The 45 Live crew notch things up a gear with the first release on their own label and a new bi-weekly radio show. Boca 45 takes the first release slot with a double whammy of ‘Soul On Top’ / ‘Diego’s Theme’. Listen and buy a copy here. Over in LA, 45 Live member Greg Belson has set up a radio show on Dublab that will air on the first and third Friday’s of each month and feature a guest mix from one of the 45 Live roster on each show.
Departing South London on a rainy Saturday evening we travelled to Reading for the launch of Buried Treasure‘s new compilation, ‘The Delaware Road’, at the South Street Arts Centre. Bumping into Jonny Trunk at the parking meter was fortunate as we’d run out of change and, after a battle with an unruly £1 coin which refused to stay inside the machine, we entered the packed room. Promised a night of radiophonics, tape loops, vintage synths and spoken word we braced ourselves for an eight band line up held together by a narrative from Dolly Dolly. Seated at a table under angle poise lamp to one side of the stage for the entirety of the gig and looking for all the world like a broadcast announcer of old he was a revelation, holding the audience captive between acts as the night and story unfolded. Written by Dolly aka David Yates and label manager Alan Gubby, the tale of The Delaware Road is loosely based on two members (‘the man’ and ‘the woman’) of a sound studio reminiscent of the Radiophonic Workshop. The clues are all there, the BBC being referred to as ‘the corporation’, and the tale includes shades of The Stone Tape Theory, the occult, the swinging 60s, orgies and demonic powers released through sound recorded on copper wire.
The evening was an ambitious production including visuals, smoke and lighting to compliment the soundscapes for the three hour duration. Proceeding chronologically from the late 60s through to the 80s, each act soundtracked the period in time perfectly, kicking off with Robin the Fog‘s Howlround project of tape loops strung around mic stands, mirroring the early tape experiments of the Workshop. The Twelve Hour Foundation duo tickled us with synth-heavy ditties redolent of the many radio and TV themes produced for the BBC by John Baker and repopularized by the likes of The Advisory Circle today.
Ian Helliwell‘s set up consisted of a small pub table crammed with small boxes (i’m sure I saw an alarm clock too) which throbbed and pulsed with all manner of devilish tones as he bent sine waves out of shape, accompanied by his own amazing animations. As the narrative moved into the swinging sixties it was the perfect moment for The Dandelion Set’s first public performance, oil wheels revolving and Op-art shirts waving. Despite a technical hitch with the Moog during the first track, a setback which had the crowd cheering once fixed, they didn’t let it phase them and ran through several tracks from their forthcoming album, ‘A Thousand Strands‘.
Alan Gubby’s own band, the unpronounceable Revbjelde, produced a stunning set with bow scraped cymbal, metal percussion and lute, unleashing a Wickerman-esque medieval suite for the releasing of spirits. Loose Capacitor paid thrilling homage to the golden age of TV, climaxing with the joyous ‘Theme From Robin’s Nest’ which had part of the crowd clapping along whilst Tim Hill’s sax and FX pedal set up changed musical tack again. Each performer bought a new dimension to the story as images of vintage synths, solarised landscapes, 70s Britain, Morris dances and electronic components were projected overhead. A compilation of seventies celebrities flashed by to the glam beat of ‘The Shag’ by Trouble & Strife – Basil Brush, David Essex, Keith Chegwin – ending in Gary Glitter and Jimmy Saville to the collective gasp of the audience.
As the night and narrative wound to a close we entered the eighties of ‘suits’, buttons replacing dials and microchips on the ends of fingers with Robin Lee‘s synths perfectly capturing the cheesy ‘business funk’ of many library albums of the era. Finishing with a second set from Revbjelde, this time accompanied by Tim Hill, the band closed with a storming rendition of ‘Tidworth Drum’ from the new compilation to huge applause and a heartfelt thanks from Alan, surprised at such a turnout for such an esoteric event. It was presented with such love and care that it felt like a family occasion where the label had found a common ground amongst its roster – so far a mix of reissues and original material – that pointed the way forward. All in all a genuinely unique night with many unknown names now firmly lodged in the subconscious, seek out the compilation and keep an eye on the Buried Treasure label, still not even up to their tenth release.
This is on in Reading TONIGHT! Pretty sure this is a never to be repeated line up to launch the excellent new compilation from Buried Treasure, ‘The Delaware Road’. If you can’t make it then I urge you to check out the album (for about the third time on here, I know) as it’s full of all sorts of goodness from many names that were new to me.
Post Contemporary was/is the home of The Legion of Green Men out of Toronto, Canada – Alexander “Lex” Addicus and Rupert “Ru” J. Lloyd, who also recorded under many other aliases for the label. We did several gigs with them back in the good old 90s and they gave me a copy of this at one of them. The group frequently included ‘lock grooves’ at the end of their records, a technique where the cutting engineer makes the final groove on the record into a continuous one rather than the spiral the rest of the disc plays through thus endlessly locking the needle into a repeat cycle. To get a rhythmic lock groove that repeats cleanly rather than jumping as the needle turns a full rotation the tempo needs to be 133 1/3bpm (or divisions thereof) when played at 33rpm (180bpm at 45 vinyl fans).
At the end of the track on this disc, ‘Decay’, they put their one hundreth lock groove – or ‘eternal opuscule’ as they called them with the idea that the low quality flexi would slowly wear if left playing and thus slowly change the sound. The concept also extended to the sleeve material too which was printed on photo-sensitive blueprints that would also decay if left in sunlight – see below for their full explanation from the sleeve and insert.
Here’s the audio – the ‘eternal opuscule’ (or loop to you and me) starts around the 2.30 min mark. Earlier this year, after releases on Post Contemporary had ceased in 2007, a new 2xCD 20th anniversary version of the Legion of Green Men‘s ‘Spatial Specific’ album suddenly arrived. The original was released in 1994 on Ritchie Hawtin‘s Plus 8 Records and the new ‘Redux’ has many more tracks and ‘eternal opuscules’ as well as a transparent overlay that produces moire effects when rotated with the inner artwork.
Andy Votel collects all his artwork for cassettes together for an exhibition opening tonight at Electrik in Chorlton, Manchester for the next 3 weeks. He talks to John Doran at the Quietus about it here and they preview both sides of a new tape he’s made entitled ‘RAISING HELELYOS’.
I’m pleased to announce that I’ve collaborated with the good people at The Vinyl Factory for a monthly look through the weirder reaches of my record collection. After the short film on flexi discs they made this summer we’ve got together to produce an irregular look at the weird & wonderful world on vinyl and the myriad forms of pressings and packaging it can come in, dug directly from my collection. The first post just went live and focuses on 3D sleeves, photographer Michael Wilkin shot the sleeves.
It’s hard to keep up with all the new music out there at the best of times so here’s a quick round up of some things that I’m really liking at the moment.
Floating Points ‘Elaenia’ album
Just a great late night jazz album, deep, dark, dreamy. You’ll have read about this one in the press, believe the hype.
House of Black Lanterns ‘You Were Telling Me Of Mountains’ (Bandcamp)
Long time coming album from Dylan Richards aka King Cannibal – synth soundtrack stylings rich with Carpenter, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream influences as well as more contemporary beats.
The Comet Is Coming ‘Prophecy’ EP (Leaf)
Sax-heavy cosmic space jazz – Sun Ra meets Can
Jacco Gardner ‘Hypnophonic’ (Polyvinyl)
Well late on this one, glad I picked it up though, great singer, beautiful off-kilter arrangements
Black Channels ‘Two Knocks For Yes’ (Castles In Space cassette)
The spookiest mixtape you’ll hear this year with extra B side instrumentals, proper Hauntology.
Eagles of Death Metal ‘Zipper Down’ album
You know what these guys do, unashamed, straight up Rock n Roll. The reason I love them so much is because of things like the video below. Just skip the Duran Duran cover version though.
Black Devil Disco Club ‘H Friend Dance Remixes’ (Alter K)
Many, many remixes of ‘H Friend’ from the original Black Devil EP – head for the Andy Weatherall, Turzi or Loframes ones first.
Den Sorte Skole ‘Indians & Cowboys’
I can’t describe this album, it encompasses so many styles but the basis is collage, I’d call it ‘sampledelia’.
Various Artists ‘The Delaware Road’ CD compilation (Buried Treasure)
A radiophonic, tape collage, jazz and a million other things journey through an illusory soundtrack
The Dandelion Set ‘A Thousands Strands’ (forthcoming LP on Buried Treasure)
Another one long in the making, after several digital releases the Set finally pull an album together of new and old material and cajole none other than Alan Moore to voice one of their sonic looks back in time to a summer rich with the simplicities of childhood.
Ollie Teeba ‘Short Order’ LP (World Expo)
Teeba takes his time but serves up a 10 track banger of all styles Hip Hop for the mature B-Boy.
Annabel (lee) ‘By the Sea.. and other solitary places’ LP (If Music / Ninja Tune)
Still one of the best releases this year, a unique record that mixes female vocals with tarnished soundtrack and string samples, torch song jazz with the patina of time etched all over it. Could have been made anytime in the last 50 years.
Really liking this album by Italian group Calibro 35 – a real mix of analogue space-scapes, spy soundtrack stylings, funky psychness and more. Think early Harmonic 33 with bits of Pepe Deluxe referencing all the greats like Schifrin, Morricone, Zappa and more.
The space theme only really plays over about half the record despite the titles, at least half of them could be soundtracking The Impress File or Mission Impossible – regardless it’s excellent. They kick off a tour to support the album (their 5th) next week which finds its way to the UK in February 2016 and the album is available on vinyl from their website.
Readers might remember me featuring the first Metal Made Flesh kickstarter a couple of years back. Now the team is back for book 2, expanded with a second artist and bigger goals, two of which they’ve smashed, and they’re approaching the third with 12 days left. Taking liberally from all manner of sci-fi from the last three decades and managing to find new angles on it the book tells three different tales of a trio of characters and their place in the future cityscape of Tuaoni. You can get both books, T-shirts, original artwork or even appear as a character in the book in the new Kickstarter.
These are ads for a Brazilian insurance company by Jose Luiz Benicio I believe, posted by a user on the Syd Mead Facebook group, definite influence (Bob Peak too), love the way there seems to be a whole world and race of beings worked out.
Lovely labels
Black and white beauties
A couple of weeks ago I was in Amsterdam, taking part in discussions about ‘The Art of Curation’ with Mixcloud co-founder Nikhil Shah. The chat was hosted by the electronics company Sonos as part of the annual ADE music conference that takes place there, the biggest in Europe. I chose five tracks that linked with the subjects of Music, Art, Sci-Fi, Comics & Design which largely tie into the things I collect and post about on this site. This is the part where the blog eats itself as I blog about myself talking about blogging and readers will hear some familiar names and sounds during the interview.
The trip was a fruitful one in terms of digging for new things in my time off and I went with a mission for 45s, underground comics and sci-fi paperbacks. Things got off to a poor start with my first stop at Record Palace (Op Art -themed wall display at the top) which is on the outer rim of the centre of the city. I’ve shopped there a few times and it’s always yielded treasures but this time it wasn’t to be. Of the two 7″s I bought (a substandard late 80s Dickie Goodman break-in record and Raze‘s ‘Break 4 Love’) when I returned home to play them I discovered that the disc inside the Raze cover was in fact a Thompson Twins single. My fault for not checking the disc but they were only 50c and there was a strict ‘no playing’ rule on records from the cheap bins. The only good thing about it was the Trevor Jackson-designed cover which, when you look at the ‘dancing’ figures, is actually quite dirty.
From here I visited Lambiek a few roads away, the oldest comic shop in the world if their website is to be believed and, on the strength of their stock, I can believe it. The shop is about to move to a new premises and their usual gallery space was now a large dumping ground for what looks like all manner of random stock. Very little of it was priced apart from the odd penciled number on an inside cover and many of the piles can contain anything, very little order exists as you can see below.
But there was some gold there and I soon had a little pile building, the owner unable to direct me to the undergrounds as everything was mixed up due to the impending move. They closed at 5pm and at approximately 4.45 I glanced under a shelf and saw a box that looked like it was exactly what I was looking for. Going through it my suspicions were confirmed and I started pulling out handfuls of British and American underground and independent press comix as fast as I could, some in not-so-good condition but still a lot that you only find on eBay these days.
This copy of Oz magazine was nestling in the box, looking like a Robert Crumb comic, copies usually go for £10-20 and up.
These three Subvert comics by Spain were a bit water-damaged but I’d never seen copies before aside from being reprinted in other mags.
No.s 1 and 3 of Mother Oats Comix by the late, great Dave Sheridan.
They had five copies of this Radical Rock comic, all badly water-damaged but readable. You can easily find these for about $5 on eBay, but the postage triples the price as they’re always from the States.
I wasn’t going to leave a comic behind with a cover like the Bizarre Sex one, the issue of Tasty has some really nice abstract acid trip visuals inside although the cover isn’t up to much.
That Dutch NIMFKE comic on the right is probably one of the filthiest things I’ve ever seen in comic form.
There was more but here’s a lot of it. I’d been tempering my choices, thinking that this was adding up to quite a bundle but some of this stuff just doesn’t come around in Europe that often, even in this condition. Upon taking them to the counter I couldn’t quite believe my luck when the assistant proceeded to charge me one Euro for each comic with only two for some slightly over-sized books like Imagine and Heavy Metal. Digs like that don’t happen every day.
On then, with a spring in my step, to a couple more comic shops further north near Centraal station. On my way I passed a shop with a big sign outside, ‘Used Books, English Language’, and took a quick peek to see what it was like. Once inside I inquired if they had any vintage sci-fi paperbacks and the guy at the counter pointed to eight large apple boxes stacked in the aisle. “Four for ten Euros“, he quipped, “How long until you close?”, “20 minutes!”. I probably got through about two thirds of them, given that they were two rows deep inside but it was worth it.
A selection of just some of the work on display by Dan Lish last night at the 42nd Zulu Nation anniversary at the House of Vans gallery under Waterloo station in London. Talking to Dan I found out that he does no pencils for these, just a small thumbnail sketch maybe, some photo reference for the faces and then the drawing is straight from his head onto the page in ink.
Whilst sitting on a moving train on the way to/from work.
Awe inspiring, the man is a master of his craft. After checking some of his comic work and seeing his sketchbook doodles I’d go so far as to say he’s the Brit equivalent of Moebius. Seeing so many of the images that I’ve featured on this blog over the year was a delight, the size was the main surprise, a lot of the early image are only A5, even the biggest is only A3. A book should be forthcoming once Dan has drawn 100 characters, watch this space…
Also on display were photos of Hip Hop luminaries as they are now by Bunny Bread and a selection of personal photos from the collection of Part 2 documenting UK grafffiti scene from the mid 80s to the early 90s. It’s all on until November 15th so be quick if you want to catch it. More details here
Above is the artwork, by She One, for the 5th installment of the ‘Cosmic Flush’ series of 12″s – the final album by The Rammellzee (RIP). Remix duties come courtesy of Beans on this one and pre-orders are already open. There’s also a special exhibition of the art happening at the Magna Danysz Gallery in London on December the 10th, there will also be a catalogue for the show which can be ordered for those who can’t make it.
That opening shot! Excitement building…
I think this is one of my favourite videos of the year. From the Resultart party DK and I did in Nizhny Novgorod in Russia last weekend (that’s him playing on the right) I wasn’t around for this but wish I had been. The party was in an old warehouse that had been left unused until just a month before and had been transformed with artwork and a huge video screen into a great club space. The soundsystem was SO loud that the bass frequencies were hurting my ears and rippling the screen of my laptop at times.
Polar bear video courtesy of Mr. Armtone who managed to find me a very rare ‘bone disc’ (see last week’s Flexibition) which I will treasure forever. Thanks Anton! 
In a change from the planned entry this week we have this little jewel (pun intended) which went on sale out of the blue last weekend and was kindly nabbed and written up by my good friends Leigh Adams and Sarah Coleman aka Inkymole – the people behind Factoryroad who were in town for the RTJ gig.
“Killer Mike and El-P probably don’t need any sort of introduction, the latter being known to us via of a couple of stone-cold Cannibal Ox tunes already in the collection (surely Company Flow as well? – Kev). We were alerted to them originally by our friend Ed, who pronounced the word ‘jooooooooollllls’ in a way so delicious it couldn’t be ignored; fast forward couple of years and we’re the cheesy mega-fans* queuing up outside Warehouse Project with the ID-able teens and buying up T-shirts with giant-sized gold necklaces on them.
This Flexidisc, a Meow the Jewels remix of ‘Early’ from RTJ II, has its origins in a joke – the weed-at-the-kitchen-table induced threat of remixing the entire Run The Jewels II album using only cat samples got such a response it became a Kickstarter project. If they could raise $40,000 (which RTJ considered ridiculous) they’d do it. It did – in fact it raised $65,000, after Geoff Barrow, Just Blaze, Boots, Automator and others got on board almost immediately. Half of the cash is to be donated to the families of Michael Brown and half to Eric Garner, in the US – the message being that ‘you don’t have to pick a team’ when it comes to victims of American police brutality.
‘Early’ is my favourite RTJ track and one of the most serious – about a young man being dragged from his home early one morning by police for no reason, and in front of his children – but is also musically one of the darker and minor-key worrisome ones, which is why I love it. Boots (producer) sings his little face off in the mournful chorus, and for this version is, of course, replaced perfectly by whining cats.
Tweeted the night before and on sale from 10am, the cash handed over for these two copies went straight into the coffers of Manchester’s city centre RSPCA branch, all £20 of it. It sounds rough, and the needle barely gets any purchase on the lead-in, but it’s a puurrrrfect memento of our RTJ weekend in Manchester. Ouch.”
*Kev’s word (did I say that? – Kev)
Lovely design work by Julian House for various Jacco Gardner records and gigs, great use of collage and minimal colour. If you’re not familiar with with Jacco’s particular brand of psych pop then check him out, his Hypnophobia album is great.
London. 1968. Two pioneering musicians compose electronic themes for television & radio. They discover a recording that leads to a startling revelation about their employer. Fascinated by the occult nature of the tape they conduct a studio ritual that will alter their lives forever.
The Delaware Road is a psychological thriller & an audio-visual treat for fans of archived electronica, far out jazz & haunted folk grooves. Story written by Alan Gubby. Words by David Yates. Trailer audio & video synthesis by Jeffrey Siedler. For those with a taste for Radiophonics, Hauntology and Tape loops then this gig is a must.
THE DELAWARE ROAD – LIVE! SAT 14TH NOVEMBER
Debut performance on Sat 14th Nov 2015 @ South Street Arts Centre, Reading, Berks.
Live performances by: Howlround, The Dandelion Set, Ian Helliwell, The Rowan Amber Mill, Robin Lee, Loose Capacitor, Tim Hill, The Twelve Hour Foundation & Revbjelde.
DJs: Jonny Trunk & The Séance (feat. Pete Wiggs from Saint Etienne)
Tickets: £15 advance, £13 concession; £16 on the door. Available here:
Price inc. free poster & advance DL code for ‘The Delaware Road’ compilation album on Buried Treasure Records. Seriously, check this album via the preview on the link, so many great tracks, if the live event even lives up to half of the album’s content it’ll be awesome.