Sunday 22 September 2013

The end.

This has ended. I've been reading through old posts and the feeling is there but the grammar is not. Ween rule.


Tuesday 23 October 2012

I have something to tell you.

The Polyps are the greatest band in the world at this very moment. It seems destined to fail for me. I stumble upon their (his) release of the minute (the perfect lp on Woodsist recs 'Ants on the Golden Cone') and fall in love...... subsequently falling in love with everything else they've released. Who knows? Maybe the anticipation will kill the next release for me.

I write this because today I recieved a cassette of their's called 'Isla & Emma'. As perfect release as can be. Melody and performance are at an absolute. Pure, unadulterated noise-pop. In Excelsis. Excelsia.

Saturday 11 August 2012

I never realised...

This blog is now over a year old. I started off with pure inspiration and then tailed off until November last year. Aah, November.


http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Polyps

http://negativeguestlistrecords.bandcamp.com/album/i-made-blood-better-lp

http://velcrowcodeel.bandcamp.com/album/velcro-ep

and more and more and more and more and more and more and more.

Saturday 7 July 2012

Ahhn Ever Can o' Bee Other Tan

Music. Life can get in the way of music. I have been away on holiday knowing that there is music awaiting my arrival home. Namely The Polyps and Shroud of Winter. Both very different, both very good. I ordered 'Flies of Winter' by The Polyps but recieved 'Twenty Colored Circles' instead.... I can't really complain, released before 'Ants on the Golden Cones' and a signifier of that release, the samples and found sounds that meld with (?)standard(?) acoustic songs have such an effect on me when the tape is playing. It is a perfect kind of music, not drone, not ambient.... it is human.
Let me start my little writ on Shroud of Winter's 'Solstice Eclipse' by stating that this is a "metal" album. Woah. It's been a while since I've listened to (let alone buy) a "metal" album. As opposed to some of the drone/doom records I have this is particularly intricate and structured.
I can't think. I can't think. I want to carry on writing these reviews but my brain is stuttering and starting... Needless to say I will come back and probably edit this. Or maybe write a completely different review.

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Hot stash needs cooling off

A big box of new records arrived yesterday and I have been listening to them today with the sunshine streaming through an open window and becoming more and more drunk and lost within life and this music. Thank God for last Novemember...

Sad Horse - Eggy Tape [Eggy Records] - Trashy and thrashy punk rock played with a twisted sense of melody.

Trailblazer - S/T [Eggy Records] - I've got another Trailblazer cassette off Night People Records and I think this one is the better... Alan Vega-esque yelps and screams over ominous synth and drum machine work outs. side A is 'Killer jams', side B is 'Killerer jams'...

Mole House - S/T [Alberts Basement] - [I had to edit this review] I received the cassette cued up to start on side 2, I played it and a beautiful, hissy mess of a pop song came out of the speakers... it ended and nothing else happened... I turned the machine off believing that Mole House had released a one track cassette of "lo-fi pop rock perfection" (quoting the original review)... I have since conversed with the band through the interweb and discovered that if I cued up side 1 then more pop nuggets would emerge from my stereo! Wow...Lo-fi pop rock perfection... Mole House can do no wrong in my opinion when they produce such off-the-wall tracks. 'The Cave', a couple of versions of 'Melanie' ('I Don't Dare Try' on the latest Night People compilation album) and a couple of instrumentals all dubbed over a copy of Peabo Bryson's 'All My Love' album. Utterly unique and inspiring stuff. Someone... please... give this lot a tiny bit of cash to record an album.

Mole House - Hey Come My Way 7" [Quemada Records] - Again, classic pop rock sounds filtered through a unique take on playing, production, writing... everything. Fuck I wish I could see them live.

The Garbage and the Flowers - Stoned Rehearsal [Quemada Records] -Again, off-kilter lo-fi pop hooks. As the title suggests; an informal run through six tracks with banter, fluffed notes, ramshackle singing... one of the best records I've heard in a very long time.

As is pretty obvious I have fallen head over heels in love with Eggy Records... they can do no wrong, from the music they release to their recommendations. And Australia! Wowzer... I never knew...

Wednesday 2 May 2012

oh! for sweet everything (yellow moon on that night)

Christ. Over the past three days I've immersed myself in as much music as is humanly possible with two small children, an overdue essay, work and "actual adult life bullshit" (aka. liaising with builders/plasterers/plumbers etc)...... A couple of tapes arrived in the mail... Ryan Garbes '1965' and Dylan Ettinger 'Pattern Recursion'... t'old Garbes' effort isn't a patch on last years' 'Sweet Hassle' lp on Hello Sunshine Records. In the release blurb it was stated that the tape is made up of offcuts and unreleased trax from the sessions for said Hello Sunshine release (muso-y lexicon speak) and you can tell... nothing really holds the attention and it all seeps past rather blandly. Who knows? It might be a grower but at the length it is (15-20mins) it seems a little throwaway. 'Pattern Recursion' on the other hand is simply sublime... "...produced using solely square wave forms...."....nodding off to a jittering sea of tones and throbs. I have also had the pleasure of recieving the download code for Broken Water's Kickstarter project 'Seaside and Sedmikrask'; two long, hypnagogic pieces that are as heavy as they are 'musical'. They described them as 'jams'... Magic mushrooms played a part in their creation (the lp cover I recieved is a weird close up of mushroom gills) and the unhinged energy that pervades a psilocybin trip seeps through every note of this release. Chiming, droning, weaving and faltering... and laughing. Without a doubt 'Seaside and Sedmikrask' is one of the albums of the year. I have also recently been rockin' back to Felt 'Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty', Radical Cemetery 'N.N.E' (wowzer), Fugazi 'The Argument', The Garbage and the Flowers 'Stoned Rehearsals', the Jim Carroll Band 'Catholic Boy', David McComb 'Love of Will' and Yo La Tengo 'The Sounds of the Sounds of Science'... amongst many, many others.... (Black Flag 'Nervous Breakdown' EP being another one to mention... Generally I can't really stand Black Flag but there's something about the five minute blast ((and it s a fucking BLAST)) of this EP that does something).... Gawd and Kwisst.... 'Love of Will' needs to be given a proper re-release, it is a truly underrated album. I downloaded it simply because I refuse to pay over £50 for a CD... I will be hard pressed to pay that for any record regardless of condition/issue/etc... The most I have every paid for an lp is £35 (including p&p) for Johnny Thunders 'Hurt Me'... Anyway, I am still awaiting the arrival of a Mole House cassette (Mole House cassette=guaranteed inspiration)... full reviews of some shit a-comin'... drunk and essay submitted (that's me!)...

Monday 23 April 2012

come out to show dem

My head hurts. I have been swamped with study recently and have emerged from a three month or so depression with nothing but a blog and a muggy brain to show for it. I have been listening to The Beatles 'Good Night' today for the first time... I've owned 'The Beatles' for a long time now but never, ever listened to the penultimate song for some reason. Gosh, what a beauty it is... Unjustly maligned by everyone and their dog for being too saccharine? Too Ringo-y? I've been trying to write an essay to a looped soundtrack of 'Good Night' and it's not really working out too well... I'm on the internet writing this blog. Amongst the various travels through the inter-web I stumbled again upon the incredible (for a geekhead like me) video series 'What's In My Bag?' from Amoeba Records... I always return to it, re-watching the interviews again and again to remind myself of certain albums I need to check out and today I was pleasantly surprised by a recommendation from The Horrors (a band I'm not particularly fond of)... The lp in question is 'New Sounds in Electronic Music' featuring Steve Reich, Richard Maxfield and Pauline Oliveros... It's quite shocking to think it was released in 1966...