I Want, Ooh Yeah, Animal

One rainy Sunday last month, I found myself in a relatively terrifying pub in Deptford, trying to make a snail out of luminous green plasticene. I did a very poor job. It looked more like a turtle that had just had a stroke.

But it didn’t really matter, because I was being subjected to the noise-mash-lite and midi/8-bit mincing that Animal Fact Records seem so fond of. And what’s more, they were giving away free CDRs in party bags. These are good, good things.

I have no real idea of what I saw on the night, it was kind of like that, but here are some choice choices from the aforementioned CDR.

Firstly, and most offensively, Melviß Tibet’s digital recreation of the noise a fox makes when fighting another fox and watching a crash between two lorries full of drums, until the bats come at the end, and calm everything right down.

Secondly, and most mysteriously as I can find fack all about them anywhere, Wet Sheets’s midi-amyl-disco recreation of Thriller, with the zombies replaced by toy robots, and Vincent Price replaced by my first synth-E-sizer. Which is a sentence I thought I’d never get to write.

I daresay there are more nights of bombardment in tricky boozers to be had, so keep an eye on their myspace and that, where they also have a shit load of stuff for you to do the downloading.

Generous.

Melviß Tibet - Bacon & HPocalypse

Wet Sheets - Thriller




003. Vulcans - Star Trek


Tiny Dancer

The Sound Of Drums

Well, Glastonbury is over for another year and no doubt Tiny Dancer and Ricky Stardust will be giving us their highlights, just as soon as they find their brains again.

I caught some of the festival on the tellybox and of course Bjork was as brilliant as ever, climaxing with a storming Pluto from her third album Homogenic – which gives me a really poor excuse to bring in Mark Bell of LFO, who collaborated on the aforementioned album.

The editorial on Amazon states that it is ‘a nominal collaboration with Mark Bell of obscure techno outfit LFO’. Balls to Amazon, Mark Bell is a flippin’ genius and he’s all over Homogenic. If you don't believe me, listen to what happens 2 minutes and 39 seconds through Kombat Drinking when LFO realise they have literally exausted every drum sound they have on their computer.

They decide the hell with it, let's just go with some beautiful sweeping strings instead, and I reckon it's not far off being a sort of template for the sound of Bjork's All Is Full Of Love. Check it.

LFO - Kombat Drinking

LFO - Shove Piggy Shove


Crisp Debris

We Go Camping Listen Lots Music Loud Good

Like an over-pumped leather football on a bitter frosty day, you just can't avoid it smacking you right in the face that this weekend is the Glastonbury Festival.

Personally it's too close to peasantry for my delicate complexion but Tiny Dancer and Ricky Stardust will be attending and no doubt will have some tales to tell us all if and when they return. And what tales they may be...

In the meantime, here are a couple of tracks from bands who are playing this year. First up is an Italian Ice Cream Advert inspired rendition of Radiohead's Creep from The Cosmic Sausages (yes, they are silly - but brilliant). And second, Spiritualized are playing this year which gives me a chance to elbow in a track from Jason Pierce's old band Spacemen 3 'cos I do love it.

All this, and you don't even have to poo in a hole in the ground that other people have poo'd in. Lots. Don't say we don't treat you well.

The Cosmic Sausages – Creep

Spacemen 3 – Walkin’ With Jesus


Crisp Debris

Another Life Begins Today

When I was... well, old enough to make it relatively shameful... I was in a Transformers fan club called TransMasters UK. A guy called Matt Dallas used to write and draw a comic book called Transtrip and after a while I started contributing a back-up strip to the comic and so we corresponded quite frequently.

I was just starting to take music seriously at the time and so talk soon moved on from whether or not the Autobots and Decepticons were able to transform when they still lived on Cybertron, or whether Jeff Senior or Will Simpson was the best Marvel UK artist, to the kind of music we liked. Eventually we traded compilation tapes. I made him one featuring, if I can remember, a great number of MOR classics such as Don Henley’s Boys of Summer and Hard Habit To Break by Chicago.

He made me a best of the Pet Shop Boys.

I don’t have the tape anymore, I think it probably got chewed up or I might have left it in someone’s car stereo and they never gave it back; but it’s still stayed with me as one of the best compilations I’ve ever been given. I also swear there was a different more laid back version of Suburbia on it that I’ve tried to track down to no avail ever since and the memory of which prompted me to recreate it in a version that even out-gayed the Pet Shop Boys.

A good deal of the tracks on Matt’s tape were b-sides and it led me to buy Alternative, a compilation of their rarities.

I consider it to be the best thing they’ve released.

You’re familiar with the big poppy Pet Shop Boys, which I love also, but I’ve always preferred their more laid back introspective songs where Neil Tennant suddenly becomes Morrissey with a prettier voice and starts singing about jaded Headmasters (Hey Headmaster), a friend’s funeral (Your Funny Uncle – the lyric of which may even top Being Boring as Tennant’s greatest) and love that dare not speak its name (It Must Be Obvious)

Everyone knows when they look at us
Of course they do it must be obvious
I never told you now I suppose
You’re the only one who didn’t know

To really hammer home the comparison to Morrissey, in one of the album’s many highlights, Johnny Marr even turns up on the track Decadence.

Due to the nature of the beast, the compilation is, shall we say, inconsistent. As well as the above it also features some quite bad Euro House; big, gay, pop stompers; the odd show tune; and, on Sound Of The Atom Splitting, arguably the campest vocal ever foisted upon the music buying public.

Pretty much perfect then.

Pet Shop Boys - Hey Headmaster

Pet Shop Boys - Your Funny Uncle

Pet Shop Boys - It Must Be Obvious


Ricky Stardust

Loving The Alien

I'm an optimist. In the future - which officially happens 126 years from now - there will be no war, prejudice or hatred. The reason for this is that the whole world will have decided that it's much nicer to listen to Blue + White by Aphex Twin instead.

Of course, the Aphex Twin sometimes likes to go the other way and make tunes like .215061 instead, which is what aliens dance to, probably.

And all this talk of aliens neatly leads us on to an occasional list. Everyone likes a good old list, don't they? 'Course they do.



001. Jedi Knights - After Life

002. Brian Eno - An Ending (Ascent)


Crisp Debris

From Jackie To Joe – Scott Walker And The Melancholy Disposition

As old Joe sat a dyin’, the baby down the hall was cryin’, somebody had a party going on…

I’m not going to pretend to you that Joe is without its flaws or even that you’re definitely going to like it. When I first bought the Scott Walker compilation that I found it on I used to skip it. The arrangement is based on a mildly cheesy cabaret style piano and it almost seems like Scott has thrown the tune away on a jokey experiment in form. But since then I think it might have gradually seeped into my consciousness to the point where now I’m almost obsessed with it. I’ve even started seeing links that probably aren’t there…

No one writes about sad, lonely people with more melancholy humour and beauty than Scott (stop shouting “Streets of London” at your computer…). Joe, I think, lyrically, is the pinnacle of this. It’s the story of the last years of an old man’s life as he sits and waits for death in an apartment block somewhere with only memories of the time when he had friends who would refer to him affectionately as Joe, and with stories of the past that no one wants to hear

The fat boy you told tales to
Moved away the other day
To think with no goodbye he could have gone

I’ve no idea what Scott was thinking when he wrote it. I don’t know the man and I’ve never read an article where he’s cared much to explain any of his songs. I read Rhymes of Goodbye which is a track by track guide to Scott Walker’s songs in the style of Songs That Saved Your Life and Revolution In The Head but it really does little more than say "This is about some old dude dying. It is good." VERY disappointing book - I wouldn’t bother (the cover is excellent though so if you see it in a shop I’d advise you just to rip it off and put the rest of the book back on the shelf); although saying that, I do have some sympathy with the writer in that most of Scott’s stuff both defies and often doesn’t deserve analysis. The Seventh Seal for example, despite being a great song, is almost certainly about nothing else other than the fact that Scott quite likes the film. And much of Scott’s other writing could be said to be exercises in Jacques Brel-isms that probably don’t relate to any of his own thoughts and emotions.

So the following is just a theory and you can take or leave it. I’m probably wrong but so what?

As you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re quite interested in music. I don’t want to call you a geek but… and as you’re reading this you’re most likely at least aware of Scott. As such you’ll probably all know the song Jackie in one form or another and so I’m going to reference it here without explaining it too much.

In my mind Joe is as much a sequel to Jackie as Ashes To Ashes is to Space Oddity. Jackie is a boy on the cusp of manhood who daydreams of fame and fortune; he shall be a singer, a lover; a wealthy trader in decadence and eventually a God. And in each fantasy he refers to a time when he was known by his nickname "Jackie". Sound familiar? Is it too big a leap to say that in Joe, Scott is presenting us with the same character from the other side; someone who all those things didn’t happen to; someone who lived an ordinary life ending in an apartment block with the only people he has to speak to being the fat boy down the corridor and the person who delivers his meals on wheels?

If you don’t believe me then listen to them back to back and try and replace the name Joe with Jackie (yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it doesn’t scan but that’s not the point I’m making, is it).

There ain't no one left alive to call me Joe, you used to say
No one left alive to call me Joe…

Does it become more convincing when we look at Scott’s career as an artist crumbling around him at this point with pressures from all sides to ditch his own material and go back to crooning out standards? Is Scott looking into the future and seeing all of his dreams come to nought and a life of loneliness and disappointment beckoning? Is the Scott that was ‘Jackie’ seeing himself becoming ‘Joe’?

Maybe; worth a thought anyway.

Scott Walker – Joe

Scott Walker - Jackie


For existing Walker fans the 5 Easy Pieces box set is nice to have although the booklet is a bit rubbish.

For people new to Scott I’d really recommend It’s Raining Today as an excellent "Best Of". There are some rather eccentric selections on it and some you’d consider to be essentials that are left out; but then that’s Scott fans for you.

After that get Scott 2, then Scott 4, then Scott 3, then Scott. That’s not the order of their greatness, but the order I got them in and it’s done me no harm.

You can see all the lyrics to Joe and Jackie here.


Ricky Stardust

The Moon Is Entirely Of Chromium

Since ((( vlubä ))) first appeared to me in a cosmic vision not too long ago, I’ve been trying to put into the words of mortal tongue and comprehension the nature of their space music, the expanse of their interplanetary sounds, the essence of their mind noise.

But I have failed.

Turns out, as is often the case, I shouldn’t even have bothered trying, because, as is often the case, when dealing with the High Kings of The High Spheres, the High Kings of The High Spheres say it best themselves:

In the middle of 1965 after been delirious and frustrated trips to the Earth, a constellation of colors opened our heads leaving to leave an acoustic piece for the production artificial noises, that when happening the time, by the way static time, we were manipulating in intense contractions of silence.

Ete here, in 1969 after the arrival of the man on the Moon we left this to direct us to the venerated planet leaking to us in Apolo XI. And as well as stowaways we arrived at the Earth terraces, first inmiscuidos as ether in the radio antennas and soon as it shapes in the cities. Generated statics gave beginning to sporadic recordings that just arrived XXI century we could make manifest. Before fact our interminable works conjugated diverse temperaments of silence, essential element that introduces us to the sound; from silence we worked any unconscious sound.

Silence: All the imaginable and tangible sounds, and all the unimaginable and abstract sounds.

You hear what you listen?

Conceptual works of diverse origins were extending the production just now worked for auditory and visual use. Works such and of magnitude that draws up that historical line of just arrived from the moon.

These, of variable character include projects based on corpo-human silence, works of organic amplification in dragonflies and spontaneous recording of noise of the brightness of the eyes when hitting itself in a glance. Lately, all those investigations moved to us in generating new visions in the quality of human life and the interpretation that this gives to the sounds that surround them, that is to say, when not including / understanding the language of the blue races, we investigated the coherent diagram of same and the its form of comunion. The language as average communicative always it connects in a unique system, without concerning his meaning or stock, but that the mechanism that makes comprehensible is the one of the accentuation that takes control to him.

The wind has own sound?

The wind is only a blow?

The wind trasmute when hitting on the objects, an interminable mutation that does not finish.

Then, installed finally in the incomprehensible earth, nomadic, we transferred some of our works here. As vlubä and as principle we worked from the metaphysical lack of understanding of the sound in human listening. We transferred with us the sounds of the space to the Earth, since all the sounds cannot be heard by the man. The prolonged empty sound can be for its ears the sound of the universe; that which they are not accustomed in the terrestrial atmosphere.

Hundreds of recordings of "astral silence", that is to say, of the infinible atom recording expanding and being contracted in different planets, turbulences resisted in lunar craters, the broken composition of sounds in extensive bounces, glasses, deaf bellboys crashing in carrots slowly, snores and outbreaks, are works that almost in their totality are registered in formats even unknown here and that with happening of the years we will publish in different formats according to the technology arranges it here. These works could say that they beyond go of all music or here well-known non music and many are difficult to perceive for the human ear. When we placed a snail in pressure with our ear we create to listen to the sound of the sea, but this is erroneous. In fact what we do is to transfer the sound of our ear to the snail in deep listening. What we listened, therefore, is the sound of our ear, and therefore, the sound of the universe.

Although after many goings and comings, vlubä acquired almost one forms human, our language is still incomprehensible. The moon, is black or white?

The moon is entirely of chromium.

Our language shows a tension between saying and not to say; this strange phenomenon appears in a lacking declamation of apparent sense, but this lack of sense causes the doubt automatically.

Will not hide these mysterious phenomena a sense that scapes to us and remains hidden?

One is perhaps a message of the high kings?

In any case, our language does not emphasize but the uncomunication between the men and their semiotic incapacity.

Vlubä, far from wanting to communicate, finally has indeed the one of a hidden and / or secret knowledge, only reserved for initiates.

Here are a couple of snippets of secret knowledge, but for something a bit more 25 minutes long, you can get the first two tracks from their Pyramid album from the ever eye hurting Tanprocesz web hole. And whilst you wait for them to transmute onto your computer, please join me in galactic prayer, that the High Kings of The High Spheres might visitation upon us and soon. Cosmic.

((( vlubä ))) – Dies Mies Jeschet Boenedoesef Douvema Enitemaus

((( vlubä ))) – Echospasm


Tiny Dancer

More Of The Music From The Movies!

Tinydancer's filmic musings got me thinkin' on Seventies soundtracks and in particular the mad, moody ambient twiddlings of German band Popul Vuh. They worked with director Werner Herzog on a few films including Nosferatu but my favourite is this from Aguirre, Wrath of God. It manages to be both beautiful and very loud at the same time - nice. Check the way it stops being one tune halfway through and starts being a different one instead, just 'cos they got a bit bored.



Popul Vuh - Lacrime Di Rei


Of course, the best soundtrack of all time is Blade Runner. Or is it Saturday Night Fever? You'll find that this simple question can tell you a lot about a person. Whatever, here's Ducts by Michael Kamen from Terry Gilliam's Brazil instead, just because I like it, so there.



Michael Kamen - Ducts


Crisp Debris