Bugger me what was that round yellow thing in the sky today, we thought for a second that we were having flashbacks from the night before having in slumbering states caught the Adam West starring ‘Robinson Crusoe on Mars’ flick on one of the digital channels. There we were hiding under the garden table with our plastic Dan Dare (laser) water pistol ready to obliterate the invading hoards of bug eyed bad guys. All the time our failing memory was beginning to kick in, in the recesses of it dark empty voids we remembered where we’d seen it before - at precisely 4.27pm May 17th 2007. Soon we remembered what it was called - hell its been a long time - sun. Fearing that this may well be our English summer we quickly donned shorts, shades and unfeasibly bright t-shirt and headed into the warming haze armed with a shed load of top tunes only to fall asleep wake up five hours later resembling a beetroot. We ain’t got a clue were we are going with this as you can gather now that we are being paid by the typed word we are and will be fleshing this particular missive out with enough examples of the Queen’s English (along with a few selected Anglo Saxon phrases) to keep us in coffee and fags for at least 15 minutes….
Hey ho - them tune type things……
http://www.myspace.com/aforce - these dudes have been sending our hi fi into states of hysteria with their absolutely killer like self titled debut for Sea records - a blistering swamp dragged beatnik blues babe produced by Albini that along with fellow label mates Mugstar posts their credentials if not as the bastard off spring then certainly as the dedicated disciples of understated Liverpool legends the Walking Seeds - four slam dunking cuts feature here culled from that aforementioned debut set - we suggest you groove your arses to the colossally lean ‘n’ mean grizzled fuzzed out Mudhoney styled frug ‘muscle man’ wherein they seismically rip up the 70’s era Stones and Aerosmith lick laden back catalogue. Full album review at http://www.losingtoday.com/reviews.php?review_id=4541
http://www.myspace.com/cowshedstudio - London based recording studio catering for all your acoustic needs features early 80’s mixing consoles, vintages keyboards and outboards - clientele includes the Coal Porters, Detwiije, the Tall Poppies and the Fuckshovels…..the latter whom go a bit like this…..
http://www.myspace.com/fuckshovel - we featured this lots killer debut ‘long time dead’ and its attending lip side ‘skull and bones’ at missive 153 seriously recommending all to check out with immediate effect. Now for your discerning enjoyment the London based quartet have now dropped the spiked and marauding ’the antidote’ into the melee - a war stricken brutalised juggernaut of a cut replete with Armageddon frenzied serrated riffmanship that to these ears sounds like Slayer in a face off with the mighty Killing Joke.
http://www.myspace.com/spaggiarirevient - absolutely gorgeous. Minimatic is the melodic non de plume for a certain Nice born composer / arranger Pascal Houpert who to date has been furnishing various hi-art lounge / down tempo compilations from such noted imprints as Hi Note, Irma, Rambling and Wagram with his sleekly turned chic pop. A highly respected session player, re-mixer and soundtrack arranger Houpert takes on perhaps his most ambitious commission to date with the release of the 18 minute 5 track ‘Spaggiari revient’ EP. We assume the Spaggiari in question is Albert Spaggiari the infamous mastermind of the mid 70’s Riviera heist (more information via an obituary at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DEED61E3DF931A25755C0A96F948260). Issued on the celebrated Vadim imprint of Nice whose remarkable back catalogue features a treasure trove of lost and reclaimed vintage soundtracks from the 60’s and 70’s including rare gems such as Schafer’s ‘les gants blancs du diable’ and Libaek’s ‘solar flares’ being counted at the top of our personal wants list, Minimatic time travels back to the hazy summer of 1977 to craft out a sumptuous soundtrack for a film never made and in the process carves out a highly authentic sound-scape rich and laden with the groove laden retro vibes of that era. Stunning doesn’t even come into it, what Houpert has done here has ingeniously blended an amorphous aural landscape that blends and bends elements of hypnotically woven slices of lounge / down tempo / chill pop nuances (check the bliss out hazed boogie of the bachelor pad moog motifs of ‘fin de bal au’ with its Barry Gray intones) with subtle library music accents all longingly dusted with sophisticated servings of deeply exotic funk strewn grooves. The sounds veer to the subtle extractions of early 70’s styled blaxploitation grilled on a low heat to the sublime folds of Edwin Moses like classicism though ostensibly smoked with an inspired persona of Morricone as though paired and collaborating with a spy schooled Komeda. From the lazily spun nocturnal moves of the early 70’s American TV cop show like backdrops of ’Spaggiari Revient’ with its smoked key decorated laid back easy pop amour freckled, framed and sublimely saturated in swathes of lunar-esque electronic swathes to the milky way montages of the baroque styled ’une moto dans le nuit’ which unless my ears do deceive sounds like early career Jean Michel Jarre recalibrating the lush spectral folds found on the more cosmically alluring moments of Stereolab’s ’cobra phases’ set - Houpert exacts an unworldly and deeply affecting collage of mood mellowing moments. Elements of Stereolab or rather more precisely Broadcast (albeit overseen by both Mancini and Norman) are toyed with on the delectably Harpsichord washed spacey cocktail shimmer pop of ’la piccola traccia’ while our favourite of the set is the demonstrably edgier psyche funk braided ’French Visa’. Recommended without question.
http://www.myspace.com/domkeller - literally just got a friend request from these dudes and so blown away were we that quite frankly we just could not keep this under our hallucinogenic hat without fear of spontaneously combusting or else our psychotropic radar frying itself out. Based in Nottingham this quartet certainly have a head melting supply of smoking substances judging by the fried sounds of the out there and gnarled blues grooves of ‘keyhole blues’. Two cuts feature here which admittedly we’re writing up about with much fondness having only heard the blighters once. There’s no doubting this lot ought to be filed alongside those must have psyche foot soldiers the Wooden Shjips, Dom Keller sound like they’ve fallen from the back of Ken Kesey’s legendary LSD loaded magic bus, this twin set of hairy hocus pocusing down ’n’ dirty slabs of fried freak beat are sumptuously decoded within a swamp infested heavy metallic beatnik chassis, part acid laced shade wearing psyche and part fringe arranging heavy set stoner goo - the aforementioned grizzled grind of the sluggish and shit faced acid laced grunge stew (check out the Green River nods) that is the festering ’keyhole blues’ sounds like Medicine and the Doors rummaging through the bathroom cabinet of Syd Barrett, a wasted baby laced with hazy 60’s sourced keys and looping gridlocked riffs of mind expanding proportions. In sharp contrast the more up, close and personal swagger and strut laced ‘a’ smoked to cool ’the seed’ is scored with a blissed out frenzied fuzz laced tripping haze and bone rattling f**k you attitude more commonly associated with the bludgeoned blues bastardisations spewed out by the awesome Brian Jonestown Massacre though on this occasion very much buried amid an impenetrably squalling sonic wall that recalls a feedback fisticuffs between a tranced out Grateful Dead, a volatile 13th Floor Elevators and an impish getting their sh*t together Butthole Surfers. Expect an album shortly.
http://www.myspace.com/dreammachineuk - and while you’re there cooing and swooning to the acid psyche grooves of Dom Keller try checking out the latest fuzzy head happenings put out by the Dream Machine collective who to date have been responsible for some eclectic showcase evenings featuring the best of shoe gaze, space rock and psychedelic earwear with recent events seeing the appearance of the much loved Telescopes whose related in house label Tresmat just this morning dropped of their two latest additions to their enviable aural academy in the shape of ultra limited outings for the Astral Social Club and the Shining Path both of which will feature in the next singled out dispatch. However back to the Dream Machine - forthcoming events will see the aforementioned Dom Kelley out and about supporting Awesome Colour - see below - though for now try hooking up to the sumptuously sounds of acid folksters Silmaril’s delectable woozy ’vespers’ which once we find a link to more tunes we will no doubt feature here in all their tripping glory.
http://www.myspace.com/awesomecolor - loving this and I suspect you will to. Signed up to Mr Moore’s Ecstatic Peace imprint for whom they’ve already serviced the recording buying community with a by all accounts killer full length debut set entitled ‘electric aubergines’ which we really must try and grab as our own shortly, a three piece no less who go under the names Awesome Allison, Awesome Derek and Awesome Michael and who when pitted together in the recording studio make the most amazing hairy hippy heaviness your ever likely to hear this side of a stack of Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane albums. The Sonic Youth references aren’t lost on us especially on the glazed and wasted haze of ‘free man’ which to these ears sounds like its fell off the back of a session mix for ‘dirty’ and ‘goo’. ‘eyes of light’ on the other hand is a festering slice of mind expanding 13th Floor Elevators meets Love hallucinogenic white noise fleshed through with grind you down full on Sabbath-esque underpins while ‘already down’ cuts to the quick with its early 70’s sourced rapidly incessant and insistent bludgeoning power drilled jack-knifing circular pummelling though for us best of the showcased set is the cool as f**k and freakish ‘hot energy’ - a hot wired babe with a rumbling hip shaking V12 ass whipping sassy engine calibration firing up on all cylinders under its garage grooved hood while festooned with shards of shrieking no wave jazz scree.
http://www.myspace.com/thekoolaidelectriccompany - obviously named in honour of the 60’s sub culture scene (LSD / Tom Wolfe / Merry Pranksters etc….) there’s not a lot of information kicking about in cyberspace as to the wherefores and whereabouts of head trippers the Kool Aid Electric Company (agreed though - killer name) except that they number in 6 (occasionally 7) have in the recent past sneaked their way onto hipster compilations put out by the likes of the Dead Bees and Daydream Generation imprints and feature in their ranks a certain S.Barrett which may have one time been something of double taker before of course Syd sadly passed away. Any how that aside there’s some choice slabs of radar twitching grooving psyche to be had here among the five selected showcasing cuts - all it seems culled from various demos, live recordings and a brace of cuts from - what we gather must be a forthcoming release for Enraptured entitled the ‘electric’ EP - which if that is the case we will be nailing pretty soon (we hope). Obviously attuned to all things shade wearing, dream popping and dare we say lovers it seems of Rose of Avalanche if that is the opening salvo ‘nowhere and everywhere’ is anything to judge by, a statuesque lysergic beauty carved out amid head swirling montages and dissipating druggy hazes of drip dried honeycombed chimes freckled with an almost eerily majestically monastic presence. ’untitled 1’ sounds like a ringer for early career Ride - a gloriously weaned heaven bound beauty braided by sugar rushing wig flipping glide corteges while ’SOS II’ with its initially subtle Cluster like hypnotic underpins soon blossoms into a spaced out lysergic day tripper that had us at various points recalling the much missed My Jealous God albeit found shimmying up alongside Sunray. That said if there is one track here that should be ripped, played to the point of exhaustion and tendered with the idolisation it deserves then look no further than the quite stunning spectacle of the shade adorned dressed in black Velveteen like ‘alright’ with its succulently glazed soft shimmer pop nodding at various trajectories to both Spiritualized and JMC. Nuff said - bliss out space cadets.
http://www.myspace.com/likewavesii - were not altogether certain about this but we’ve a feeling that thuas sa speir have either a connection with the Capguns (who we mentioned in passing at missive 160) or indeed (as we suspect) are one and the same. The trio based in North Wales have to date posted just one track but what a little beauty it is. ‘ohmu’ (remix) is a succulently willowy daydream like gem, a small but fragile porcelain bouquet of sweetly caressed dimples of faraway pastoral instrumentalism - softly breezy and delicately amorphous if its reference points you’re looking to then imagine Gnac shimmying up to Stylus to rewire Ronald Binge’s ’Sailing by’ (shipping forecast theme in case you were wondering). .
http://www.myspace.com/musettamusic - those who pay attention to these things will already be aware of our unfading affection for Italian duo Musetta, their debut full length (out now) is a sublime studded sleekly starry eyed jazz / down tempo / lounge/ library gem that sumptuously blends elements of Stereolab, Shortwave Set and John Barry with the Broadcast and Debussey not lost on us - though why I tell you this when indeed you can fall headlong in love with them yourself by hooking up to any one of the six showcased cuts available here is beyond me. But then there is an added treat to be had here give that there are a positive smorgasbord of exclusive mixes (8 in all) of ‘peace and melody‘ available to freely download via beatport. Here you find some tasty handiwork applied to the smoking lovelorn cortege of the original fix itself a star lit romantically noire laden Massive Attack. Gutterstyle weigh in with two re-drills - the quite sublime techno dubtastic ’dub mix’ and the club floor crunching bass boosted swirling psychotropic house styled ’vox mix’. Elsewhere there’s the sumptuously nocturnal ’Bart Van Wissen mix’ that deliciously fuses a shadow shaping 808 State with Apollo 440, while DJ Yellow sets about divinely having thee bites of the cherry so to speak with the marimba mooching ’intermission vox’ (a kind of acid techno front off between the underpins of Tears for Fears’ ’change’ and Blancmange’s ’living on the ceiling’), the obligatory ’dub’ mix and in our view the best of the lot - the ambient retread which superbly frames the elegance of Musetta. All said and done though we confess to being much smitten by Anil Chawla and Dale Andersons recalibration - a glorious fringe rippling tranced out slice of bliss flirting longingly with Moroder grooves.
Here’s the video for ‘ophelia’s song’
And ‘nicotine’….
And many thanks to the NME (a rare occasion indeed) for reminding us how bloody good the Waller Brothers and of course Scott were / was / is so here’s two vids features them and him…..
First up ‘no regrets’ - well scary….
…and Scott with ‘duchess’….
http://www.myspace.com/thelowshoeorchestra - damn this is gorgeous, Manuel Lohnes and Robert Mansfield are residents of Mainz who along with selected when required acquaintances can be found noodling crafted gems under their nom de plume the Low Shoe Orchestra. Here you’ll find six seductive cuts showcased for your discerning pleasure lifted from their (we assume) debut full length ‘through the black hole’ which we suspect we should be hearing smartish before we get any older. Each of these cuts in a gem in the making - from the sublimely threaded sophisticated mirages of the 70’s styled lounge spliced library funk of the string swept ‘focus on infinity’ with its demurring Barry - esque arrangements the Show Orchestra immediately engage you with their adept aural artistry. ‘Super 8 time travel’ is a gorgeously unnerving cosmic jitterbug that marinates Raymond Scott’s pre electronic powerhouse persona into a seductively light tip toeing collage of futuro funk laced elegant classicism. The nocturnal head tripping ’Android Overload’ initially manoeuvres itself into territories more commonly traversed light years ago by early Warp analogue pioneers Plone before assuming hyper drive tendencies and shifting gear into a vibrantly head expanding fusion of Tank (‘bedtime for rio’) meets Emperor Penguin (‘mysterious pony’) dimensions. And those among you who’ve lain awake at night wondering what a trip wiring and kooky psychedelic kaleidoscopic head on between Cab Calloway and those impish sound meisters Add N to X might sound like (I know I have) then look no further than the lushly exotic space jazz boogie ’beyond the black hole’ while the strangely pickled ‘sudden shape shift’ playfully blends cosmic dub with mind melting acid induced arabesque dialects leaving the lunatic suite that is ’simple complexity’ which unless my ears do deceive seems to recalibrate moments from Gary Numan’s ’pleasure principle’ into its binary matrix. We need to hear more and soon.
For those who have quite forgotten what Tank sound like retune your mouse towards the general vicinity of…..
http://www.myspace.com/tankcestunjolimatin - based in Brest, Tank was essentially the work of a certain Christophe Mevel who over the years has piped out several well heeled releases for the likes of Earworm, Pop Art and Diesel Combustible - in all honesty we thought Tank had disappeared off the face of the earth after their much loved (here anyway) ’bedtime for rio’ full length - though we’re shocked nay - miserable in discovering there’s been a plethora releases that have managed unbeknownst to us to slip beneath the wire. And while we dab our eyes of the welling tears try tuning into ’region 1 la lave des condamnes’ - a titanic gridlocked fuzz frazzled industrial induced hulking kraut grooved cranium cruncher that at times sounds like its relocated to join the Highland Guards - insistent, incessant and impenetrable this all consuming beast flirts in the cosmic divides as was once the domain of early career Echo boy - slowly builds block by block to assume stature and depth before achieving critical mass and dissipating into a storm passing softly demurring collage of nimble pastoral wooziness. Gem like.
And as you’re there trying linking up with the ever wonderful (well - at least they were before we haplessly fell off their mailing list) Active Suspension label….
http://www.myspace.com/activesuspension - this eclectic Paris based imprint has been responsible for releasing cutely honed gems for 10 years now, our earliest recollections being some sublime vinyl outings from the likes of Osaka, Mils, Avrocar and Gel doing wonderfully tasty things on the turntable. As with Tank (above - somewhere) we lost contact and wrongly assumed they’d packed their bags and skipped off into the sunset. So you can imagine our untold joy to find them still (pardon the pun) ’active’ and serving up quality gems like there’s no tomorrow - one such being O.Lamm who we must admit to being mortified at not having heard prior to this. ‘the macguffin’ is a strangely infectious though skittishly stuttering sample laden slice of crookedly kooky bachelor pad sophistication that moulds jigging diode hiccups with cutely cut fragmented perky pop motifs that to these ears sounds like a sugar tipped Cornelius. The willowy flutter like tingle pop of the Konki Duet’s (who are not a duo after all but a trio - Kumi, Tam and Zoe)‘inflammable’ deliciously fuses together elements of Stereolab c.’Cybele’s Reverie’ with the vaguely dissected dialects of Electrelane and the Sunday’s that once combined coalesce into a gorgeously radiating and lilting dash of irresistible 60’s sourced French pop. Hailing from Paris Pockett is the alter ego of a certain Stephane Garry and friends who to date have managed to sneak out two full lengths in the shape of 2003’s ’Crumble’ and last years ’the Peak’ - the idly affectionate drift like ’anything today’ lifted from the latter mentioned set is a gorgeously rambling slice of mellowing cascades of pastoral pop decoded with a dreamily distant push pull tug that for the best part had us recalling Archer Prewitt’s ’White Sky’ which for those familiar with it can testify to be being no bad thing. Hypo is the aural alter ego of Anthony Keyeux whose been known to collaborate with the likes of the aforementioned O.Lamm and V/Vm (that I’d love hear) - there’s a ‘Deluxe Edition’ full length kicking about in record land via Intik which we suspect we should be hearing - for now though irresistibly cool as f**k ‘naughty place’ sees him shimmying up to EDH for a kookily driven exotic montage of skittering beats, pulse racing overtones all wrapped in a manically cherishable hybrid of early B-52’s styled spy twangs, hide and seek playing brass florets and scrambling critical mass alluding diode dizziness all washed down and side served with spikes of rampant pristine pop ruptures - tasty indeed. b-52’s
Further related listening experiences -
http://www.myspace.com/olamm - we suggest you rip, listen and swoon at the Yellow Magic Orchestra cover ‘behind the mask’ which for those of you not so familiar can hear being done live via this here link…..or are we spoiling you - I suspect we are….
http://www.myspace.com/thekonkiduet - and though we must admit to being rather smitten with the daydream soft psych tonalities of the delightfully breezy shimmer pop of ‘daylight song’ we strongly suggest you instead make your first port of call the hooking up to the quite amazing and enchanting three part harmonising found on ‘tree trail’ culled from the Trace labels ‘tribute to Moondog’ set - a release which we’ve noted for immediate purchase.
http://www.myspace.com/pokett - rip the alluring twinkle some defrosting pop nugget that is ‘I don’t’ as remixed by Scalde - the kind of quietly desirable pop that makes you feel strangely fuzzy.
http://www.myspace.com/hypohypohypo - we suggest you get ready to swoon to the sassily seductive and sugar twisted Arthur Baker era New Order meets the ether drawn hazy lazy peppermint pop of MBV styled ’revenge’.
http://www.myspace.com/clappingmusic - and unless we’ve got this horribly wrong which lets face it wouldn’t be a first, the Clapping Music imprint appears to be the folk experimental styled arm of the Active Suspension enterprise. Self described as an indie / folk / experimental label there’s no refuting the fact that their wares are more recognisably organic from the lilting rustic waltz of the delightfully crisp and affectionately airy Orval Carlos Sibelius’ ‘never noticed you were me’ to the tenderly caressing noire-esque and bruised but engaging dulcetly toned dramas swirling within Encore’s ‘Foehn’. ‘So goes the pulse’ by Thee, Stranded Horse perhaps offers the showcase with its best moment and gently rambling lyrically quick fired shy eyed cutie that veers with bent out of shape fascination in to territories more readily occupied by an as where recalcitrant They Might be Giants while wrapping up the set My Jazzy Child or as he’s better known to kith and kin - Damien Mingus - applies some weird and wacked time signatures to the stumbling ‘n’ tumbling yet desperately brief ’Emiliano Carvnaval’ to incorporate a kind of off centred fuzziness we haven’t heard around these parts since the days of Pop Off Tuesday.
http://www.myspace.com/thelovelyeggs - those with fairly good memories may well remember us enthusing aplenty their inclusion of that rather essential compilation from Holland’s Transformed Dreams entitled ‘Ammehoelahop’ where they admirably held their heads aloft and acquitted themselves in the face of fierce competition from the likes of Zea, Persil, Suicidal Birds and Das Wanderlust with ’in Watermelon Sugar’ - which as it happens features here in all its untold glory and still it has to be said reminds me of a dizzy, dainty and slightly inebriated on moonshine version of the much missed Anna Kashfi. What makes the Lovely Eggs so loveable is their undeniable quirkiness and refusal to adhere to the notional song craft form book, their songs belie an affecting twinkling cuteness that’s wrapped in an impishly light headed naivety that partly recalls a less introspective and self examining Daniel Johnston and a sprightly though ostensibly oddball take on the Shaggs. Factor into that a strange fondness for 70’s styled kid TV (as noted by the snoozing rustic motifs a la Camberwick Green running through the ever so cute ‘belles of Lancaster’) and you have an acutely disarming and demurring duo on your hands who it seems just want to play with your head and spend hot sunny afternoons getting sick on sherbet and pop.
Cuts such as ‘Jon Carling’ only serve to reinforce that suspicion - a brief though barking playground folly festooned with penny whistles and a majorette styled drum underpin that for all the world really does sound like its escaped from a nursery recital class - similarly decorated is the quite playfully fried ‘I’m gonna build my snowman’ which for all the world sounds like its mischievously fell from the cutting room floor of an episode of Sesame Street though admittedly not before rifling through the back catalogues of both the Elephant 6 Collective and Happy Happy Birthday to Me. Better still ‘o’ my Frankie’ with its lazy lullaby like glockenspiel motifs and skewed Spector - esque sparseness is coaxed by a disconcerting eeriness though for our money best of the set is the shambolic fuzz frazzled bubblegum buzz pop of the razored though frankly wayward and barking ’I like birds but I like other animals to’ - insidiously infectious stuff and as it happens will be their featured side of a forthcoming split with Sexual Hot Bitches via the ever wonderful Filthy Little Angels crew - can’t wait.
http://www.myspace.com/frontandfollow a introductory preview showcase of sorts alerting the imminent arrival of a newly informed imprint who if all things being right should have their debut release (pencilled as a 7 inch by Elite Barbican) pressed, dressed and ready for public consumption sometime in Autumn. The label hope to cater for and in their words describe themselves as in passing - ‘F&F is especially nice. F&F is about new, exciting music, released in limited edition bespoke packaging – these releases are special, lovingly made and not a) cheap and crappy or b) expensive and elitist.’ Doesn’t really say much does it in music terms but then this is a label who if the sample sounds available here suggests will not be content in being pigeonholed to any one specific generic cubby hole. The aforementioned Elite Barbican better known to his brother Thomas (whom he makes up the numbers with as rocketnumbernine) and band members of Rothko (who he also features in) as Ben Page. ‘going down’ featured here is a delicious locomotive styled take on a Dread Zone meets Depth Charge face off initially bled through with dub grooves before unpeeling to reveal a strangely absorbing abstractly serviced arabesque drone montage. Sadly we have no additional information for Andy Nice who incidentally is pencilled in for release number three though what we can say with certainty is that his showcased cut ‘ballax’ is a disturbingly lulling noire-esque slice of classicism delicately braided by a touchingly melancholic tinged autumnal viola - frail poised and quite disarming. Yonokiero a Nottingham based quartet who feature in their ranks members of the much loved Chemistry Experiment and the previously unknown to us Fabulous Foxes file their sounds under bluegrass / folk so it’s a might strange then that the angular ’Keith’ should feature, hallowed by swirling 70’s styled Numan-esque keys and an edgy yet clinically sterile framing this pulsating slice of fraught and tight interlocutory sparseness had us by its close recalling elements of XTC’s ’Making plans for Nigel’ corrupting the circuit boards albeit as though envisaged by Wire. Sone Institute we mentioned in passing a missive or two ago when we ran the critical thumb over his inclusion on the excellent and ongoing Long Division with Remainders remix project. Better known to friends as Roman Bezdyk from his St Albans based sound bunker he crafts aural landscapes that are all at once enigmatic, ethereal and eclectic, indelibly cultured with an impish pop sensibility this compositions translate as fluffy follies decoded with trippy contours, skittish samples and a melodic dreamlike wooziness. There’s currently an album and EP kicking about in the CD cosmos launched by the Three Towers imprint entitled ’from a flaming satellite a quiet voice’ that we feel we really ought to be tracking down. For now though tentatively pencilled in as being the main event for release number 2 ’london heir’ featured here is a gorgeously willowy slice of early 70’s library pop - (think Broadcast and Plone sharing cocktails of chill pills) interspersed with some fetching promenade pirouettes and for a brief moment elements of a curious kraut dub hybrid or is that just our ears playing up.
http://www.myspace.com/monojp - how we’ve managed to so far escape the advances of Tokyo based quartet Mono is one of life’s little unanswered puzzles, their four albums have to date somehow managed to surface beneath our radar without so much of a hi, hello, how are you. Lying between the twinned realms of dream popping shoe gaze and post rock, Mono create magisterial monoliths that glide and arc seductively impressing their emotionally draining artistry. An assortment of near perfect thoughtfully introspective instrumentals feature here, the lulling and touchingly framed ’Halcyon (beautiful days)’ once loosened out of its shy eyed (Codeine, Windsor for Derby) slumber soon blossoms into an achingly divine shoe gaze symphony of arc like shimmering arpeggios which erupt in splendour at 5.10 into a glorious sonic snow storm. The deathly ’Moonlight’ sounds for all the world like its fallen from edge of Morricone’s mercurial orchestrations for ’once upon a time in the west’, snake winding arpeggios sleekly drift across arid landscapes layer by layer assuming depth and dimension to spring coil and weave into an immensely dense drama induced score that frankly only needs the attachment of a gun fighting finale script to complete its transcendence from the merely magnificent to classic. And those who prefer their palettes whetted with something a little more apocalyptic and dare we say prog based may do well to face off the crunching ’Com(?)’ - a teeth baring bastard of a cut that seesaws ominously amid flotillas of desolated landscapes which after a moments disquieting lull rampages with throat throttling catastrophic blood letting consequence whose overpowering omnipotence is only matched and contrasted by the daintily drawn porcelain touches applied to the bruised ’yearning’ upon which whose trademark loud / quiet dynamicism is brought sublimely to the fore to assume a masterful orchestral tenderness much apparent on those crucial early godspeed releases threaded by sky piercing sheens of bliss laden stratospheric grandeur. Best of the set ’gone’ is titanic, tragic, tortured, tearful and down right tremendous - think both godspeed and sigur ros at their most beautifully wounded congregating in an unworldly union to craft out an emotional ravaged epic to end all - a hulking slab of humbling crescendo lashed glory ripped from the heaven’s - frankly words fail - stunningly immaculate.
http://www.myspace.com/eatlightsbecomelights - this lot came highly recommended by Jack Enraptured who was positively choking on his corn flakes this morning enthusing much greatness to come during the course of a rare phone call initiated by yours truly. Apparently these dudes are causing much fuss amongst warring record labels punching each other’s lights in an attempt to secure their signatures following rapturous recommendations from the NME’s Sonic Cathedral scribe. For now though there’s a hotly tipped 7 inch from Enraptured winging its way as we speak so until that arrives we’ll hold fire with a full review and just ay that these kraut grooved shade wearing psychedelicists are a sonic wet dream for those purist space cadets much attuned to all things Harmonia, Cluster, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and shoe glazed gazers Club AC30 - though before you all bugger off into the night to seek them out may we recommend that you re-tune the radars on your head sets and fall headlong into the mind warping cosmic highway styled hypnosis of the Alphastone like ‘music for motorways’ while keeping a firm eye on the lazily trippy intones of the drug hazed chime corteges that tip toe through the ethereal cosmic wilderness of the spectral grandeur that is ‘become lights’ frankly as near perfect as you can get to Verve’s jaw dropping flip side to ‘all in the mind’ ‘one way to go’.
http://www.myspace.com/brigadiermusic - ridiculously gorgeous and unerringly infectious, the Brigadier is the alter ego of Welsh musician Matt Williams who these days calls home Brighton. Apparently the proud parent of one acclaimed self released full length to date in the shape of ‘view from the bath’ with another tentatively pencilled shortly for Spring release under the working title ‘the rise and fall of responsibility’. Even before you’ve heard a single note played a quick check of Mr Williams’ extensive list of influences gives you fair indication that this may well be something enticingly special - names such as Bacharach, Big Star, Gene Clark, Andrew Gold, Todd Rundgren, Dave Edmunds, Raspberries, Bee Gees and the Korgis give a fair indication of the promised pop rushes to come. And come they do. ‘Some sort of magic’ is ridiculously infectious - silken melodies wrapped in denim and smelling of hi-karate, audaciously affectionate hooks and pristinely wrapped sugar tipped harmonies al hallowed and framed by harpsichordian swirls and bathed in unfeasibly cute bristling baroque braids while the unapologetically retro candy coated ‘this is why’ appears to have been defrosted from some weird state of suspended animation having happily lived in ignorance of the last thirty years of pop and still tripping to a heartbeat and mindset so indelibly link to a more innocent early 70’s age. ‘regents park’ is so wrong its right, picking the bones from the melodic astute uttered by the likes of early career Ashley Parks and current loves Muller and Patton - a kooky lightly crisp beauty replete with willowy plaids, bird noises and that sense of undisputed feel good loveliness that comes when the hot summers sun bathes warmly through an early morning bedroom window then again there’s more than a whiff of Cliff Richard era ‘Summer Holiday’ about its persona which be honest is no bad thing. Those of you who heeded our recommendations about Epicycle will positively swoon to the immeasurable classically crafted pop coyness of ‘the language of love’ - think Lloyd Cole, Mickie Most and Van Dyke Parks invited on a studio blind date and detailed to belt out a lavish and lush saccharine sprinkled radio arresting pop gem aided by a remit to procure the essence of 50’s bubblegum pop, mid 70’s summers and a glancing marinating of glam and pub rock formulas. Best of the set though by far the lilting ‘Berkeley Square’ - a heart stoppingly majestic nugget that appears to take its initial cue from Godley and Crème’s ‘under your thumb’, succulently saturated by porcelain electronic swathes and festooned deliciously by spectral keys and threaded with subtle 60’s sourced west coast motifs that once heard stick like limpet mines inside your headspace. What we’d like to know is a) how does he do it and b) how does he get away with it? Stunning.
And that’s your lot for a day or two - we promise - yep another singled out is currently being assembled and packaged as we speak - well as I write and you read - hell you know what I mean. Some corkers will feature of all shapes and varieties whether they be large, small, loud, quiet, noisy, silent, effervescent, shy, punky, psychy, proggy, poppy - whatever - guaranteed there’ll be something for everyone unless of course you happen to be a Madonna fan in which case sorry shithead your viewing the wrong website though if we do happen to come across a copy of the dethroned princess of pop’s latest platter we will just for you include it just don’t hold your breath - in fact please do - only joking - I’m sure its great. Blimey its that word count thing again - where ere we - ah yes thanks to all who have helped in some small way in making these ramblings possible we are heading off now for a lie down I suspect we have heat stroke - typical.
Anyway take care of yourselves contact stuff as per usual mark@losingtoday.com for email transmissions, 105 shaldon drive, Morden, surrey, SM4 4BQ, UK for snail mail and for updates please visit www.myspace.com/thesundayexperience - till next time have fun…….
