Dream on

Last week, I found it very hard to get down to the work I was supposed to be doing. Writing about music felt trivial, absurd.  That feeling has passed - for now at least. Not because the trauma and dread has receded. But protecting the mental space to be excited and obsessed and amused by music, ideas, art, etc - life's essential inessentials - feels like something worth doing. Allowing one's consciousness to be completely monopolized, fixed in a flinch - that really would be defeat. 

So here's something I wrote a few weeks before the election: a cover story for The Wire on A.R. Kane.  As is the magazine's wise way, it's a print-only piece, so hie thee thither to the newsagent's or record shop. 

I think this is the fifth time I have interviewed Rudy Tambala - and still there were so many new things I learned about the A.R. Kane story.  

Also interviewed: sister Maggie Tambala, backing vocalist back in the day but now the newly active (concerts,  recordings) group's lead singer; Stephen "Budgie" Benjamin, whose clarinet flickered through the grotto of 69's "The Sun Falls Into The Sea" and who's now a fixture of the group's line-up;  Amos Childs and Jas Butt of Jabu, the excellent Bristol outfit (check out their just-out album) with whom A.R. Kane are collaborating on an EP; and Vinita Joshi of Rocket Girl, who put out A.R. Kive last year and the recent Up Home Collected. 

There are also some "ghost quotes" from Alex Ayuli, taken from unpublished parts of an interview I did with the Kane boys in 1989.  

maxed out

The theme of the new issue of The Wire is maximalism. It's a really enjoyable read that explores the appeal (or repulsion-edging-into-fascination) of musical manifestations of aesthetic excess and sonic surplus.

There's Greg Tate on P-Funk, Michaelangelo Matos on psy-trance (complete with ultra-garish photo of Shpongle and their audience!), Daniel Wilson on the history of explosives in music, David Toop on syrupy strings in countrypolitan and soul,  and many other treats. There's also me with a piece about overcoming postpunk less-is-more conditioning and learning to take pleasure in guitar solos.

Now that was a really fun piece to write. Not least because I remade the acquaintance of some overloaded and obese tracks that I hadn't listened to in many a year. I couldn't quite put back on the head that wigged out to Butthole Surfers and ransacked Bataille's Visions of Excess for a conceptual language adequate to the soiling immensity torrenting out of Paul Leary's axe. But Royal Trux's ruined majesty sounds as glorious as ever.

frozen futures and final sicknesses (see you in 2018)

 

On news stands now, the latest issue of  The Wire contains a long review by me pairing the comeback album by Marc Acardipane a/k.a The Mover with  Sick Music 2018, a compilation of contemporary drum + bass on the Hospital label that I surprised myself by enjoying much more than I'd expected.  As well as an enthused review of two fine records, the piece is an investigation of  the fate of vanguard genres (in this case, gloomcore gabba and D+B) when their accelerationist drive stabilises into a steady state.





The Mover - Undetected Act from the Gloom Chamber.

Also in the April issue, a reet treet for all nuumologists: Michaelangelo Matos's Primer to Pirate Radio Deejay Sets. He's done a fine job laying out the evolution from circa 1989 through to the post-dubstep diaspora and his forensic sifting through the messy mass of archival tapes deposited online by old skool fans has uncovered a trove of true gems. This is probably my favorite of the Matos selections that I've so far checked out.



Finally, in case you missed it, I recently uploaded the best of my own stash of pirate tapes, which I'd digitized some years ago but never got around to turning into YouTube clips.

If you haven't picked up the new issue of The Wire, there's a terrific piece by Matthew Ingram on That West Country Lot -- Hacker Farm, IX Tab, Kemper Norton -- and their pastoral-industrial sound.   Great photos by Jon Baker too -- strange it is indeed, after reading Kek-W's and Loki's blogs for years, to see what they actually look like.

In unofficial tandem, Pontone has a mix by IX Tab (that's Loki, a/k/a An Idiot's Guide To Dreaming, a/k/a Saxon Roach - no really, that's his real name) that lays out the "roots and traces... parapraxes and inarticulations, associations and mnemonics" behind the recent and excellent album Spindle & the Bregnut Tree (now out again in a "female version" on Twiggwytch Recordings)


Another That West Country Lot mix from Pontone, a primer on what they're calling Wyrd Albion, is in preparation.

Hacker Farm's new record UHF, also splendid, is released on December 10th by Exotic Pylon. Below is a promo film I hadn't noticed until now, where you can see some of their self-cobbled instruments.

Stop press - Kemper Norton also has a mini-album, titled Carn, out soon on Exotic Pylon. 

sub mission

 

the new issue of The Wire is a fun one: a special issue dedicated to bass, with four essays exploring aspects of low end theory and 75 micro-features celebrating favourite B-lines, bass sounds, baritone riffs, tectonic timbres, seismoscapes, etc.  I contributed three of these and they're all on the one page, because the list is alphabetical and my choices happen to start with T, U, and W.  About those particular riffs I'll say no more, but here's some other bass-faves I suggested but didn't write about.

                                    

and there I'll stop, although there's more, so many more...

one of the above, someone else wrote about in The Wire special -- have a guess which track

three of the above are played by the same bassist -- have a guess which ones and who

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and hark, what's this? Meditate on Bass Weight - a Quietus piece on the bassic affinity between the Sunn O))) live concert experience and dance music.  Angus Finlayson deploys Julian Henriques's concept of Sonic Dominance  to explore and exalt the sub-rational impact of "primal frequencies that are felt not heard, resonating through the chest and the bowels, vibrating the soul" .... a rapture that hovers at "the border between tyranny and ecstasy"... Finlayson characterises Sunn O))) 's ritualistic performances as  "a kind of anatomical probing: where are our limits? What's the tipping point? About half an hour in, we reach it. By now, bass has filled the theatre, clogging every pore, an immaterial but impossibly imposing presence"

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Q: Would it be possible to have a special issue about Treble? If not, why not?

Hallo, Hallo... what's all this then?

Woebot's got a new record out.

And it's a bit of a surprising move.

Guitars, drums... the basic tried-and-true rock instrumental line-up.

No more samples, unless he's sampling his own hand-played playing (I can't tell how exactly Hallo's put together, and was too taken aback to get into dissection mode).

But that's not all.

He's also...

Actually, I don't want to spoil the surprise, so why don't you just head over to the Woebot site where you can preview some of the tracks on Hallo and purchase the album.

It's a bold, unexpected move and he's pulled it off marvellously.

Closing the previous chapter, there's also The Riddle, a compilation of "the best of the last four years of Woebot tunes" available as a free download at Soundcloud


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in other Matthew Ingram news: he also has the cover story on R. Stevie Moore in the new issue of The Wire

my favourite track on Ku Klux Glam

 

FEBRUARY TOUR

starting February 16th I’m on tour, with events in Norway (Bergen Kunsthall; Oslo’s By:Larm festival), England (Critical Beats in London; Off the Page festival in Whitstable) and Paris (launch of the French edition of Retromania)


NORWAY


February 16: BERGEN

Talk on retromania + recreativity

Time: 6-30 PM

Location: BERGEN KUNSTHALL, Bergens Kunstforening, Rasmus Meyers allé 5

more information



February 17: OSLO By: Larm Festival

Conversation about Retromania with Audun Vinger + Q/A

Time: 3 pm

Location: Ragnarock conference room, ground floor, HOTEL ROYAL CHRISTIANIA, Biskop Gunnerusgate 3 PB-768 Sentrum, Oslo

More information



FRANCE

February 20–22: PARIS

February 20: Soirée Rétromania, a/k/a RETROMANIA ! Réflexions sur la pop culture à l’heure digitale. A presentation to celebrate the launch of the French edition by Le Mot et le Reste. Discussion with Etienne Menu (journaliste musical), Jean-François Caro ( traducteur) and Guillaume Kosmicki (musicologue et dj).

Time: 6-30 PM

Location: POINT ÉPHÉMÈRE, 200 quai de Valmy 75010 Paris (telephone: 01 40 34 02 48)

Cost: entrée libre

More information



U.K.


February 23: LONDON

Critical Beats #3: Innovation and Tradition
I’ll be joining Tony Herrington, Lisa Blanning and Steve Goodman for the third in a series of panel discussions co-hosted by The Wire and the University of East London and looking at aspects of electronic dance music and club culture as they manifest in East London and beyond. Mark Fisher was scheduled to participate but had to withdraw owing to circumstances beyond his control, so Lisa B has stepped in to replace.

Time: 7.30 pm

Location: Circus 1 at STRATFORD CIRCUS, Theatre Square, Stratford, London E15

Cost: £5/£3

Information and tickets: 0844 357 2625 or
here



February 24 to February 26: WHITSTABLE

The second annual Off the Page Festival: a weekend of panel discussions, screenings, talks, and debates on sound, music, and music criticism co-hosted by The Wire and Sound And Music, with contributions from Linder Sterling, Dave Tompkins, Jonny Trunk, Rob Young, Chris Cutler, Vicki Bennett, Gavin Bryars, Evan Parker, Kiran Sande, and others.

Saturday February 25: I’ll be giving a talk about the work of David Toop.

Time: early afternoon (details TK)

Location: THE PLAYHOUSE THEATRE, 104 High Street, Whitstable, Kent.

Cost: £40 for a weekend three-day pass; £20 Saturday pass.

More information on tickets and the full schedule of events