SINCE late November, when I last wrote one of these columns, nothing has happened on a local, national or global scale that there seems any point me talking about. Meaning that February’s One Louder can once again be transformed into a CASSETTE REVIEWS COLUMN, plucking some choice magnetic spools from the last few months out of their self-chosen obscurity. And right back into the obscurity of this page.
You Have Already Surrendered Your Total Will is 33 minutes of ambient curiosity from Anthony Child, best known as techno producer Surgeon. Surprisingly, you still appear to be able to buy one of the 100 tapes Frequency Domain made of this, and you should, if the idea of beatless electronic drone epics which sound like a robot doing Tibetan throat singing appeals.
Mark Fell is another British electronic bod often found in experimental realms – such as Focal Music (The Tapeworm), on which none of his music is actually heard. Rather, three musicians were recorded listening to some of his weirder excursions in headphones and playing along. Notable among them is Laura Cannell, a wonderful violinist from Norfolk, who I could listen to sawing away all day.
French composer Delphine Dora keeps up a moderately prolific release schedule – Les Fruit De Mes Songes (Bezirk) was new when I bought it after a performance in November, and she’s already released something else. These eight pieces combine harpsichord, piano, organ and Dora’s ethereal vocal to captivating effect.
Mike Vest is a verbally quiet, sonically deafening guitarist – possibly my favourite working in the UK underground – who has at least six projects on the go right now, all showcasing his FX-drenched psychedelic wall-of-noise style. Lush Worker is a solo venture, with a cassette, Realms, out on Hominid Sounds. You get half an hour or so of wonderful warped riffs on tape, plus another hour’s worth to download for free. Cushty.
Noods is an internet radio station based in Bristol and dedicated to weird dance music. One particular two-hour broadcast, by Ossia and Robin Stewart, has been preserved on tape – yep, the lesser spotted C120 – and it’s a trippy gem: other people’s music spun into fuzzy soundscapes, sludgy beats and a nicely Bristolian V-sign to genre restrictions. Ossia’s RwdFwd distro might still have a copy if yer quick.
Want to get Midi Drum Compositions 1 by Jaxson Payne aka Dtub? Well the label, Fractal Meat Cuts, are all out, but he’s playing in Cardiff (where he currently lives, in fact) on Sun 12 Feb, so might have his own copies to sell. I’m hugely taken with this release, which pumps and clatters in the style of early techno or Belgian new beat but was apparently all recorded live in one take. Don’t ask me how.
Oh Peas!’ EP How To Come Back From The Total Annihilation Of Your Self (Diet Pops) is also a homebaked Cardiff product, recorded solo while housesitting last year. Sparse arrangements, vocals and guitar only for the most part, suit a suite of songs with evidently personal and specific subject matter. Oh Peas!, aka Rosie Smith, just released a digital EP as Tim’s Rice – a duo with Euros Childs, once of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, who are covered on this tape.
Finally, The Bots: a teenage band who supposedly recorded these four songs into a boombox in 1983 and have had them released by Bristol’s FuckPunk label, with a toilet roll tube for a sleeve. Even by the standards of UK DIY, I’m Gay (an anti-homophobia statement through the medium of schoolboy puerility) and Shit Dixon are supremely inept, but an enlightening time capsule unearthed. Unless it turns out that it’s all some weird prank, as I half-suspect.
ASOMVEL (Fuel, Cardiff, Sat 4), JON LANGFORD’S MEN OF GWENT (Le Pub, Newport, Sat 11; Ynysddu Progressive Club, Sun 12), SOCCER96 (Gwdihw, Sat 11), THOUGHT FORMS (The Full Moon, Tue 14), WOLF GIRL and DISJOY (Gwdihw, Tue 14), SACRED PAWS, SPINNING COIN and NEUROTIC FICTION (Undertone, Sun 19) and COURTNEY MARIE ANDREWS (Clwb Ifor Bach, Tue 28) all help to tickle 2017 into life this month.
words NOEL GARDNER