Missive 85 - extended remix edit
14-02-2006
Singled Out

Missive 85 - part 5

Dedicated as always to Kelly and Mark - missing you.

Singled Out - more tunes than you can wave a groovy stick at.

Okay part 5 of this epic Singled Out - another one shortly……..

Louis XIV ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ (Atlantic). Pressed on a very fetching square picture disc - which for those with experience of such things makes it a slight bastard to get right when positioning the stylus - especially when in this case that picture disc happens to be rather light making it hard to distinguish the grooves. That said there is much to hate about ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ in the way it without so much as a by your leave invades your nervous system to mess with your head and when done and dusted move down stream to set your hackles jangling in frenzy, your hips swerving and the feet a tapping - the vanity, the sexiness and the cocksure cool of the whole thing - think the Streets od’ing on amyl nitrate with a Scissor Sisters sleekness to boot - damn - I fookin hate you record. Flip side features ’the Hunt’ a tasty slice of reclining under the tree to watch the world pass by sliding blues with beans and bangers cooking on a roaring campfire treat from the old country - honest - I kid you not. Dis we mention it comes with a sticker - that’s got you admit it - you want one now. www.tlanticrecords.com

Omerta ‘One chance’ Northern Ambition). From those nice people who brought us those superb Narcissus and Stephen Fretwell releases comes this quite literally superb twin set from Manchester’s moodier quarter courtesy of Omerta. ‘One chance’ - ah the intensity and brutality of it all it’s as though someone has taken a butchers hook to your heart, burning with a resigned passion all the time this restless baby snakes around laying siege to your defences in an attempt to slowly unravel them and lay you wide open - think of the simmering grandeur of Mansun’s long lost ‘Wide Open Space’ and multiply the resulting drama unfolding from out of the hi-fi speakers by threefold. Flip side, incidentally our favourite of the two, ‘Synchronise your smiles’ could easily be a distant cousin of the Stone Roses ‘Made of Stone’ - need I really say more - thought not - emotion sapping all the same. www.northernambition.com

Mundane Music / Sanjuro 77 ‘Split’ (Kipper). And the never ending list of apologies continues at pace. And despite all the very wonderful releases featured about these pages we can’t think of a more deserving outing with which to pass on our heartiest best wishes for not only this inaugural release but for future ones to come. This delightful split release is the debut outing for anew homespun independent label by the name of Kipper. Each release we are reliably informed will have an initial run of 100 pressings only and will feature similar pairings under a series entitled ‘Catch of the Day’ of which this is the first. Each will come in beautifully numbered hand made reclaimed cardboard / paper sleeves with inserts all housed in a brown paper bag specialising in everything from electronica to ‘just mental’ and everything in between. As advertised debut release in the series features Mundane Music and Sanjuro 77. Mundane Music need no introduction to avid readers of these pages having featured a little while back with a superb release on the much celebrated in this parish Heliotone records. ‘The Woeful Pelican’ combines all manner of naturist field recordings, wildly tinkled ivories and a massively ceramic wide screen grandeur that you suspect wouldn’t feel out of place serving as a backdrop to one of those adventure productions by that Speilberg bloke, so colossal in fact that one assumes MM may well have to get a bigger bedroom to play in if this continues. Seismic stuff. Not wishing to be left in the shade is Sanjuro 77 who by all accounts is a Japanese born Manchester based whiz kid who whiles away the wee hours creating what he fondly refers to as ILM - Intelligent Listening Music. ‘In the company of crows’ marks his first steps into the big bad world to be separated from the apparent safety blanket afforded by computer games and quality cinema. Inspired as it is ingenious amid the fused din of lunatic glitch beats, droning electronic accents and irregular off the beaten track melodic interludes there’s lies stirring below at the core simply delicious heart sapping battered and bruised string symphony that sounds not unlike a noire-ish take on those classically scored drama infected pre gunfight scenes from spaghetti westerns of yore. Does it for me anyway. More please and be quick bout it. www.kipperrecords.co.uk

Miss McGarry ‘The Galumphing Man’ (Heliotone). And didn’t we just mention in passing those fab people over at Heliotone. You know I sometimes wonder whether you deserve being spoilt as such. Release number nine from those nice people who to date have brought you some of the finest and tastiest ear gear there is to be had (Bear Quartet, Luke Hirst, Roy Moller, Anthony Atkinson, the Yam Yams, Michael Shelley, Kimonophonic and of course the aforementioned Mundane Music) comes in the charming form of Glaswegian Clare McGarry. As with previous releases - strictly limited to just 50 lathe cut vinyl pressings (the words get-arses-into-gear springs readily to mind) and why not when the sounds are this special. An absolute treasure is this four track debut a veritable mix of eerily infused imagination set to a piano and diary book storytelling a la ‘Gregory’s Girl’ cut with what can only be described as a classroom charm, in fact don’t be to surprised if mid way through the opening cut - the hauntingly evocatively drawn ‘The Gallumphing Man’ you have the unmistakable hankering for malted milk biccies dipped in a glass of warm milk. Then there’s the enchanted and vaguely creepy instrumental ‘Micey’ to contend with which will ensure that the lights remain firmly on throughout the night. Those who remember fondly Rooney from the late 90’s underground scene and perhaps elements of early Arab Strap will find themselves in familiar safe quarters for the darkly water coloured grainy delivery of ‘Madman’s Mercy’ though for me personally nothing quite compares to the last cut. To say the twinkle like frosted glaze of the parting ‘The dissapation of that lingering dread’ is something approaching heavenly is to be observed as a tad understated, in the short space afforded by just two and a half minutes McGarry crams full to brimming a sterling spectacle of the graceful bordering on the lunatic, beautiful as though the very word was conceived with it in mind, spectral in a warped though wonderfully conceived Kate Bush / Bjork sense and perilously high wired between hurting heartbreak and overt optimism as though Jessie from Toy Story 2 had broke free from her confines and grown up only to find that life really was a bitch. No doubt those guys over at Mixing It have played this to the point of exhaustion. Essential without question. www.onoffonoff.org/heliotone

Broken Dolls ‘Any other day’ (Southern Fried). Another release found skulking in the great singles mountain is this niftily brooding bastard by West Midlands based quartet the Broken Dolls. With an album already in the can and awaiting release (in fact its quite possible its out as I write this and no doubt selling by the shed load). Described in passing - okay by the attending press release then - as a PIL’d up mish mash of ‘13’ era Blur dallying with the electronic arm of Radiohead. Mmmm for once I’d tend to disagree preferring to throw my hat in the ring that was once occupied by Gene Loves Jezebel, the Mission and latter career Sisters of Mercy with more than a whiff of that supplanting of McGeoch like drip dried chiming cascades all of course decoded and removed of the ensuing nary do Goth elements you understand. With that borne in mind ‘Any other day’ proves to be a neatly manicured atmospherically muscular grooving baby that seems intent on delivering sucker punches just when you least expect it for fun while being quite readily equipped to work its way beneath your skin and run roughshod throughout your nervous system. Flip side ‘What the Hell’ is a more measured affair being as it is delicately spun with a pensive air that’s both bruised and hurting, at times recalling the Cure’s more introspective ‘Disintegration’ period yet decorated sublimely by an array of heart stopping tip toeing strings and a keen awareness of pristine perfect pop. www.brokendolls.co.uk

The New Shapes ‘Waiting for a God’ (Pop). As though we needed any reasons or excuse to whoop it up and holler with joy in our gaff though we’d have to admit that having on the turntable doing its finest strutting stuff a record from the New Shapes kinda adds to the thrill of it all. Second single from these authors of gut tightening anthemic guitar pop follows sharply on from their immense Undertones inspired debut ‘You got me running round’ from last summer. Both ‘Waiting for a God’ and it’s flip cut ‘New Queen’ hark back to an era in the record industry where the listener was spoilt for choice being faced with not only a killer A side but a giving it a run for its money drop dead blazing B side. ‘Watching for a God’ is a blazing slice of searing, short back and sides, skinny tied, drain piped and buckled up to die for frenetic fun fuelled frenzy that has one winkle picker wearing foot in the new wave camp with the other less obviously on the glam side of the fence (I kid you not). Blessed with a chorus that could easily be a seriously bad boy Bay City Rollers being fed speed and dragged through the less salubrious quarters of Soho as was by uber patriarch Malcolm McLaren and readily more infectious that Ebola this cutely sexy baby swaggers, poses and preens before punching the crap out of your senses. ‘New Queen’ is slightly less rounded but equally spirited featuring incendiary laced lacerating riffs, caustic key signatures and the kind of cool as could only have been achieved by distilling down all the potent elements of the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers only to feed them through a huge motherf***ing instant pop maker machine. Damn those kids with their street partying guitarry toons. A must have release - don’t be daft of course it is. www.thenewshapes.com

Besnard Lakes ‘Would anybody come to visit me’ (Static Caravan). More Static delights with which to spend your unused Xmas record vouchers on is this diamond release from Besnard Lakes. Lovingly pressed on 10 inches of sumptuous vinyl each of these 500 pressings comes equipped with a screen print insert and if that wasn’t good reason for a spot of cheering and bunting hanging then the two tunes neatly packed between the grooves may well rekindle your belief that pop music can touch, tease, tussle and do strangely wonderful things to your head. With a follow up full length to ‘Volume 1’ in the can and ready awaiting release this twin set provides ample proof as to why these kids are already the subject of hushed mutterings among those in the know. The beauty of Besnard Lakes sound is that it doesn’t hit you immediately instead preferring to leave enough trace elements of something unknown to snag your senses and put that doubting thought in your head that it might just be a good idea to let the stylus do its thing once more. Three plays in and you are hooked ‘Would anybody come to visit me’ softly unfurls not so much in a rush of colour but more so exacting a slow dripping hue, quietly stirring within an array of familiar sounds and yet not familiar sounds, partly kaleidoscopic, partly epic if only for the way it slyly seduces with it’s soft centred folds. Don’t be fooled by its opening ambit the vibrant array of cloud piercing feedback that whine and shimmer as they soon acquit themselves of their task in creating an atmospheric entrée and having done so exit stage left leaving in their wake the most off centred slice of laid back coolness you’ll probably find hard to better all year a kind of meeting of minds between early Butterflies of Love (think ‘Rob a Bank’ here) and Galaxie 500 found skulking under a stairs swapping notes on the merits of both Morricone’s effective skeletal spaghetti western scores and John Barry’s mercurial aural sculptures. Likewise BL supply a bagful of crucially gentle strumming, supplant copious amounts of heart sapping finger licking drop dead gorgeous guitar string plucking, throw in some frankly unreal harmonies and mash it all together into something that’ll break hearts of stone at the drop of a hat. Preferring not to let the side down over on the flip there’s the wonderfully hypnotic lull of the sample heavy ‘Life rarely begins with Tungsten film #2’ which comes across deceptively docile to slyly crush you beneath the weight of its hidden beauty - play loud to get the most from it’s spellbinding seduction taking care to avoid the ’Cars’ like intro as it builds layer by layer along the way making visible post rock nods so much so that you might throughout the duration be forgiven for thinking you’ve stumbled across a secret union between early Arab Strap, San Lorenzo and the much loved Workhouse (which reminds us - are Bearos and Awkward Silence records still around?). Essential stuff. www.staticcaravan.org

And staying with Besnard Lakes briefly a well worded email and maybe a small donation to postage etc….(but don’t say we told you) might secure you a copy of the Static Caravan Autumn Sampler from er- last Autumn not this Autumn which lets face it would be daft being we are still in Winter - but hey forward planning. Where were we - ah yes sampler. This dinky disc features 5 tracks taken from recent Static releases by Darren Hayman (of Hefner fame); Tunng who get to cover (if memory serves - an old Bloc Party nugget - see below); Besnard Lakes as advertised above; the Library Trust who we reviewed way back in the mists of time and a release that we heartily confess much love for and finally Bronnt Industries Kapital who if I recall rightly we last featured in these pages much loving their limited lathe cut release and which to our horror we’ve just discovered we’ve had the release from which this is taken (‘Virtue et Industria’ - limited to 500 copies kids) here with us gathering an assortment of dust. While we are here best to recap of forthcoming Static releases so you can annoy your ever so friendly record dealer - an Inch Time seven inch (you may recall us reviewing his third full length ‘Any colour you like’ way back when we were ahead of the game); an limited album by YLID - check the Static website for details on how to download a whole YLID album gratis; a Cheju 3” cdr; stuff by Mike in Mono, Shady Bard and a by all accounts nifty package from Mark Brend (he of Farina fame who have an exceptional full length on Pickled Egg doing the rounds and shaping up already as one of the early albums of the year) which features a book ‘Strange Sounds’ and a single by the ‘Strange Sounds Orchestra’ - hopefully more about that before we pack up this particular missive otherwise it’ll be first of the blocks next time out. And continuing with all things Static - friends Millefeuille have made available a free downloadable 25 minute video featuring Tarentel which you can access via www.tarentel.millefeuille.fr

Inch Time ‘Icicles and Snowflakes’ (Static Caravan). As advertised just a second ago - blimey we should have called this the Static Caravan newsletter instead of Singled Out but then those nice Static kids will persist in sending us top drawer records of varying size, shape and sound so who are we to argue and complain. Okay mainly for those caught sleeping at the back of the class Inch Time is non other than Stefan Panczak - an Australian musician who to date has put out some of the most sought after releases from that territory across three CD’s the most recent ‘Any colour you like’ found it’s way to Europe to glowing reviews courtesy of Static Caravan (are we on a percentage here or what?) and is still available for download on the labels site for those who never listened first time around. Just ahead of his forthcoming full length ‘As the moon draws water’ due out in March this limited 500 pressing two track 7” acts as a small yet delicious taster of things to come. Less involved melody / structure wise than anything on the ’Colour’ album - Panczak it seems opts for the simplistic approach - fans of ISAN, Plone, Raymond Scott, Maps and Diagrams et al will find much to love and curl up to here. Both ’Snowflakes and Icicles’ and ’Almond Eyes’ are best viewed as lunar suites, and more curiously it’s the flip cut ’Almond’ that has that distinct frosted glow about it rather than the what would seem obvious to all ’Snowflakes’. Reclining and chilled out to the point that you are visibly aware of the temperature dropping, Snowflakes’ is an acutely amorous affair that combines hypnotic mind melting accents and down tempo vibes within the safe confine of a child’s toy room - engaging to say the least. Flip for the cosmic caress of ‘Almond Eyes’ a warming mix of 70’s test card TV nostalgia and dippy plink plonk pop lovingly extracted, moulded and baked into a surreal like twilight floorshow where a spliff fuelled and much wasted troop of Clangers have fallen through an unmarked pot hole and into an undiscovered Narnia like world of snow queens, icicles and unnerving calm. Think you need this one.

The Paddingtons ‘Sorry’ (Poptones). Again another release found gathering dust looking for much loving is 43rd single from the Paddingtons debut album ‘First comes first’. The band have recently completed dates with Baby shambles (who they?) but that’s no reason to ignore these cute spikey topped purveyors of all things terrace chants and three chords - the Hull based street urchins now seem to have honed to manicured perfection the art of the would be standard bearing ball dropping three minute fumble inside the bag of punchy pop as ‘Sorry’ proves perfectly. Damn those youthful pups. www.paddingtons.net

Tunng ‘Pioneers’ (Static Caravan) / ’Magpie Bites’ (Nowhere Fast). The normally ever reliable and informative magazine ‘the Word’ has in its latest issue (March edition - no. 37) something of a new folk special bolstered by a (non to shedding anymore light) feature on Nick Drake, an interview with KT Tunstall and an A to Z list of the various happenings / people / acts of the ‘so called’ New Folk scene - among the four page listing and 31 names / events mentioned - the lists importance, relevance and indeed authority is marred by the absence of one of the scene’s true conspirators - Tunng. Okay you may say - but Tunng are folktronic so they don’t strictly count - but then the Earlies are listed as are the Fence Collective both deservedly so. Ho Hum is all I’ll say. Nevertheless the Static releases continue at pace. Speaking from a personal point of view one of the best finds of the last two years has been Tunng, delivering perhaps one of the albums of last year in ‘Mother’s daughter and other songs….’ they have recently been the subject of fierce EBAY bidding activity where the ultra limited ‘Maypole Song’ lathe cut release reviewed in these very pages - oh eons ago went for a whopping £100 plus. This time around two releases on the trot, the former marks their last for the esteemed Static boys and in fine style its delivered to. Released in limited format CD and 7” vinyl - the CD features three cuts plus a video ‘Fair Doreen’ (originally appearing on that aforementioned debut full length as well as Specialten issue 12 as mentioned above - getting confusing this - but hey it links - though sporadically you might rightly remark) - the 7” incidentally is a one sided etched type thing and v. limited. The ‘Pioneers’ referred here is indeed the Bloc Party cut magically moulded and melodically enhanced in that unique trademark Tunng brew that you’ve come to love, adore and be bewitched by- tumbling chords, rustic backdrops, the breathless and anticipatory stop starts and like the uncorking of a fine and vintage dust covered wine that whole feeling and sense of releasing something from another age - Tunng aficionados of old will not be left wanting while new viewers may feel disturbingly exhilarated by the whole experience. Flip side features 2 old favourites that originally featured as a limited 500 pressing only 7” way back in 2004 - please keep up at the back. ’Tale from Black’ sounds like King Creosote armed with his Nick Drake chord book traversing through ’Wicker Man’ country accompanied by his on hand picked May day merry making mockers while ’Pool beneath the Pond’ with it’s decidedly off centre, flopping funky folk vibe and overtly lazy like delivery may just adequately fit the very word ‘sublime’ to a tee. On the merits of ’do I need this record?’ - consider this - do bears shit in woods?

Staying with Tunng for another release currently doing the rounds this time for a relatively new label Nowhere Fast. The law of averages dictates that sooner or later Tunng are going to release something that we truly, utterly hate and which our hip shaking hi-fi will simply spew forth the said disc from its spindle and have it flying at pace across the listening room. Not on this occasion though. Two new tracks - well one is a traditional tune reclaimed by the brothers Tunng feature on this delightful numbered limited edition of a 1000 7” platter which comes housed in a wall filling poster type sleeve (yippee). ’Magpie Bites’ is arresting - need we say more, gentle cracking pop that sounds like it’s just woken from a summer’s afternoon snooze under the big tree on the local village green, so frail and fragile you feel the mere breathing over it could cause it to break in half - a spectral beauty you’d do well to file alongside those great Robert Wyatt records that you should have in your record collection. Flipside ’the Bonnie Black Hare’ takes the shyness aspect to new levels, like the aforementioned ’Tale from Black’ very much a twinkling gem found holidaying on the Summerisles - mercurial stuff indeed. www.nowherefastecords.com

That’s your lot until either later tonight - if you are good or more probably tomorrow sometime

Take care

Mark
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