I remember seeing the cover to volume 1 of this Ennio Morricone collection last year and liking it, now there’s a second will another great image to continue the series. Both on trnasparent vinyl in an edition of 499 copies on Rustblade Records. Showcasing “the darker experimental side of Ennio” vol. 2 contains “Frightening orchestrations, dark jazz tapestries and unsettling piano movements…” apparently on vinyl for the first time. Both volumes and much more are available from OneWayStatic.com.
Music
Loving the covers of these two new compilations from Mr Bongo. Above is Pedro Santos, ‘Krishnanda’ was released in 1968 and is described by them as, “an album in the truest sense of the word-a spiritual, psychedelic Brazilian masterpiece from start to finish”. Below is the new ‘Mr Bongo Record Club’ compilation series – “a selection of favourites, recent discoveries and sought after obscurities, which form the basis of the Bongos Sound System DJ sets and their radio show of the same name”. Find out more about both of them here
The love affair with El Paraiso Records continues with this new video teaser. Coming on like a cross between parts of Ghost Box, Beyond The Black Rainbow and Board’s of Canada‘s ‘Tomorrow’s Harvest’, it has pretty much everything I want in sight and sound. No more info at present except that it’s an LP that’s ‘out soon’... *UPDATE: Out Sept 30th, 300 copies, pre-orders up NOW! Just look at that cover!
Check these two videos for Causa Sui while you’re here for that sun-bleached super 8 feel.
It’s been a while since I featured any of Dan’s work but he’s been churning them out and here’s just a small selection. Above: Biz Markie Below: MF Doom, J Dilla, James Brown, Leaders of the New School, King Tubby, Man Parrish, Melle Mel, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, The Pharcyde, Wu Tang Clan, Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Breakbeat Lou, The Cold Crush Brothers. Buy prints from Dan’s site here...
I play an El Paraiso Records special for the first hour on the Out Of The Wood show, followed by Pete W, with records featuring frogs, drugs, a blue lady and sunshine. Broadcast live from The Book & Record Bar in West Norwood, listen live every Sunday between 12-2pm on http://wnbc.london
My remix of Divine Styler‘s ‘Pandorum’ is the free mp3 this week on the Def Mask remixes page from Gamma Proforma – go grab it and all the others so far, more to follow …
The monthly FEAST in West Norwood is upon us this Sunday with myself and Pete Williams back for the Out of the Wood show on WNBC radio (West Norwood Broadcasting Company). Broadcast live from the Book & Record Bar from 12 midday until 2am when Dr Alex Paterson and George Holt wheel out the 2nd edition of Cakelab for the afternoon. Not sure what I’m going to be playing as yet but I have half a mind to do an El Paraiso Records special as I’ve played little else at home recently. You can listen in live here…
Elsewhere it’s well worth coming down in person as there’s all kinds of luscious food, craft and vintage stalls, live music and more – all for free.
That’s a pretty nice AV line up – tickets on sale now – new version of my rarely seen Future Shock AV show too.
Gamma Proforma are dropping all sorts of treats and freebies on their site, here’s a taster for an upcoming LP on the label from Deflon Shallahr. All artwork by the amazing Will Barras.
Divine Styler remixed: Over the coming weeks Gamma will be dropping the complete set of Def Mask Remixes, grab the digital album for free and each week you’ll receive a new track. Here’s Mophono‘s take on ‘Carriers IQ’
This is SO awesome – all the background music by Ray Ellis from the first season plus some from seasons 2 and 3 of the late 60s Spider-man cartoon series. Check the tracks at 54:52 and 1:04:50 ! YouTube user 11db11 explained how he put it all together:
“I cut out every piece of music from all 3 seasons (that took like a month) – Then I grouped them together (multiple incidents of each song) – Then I built each song from the best parts of the multiple versions. – I had to EQ each individual clip to even the levels, bass, treble … – – I left the video alone so people could see where the clips came from.”
The Daydreaming With Stanley Kubrick exhibition started a few weeks back at Somerset House in London’s West End and it’s well worth a look. Curated by James Lavelle, it features many familiar names that hint that his phone book must be a thing to behold. Artists, film makers and musicians from around the world have contributed but with over 40 pieces to look at there’s always going to be some stronger than others.
For the most part, I enjoyed the more literal, graphic interpretations; the hexagon-patterned floor from The Shining, Space Invader‘s Rubix-cubed Alex from A Clockwork Orange and Doug Foster’s homage to the stargate scene in 2001, ‘Beyond The Infinite’ – a mesmerising widescreen kaleidoscope that constantly shifted to a soundtrack by UNKLE. I was surprised there wasn’t more reference to Hal from 2001 outside of some of the graphics for the exhibition branding though and there was a missed opportunity to do something with Kubrick toys seeing as James has had an affinity with them for so long.
One of my favourite pieces was Philip Castle‘s 70s airbrushed illustration for the original film of Alex with dentures in a glass. Unfortunately this was represented as a slide blown up rather than the original painting but it still had enough presence, menace and period textured beauty to outshine most of the other exhibits.
Elsewhere, several installation pieces were the most successful in invoking Stanley’s spirit. A vertical pulsing strip of LED lights by Chris Levine burned images onto the retina from the end of a corridor so that, when you looked away, you saw split second flashes of Kubrick’s face. A ‘breathing’ camera by Nancy Fouts, sat eerily in another corner, rasping in and out to itself. A room of 114 wireless’ all tuned to the same channel in a dimly-lit workshop created a WWII-like atmosphere and the exhibition guide revealed that a huge cast of celebs had made the soundtrack playing through the tinny speakers. Peter Kennard‘s ant-war collages were further bolstered by additions from Dr. Strangelove although it felt largely transplanted from his recent Imperial War Museum exhibit with some added Kubrickisms.
Possibly equal to Foster’s AV piece was Toby Dye‘s small room showing four different scenes from The Corridor, each one using a Kubrick technique of focus pulling in or out of a centralised corridor. This, when shown full frame on each of the four walls, gave the viewer a sense of unease or vertigo as the walls appeared to shift around them. Very effective if off-balancing. David Pellam‘s classic Droog design featured twice, once in the show branding and once in Paul Insect‘s updating of his work, ‘Clockwork Britain’. An iconic design, connected with Kubrick by the simplification of his visualisation for the Droogs, it sits alongside the Shining carpet as a graphic motif instantly connected to his films. A VR headset with interior 2001 space station scenario was also installed but the queue was just too long so don’t head to it at peak weekend hours if possible.
Electronic Sound, the online magazine of all things errr… electronic, has now become a physical printed issue too. Entering the analogue world with issue 2.0 (pictured), they’ve just published issue 21 which comes with a free CD of current electronic artists covering old synth classics (Paul Hartnoll does Kraftwerk’s ‘Numbers’ for instance). Well worth picking up with no-nonsense writing, clean design and beautiful photography, they straddle the current, historical and even delve into features on the machines that make the music.
Synthesizer Dave’s Workshop goes step-by-step through repairing an Italian Multiman-S, Jack Dangers is their resident archivist, giving a brief lowdown on Lovely Music’s Ltd‘s output and Dave Henderson unearths the genesis of his Wild Planet column for Sounds magazine. Add a ton of current release reviews, including Kris Needs‘ weird grab bag and interviews with everyone from Karl Bartos, Tim Gane, Beth Orton, Alan Rankin and more and it’s a must read. They have a subscriber deal on right now – 3 issues for a fiver. The next issue is out in September after which it should run monthly and there are more CDs promised over the next few issues.
I picked this up a few weeks back, a short book with a record by Cornershop called, ‘What Did The Hippy Have in His Bag?’. It’s a lovely little thing with a simple song going through the content of said bag (not what you’d expect), perfect for kids and with an instrumental on the B side you can learn it and then sing your own version. Released a few years back on the band’s Ample Play Records’ Singles Club, you can still find copies in their shop for £12.
Stunning video by Aujik with music by Daisuke Tanabe
I’m really liking that there seem to be a lot of grass-roots level nights popping up that cater for the more esoteric tastes in music at the moment. Shindig! magazine start a new one in North London at the end of the month – good luck guys but points deducted for taking someone else’s artwork for the flyer.
Sonic Cathedral will be releasing a very special glow in the dark vinyl 12″ of Kraftwerk covers especially for the Independent Label Market, which takes place at Old Spitalfields Market in London on Saturday, July 23. It comes with a DL card and a badge of the centre label – top of my wants list! Check out this new version of ‘Neonlicht’ by Remover (a new band that is essentially three fifths of Hookworms)
The ‘Kraftwerk? Ja Bitte!’ EP includes the two songs from the long-sold-out 7” they released back in 2013 – Disappears doing ‘Trans Europa Express’ and Cloudland Canyon covering ‘Radioaktivität’ – alongside a raucous reboot of ‘The Robots’ by Californian space-rockers White Manna, which was actually recorded live in soundcheck at Ramsgate Music Hall in September 2014.
Today, 2 hrs before The Orb‘s Alex Paterson starts his new Cake Lab residency at the Book and Record Bar in W. Norwood, I’ll be on the Out of the Wood Show hosted by WNBC.LONDON https://m.facebook.com/outofthewoodradioshow/ after which….
“From 2pm a new Sunday ambient club called Cake Lab launches. Dr. Alex Paterson and George Holt take you back to the good old days of the Ambient Club Room, circa 1987 with a free Sunday afternoon club… Expect an eclectic mix of Electronica, Dub, World, Jazz, Dance and every genre in between… and there will be cake.. and coffee and tea, and beer and cider and wine and spirits….”
The Cake Lab set up Alex & George brought along was amazing; delicious cakes, crazy decor, T-shirts and most of all, great music. Pete W, Hannah Brown and I were playing on the Out Of The Wood show beforehand. Photos by Pete and Hannah from across the afternoon. In fact the whole of FEAST in West Norwood is really worth checking out, food, drink, retro goods, craft stalls, sound systems and live bands, first weekend of every month.
All week Wordplay Magazine have been hosting a takeover by Soundsci who take you through the various elements of how they work as an international crew. Short films and interviews form the basis of the daily pieces leading up to the release of their new album, ‘Walk The Earth’ on Monday.
Part 1: Digging With Oxygen
Part 2: No Sleep Nigel interview – fascinating article with the legendary mixer
Part 3: Connecting the Dots with Audyessey
Part 4: Interview with Darrell Krum – the art of Soundsci, the World Expo label and many more.
Part 5: In the studio with Ollie Teeba and Jonny Cuba
Also out today is the second single, ‘Write On’ / ‘Changing The Gods’, on a limited 45 – available here
Part 6: Rhyming with Audessey
AND FINALLY!!! Here’s the album to buy SOUNDSCI BANDCAMP – it’s digital only for now, aside from the 45s but there’s talk of a vinyl edition although that’s a way off yet
Lo, and did the hordes descend onto Rat Records in Camberwell like a plague of locusts and the music flowed freely, from the decks to the racks and into the bags of the hungry vinyl scavengers. Sometimes it didn’t even make it into the racks, being bagsied whilst still on the turntable by eagle-eared punters inquiring, ‘what’s this playing?’. Jonny Trunk and I played whilst Lucy and Pete (behind the camera below) served and a wonderful afternoon was had by all.
Rat has a policy of restocking their shelves with new stock every Saturday and several hundred discs make their way onto the floor each and every weekend for the regulars who are at the door at the 10.30 opening time. This past weekend they had an additional box of soundtracks, library and weird music to add to that, the difference being that no one knew what any of it was until Jonny or I played it so the music stood or fell on its own merits. A collection they’d got in recently was put aside specially for this purpose and most of what was played in the two and half hour set you can hear below was sold. I even added a clutch from my own collection to the box.
As the box emptied and more friends arrived at the shop it was decided that a drink was needed and the nearby Stormbird bar was chosen, partly because it’s the only place in London you can get a bottle of Pastelism, a beer brewed by Domino Records band, The Pastels. Much was consumed and many words were spoken of the crate-digging, vinyl-hunting nature alongside Tom Central (Keep Up!), PC (DJ Food), Graeme (Frenchbloke & Son) Ross, Zoe Lucky Cat Baxter and more. Robin the Fog and Hannah Brown from Resonance FM were also on hand to conduct an impromptu recording for their Near Mint show and the results can be heard below. The results of the alcohol consumption can also be heard as the show progresses too! It was great to see so many friends and play in my local record shop among like-minded punters and there are plans to do a rematch at Audio Gold in Crouch End soon. If any other record stores want to host this kind of event in the future then get in touch…
Beautiful typography on one of Adam James Seth-Ward‘s purchases.
I’m totally in love with this Danish label, run by two guys, Jakob Skott and Jonas Munk, El Paraiso Records.
If you want modern psychedelic rock then try Monarch, Causa Sui, Mythic Sunship, Papir or Landing, for percussion-heavy jazz with electronic krautrock overtones try Jakob Skott, for guitar-led workouts try Nicklas Sorenson and for cosmic synth minimalism then Jonas Munk is your man