#badgerlore

[storytellingbadger]

Tags! Okidokie, let's see...

Favourite colour: green. Specifically things close to and including pthalto green. Warm, deep, unctuous, rich, inky green. 

Jester: a bit of a cryptid - they’re absolute #000000 midnight black all over, like the Vogelkop superb bird-of-paradise. Vantablack black. But then when they dance and move, you realise their coating is like those sequins where you brush them one way, they’re one colour, and another, they’re something else. Like rufous hummingbird throat feathers - with a flourish, the inky black becomes vibrant, iridescent colours. They favour golds, reds, orange and hot pinks when colours are revealed.

Animal fact: sharks are older than dinosaurs. Older than trees. Older than Saturn’s rings. They have survived all five big mass extinctions, including the Great Dying that smoked something along the lines of 90% of ocean life (and 70-something % of terrestrial animals.) Sharks have been around the block and are awesome.

Favourite toy: good question, struggling to answer! Is it a cheat to say a pencil? I’ve always loved drawing and sketching. Consumed paper at an unhealthy rate as a kid. I didn’t really have a favourite toy in the traditional sense.

Favourite word(s): changes day to day. Current choice - paradigm. It’s a glossy word and I cannot quite explain why I describe it so. Today’s runner-up’s include quibble, sussurant and scripturient. That last one means ‘strong urge to write,’ which is gloriously self-indulgent.

Something I've written that I'm proud of: trick question, I'm not proud of any of it XD that’s not a sly beg for validation, that’s just a symptom of being my own worst critic. That said… I wrote a nightmare sequence in my fic Sunspots, Craters and Mortal Things chapter 28 “longjaw.wav” that got a sparkling review from the lovely @cipher-the-sidhe as a piece of horror writing, which considering their background is high praise. So pretty chuffed with that!

Favourite unreal creature: dragons. Easy. All kinds of dragons. Dragons are awesome. Closely followed by unicorns - not the horse with a narwhal prop glued to its forehead, I mean the old school depictions with delicate, deer-like physique, cloven hooves, fetlocks and lions tails. Werewolves honourable mention.

Tag time. I’m terrible at these, let’s see… @cipher-the-sidhe @brekwrites @noffy96, plus anyone interested. Nice list @shirajellyfish!

Making my own silly tag game

Normal tag games don't have the questions I think are really important, so here are exactly seven questions I actually care about.

What is your favorite color?

Describe the aesthetic of your favorite kind of jester. If you cannot vividly imagine a jester dancing in your head, describe any silly little guy that so strikes your interest.

Tell me an animal fun fact you think is particularly neat

What is/was your favorite toy, either from childhood or now?

What is your favorite word? You are entirely allowed to list multiple if too many are just so good, let's hear all your best words.

What is a line, section, or snippet you've written that you're particularly pleased with/proud of?

Favorite non-real creature? (Includes cryptids, fantasy creatures, mythical beasts, yokai, original species, monster, any creature that isn't real but still makes you go "Oh, this one is neat")

@ your pals to politely request they tell you these fun things about themselves via reblog. @ as many people as you want. @ no one. @ yourself. @ an image of a funny horse. There are no rules here.

I will tag some of my pals here :) @venomous-qwille @eyndr-stories @writing-forever @aviul @ohno-the-sun @pillowspace @kc-wilson-art

[insectam]

Badgerlore

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[backstreetsbackalright]

I hadn’t meant to upload another mix so soon, but I took in a couple of really good shows, bought a Carla dal Forno cassette that I wanted to share, and the rest of the songs just sort of nominated themselves from there.

Click here to listen to backstreetsbackalright 06.15.18

The Alan Milman Sect, “Stitches In My Head” [Britz, 1977] Carla dal Forno, “A Silver Key Can Open An Iron Lock Somewhere” [tour cassette, 2018] Gareth Williams & Mary Currie, “Beguiling the Hours” [Contagious Tapes, 1985] Riuichi Sakamoto, “Thatness And Thereness” [Alfa, 1980] Indifferent Dance Centre, “Flight & Pursuit” [Recluse, 1981] Badgerlore, “Stone Stick Earth Brick” [Free Porcupine Society, 2005] O.V. Wright, “Everybody Knows (The River Song)” [Backbeat, 1967] Arp & Anthony Moore, “Wild Grass II (For Robert Wyatt)” [RVNG Intl., 2010] (bandcamp) Christina Carter, “Mixing Place (Austin, Houston)” [Eclipse, 2003] Sandra Bell, “With the Rain” [Turbulence, 1995] (bandcamp) Alex Macfarlane, “Square Guy In A Round World” [Hobbies Galore, 2018] (bandcamp) Tower Recordings, “Q Delmak-O” [Siltbreeze, 1998] Stefan Christensen, “Brass City Dilemma” [I Dischi Del Barone, 2017] (bandcamp) John Cale, “Big Apple Express” [Table of the Elements, 2001] (soundcloud)

[the-chaoscrow]

OK so I’m listening to this audio book. (it’s an audible original sadly ,it’s sad cause this book is hilarious and similar parts happen throughout constantly it’s just one big meme with some plot) It’s called Noobtown and the basis is that the Main character ,Jim, dies in a car crash and transported to a video game-esk world where all the people their have stats etc. etc. So he’s as you can imagine different in more ways than one because of his trait which is unbound which means that he can be all the classes at once which literally no one else can be, and for some reason he has to keep it a secret. (I don’t remember the fourth book just came out on audible and it’s been awhile) So there’s this sorcerer lady person that was mentally manipulating him into liking and trusting her until he discovered what she was doing and was butt hurt about it. So he’s the Mayor of Noobtown which gives him control over a bunch of stuff and like maybe one or two perks. So anyway they are practicing for a dungeon which has this bastard dude in it who hurt badgerlore( he is very much a murder hobo and he is Jim’s companion. he is also adorable) So bitch lady (the sorcerer) and Jim talked some and Jim, being the idiot he is, accidently makes his shield stronger by combining two different shield spells from two different classes and making a very strong shield that deflects bitch lady’s ice spike spell so she tries again this time harder and Oh NO! the shield double thing isn’t there and Jim is most likely going to die but he uses a different class’s thing and violently dodges out of the way and bitch lady and the following happens(this is what is actually said in the book)

Bl: “...HOW DO YOU HAVE SO MANY PERKS

Jim aggressively : “I’m the Mayor of NoobTown”

Bl: “WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN MAYOR’S DON’T GET A BUNCH OF CLASS LOCKED COMBAT PERKS”

Bl whispering: “what is wrong with you...”

and I had to stop listening for a solid 10 minutes I was laughing so hard anyway I’m gonna post all the funny parts that I find now this book is the funniest thing I’ve ever listened to

[brawmusic]

Braw Gigs & NEHH: Six Organs of Admittance + Ian Humberstone @ Summerhall, 16th June!

Solo guitarist extraordinaire, ‘New Weird America’ pioneer and fret board shredding collaborator – Ben Chasny’s ever expanding and adventurous solo moniker of Six Organs of Admittance has created some of the mostly truly introspective psychedelic folk music of the last 19 years or so. Beit the delicate Latin acoustic runs found on ‘For Octavio Paz’, the cryptic krautrock of ‘Dark Noontide’ or the free jazz folk frenzy of ‘School of Flower’ – Ben has been contorting his own vision by way of six strings and vocals in a manner which few other guitarists have ventured. Six Organs balances in the same time and space with soloists like Robbie Basho and John Fahey, along with the experimental expanses of Current 93 and countless drone and traditional eastern provocations. Over the years he’s collaborated with Californian pysch outfit Comets on Fire, Badgerlore, Magik Markers, 200 Years and the aforementioned Current 93. You may have also caught him last year at Summerhall wigging out with his most recent power psych trio, Rangda, along with drumming wizard Chris Corsano and original Sun City Girl member, Richard Bishop. His newest record on Drag City, ‘Burning The Threshold’, has seen Ben return to his melodic and minimalist best – with rave reviews across the board along with notable collaborations with Damon & Naomi, Ryley Walker, and Circuit Des Yeux in tow. One of the most serene records he’s done in some years, yet it’s filled with the same profound longing and expanse found throughout his whole body of work – another outsider classic with group of songs which will suit this solo live outing very comfortably. 

Ian Humberstone writes simple, warm-hearted songs with one foot in the outsider folk tradition: broken waltzes and turnarounds voiced in a rich English baritone. In recent years he has also created a number of critically acclaimed instrumental records for Folklore Tapes, the library music inspired label he co-founded in 2011 with David Chatton Barker. These albums have prioritised tape music composition and ambient soundscapes. His latest release is Sacred Island: The Legend and Magic of Isle Maree, a collaboration with Jordan Ogg due summer 2017 through Folklore Tapes.

“Humberstone is no mere ambient noodler. These songs are melodically rich and varied; mood pieces in the truest sense of the term.”- The Skinny

Doors 8pm, 

Friday 16th June,

Main Hall, Summerhall, Edinburgh.

Tickets on sale from the Summerhall Box Office.

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Pete Swanson

In the last 14 years, Pete Swanson has produced a prodigious variety of music that renders the whole electronic/noise tag even more useless than it usually is. Discogs puts the Yellow Swans release count at 69 (including compilations) and evidences that duo's wide creative output via a list of their numerous collaborators, which included Amps for Christ, Axolotl, Birchville Cat Motel, Gang Wizard, Mouthus, Robedoor, and John Wiese, to name just a few. In addition to being a member of Badgerlore and Sarin Smoke with Tom Carter, over the last eight years Swanson has released a string of motley solo and collaborative records on Chondritic Sound, Root Strata, Troniks, Type, and Three Lobed Recordings, from the busted collapsing-on-itself-club-noise of Pro Style and Punk Authority to the concrète churn of this year's Dead Inside/Dead Outside with Greh Holger. In this week's Listed, Pete reflects on the beats, lo-fi basement noise, and genre destruction bubbling up into the foundations of his next project.

In putting this list together, I wanted to cover a lot of records that are informing my thinking on the next phase of my solo work. Since I started a psychiatric practice in the last year and have been dedicated to putting my efforts in that direction, I've only really had time to work on one-off collaborations. I'm hoping I'll be able to develop new work shortly and, if that happens, this is part of the pool I'll be drawing from.

1. Reese Williams – Sonance Project in Two Parts

Sonance Project (1977) by Reese Williams

I stumbled on this album used in Philadelphia. I had been wandering around the city, chatting with Mary Lattimore and one of the record stores we walked into had this thing up on the wall with “VERY EXPERIMENTAL" written in Sharpie on the poly bag. I was feeling good after scoring some sick records in Allentown, including a sealed copy of Marcel Marceau’s greatest hits. I was curious, asked the record store clerk to spin the record for me, and the resulting sounds had us all stupefied. Mary started giggling and we started joking about her “jamming” with the album, which basically consists of evolving loops of fractions of breath, speech, etc.

2. The Third Eye Foundation – Semtex

There have been a few cuts by recent artists that have led me to dig deep into Third Eye Foundation. There’s the Rezzett “Zootie” 12”, some tracks from Millie and Andrea, basically real garbage sounding drum and bass or jungle. I don’t know, I never was into the stuff. Third Eye Foundation, though... they were part of the whole Bristol scene that churned out the best lo-fi music of the ‘90s. Crescent and Flying Saucer Attack had ZERO to do with a club, and I really don’t have the impression that Third Eye Foundation did either. This album in particular beautifully and awkwardly blurs the line between the most trash dreadlocked club zone and the loner-est four-track operating basement dweller, which is something to strive for in my book.

3. Randomize – ¿Como Se Divertirán Los Insectos?

This album is one half of Mecanica Popular embracing the shrill clarity of early sampling technology and applying it to industrial music. This guy, Masos’s Musica para Despues de la Batalla, and Esplendor Geometrico’s Sheikh Aljama all present a similar angle of aggressive, crystalline, and dense music. I’m particularly zoned in on the Randomize album because of its diversity, its rather unusual leaning toward “tropical��� music, and its fourth-world leanings within the industrial framework. I’m guessing there’s a bit of a connection to Finis Africae and that Spanish exoticism, but Randomize have their own brand of tropical island clatter. This guy sits well aesthetically with the gothic luau classic by The Creatures, Feast, which explores the sinister side of paradise with cavernous drums and references to lizards.

4. Gate – Saturday Night Fever

I’m on the record as being a huge fan of pretty much all music involving [Michael] Morley, and I even helped write the press release for this guy, so I’ll keep it short. I love this album. There’s another album on this list that subverts disco specifically, and there is common ground to their appeal to me. They both totally appropriate from and subvert the form that they are referencing, which is something I did not manage to accomplish in my dance-music related experiments. There’s a risk of playing with appropriating pop gestures that doom many subversive gestures or subvert the intended critique through that work just being assimilated into whatever garbage culture the music was intended as a blow against. I could easily include Michael Morley’s Moonrise on this list as well, but will not do it to avoid being redundant. Briefly, Moonrise is the answer to SNF’s outwardly gazing nostalgia, and instead is possibly the most insular, self-referential, delicate, and beguiling album in Morley’s vast catalog.

5. Bernard Bonnier ‎– Casse-tête

I’ve hyped this record for a long time and I continue because I find the thing beyond rewarding.  A simple concept using music concrete strategies with out-of-sync tape loops of recordings of disco musicians. The album alludes to pop music but serves none of the functional purpose of disco. It doesn’t do anything that it’s supposed to and the album only becomes less centered and more confounding as it progresses. Really everyone should have a copy of this album.  It’s totally essential and should be informing a lot more contemporary music than it currently is.

6. Luis Pérez ‎– Ipan in Xiktli Metzli, México Mágico Cósmico, en el Ombligo de la Luna

While there have been many incredible synth albums from Mexico from the likes of Jorge Reyes, Arturo Meza, and Vía Láctea, this album by Luis Pérez is possibly the most “wide angle” of all of them. The album unfolds slowly, featuring prominent field recordings, but also incorporates pre-Hispanic Mexican instruments and synthesizers when their time has come for the spotlight. There’s nothing predictable about this album, nothing too forced, and it’s never just one thing.

7. His Hero Is Gone – 15 Counts of Arson

This album was very important to me when it came out and I’ve messed around with sampling parts of it when I’ve messed around with that idea in the past. I like the idea of having tracks with really wild crust pick slides and guttural howls laced in with like... MIDI recorder ensemble or something totally incongruent. Regardless of how samples from this guy would sound, I still will put this record on when I feel like I should be in “smash the state” mode. While I have never committed arson in my life, the cover of this album, depicting a person in front of a burning Shell station clad in a black ski mask, captures the spirit of the music contained within: RAAAAGEEE, BUUUURRRNNN, SMMAAAASSSHHHHH. HEAVY music in opposition to everything. There are times when I really miss the earnestness and direct politicism of the ‘90s punk scene, which probably still exists somewhere, just not in my orbit.

8. Felicia Atkinson/Jefre Cantu-Ledesma – Comme un Seul Narcisse

I’m a big fan of both Felicia and Jefre’s solo work and have heard bits and pieces of this album as it has come together. The first phase sounded a bit more like the two of them trying to bang out something like their individual voices, then it turned into a more lo-fi industrial record, until finally it settled into this odd beast of naive gestures and Fluxus strategies. I’m impressed with the amount of space on this album, the nakedness and pleasure contained within each track. I appreciate an album that can be so brazenly experimental but does not rely on predictable allusions to “difficult” music. Things are not atonal or aggressive on this record, everything has its space (maybe too much so) to be its own, weird self.

9. Matt Carlson – The View from Nowhere

Sample from All Moments on NNA Tapes:

This album is an up and comer from Shelter Press. They sent me the music to this thing ahead of the album release after playing them Charles Dodge’s album Synthesized Voices, which is an LP of computer manipulated speech that has been converted into song via digital manipulation at Bell Labs. Upon hearing Matt’s album, the connection was rather obvious, but there are also allusions to Robert Ashley’s more speech-heavy works. You can’t always understand what is being said due to the density of chatter, and even the most electronic tones sound like they are following human speech patterns. The album further brings to mind the Poetry Out Loud albums, but manages to be much more musical than either the Dodge album or the spoken word records. There’s a lot of melody to tap into here as well as a good dose of Matt’s unusual sense of humor, which makes the album a bit more listenable than one may expect.

[adrianoesteves]

Badgerlore — Mountain Wine

[fishsbirdes]

The Crops That You Tend by Badgerlore, from the album We Are All Hopeful Farmers, We Are All Scared Rabbits. This song really kindles my imagination.

I love this band, and especially Hopeful Farmers, Scared Rabbits. Fantastic psychadelic folk drone style music. If you enjoy anything from the Jewelled Antler Collective, do give this a listen. Badgerlore is a supergroup of sorts, with Rob Fisk of Deerhoof and 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance and Comets on Fire, Tom Carter of Charalambides, Liz Harris of Grouper, and, my personal two favorite members, Pete Swanson of Yellow Swans, and Glen Donaldson of various Jewelled Antler Collective projects such as The Blithe Sons.

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Badgerlore / Beach

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Badgerlore 25_09