very nice review of the focus group's new album by mike powell
(i'd have given it at least a B plus if not an A minus personally but that's just me the diehard Ghost Box fan....)

last night actually, i was playing some ghost box for my brother jez, in town from LA this week on a business trip -- he is the reynolds brother who's inherited all of my dad's play-by-ear musical ability, jez plays a bunch of instruments, makes tunes, and has very good ears, so i was well chuffed when five seconds into belbury poly's "the willows" he was like "oooh, what's this? this is good" --- but anyway, but when we got to hey let loose your love, it sounded different to my ears, not worse, far from it, just different: if anything even eerier and more discombobulating. mind you i had drunk a fair amount of wine so maybe my hearing was diffused or something.

the audio-appetitiser for the ghost box entree was a CD-R pairing of ron geesin's Electrosound (the second vol of which is jim jupp's favourite library record if i recall correct) and delia derbyshire/brian hodgson's library outing Electrosonic.

other kookytronic beauts tickling my cochlea recently have been john pfeiffer's Electronomusic, tom dissevelt & kid baltan's song of the second moon (and dissevelt's fantasy in orbit) (the missing link between Meek and Schaeffer, those two), the grateful dead electroacoustic side project Seastones (phil lesh and ned lagin), bunch of others whose titles escape me just this second... really, can't get enough of the stuff