of Paris in later English translations.

I haven't read Emile Zola since the early-80s when, being a socialist, Germinal seemed like required reading because it was about a miners' strike. My girlfriend at the time was a big fan and even quoted from Thérèse Raquin in her letters, which was either pretentious, or romantic...probably both. Well, I no doubt quoted Kerouac. Seeing a book by Zola always reminds me of her....another lover lost to time...


Monday 22 July 2013

Violet Poison - Voices From Hell (Hospital Productions)




Titles such as Pyschonight, A Blade In The Dark and Spooky Pendulum should give you some idea of what Violet Poison's debut album for Hospital Productions sounds like. The clip below will also help. Is that enough to tempt you? This has been out since March, but since when have we been able to keep up with all the great new releases and fill our hard drives with all that gold from the past? I haven't anyway.

I can hardly keep up with myself. What was I doing last week? Am I actually living in the future now? This and other profound philosophical questions bounce around my brain as I listen for the third time to Voices From Hell. Thankfully, I have none of those in my head. Instead, Spooky Pendulum is ricocheting around in there...

What makes this record work are the diverse approaches to Horror-inspired sound...the drum-thumping voodoo of Like A Pandora's Box, the slasher-on-Saturn off-world dread of Psychonight, or the minimal Glitch terror that is Asphyxia. Prussian Blue also displays a good ear for restraint as remote menace tells you that something wicked this way comes. Yes, a wicked album.

There's a mix he made with Shapednoise here  

Friday 19 July 2013

Collage: A Hole In The Fabric Of The Universe

From an as yet incomplete collage. I'm tempted to leave it the way it is. Simple.


Wednesday 17 July 2013

Interior Design: Supergraphics from 1968


So-called 'supergraphics' from 1968. Pop Art interior decorating? Why not. I hate painting the walls....especially the edges...and the middle...but getting someone to do this kind of thing is appealing. The hallway, however, reminds me too much of a scene from Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece...








Tuesday 16 July 2013

Astounding Science Fiction - Van Dongen Illustrations


Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition), October 1954

There was a whole bunch of Astounding Science Fiction mags in a shop today, and although they were cheap, I had to resist buying the lot and instead make a small selection (thus demonstrating the kind of caution LJ thinks I do not possess). So, this one, for the astounding H. R. Van Dongen cover, of course. His work for the magazine is legendary, and rightly so. I've scanned almost every one from this issue.










Monday 15 July 2013

Mika Vainio - Kilo (Blast First Petite)



According to The Staple Singers in 1971, Heavy Makes You Happy, and so it came to be when Mika Vainio's Kilo landed with an almighty THUMP! on my PC last week - honest, the hard drive trembled. A weighty (oh, ha-ha) album for sure, but 'too rock' according to The Wire if the Blast First site is to be believed (I couldn't find a review in my copies). Too rock? I almost know what the writer means, but Vainio has ditched the guitar in favour of a 3-ton synthesizer made from granite so should you fear anything like Black Sabbath-meets-Pan Sonic, don't fret.

It's inspired by the shipping container industry. Yes it is. And that, you have to admit, is original. Picture Mika stood dockside watching huge crates being loaded...the automated heavy industrial machines doing their job...the enormity of the vessels...thinking 'I'm inspired! Their movement, weight and size will form the basis of my new album!'

Yes, it's heavy; more than a kilo. On a scale of 1 to 10, it must be 8. If we equate heaviness with density of sound, as we surely must, I don't own many heavy albums. But gravitas is another matter, and in that sense I consider Ornette Coleman's The Shape Of Jazz To Come a very heavy album. To continue the nautical/industrial theme, you might like to include Robert Wyatt's Shipbuilding, or Gavin Bryars' The Sinking of the Titanic. Then there's Drexciya's briny sci-fi mythology...well, this album's like a trip with Doctor Blowfin to the very depths...feel the pressure....we're twenty thousand leagues under the sea...Sub-atlantic (one of the finest tracks).

Whilst the palette's minimal, the interplay between layers of density demands attention. As you'll know from his work in Pan Sonic, Vainio understands space as well as the best dub engineers, and proves it on Load, where the briefest drops into negative space (near silence) heighten the dramatic build-up towards ear-pummelling electronics. Along with Alberich's recent release, it's good to have another weapon to use against workman who insist on digging up the road outside my window.


Friday 12 July 2013

The Big Sleep * Max Ernst * The Private Sea Of Dreams - Il Gruppo


'When we finally sleep The Big Sleep what shall we dream of? Scenes inspired by never wakeful time filled with...endless imaginary events in which all friends, places and spaces appear off-kilter...continual reminders of what it was to be alive...when we walked as somnambulists...?'

Max Ernst sequence from Dreams That Money Can Buy



'First released in Italy as MLDS 20243 in 1666.' (Discogs)


Listen Hear

New Mix: Espace/Escape

My latest mix...non-stop pop sounds for the Way-In crowd...


Thursday 11 July 2013

Segmenti - Ennio Morricone

A recent chat about the brilliance of Ennio Morricone inspired me to upload this. Among those of us indulging in the Ennio love-in was Pepijn Caudron, who said: 'Morricone is probably the biggest influence possible'. He's not alone, for sure. Enjoy, or get the hell out of here...



Wednesday 10 July 2013

Collage: High-Middle-Low-Brow


One page from 20 I created earlier this year with a view to having them bound as a booklet. I've not got 'round to doing that yet, so here's one. 


Tuesday 9 July 2013

Mechanical Toys

French, 1911

German, circa 1890

German, circa 1900

European, mid-1800s

American, 1930s

German, circa 1900

British, circa 1950

American, date unknown

American, circa 1885

German, 1895

French, circa 1870

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