Zyprazol 7″ animation picture disc by Sculpture from Sculpture on Vimeo.
As usual with Sculpture, they just knock things out the park again with this new single/video. More ideas in one second of music and video that most songs in the top 40. Pre-order here.
This looks great, a new(ish) 2 hr documentary about a number of electronic music pioneers and companies, soundtracked by I Monster with guests into a big electronic concept album. Buy the film and album here
Old news by now but looks good
Czech this out (sorry, couldn’t resist) via Jonny Trunk’s fabulous weekly newsletter comes a trailer for a remastered mix of live action and animated collage from 1958 (!) Think Jules Verne meets Terry Gilliam.
The launch party for Jonny’s new book, ‘The Music Library’, last night was excellent with a bit of celeb-spotting going down (Jarvis, Matt Berry) and a storming reggae cover version set from Jerry Dammers. The book is an expansion of the original version he released 10 years ago, this time with twice as many covers and a nifty, if pricey, slipcased edition with a 10″ record. There is of course a reasonably priced version without either of those two as well, get them both here.
New Shadow album campaign starting, check the track on his site djshadow.com
Graphic Means (Official Trailer) from Briar Levit on Vimeo.
Graphic Means is a film about graphic design processes through history from hot metal, PMT to the desktop publishing revolution of the 90s and beyond. Funded by a Kickstarter in 2014, director Briar Levit has pulled together 25 interviews with many leading figures in the field and is now in post-production with the aim of an Autumn 2016 release. You can find out more at the Graphic Means website, pre-order the DVD and buy a calendar and badges to help fund the film to the finish line.
The Delaware Road is a psychological thriller & an audio-visual treat for fans of archived electronica, far out jazz & haunted folk grooves. Loosley based on the lives of influential electronic musicians Delia Derbyshire & John Baker from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Compere: Dolly Dolly
Live perfomers: Howlround, The Dandelion Set, Ian Helliwell, The Rowan Amber Mill, Robin Lee, Loose Capacitor, Tim Hill, The Twelve Hour Foundation, Revbjelde.
Now booking for live shows in 2016. Contact: [email protected]
Also available as a 19 track compilation CD + download via Buried Treasure Records
Whilst perusing the web for High Rise posters I came across this great one for A Field In England by Jay Shaw
I saw this poster – designed by Rich Fox – for the film ‘High Rise’ on the Cube Cinema‘s twitter feed and it led me down a wormhole of other, official posters for the film.
I know I’ve written about this before but I’ve finally finished reading Stephen Coates‘ ‘X-Ray Audio’ book, about how underground bootleggers from the Soviet Union used to cut forbidden music onto old X-Rays. It’s a fascinating read in a time when we have pretty much any media we desire at our fingertips. It tells of a time where just possessing certain records could get you in serious trouble or even thrown in prison. Having to buy forbidden songs for huge amounts of money that were sometimes not even on the disc or of a fidelity so bad that they were virtually unlistenable.
But what it highlights most of all is the power of music, what lengths people will go to to hear it and when they do, the effect it can have. This quote from an interview with Kolya Vasin really stood out, he became known as ‘The Beatles Guy’ and he recounts first hearing ‘All My Loving’.
“When I heard them I felt something so phenomenal, even the great Little Richard whom I had adored faded for me. They enlightened me, it was insane. Little Richard was atomic happiness but The Beatles were insanity, something else, the limit, something unexplainable. And I understood everything… I felt in them a holiness. It was freedom.”
The Vinyl Factory also recently premiered a new short film about the phenomenon that they’d made with Stephen
Thanks to Mr Primate for pointing this new trailer out for the restored version of Belladonna of Sadness. Incredible animated psychedelia from Japan with an additional 8 minutes of restored footage. It’s getting a US cinema release this May and will hopefully make it’s way overseas too. Finders Keepers recently reissued the soundtrack by Masahiko Sato with an unheard track and have promised more in the future. Here’s the original trailer too, both are a bit NSFW but incredibly beautiful
This is just stunning and beautiful to see the sounds connect with the shapes. In the 70’s, Rainer Wehinger created a visual listening score to accompany Gyorgy Ligeti’s ‘Artikulation’. Donald Craig scanned the pages and synchronized them with the music, check his YouTube channel for more.
You’ve probably seen this doing the rounds, it’s justifiably so. So many words spring to mind… NSFW too.
Love this poster for ‘Valley of the Sasquatch’ by Brandon Schaefer. Definite ‘The Wicker Man’ overtones.
Some great late 90s footage of Req One, She One and Jase (Jason Brashill) aka The Dusty Knights painting in Brighton in this new Mongrels release by Kid Acne & Benjamin. You can pick up a copy of the limited six track 10″ here, complete with signed, numbered screen-printed covers.
If you haven’t seen this video, which is going viral fast, then don’t delay – hilarious. The one below is pretty good too.
With the new Bowie ‘Blackstar’ LP just out and the world (quite rightly) going gaga over it, I thought I’d revisit the original version ‘Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)’ from the ‘Nothing Has Changed’ compilation of last Xmas. This version is different to the one on the new LP, being way more jazz-orientated than the newer LP one which adds guitars to stunning effect. What I’d not seen before was the video that accompanied the original release and is quite beautiful, taking all sorts of visual cues from Carol Reed‘s ‘The Third Man’ tunnel scenes with added projected lyrics. This is also an edit of the original near eight minute track so try and check that out if you’re liking this.
If you’ve still not seen the ten minute video to lead LP track ‘Blackstar’ then it’s a must too. Equally beautiful, disturbing and fascinating it’s a mini epic that reveals more with each viewing. Any video featuring a skeleton in a spacesuit is OK with me and Bowie’s cheeky moves to camera in the second half are delightful.
They say that creativity flourishes under oppression and bleak times and it’s been a great year for music so there must be a grain of truth there. In an effort to glean something positive to remember 2015 by in light of all the injustice and hate out there in the world, here are some of my favourite things, in no order whatsoever.
There were several amazing music releases that went far beyond the normal album format – the main one being Aphex Twin‘s incredible Soundcloud dump of archive tracks which continue to drip out and now number over 200 tracks even if he has taken a lot of them down now. If there’s a ‘release’ of the year then that wins hands down although I’m still trying to process it all and tried to compile a selection of the cream in this mix for Solid Steel but bear in mind that that was when he’d only released half of it so by it’s no means definitive.
The other mega-release that deserves special mention is Rammellzee‘s ‘Cosmic Flush’ magnum opus that’s still in the process of materializing in a physical format. Released across seven 12″s with one track + remix + instrumentals + art print each, to be collected in a limited box with booklet around Spring 2016, it’s taken a huge effort by the Gamma Proforma label to bring to fruition seven years after the record’s completion and five years after Rammellzee’s death. It’s been a vintage year for independent Hip Hop too with great albums by Divine Styler, Ollie Teeba, Memory Man and The Fabreeze Brothers.
It’s nice to see the Leaf label celebrating 20 years of existence and still as vital as ever with Melt Yourself Down, Polar Bear, Radioland and new signing The Comet Is Coming all releasing excellent records this year. One last mention must go to the album at the top of the list below that crept out under everyone’s noses on Record Store Day and has slowly been gathering attention through word of mouth in the last eight months. So much so that it won the Dead Albatross Music Prize – an alternative to the Mercury award set up by independent Norman Records to nominate records that would otherwise be passed over at such things. If you only listen to one album from the list below, make it the Annabel (lee) one.
Albums:
Annabel (lee) – By The Sea & Other Solitary Places (If Music/Ninja Tune)
Rammellzee – Cosmic Flush (Gamma Proforma)
Divine Styler – Def Mask (Gamma Proforma) (technically 2014)
Memory Man – Broadcast One (Chopped Herring)
Eagles of Death Metal – Zipper Down
Jane Weaver – The Amber Light (Bird)
Cavern Of Anti-Matter – Blood Music (Grautag Records) (technically 2013)
The The – Hyena (Death Waltz)
The Fabreeze Brothers – S/T (AE Productions)
Markey Funk – Instinct (Audio Montage) (released fully in Jan 2016)
Aphex Twin – Soundcloud Archive dump
Amon Tobin – Dark Jovian EP (Ninja Tune)
Radioland – Radio-Activity Revisited (Leaf)
Ollie Teeba – Short Order (World Expo)
Kurt Stenzel – Jodorowsky’s Dune (Light In The Attic)
Various Artists – The Delaware Road (Buried Treasure)
Floating Points – Elaenia (Pluto)
Morgan Delt – S/T (Trouble In Mind) (technically 2014)
Gaz Coombes – Matador (Universal)
Black Devil – Disco Club (Lo Recordings)
Bruce Ditmas – Yellow Dust (Finders Keepers)
Rodinia – Drumside / Dreamside (Now Again)
Various Artists – In A Moment (Ghost Box)
Jaga Jazzist – Starfire (Ninja Tune)
Tracks:
a few of these are from a few years ago but new to me…
Noel Gallagher – The Right Stuff (Sour Mash)
Graeme Miller & Steve Shill – Moomins Theme (Finders Keepers)
The The – Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven But Nobody Wants To Die) (Cineola)
The Comet Is Coming – Neon Baby (Leaf)
Reso – Richochet (Hospital)
Black Channels – Oracles (Death Waltz Originals)
Paul Rutherford – Get Real (Hardcore) (1989)
Beck – Dreams (Capitol)
Band of Skulls – Hootchie Cootchie (Ignition Records) (2014)
Pond – Zond (EMI)
Ash Grunwald – Walking (2011 but via the Amorphous Androgynous ‘Wizards of Oz’ 2015 RSD comp)
Olivier Libaux – No One Knows (feat. Inara George) (2013)
Alan Copeland – Mission Impossible/Norwegian Wood (ABC) (1968!)
Design / packaging / covers:
so many incredibly high quality creations, a oglden age for record sleeve packaging and design…
Science Fiction Dancehall Classics compilation (Trevor Jackson) (On-U Sound)
The The – Hyena (Cineola / Death Waltz/Mondo)
Kurt Stenzel – Jodorowsky’s Dune (Signal Starr) (Light In The Attic)
Jaga Jazzist – Starfire (Ninja Tune)
Tame Impala – Currents (Robert Beatty)
The ‘Beat Bop’ record case (Jean-Michel Basquiat)
Grasscut – Everyone Was A Bird (Lo Recordings)
Artists:
Dan Lish
Kim Jung Gi
Signal Starr
Oddly Head
Ameet Hindocha
Reuben Sutherland
Stan & Vince
Jonathan Edwards
Laurie Lipton
Larry Carlson
Books / Comics:
Augustine Kofie – Keep Drafting (ZERO+ Publishing)
Stephen Coates – X-Ray Audio (Strange Attractor Press)
Roger Perry – The Writing On The Wall (Plain Crisp Books Ltd)
Hanson, Godtland & Krassner – Psychedelic Sex (Taschen)
Island – Various (Image)
Sandman: Overture – Gaiman/Williams (Vertigo)
Ody-C – Fraction/Ward (Image)
8-House – Various (Image)
B.P.R.D: Hell On Earth – Various (Dark Horse)
Punks: The Comic – Fialkov/Chamberlain (Image)
Judge Dredd: Enceladus – New Life – Williams / Flint (2000AD)
Exhibitions:
Peter Kennard at the Imperial War Museum
Charles & Ray Eames at the Barbican
Cosmonauts at the Science Museum
X-Ray Audio at the Horse Hospital
Trevor Jackson / Format at the Vinyl Factory space
Zulu Nation 42nd Anniversary at House of Vans
Film / TV: (I really didn’t watch much this year)
Mad Max: Fury Road
Star Wars : The Force Awakens
Love & Mercy
Dune The Complete Saga (Fan edit)
‘Colossus: The Forbin Project’
Rick & Morty
Moments:
The X-Wing Fighter flying overhead during Star Wars Secret Cinema
The Frankie Goes To Hollywood box set getting nominated for an AIM award for best box set design
Interviewing Edwin Pouncey aka Savage Pencil for a forthcoming book
Getting to wear a full Stormtrooper suit whilst DJing during Star Wars Secret Cinema
DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist – Renegades of Rhythm show at Koko
Writing a piece and creating a mix about Rammellzee for the Quietus
The moving sale finds at Lambiek in Amsterdam
Crazy scenes at the Southbank for the Big Fish Little Fish free Sunday session
Heroes:
Ben Coghill (again) for being the best agent in the business
The NHS – for saving my mum’s life and generally being incredible
Joshu Docherty – for recommending me for Star Wars Secret Cinema
Jeremy Corbyn – for giving hope that there can be an alternative
Sarah Coleman & Leigh Adams – for releasing their first film, making unique and
interesting things and generally being great people
Pete Williams – for getting the keys to the basement
Shindig! magazine – for overcoming the odds and turning a bad situation to their advantage
Pete Isaac & Scott Boca 45 for getting the whole 45 Live crew together and building an international collective
Everyone who gave their time and dug through their collections to contribute to the weekly Flexibition posts on the site: Jonny Trunk, Pete Isaac, Jon Brooks, Markey Funk & Ofer Tal, Stephen Coates, Jon More, John Stapleton, Steve Cook, Anton Armtone, Sarah & Leigh, Spencer Hickman.
RIP:
Mike Allen (Legendary Hip Hop DJ), Lemmy, Demis Roussos, The Pizz, Don Joyce (Negativland), Shusei Nagaoka, Kája Saudek, Errol Brown (Hot Chocolate), Daevid Allen (Gong), Leonard Nimoy, Brett Ewins, Noriyoshi Ohrai, Rod McKuen, Edgar Froese (Tangerine Dream), Mark B.
Looking forward to:
Transmission shop opening in Margate
David Bowie – Black Star LP
Mute 40 book
The Black Channels LP
The Allergies – Rock Rock feat. Andy Cat (Ugly Duckling)
Prophet: Earth War