I did a remix for Red Snapper earlier this year which is just seeing the light of day now. Following on from their ‘Hyena’ album it’s the title track of their ‘Mambety EP’ and sits alongside a remix by Moist and album track ‘Dock Running’.
Out today on LO RECORDINGS you can get it here. Whilst you’re there check out the new Grasscut single too, a precursor to their next album that Lo are releasing next year. I saw them live a few weeks back and they were excellent.
Brian Eno‘s 90’s solo albums tend to get overlooked in the light of his 70’s and 80’s output even though his star was truly back on the map by the early 90’s due to the resurgence in Ambient music he helped pioneer. Typically whilst everyone else was looking back Eno had moved on and was looking forward, releasing (or not) a mixed bag alongside producing the likes of U2, James, curating interactive apps and installations and remixing Massive Attack.
He reissues ‘Nerve Net’, ‘The Shutov Assembly’, ‘Neroli‘ and ‘The Drop’ on December 1st – all expanded into 2 disc editions. Each comes in deluxe casebound packaging and contains the original album on the first disc alongside a second disc of unheard or rare music from his archives.
Arguably the strongest release is ‘Nerve Net’, a mixed bag that anticipated Trip Hop on certain tracks and contains some of his finest rhythmic works since ‘My Life In The Bush of Ghosts’. Most interesting of all though is that the 2nd CD contains the first release of the ‘lost’ album, ‘My Squelchy Life’, an earlier version that was aborted at the time.
‘The Shutov Assembly’ features a whole album of unreleased recordings from the same period and ‘Neroli’ – a concept album based around perfume – includes an entire unreleased hour-long ambient work, ‘New Space Music’.
Perhaps the weakest of the bunch is 1997’s ‘The Drop’ which is an odd release with a terrible cover that’s saved by the final track, ‘Iced World’ which is a beautiful 30 minute ambient piece worth the price of admission alone. This is expanded to include 9 tracks previously only available as a limited edition of 1,000 sold at an exhibition of Eno’s ’77 Million Paintings’ at La Floret in Japan.
Each album contains a 16 page booklet compiling photos, images and writing by Eno relevant to each release. Three of the albums are also being made available as gatefold double vinyl releases containing the original audio only, but accompanied by a download card and printed inner sleeves with the content from the CD booklets.
Pre-order each of the albums over at Enoshop.co.uk where you can also buy all sorts of editons of his work, oblique strategies sets, T-shirts and other obscurities like the ‘Curiosities’ compilations which are well recommended.
I was Virgil Howe‘s guest on his Hidden Level radio show on Soho Radio last Saturday – we chatted and played music for 2 hours and swapped stories and tunes in the tiny studio in the heart of Soho. I’d not met Virgil face to face before but we’d been in contact and remixed each others material via The Amorphous Androgynous who he drums for. Virgil’s had his hands in loads of bands from the Killer Meters to Little Barrie to his own work on the Breaking Bread and Scenario labels. He’s the son of Steve Howe, guitarist for Yes and Asia and his brother Dylan also plays drums and has just released an album of jazz versions of Bowies‘s ‘Berlin’. He’s also DJed since the mid 90’s and can eat 12 cream crackers in 1 minute (I may have made this one up).
Virgil Howe’s Hidden Level Radio Show (11/10/2014) by Soho Radio on Mixcloud
Anyway, top bloke with skills and great taste in music and we chatted and played two hours away in no time, taking in recording stories, mutual friends, even comics and at one point Virgil told a tasty little anecdote about a recording session that his dad disrupted whilst Trevor Horn and co. were constructing Frankie Goes To Hollywood‘s ‘Relax’. Yes, the world is that small. Anyway, here’s the podcast and look out for Virgil’s name, he’s everywhere and has a new solo album called ‘Hidden Level’ on the way soon which is excellent. Also check out his three Drum Series 7″s on Breaking Bread where he teams up with Malcolm Catto, Shawn Lee and Mark Claydon.
This is out now and exceeding all my expectations – fantastic collection of tripped out space jazz and astral poetry. Truly a lysergic set out cosmic jams, every track is killer – buy it in regular forms or with extra instrumental discs here.
You can now buy an actual vinyl copy of the Cut Chemist ‘Mix By Jimmy’ selection of acetates from Afrika Bamabaataa‘s collection. I posted about this the other week and it’s littered with amazing tracks or versions of old school wonders including Soul Sonic Force demos.
There’s also an 80 pg book / tour program featuring shots of some of the collection, slipmats, poster, facsimile photo and flyer, a tote bag and more. Go to Boo-Hooray to grab them but be prepared, they aren’t cheap!
Can’t say enough good things about Shindig! magazine, a decent blend of well-written articles and reviews on as much new as old music in the psyche, prog, rock and experimental vein.
Not as dry and repetitive as Record Collector and digging a bit further underground than Mojo. This month’s issue contains a Rocket Recordings mix CD by Cherrystones too.
A very odd combo arrived in the form of a Teeny Tiny Trunk 7″ the other day. An as yet unreleased duo of tracks by Anthony Newley with musical accompaniment from none other than Delia Derbyshire. The pair are an oddity and so are the recordings with Newley coming across as a bit of a perv as he comments on the passing of young girls in short skirts. The combination of clear vinyl and a Julian House sleeve design completes the package although these appear to be sold out now in the clear variant. Go to Trunk Records for black vinyl copies
On Thursday night I was lucky enough to squeeze into Sarm Studios alongside 60 other Frankie Goes To Hollywood fans and assorted industry people for a playback of ‘Welcome To The Pleasuredome’. Ably hosted by Classic Album Sundays‘ Colleen Murphy it was a final farewell to the studio were the album and thousands of other songs were originally recorded before it closes to be refurbished into flats at the end of the year.
The evening started with a swift drink around the corner with designer Philip Marshall alongside Steve and Paul from Union Square Music who I’d worked with on the Frankie box set, now at the printers and awaiting release in a month’s time. We were treating this as our ‘wrap’ party even though Paul and Steve still have the logistics of consolidating the set elements and shipping all the boxes out (over 1,100 have been sold so far). Walking past Sarm earlier, a gaggle of fans had mistaken me for alternately, Steve Lipson and Holly Johnson as everyone who ventured near was scrutinised by the gathering crowd.
Once we returned to the studio there were many more outside, although nearly all midde-aged men, a far cry from the teenage girls who used to gather to try and catch a glimpse of Frankie as they came and went 30 years ago. Once inside I was finally introduced to Paul Sinclair from Super Deluxe Edition (also see his review here) whose blog is a must for all things that fall into this category, and we settled in the back row next to a Sarm patch bay to listen to the evening’s events.
First up was Colleen quizzing Trevor Horn about his career and some of the difficulties in recording the album with the fledgling band, some of who were still learning their instruments. The thing I realised about Horn that evening is that whether working with the best or the most incompetent he’s always managed to get something extraordinary out of the people he works with. Take his two projects before starting ZTT and recording ‘…Pleasuredome’:
Yes ‘90210’ – a group able to play and sing virtually any other band under the table but suffering from a lack of relevance in the pop market. He managed to make ‘Owner of a Lonely Heart’ into a worldwide smash hit for them, including an experimental extended 12″ mix, and bring them to a whole new audience. Contrast this with Malcolm McLaren‘s ‘Duck Rock’ LP, a mish mash culture clash of World Music before the term was even invented fronted by a band manager who couldn’t even keep time let alone sing. That record produced several top 40 hits and can be credited with bringing Hip Hop culture as a package (rapping, scratching, graffiti, fashion and breaking / double dutch) to the world, certainly to Europe.
Colleen was an excellent hostess who certainly knew her ZTT / Frankie / Horn history and various nuggets of info concerning recording shenanigans were revealed before we broke for sandwiches and drink. On returning we were confronted with an often hilarious piece to camera by Paul Morley who couldn’t be present but had sent a recorded message instead. He regaled us with lists of adjectives to describe the album, painted a picture of both the musical and journalistic landscape at the time and quoted the David Frost line from the TV ad: “hello, good evening and welcome… to the pleasure dome”.
At which point Colleen dropped the needle on her custom built sound system and we settled back to listen to side F of the album in the same room that much of it was made. Even though everyone in the room probably knew every note and nuance of the record it was still a new experience. Few would have access to a system as good as this and the acoustics of the room gave it a different shade. The bass at times was extraordinarily deep and full, the stereo separation very apparent too and the first side – IMO one of the greatest pieces of pop music ever recorded – flew past way too quickly. On to side G and the trinity of pre LP pop classics that are ‘Relax’, ‘War’ and ‘Two Tribes’, songs we’ve all heard a million times in multiple versions that still sounded fresh as the day they were mixed down.
Another break for refreshments, toilet breaks and the like and people were starting to loosen up and really enjoy the evening. It was on to side T – generally thought to be the weakest of the bunch because more than half of it consists of three cover versions including the almost universally reviled ‘(Do You Know The Way To) San Jose’. On reflection if you took this song away the side would stand up way better. The brief version of ‘Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey‘ giving way to the powerful cover of Springsteen‘s ‘Born To Run’ coupled with two new band compositions not being as winsome as it currently stands. Would the inclusion of the full ‘The World Is My Oyster’ or ‘Disneyland’ have helped? Almost certainly but perhaps there wasn’t the time to finish these before the album had to be out hence their inclusion on later releases?
Side H, with three slices of Frankie’s finest non-single material and ‘The Power of Love’ to end before the coda of ‘Bang’ left everyone clapping their appreciation for a work now, rightly, considered a classic. Cue Trevor Horn returning alongside engineer and guitarist Steve Lipson and Fairlight operator and former Art of Noise member JJ Jeczalik. All three were in good spirits and another ex-Art of Noise-er, Gary Langan, was also lurking in the wings. There were brief introductions and reminisces before the room was opened up for questions for the super-dry Lipson, jovial JJ and laid-back Horn.
At the end a virtual scrum descended on the three as record sleeves were whipped out to be signed and further questions asked whilst posing for photos. We crept off to the control room, somewhere that was generally out of bounds to the rest of the party but that we had access to via the USM connection. I sat at the huge mixing desk overlooking the live room and, for a second, imagined I was Trevor or Steve all those years ago. It was a great end to a unique evening and I think most people went away satisfied that they had been part of something special, something that was soon going to be permanently laid to rest when the studio closes.
For Philip and I it felt as though we had finished the project and this was a little send off, of course there will be something else cropping up, there always is, but it was a nice end to nine months’ work. I left content that I’d had the opportunity to visit the place where some of my favourite records were created (not only Frankie but Propaganda, Art of Noise and Grace Jones to name just three on ZTT alone). We were Inside The Pleasuredome for what seemed like most of the year but last week, as we left the Blue Building, we went out in style… with a Bang!
The Ultra Deluxe Frankie Goes To Hollywood ‘Inside The Pleasuredome’ box set by is available to pre-order via Pledge Music and is released at the end of October, 30 years after the original opened its doors.
After waiting years, it’s finally here, Jeremy Schmidt‘s soundtrack to Panos Cosmatos’ ‘Beyond The Black Rainbow’. It’s short but it’s more than sweet and beautiful to behold in the packaging we’ve come to expect from the mighty Death Waltz label.
I appear to have an orange vinyl version with no sleeve notes though, not sure what happened there but I’ve mailed Spencer at DW to find out.
Also, here’s the new More Than Human radio show in handy downloadable form: it features a full-length interview with Jeremy (aka Sinioa Caves) plus some of his soundtrack picks; a final preview of the New Forms Festival (in Vancouver this weekend just gone) and lots of new, old and obscure electronic and experimental treats.
You can subscribe for free to the podcast in iTunes – that way the show auto-downloads every week.
Available now on Death Waltz Originals – ‘The Equestrian Vortex’ 10″. Fans of Berberian Sound Studio will already be familiar with the name of this ‘film’.
Looks like a lovely Julian House sleeve again, BUY it here now, one-off pressing.
Message Andy Votel or Doug Shipton to reserve a copy, 100 track mix of Soviet releases on the Melodia label. Also soon available in tape form, the Z ‘Visions Of Dune’ album I recently blogged about – exclusively from Finder’s Keepers’ site.
Sorry for the lack of recent updates, really juggling a lot of different plates at the moment with gigs, video edits and artwork. Trying to fit music and life into the mix is proving difficult and all my web-time at the moment is being swallowed in a gargantuan update of this site which is over 5 years old now and is showing it’s age.
Until then here’s a treat uploaded by Bundy K Brown, it’s his first pass demo of the track we collaborated on that opened ‘Kaleidoscope’ back in 2000. We took the stems of this version and broke it all up and added to my version to make the one you hear on the LP today. There’s some interesting stuff going on in there as he varies the tempo here and there by a couple of bpm to get a live feel for it (it’s all samples). Check out his Soundcloud as he’s uploading lots of archive stuff at the moment.
Anyway, enjoy – that’s also any early idea for the LP cover in the upload. There’s lots of stuff in the works at the moment that I can share soon with several things coming to a head hopefully and then the blog can become a bit more regular again.
Received a vinyl copy of this wonderful album over the weekend from InFiné Records (thanks!) Beautiful packaging with debossing on silver card + insert and inner sleeve, rounding off an excellent record perfectly. Pretty sure this will be in the end of year top 10 album chart for 2014 for me, not a duff track on it. Get it here.
UPDATE: Finders Keepers have just put an exclusive cassette version on sale referencing the original artwork.
The album is out today but if you order from FSOLDigital you get a bonus 3 track digital EP which I downloaded earlier and can confirm is excellent, can’t wait for the album to arrive.
Seeing as “today is the 1st of September!” (Foetus ‘day’ if ever there was one) here’s a vintage interview with JG Thirlwell himself, not far off 30 years ago, from Sounds. (right click on the image and download in to read a larger version)
Following on from the themes of the first four ‘Environments’ albums, Five explores the space / time / dimension that exists when we die. The moment of departure. It includes appearances from Daniel Pemberton (BAFTA nominated / Ivor Novello winning composer), Raven Bush (Syd Arthur) and Riz Maslen (Neotropic). The Environment series originally began as an archive of previously unreleased recordings but Environment Five features thirteen all new songs recorded in the first half of 2014.
All pre-orders of the new album made through FSOLDigital will receive a bonus free 3-track EP on release! Here’s a new teaser video and album cover too – more info on fsolnews.blogspot.
My very good friend Roy ‘DJ Moneyshot’ Spencer recently interviewed Garry Cobain for the classic album series in this month’s Future Music, focusing on their ‘Lifeforms’ album.
Kid Koala‘s latest show is so multifaceted that it almost defies description, it certainly isn’t easy to sum up in one sentence anyway. In 2003 he released a 300 page silent graphic novel called ‘Nufonia Must Fall’ about a robot who falls in love with a girl (no spoilers there). He’s now translated it into a hour long stage performance that sees the story performed with puppets whilst being filmed live as Kid plays the soundtrack alongside The Afiara Quartet.
The puppets, or more accurately models / macquettes, came in different sizes and there must have been at least 10 different stage sets on pedestals which would be filmed before the camera moved on to the next on a tracking dolly. The puppeteers all wore black so as to be more inconspicuous and would change stage sets between filming as each scene was projected and edited live above the stage on a huge screen. All the while Kid Koala was soundtracking the performance alongside a string quartet, one minute playing keyboards then scratching, playing mandolin or affecting voices into a vocoder. At one point he was playing a keyboard figure with one hand and then needle dropping tones from the Spiritualized drone record ‘Pure Phase’ to form melodies.
The whole piece was incredible, funny and moving and the sit down setting of the Roundhouse on a rainy Monday night made it even more fantastic. It was also the antithesis of his previous ‘Short Attention Span Theatre’ shows of a few years ago, often moving as a glacial pace because of the limitations placed on the crew moving between scenes which took time to set up and assemble. Prerecorded inserts of the robot’s chest-mounted tape recorder or cut-away scenes involving hands performing acts that the models couldn’t were included where needed and bought time for the puppeteers and variety to the camera angles.
The music was an integral part of the piece and bought scenes to life, the themes repeating to form a fully realised score that built on the original soundtrack included with the book. I was close to tears at one point and realised that it was the music that had bought me there but it was also used as a sound effect with a particularly effective cello bow sound used to make the sound of the robot’s head turning in an elevator scene.
If you get the chance to see this then take it as it won’t be getting too many outings due to the size of the production. Sadly it was only on once in London before moving to a four night residency in Hamburg and then more in the Netherlands. Watching it on the web would only give you a portion of the experience, you really have to see it in all its multi-layered glory. We joked afterwards that a DVD of the performance would have more behind the scenes features than the actual main feature.
Another unexpected aspect of the show was that there was a near stage invasion as the end as people wanted to inspect the props, sets and characters that had been used, take photos and try to deduce how what they’d just seen had been done. It’s a rare show that can achieve such an effect on a crowd in this day and age, also, I forgot to mention – the whole night started out with a gain on bingo on specially drawn Kid Koala cards.
It’s been a long time coming and it’s finally almost here – the long trailed album by The Heliocentrics featuring Melvin Van Peebles drops on Now Again on Oct 7th on double CD and deluxe vinyl with bonus instrumentals disc. It comes on like Cannonball Adderly‘s David Axelord-produced ‘Soul Zodiac’ and from the 4 tracks I’ve heard, doesn’t disappoint. More info here and an exclusive instrumental to check out.
photo by Edwin Wong
Not one but two electronica bombshells were dropped this week – first the Aphex Twin blimp and stencils then the announcement yesterday of a new album. You can pre-order the album here including being entered into a raffle to purchase a £250 (!) limited edition vinyl version and read the press release which looks like it’s been google-translated from Japanese.
Over on Facebook, Gaz from Future Sound Of London has finally been giving some previews of Environment 5 – the long-awaited next installment of their Environments series, the low-key soundscape set that they’ve been releasing for the past few years. This time though it seems as if this is THE new Future Sound of London album as the tracks are all said to have been written this year instead of from their archive. This will also be available on vinyl as well as CD and Download and note that it’s ‘Environment’ instead of the plural. Now all we need is a new Kraftwerk album…