missive 215
17-06-2009
Singled Out
Missive 215

For Kel and Mark

Singled out - rambles, rumbles and general all round repartee

Orla Wren ‘the one two bird and the half horse’ (flau).

Arrived here packaged and bowed in a hand crafted textured tracing paper like envelope, its contents I don’t mind admitting have had us mesmerised and transfixed in a way that in recent memory only outings from Smile Down Upon Us for Static Caravan and Susuma Yakota’s recent ’mother’ set has come close to touching. From the moment ‘first wooden words’ creaks, yawns and stretches into life your already lost to its enchantment, as though arriving through some fog glazed day breaking haze, it falters, stumbles as though uncertain of its surroundings, unsteady and shy eyed it focuses itself - by then the magical dye is cast. ‘the one two bird and the half horse’ is the second full length by ambient folk alchemist Tui (Orla Wren) following his acclaimed debut for Expanding in 2006.

These days something of a nomad he’s since shunned the trappings of society opting for a back to nature lifestyle or to quote the accompanying press release who more pertinently describe him ‘a be dreadlocked, laptop wielding, sounds cape creating neo gypsy’ who, if you keep your eyes peeled, can be found relocating through the wiles of these fair isles with Rima (Staines) in a converted Bedford TK horsebox. In some respects that may well account largely for the mysterious spell charms that emanate with intoxicating bewitchment from the grooves of this his first release for the small but perfectly formed Tokyo based Flau imprint.

Featuring contributions from Keiron Phelan (who you may well have seen briefly amid various record racks under his shared guise as Ellis Island Sound, State River Widening and the aforementioned Smile Down Upon Us) and Simon Scott (Slowdive, Televise, Seavault et al) and vocal accompaniments courtesy of Clare Whyte, Jessica Constable, Joanna Joachim, Russudan Meipariani and (Smile Down Upon Us’) Moomlooo, ’the one two bird and the half horse’ is an awakening, quite possibly unlike anything you’ve heard previously in your life, it provides twelve fleeting moments or perhaps timeless recitals captured and framed for posterity. Best appreciated and dare we say enjoyed nay marvelled in the passing of a quiet moment that way the intimacy and close attention it so richly deserves can be assured. Bathed in pre natural raptures that tap into a long lain dormant collective conscious as though some kind of hypnotic regression unlocking echoes of distant long forgotten memories, these porcelain pirouettes are possessed and woven of a beautifully demurred tapestry that‘s all at once untamed and pure, not so much primitive but rather more natural, the melodies appear like daydreaming serenades, barely there, as though like flickering apparitions caught from the corner of the eye, willowy and fragile, partly hazy and blurred seemingly just out of focus, their free spirited timbres idyllically teased with an unreal arresting tenderness as they sway murmuring like woodland opines caught adrift upon a delicate breeze - case in point the chilled reverence applied to the spectral bowed chime cortege of the haunting hollowness of the glassy ‘33 feinting spells’ with its seducing ornate Japanese temple setting. Its to this end that makes this album such a fascinating and richly rewarding adventure, adopting a less is more approach, by way of the sparse rustic (lullaby) detailing Tui has crafted something genteel, captivating and yearning, a beguiling ramble up a secret path to some enchanted twilight world which acts as a safe haven drawing a mid way point between the early career shy eyed faintness of Mum and the dimpled delicate brushstrokes of Inch Time the former particularly recalled mainly for Clare Whyte’s vocal on ‘tugboats and railroads’ casting as it does a lulling lullaby like calm atop a seductive pastoral framing that imagines both Nick Drake and Robert Wyatt rescoring elements of Giovanni’s ‘wicker man’ reprises.

Which leads us rather nicely to the vocal arrangements. What can we say - but perfect, serving to enhance the overall effect and perhaps into the equation add an air of mystery and ethereal spiritualism to the aural canvas, each provides in their own unique way a sterling performance of some measure, from the absolutely adorable child like chuckles and dizzy murmuring of Joanna Joachim on ’two note winter’, the bracing birdsong neo operatics of Jessica Constable on the accordion swathed ‘some tales wait shy’ to the extraordinary ghostly cooing yodels of Russudan Meipariani whose softly purred scale shifting shimmering and exquisite vocal quiver as displayed on ’book of frost’ would put even Liz Fraser in an enviable shade while her bashfully playful light headed navigation around the beautified Oriental chimed motifs of the shanty like ‘the fish and the doll’ frankly need to heard to be at all believed. Of course dare we forget to mention Moonlooo’s brief but beautifully peek a boo hushed sensuality on ‘the unbowed hand’.

Indescribably desirable.

www.flau.jp

Key tracks -

The first born daughter of water
Book of frost
33 feinting spells.


Observer Music Monthly #70 - this months edition features an extensive centrepiece on cover star Mika who we must admit that despite recognising the name we not so familiar with his sounds, in fact strike familiar for haven’t a clue because frankly we haven’t heard any, is that a good or bad thing we wonder - I’m erring on the good side of the equation - hell we don’t any more corrupting pop in our lives we’re besieged enough with the stuff. Elsewhere there’s a spot on the opening night of Oasis’ record breaking globe trotting tour at which things nearly went upwards in tits kind of way resulting in the amassed crowd - believed to be in the region of several million getting their money back. Further in there’s the tale of a fax issued by a certain Joe Strummer espousing the rock virtues of the Boss as in his Bruceness of the Springsteen which in truth we here are all in agreement with given that in our spare time away from doing writey up stuff about records we’ve been checking out and re-familiarising ourselves with his pre ’born in the USA’ back catalogue - yea I know bus man’s holiday and all that. The latest wannabes on the femme pop market looking to be - apparently - the next Bainimarama - blimey have we hit the bottom of the 80’s barrel already - only joking - see the likes of Daisy Dares You, Dolly Rockets, Pixie Lott and others getting a once over while there’s a mention of the first gig by a band called Blur - anyone heard of them. One time bass player with Gazza Numan Pino Palladino is among a cast of unsung heroes in a focus on session musicians while Paul Morley discusses at length though sadly without ever once coming near to getting the hammer to hit the nail on the head as to why Kraftwerk are fab while talking of FAB, the sadly departed quiet Beatle Mr Harrison has his photo album opened and mused over by his widow, may distress people with a beard phobia though the clincher is the ‘my first guitar’ snapshot - can just picture him now red with embarrassment.

Rock n’ Rolla #20 - always a much well thumbed read each and every time we get our mits on a copy which of late seems to be just as it pulled off the shelf awaiting its successor. Current issue is a Sunn O))) free for all with the duo peering menacingly from the cover and featured inside deep in conversation about their forthcoming ‘classical’ full length set ‘monoliths and dimensions’ - mind you killer photo of them on the inset of page 3 which if we had access to one of those photo blowing thingymajigs we’d have magnified the size of the losing today tumble down tree house. Elsewhere there’s news of the return of Thorr’s Hammer along with a short interview with vocalist Runhild Gammelsaeter while something we’ve made a mental note to add to our record shopping list is a Holy Sons album from the Grails’ Emil Amos. Jesus Lizard are treated to an extended interview wherein they chew the fat about their forthcoming return to the fray and Sonic Youth chat at length about their new full length ‘the eternal’ as well as the latest member to their number Mark Ibold of Pavement and Free Kitten fame. Head of David get a much deserved mention - another band it seems reforming this year while this issues label focus takes a gander at Ipecac recordings. In addition there’s all your usual under the radar dietary requirements via the extensive reviews section and various bits and bobs of gubbins and stuff.

One thing we should have mentioned in relation to Rock n’ Rolla is that they have a rather neat ‘DIY round up’ section much like Wire’s ‘size matters’ section, wherein as the title gives hint they cast an ear across a select number of cottage industry / home recordings et al releases such as …….

http://www.myspace.com/boxrecordsonline - Box Records immediately caught our eye, a new imprint boasting a debut outing courtesy of a by all accounts blistering split 7 inch release between Bong and GNOD all handsomely done up in hand crafted packaging and limited to just 300 pressings each arriving with an additional CD featuring an additional four cuts - one from the former three from the latter - that collectively consume over 50 minutes of groove space, alas there’s only a brief excerpt on the player though more than enough of a nudge to suggest you need this I your life sooner rather than later with GNOD applying some neatly drilled shimmering passages of eerie ambience and Bong going all fried and tripsville. Those of you needing a further push in the encouragement stakes will do well to check out the following -

http://www.myspace.com/landbong - a quartet hailing from some undeclared location in the UK who to date have released by the looks of things two full lengths in the shape of their self titled debut and ‘bethmoora’ their latest
Double disc set. Happy chaps they are not, for it seems that Bong love nothing more than creeping the beejezus out of all oncoming traffic, three extended densely doom scarred dread bathed monolithic psyche drone suites feature here that on repeat listens sound it has to be said not unlike a brooding and bloodied Black Angels slowed to the merest of murmurs and laid asunder beneath a penetratingly bleak casting of mass consuming psychotropic grimness that crippled by the wrapping up in gruelling shards of swamp dragged stoner groove filleted with head expanding arabesque mantras and the sense of some smoking of seriously mind wasting heavy grade hash - key track of the showcase set being the formidable and wig flipped ‘exhalation’. you have been warned - in the meantime we’ll endeavour to nail those releases for further inspection.

http://www.myspace.com/gnodgnod - hailing from Manchester - a place which surely must have more bands per head of capita than any other place in the UK or for that matter the world - barring probably Detroit a place where it’s a legal requirement that to consider yourself a resident you must prove to being in at least three beat pop combos otherwise risk being accused of just not trying hard enough. Anyway Gnod are a nine piece psychotropic collective who to date have released a handful of releases which once we are done with this we’re off in search of. Here you’ll finds two cuts from their ‘Aquarian Downer’ split with White Hills - who of course you may recall featured in these very pages very recently to much pouring of fondness on their split with the Heads, alas this particular release - the GNOD one - has long since sold out resulting in the occasional howl in our gaff of the word bastard. Nevertheless the blighters - more of a tease I suspect - have seen fit to tuck up a brace of cuts from that set - typical fringe parting bliss driven and bearded kraut psyche ‘Zuunaround’ in particular sounding like a star kissed voyage being undertaken by a particularly potent Alphastone while ‘spaced man’ - be honest now with a title as such what are you expecting be bop skiffle pop - those who answered galactic third eye awakening tranced out cosmic groove go straight to the top of the class - I blame Spacemen 3. Cut loose of the White Hills psychedelicised influence GNOD make for a pretty inspiring albeit fried collective of individuals, ‘thunderbolt loop’ alas no thunderbolts but definite loops, sounds like some ancient pre-natural Tibetan chant like sourced tribal spiritual mantra, a deeply transcendental affair that imagines a gathering of various ‘Metal Box’ era PIL, 23 Skidoo and a few stray members of AR Kane relocated to some mountain retreat to conduct some archaic rain dance. That said for us the epically sultry sub eleven minute head trip ‘jodorowsky’s dune’ steals the showcase set, a stunning snake charmed arabesque monolith lysergically sprinkled amid a mind expanding collage of locked down stoner grooves, fuzz washes and mule kicking bad boogying struts all tripped out with the kind of acid bleaching more associated with the esteemed PSF imprint.

Next scheduled released from Box will be a full length from Newcastle’s Khunnt who go a little like this….

http://www.myspace.com/khnnt - ah we ain’t got a clue what these young folks put in their drinking water - but then I’m not so sure we’d like to know, demented sonic butchery from these north east noise tykes who appear to number in six and so far have to their credit one solitary outing in the shape of a split with Afternoon Gentlemen a few years back. Work shy fops I hear you say but not us, we suspect this lot have trouble trying to keep the lid on these unstable toxic treats of cacophonous carnage. Three cuts feature on their my space showcase player, agreed not as extreme as some of the stuff we’ve been hearing emitting from the Distraction imprints potting shed down the road but still crude and annoying enough to have the more decibel tolerant and shock treatment loving patrons among you suitably intrigued enough to inspect further which on the off chance that you do we suggest you immediately whack on the pure psychotic evil that is the terrorising and torturous ‘DIY Surgery’ for a spot of sonic trepanning, excruciatingly good and totally fucked up, screams and blood curdling vocals shrieks aplenty, a total disregard for form, technique or time signatures, just white hot molten fury done in a earlobe lancing buckled death thrash trash way and much reminiscent it should be said of the more unhinged moments of Earache’s back catalogue. Be warned there’s 11 minutes of this.


Volcano the Bear / La STPO
The Shy Volcano Society and the Bear at the Bird Parade
Beta Lactam Ring

Must admit that there’s been a fair amount of expectant joy around this here parish at the prospect of this split release, alas not a collaboration - (now that kids would be just to freakish eh?) but a groove space sharing head to head pairing the talents of these most screwball of avant alchemists.

Just 500 of these CD only blighters in existence and all housed in a colourful and attractive gatefold sleeve featuring the much admired artwork of both collectives (VTB have the front / back credits while La STPO take care of the middle section).

Volcano the Bear should of course need no introductions in these pages, they are the most quintessential of English ensembles, since our ears went on a crash retuning course when revealed to the weird and ominously unsettling delights of their official debut full length ‘yak folks y’are’ we’ve been to differing degrees - some all at once on occasion - pleasured, puzzled, prickled, perturbed and petrified by their releases and most peculiar want for the defying of pigeon holing and generic identification. The French collective La STPO - are equally impish and similarly defiant of easy categorisation, their sound an eclectic embracing cornucopia of subtly traced reference markers rooted with a sometimes terrifying and often theatrical mindset to which end their ‘slices of thrown time’ curio from a few years ago was for a period never far from the gazing reach of our hi-fi.

Over the years these Volcano types have somewhat shifted in terms of sound dynamic to somewhat shy away from their earlier trademark Henry Cow references to such an extent that it could be argued that they dwell in a universe solely created and occupied by themselves. It’s a shift that has seen their creative approach constantly evolve and yet devolve to such point that you never know exactly which VTB are going to turn up on record. Last time out ‘classic Erasmus Fusion’ - deservedly their most acclaimed and probably most user friendly release to date brought into play a kind of focussed channelling and coherency that previously you’d have suspected they’d have baulked at had such a thing ever been mooted. At times almost psychedelic though not in the conventional sense of what most come to recognise the given term while simultaneously lending suggestion that amid its still wilfully strange grooves a disturbingly dizzy Robert Wyatt dialect was sub consciously wiring itself to your psyche.

The five cuts that make up their side of ‘the shy volcano society and the bear at the bird parade’ see the Volcanoes shyly retiring and recoiling to their reclusive wood shed to continue their excavation of sounds based upon a looser, freeform and ostensibly more primitively woven purist abstraction, it’s a template that suggests the collective being informed by Louis Hardin better known to the wider populace as Moondog. Several occasions throughout this suite recollections and ghostly recalls of Moondog’s ’moondog’ and ’moondog in Europe’ full lengths spring to mind, perhaps it’s the pre-natural craft rising from within, the distinctly distractive mesmerics of the tribal rhythmic mantras eerily swathing and lulling you as though borne of some rare ancient old spell charm or maybe it’s the folk dialects taken and stripped to their barest recognisable form - whatever the case - this is Volcano the Bear’s wired and whacked universe.

‘our number of wolves’ opens to the sound of crunching woodland footsteps. Purposeful. A brief pause. Destination arrived. A door creaks open. Inside a band plays to the sound of a curiously noir tipped softly smoked off centre jazz piped funereal waltz. The mood is relaxed. Near comatose. Impishly playful. Welcoming and…sinister. Its as fine an example to sum up what makes this lot such an attraction that being their inherent and knowing ability to put you in a place outside your comfort zone and have you constantly considering their merits as mere pranksters or geniuses. After the rather disturbing and wiring archaic mantra ’the boy with the lips inside’ the focus shifts and the mood changes to something more ominous in design - the deathly ‘the open, the closed’ features all manner of dronal hums, folk madrigals, insectoid whirrs, (is that the sound of a comb with its teeth being manipulated at one point we wonder), flutes and what sounds like some lost musical language are gathered up into some cavernous sound garden. ‘death sleeps in my ear’ follows with similar eclectic charm (though removed of the unhinged pre-natural states of its predecessor), teased with a darkly exotic ritual flavouring and sounding for all the world as though its been wooed from some idyllic albeit mystic mountain top. Full circle is achieved on ‘the first circle is the eye’ incidentally the Bears’ parting shot as they return back to square one so to speak with their curious noir tweaked funereal dis-calm. In many ways a very close cousin to the vision developed on the aforementioned ’classic Erasmus fusion’, through the hazy woodland mists of the hypnotically sultry and mind weaving side winding mantras a cornucopia of melodic dialects (drafted and distilled variously from Australasia, Tibet and the Marrakesh) are threaded and woven into a becoming tranced out psyche folk brew that’s both strangely enchanting and potently wig flipping.

While’s there’s certainly no dispute in the fact that Volcano the Bear win hands down any that happen to be passing accolades for being the weirdest, La STPO (or La STOP as my spell checker keeps retyping them as) or to give them their occasionally used full name La Société Des Timides À La Parade Des Oiseaux are by far the most freaked, while the former appear to be by any other definition folk archaeologists and explorers of the strange and curious, La STPO are informed by a more rudimentary rock based lineage that’s possessed with an irrefutable nod to cabaret. At first glance you could conceivably describe it as some bizarrely macabre absurdist theatre that finds a mid career Tom Waits supported by the Penguin Café Orchestra while both finding themselves musically directed by Kurt Weill (none more so is the case than on ‘invalid islands’ - a true force of nature that incorporates so many freewheeling facets its advisable that you don a neck brace for safety). The joyful aspect of La STPO is the way they make the sounds appear so visual and vibrant, blessed with an acutely schismic nature the type of which whose pronounced off the wall dynamic draws at times parallels with the no wave scene, not content to merely appropriate a secondary musical backdrop while the listener busies themselves doing other tasks they demand your unfettered attention. Each track here - and there’s four to be getting on with - evolves, splinters, fractures into mini suites within suites, the subtle sub plots make it such that you’re compelled to draw close for fear of missing some minutiae detail. Another attraction to La STPO is their innate handle on freeform and their ability to cross wire from various generic pools while never once losing momentum, attention or effect. Between the grooves these twisted operattas coil and curdle amid an erupting circus stage of punk accents, fried jazz dialects, contortionist pop, even elements of the early ‘goth’ movement releases (how I so hate that term alas though bound by convention) - Marc Almonds immediate post Soft Cell work springing to mind on more than one occasion, classical, noise and industrial - the list as you might suspect is not an exhaustive one. Without question the best cut of La STPO’s set is the parting ‘colonies’ - its here that it becomes plainly obvious as to who La STPO most clearly identify, amid the rhythmic calibrations, the frankly drop dead RL Burnside meets Ry Cooder like side winding riffage and the mocked up macabre recast of the ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’ as were - therein lies and lurks with ominous glee a bloodline whose ancestry can be traced directly back to Captain Beefheart’s ‘trout mask replica’, a truly magnificent feat of intricately wound grim groove marked out it should be noted by a thoroughly inspired and dare we say totally fried Don Van Vliet styled vocal performance that shrieks, screams and caterwauls with such intensity it leaves you rigid in your seat - also keep an odd ear out for the momentary nods of psychosis via ‘Scream’ era Banshees and ‘metal box’ era PIL. Did we say recommended?

www.blrrecords.com

Key tracks -

The first circle is the eye
colonies

Arthur and Martha
Navigation
Happy robots

BOT4 is the catalogue number of this the latest release from the fledging though decidedly wonderful (if that is - this release happens to be a flavouring of what’s about) Happy Robots imprint and as it happens their third outing which by a rough mathematical calculation would suggest that either -
a) someone’s been at the smarties and got the numbering muddled, or
b) there’s another release in the offing and this one has just happened to jump the gun and / or
c) its some kind of hilarious wheeze which dear hearts I is not privy to.

We’ll start by saying a gorgeous record and a gorgeous debut full length to boot. A cute little picture on the front cover showing two children staring into the sky amid a landscape of overgrown vegetation back dropped by mountains. Turn over the sleeve (okay digi-pack cover - just doesn’t sound right - just trying to inject a little romance - I’m wasted me) and you find what I assume is our little infant sweethearts from the front now all grown up and pictured in a scene that could easily be a prize winning spot the difference picture quiz - no mountains, no hilly bits and no wild vegetation. Well that climate change for you. Prize please. More disconcertingly Arthur who isn’t really Arthur but Adam (and while we‘re here Martha isn‘t Martha but Alice - all terribly confusing don‘t you find and makes 70‘s TV show SOAP look positively dull in comparison) - appears to be wearing the same outfit.

According to the press release - again another weird thing because we haven’t managed to lose it yet - Arthur and Martha or Adam and Alice have been around for three years and have been wooed, loved and raved about from here to there to everywhere (which in case you need exact map locations puts it round about Aberdeen to Bristol and several territories extending beyond the waters that surround this tin pot island of ours we laughingly call Great). They’ve so far released one single ’Autovia’ which sadly never came knocking at our gaff as neither has the follow up ’music for hair products’ which is being released as a teaser shortly before the albums official release - and which may of course be the errantly rogue BOT3 - damn should have read the press release before I embarked on all this.

Found cruise controlling pop’s ever expanding cosmos patrolling star crossed hand holding twee tweaked avenues, there’s a beautifully becoming symmetry about Martha and Arthur’s craft as it sweetly transposes the spacey and optimistic future echoes of Krautrock’s more cosmic inclines with the silken synth pop sensibilities of the 80’s that embellishes it with a disturbingly affectionate tug that’s both immediate and familiar and most importantly acutely chilled and sophisticated.

On first encounters something of the moog obsessed oscillations of Stereolab or rather more the early career extra curricula adventures of Monade come to the fore (best viewed it should be said on the softly swirling starry eyed 60’s shimmered kooky bachelor pad pop of the fuzzed up sugar buzz of ‘music for hair products’) which simultaneously cast adrift with its sugared minimalist demur recalls at times Fosca. As said that’s first initial impressions for the further in you get you become aware that beneath the cosmic candy trims, the playfully yearning lunar baubles and twinkling cascades there is the subtle undercurrent of the ticks, tricks and trappings of the albums core nucleus, the flirting of those fondly executed salutary lovelorn opines that used to braid Kraftwerk records back in the days when they’d release several albums in as many years (see the opening ‘Autovia’) and the icy monochromatic aura of ’movement’ era New Order as found on the fading moments of the frankly numbingly stunning buzz sawing urbane electro of ’this city life’ which by turns begins sounding not unlike the Velvets ’Sunday morning’ recalibrated and paired by Georgio Moroder ’electric dreams’.

That said ground zero for Arthur and Martha and their affectionately woven celestial cherubs in terms of reference markers are kraut pop super group Fly and one time Peel favourites Sophie and Peter Johnston - the latter being much recalled on the opening ’Autovia’ mainly for its acutely pristine pop awareness and nocturnally hued love noted opine while the former are nodded to on the excellently titled ’squarewave to heaven’ (nearly as good a play on words as the Buttholes infamous ’hairway to Stephen’) - a locked grooved galactic voyage of sorts very much tickling a veritable 70’s kraut / space disco vibe much favoured at one time by French pioneers Space and Cerrone. All said those swooning romantics among you ought to skip impatiently to the parting ’turn to dust’ a forlorn bruiser that unless our ears do deceive sounds not a million miles from ’pure’ era Mr Broudie as though aided and abetted by those shy eyed lost souls the Hoverchairs - tears will trickle - a bit of a gem if you ask me.

www.happyrobots.co.uk

Key tracks -

Turn to dust
Music for hair products
This city life


The Bordellos
The Onion King Years
Self released

Lazing in the shade of a parasol we here at the losing today patio salad bar come natural tanning studio have spent moments of the day idly succumbing to the sparsely wound sound shapes of the much admired St Helens based lysergic tipped beat pop combo the Bordellos.

There are, we believe, only 4 copies in existence of this little curio, which given I have one of them now means your chances of copping one for yourself is now down to three. How do we get one of these ultra rare aural artefacts I hear you enquire - (see I know these things as I read minds at great distances - so Johnny S over in Tunbridge Wells stop what your thinking right now it’ll make you go blind or at the very least leave you with a permanent squint). Well young folk of an enquiring disposition you can grab yourself a copy of said rarity by entering a FAB (highlighted in bold to add dramatic effect) competition being hosted by the band, (kinda reminds you of those super duper days of memory fading Radio 1 extravaganzas where you could win signed photos of Dave Lee Travis and a chance to bag yourself a package of goodies assembled by the fair hand of a certain John Peel who would often go on to ruin the experience by forgetting to post the blighter and after several disgruntled complaints from train spotting tank top wearers living in a pickle jar somewhere in Anglia would see fit to put the blame squarely at the toes of a hapless producer). Alas no fanfare or more importantly some impromptu advertisement for said Radio 1 competition featuring an over excitable Tony Blackburn with which to ruin your illegal taping of the day’s chart bound sound.

Sorry we appear to have lost the thread somewhat. Where were we - ah yes - the Bordellos. Okay so in short rare as hen’s teeth pressing entitled ’the Onion King Years’ - a title I should add we have no idea to the meaning of (bet its something cryptic or as is always the case - plaintively obvious - update - we‘ve just been told it was the bands original name - as in the Onion King), comprised of 16 tracks all previously unreleased in this guise (four track recordings) and featuring a couple of cuts that by our reckoning haven’t as yet to date appeared in the light of day to adorn vinyl grooves. In short your hi-fi wants one, needs one and deserves one.

Currently busy tinkering away and putting the finishing touches to their ‘debt sounds’ set which based on sneak teasers found flirting about their my space players (www.myspace.com/the bordellos and www.myspace.com/welshcakerecords) is proving to be something of a much anticipated release in our gaff, the band have to date released two full lengths in the guise of ‘meet the bordellos’ and ‘songs for swinging stalkers’ plus an additional unreleased outing for the house of the rising sin imprint. Goes without saying that they are much admired around this here parish as to by a certain Julian Cope via his observant Head Heritage transmissions.

There’s something to be said about the purity and nakedness afforded by these sparsely conceived four track recordings in so far as the way they capture and retain every little falter, crackle, emotional turn of phrase and ultimately the intimacy of each and every cut, it’s the same skeletal approach that the band have seen fit to revert back to on their aforementioned forthcoming platter. If I’m objective and honest I’d have to say that the Bordellos achieve a more psyched out dynamic when stripped to the core. Reference markers are easy - there’s no doubting the dues owed to the likes of Barrett, Love’s Arthur Lee (which brings them into parallel with Robyn Hitchcock / Soft Boys but stripped of the underlying Beatles infatuations) and the Velvets (none more so is this the proven case than on the brittle strummed Lou Reed dialects of ’poet or a liar’ or the psychosis rearing ‘these boots are made for stalking‘ - the latter alone worthy of immediate attention just to hear the unravelling vocals at the close). But then scratch a little deeper and what you’ll notice is that aside the obvious would be 60’s lysergic kinship and acutely crafted wherewithal for knocking out a shimmering shades adorned treats at the drop of a hat, this lot have an impish want for diluting the mix with a decidedly subtle CBGB’s inscribed new wave flavouring (the skewed ‘gift of noise’) wherein the latent essences of the Modern Lovers (the lovelorn ‘hooked’ still sounds like some recently unearthed vault dug gem like lost relic, deliciously dimpled amid a spectral casing of drifting opines and touchingly melancholic brush strokes of resigning sighs) and to a lesser though evidently present extent Television (check out the hollowed and bracingly wasted casualness of the grittily grounded power grooved ‘drunk is a state’) spike the mindset. Additional Daniel Johnston (the broken bruised beauty of ’sixteen’) and more importantly Jad Fair (the unmistaken raw lo-fi rush of Half Japanese potently at work on ‘set your heart to the sun’) are never far from the equation, while you can consider it an equally a safe bet at the drawing of loose comparisons with the likes of Magoo and more obviously the Beatnik Filmstars.

Despite suffering a tad from the sound quality which looking back in hindsight may well prove to have been done deliberately, ‘spiritual’ proves to be one of the sets highlights, a moment of introspective reflection blessed with the simplistic though admittedly effective accompaniment of some sterling Marr / Vini Reilly styled riff loops while elsewhere likewise finding itself a little battered, bruised and worse for wear is the seriously fried and schizoid off his face Dylan kookiness of ‘vicious circle’. of course ’velvet mind’ despite its primitive detail as shown here still packs enough knowing class to suggest it alone could start a musical movement. So there you have it a Bordellos write up without me ever once mentioning the Freed Unit’s ’gigglegoo’ - bugger.

www.myspace.com/thebordellos
Key tracks -

Spiritual
Velvet mind
Hooked
Again

Thanks to all for helping, aiding and reading these rambles.

Address for communications -

105 Shaldon Drive, Morden, Surrey, SM4 4BQ, UK

Email - surroundinsound@aol.com

Updates - www.myspace.com/thesundayexperience

Take care of yourselves

Mark
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