International World Of Prog

Those hardy, regular visitors (ah, the pretence, the pretence…) will be familiar with my constant phobic battles against the prog music, and my attempts to overcome the fear, and even to embrace it.

And now, I am pleased to report, further progress - alongside the fine work carried out by gentlemen scholars such as Man Aubergine and Cleckhuddersfax, another ally has presented itself in the form of Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word.

Before I go any further though, I must pull them up on that title. Prog is a four letter word. I can see that, you can see that. It’s pretty clear. Now, I’ve never been involved in the process of making a vinyl record or compact disc for mass publication, and so can’t really comment on the pressures that one may find oneself under when deadlines loom and so on, but I would have thought even the most tooted up music executive fool would pick up on that one? I’m not angered, more concerned. Let’s leave it behind us. Okay? Okay.

That aside, Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word collects together offerings from all over this crazy world of ours, which Andy Votel considers to be truly ‘progressive’. Hmm, poncy. But the results are what counts, and indeed and truly, this time they count from such distant lands as Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Korea and Wales in a wave of wafer-thin reformed-mind sweetness.

It’s a slightly mixed bag, with some straightish up garage stuff from the East, and what might even be referred to as funk occasionally popping up, but what of it? Hmm?

Listen here to Visitors, about which I can find nothing – except to say their music reminds me of an idiot-savant child idly creating new colours by shooting beams of moonlight through prisms in carefully random directions - and San Ul Lim, three brothers from Korea who are surely the smartest men ever to walk this earth armed with a Casio and a dream…

Get the proper record on Delay 68 from here for pretty cheap, so you can listen to a Turkish man sound both Scottish and insulting. It is very worth it.

Visitors – Visitors

San Ul Lim - Frustration

Jabba Disco Night

In the feature film 'Star Wars Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi, there's this bit where Jabba the Hutt, bored out of his tiny sluggy mind, gets tired of this lady with tentacles on her head mincing about, and chucks her down into the pit of the Rancor, where she screams and stuff, and we can only presume that she gets killed up.

It is a Thursday.

We know that it's a Thursday, because The Max Rebo Band are playing, and The Max Rebo Band play shoddy funk, and Thursday night is 'Funk Night' at Jabba's Palace.

If it had been a Friday night, it would have been 'Disco Night', and the lady with the betentacled head might have lived to mince another day.

This is because Jabba's tiny mind would have been bombarded with dancenoise from his resident disco band Puyo Puyo, he wouldn't have got bored, and he wouldn't have chucked her down the hole, and she wouldn't have screamed and probably died.

This is what is often called the fickle hand of fate.

So, if you're prone to getting a bit bored, and feeling like watching an alien lady head get killed up at the hands of some futurebeast (who, by the way, can't handle no Force shit), download these, and have a soothing mind melt of a listen.

Puyo Puyo - Disco Jyta

Puyo Puyo - Play Skip Stop

There's more to download and buy here, and if you live in France, you might even see them. I don't.

Days Of Future Past

The history of mankind is liberally dotted with soothsayers, visionaries, men out of time.

Those such as Da Vinci, Newton, Einstein and Beckett. Those with the ability to think beyond the constraints of their existence, and in the process advance the progress of our humanity on Earth.

Now, there is another to add to that list – Like-A-Tim.

By creating tomorrow’s music at yesterday’s prices today, Like-A-Tim gives us a unique foresight into the music of the future, as it may have been conceived in 1959, as indeed we may conceive 1959. Today. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Like-A-Tim is a Dutch man.

These two imaginings from the dim and distant future are from I Like It When You Don’t Like It, which you can get from Like-A-Tim’s website, along with a bundle of downloads of more recent musings. He’s up to about 1963 at the moment. And here’s an interview in French.

Like-A-Tim – We Are So Avant-Garde (Snow Walking)

Like-A-Tim - Snel

You Can See It From The River!

Before a return to the real world is attempted, what the festive period revealed to me:

1 – sometimes, being a baby just isn’t glam enough
2 - everyone’s a cunt at Christmas
3 – if he looks like a cab-driver, he must be a cab-driver
4 - pretending to play guitar is better than trying to play guitar
5 - 26 maltesers in the mouth at one time just isn’t good enough
6 - you can see it from the river!
7 - if the man won’t breakdance, breakdance the man
8 – everything seems better with a sherry
9 - be careful what you say – even in February – it will be remembered
10 - it must be in the disco

Hmm. Plenty to think on there.

Which is just as well, as the Tea and Toast Band’s hazed dazed orchestra of the quaintly damned, incorporating pigeon calls and childrens tears, is the perfect accompaniment to a lengthy gaze out of the window on a winter’s afternoon. Tight.

Tea and Toast Band – Morning’s Mount

Tea and Toast Band – Dust Settles

The Band’s latest longish player can be got from here for a bargainous fiver. Hmm.