On The Hi-Fi (in brief) Part 43

Walberswick - Jon Brooks
Brooks is back just 6 months after Advisory Circle's 2014 classic From Out Here (which I'm still listening to on a weekly basis) with another bewdy. He's keeping up his batting average and getting better with each new release. This starts off in weird electronics mode with Mr Brooks I Presume before settling into synth ambience in excelis.

Songs Of Gold, Incandescent - Dolphins Into The Future/Lieven Martens Moana
Classic themes here from Lievens. This is actually a compilation of rarities from 2010-2014. I mean isn't all his stuff rare. We've got waves, bells, jungle sounds, Pacific Islander choirs, strange electronics, underwater soundtracks, Casio vibraphones, submarine drones and the inevitable scuttling sea creature soundz. Songs Of Gold makes you realise how much sonic territory Dolphins Into The Future have covered over the years without you even realising.

Machines Are Obsolete - Pye Corner Audio/Pathways - Pye Corner Audio & Belbury Poly
(Ghostbox Other Voices Series 05)
A-Side: "Easy listening dystopian sounds. 80s attempts at futuristic soundtracks."*
B-Side: "Future Sailor but not as good like Howard Moon has found the new sound but no he hasn't it's just an old one. It sounds like every single song from 1983!"*

*Special comments from Mrs Space Debris.

Pathways is reminding me of a John Foxx tune I can't quite put my finger on. Chuck in a bit of Kraftwerk and a Giorgio Moroder synth guitar lead break and you've probably got it in a nutshell.

Murder For Hire - Kevin Gates
I was really looking forward to this but there's just way too much screaming dj action on this one. Kevin Gates gets buried beneath all the extraneous racket here. I hope he didn't put any classics on this 7 track datpiff exclusive mixtape because I don't think I can put up with dj holiday for one more second in my life. Why does he have to show up on like every 4th rap mix-tape and why doesn't he shut the fuck up and let Gates do his thang.

Livonia - His Name Is Alive
Who would have thought that this would still sound good 25 years later? My 90s trip has gone back to my 4AD records and sure the 80s was 4AD's decade but they still had some gems in the 90s like their last Cocteau's record, Throwing Muses The Real Ramona, The Breeders Pod, The Pale Saints, Red House Painters and the first 2 LPs from His Name Is Alive. Livonia was their first record and yeah it's really pretentious but fuck it sounded good today. I was expecting to want to turn it off after 30 seconds but I played it twice in a row. This is a strange album. It's sort of outsider folk/loop-ology/random electronics and noise guitars. I wanted to play their 2nd LP Home Is In Your Head which I recall being even better but it's on tape and sadly me house no longer contains a tape deck!

Boards Of Canada-Tomorrow's Harvest

The opening of the new record Tomorrow's Harvest seems funny to me. They have a little logo tune or is it a logtone? An Ident? I don't recall them having used one before and to me it seems like a nod to the people they've influenced ie. The Belbury Poly, The Advisory Circle and the rest of the GhostBox crew. Then there are hints of John Carpenter that I don't recall being referenced before on their previous records, which could possibly be a nod to Pye Corner Audio or even Umberto. One wonders whether they keep up with all this stuff or it's just a coincidence.

Tomorrow's Harvest does seem a lot darker and not as lovely* or gorgeous* as previous efforts. The beats seem to trudge and appear quite inert. It's still unmistakably Boards Of Canada with no sign of the guitars used on The Campfire Headphase.  The Jury is still out for me as I'm only half a dozen listens in. Still it must be alright even if I've played it that many times. I remember playing Music Has The Right To Children about 5 years ago to someone who only listened to trance and he said it was like electronic funeral music. He didn't even think you could chill out to it. So the darkness thing was always there but now we're splitting hairs over its minute shades.

*Lovely and *Gorgeous are two terms, I learnt yesterday, that announcers on a certain Melbourne independent radio station are never supposed to use on air about the music they are playing. Guess what all you prince's and princess's of darkness nice is nice! The Black Crow King obviously still wields influence in Melbourne town.

Ghost Box

I noted somewhere Ghostbox was getting a bagging possibly because it's old news or is it because that guy from LCD System is now rocking an old skool Librarian/Geography teacher look. I only just let Jarvis get away with it or did I? It was a bit weird after many years of beard wearing and being sometimes bespectacled that people started saying 'oh you look a bit like Jarvis.'  Maybe that LCD guy is gonna do a Hauntological album, then you'll know it's time to move on. If those GhostBox Study Series of singles, Belbury Poly's The Belbury Tales and that new Pye Corner Audio record are anything to go by GhostBox are in fine shape! I can't wait for a new Focus Group record.

*Also in other things related there is this new mix over at Pontone by IX Tab who I only found out about today. Choice cuts in this mix. Pontone have done it again by getting these guys to do a mix. Best Pontone Mix in ages.

**Also while in the ball park I found an old  Moon Wiring Club mix I'd somehow missed along the way. I've talked about all the other 4 or 5, so this was a nice surprise. It's called Bleep 43 or something? Click on the link. There's loads of film, radio and telly dialogue amongst the op shop records, library music and like minded artist's trax.

This is another fantastic Moon Wiring Club track. I've not seen that record anywhere in Melbourne and It's not on i-tunes. Was it only a limited thing? Maybe I'm gonna have to start ordering things via the Internet. Have I reached that phase in human evolution? Perhaps. On a similar note I haven't seen a GhostBox record in Melbourne since Synathsesia shut up shop years ago.

More Moon Wiring Club

I just noticed on the Youtube that there is another new Moon Wiring Club clip. I don't have the new album yet so this will have to do till it turns up at the record shop. I'm resisting the digital download as their records are worth getting for the artwork. How long do I have to wait though? I'm still housebound convalescing after my op last week.

Body Switcher from the new Moon Wiring Club album.

Another top clip.

 

 

 

 

The Young People

Wow just found this ace track by Moon Wiring Club

in collaboration with Belbury Poly. Another great

clip as well.

 

 

 

Another bewdy!

Portals and Parallels.

 

 

Energy Flash/Hauntology

Here is a quote from page 164 of Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave & Dance Culture written by Simon Reynolds and originally published in 1998 but this is a 2012 edition.

'Imagine the theme music for a 50s Government film about Britain's new garden cities: serene, symmetrical, euphonious, evoking the socially engineered for a post war New Order.'

Here Mr Reynolds was referring to some of the music that Aphex Twin was making early in his career. I wonder if Boards Of Canada were reading this but didn't they already exist? or if the GhostBox crew were taking notes because it sounds like Simon Reynolds invented Hauntology 6 or 7 years ahead of its time, well the theory and subtext to it anyway. When I first heard BOC I thought shite they remind me a little of Seefeel & Aphex Twin, which to me was in no way a bad thing! I wonder if Simon is aware of this portentous quoted passage or realises his complicity in the entire idea/genre? I know he is a big fan of the whole thing and has scribbled many words on the topic via his blog and in an article for The Wire magazine many moons ago.

Belbury Poly

I was havin' a boring Sunday till I realised this was out. 

How excitement!  I couldn't wait for the record so I just

downloaded it.  Like Belbury Poly of old except with some

live instruments (including guitar, omg!) and voices.  On first

couple of listens, I've gotta' say 'Pretty, Pretty Good!'

GhostBox have done it again! 

Love the artwork as always.