Power Ambient LOL

I couldn't help but have a little chuckle to myself when I read an article at FACT on "Power Ambient". This is some kind of re-branding so the writers don't seem recalcitrant. Terms like New Kosmische, Nu New Age, Hypnagogia,Vapour Wave and even good ole Ambient have obviously become embarrassing and passe for these writers. So Motion Sickness Of Time Travel get a second bite of the cherry under a new genre pseudonym "Power Ambient". Hey I've always liked em no matter what category they've been put in. What about one of my other ambient favourites Panabrite, do they get to be rehabilitated? They released another excellent LP this year Pavilion, or do they remain in the backwaters of passe pigeon holes?

This is taken from Panabrite's 2014 album Pavilion.

Reissues/Archives/Compilations of 2014

Another great year for ye olde music. In this list are only things I missed first time round (or 2nd or 3rd or 17th) ie. it doesn't include Blue Bell Knoll, Doolittle, Spiderland, Cannibal Ferox, Cannibal Holocaust, Friday The 13th, Led Zeppelin Vols. 1, 2, 3 or 4 etc. Oh...and no Bedhead or Mogwai because they were..er...shite. Then there's the never really owned category ie. I've only ever had taped copies of The Sunnyboys and Since The Accident or crappy mp3s of Electricity, The Boogey Man, Forbidden World, Chopping Mall etc. so they're included. 2014 was a hell of a year for cult horror synth score reissues! It's like all the soundtracks I've been looking for were all released at once. Labels like Soundway & Finders Keepers continue to unearth fabulous music. Death Waltz, Waxwork, One Way Static, Luxury Products & Superior Viaduct are the new(ish) labels on the block giving us what we want from the esoteric archives as well. So here's 20 great old records.

Sunnyboys - Sunnyboys
The sound of my childhood and my older brother's record collection. One of The classic Australian rock debuts. The Sunnyboys were young, charismatic, troubled and so alive. Their first record is some of the most exciting guitar music from 1981 or any other year for that matter. It came with a bunch of bonus tracks but who needs em with an LP this fanfuckintastic?!

Axemen - Derry Legend
The Axemen reissue program continues. After their 1986 mangled pop masterpiece Three Virgins came the follow up Derry Legend which has been long out print. This LP has gained (Derry) legendary status in my brain. Derry Legend is The Spotlight Kid to Three Virgins Trout Mask Replica if you get my drift ie. it's a more accessible pop version of the band yet still retaining all their strange awesomeness. 80s NZ rock doesn't get much better than this.

Andrzej Korzynski - Man Of Marble OST
Groovy soundtrack from Poland 1977. A psych synth disco classic. Soo good....Finders Keepers have done it again!

Boards Of Canada - Hi Scores
Two years before Boards Of Canada released their magnum opus Music Has The Right To Children came the Hi Scores EP which is similarly awesome idylltronica.

Caustic Window - Caustic Window
Strangely unreleased but excellent LP from Richard James aka Aphex Twin from his golden era 1994. Why on earth did this get shelved? A timely reminder of where all your favourite electronica (remember that 90s term?) comes from.

Peter Jefferies - Electricty
He of classic underground 80s NZ group This Kind Of Punishment and Bruce Russell's right hand man at Xpressway Records. He's so idiosyncratic only Peter Jefferies sounds like Peter Jefferies and the world's a better (If slightly darker) place for it.

Severed Heads - Since The Accident
A key LP from Sydney's early 80s experimental scene. Still pretty much ignored here in their home country to this day. Wake up Australia!

Susan Justin - Forbidden World OST
The cultiest synth soundtrack of them all. Issued for the first time since Web Records released it in 1982! A one off unique blend of electronics, pop and soundtrack motifs. Death Waltz continue their roll.

Chuck Cirino - Chopping Mall OST
More cult Carpenter-esque synth soundtrack gold from the 80s. Waxwork Records is all about quality not quantity.

John Harrison - Creepshow OST
I finally got a copy of Creepshow after like it's 5th or 6th reissue. More 80s psycho synth sounds from 1982.

Ralph Jones - Slumber Party Massacre OST
Possibly the best of the post Carpenter cult Horror synth scores from 1982.

Tim Krog - Boogey Man OST
Now this one was rare until now. A much coveted 1980 horror synth score from Tim Krog, a UCLA film composing graduate. Horrortastic!

Bruno Nicolai - All The Colours Of The Dark OST
Italian Giallo score from the great Bruno Nicolai. Nicolai was a frequent collaborator with Ennio Morricone. It doesn't get much better than this for spooky Italian 70s soundtracks.

Bruno Nicolai - The Case Of The Bloody Iris OST
This is from 1972 as well (see above) and it's another slice of Italian horror soundtrack weirdness. Haunted yet bizarrely jaunty at the same time.

Hungry Man - Keyboard
More crazy keyboard action from West Africa in the late 70s. If you thought William Onyeabor was the last word in spazz synth psych afro funk you were wrong. Some of the best sounds ever squeezed out of a synth and put to tape. Is there more of this shit yet to be discovered? I hope so.

Various - The Sound Of Siam 2
A splendid second serving of Luk Thung & Molam tunes from Thailand. This time from 1970 through to 1982. Incredibly distinguished, beautiful and laconically groovy.

Heldon - II: Allez Teia
More tripped out 70s space frog prog from Richard Pinhas and co.

Pye Corner Audio - Black Mill Tapes
4 albums worth of horrorological atmospheres and old eerie synthesiser goodness. Perfect to while away wintry afternoons.

John McCallum - Surf Nazis Must Die OST
Classic 80s drum sounds, synths in overdrive and anthemic guitars. There's even a wayward noisy sax at one point. It even becomes poignant and a little melancholy at certain stages. Surely this is where Mark McGuire got all his ideas from.

Various - Suburban Base Records: The History Of Hardcore, Jungle, Drum & Bass 91-97
Hardcore you know the score and if you don't check out this compilation from one of the best labels of the era.

*Other Years
2013
2012
2011

The Advisory Circle - From Out Here

*

GhostBox seem to be releasing less and less. I think the last one I bought was early 2013's Elektrik Karousel by The Focus Group (We'll just forget about The Sound Carriers shall we). The Advisory Circle's From Out Here came out yesterday and well the sound of brown continues. The Mrs says "Someone playing with their Casio in 1983." She lived in a small seaside village in North Wales at the time. She adds while Escape Lane is playing "Lovely use of minor falls." During Causeway Ballet she offers "This is very soothing and gentle and somehow familiar." This LP isn't anywhere near as jaunty as their previous LP As The Crow Flies from 2011. We're heading into much stranger zones on From Out Here. For every melodic and idyllic tune there's a peculiar one. It wouldn't be an Advisory Circle album without a couple of logo tones would it? There are two here. Gee whizz, he's even in 'Ekoplekz for babies' territory on Experiment. While the usual hauntological themes are present and accounted for such as 70s TV, library music, eeriness, information films, found dialogue and Radiophonica, this album captures the stillness, innocuousness, melancholia and the metaphysics of being. I dunno if it's just me today (impending birthday) or what?...but this album has signalled to me like no other that we are trapped (even though it's fleeting) in time. Lost in a time-warp and vaguely bewildered. Zoloft world....

Speaking of great batting averages John Brooks, the man behind the moniker The Advisory Circle is almost up there with Moon Wiring Club's Ian Hodgson, his collaborator on the Woodbines & Spiders record from earlier this year. Whether Jon is in solo mode (The excellent Music For Thomas Carnacki, Music For Dieter Rams and Shapwick) under the pseudonyms D.D. Denham (The terrific Electronic Music In The Classroom), Georges Vert (An Electric Mind) or making Advisory Circle albums his strike rate is high. The intriguing debut Advisory Circle mini-album Mind How You Go came out in 2005 and the masterpiece Other Channels was released in 2008. Wow, Mind How You Go is nearly 10 years old. It seems so much older and yet it also seems more recent at the same time. Is this atemporal stasis? It's some kind of paradox befitting the music of The Advisory Circle anyway.

*These soundbite things on soundcloud are rather annoying aren't they? That's the first & last time I'll embed them in a post!

Moon Wiring Club - Leporine Pleasure Gardens

Does any other artist do the sound and vision combo better than Moon Wiring Club? Loving this tune, the film clip and the artwork as usual. This year it's a cd/LP set. Happy Xmas. Does anyone actually like mince pies? Now the wait. Will the parcel arrive in time for my end of year poll or Christmas for that matter? He's had a bloody good run hasn't he. I think of his output so far 7 of the 8 records have been true delights. That's a hell of a batting average though. Here's hoping he scores a century with this one.

I think this one is the LP cover

Tinashe With Mustard Again

Just saw this. This is what we want Tinashe working with DJ Mustard. I dunno if this is anywhere near as good as 2 On but then again how many tunes are?

I did like this one from her album Aquarius. Mustard not on this beat though, but he might as well have been.

IX Tab - R.O.C.

Well we've been waiting for this for a while haven't we? Loki teased us 12 months ago with a video from his soon to be released album R.O.C. but it hasn't arrived until now or a month or so back when it got released. The previous IX Tab album Spindle & Bregnut Tree was an outstanding debut that made my best of 2012 list. I think I wrote that it was a spooky, disorientating, magically psychedelic and rustic industrial album. The noise farming gumboot industrial sounds continue on R.O.C.

R.O.C. begins in new age territory with Parhelion and just as it's lulling you into a false sense of security with its blissful vistas it quickly deteriorates into creepy zones. Mangled voices enter with electronic bleeps reminding you of what IX Tab is all about. A Drunken Bone (of chrome) drifts in with an ominous drone and 5 minutes later a strange synth enters while a sonically warped poet starts reading. It's some kind of poem about being drunk as electronics gurgle underneath, ending with haunting clatter. These jams are capricious and malignantly psychedelic. Blasted is a clangorous drone that ebbs and flows, accompanied by a rusty beat and a manipulated woman's voice. I M Wh U Mk Ov M is all birds in a garden followed by threatening keyboards. A voice over from some kind of 70s occult wildlife documentary (Did they make those?) slips in while the synths then shower you in glowing sunshine. The man is talking to a tree that seems to talk back to him? A Wasp In The Queens Skull is ye olde electronics that swirl and buzz and ends with a deranged repetitive sample.

St James & The 28 Pieces is the tune I mentioned in a previous post with the hypnotist/meditation guru telling you to "relax, let yourself go and sleep." while you stare at a spot on the album cover. Electronics float in and out as the guru keeps guiding you through the hypnosis. A lady's voice appears like a mirage at the peripheries of your listening experience cloaking the tune in mystery. Then like the previous track it finishes with a contorted repetitive sample, this time, of a man perhaps saying "He is/was queer." The sounds of children talking dissolve into foreboding electronic drones on The Sutton Wytch Found-Fox, this is followed by a man discussing a talking fox who has a bloody hand print or something like that(?). Funnily enough my dog freaked out at this tune. A plucked harp begins The Sweet Track. Interstellar swirling electronics rise and fall away as vague foreign chanting flows into the mix then the harp continues its merry way to the end of the tune. Erratic electronics veer out of control on A Prayer To The Head. Amongst this aural madness is a media sample frenzy. It's hard to decipher what's going on, making this composition quite disconcerting. Blurred bass throbs, even blurrier sampled ethereal female murmurs, intense noise that builds to an ultra slow technoid dub beat and samples of a ranting psychotic twit are all part of the apocalyptic epic Blowm. The beat then picks up as the twisted voices are smeared against it. Finishing the album with a nut job's diatribe about god knows what.

R.O.C. is an aberrant and shadowy affair. Get the family to gather round the hi-fi and let the good times roll.

Ariel Pink....Again

ZRW pointed out this tune to me via twitter @zrwilson. This is one Ariel Pink did with Gary War as Gold Digger around 04(?) Totally missed this at the time. So this is another usage of the Dayzed Inn Daydreams chorus, this time under the title Liquid Sun. This was taken from a compilation called Light Dead Sea:Volume 1 which seems to be very rare. It can be found here in mp3 form though. It features another Gold Digger song Destined For Greatness plus Omen from Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti as well as two solo tunes from Gary War. Worth checking out for fans of Pink and War who missed it.

This is the version mentioned on this previous post from Odditties & Sodomies Vol. 1.

Ekoplekz - Four Track Mind

Nick Edwards aka Ekoplekz is busy as ever. I'm still getting my head around eMMplekz's You Might Also Like, his third collaboration with Baron Mordant, and here comes another Ekoplekz double LP. He's already released an excellent album this year Unfidelity. How he never lapses in quality is a testament to his musical vision and talent. This could be his most ambitious project to date. In the past it was like his music machines were out of control but now he seems to have reigned them in and gained astonishing results in the process. Four Track Mind is a dazzling album. There is undeniably something that sets this LP apart from previous Ekoplekz releases. I can't quite pinpoint what it is. Maybe it's the bass placement in the mix? This is Ekoplekz at his most sprawling and diverse. Four Track Mind is the sound of the continuing metamorphoses of Ekoplekz, heading further into the unknown. I reckon Edwards could have a second act where he becomes a soundtrack composer. The record cover is somewhat reminiscent of a Scorn album. Make of that what you will.

It all begins with Ariel Grey (funny eh?) that is like a kosmische tune gone awry. Initially ambient it gives way to a mechanical beat then its like Augustus Pablo shows up for a moment followed by what I think is a space ship crashing through some kind of meteor shower and perhaps off into oblivion. Tantrikz is a bit lighter with its motorik dub pulse which has me envisioning a lunar autobahn for moon buggies. This is some great stuff. Meek Street is a jaunty little electronic ditty, good times. Interstice has a cold lost future vibe. Then it's the glowing sci-fi of Reflekzive. Next we're in gloomy territory with Death Watch, which is cinematic in its darkness. This is all quite a trip.

D'vectiv is intergalactic melancholia that turns to brittle funk, ending in a squall of white noise. In Teak Effect is pastoral technoid dub. Edwards could do a remix of this and have a dance floor hit on his hands. The title track is an off kilter doomed dub composition complete with squelches, clanks and a bass that's doing its own thing (possibly another song entirely). Return To The Annex is all seething swirly electronics and distant haunting voices (some kind of family tape from 1977). It's hypnotising. This is an outstanding track on an outstanding album. Four Track Mind closes with the lovely dubbed out melodic electric circuits of Fox Eyes. Fox Eyes is heading in the direction of idylltronica zones and that's a very good thing here.

Maybe I was a little hasty when I proclaimed Unfidelity as the album of the year back in March as Four Track Mind is even better!

Raven Felix/Juicy J

Faded

Passed out

Downer Euphoria continues......

Ariel Pink - Pom Pom Part 2

Pom Pom was finally released this week. I got it at the record shop. As I said in my original review Pink Raincoats, which I didn't like at the start, has become one of my favourite tunes. This is the tune that reminded me of They Might Be Giants. When I mentioned They Might Be Giants, King Missile, Ween, Nudge Squidfish and Regurgitator it wasn't a sledge against those bands as I'm quite fond of many of their recordings. Hey I own(ed) They Might Be Giants, Ween & Nudge Squdfish records. I was referring to the comic elements in those pop groups. I never had a King Missile or Regurgitator record but I didn't hate hearing them on the radio.

*When I wrote 'Goth Bomb is grunge meets goth meets metal meets space rock meets scuzz.' I had in mind for metal Black Sabbath, for space rock Hawkwind and for scuzz read Royal Trux. That kind of cancels out the other 2 genres doesn't it.

There's also a kind of English homage going throughout the whole record. Many a Brit accent is to be heard throughout Pom Pom. Oh...its just twigged its called Pom Pom which could be a reference to all you Prisoners Of her Majesty. I think he mentions Portobello Road in the first track. There's a sonic reference to the end section of A Day In The Life on Exile On Frog Street. The name of that tune obviously invoking The Rolling Stones. Alice In Wonderland gets mentioned along the way. He'd definitely be a fan of Swell Maps, The Homosexuals et al. I tried not to mention Pink Floyd, glam, Mr Bowie at his most overwrought and thespian & Mr Ronson in the original article. Did someone say side 2 of Diamond Dogs?

No matter how much he may be influenced by things from the UK, America and the rest of the world (read NZ ie. the great Axemen) there is always something so intrinsically LA about his whole vibe. It's in his blood. Having Kim Fowley and ex-Germs drummer Don Bolles on board doesn't hurt either.

*Cleaners From Venus.
I think Ariel Pink may have been instrumental in the reappraisal of this classic 80s under underground band from England. I have a vague recollection of someone (maybe a member of Ducktails or Emeralds) saying Ariel Pink introduced them to Cleaners from Venus via a mixtape and this was way before the reissue program of their oeuvre started. 

*Writers Block.
There are at least three songs with references to writing or writer's block on Pom Pom. I know he had a bad case of it for a while there maybe between Worn Copy and the first 4AD record in 2010. Many believed Before Today (2010) was mainly old songs from his vast archive. Indeed his first LP on 4AD included Beverly Kills which had already appeared on FFWD, L'estat was from Odditties Sodomies Vol 1, Hot Body Rub was on the Added Pizazz EP and Little Wig which had already been on a cdr sold at concerts in 2005 apparently. Before being remodelled for Pom Pom an early no-fi acoustic version of Dayzed Inn Daydreams (really just containing the chorus) was on Oddities Sodomies Vol 1. under the title Before Today/Dazed In Dreams. So he's still dipping into his backlog of tunes to this day. He's also turned writing about writer's block into unblocking writer's block thus creating a paradox.

*Goth.
Pom Pom has me wanting to dig out Cure, Bauhaus and Killing Joke albums. Strangely it had me wanting to listen to bands I never got into and in The Sisters Of Mercy's case, actively hated. Its got me thinking 'Were Fields Of Nephilim or Christian Death any good? Did I miss out on others as well?'

*The Bewlay Brothers is the final track on David Bowie's Hunky Dory. Gouge Away concludes Doolittle by the Pixies. This is a great topic actually - Best final tracks of albums. One has already been mentioned above ie. The Beatles A Day In The Life. I've got a list somewhere I should post it. Suggestions are also most welcome.

*'So that's 9 in a row then.'
9 Ariel Pink classics in a row. That row is very wayward and I doubt anyone got them in the order that they should have been in. Anyway what I mean is from Haunted Graffiti 2: The Doldrums onwards, which includes Sacred Famous, FFWD, House Arrest, Lover Boy & Worn Copy. Then his 4AD Years Before Today, Mature Themes and now Pom Pom.

*Haunted Graffiti 1: Underground
I've listened to this 1998(?) album (although I've never seen a physical copy) and it was ok but no classic. The quantum leap from Underground to The Doldrums was astounding, like he had signed a pact with the devil Robert Johnson stylee. I hope so. That'd be so LA.

This is strange don't you think? Are they all meant to be Ariel?
Only the yellow one has any resemblance.