Very pleased to log on and see that the Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ box set I designed has tipped over the 100% mark to become fully funded :). Rob Puricelli has put together a great overview of the project on his Failed Muso blog.
I’ve been waiting for this to drop for over a year now, Spencer from Death Waltz hinted at it a long time ago and has since confirmed it here and there online. I saw him a few weeks back and he was saying September and he’s been true to his word as it popped up for pre-order out of the blue yesterday. A synth and organ-heavy score to the ‘lost 80’s movie’ by Black Mountain member Jeremy Schmidt, it has all the slow moving menace of the film and the sleeve is just as beautiful.
There are two versions : one for Europe on clear vinyl with red smoke effect via Death Waltz and one on clear vinyl via Jagjaguwar for N. America who are also doing a bundle with a DVD of the film.
There seem to be an inordinate amount of anniversaries for great albums and films at the moment. 30, 25 and 20 ‘years ago today’ posts pop up every day at the moment, reminding up of countless classics and making me wonder if there’ll be quite so many in 10, 20, 30 years time?
One that no one will argue with is Global Communication‘s masterwork, ’76:14′ – one of the greatest ambient albums of the 90’s (alongside Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works II’, The Orb’s ‘Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’ and FSOL’s ‘Lifeforms’).
Apparently it’s 20th has come and to commemorate the occasion a producer called Huess has created a tribute version and flipped the timing around (the numbers of the title refer to the minutes and seconds the album lasts for – maybe Kasabian never heard of GC before?). It’s pretty good and well worth the 15 minute listen.
Enjoying this new compilation on Buried Treasure that takes a slightly different angle on the library comp from what’s been done before. They add ‘Brass’ to the line up of Psych and Moogs, not something that you usually find but it’s there alright.
The tracks come from the German Sonoton Music Library and they’ve done a great job with superb mastering and a fatastic sleeve by Rob Crespo to pull you in. John Fiddy and Sammy Burdson seem to make up around half of the tracks and it’s all new to me.
There’s some really great material on here and whilst I would question the amount of ‘Psych’ in the selection there’s plenty of Brass and modular keyboard sounds. Most of all there’s some superb playing all over the selections even though is can slip into cheese occasionally.
Sven Perner‘s ‘High Tension’ is a thinly veiled take on Led Zep‘s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ whilst ‘Crime & Glamour’ by Hermann Langschwert & Wolfgang Killian is a classic slice of spy funk. More info and clips here.
Really enjoying this new album by Mark De Clive-Lowe, was attracted by the cover and gave it a listen on Bandcamp. He’s one of those names I’ve seen around for years and probably heard a few things but would be hard-pressed to name any of them. This album is a full on jazz epic taking in guests vocals, raps and solos but all wrapped up in modern production techniques and sampling. The overall tone reminded me of Stanley Clarke / Return To Forever or moments of Weather Report and I was taken by the opening instrumental jazz track that suddenly flipped and sampled itself, turning into a rap tune within a few bars. Hear and buy it here.
I did a couple of interviews for the upcoming Farmfest in Someret on August 1st/2nd: one for their first podcast (above) and another Q&A for the Bass Explorer website where I added my then current top 3 favourite tunes. Farmfest is one of a growing breed of smaller festivals, very cheap tickets starting at £53 and with a pro-organic slant to the food and drink onsite. If you repost their podcast you will be entered into a draw to win a pair of tickets.
Really liking this new Pye Corner Audio 12″ on Front & Follow, ‘The Black Mist EP’. The EP features an extended mix of the title track ‘Black Mist’ (the original featured on last year’s Outer Church compilation), new track ‘Bulk Erase’ and a remix of ‘Black Mist’ by fellow OC collaborators Old Apparatus. Released on August 18th as a limited edition (of 500) 12” on 180g vinyl and download, more info and order details here.
Matt Johnson of The The doesn’t give many interviews any more but he made an exception for John Doran from the Quietus recently and the resulting piece is chock full of revealing anecdotes and information.
Only two weeks away from my own interrogation of Matt at Rough Trade for the release of the deluxe ‘Soul Mining’ reissue and I’m cursing John as he’s used a good few of my questions already 
Nevertheless, this is a fascinating piece that reveals many aspects of Matt’s past career and present state of mind.
This is an interesting use of vinyl to promote a new artist. This arrived a while back now but I’ve only just got round to putting it up here. This LP arrived in the post unannounced, no clue as to where it came from (although I have a possible lead). It’s a used album (Peters & Lee in this case) with ‘CC’ 07.04.14 screen printed over the front with another black square covering most of the back.
The record inside is unplayable due to two large paper square’s being stuck over the grooves, one blank but for a ‘cc.’ in the centre and the other with message and illustration. “Want a tune for today? Well here’s two. Take a listen, you might just smile, Count Counsellor www.viewsource.cc“
I think this is first time I’ve seen vinyl used a the carrier for a web link and it’s a clever way to get the attention in an age of digital promos. The image of the head viewed from the back suggests that the Count isn’t ready to fully reveal himself yet although I see a few music blogs have picked up one track last month. If you visit the site at the link above you will be able to hear two tracks with very little other information aside from a few ‘coming soon…’ messages. A curio for sure but an innovative attempt to engage the attention by customising a music format to carry a message rather than a sound.
Death Waltz Recording Company releases for Record Store Day 2014 (only 2 of the 4). Each album has a splattered colour vinyl disc, a huge 36″x36″ poster, a 12″x12″ card print of the poster plus sleeve notes, a housebag that’s both embossed and debossed and a paper wraparound with release details.
These retail at an average of £20 each – incredible when you see the prices of other releases only offering half that. Plus Spencer Hickman, the label owner, is a straight up dude, one of the soundest people I’ve come across in the music industry. 
I visited the MoWax 21 / Urban Archaeology exhibition that opened at the Southbank Centre in London, currently home to the James Lavelle-curated Meltdown season.it was stuffed with everything you could want from a visual label retrospective with memorabilia and artwork from across the label’s history and beyond into post MW UNKLE releases.
For those familiar with the label there us much here to wallow in but plenty of behind the scenes stuff too. A letter from Mike D about a planned MoWax / Grand Royal ‘Battle of the Beats’ record, working drawings and model for Futura Pointmen toys and plenty of original art that graced many a sleeve. There are toys in every kind of colourway, some still at prototype stage, flyers reaching back to the early 90’s to when MoWax was more of a Talking Loud wannabe than the trip hop and electronica powerhouse of its heyday.
It’s free but only open until June 22nd so you only have this week to catch it before it’s gone. But if you don’t manage to make it down then there is an extensive book now available with even more info and photos. Initially funded via Kickstarter, I received a copy last week and it’s beautiful to behold, a perfect visual encapsulation of the label.
These beautiful objects are soon to be available from Canadian label Artoffact Records. 808 State’s classic turn of the decade albums, ’90’ and ‘Ex:el’ have been made in 8 different colours on cassette at the very reasonable price of CAN $9.98 each.
For the completists out there they are also selling a bundle of all 8 tape colours for CAN$74.98. View all the different colours and buy here.
Great little video mix from Black Channels , the band are working towards their first album and originally made this video as promo for the upcoming Third Rail Festival. Unfortunately it’s just been cancelled and they are looking for some support slots for their live show.
More Trunk TV. Quick, before it gets taken down like EP.1!
Nice to run across a little plug for The The’s ‘GIANT’ 12″ I share billing with in the latest issue of Classic Pop magazine (issue 11, Kate Bush cover). For all those who remember Smash Hits from back in the day and yearn to break free of the endless rehashing of the Beatles/Stones/Who/Dylan/Zeppelin pop/rock mafia in the other music monthlies – this is the mag for you. Not as lightweight as Smash Hits but not as nerdy as Record Collector, it finds a fine balance between in-depth interviews, retrospective pieces, current reviews and where are they now and what have they been up to news.
In other The The news (try saying that when pissed) it’s only 3 weeks until I get to quiz Matt Johnson about the making of ‘Soul Mining’ over at Rough Trade East on June 30th. The same day sees the release of the 30th anniversary edition of the album of the same name. You can find out more info here.
My 360º fulldome presentation, ‘The Search Engine’, returns to Dome Club at a new location this summer – the Q Club Complex, Birmingham. There will be three showings – all playbacks, I won’t be present – during July, August and September.
Tickets are £10 or £8 concessions and this will be in the new portable dome they have acquired which means viewers can lie on the floor for the best experience.
Dates and ticket links: 18th July / 15th August / 19th September
Beautiful artwork on the new Dead Cert release which is another Clone record taken from a tape of instructions for birthing! Image and text taken from the Boomkat mail out:
“Utilising the ARP 2600, ARP Odyssey, Polymoog, harmonica/synthesiser interface, Eventide Omnipressor, Roland vocoder and genuinely bizarre narration imploring the listener to “push…” over a background of retro-futuristic space-age progressions, these recordings edge the concept of extreme American outsider music to its furthest reaches.
Originally broadcast as a one-off transmission for electronic harmonicist Gary Sloane’s Import Hour show on Anchorage radio station KGOT FM, it’s one of the rarest recordings in the very limited line of Clone breadcrumbs released to date – the audio discovered by Sloan in his own time capsule of C60 compact cassettes used to document the unlikely synthesised wing of an untravelled North American micro industry.”
At 10 and 12 minutes a side it’s debatable whether this should qualify as an ‘album’ but it’s certainly one of their most intriguing releases recently. Listen and buy here.
The Frankie Goes To Hollywood deluxe 30th anniversary edition of ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’ I designed is now 83% funded after less than 2 weeks. Here are some more images of some of the contents. You can pledge for a set or separate elements here.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s ‘Two Tribes’ – one of the greatest pop singles of the 80’s and certainly one of the greatest 12″ mixes of all time – was released 30 years ago today. June 4th saw a 7″ and 12″ finally burst the bubble of expectation that ‘Relax’ had inflated after its 5 week run at the no.1 spot despite a BBC ban.
Six days later on June 10th ‘Two Tribes’ was also sitting at no.1 and would remain bedded in for another nine weeks with ‘Relax’ returning to the no.2 spot for a couple of those too. The 7″ and 12″ would be joined by three further 12″s, all sporting remixes of the title track or its B side, a cover of Edwin Starr‘s ‘War’, as well as 7″ and 12″ picture discs and a cassette compiling excerpts from all.
Add to that the phenomenon of the ‘Frankie Say’ T-shirts that swept the nation that summer and you had a roller coaster of pop product that no one could have predicted. Over on my ArtofZTT blog I’ve been adding sleeves, posters, adverts and picture discs daily to celebrate along with various quotes and info about the releases.
The ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ box set I helped design is looking good at 83% funded over on Pledge Music and I’m waiting on the go ahead to post more photos from it. Over on his Failed Muso blog Rob Puricelli has written a great piece about the anniversary of ‘Two Tribes‘ and how it impacted on him as a teen in the 80’s, so much of it rings true to my experience too but he puts it so much better.
