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passionate-reply · 4 years ago

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I swear, you get caught eating barbequed iguana once, and you absolutely never live it down. That’s what happened to Wall of Voodoo, who are known almost exclusively for their quirky novelty hit “Mexican Radio.” But the rest of the album it appeared on is surprisingly serious, and actually rather dark. Find out all about it by watching my video review, or reading the transcript below the break!

Welcome to Passionate Reply, and welcome to Great Albums! On today’s episode, I am once again diving into the realm of alleged “one hit wonders” who had a lot more going on than just one song. This time, it’s Wall of Voodoo, and their 1982 LP, Call of the West. It’s a shame, if you ask me, but most people who have heard anything at all by Wall of Voodoo know them for what is probably the least interesting song anywhere on this album: “Mexican Radio.”

Music: “Mexican Radio”

Get caught eating barbecued iguana once, and you never live it down, I suppose. “Mexican Radio” isn’t a terrible song, but I do think it’s the least effective expression of this album’s core themes on offer. As its title implies, Call of the West is a semi-concept album, focused around the mythic image of America and the Far West. It was actually Wall of Voodoo’s second LP--a followup to their 1981 debut, Dark Continent. Despite that title, it isn’t an album about Africa, but rather one that has a lot of thematic common ground with Call of the West: blue-collar angst, disaffected and brutal masculinities, and a whiff of things strange and surreal.

Music: “Two Minutes Till Lunch”

Aside from the themes, the basic musical structure of tracks like “Two Minutes Till Lunch” is reminiscent of the style of Call of the West as well: dense, clattering mechanical rhythms, ghoulish flourishes of harmonica, and frontman Stanard Ridgway’s unmistakable, dipthonged speak-singing, seemingly delivered exclusively through the side of his mouth at an odd angle. But Dark Continent is a bit harsher overall, with more of a foothold in the punk side of post-punk. Call of the West is an album in the full flush of New Wave: quirky, tongue-in-cheek, and not afraid to lay down a bit more synthesiser. While “Mexican Radio” reads as almost disposably gimmicky, like a musically competent novelty song, I think the other tracks on the album strike more of a balance between wicked irony and being unironically enjoyable.

Music: “Tomorrow”

“Tomorrow” is, by far, the track on this album that I think most deserves to have been its big hit single. Despite its privileged position as opening track, an affable, lightly electronic soundscape, and rather singable pop hookiness, it was actually never released as a single at all! I think “Tomorrow” does a great job at being something very fun, but also something a bit daring and artistic. It’s easy to love a sort of relatable, goofy song about procrastination, but its “apocalyptic” finish turns it into something a bit more profound. I think Call of the West shines even more once we get away from three-minute pop songs and into the album’s more atmospheric tracks.

Music: “Hands of Love”

While the heavy use of rhythm machines is a hallmark of the album overall, and stands out given its rarity on such an early and rock-oriented album, “Hands of Love” is probably the composition centered most tightly around the instrument. Aside from that, what I think always brings me back to this track is the vague, shadowy quality of its lyrics--some details are familiar, but the overall picture is hauntingly unnerving. Several tracks on Call of the West present the theme of loneliness and social isolation, toying with the American myths of rugged individualism and the empty expanse of the West. “They Don’t Want Me” tackles outright rejection by others in a direct manner, whereas the narrator of “Tomorrow” ruins their own relationships through fecklessness. “Mexican Radio,” of course, introduces a character so desperate for companionship that they seek it in a language they don’t even understand. But I think “Hands of Love” reigns supreme here, with its motif of hands losing their grip...perhaps losing their grip on reality.

Besides the loneliness resulting from the spread-apart American landscape, other tracks on the album address the lifestyles of the down and out--people who have put their faith in an “American Dream” of independence and self-reliance, but failed to achieve prosperity. We meet compulsive gamblers in “Lost Weekend,” a doomed secret agent in “Spy World,” and, on “Factory,” perhaps the album’s most riveting character of all: a factory labourer whose work has disabled him both physically and mentally.

Music: “Factory”

Like so many exploited workers in America, the narrator of “Factory” has no class consciousness, and seems unable to imagine a better or different life for himself, or strive for anything more than the banal comforts of consumerism. But he tells of a phantom itch in his missing thumb, which we might interpret as a metaphor for the vague, gnawing idea of other possibilities...particularly as he remarks that as a child, he was told he could be anything he wanted. The arrangement of this track buries Ridgway’s lead vocal to an extent, though never so much that we can’t make out its harrowing lyrics. I imagine it’s a representation of how suppressed the narrator’s internality and sense of self has become.

On the cover of Call of the West, we find a mysterious, crooked door, which is just slightly ajar, inviting us into this album’s strange world. It’s the only feature in a desolate red desert-scape, besides the outline of some bluffs against its horizon. It could be the landscape of Mars just as easily as it could the wide-open emptiness of the Far West. Just as the album’s title implies being welcomed or beckoned into the mythic West, the cover art is darkly inviting to the viewer.

While I don’t normally discuss the visual identity of albums outside of their front cover, I do want to make an exception for Call of the West, whose liner notes show the interior of the implied dwelling, decorated with a slew of peculiar trinkets: a taxidermied crocodile, a spilling bottle of liquor, a statue of a buffalo, and what appear to be antique slave shackles. There’s a lot of rich symbolism here, and I think it’s a beautiful addition to the album’s themes, but I never saw it until I owned this album on vinyl! In the age of digital music, we often lose some of these more complex touches when “album art” is reduced to a single square image, and that’s quite unfortunate.

Despite having a relative breakout hit, Call of the West would prove to be the final album Wall of Voodoo released with their original lineup. Frontman Stanard Ridgway would pursue a solo career, scoring a surprise hit in Germany with his 1986 single “Camouflage,” a ghost story set during the Vietnam War. He’s remained active as an independent artist through the 2010s. The rest of the band kept the name Wall of Voodoo alive for the remainder of the 1980s, replacing Ridgway with Andy Prieboy.

Music: “Camouflage”

My favourite track on Call of the West is its title track, which is the final track on the album. Like a lot of title tracks, it’s lengthy enough that you can really sink your teeth into it, and serves as a sort of summation of everything that’s happening throughout the album. It’s got cowboyish guitars, yipping coyotes, and a striking transition to a spoken-word bridge, which flows naturally from Ridgway’s unmannered vocal style. That’s all I have for today--thanks for listening!

Outro: “Call of the West”

#music #album review #album reviews #wall of voodoo #stan ridgway #daily reminder stan ridgway's full name is stanard #new wave

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neonretrorevival · 3 years ago

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The Mars Volta - Amputechture (2006) 15 year retrospective

This week marks the 15th anniversary of The Mars Volta's third LP, Amputechture. In time to celebrate, German label Clouds Hill teamed up with the band to remaster and re-release the album on vinyl, first as part of an epic 18-disc box set released earlier this year, and then as an individual release this month.

The follow-up to their seminal Frances the Mute, Amputechture sees the band explore even more experimental territory than its predecessors. Superficially, the group has frequently drawn comparisons to Led Zeppelin, Rush, Yes, Santana or even contemporaries like Coheed & Cambria, but anyone with half an ear can tell you there's something more to their sound than the dusty old prog LPs in your dad's garage.

The songs on Amputechture may each be student-film length, but they are modern, instantaneous, plaintive, combustive. Guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez cites salsa virtuosos like Larry Harlow and Charlie Palmieri; hardcore acts like Black Flag and Bad Brains; and the films of Werner Herzog and Fellini as bigger influences than the stuffier sounds of the 70s rock canon. If anything, they channel the more experimental fusion stylings of King Crimson and Mahavishnu Orchestra through their unstable, Latin-tinged take on progressive post-hardcore into this juggernaut of a record.

Some, like me, consider it a testament to the maturity of their compositional abilities. Some, like the self-appointed taste-making dickheads at Pitchfork, considered it wildly self-indulgent. While reception proved somewhat divisive in the day, the overall reception was typically positive, if bewildered.

It's no secret to anyone who knows me that I'm a die-hard fan, so I'll dispense any pretense that I could ever do an objective critical review. There are dozens of them out there, so when I talk about music, I prefer to cover what fascinates me personally about it rather than attempt to synthesize what another listener might take away from it. Amputechture, long considered by the group to be their "misunderstood, autistic child," is in fact my favorite record of theirs, and perhaps my favorite record of all-time.

That's not to say that I would recommend it to just anyone. Even a lot of fans of their first two records found this at-times cacophonous melee of a record to be a bridge too far, and I can understand. Maybe it was a time-and-place kind of thing, but to me their music always sounded closest to the actual chaos swirling in my angsty young adult brain. Their Rick Rubin-produced first album was by far their most palatable outing; their second was a band able to introduce themselves on their own terms; but Amputechture was for those who had already bought in entirely and were ready to take the next step with them. And I certainly was.

Where their first two records were ostensibly narrative concepts -- the first, a hallucinatory sci-fi adventure in the mind of a comatose man; the second, an adopted man trying to uncover the horrifying secret of his birth family -- singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala wanted to take a different conceptual approach this time around. Instead of a unifying narrative, he wanted to invoke tv shows like Rod Serling's Night Gallery or movies like P.T. Anderson's Magnolia, where individual narratives (as represented by each of the eight songs) shared a common, connective thematic thread.

The band has often cited film as not only a primary influence, but also as a feeling they're trying to recreate. They certainly succeed in that -- Amputechture's cinematic pacing is undeniable. Songs and individual movements within play out like scenes in a movie, each with their own building tensions and climaxes. Intro song Vicarious Atonement is the Crypt Keeper telling you what's in store for tonight. Songs like "Tetragrammaton" and "Day of the Baphomets" feel like they could end multiple times before they explode back into action.

It all feels like meticulously-controlled chaos, bombastic as possible yet textural and layered. Even "Viscera Eyes," which features their most point-blank, RATM-channeling pentatonic riff, bisects into a vulnerable, soaring outro coda. Listening to Amputechture isn't unlike watching a David Lynch film by yourself at 3 am with the lights off. It's unsettling, at times beautiful, abstract but always fascinating.

While it never climbed the heights of critical or commercial success that its two predecessors did, I'll always revere this bizarre, jagged, "autistic child" of a record as my personal favorite album from one of the most respectable and daring discographies in modern rock history.

Amputechture is available for purchase on vinyl directly from the label at the link below, and on all major streaming platforms.

https://us.cloudshillshop.com/products/the-mars-volta-amputechture-2lp

#The Mars Volta #Amputechture #music on vinyl #Clouds Hill #progressive rock #at the drive in #alternative rock

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thesunlounge · 4 years ago

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Reviews 370: Coyote

I have been mostly absent as of late due to the pressures of completing my PhD studies, but now that the work there is finishing, I am trying to return to regular reviewing. And for months and months now, one of the records I’ve most wanted to discuss has been Coyote’s Buzzard Country, released last year on their home station Is it Balearic? Recordings. In fact, my delay has been so extreme that, not only has Coyote released an accompanying Buzzard Country Remixes 12”—which I will cover here as well—they have also dropped the incredible Return to Life 12”, and even announced a new 2xLP slated for the summer called The Mystery Light. But better late than never, and there is no way I can pass up the chance to at last write in depth about the music of Timm Sure and Ampo. I say “at last” because, despite the fact that I consider Coyote amongst my very favorite recording artists, you would be forgiven for not knowing that by scanning the Sun Lounge archives. Though I’ve had opportunity to discuss their work here and there via remixes (such as on Blank & Jones’ Relax: The Sunset Sessions 2 and Joe Morris’ Cloud Nine 12”), by some strange turn of fate, Coyote has released no vinyl of their own since this blog’s inception...something that only changed very recently. Indeed, prior to 2020, the last time the duo put out solo works on wax was their stunning 2016 run, which included the Song Dogs LP, the Fight the Future 12” on Clandestino, and the seventh EP in their long running self-titled series on Is It Balearic? Which is not to say they weren’t active, and in fact, Timm Sure and Ampo delivered a really great set of digital singles and EPs in collaboration with Music for Dreams, and additionally, they remained active with remix and DJ work. As well, Buzzard Country was due quite a bit earlier than 2020, but was unfortunately plagued by production delays. To at last get to the point, this is all a roundabout way of saying that I am really excited to have plenty of Coyote to write about now and in the future, so that I can finally pay proper tribute to this foundational duo of the modern balearic beat.

As I’ve explored the balearic soundworld, Ampo and Timm Sure have always been beacons of light guiding me on my path, whether through their eclectic productions as Coyote, through the curation of Is It Balearic?, Über, and the Magic Wand edit series, or through their mixes and DJ sets, which are typically loaded with unheard treasures that lean towards the trippier and dubbier ends of the chill out spectrum. And it is this tendency towards the psychoactive that most endears me to Coyote, for the duo have always championed an authentic balearic spirit, one that foregrounds the music’s connections to the hippie hedonist heydays of Ibiza, to the second summer of love, and to a spirit of ecstatic abandon, one that is equally imbued with a magical sense of melancholy…of a feeling of being in paradise, but knowing it can’t last…as if the moments of revelatory magic—of wild nights dancing and sunrise comedowns—are tempered in real-time with senses of longing and regret. Which brings me finally to Buzzard Country, Coyote’s fifth full-length LP and a pitch-perfect encapsulation of their signature mixture of wistful melodic nostalgia and daydream seaside grooving. Across the album, baggy beats morph between downbeat disco, stoner dub, and world exotica while bottom heavy basslines work the body. Echoing vocal samples thread around hand drums tapestries, emotional washes of synthesis flow over radiant piano chords, and at crucial moments, the exotica guitar flourishes of longtime collaborator Saro Tribastone carry the mind away to lands of faraway fantasy. As for the Buzzard Country Remixes 12”, the A-side is given over to the Hardway Brothers, who brilliantly transform the album’s “Sun Culture” into varying landscapes of ultra deep Chain Reaction style dub wizardry. Then on the B-side, Woolfy vs. Projections and Max Essa respectively flip album stand outs “Shimmer Dub” and “Ranura de Marihuana” into their own specific strains of equatorial dancefloor euphoria, with each remix pushing the mind, body, and spirit towards maximal beach boogie mania.

Coyote - Buzzard Country (Is It Balearic? Recordings, 2020) “Soaring” begins with buzzard calls and hovering breaths of synthesis evoking a new dawn. Ripples form in the ether via bubbling squarewave synth leads, and pulsating dub bass sits beneath a blanket of sighing strings. The carrion calls continue streaking through the mix and celestial pianos rain down while echoing playfully across the spectrum. Plucked bass electronics bounce in counterpoint and hesitate woodwind glimmers call to mind flashing laser lights beneath a beautiful sea surface…almost as if a flute has been transmuted into a rapid fire fractal vibration. At times the strings back away, leaving layers of rainbow colored ocean ambiance to flutter and dance, all before ending with white noise delay oscillations that mimic the swell of ocean waves. Then in “Soft Top Saab,” an echo-soaked voice muses on the sunrise, with chills running down the spine as the solar affirmations are increasingly surrounded by space age string synths, and by Sara Tribastone’s mystical guitar filigrees. Reversing melodies enter the spectrum and swell the heart while shakers and tambourines hold a gentle beat. Tribastone’s guitar serenades softly overhead, with plucked textures of synthetic wood and stone dancing in the background. Further delay-laced pianos fade into view, with the track ebbing and flowing…growing and receding…and sometimes backing down into understated back and forth between guitar and piano, wherein harmonious brass layers and swells of spectral space glitter moving at the periphery. The result is a conversational interchange between seaside melancholy and romantic nostalgia, one which is eventually superseded by cosmic flutters, soft six string dances, and the spoken spells of a reggae mystic, who gives thanks to the sun, and its bounty of restorative light.

Dusty acoustic guitars and sunrise vapors introduce “Shimmer Dub,” while dancing dub bass portends the first real taste of a groove. A rocking hypno-rhythm comes into focus and laid back snares guide the infectious glide, while tablas roll overhead and evocative vocal layers thread through the mix. Steel pan synths are seen through the titular shimmer and wavering wavefronts of blurred melody wash over everything, until the mix drops down into a haze of stoned exotica comprised of a minimalist pallet of tabla rhythms, bleary-eyed pads, and thrilling vocal incantations…the effect like awakening on the shores of some faraway ocean paradise, with visages of desert caravan rituals preceding in the distance. The dubbed out groove eventually resurges, with passages given over to extended echo percussion experiments and the fragile songs of tropical idiophones. Feminine vocals glow like some intoxicating gas of multi-hued magic, and springy basslines guide the body while hi-hats and snare work through a psychedelic skank. Smoldering currents of ether move through the stereo field and moments of subtle intensity erupt from the horizontal vibe out…with airy woodwinds shrouded in static, claps cracking, and hand drums creating webs of groove mesmerism. And as the beat starts to vaporize, echo oscillations set the air aflame amidst fantasy orchestrations.

“Ranura de Marihuana” bathes in echo acoustic guitars that seem beamed in from some distant past…these evocations of classical folk music futurized via layers of fx. An ecstatic scream washes the mix clean, and a four-to-the-floor kick drum emerges to pound in the void, while overhead, Flamenco-indebted guitars spin webs of magic and reverberating vocals call to the spirits of sea and sky….sometimes whispering, other times shrieking wildly into the night. Sub-earthen bass movements are felt more than head, with exotic dub lines moving far beneath the surface. Bongos and congas pop and nervous shaker patterns lead the downbeat disco strut, while guitars work through further Mediterranean hooks and Iberian flourishes. A moment is given over to heavy bass and kaleidoscopic hand percussion–with scatting vocals, reverberating snaps, and lost souls wailing in desperation–and when the groove snaps back, there are touches of tango kissing the preceding, which bring to mind a rose-in-mouth glide across some dark and mysterious dancefloor, wherein spindly psych folk guitar melodies work the mind and airy drum rhythmics entrance the body. The kick climbs back towards dancefloor strength, with desert mystic percussions moving all around the mix and vocals morphing though fever dream echo layers. Elements from across the track refract through oscillating delay machines, and touches of rave haunt the rhythms, especially as subsonic basslines and subdued breakbeats work together.

A single piano note brings light to the darkness in “Sun Culture” and layers of radiance rain down in the form of heart-melting piano chordscapes, with some of that Screamadelica soul bliss suffusing the progressions. Warming pads envelope everything and deep dub pulses walk down white sand beaches, with shakers and lysergic breaths giving shape to the groove. Hi-hats, snare taps, and beachside bongos enter and buzzing guitar notes give off waves of golden light while overhead, liquids drip from the roofs of ocean cliff caverns. The single piano note continues to glow while souflul chords hold the mind in a state of psychedelic rapture, and space age ethers blind all vision as they spread outwards, then recede. Coyote move the track progressively towards a state of horizontal bliss, with almost everything washing away except the summery piano incantations, which are so soaked in reverb as to generate billowing cloudforms with every single note. Hushed rhythms return and hand drums take on a slight sense of urgency while pads generate layers of oceanic warmth, resulting in an audial invitation to greet the rising sun, and a naturalistic tribute to crashing waves and drifting clouds.

Intergalactic pads breath in “Dos Canas,” with tones wispy and suffused with inner light. Palm-muting electric guitars dance like bubbles through the ocean blue, and a touch of kosmische ambiance is soon tempered by bulbous dub basslines and splayed out layers of percussion, wherein the mechanic and organic merge seamlessly. Electroid sketches and seed shakers move in time as a slow and low balearic skank emerges, with glorious tones of brass pulsing overhead before ascending to the heavens on currents of humid tropical air. Hand drums circle the mix as the heavy atmospheres recede, leaving vaporous rhythms and golden synth strands to intertwine. Heartwarming chords give off mirage shimmers as the dub bass works its way back in, bringing with it further layers of world drum delirium. Soft sirens pan before giving way to more of the ascendent brass synthesis, and hisses of white noise add layers of subtle psychotropia. Snares are blasted into bursts of desert sand and all throughout the mix, various strands of melody and harmony are caught within oscillating delay cycles…progressively distorting and roaring into the ether. Shakers and 16th note hi-hats lead the groove while bongos and idiophones dance playfully against the snare and kick, until it all breaks down into an ambient outro of serene static, sighing strings, and layers of phasing rainbow light.

“Feedback Valley” closes the show with synth incantations portending the glow of a glorious sunrise, while shakers generate an infectious shuffle. Tribastone and his acoustic guitar explore Flamenco landscapes and a four-four kick drums hits against the body while layers of synthesis radiate compelling colorations. Babbling voices ride a serpentine synth sequence and touches of acid bass move in support, with cut-off filters opening as the snare drops, creating a head-nodding and body bopping groove that lifts the spirit towards the sky. The sequential electronics are so effective as they bob and weave through the mix, creating an effortless vibe of beach dance perfection…of hands-in-the-air euphoria and the abandonment of all worry or fear. Additional touches of six string sunshine push the mind every towards the shores of Ibiza and during a breakdown into burning delay feedback, synthesizers filter into solar squelch and guitars drift towards psychedelic delirium. A slow yet anthemic snare roll calls to mind big room trance as it brings the groove back into focus, now with 3D synth snaps firing in the left ear as the ever-present sequence reduces to a calming purr. Tribastone continues letting loose threads of sunshine lysergia and points of synthetic light swell into magnificent globes of blinding incandenscence. And towards the end, an echo-shrouded choir of the sea sings beneath a brief guitar fantasia before it all washes away in a scream of oscillation.

Coyote - Buzzard Country Remixes (Is It Balearic? Recordings, 2021) The Hardway Brothers take “Sun Culture” into ultra-deep territory across two versions on the A-side, with the first being the very aptly named “Balearic Channel Remix”…which is of course a reference to the work of Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald. Underground warehouse kick drums pound beneath hissing space fluids, as a low down Chain Reaction-style groove emerges, though with its eyes locked on a melting sunset panorama. Liquiform chords flow into cold industrial caverns and string synths suffuse the reverberating spaces with splashes of sunshine, while sub bass motions vibrate the soul. Shadowy tracers flit across the sky and DMT vibrato waves squiggle at hyperspeed, yet their effect is blunted and muted. Claustrophobic clouds fade in then out while melodic piano chordstrokes reflect in strange ways off of glowing walls of stone, their effect like gemstones glimmering underwater, yet with their luster sanded away by the march of time. Muted dub chords are caught in crackling delay chains and the deep kicks and jacking bass never relent in their heads down, hands-in-the-air stomp. Snares are reduced to a whisper and shaker patterns cause head-bobbing hypnotism as funky chords bring touches of liquid fusion grooving…only as if proceeding in the middle of a dub techno fever dream. Insectoid chitters move in from all corners of the mix, sawing sirens swirl into screams of feedback, and all the while, drum circle flourishes are shattered into a web echoing delirium.

Next comes Sun Culture “(Hardway Brothers Meet Monkton Uptown),” which sees the bass going even deeper somehow, as growling riddims menace the mind and rattle the ribcage. We soon find ourselves in another subaquatic dub techno dopamine dream, wherein kick, snare and hi-hat lock in for maximal hypnotic effect. Sometimes the bass guitar of Duncan Gray seems to take on a post-punk drug chug edge, and at some point, the rhythms pull away, leaving chopped up voices to decay into the void. Bassline and beats return and streaks of feedback sing softly over everything, while fogs of seafoam move at the outer edges of the stereo field. Clouds of solar static are seen from millions of miles away and traces of flamboyant fuzz guitar are submerged into a pooling vortex of deep dub delirium, emerging stretched out and mutated into currents of neon starshine. Gray's melodic basslines serenade through the underground club grooves, those funky chords return to sing their 70s fusion songs within layers of sighing feedback, and increasingly, the mix is overwhelmed by distorted blasts of drug-induced haze. Abstracted voices filter from one ear to the other…their unintelligible spells of esoteric mystery pushing the mind ever further towards astral activation. And towards the ends, the original tracks Primal Scream-style piano chord structures can just be heard amidst feedback fires, delay detritus, and morphing vocal abstractions.

In the Woolfy vs Projections mix of “Shimmer Dub,” the original track’s hand percussions intermingle with gurgling rhythmic fluids…the effect like wandering upon some tribal jungle ceremonial. Big blasts of downer synth bass are soaked in reverb, repetitive synth pulses tickle the mind, and pillowy arpeggios flow into view while those familiar synthetic steel drums shine in the sunlight. Fingers roll across myriad skins as the kick drum drops away, leaving the mind to swim in a world of equatorial energy. Then, as the bass drum resumes–with shakers never relenting–a new bassline emerges, bringing with it a heavy touch of wiggling squiggling Italo boogie. The vibe is hesitant…anxious even…with a persistent refusal to lock in, and as bass bursts grow in intensity, the rest of the mix begins reverberating into a balearic dreamscape. Following a delirious pause, the track explodes into flamboyant disco funk perfection, as sweltering chord hazes melt from the sky and bouncing basslines join an infectious and tropically tinged body groove. Chords scat, virtual marimbas dance, synthetic steel pans shimmer across the spectrum, and swells of white light synthesis overwhelm the mind...the whole thing as massive a groove as there could possibly be. Touches of electro kiss the rhythms and futuristic synth riffs fire as we back down into a swinging breakbeat, with rapid keyboard riffs locking into heady funk cycles and stadium-sized tom tom fills splaying out across the stereo field. Guitar licks are soaked in sunshine as they lead a dubwise swing, and as we explode once more into the block rocking groove, double time shakers and hats push the vibe towards dance party mania…all as coral-colored leads rush through star ocean fx clouds.

Max Essa’s take on “Ranura de Marihuana” sees a four-four kick smacking with infectious disco dance energy and hand percussion flowing all around. A snare crack introduces another groove indebted to Italo boogie, with big bottomed synth basslines accentuating the vibes of beach dance euphoria. Shakers spread into sandy clouds of atmosphere and heatwave pads sweat and squelch as starlight arppegios race across the sky. The vibe of Ibizan melancholia is here perfected, causing body and soul to merge in hedonistic ecstasy, and though the track resembles one of Essa’s characteristic blue ocean dancefloor cruisers, its a little slower and baggier than usual, which fits completely with Coyote’s zoner stoner vibe. Seascape pianos bring a peaktime fee and at certain moments, the groove momentarily recedes, only to rush back in on an infectious snare crack. Ivory melodies are increasingly strange and psychotropic as they flutter across the mix, with decaying vibration tails carried away on an aqueous breeze. The radiant piano chords and vocalizations from the original swim into the stereo field as Essa barrels down into a heavy bassline stomp, with every pulling away aside from smeared out voices and 70s prog rock pads that evoke a string orchestra tuning to the sounds of the stars. Further clap cracks bring back layers of equatorial euphoria and the vocals are used to incredible effect, with echoing snippets repurposed as anthemic hooks. Pianos continue their alien dance over relaxed disco rhythms and snapping funk basslines, and as we move towards the end, claps and basslines fire rapidly as vocals morph through slapback oscillations…all before dropping into one last expanse of seaside dancefloor magic, with dub disco beats, infectious world percussion rolls, and a pleading voices diffusing towards a gorgeous sunset horizon.

(images from my personal copies)

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brittsekland · 4 years ago

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Interview with Topper Headon, February 1980.

Turn off your mind, lie back on the couch and relax. We're going to have an association test. What do you think of when I say the Clash? Running battles with the grey forces of government? Three cord supercharged thrashes vilifying unemployment and public housing vegetation? Seething hordes of punks dancing themselves into a frenzy? Wrong. Times have changed. Punk is now locked as firmly into the past as hippies were in the sixties. Safety pins and bondage trousers are as passe as headbands and peace signs. The bands that characterized an era have disappeared. The Sex Pistols destroyed themselves, the Damned are a self-parody, which leaves the Clash. After an impressive first album and a fair second effort, their third a double recaptures the drive and energy of the first. The Clash have esestablished them-selves as the most talented band to emerge from the much vaunted new wave.

Their lastest album, London Calling, displays considerable evolution since early days of the band. The songs are more reflective and melodic. Songwriters Joe Strummer and Mick Jones contribute heavily but to a large extent the dexterity and adaptbility of drummer Topper Headon has enabled the Clash to develop their musicality. Topper is, perhaps, the most accomplished musician of the four-man band. His early training with a variety of different music forms from traditional jazz to soul, has provided a firm foundation for Strummer and Jones. Topper provides the matrix from which the rest of the band work. Topper believes the Clash have survived because they have staying power, because they haven't been afraid of changing and because they weren't hesitant to branch out when they grew tired of playing frenetic chords. "We've remained true to what we originally believed in," declares Topper. " We still enjoy playing our own songs. We're not going through any set patterns. The basic idea has been to remain true to what we believe in and not allow ourselves to be dictated to by the industry and become CBS puppets." They've done a deft job of staying ahead of big business machines. "We refuse to do Top of the Pops for example, even when the single came in at 29. CBS started to put pressure on us to do it. They tell us we won't have a hit single, and we say, so what? Who needs it? We wanted our double album to go out for £5 when everybody else's albums go out for a lot more. We had to fight battles to get a cheap record out. Obviously that's not in record company interests. They told us it was impossible. Maybe that's why we've stayed together; we keep setting ourselves impossible tasks. It gives us drive. Even on tour, the Clash are determined to keep prices down which certainly affects the bands take home pay. But money isn't what they want most. "What we want is for the kids to be able to see us," Topper says. Their attitude to irrates businessmen. "If anybody does something like sneak a video of us on television, we'd split up. And CBS know we mean business. We owe them so much money they can't afford for that to happen." The Clash are a refreshing contrast to the kind of bands that do anything to get their name on the dotted line. From the beginning it's been a complete turnaround from the usual state of affairs that exist between band and record company. The companies have been chasing the Clash. Topper joined the Clash between their first and second albums. Previously he was playing with a soul band that regularly toured Germany and British airforce bases. Regularly earning £50 weekly, Headon took a cut in pay to work with the Clash. "I knew at once that it was the gig I'd been looking for. Everything came quite naturally. By the time Topper joined the Clash, he was beginning to think he'd never pass an audition. Not many bands were signed before the British punk explosion. "They'd form a band for somebody from out-of-work musicians who had been thrown out of other bands. They knew the ropes, so they wouldn't kick up a fuss because they knew they were dispensable. Every time I went along for an audition, I was constantly beaten by drummers who had played for name bands and had 'experience'. It just went on and on like that." Topper had been playing drums since he was 13. Drumming was a habit he picked up when he had a broken leg which halted a promising football career. His dad spotted a second-hand kit in the local paper and bought it. By 14 Headon was regularly playing with a traditional jazz band. "For some reason bands were always short of drummers..." As far as tutoring, Topper never got past the introduction in the books. Paradiddles and triple paradiddles were as far as he got. Eventually Headon bought a Premier kit: "At that time it was the cheapest pro kit you could get. You could go into any music store and get one. Everyone stocked spares and fittings. That was one of the reasons why I bought a Premier. I'm still sold on silver kits because they look great under the lights." A few days before his first tour with the Clash he took possession of a silver Pearl kit, which he still uses. After a bit of chopping and changing of toms, he's wound up with a 24" x 17" bass drum, 14" x 10" top tom tom, 16" x 10" and 18" x 10" floor toms, and a Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum. All the cymbals are Zildjian - two pairs of 15" Heavy Rock hi hats, a 16" crash, an 18" crash, a 21" Rock ride, a 19" Rock crash, and a 20" Rock crash, plus a little Zildjian splash cymbal attachted to the top of the bass drum which he claims is driving the rest of the band mad. All the stands are Premier Lokfast Trilok stands. "I go for a real solid kit," claims Topper, "that's why I chose Pearl and Premier. They're really solid and serviceable, no frills on them. You get a good feeling when you sit behind them because they're so workmanlike. You think, 'Great, I ain't gonna knock these over.' I use rubber mats to secure the kit on the riser." "Although I have the kit basically the same most of the time, I do like to change it around occasionally. If I started to use wooden blocks on the riser then I'd be stuck with one position, and that can be limiting." When it became evident that the Clash were here to stay, Topper got the chance of a new kit, which he tried but didn't rate as much. However, he did take Pearl up on the offer of a recover and recon. He expects to have his present kit for at least another five or six years, providing it dosen't get dropped or broken. Another complaint from Topper is lack of service and spares outside London: "We've got a flight case which is like a miniature drum shop, it carries everything down to cymbal felts and spare lugs for the bass drum. We always take it with us on the road and keep it stocked up. "I begin a tour with everything I conceivably need, and gradually I get rid of things I don't need, so the kit gets smaller as the tour goes on. Once the hi hat busted, the spring went right inside, and it was impossible to fix up. It was a Saturday night when we discovered it, and we had a show on Sunday. Luckily, we were able to borrow a high hat stand from the support band." Topper is a man dedicated to acoustic drums. He regards synthisized drums as irrelevant: "They were alright for two weeks, then the novelty wore off. Personally I'm exploring different areas, like percussion. I even use finger cymbals on one track of London Calling. But thats the way to go - into acoustic percussion. There's so much scope there that I don't know why synthisized drums were invented in the first place." Miking up for a gig is a lot similar to miking up for the studio. Topper uses two overhead cymbal mikes, and two mikes for the double hi hat set up he uses. The toms are all miked from the top, and the snare drum is miked from beneath. He keeps both heads on and never keeps anything inside the shells. Topper uses very little damping live. What damping there is, is usually on the bass drum, and always external. All damping is with gaffer tape. Topper prefers AKG mikes, but on tour they vary depending on which PA hire company is being used. "I can go into the studio and get a good drum sound in an hour," continues Topper. Listen to the latest LP London Calling and you'll hear what he means. "The first time I went into the studio I was pretty green but I learnt from it. For London Calling I went straight in and knew exactly what to do. Everybody goes into the studio much more relaxed now. I use AKG mikes and everything is miked from the top except for the snare. Again I use double heads to get the boom sound, and I use room mikes to pick up the spillage, to make it sound more live without going over the top. The set up is exactly the same as I have live, really, except I don't use a bit of damping." The biggest problem with putting out the new album were recording costs. The Clash figure that the longer they spent in the studio, the more it would cost, the more money CBS would have to put up, and consequently they'd have a greater hold over the band. The Clash even put up some of the money themselves. Eventually they had the tape and told CBS: "You can have it if you meet our conditions." Topper admits that there are some mistakes on the album, and more than a few drum errors. That's the price to pay for the energy captured on the vinyl. London Calling was recorded in a month, with Guy Stevens producing. That's how it's going to be in the future, Topper maintains. The second album, Give Em Enough Rope, was not as successful as either the first or the third records, and Topper blames producer Sandy Pearlman for this. "He made it quite dull," Topper says. "He was a dull person to work with. We wanted a producer, CBS gave us a list of producers and his name was on the top. We listened to stuff he'd done with heavy metal bands, and we thought it was rubbish, but it was the production we were interested in. We wanted to get a good sound, and one complaint against the first album was that it sounded too thin. So we wanted some production that would stand up to time. So we got Pearlman. But he took so long to do it, with his perfectionism, that the prevalent feeling in the studio by the time he'd finished was boredom. When I think about recording that album I cringe." Problems don't end in the recording studio for the Clash. For a good few years now they've had constant trouble with local councils who insist on banning their gigs for fear of trouble. The whole surge of reaction against punk bands from "The Establishment" began with the infamous Sex Pistols. The daily newspapers portrayed the Clash as wreckers of society. "We're still getting that sort of prejudice," explains Topper. "We've had 16 gigs booked at various Mecca places, and then about 12 pulled out. You have to completely re-route the tour." The Hammersmith Palais cancelled a concert there because they said there were too many mirrors in the place to safely allow Clash fans in. "But our fans don't smash things anymore. They do if they're told what to do, like sit down in this seat and be a good boy. That's why out of all the gigs on our British tour only have two seats in them." Harassment from local villages takes other forms. The obligatory visit from the fire inspector often results in strict demands being laid down: "He says take that backdrop down, so we take the backdrop down, and he says erect more crash barriers, so we put up more crash barriers, he says this stage has to be rebuilt here, and you need more security. We just laugh at him and do anything he wants. Nothing can stop us playing. But they make life difficult." As time progresses, however, the Clash are becoming more acceptable, though not more respectable, Topper hopes. He makes the point that the Clash have to pay for all the damage that's caused, so why should they promote vandalism? Surprisingly, Topper found that the audiences in America weren't so much different to the British fans. The punk thing is really only just beginning to happen across the pond: "They're still into safety pins," declares Topper. "It's the same as the White Riot tour here, when there were about 300 or 400 fans dancing down the front with the rest there out of curiosity. But we sold out 25 of our 28 gigs there, and that was in 3,000 and 4,000 seater auditoriums. The States is so big. LA was just a load of old hippies lazing around getting stoned in the sun. I liked Chicago best, with all the blues clubs. But we should do well over there because the USA has all the same problems as Britain except they're magnified. They have all the slums and the poverty and more of a racial problem too." Highlighting social problems is one of the bands strong points. They should have plenty to write about in America. The Clash are political, and very definitely anti-National Front. Topper's favourite drummers come from America, such as Harvey Mason and Steve Gadd. His favourite British drummer is Terry Williams, who plays for Rockpile. Musically, his tastes are strictly black; James Brown, Otis Redding and lots of reggae, particularly the Mighty Diamonds. America looks tripe for the Clash. They've toured there twice and soon they should start to take off now that punk has spread. The Americans have been fairly slow catching on to what the 76' British New Wave was all about - perhaps they've been too wealthy for too long. With a new recession biting home, maybe the Clash will take on new relevance to downtrodden, unemployed kids in America. Topper himself represents a new establishment of musicians in Britain that once would have been unthinkable. Two years ago the Clash were vilified as not being "real" musicians. Their drive, talent and staying power has proved the cynics wrong. In general, the Clash have proved themselves to be dedicated professonials with firm ideals at heart. In particular, Topper Headon spearheads the drumming new wave with a forceful and accomplished style that can't be dismissed.

#topper headon #the clash #article #*mine

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dustedmagazine · 4 years ago

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Dusted Mid-Year Exchange, Part 1: Activity to Jeff Parker

Irreversible Entanglements

Six years ago, newly moved to Tumblr, we looked for a fresh take on the mid-year best-of list idea, partly to be contrary, partly because some of us had no interest in writing about the same records over and over again. After some discussion — well, a lot of discussion — we decided to turn our mid-year feature into a sort of secret Santa exchange. We’d each nominate two records and each review two records, but, here’s the kicker, they wouldn’t be the same records. We’d trade with our fellow writers, and if it meant that we had to listen to music way out of our comfort zone, so be it.

Since then we’ve had smooth exchanges and rough ones – last year’s was especially testy, but what can you do with such an opinionated bunch—but it’s become a favorite annual event. This year was no different, except that no one was truly revolted by their assignments.

Unlike some years, there was no clear dominant pick, though Six Organs, James Elkington, Makaya McCraven/Gil Scott-Heron, Cable Ties and Irreversible Entanglements all got multiple votes.

We’ll split our individual album write-ups into two posts. Today’s covers records by artists from Activity to Jeff Parker. We’ll get to the rest of the alphabet tomorrow. On the third and final day, we’ll post writers’ lists. Participants included Tobias Carroll, Tim Clarke, Justin Cober-Lake, Andrew Forell, Ray Garraty, Jennifer Kelly, Arthur Krumins, Patrick Masterson, Ian Mathers, Bill Meyer, Jonathan Shaw and Derek Taylor.

Activity — Unmask Whoever

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Who picked it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes, Tim said, “This music strains at the leash, held tightly in check by the motorik rhythms, while gaseous synths seek to permeate all corners of the soundscape.”

Ray Garraty’s take:

You wouldn’t know that it is a debut album, but then it’s a super band, so that doesn’t count. Vocalist Travis Johnson’s delivery reminds you a symbolist poet reciting some lines from his notebook, neither singing nor reading. Despite referring to violence in song titles and lyrics, this music is as far from violent as it can be. It’s too self-conscious to even carry symbolic violence but when on ‘Earth Angel’ the vocalist with the hook “I wanna fuck around” almost breaks into a scream, it turns into a whisper instead. It’s these small details that unmask the outfit’s postmodern disguise and show that Activity is the real deal, not a half-baked pastiche.

Decoy with Joe McPhee — AC/DC (OtoRoku)

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Who picked it? Derek Taylor.

Did we review it? Yes, Derek said, “Decoy is a working group and a heady amalgam that recalls a dream fusion of Atlantis-era Sun Ra, Keith Jarrett’s marathon electric stand with Miles at the Cellar Door, and Larry Young circa his Blue Note moonshot Contrasts, while still relentlessly retaining its own flight plan.”

Jennifer Kelly’s take:

Wow. “A/C” is impressive enough with its wild unfurlings of trumpet and sax, its woozy meditations in bowed and plucked stand-up bass, its incendiary organ bursts, all rooted in jazz, but touching on the hot, experimental outposts of rock and soul and R&B, too. But the second side, “D/C,” is even more exciting, as the tumult of sounds gets more fevered and McPhee breaks out in song. Who can blame him? You want to join in. It’s a mind-bending swirl that boils up and over the edges, heady, excessive and exhilarating. So glad I got to hear this, Derek, and it reinforces the benefits of trading favorites, i.e. finding music that is way out of your normal circuit but, even so, exactly what you need.

Sandy Ewen — You Win (Gilgongo)

You Win by Sandy Ewen

Who picked it? Bill Meyer

Did we review it? No.

Andrew Forell’s take:

Experimental guitarist Sandy Ewen appears as much concerned with space as sound. On You Win, she treats her instrument as pure object to explore the minutiae of its potential. Patterns emerge like communications from distant galaxies or the gradual shift and warp of old buildings. The 5 tracks scrape and rumble as occasionally identifiable guitar sounds — feedback hum, plucked strings — flicker from the mix. Best heard through headphones, You Win demands concentration lest one misses the nuanced denaturing and subversion of Ewen’s work, which is as fascinating as it is challenging.

Fake Laugh — Dining Alone (State 51 Conspiracy)

Fake Laugh · Ever Imagine

Who picked it? Tim Clarke

Did we review it? Yes Tim said, “These sharp, funny, warm-hearted songs are immediately endearing, yet shot through with bracingly sour ingredients.”

Andrew Forell’s take:

Dining Alone, Kamran Khan’s latest album as Fake Laugh, is a collection of pastel Day-Glo bedroom pop songs that breeze by leaving barely a hair ruffled in their wake. Khan has an ear for a melody, a wistfully pleasant voice and a talent for arrangement that make this album an enjoyable listen but there is a nagging feeling that he is holding something back. Tracks like the finely wrought “A Memory” and Supertramp update “The Empty Party” stand out but Dining Alone feels like an intermediate step on which Khan tries out ideas and seeks a way forward although there is enough here to be optimistic about what might come next.

Field Works — Ultrasonic (Temporary Residence)

Ultrasonic by Field Works

Who picked it? Justin Cober-Lake

Did we review it? Yes, in a May Dust, Tim Clarke wrote that “Stuart Hyatt’s latest compilation in the Field Works series is an absolute beauty — and timely given it’s being released during a pandemic whose origins may be linked to bats.”

Derek Taylor’s take:

Most of the listening that I do in the service of reviewing music revolves around discerning who’s, what’s and how’s. Those sorts of taxonomic identifications feel superfluous, not to mention futile when navigating the music on Ultrasonic. Sources I mistook as aquatic (“Dusk Tempi,” “Echo Affinity,” “Music for a Room with Vaulted Ceiling,” and “Indiana Blindfold”) are subterranean, specifically the echolocation emissions of bats. Harp and piano sounds dapple “Silver Secrets” and “Sodalis” as instrumental signposts, but they’re outliers in a program that feels largely electronic and beyond the scope of scrupulous inventory.

The closest, if admittedly antiquated, genre descriptors I have for these ecology-minded creations are ambient and new age. A seraphic, celestial quality suffuses most of them with sweeping washes of tonal color layering over more definable rhythms and progressions. The combination curiously reminds me of a distant temporal relic that served as childhood gateway to this sort of territory, my father’s vinyl edition of Ray Lynch’s Deep Breakfast. It’s another feeble attempt at a compass point and evidence of how difficult it can be to escape the ingrained habits that influence personal musical consumption.

The Giving Shapes — Earth Leaps Up (Elsewhere)

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Who recommended it? Arthur Krumins

Did we review it? Yes. Arthur said, “You feel like you’re being carried into a dream, familiar yet strange.”

Ian Mathers’ take:

There’s just something nice about a record where, a few minutes after putting it on, your partner suddenly remarks “you know, this is very calming”. It’s not that the work of Robyn Jacob (voice, piano) and Elisa Thorn (voice, harp) is soporific or somehow uninvolving, more that there’s a somehow centered kind of deliberateness with which they approach these songs that feels oddly reassuring. The way their voices often echo lines (or slightly altered lines) back at one another can feel vaguely Stereolab-ish, but rather than the coolly pulsing, layered grooves (and transient noise bursts) of that outfit, the simplicity of the arrangements here feels direct and clean and often comforting. But it’s the type of comfort that lets you see the difficulty you’re trying to tackle head-on, not the comfort that swaddles you away from having to deal with the world. It’s more bracing than lulling, in other words, and frequently beautiful at that.

Irreversible Entanglements — Who Sent You? (Don Giovanni/International Anthem)

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Who recommended it? Andrew Forell.

Did we review it? Yes. Andrew Forell wrote, “Who Sent You? is an extraordinary statement lyrically and musically.”

Bill Meyer’s take:

I’m inclined to agree with Andrew Forell. When I first encountered the vocal-focused free jazz of Irreversible Entanglements in 2018, I was more taken by the band’s focused exchanges of energy onstage than I was by their self-titled debut LP as a listening experience. But its successor steps up their already powerful game by easing up just a bit. They’ve let more air and variety into the surging rhythms and interweaving horn lines, opening up space for vocalist Camae Ayewa’s words to land with even more impact and staying power. Ayewa, who also records as Moor Mother, is more of a poetic declaimer than a singer or rapper, and her expressions of cultural memory and existential survival in the face of remorseless racism and economic terrorism boom over the music’s ebb and flow with inspiring authority. While her words are always applicable, this record sounds like it was made to be heard in a time of plague and revolt; when people ask in years to come what record sounds like the middle of 2020 felt, a lot of people will hold up Who Sent You?

The Jacka — Murder Weapon (The Artist / EMPIRE)

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Who recommended it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? Yes. Ray Garraty said, “this album confirms Jacka’s status among the greatest fallen soldiers of hip hop.”

Tim Clarke’s take:

Despite being a posthumous release whose title refers to the artist’s tragic death by shooting back in 2015, Murder Weapon by Bay Area rapper The Jacka is a surprisingly cohesive listening experience, largely thanks to the lush palette of old-school samples employed on many of these tracks. From the aching strings on early highlight “Walk Away” via the swinging funk of “Can’t Go Home” to the children’s choir on “We Outside,” there’s a warmth and humanity to this sad story that honors the artist’s memory.

Ka — Descendants of Cain (Iron Works)

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Who picked it? Ray Garraty

Did we review it? Yes, Ray said, “Descendants of Cain, Ka’s seventh album combines the epic bleakness of the Old Testament with Brownsville’s hopelessness.”

Tobias Carroll’s take:

Shamefully, this is my first exposure to the music of MC and producer Ka; it’s his sixth album overall, and I’ve got some catching up to do. For an album with a title and cover art that could just as easily fit on a doom metal album, what surprised me was how focused this all was. The album flows beautifully, with music that fits somewhere between sinuous soul and the art-damaged Americana heard on, say, Matmos’s The West — with a handful of cinematic samples topping it off. It’s a perfect match for Ka’s voice, which manages to be textured and beatifically smooth all at once. Some albums paint a picture for the listener; this one is wholly immersive.

Matt LaJoie — Everlasting Spring

Everlasting Spring by Matt LaJoie

Who picked it? Tobias Carroll

Did we review it? No

Ray Garraty’s take:

Matt LaJoie’s technical verbosity is on the spot here, as all the man-made sounds can be mistaken for something Nature produced out of its vast resources. Everlasting Spring is like a small water spring which flows and flows but can’t eventually flow into a river, being forever condemned to be just this spring. Everlasting Spring lasts almost for an hour (if we count a bonus track), and it’s six minutes for every string LaJoie’s guitar has. Not many men can admire nature for that long. The whole album has that New Age-ish feel, when you can start listening to it from any track, and nothing will change in your views on it.

Maybe it does give a good mimesis of what spring sounds like but we still need a change of weather from time to time.

Mamaleek — Come & See (The Flenser)

Come and See by Mamaleek

Who recommended it? Jonathan Shaw

Did we review it? Yes. Jonathan said, “Their dominant textures are still harsh and confrontational, vocals are still howled and shouted. But there are riffs. There are melodic structures.”

Justin Cober-Lake's take:

As black metal, Mamaleek would hold their own, but there's a persistent work to stretch boundaries here. Come & See keeps a core mix of sludge and anger, but the group's inventiveness keeps the album consistently surprising. The group finds brighter tones than anticipated, even while moving away from metal more toward alt-rock at times, and post-rock at others, and generally finding expressions that require a hyphen. An occasional breakdown touches on jazz or finds its roots in rock 'n' roll. “Cabrini-Green” functions like a suite — track the movements and break the track into its separate pieces — even as it avoids a sort of linear sequence. “Elsewhere” (and, indeed, much of the album) turns out a demented history of hardcore. The record probably won't find much of an audience outside of the metal scene, but listening past the obvious trappings reveals a wealth of influences and a complexity that makes for intriguing listening across genre strictures.

Jeff Parker — Suite for Max Brown (International Anthem)

Suite for Max Brown by Jeff Parker

Who picked it? Arthur Krumins

Did we review it? Yes. Arthur said, “Following the looped, electronic and eclectic New Breed, Jeff Parker’s latest album expands into an even greater range of off-kilter sonic experiments.”

Tobias Carroll’s take:

Before this year, my knowledge of Jeff Parker’s music came largely from his work with Tortoise. And that’s far from a bad thing; Tortoise is a fine band. But hearing Parker push further into the realm of jazz with Suite for Max Brown is its own form of delight, where precisely-played melodies meet instrumental virtuosity. It’s an eminently listenable album, and one where I’m still noticing new moments of subtle beauty in the mix.

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ibythetidepromotions · 5 years ago

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An interview with: Wax Vessel

Could you introduce yourself to the readers?

Nik Velleca - Founder/Owner/waytolongofaresponder

What led to the inception of Wax Vessel?

It’s actually a story in a couple of parts: the name (which is not interesting), the year before it started (mildly Interesting) and then the actual launch! Maybe two years ago I really wanted to get in to the whole Instagram vinyl collection showcase scene. Made a second account called Wax Casket (because it sounded cool) and did a couple hundred posts. No big deal. But at that time, it kind of out the inkling of an idea in my head. Fast forward a year or so, and Simon from WFAHM and I were taking about how literally every influential album from 2000-2010 was never pressed on vinyl. We thought about teaming up to do Ion Dissonance in vinyl (which is still a huge goal). It never materialized, so the label pages (renamed to Wax Vessel) kind of got shelved. Speaking of the name Wax Vessel (rant incoming) I landed on that name because I’m so fed up with the start of digital. MySpace deleting song libraries. Hard drives crashing. CDs getting bit rot. The only try archival format is vinyl. You could pull a WV release of a shelf in 2219 and it would still play. It’s a “time capsule” or “Vessel” for preserving history. Anyway. Fast forward to like 5 months ago - I had just stumbled upon PRR and they told me they were doing Destroyer Destroyer. I asked if I could just press the records to accompany that release, and viola! Here we are!

Wax Vessel is very unique, you what always comes to mind when I think of extremely rare and beautiful presses. What process goes into getting your visions to come together properly at the pressing plant?

So I’m glad you touched on this, because artisanal (barf) pressings are one of the tentpole features of WV. There’s so much that can be done with the format that it seems like an insult to just do single color records. I figured if I was going to bring all of these albums back from the dead after decades of never having a physical release, it might as well be in style! Otherwise someone will just repress it hah. But each release is its own project. My goal are always to have the color play with the album art, while also pushing the physical medium itself. Everything is very case-by-case, with the number of variants and the type of variant really just being subject to my mood haha.

Recently announced was the pressing for Dr. Acula’s S.L.O.B, congratulations on making it to WV007! From the posts I’ve seen on social media, you guys are really excited about this release. How would you describe Dr. Acula to someone who has never heard of them before?

Thanks! Dr. Acula was a huge one for me, they’re one of the forefathers of Deathcore in my opinion. They’re that early, wonky type of proto-Deathcore that uses a lot of samples before breakdowns and has a lot of inside jokes. It’s just fun, without taking itself too seriously.

They obviously got much bigger later, but SLOB was such a classic album, and a standout release from 187 records at the time (who really deserve all the credit for basically being the label pioneers of the genre along with Debello and BMA).

Wax Vessel focuses on pressing music from the MySpace era of metal. What about that era made it so memorable and dear to your heart that you decided to resurrect it in the wax form?

Man, prepare to watch me get spun up on this, haha. I’m really terrible at organizing my thoughts in to a cohesive essay on the topic, so as a kind of “stream of conciseness” ramble please accept this: 2000-2010 was just peak music. It was a digital Wild West with a bunch of talented Midwesterner pioneering new sounds for niche audiences. It was a perfect storm of a bunch of cultural factors playing out all at once. Literally all of these trailblazing bands were pushing envelopes and rail blazing new genres for No monetary gain and no fame. Every single review form music media was “this is unlistenable garbage”. They absolutely did not get the recognition they deserved at the time. I mean the “scene revival/20-9-scene” is more popular than the actual scene at the time! So what happens when you mix this new way to make music (digital production) with a new way to reach fans (social media/MySpace)? You get a fucking no holds barred race to make the most niche, unlistenable music in existence. The decade was a fucking blip in music history and then was lost to the ages. The internet was too young to preserve it, and to young for anyone to really use to their advantage. Just a lost decade. So I think that’s worth preserving. Especially since YouTube rips are the only thing left.

The default vinyl color of black is never an option with your releases, always seeing high quality, creative options for your limited presses. What is the reasoning behind this stylistic choice?

Black is such a fucking cop out. It’s only to save money. It’s lazy and requires no finesse or imagination. If you’re going to press records, go all in. Like imagine building a house in 2019 with all the modern amenities and building materials we have at our disposal and just building a 6-sided box. So boring. And for everyone who says it sounds best - black (carbon) is an additive for strength. Natural PVC is additive free and sounds better. So when I need a cheaper variant to offset the cost of some of the more expensive ones, natural PVC is always my go-to.

Have there been any challenges so far with the process of mastering these old files on vinyl? Were any of the music files hard to come across?

You have no idea! I feel like a lot of people see WV and then want to start a vinyl label, haha. But there’s so much craziness behind the scenes! Let’s start at the top - WV will only do a release if the band is on board, and the rights are retained. Mechanical licensing retained. Full quality tracks hunted down and mastered for vinyl. New art made (no one has their old art files) and laid out for vinyl. Then after all that, I have to drop $4k at the plant to get it pressed. Then promos and art made, coordinating with ZBR on timelines, etc. But none of that can happen without the tracks. Most of the time the band will have the master bounces, and it’s not that difficult. But on a couple of occasions I’ve had to rip old demos from personal CDs. I’ve even had to pay for a hard drive to be recovered for a band member so we could get tracks! I really believe that vinyl isn’t just for the fashion, so having great sounding records is top priority. Can’t do that with a YouTube rip! If we can’t get the best quality tracks, I won’t do it!

Any possibility of there being Wax Vessel merch down the road?

I mean I’m not sure anyone would give a shit! But if like 10 people messaged me and said they wanted a shirt, you bet! We would whip up a cool “no represses” design or something, haha. Maybe 2020!

With a new year right around the corner, what are some goals for kicking off the new decade in 2020?

2020 souls have some cool “firsts” for sure! I’ve got our first multi-LP box set dropping. First project with a hand-painted cover. First modern release (under a different side name, don’t want to dilute the WV name haha). Really what if love to do in 2020 is press Psyopus to round out the techgrind section. That’s a big goal! I’d also love to have a both and sell LPs at like a festival, but they all sell out too quick!

Anything else you would like to tell the readers before we go? Just a couple of blurbs! People always forget that wax Vessel is a non-profit and we give 100% of the money to the bands. So remember that the next time you think I’m an asshole for not doing something you like! We got a lot of hate mail about not doing represses, haha. To that point, there will never be represses. It’s a sticking point. I don’t want to make records that end up in dollar bins and eBay lots. I’d rather leave money on the table. I want to great collector items that will be cherished. All of these bands have been defunct for a decade. No one is coming back to just to try and make a quick buck. These are all swan song little fun presses for the core group of fans. For the 200 weirdo left who still care about early 2000s techgrind and vinyl, haha. It’s niche, but no one wants to make any money. It’s just a fun thing for the scene. Remember this is all for fun! Additionally, I see a lot of miscommunications that I’d like to get on the record! Please remember: Wax Vessel is its own thing. Not an imprint or affiliated with anyone. I shoulder all cost, design, etc for everything! So it’s very much WV as the label. I hate shipping and fulfillment, so ZBR [Zegema Beach Records] is WV’s official store. The mega studs over there (Dave and Dave) definitely allow WV to exist. If I had to ship everything, it would be one release a year haha. And super not last, WV couldn’t exist without Ryan Peter. I have absolutely no scene Fred, and Ryan gets fucking results. He almost single-handedly spreads the word and gets bands on board. Literally invaluable. All the records in the world mean nothing if you can’t get any bands to agree to get pressed! He’s a MySpace madman!!

Wax Vessel Social Media:

Facebook

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Website [Coming Soon]

Big Cartel [Coming Soon]

Merch through Zegema Beach Records

#Wax Vessel #Zegema Beach Records #Record label #vinyl records #Dr Acula #interview #I By The Tide Promotions

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vapormaison · 5 years ago

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Best of 2019 Vaporwave Release 3/4: Sensual Loops SPECIAL EDITION by Cyber Club

As vaporwave matures and enters the mainstream, I often find myself having discussions with vapor heads on reddit about the iconography of the genre. I realize that this is a bad idea, but cannot help myself. More often than not, they are pointlessly terse, and tend to be tediously teleological — the type of argumentation featuring enough loops of logic to cause a medieval Byzantine monk’s head to spin.

A recurring topic that baits me every single time is when a poster attempts to criticize the album art of a record, dismissing the entire work on the based on “anime” aesthetics. While this might seem like an argument so off-center and reductive that it’s parody— I’d encourage you to go on r/VaporVinyl and take a look at some of the posts replying to threads about Cyber Club’s Sensual Loops LP series. It’s not pretty, and representative where some of the fanbase is at the moment. Adding to my shock was when one of the self-appointed critics outed themselves as twenty three years old. At that moment, I was forced to confront my own bias. I had mistakenly assumed that the puritan was an out-of-touch Gen Xer or a Baby Boomer. Aesthetic intolerance is not exclusive — and plenty of Zoomers are members of this trash clique as well.

What really boggled my mind, however, was that the user had picked vaporwave out of all the other possible genres to go on their Nipponophobic soapbox against. A quick look at the aesthetic movement as a whole (sonically, artistically, etc.) establishes it as what I would assert as a primarily millennial genre — less of a statement about its creators and consumers, and more about the broader, overarching cultural milieu in which in developed. It was birthed in the decade that heralded the mass-consumption of Japanese media in the Western marketplace. Many of its early practitioners got their start chopping and screwing anime OSTs and hip hop. Future Funk effectively appeared on the sonic map by the sampling of Japanese city pop. What is even worth arguing here?

But that which bothered me even more was the user’s stubborn refusal to even listen to the album. You can not buy a vinyl because you just have a particular aversion to cover art — that’s fine! Better yet, you can not buy a vinyl just because you’re not a fan of the sound. Those are two perfectly fine reasons not to partake in a release. But then to go on reddit and complain about an album aesthetic for something you haven’t even listened to? Come on, fam. Level up your praxis. It is the whitewashing and the boorishness that is most infuriating. I’ve legitimately never heard of anyone who dismissed an entire album’s music purely on the basis of its vinyl cover art before.

And shame on them, because they are sleeping on one of the best works of 2019.

The limited edition of Sensual Loops 1 & 2 is another LP that I had the luxury of listening to while on my East Asia tour. I brought the album (among others) with me to visit a very good pal of mine, Han, who’s retired to Hong Kong. Much to my relief, he’s in a comparatively spacious apartment over in the Tai Wo area — by no means the stereotypical postage stamp — and has set up a little audiophile pad that I’m most envious of. His setup is devoted to all things B&W, and I got a beautiful listen of the album on a pair of impressive and almost imposing 700-series floor standers. Powered by the Cambridge Audio Edge series Amp/Pre combo, this was far above even my paygrade. But after working as a salaryman for two decades, he was finally able to invest in his endgame system. And what an endgame it is!

Getting the chance to listen Sensual Loops on this system cemented my opinion when I had first heard it’s release digitally: I was listening to an instant contender for the best vaporwave release of 2019.

Sensual Loops 1

Introduction immediately fills your speakers with a wide, warm guitar and horn loops that feature just enough static noise to distinguish itself as a vaporwave track. I always like it when a little minute-thirty track gives the amp a little exercise. It also proves to be a perfect sonic setup for the next track, which is ostensibly what every “intro” track should do, right?

Night carries that guitar riff from Introduction but adds a playful variance with a synth loop, and vocals that I believe are sampled from that Philly Soul classic “Children of the Night” done by the Stylistics and the Jones Girls’, among others. All of the moving parts here do wonders, syncing together in a perfect arrangement. Both Han and I commented on just how bright this played on his JBLs, which is a testament to the mix and mastering work here.

Love & Affection definitely feels the most retro-vapor of all the tracks on Sensual Loops 1, beginning with a series of loops, riffs, and synth chimes that feel as if they were picked from a certain collection of sitcoms of an early nineties vintage. The heavily distorted vocals and hypnotic drum kits pop in after about a minute to give the track an almost deep house feel as it progresses. The “all mine” hook then crescendos into a symphony of drum hits that conclude the track with a real sonic flutter in the air when played with high-end speakers.

Pain accelerates the rather slow pace of the album up to this point. I’m a big fan of the synth arrangement that opens the track, and I schmood even more with the powerfully funky vocal set that carries the track throughout. But with its short length, it does feel more like an interlude or setup for what I consider to be the highlight of the LP.

Memories is our certified slapper. It starts off immediately with an incredibly catchy synth chord arrangement supplemented by a fantastically tweaked vocal sample from the fantastically, alliteratively-named Melba Moore, another funky soul queen who needs a revival in the contemporary lexicography.

Sensual definitely swings the record a bit further away from the future funk and back towards the vapor-funk side of things. Back are cyber club’s usual array of jumpy, tinny synth chords and manipulated vocal micro-samples that still provide a really robust sonic experience on the hi-fi system of your choice. When the vocals make their appearance about ninety seconds in, I was expecting them to sound much less rich in the middle than they did, which was definitely a present surprise on the mastering side!

Alone is a beautiful cacophony of micro-samples with a vocal track manipulated to sound like an 80s ideal of a future robot gf. I’m not sure how else to describe this track except as pure atmosphere. The fluttering synths, muted percussion, electric highs that send tweeters bouncing — it’s difficult to precisely describe how a track like this comes over a hi-fi system like the Edge. It just pulls out every detail from an immensely dense track like this and does it every bit the justice it deserves.

Paradise ends up taking a traditional funk and re-engineering it into a sort of quasi-tropical sound similar to some of the early Aloe Island Posse bangers. It’s got a much more lo-fi edge to the track then most future funk takes on a track like this, and creates a really unique and playful experience.

Bliss is almost raw synth pop with a hardened vapor edge to it. Although the original sample is from a very soulful electro R&B outfit — the Loose Ends — we get aggressive drums and synth loops that bring this closer to Paula Abdul than anything that could be traditionally considered rhythm and blues. Just enough manipulation of the vocal sample and some well-timed percussion hits make this more fit for a night out than a baby-making session in, which is both remarkable and a testament to cyber club’s skill.

Sensual Loops 2

Intro captures a little more of than urban-turned-Island soundscape that we caught a glimpse of in Paradise. I’m eternally impressed by this, as it seems like Cyber Club never gets too caught up in the production to bring this too far from its vapor essence while still making this a great lede in its own right.

Sensual was a track I was initially expecting to be a remix or redux of the first Sensual from Sensual Loops 1, but I’m glad to see this piece of bass-heavy vapor exists as its own full-bodied track in its own right. It grabs you immediately with its “I’ll never give up on you” vocal loop spliced in among its synth array, and carries you through with an intriguing arrangement of instrumental loops and micro-samples throughout. The low end can really shine here with the right system.

Hold Her Now is a piece of nostalgic, vintage vaporwave straight out of the Saint Pepsi era. Ostensibly a creative cut-up some New Jack Swing that absolutely slaps with the right electric guitar riff and synthetic percussion hit, it harkens back to when vaporwave was in its “peak aesthetics” phase of production and plunder-phonic glory. Perhaps this reminder of what vaporwave used to be unfairly biases me, but it’s definitely a listen for the nostalgia driven old-heads.

Affair is the type of track that sounds completely different on certain types of stereos. While Han’s stereo brought out the crisp, wide vocal mix — perhaps a testament to Cambridge’s design history, my Harman Kardon/KEF pairing brought the synth flares here to the fore. The testament to this track is that I really enjoyed both profiles, and Affair sounded robust and detailed throughout.

Kiss is one of the tracks that I felt coolest on upon an initial listen, which is perhaps a statement to just how much I enjoyed this album. When presented with the innovative arrangements of tracks like Hold Her Now or Memories, I was left feeling that Kiss doesn’t do enough in its minute thirty second runtime. That being said, it’s fun. And that’s what music can and should be at the end of the day, isn’t it?

Touch heaps on that vapor memory with some creative vocal layering, tinny and distorted high-end flutters, and an electric horn that came out swinging in the Cambridge system, much to my surprise. It’s clear at this point that Cyber Club has created a very particular listening experience here, and I’m oh so fond of it.

Special makes a funky classic fresh and electric again, which is what I’m really starting to vibe with in terms of the Cyber Club oeuvre. It serves as a sort of confirmation, a celebration and an altogether fantastic close to the LP.

Vinyl Physicality & Listening Experience

I like black vinyl. This milquetoast statement has earned for me the ire of some enthusiasts on r/VaporVinyl when I post on my alt-account there. Because vaporwave attracts curators with “experience” in the music industry, I’ve been told by “serious LP collectors [who know] label managers” — the type of folks who spin on $100 Crosley turntables bought at a Kohl’s Black Friday sale — that new black vinyls just doesn’t sell anymore. Not for vaporwave, at least. A release should have a colored vinyl or not release at all!

This was a take from the same twenty-three year old who wouldn’t purchase Sensual Loops because of the hentai on the cover — so take that for what you will.

I’ve always liked the supplier that Sic Records uses — whoever they are. The vinyls always have a bit of mass and heft to them, leading me to guess that they’re probably in the 180g range. But that’s just my finger test. My Jungle2000 vinyl feels just as weighty. I’ve always believed there’s a definite spectrum with black vinyls — from the frail Qrate cheap options to the high end audiophile oriented waxes like the beautifully crafted Victor Japan and Columbia waxes from the late 80s and early 90s that you see most city pop and anime OSTs pressed on.

The masters on these records are definitely intriguing for the format. My biggest critique of vaporwave vinyl at this point is that some labels don’t take the requisite care to put out a good vinyl master, and often just end up going all-in with poorly optimized digital release ones. The folks at Sic definitely know what they’re doing — because this ended up playing great on a number of systems and speakers, from my KEFs and H/K setup, to a friends Technics mid-fi rig, to Han’s Cambridge endgame. Each time, we got a wide-but-not-too-wide play without the sound edging towards the bright end of the spectrum too intensely. I think this is important because it respects a lot of the samples used. The mixing work done on a lot of the Philly soul here definitely had a certain muted approach that really brought out the most from the vocals and left instrumental arrangements to a moderately more ambient role. I get that impression of continuity here and love it for that.

In short, you should snap up this release while you can. It’s a great release, and fuck the vaporwave nannies who’d shut down Cyber Club’s best two albums without even a listen. May that /u/ go down with u/hoesmad_ on r/Vaporwave’s wall of shame.

#bestof2019 #vaporwave

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wtfholland · 7 years ago

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20, 23, 25 with tom ☺️☺️

how about CEO!tom? ;)

this ended up being so long wtf i need to control myself

Thank you for your request! :)

requests are closed! thank you so much to everyone who made requests❤️ they are in the process of being written, thanks for being so patient☺️

listen to this while reading♫

I hissed as I burnt my fingers for around the fourth time on the pan that held a roasted chicken, which was still scorching; I was attempting to remove the bird from the pan onto a much nicer and presentable dish. I spent the entire day cooking and preparing Tom’s favourite meals and dishes. I felt pretty accomplished because this was the first time I didn’t have to call Nikki over to give me a hand. The house was swimming with the most delicious smells if I do say so myself. My heart did somersaults as I set a bottle of Tom’s most favoured wine on the table, pleased with the presentation of tonight’s dinner.

He was gonna be home in about ten minutes. After triple checking that everything was in its correct place, Tessa was sleeping soundly on her plush doggie bed beside the couch so she wouldn’t try hopping on the edge of the table to swipe food, I scampered up the stairs to the bathroom to make sure I looked presentable for my man. After the news of Tom’s company getting more worldwide consumer attention, requesting and ultimately resulting in major expansion, himself and his colleagues were over the moon, bursting with nothing but joy. They had just launched one of their most anticipated events, along with charity work that was being done and Tom was ecstatic at the overwhelming feedback and success of it all. Of course, he had been building this business with his father for years and years; His brothers, mother and Harrison showing their endless support, as well as me.

Unfortunately, since the prime growth of the company, Tom and I haven’t had very much time together anymore. He was constantly working late, staying behind at the office to finish important projects, sometimes going to the bar with his work friends and coming home at around 2am, disturbing my sleep and waking up Tessa. Before there are any assumptions made, no, Tom is not cheating on me. Harrison and Tom are attached at the hip during any time of the day, except whenever he’d be with me (…which isn’t very often anymore) and Haz would always notify me that he was on his way to Tom and I’s house to drop of a very exhausted CEO. Usually, I’d only open the texts after the fact or in the morning since I’d be sleeping already. Following that, Tom would be up bright and early, ready to leave for work. I’d barely even get a goodbye before I heard the front door closing, my boyfriend leaving to work the entire day. Tonight was the night I planned to really show him how much I care for him, how much I love him and how much I miss him.

Tom and I had met four years ago in the old record store I used to work at. It was close to my university and I really needed the money, textbooks are fucking expensive. He came in, looking so out of place with his long black trench coat, suit and tie, polished shoes, and combed hair. I could hear my co-worker Joel, who was working the register, trying to suppress his cackles as he gawked at the stranger’s get up. I averted my vision away from the two and got back to stocking the records accordingly. Country, rock, alternative, disco, disco-fusion, screamo, R&B, bubblegum pop…you get the point.

“Heyah there, sir. What can I do for you today?” Joel chimed. I turned my head slightly to drink in more of the handsome stranger’s appearance. He had flawless skin from what I could see from that distance, complimented by his trimmed dark brown hair, the strands curling softly at his nape. His face was very structured, and despite the heavy coat he sported that was essentially eating him alive, you could tell he worked out; And not to mention that this guy reeked of money. He probably had enough pocket change to buy the store, maybe even the whole neighbourhood.

“Uh hi, I was wondering if you guys had any, um, records of the…Foo Fighters? I think that’s what they’re called.” Richie Rich asked Joel, clearly unsure of himself. Joel caught a glance of me ogling at the man, to which I shot daggers at him and turned back to the shelves. Country, rock, alternative…

“Ah, mate, see that girl over there? Well you’re gonna have to ask her. I just work the register, I don’t really know what the hell we’re carrying. We could be stocking a collaboration between Cyndi Lauper and Marilyn Manson for all I know!” Joel snorted. This fucking fruitcake, I swear he’s gonna get his ass fired some day. “I see. Uh, thanks.” Mr. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang said. As I heard his footsteps approach me, my arms tensed and my mind went into full panic mode. I was absolute shit at talking to guys, attractive guys, rich looking attractive guys…Country, bubblegum pop, disco, shit!

“Excuse me, miss?” a voice as smooth and luxurious as a symphony tested, fingers tapping my shoulder delicately. Country, R&B—ah, fuck it. I turned my head casually to look at the guy, up close and personal and holy fuck, I needed to change my pants. This guy was the definition of sexy. He was practically sex on legs. My lips opened and closed, making me look like a fish. C’mon, Y/N! Get your shit together. “Uh, hey there! I mean, h-hi, sir. What can I do you for?” I felt all the blood rush from my face and my eyes bulge. “Shit, I mean, not do you, I mean what can I help you with, sir? I-I stock the records and CDs and…stuff.” I panted, really studying this guy’s demeanour now that he was right in front of me. Please shut up, Y/N! Stop talking! Stop moving your lips!

I felt kind of intimidated being so close to this guy. He looked like he was made out of a million—a billion bucks while I was pretty much made out of arcade tokens with my blink-182 shirt, over-worn ripped jeans and thifted Doc Marten knock offs. He smiled at me and I was certain I had died. “Hey, the guy at the register told me to come and talk to you.” he explained. I looked past him to see Joel driving his right index finger in the space he made between his left fist, imitating his “O” face. I rolled my eyes and averted my attention back to my customer. “Oh, yeah, he’s quite the character.” I giggled. He looked down for a second and then moved his gaze back up to me. “I was wondering if you guys carried anything by the Foo Fighters. If you don’t have any vinyls, CDs would be just fine.” the stranger questioned, still grinning at me. Wow, he was beautiful.

“Y-yeah, we only have Foo Fighters on vinyl. Is that okay, sir?” I stuttered, still nervous to be in his presence. “Yes, of course, love. And just between you and me, you don’t need to call me ‘sir’, by the way. I’m only 23.” he stated. I just nodded and smiled, not too sure how to respond since he just called me love! “My name is Tom.” He stuck his hand out for me to shake and I snorted at his gesture. I accepted his hand and felt a jolt of electricity, lightening, something move up my arm and invade my body. “You say not to call you ‘sir’ but your old school actions say otherwise.” I teased, loving the feeling of his warm hand in mine. “I’m Y/N.”

We separated and I swear I saw a streak of disappointment in his eyes, but it disappeared quickly. “Hm, a beautiful name for a beautiful girl.” he flattered me. Holy hell, I am ready to get on my knees for this guy. When I didn’t respond (out of disbelief), he smirked and shook his head. “So I guess I’m not just old school, I’m also a cliché.” he chuckled. I let out a nervous laugh, “No, no, I…like cliché. I mean I also like original things but cliché is good too. That was really nice, thank you, Tom.” I said giddily, he nodded at me in response.

After a couple more minutes of me being a flimsy idiot, I finally showed him what he was asking for and gave him my recommendations on which records overpowered others. Tom told me about how his youngest brother starting getting into Foo Fighters and his birthday was coming up so he thought he’d surprise him with some brand new LPs.

“So, um, I hope you don’t mind me asking but do you live around here? Sorry, that sounds so creepy.” Tom questioned as I scanned a copy of The Colour and the Shape and Wasting Light. “No, it’s fine!” I reassured almost too quickly. “I actually go to Kingston University, it’s not too far from here. I live on campus with my best friend.” I described, my thumb jutting out and pointing behind me.

Tom nodded understandingly and pulled out his wallet. “I see. That’s such a coincidence because I actually own th—uh…n-nevermind.” he trailed off, suddenly looking unsure. My eyes lit up as I grabbed a plastic bag from underneath the register. “No, tell me!” I pushed. Relax, Y/N. I gently put his purchase in the bag and handed it to him. He took it from me, fingers grazing my skin. My face immediately heated up and I looked down at the register, fiddling with the buttons. Tom cleared his throat, “Uh, how much do I owe you, love?” He tapped a golden credit card against the counter. Love again. “Um, seventeen pounds.” I replied.

I’d like him to give me seventeen pounds.

I looked away as Tom punched in his pin, trying to figure out what to say next. I’ll admit, I didn’t want him to leave but I didn’t have a clue on how to stall him. I looked back at Tom shoving his wallet back into the deep pockets of his trench coat. “Look, I…I’ll tell you what I was gonna say if you…” He took a deep breath, “…go out to dinner with me.” My eyebrows basically crawled up into my hair line, they were raised so high. I was shocked. This guy, this fucking sex god is asking me out to dinner? Tom’s expression began to fall because of the silence. Y/N! Answer him, you dumb ass!

“Yes, she will!” Joel’s voice boomed from behind me, coming out of nowhere. I turned back to look at him and then back to Tom, his wild eyebrows anchored up as well. “Well, Y/N? Will you go on a date with me?” Tom repeated, leaning in closer. I was slowly melting in my shoes, a party was going on in my head. A sweet smile crept on my face, I leaned forward as well. His cologne hit me like a semi-truck, he smelt so damn good! How did I not notice this before?

“Yes, Tom. I’ll go out with you.” And that’s when my entire life changed.

I went from barely being able to afford a month’s worth of gas for my shitty little VW to being able to afford a dozen brand new Ferraris with all the gas in the world. Tom explained to me how he owned several different buildings in London, all of them under the company that him and his father have been working on for years. I was surprised with Tom being so young, having such a large empire under his command, he’s an extremely successful man. He admitted he was nervous about mentioning what he does in the record shop in fear that I would mooch off of him for money, as he told me his previous girlfriend did just that. He just wanted to protect his heart.

I assured Tom all my actions and feelings were genuine and that I didn’t care about his title or his money; If he treated me right, made me laugh like a lunatic, and just all in all made me happy, I’d never ask for anything more. Until now that is…after me quitting my job, selling my car, working harder in University than I ever have, moving into Tom’s penthouse apartment, and almost four years of dating, I’m finally about to ask him for something.

Just a little bit more attention. I don’t want to sound like one of those girlfriends, I just want things back the way they used to be; Have him crawling into bed beside me and snuggle me up to his warm, strong chest, going out on the most enjoyable dates anyone could think of, cook meals together, take Tessa on long walks, talk about our future, make love almost every night…now it was just work, work, and more work.

My mouth stretched into a wide smile as I heard the fumbling of a key at the front door. Tessa shot up, arising from her slumber and scampered towards the noise in a hurry. Tom stepped into view, squealing like a child when he saw Tess, bending down to scratch behind her ears. I brushed off the invisible dust that was on my dress and stood out off the view of the table, trying to emphasize the presentation. Tom stood up straight, caught a glimpse of me and rushed over. He picked me up and twirled me in the air. I let out a joyful gasp at the sudden gesture, placing my hands on his sturdy shoulders to support myself. He then pulled me in for a chaste kiss and set me back down to my feet.

“You’re not gonna believe what happened today at work, Y/N!” Tom blurted. I smiled and raised my brows, urging him to speak. I moved a little more to the side, hoping he’d say something about how the dining table was littered with all his beloved dishes. “So Harrison told me he got an e-mail late last night from these guys in Japan who were very impressed with how successful our business has grown to be in such a short amount of time and that they were willing to fly out to London just for us to discuss some ideas over dinner, in regards to expanding the company even more! Isn’t that brilliant?” Tom exclaimed. I walked closer to Tom and wrapped my arms around him, exceptionally proud of my boyfriend and his hard work. “Oh, hey. What’s all of this?” He asked, pulling away from the hug, finally eyeing the table.

My heart leaped. I texted him earlier to let him know I had a surprise for him waiting at home after he was finished at work. “R-Remember I texted you and said that I had a surprise for you? Well, this is it! I-I just wanted to treat you tonight because, y’know…you’re always busy and so I decided to make all of you favourite foods for dinner, you deserve it! It’ll be just you and me!” I chanted. After about a minute of Tom gawking at the table, I cleared my throat and rocked on my heals, giving him a small smile, “Surprise.” I beamed. Tom’s mouth fell open and he slapped his hand to his face, groaning. “Shit, Y/N. Fuck, I’m so sorry, I forgot you told me that you had something planned.” he gasped. I shook my head, dismissing his apology like it was nothing, trying to mask my heart selfishly filling with disappointment. Of course he forgot…

“That’s alright! Anyways, you should go wash up and I’ll dish out for you. Look,” I began, pointing at the unopened wine bottle, “I thought we could drink your favourite wine too in celebration of your success!” I dragged on. Tom’s face fell, his eyebrows knotting together and a scowl appeared on his lips. “I-I’m sorry, darling but I can’t cancel on these guys. We’re in the process of trying to collaborate with them on a project that could really sky rocket the business into something I’ve always dreamed of. Could we reschedule?” My heart was instantly torn to shreds. “Your dinner with those guys is tonight?” I interrogated. Tom just nodded his head and checked his watch. Jerk.

“But…w-what about our dinner?” I continued, my voice shaking violently. I was in literal pain as I held tears back. Somehow, somewhere in my mind, I knew this was going to happen but I tried to push those thoughts into an abyss, only thinking about how well the night was going to turn out. “Look, darling, I’m sorry but I really have to get going. Traffic is pretty heavy, I just came home to drop off my stuff. I’ll make it up to you. I just…I honestly can’t miss this. It could change everything.” Tom concluded. He gave me a peck on the forehead before adjusting his jacket collar and striding back to the door. Open, close, lock.

I just stood there like a statue and stared at the door. Tess came and plopped herself next to my feet, whining for me to pet her. I halfheartedly stroked her head, my gaze still locked on the door. I chewed on my bottom lip in confusion, hurt and betrayal. He didn’t even tell me he loves me…

“He didn’t even let me know ahead of time, Tess.” I finally spoke, my hand halting its movements on her head. “He forgot about my texts a-and my surprise. He didn’t even ask me if I’d like to come with him to the dinner.” She squealed in response, understanding what I meant. “Does he just expect me to eat this all by myself?” Tessa stood up and trotted towards the table, her nose high in the air, sniffing at the lovely feast I prepared for Tom and I. Mostly Tom. I followed her footsteps after a couple of seconds, taking in the view of the lit candles, the shining wine glasses, straight set cutlery…all going to waste. My stomach growled viciously, practically screaming at me that I should eat something before I die. Huh, I’d rather die. I swiped my phone off the kitchen counter and dialled Y/F/N’s number. My fingernail clawed at the rubber phone case as I listened to the ringing.

“Hello there, doll face.” Y/F/N swooned, I could hear the glee in her voice which brought a weak smile to my face, only falling away when I remembered why I called her. “Hey! Do you, uh…are you doing anything right now? Do you want to come over for dinner?” I asked, mentally begging her to say yes. “Ah, shit Y/N, I’m sorry! I’m actually on my way out right now! I have a date with that guy that works at that sketchy coffee shop on 83rd, remember?” she explained. Right, of course! I stupidly let that slip my mind. “Oh yeah! Crap, sorry, I forgot.” I snickered, trying to mask my disappointment. “Where’s Tom? Shouldn’t he be coming home soon or something?” I heard a door lock on the other side and assumed that was the front door of her house. “No, he, uh, actually got caught up a bit back in the office with a client. He said he’d be home in about an hour and that I should invite you to dinner.” I lied through my teeth. I was too embarrassed to tell her that my boyfriend basically abandoned me to go wine and dine with his work buddies and Japanese business men.

“Ah, okay, okay. Makes sense.” she said, more background noise of her turning her vehicle on, the engine roaring, the music from the stereo flooding my ears. “Thanks for inviting me though, Y/N. I’m sure Tom will be home soon.” Y/F/N reassured. I waved my hand at Tessa, shooing her away as she made her first attempt at jumping on the table. “I’ll let you go though. I don’t want you to be distracted while driving. Text me when your date is over, I wanna hear all about it. Don’t forget about that pepper spray I slipped in your purse just in case. Oh, and also make sure to send me your location so I kn—” “Y/N! Relax you psycho, I’m gonna be just fine!” she giggled. “I’ll talk to you later, sweets. Love you!” I smiled, “Love you too, be safe.” I hung up the phone and chucked it on the couch. Tessa went back to sniffing away at the food and I let her. What was the point?

A few hours later, the table was cleared, the food stuffed carelessly in containers and in the fridge, the candles put out, the wine tucked gently back in the in-kitchen bar, the dishes washed and now me, laying in our king sized bed for who knows how many hours, alone, per usual. Tess was curled up on the floor, a rubber hippo tucked securely under her paws, acting as a sleeping buddy. Where was my sleeping buddy? I looked over at the clock. 12:47 AM. I didn’t have the will power to stay downstairs and watch TV or read or do anything. I felt so empty. I was crumbling. A tear slipped out of my eye before I heard the front door open and close. Some more shuffling went on before I made out someone coming up the stairs. I shoved my arms underneath the pillow and buried my face in the plushness of it, creating the illusion that I’ve been sleeping for a couple of hours.

The bedroom door opened and Tom’s cologne hit my nostrils. He always smelt so good! Damn you, Holland! I was fully expecting a peck on the shoulder or a caress on the crown of my head but instead, I heard him make his way to our bathroom, pushing the door slightly. I quickly sat up, noticing that Tessa was already awake, wagging her tail at her master’s presence. The faucet turned on and off before I decided to make a move. I clambered out of the bed and made my way to the bathroom while Tess observed my every move. I pushed the bathroom door open and spotted him, facing the mirror. I slowly but sensually wrapped my arms around his bare waist, all his clothes except for his boxers thrown in the hamper, and pressed my breasts against his back.

To my relief, I could see Tom smiling in the mirror through his mouthful of toothpaste foam before spitting and rinsing, me still clinging to him like a koala. He then turned around after wiping his face with a towel and wrapped his arms around me. “Hello, pretty girl.” he whispered, pressing a kiss to my forehead. Finally. I looked down, “Hey.” I muttered under my breath. He gingerly placed two digits underneath my chin, moving my head up towards him. “What’s the matter, darling?” I furrowed my brows, thinking the problem was already obvious. Tom stroked my cheek, “You know you can tell me anything, darling. What’s wrong?” he pushed on. I cautiously moved away from Tom and brushed his hand away.

“I need to be honest with you…” I began, already feeling tears threatening my vision but I blinked furiously, forcing them back. I could see Tom’s entire demeanour change within a millisecond; He was leaning against the bathroom counter and had his arms crossed, which made me feel a little intimidated. “Okay, talk.” he urged. I took a deep breathe and dropped my head, digging my toes into the soft bathroom mat. “I’ve been feeling ignored by you lately…” I tried out. When I heard no response, I continued. “You’re…always working for long hours a-and I understand it’s because you’re the CEO and own the company but, whenever I wanna do something with you or go out or anything, work always gets in the way. I’ve felt this way for a while…a few months.” I admitted, eyes still locked on my toes.

A minute passed and I raised my head to look at Tom. He looked…upset. But not the regretful kind of upset, more like the upset at me kind of upset. Ugh, shut up, Y/N. “Please say something.” I sounded so desperate that it disgusted me. Tom just pushed himself off the counter and walked back into our bedroom, leaving me in the bathroom. I immediately went to follow him, not surrendering to his immaturity regarding what I just said. “Tom! What are you doing? I just told you how I felt and you’re acting like you don’t give a shit!” I called out, moving quickly to step in front of him. “You completely forgot about me today, your plans with those guys from Japan…you know how much that hurt? I understand that the meeting was important to you and could open the doors to so many more opportunities but don’t you think you owe me as much as texting me to let me know instead of leaving me in the dark? You ran in and out of the house just to ‘drop your stuff off’. I worked all day to make tonight special for you and what was I left with? Tons of wasted food and wasted hope. You’ve done this to me many times in the past too but I was too stupid to say anything and just brushed it off like it was nothing because I’ve always put your wants and needs before mine but,” I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, “what happened tonight really hurt me.”

He drooped his head, eyes burning holes into the floor, a clear mix of contradicted feelings, unsure whether to feel sorry for me or explode. I cared about Tom’s work, how much effort he’s put into the creation of this company and for what it’s become but if it comes to the point where he’s essentially neglecting his significant other, then that becomes a problem, at least in my mind. I sat down gingerly on the bed, brushing out the wrinkles on the satin duvet. Tom looked me up and down, his features riddled with irritation.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Y/N? I’m doing this all for you! I’m trying to provide for you, so don’t give me crap about how I’m constantly working! I’ve been busting my ass and working on this for my entire life.” he argued. Oh, hell no. There was no way I was gonna let him blame his busy work schedule on me. “Don’t even, Tom! Don’t you dare try pushing this on me! I never asked for any of this; Not the house, the fancy bed, the decked out bathroom, the kitchen fit for a queen…I never asked for it! All I wanted was you. When you asked me to move in with you, I didn’t care if we were poor, living in a shoebox apartment, sleeping on the floor, I just want to be with you and I still do, so don’t you dare try telling me that you’re doing this for me.” I shrieked, fisting roughly at my pyjama pants.

Tom sneered in annoyance, perhaps even disgust. I gawked at him, outraged and waiting for him to make a comeback. “You know what? You are so selfish. You don’t appreciate anything I do for you. You could be working too, y’know? No one locks you in this house or nails you to the floorboards and demands that you wait for me to come home!” he roared, getting closer to me. I quickly stood up, startling him. He took a few steps back but kept his hard glare. “I go to school, you div! I’m a full time student, I’m studying to get my bachelors, remember? Oh, probably not because you’re too busy staying at work finishing your projects and oh, talking to clients and oh, having dinner with Japanese business men, completely forgetting about your own girlfriend! I tried doing something selfless and nice for you and all I get it a petty forehead kiss and a spit in the face!” I growled. My face was red hot by this point, my breathing shallow.

My boyfriend scoffed, almost in a laughing manner. “Fuckin’ hell, you’re still going on about that? What’s the big deal? You need to calm down.” he mocked. “I work long hours, practically every single day. When I get home, I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I want to sleep. On the weekends, I’m free. I’m not required to spend every waking second of my week with you!” Tom moved around me to climb into bed. He propped his pillow up and shut his eyes tightly. “Just go to sleep, goddammit.” he grumbled. I’m hanging at the end of my rope. He’s brushing this off, like I don’t mean anything! What happened to him?I stood over him, but it was as if all feeling in my body was gone. “So what? Is this what it’s gonna be from now on? Us sleeping in the same bed, living under the same roof but not talking? Not facing hardships and being upfront and honest with each other? Tommy, I love you but you’re…you’re supposed to take care of me…” My voice trailed off into oblivion. I didn’t want to beg but I didn’t want to lose him either. By this point, there were tears running a marathon down my face; Both of my under eyes were drenched with the salty fluid. This was destroying me. “You’re supposed to be my boyfri—”

“Y/N, shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Do you not understand fucking english?! Just shut the fuck up!” Tom roared at me, covering his face with his hands. My heart dropped, terrified at his sudden outburst. The sound of his scream was bouncing off the walls; Thomas had never, ever yelled at me before. Obviously over the duration of our relationship, we’ve gotten into little arguments but nothing too extreme. Any time we would ever disagree on something, we’d usually forget what we’re fighting about and laugh it off, or Tom would force a smile out of me and we’d have make up sex but this was…something else.

I was defeated. I did what he said, I shut up. I slumped towards my slide of the bed and grabbed my pillow, the end slightly tucked underneath Tom’s. Without giving it a second thought, I yanked it off the bed, his head falling back a bit at the sudden motion. His hands fell away from his face and he watched me go into the closet and grab one of the extra blankets we kept in there. I forced it down from the top shelf, a few other thinner blankets fell to the floor but I just left them there. I snatched my phone off the vanity beside the bed, stepped into my Chewbacca slippers and headed straight to the door of the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Tom piped up, a hint of concern lacing his voice. I cackled and spun around to face him. He sat up, looking like he was about to get up from the bed and come near me which was honestly the first and last thing I wanted right now. “I’m definitely not sleeping beside the man who has forgotten how to treat the woman he apparently ‘loves’.” I raged. He stared at me hard. “Y/N, I do love you. So much. I’m so—”

“You have a really funny way of showing it. You’re a jerk.” He looked hurt. Ha, good. Tom quickly climbed out of bed and came towards me as predicted. He would take one step forward, I’d take two steps back. “Just leave me the fuck alone, Holland. Go away.” I yelped, still backing out of the room. Remorse and regret traced his features, his bottom lip quivered as he started to absorb the mess he’s created tonight and every other night. “Baby, please, stay here with me. I’m sorry. I understand now. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. Please just stay here with me, I can’t sleep without you by my side.” he pleaded. I just continued walking down the dimly lit hallway. I stopped at the front of the guest bedroom down the hall, my hand on the handle. The metal was cold which sent goosebumps rolling up and down my skin.

“Don’t be sorry because you yelled at me,” I opened the door and flicked on the light. “Be sorry for neglecting me, over and over again.” I said, before stepping in the room and gently closing the door. I gazed at the bed. There weren’t any blankets or pillows, sorely for the fact that we never really let people stay over unless it was an emergency or if Harrison showed up at 3 AM drunk out of his mind because of who knows what. I tossed my pillow on the bed, it landed diagonally as the blanket soared through the air, falling gracefully on the mattress. I turned off the light and walked towards my sanctuary for the night. The bed was freezing, disheartening, lonely. I stuffed my face into the pillow and cried. I just let the tears flow and dampen the surface.

I heard Tessa scratching at the door which only made me cry harder. It was a silent cry that I didn’t want Tom to hear. I knew he was finally starting to open his eyes towards the situation and me, being so vulnerable, I wanted to forgive him. I wanted him here with me right now, with everything behind us, and just have his strong arms wrapped safely and securely around my body. The pooch’s clawing stopped after a minute, bringing me back down. I tried to sleep and I silently prayed that I could forget this night. I hated fighting with Tom. I’m not selfish, I do care about his work and understand that he’s stressed but I just want things to go back to the way that they were. When it was him and I against the world.

I awoke to my phone buzzing profusely against my forearm. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and fished around the crumpled mess of blanket to retrieve my device. When I finally found it, I had twenty two text messages and six missed calls from Y/F/N, guessing that every notification was regarding her date last night. I smiled in acknowledgement but tucked the phone under my pillow, not ready to interact with humans just yet. That lasted a good thirty seconds until I head scratching against the door again. I turned to face away from the door, assuming Tom was already up and let Tessa out of the room but the scratching just continued. I huffed and unwillingly left the now warm bed. I pulled my ridden up pyjama pants down and made my way to the door and swung it open. Tessa bolted right past me and hopped on the bed, turning in circles a few times before settling into a little ball of grey scruff. I chuckled at her as I went to step out of the room, only to have something knock into my feet, sending me crashing to the floor.

“Ow!” I exclaimed, the carpet leaving a burning sensation on my left cheekbone. “Oh, my god, Y/N! Are you okay?” a groggy voice called. I pushed myself off the ground and sat up against the wall. Tom was kneeling beside me in a split second. How’d he get here so quickly? I groaned as I looked up at him, his fingers grazing over the assumed carpet burn on my face. I flinched back, slapping his hand away. “Are you okay?” he repeated. I just stared at him in disbelief. What the hell? His eyes were bloodshot, his hair an absolute mess, I could tell he’s been running his hands through it repeatedly. I looked past him and saw his pillow and a thin, tattered blanket on the floor.

I moved my eyes back to him. “Did you sleep on the floor last night?” I questioned. He chuckled nervously and scratched the bak of his neck. “I stayed outside the guest room all night. I couldn’t sleep without you beside me. I came to get you…but after a while, I thought I’d give you some space.” he explained. My eyebrows knotted together as he dropped his head down. He leaned forward and stuffed his head in the crook of my neck. My arms instinctively moving up to caress his warm skin. “I’m sorry…I can’t believe what I said to you last night, let alone what the fuck I’ve been doing to you for the past few months, like you said.” he mumbled, his hands coming to rest of my thighs. I wrapped some strands of his hair around my fingers.

“I’m gonna be different. I have to, I want to, I need to be if I don’t want to lose you. I spent all night thinking about what you said and remembering all the times I’ve ditched you and forgot to remind you how much you mean to me. How I treated you? No boyfriend should ever do those things to their girlfriend. I never meant to do any of that to you but I still managed to. I was getting so caught up in my job and the success, I neglected and mistreated the one person who means more to me than anyone else in the entire world.” He raised his head and looked into my eyes. I could see small droplets of tears hanging onto his bottom lashes. I brushed them away gingerly with my thumb and kissed his nose. I rested my forehead against his as he sighed. “You…are the girl I want to marry and start a family with and this is not the way to do it. There are no excuses. I need to start treating you right again. I will do whatever it takes, Y/N. I love you so fucking much. Never for a single second have my feelings for you faltered. I’ll die before I stopped loving you. I’m so sorry for making you feel the way you’ve been feeling.” he concluded.

My chest tightened. This is exactly what I’ve wanted from him. I was so happy, I was thriving. “Tom?” I began, stroking his cheek with my thumb. “Yes, darling?” he replied desperately. I smiled at him contently. “I forgive you. I love you so much. Thank you.” I finished, pulling him in for a hug. He immediately snaked his arms around my body, our fronts pressed together tightly. Tom stood both of us up, not separating in the slightest. After holding each other for who knows how long, we pulled away and pressed our lips together in a mouthwatering, hungry, passionate kiss. I was finally getting my boyfriend back…He pulled away and kissed my forehead, eyelids, both cheeks, nose, and then lips.

“C’mon, my love. Let’s get a band aid on that scrape and go make some breakfast together.” Tom announced, as he turned and bent down in front of me, signalling me to jump on his back. I swooned, over the moon at what he just said. I hopped on his back and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, my fingers ghosting over his clavicles. He hooked his arms underneath the backs of my knees before playfully jumping up and down. I giggled in response, burying my face into his upper back, pressing kisses to his shoulder blades. “You’re as light as a feather, baby girl.” He declared, before taking us both to the kitchen.

I had faith in Tom that things were going to start looking up.

the ending is complete ass but i really just wanted to get this up :’)

#tom holland #tom holland imagines #tom holland imagine #tom holland x reader #tom holland oneshot #tom holland drabble #tom holland smut #tom holland blurbs #tom holland angst #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #ceo!tom

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adam-stafford · 7 years ago

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New LP Fire Behind the Curtain is available now on 2x12″ Gatefold Vinyl, Download/Streaming via Song by Toad Records BUY/Stream HERE!

Praise for Fire Behind the Curtain:

“This year marks the tenth anniversary of Song, By Toad as a label. Whilst there have been a number of excellent releases over that time, this may stand as perhaps the most stunning piece of art to have been released so far on the label.” - 9/10 God is In The TV

“Adam Stafford's new album is a rich and haunting record of intelligence, beauty, depth and darkness – it's a monumental piece of work.” - 5/5 The Skinny

“It’s worth surrendering to to its shifting soundscapes, from the mounting intensity of layered vocal mantra Penshaw Monument... to foreboding jazz punk march of Museum of Grinding Dicks... to the unsettling woodwind and doomy vocal intoning of Fanfare For The Mourning Tallow.” 4/5 The Scotsman

“Darker, troubled and tumultuous, this is highly emotive stuff. Listen to the heart-squeezing I’m You Last Week and dare your skin not to turn to gooseflesh. In its unconventional approach to rhythm and composition, it often recalls Varmints, the 2016 Scottish Album of the Year by the classically-trained Anna Meredith.” - The National

“An absolute triumph of an album.” - Nemone, Electric Ladyland BBC 6 Music

“Fire Behind the Curtain, sets the world to rights in all sorts of ways, reflecting interpretations of art-rock, ambient, drone, vocal experiments and electronica through a classical lens.” - M Magazine

“It’s an incredible feat from a composer pushing all sorts of boundaries and ultimately, an uplifting and rewarding piece of work.” The Crack

“This album has ideas just exploding from everywhere. Fans of adventurous, gleefully genre-mashing instrumental music will find much to love in this wild experience." - Independent Clauses

“These atmospheric vignettes will conjure up their own imagery, and soundtrack the films in your own head.” - 4.5/5 Is This Music?

“He’s moved far away from the traditional songwriting model and embraced the coolness of minimalism; this double album is blood, muscle and bone, with no fat to trim... the arrangements are bloody gorgeous, elegant, grounded by – from what I can make out – a human beat box, and the sweet reassurance of a choir.” - Getintothis Album Club

“There are signs of struggle throughout, tension between the harmonious and the discordant and Stafford uses a dizzying sonic palette to achieve this atmosphere.” - Trust The Wizards

“The first part of the record is an intricate, unfolding machine – exquisite clockwork rhythms overlaid with careful guitars, warm strings, constructed choruses, even jaunty whistling... When it’s done, it demands another listen, and another.” - 9.5/10 Backseat Mafia

“His music touches upon the likes of Steve Reich, Ingram Marshall and Meredith Monk, but also rekindles my own personal enjoyment of Mike Oldfield’s building and layering... this LP is frenetic, mystical, discordant and yet melodic at moments.” 9.2/10 The Fountain

#adam stafford #Scottish Indie #instrumental

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thesunlounge · 4 years ago

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Reviews 353: Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016

The newest release from Time Capsule carries the completely irresistible title of Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016 and finds label co-founder Kay Suzuki curating a miniature compilation aiming to present a personalized window into modern Japanese music. I say personalized because, rather than seeking to reflect what is contemporaneously popular, this release celebrates what Kay calls the “Island Sound,” which comprises a sort of loose and tropically-minded ideology dedicated to expanding genre boundaries and fusing musical traditions from all around the world. Thus across the vinyl’s five tracks, we are treated to a Caribbean-tinged reggae rewrite of a legendary jazz classic, a polychromatic surf slide and Hawaiian psych groove out, a fried and freaky mutant disco stomper led by chugging funk basslines, slashing fuzz riffs, and southern blues slide guitars, and an elegiac fusion of Aino folk, Afrobeat, and dub exotica made in tribute to the profound grief experience by both Syrian refugees and oppressed indigenous cultures within Japan’s own borders. As well, Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016 sits nicely alongside the recently released Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988-2018 in the following sense. While many reissue labels have their sights set on Japan’s musical past, with most of the focus being given to the rare groove, jazz, city pop, and environmental ambient music of the 70s and 80s, the curators of both Island Sounds of Japan 2009 - 2016 and Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988-2018 choose instead to spotlight lesser known and ever more modern corners of Japanese music, thus collecting together the kind of leftfield oddities and impossibly creative genre mashups that will inspire future generations of obsessive crate diggers, balearic minded DJs, and visionary producers.

Island Sounds from Japan 2009 - 2016 (Time Capsule, 2020) Saxophonist Akira Tatsumi made his name with The Determinations, an Osaka-based ska band operating throughout the 90s and early 00s. Following the group’s dissolution, Tatsumi dove ever deeper into Caribbean musical forms such as calypso and soca and following a solo album in 2013, he began to brainstorm ways he and his fellow musicians could develop a more distinctive musical identity…something “they could export to the world instead of merely following their influences.” Thus a regular jam out called “Akira Tatsumi presents Island Jazz Session” was born, featuring an ever-shifting collective of jazz and reggae musicians who eventually recorded an EP under the name Speak No Evil, the centerpiece of which is an inspired re-interpretation of the Wayne Shorter classic of the same name. Stabbing piano chords bring in a throbbing riddim, with hi-hats guiding the flow, snare rimshots cracking, piano chords skanking on waves of tropical sunshine, and Shinichiro Akihiro’s palm-muted guitars scratching on the beat. Tanko’s sensual basslines bob the body and work through zany high note accents as familiar horn themes flow over the mix, with Tatsumi’s alto and Motoharu’s tenor and soprano singing together through moaning reveries, descending through cinematic refrains, and bleating in bombast as Pablo Anthony’s martial snare rolls and proto-fusion drum fills break free from the riddim glide to bash and crash towards the sky. Eventually, we settle down into a deep reggae zone out while the saxophonists alight on dizzying solos, with hyperkinetic blues spirals and circular marathon cascades intertwining and occasionally shrieking towards free jazz desperation. Then comes a dreamy piano solo from Tetsuya Hataya, which intersperses blazing runs and percussive cluster chords as the entire length of the keyboard is explored. After these solo passages, we return to Shorter’s classical horn themes, with pleading blues melodies and soar ascents married to a sun-soaked Kingston skank. And following a false ending, everything drops back in heavier than before…the bass now locked into a sinister pulse while ghostly dub pianos underly a panning panorama of alien saxophone mesmerism.

The second track comes from AQATUKI, a group formed by “two guitar kids” Taaki and Chen who, together with a fluid collective of musicians, have been developing their own strand of psychedelia since the late 90s, one equally influenced by 70s space rock and 90s rave. However, for “Wakanoura,” Taaki, Chen, and friends are in bathing in rays of tropical sunshine, as the track is based around a Chen’s gemstone guitar harmonics, which themselves take inspiration from the junkyard-sourced idiophonics of Konono Nº1. As the prismatic guitar layers spread out across an infinite ocean surface, tight psych rock beats from Toda3 and Moro enter to sway the body while Taaki’s slide guitar glides between textures of Hawaiian rock and surfadelic splendor. Aknee’s bass chugs along and brings atmospheres of 50s pop romance as Chen’s crystalline harmonic webs flow into shimmering seaside arpeggios…the whole thing bringing visions of sunset skies and dolphins dashing through coral reefs. In fact, the liner notes explain that, in addition to taking inspiration from Konono Nº1, “Wakanoura” in finds the band lost in nostalgic revery as they collectively remember a beautiful sunset bar they played in the titular location. At some point, the track erupts in small scale as rimshots rain over the stereo field, basslines move down low, and double-time hi-hats add further propulsion to the rhythmic flow, with my mind drifting to the drug-induced balearica of Pharaohs and the post-rock exotica of Cul de Sac…especially as shimmering webs of polyrhythmic six string harmony support increasingly far out slide guitar explorations. Descending surf chords signal another transition, with the rhythms evolving into a sort of equatorial breakbeat while basslines dance on sunbeams, fuzzy slide hooks refract rays of tropical light, and distorted surf-psych licks hold down the groove. Elsewhere, we lock into a sort eternal two-note loop of tropical island fantasy…with everything breathing in unison and seeking out an eternal horizon…all before the cycles are broken by a glorious guitar solo, which rides high in the sky as tapped ride cymbals spread golden wavefronts in every direction.

Just as Aqatuki found themselves backpacking to India and Southeast Asia in the 90s to bathe in psychedelic radiance, so did Altz, who also took inspiratios from “Japanese punk originator[s]” Murahachibu and a host of other avant-rock bands discovered in his youth. Around the turn of the millennium, the artist began producing on his own via a computer and MPC, and has since enjoyed a prolific and eclectic career, with releases appearing on well known labels such as DFA, EM Records, and Bearfunk. “Orympia Rocks,” which comes from Bear Funk’s Hibernation (Vol. 1) sampler, slams right away into crushing disco kicks and ringing cymbals, with strange reverb effects spreading outwards into exo-planetary caverns. Chugging punk funk basslines cut in and out alongside chopped and mangled fuzz guitar riffs, which drop in and out from all sides of the mix or suddenly rocket across the spectrum while everything else flows and transforms through dub delay chains. After a surprising cut to silence, we drop back into the groove, with stoned basslines and muscular disco house freakbeats stomping beneath a grease-soaked cascade of country-fried slide guitar…a completely strange and inspired mash up that, as told by the liner notes, was inspired by Altz spinning southern rock classics such as The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The result comes off like something from the wildest reaches of the Mind Fair universe…with everything anxious, unsettled, and stubbornly refusing to lock in, preferring instead to tease out various elements while maniacally subverting well known forms of disco, house, funk, and stoner rock into a maddening dancefloor fever dream. Bleeping and blooping synthesizers beam in from faraway galaxies, crazed whistles zoom skywards, and occasionally, the slide guitar flies solo over the drums...its tremolo-soaked blues meditations fly solo before everything devolves into a storm of dubwise chaos. Later, laughing children induce LSD visions that obscure the mutant disco rock groove out and towards the end, after the drums disperse, the southern rock slide guitars transform towards Hawaiian tropicalia as calming ocean waves crash to shore.

In the liner notes, Kay Suzuki presents a beautiful and personal meditation on Keiichi Tanaka’s unique talents as well as his tragic passing. Indeed, Tanaka was a world traveller, having ventured as far as Mali, Senegal, and Morocco to learn a wide swath of rhythmic folk traditions. Coupled with a private lesson from Afrobeat legend Tony Allen, these experience established Tanaka as a distinctly skilled and diverse drummer…something that was on full display in his band Kingdom Afrorocks. After Kingdom Afrorock dissolved in 2014, Tanaka relocated from Tokyo to Hokkaido and reconnected with deep dub and Ainu folk fusionist OKI, who encouraged Tanaka to record a solo album, which eventually led to Keta Iicna Hika. However, Tanaka passed before seeing the LP’s release, which is all the more heartbreaking given how incredible the music is, with the record hinting at a deeply creative musical mind who was only just beginning to explore the full reaches of his artistic imagination. Taken from Keta Iicna Hika, “City of Aleppo” sees Tanaka and OKI creating a unique sort of blues inspired by the bombing of Aleppo, wherein mystically aligned basslines snake up and down through Afrobeat and tradition folk drum accents led by urgently tapped hats, four-four kicks, and sparse snare smacks. Sawing scrapes background kaleidoscopic layers of Ainu folk psaltery, with buzzing spiderwebs and psychotropic spirals woven from OKI’s tonkori and mukkuri. And the whole thing ebbs and flows in intensity to evoke the way sorrow hits in waves…as moments of apparent calm give way to dense cascades of pain and anguish, with the exotica drum gallop erupting into climactic flamboyance while infinite string webs evoke the spiritual suffocation of Aleppo’s occupation, as well as the historic oppression of the Ainu people at the hands of Japan’s government. OKI’s dub version of the track from Keta Iicna Hika is also included, which brilliantly deconstructs everything into miasma of oscillating echo and prismatic future folk. Basslines dance over beatless stretches, dubwise fx chains mutate and morph the Afro-Aino rhythms amidst echoing bursts of plucked string violence, and the mix is increasingly overwhelmed by psychedelic editing, with elements dropping unexpectedly, black smoke drone clouds cycling through chasms of silence, and cavernous drum fills ricocheting beneath waterfalls of fractalized psaltery.

(images from my personal copy)

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peckhampeculiar · 7 years ago

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For the record

Local resident Garth Cartwright has written a book chronicling the story of the UK record shop. As Record Store Day on April 21 approaches, he shares some snippets about the music shops of SE15

I’ve written a book that tells the tale of the UK record shop. The story stretches from 1890 – when wax cylinder recordings of music were first made commercially available – to the present.

Peckham has hosted all kinds of record shops over the past century. Having spent the last 25 years in south London (and much of it in SE15) I went looking for local stories to include. And I found some great ones.

Today the area is once again a music hub, with Rye Wax in the Bussey Building basement and Lorenzo’s Record Shack in Sky Shopping City both providing cutting-edge new and used vinyl selections.

Another local music shop, Maestro Records, opened in the mid-1990s on Parkstone Road, just off Rye Lane, in the building that once housed Reed Music Centre (later Reed For Records).

Owner Michael Fountaine, who has run Maestro since its inception, remembers shopping in Reed’s. His shop offers both CDs and vinyl, focusing on music for Peckham’s Afro-Caribbean community: reggae, soul, rap, gospel, soca and R&B.

CD Base in Holdron’s Arcade sells CDs and DVDs and specialises in rap and dancehall; while Craig Jamieson of Peckham Soul offers up a small but tasty selection of vinyl LPs and singles – as well as branded clothing – from his base at Peckham Pelican.

That said, since I last wrote about SE15 record shops for the Peculiar back in 2016, there have been a few closures. Yam Records in Holdron’s Arcade recently pulled down the shutters for the last time to relocate to Bermondsey.

This is a great shame as Yam was a real hub of youth activity, with a tiny radio station, a record label and all kinds of contemporary electronic music on 12-inch 45s, alongside some good ’n’ funky used records.

On Friary Road Sacred Records still stands, its window bedecked with bright LP sleeves, but it has not opened in more than a year. Run as a hobby by two close friends, it’s a treasure trove of LPs and obscure musical delights such as historic Maori and Croatian recordings.

Other music shops have come and gone over the years. In the past, Peckham was home to a handful of small but significant record stores, including the aforementioned Reed For Records.

For decades Reed’s was Peckham’s most significant and best-loved record shop and while no one has been able to verify exactly when it opened, I’m guessing it was some time during the early 1950s.

One commentator at the British Record Shop Archive website recalls Jean Reed running into the shop saying she’d just seen Bermondsey boy Tommy Steele audition and that he would be a big star. This would have been 1956 and Jean was proved correct.

She and her husband Ray ran the Parkstone Road shop and another branch in Forest Hill on Dartmouth Road.

Their early record bags – often the only trace left of these shops is their branded paper bags – also mention a connection with West End Reproducers on Tottenham Court Road but, so far, no further information has come to light about this shop.

Jean and Ray were much loved by the local community, with Jean possessing an encyclopaedic mind when it came to knowing what records had been released and what were about to be released.

Back then, almost all record shops kept the covers of the LPs out front and the actual vinyl behind the counter. Customers would then take the cover to the counter if they wished to have a listen.

Most shops had small listening booths until the late-1970s where, if you were considered a serious customer and not just a time waster, you would be allowed to listen to the record of your choice – or purchase.

Older Peckham residents recall how Rye Lane was once known as the “golden mile” for shopping, and remember the vast Jones & Higgins department store that once dominated the top end of the Lane, stretching from Peckham High Street to Hanover Park.

Jones & Higgins housed a gramophone department – as many of the big stores did pre-World War Two – and this would have sold sheet and recorded music.

Many market traders would also have sold records: from the introduction of the 78 (it overtook cylinders in sales by 1910) until the late 1970s, large amounts of 78s, 45s and LPs were sold on market stalls across the UK.

Again, older residents recall buying records at market stalls in the 1960s – and Jamaican, Trinidadian and African records were often sold alongside food, beauty products and such by traders who catered specifically to the new immigrant communities.

Bicycle shops were also popular outlets for 78s but if Wilson’s on Peckham High Street – Peckham’s oldest trading shop and still a bike shop today – ever sold shellac there is no record of it.

The cardboard 78 sleeves often boasted the name of the outlet, with bike and electrical shops being prominent retailers. A1 Records, which existed from the 1920s to the 1990s on the corner of Walworth Road and East Street Market, was based in the back of a light fittings outlet.

While Wilson’s remains a mystery I do know that, directly along from it in the shop that is now home to the fabulous Persepolis, there once stood the majestic Peckham Gramophone Stores.

A photo taken in what I believe to be 1933 demonstrates a group of men and boys – and one woman (and possibly a girl in the far left corner) – watching as a man puts needle to 78 on a portable gramophone.

What are they listening to? Most likely the new Jack Hylton 78, as a large, framed image of Hylton rests against the shop window and a cardboard stand of Jack is right beside the early DJ.

Jack was a towering figure in British dance music during the 1920s and 30s and lived the life of a star – squiring beautiful women, driving fast cars and residing in a mansion. In 1933 a new Hylton 78 could well have had Peckhamites out on the street and listening to the music play.

The photo shows that Peckham Gramophone Stores sold not just records, but gramophones, wirelesses (radios) and newspapers, specifically the Daily Herald – a paper that existed from 1912-1964 when it relaunched as The Sun.

What happened to Peckham Gramophone Stores? So far, no one has come forward with any information on it but, as World War Two led to a shortage of shellac – the resin used to make 78s – it’s likely this is what helped bring about its closure.

Sally Butcher, the polymath who owns Persepolis, says the building appears to have been a sweet shop for some time, so it’s unlikely Peckham Gramophone Stores was in competition with Reed Music Centre. As Persepolis sells Persian CDs today, the tradition continues.

In the 1970s Peckham changed from being a predominantly white community to an Afro-Caribbean one and reggae “shacks” opened selling Jamaican 45s as fresh and hot as a saltfish patty.

The most famous of these shacks was Intone at 48 Rye Lane, which was run by the legendary sound system DJ and record producer Lloydie Coxsone and attracted legions of loyal customers including Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

Peel was so enthused by the new dub and roots reggae records he would buy in Intone, that he championed it both on his radio show and in his column in Sounds, which was a music weekly.

Peel seemed to take a certain glee in taking the train from Victoria Station to Peckham Rye and then venturing into Intone, where the music was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think and the air was filled with ganja smoke.

Intone closed sometime in the mid-1970s and, not long after, Dub Vendor opened its very first shop in the arcade by Peckham Rye Station.

Dub Vendor’s founders were John MacGillivray and Chris Lane, two white London youths who were obsessive Jamaican music fans. They would develop DV into several shops and the Fashion record label – home to Smiley Culture’s hits.

Yet their Peckham venture proved a disaster: having only been open a month, they arrived one morning to find the shop turned over – stereo, speakers and stock all stolen.

Dub Vendor subsequently quit Peckham, operating as a market stall in Clapham Junction before opening celebrated reggae shops in Ladbroke Grove and Clapham.

Crime was a threat to other record shops too. Ray Reed was attacked and robbed in Reed’s in the 1970s, as was Mr Tipple, the owner of Tipple’s newsagent and record shop on Peckham Park Road.

Mr Tipple was infamous for his rudeness – he often refused to let customers see the records, which were kept in the back of the shop – and for his deep stock: if you were lucky enough to get access you could find mint records dating back to the 1950s.

Tipple’s closed at some point around 1990 when Mr Tipple died. Ray Reed passed away in the late 1970s but Jean kept the Peckham shop going until she retired in the 1990s. These shops may be gone but the memories, stories and records they sold live on.

..............................

In-depth stories on Peckham’s record shops – and many more across London and the UK – feature in Going For A Song: A Chronicle Of The UK Record Shop (Flood Gallery Press). It’s available now in all good book and record shops (including Lorenzo’s and Persepolis). If you have any memories of record shops to share, please visit garthcartwright.com to get in touch.

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righteoustuff · 4 years ago

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A Brief History of Japanese Chillout & Downtempo

It’s no secret that Japan has produced some of the finest meditative sounds. From the environmental music of Hiroshi Yoshimura to the warm synths of Haruomi Hosono, blissed-out electronics have been surfacing since the 1980s and have continued to evolve through to the present day.

Ken Hidaka, Max Essa and Dr. Rob are three friends and deep digging collectors who’ve been immersed in these sounds for years, be that through writing, DJing or throwing their long-running monthly listening party at Bar Bonobo in Harajuku.

In 2017, whilst in Copenhagen on tour with Midori Takada, Ken visited the home of Kenneth Bagger – the boss behind Copenhagen-based imprint Music For Dreams – who asked him if he’d lead the charge for an instalment of their Collectors Series. Enlisting the help of Max and Dr. Rob, the trio spent the next three years charting the history of Japanese chillout and downtempo music from the 80s through to 2018. Titled Oto No Wa: Selected Sounds of Japan 1988 – 2018, each track is the result of friendships and physical connections, mapping out the development of chilled sounds, from ambient to electro-acoustics, post-house and balearic.

Alongside a mix of Japanese chillout and downtempo from Dr.Rob, we asked him, Ken and Max to discuss some of their personal favourites.

Oto No Wa is out now on Music For Dreams.

Where does your love for Japanese Chillout stem from?

Ken Hidaka: For me, it was when I heard the Silent Poets: Moment Scale (Dubmaster X Remix), the first track on Jose Padilla compiled Cafe Del Mar- Volumen Dos. Not sure where I bought this compilation as I was in between living in London and in Tokyo around the time of when this compilation was released in 1995. At the time, to be honest with you, I was way more into western club music and really not much into Japanese music at all so this Silent Poets’ track in this compilation surprised me a lot!

Although my tastes for music were still leaned towards mostly western club music, after coming back to Japan, I slowly started to discover a few Japanese music that caught my interest. Artists that released music out of Bellissima Records at the time such as Nobukazu Takemura’s Child’s View, Reflection out of Lollop (their debut album, The Errornormous World was also released out of Clear in the UK), Major Force crew, etc. You could say that my roots for Japanese down tempo/ chill-out music stem from Jose Padilla and his Balearic aesthetics, Club Jazz sounds and electronic music that was emerging from Japan.

What Japanese Chillout record has left the biggest impression on you as a DJ, and why?

Rob Harris: As a DJ, I don’t know, but as someone passionate about recorded music, a student of sound, I can give you two Japanese, downtempo / chill out records that made a big impression on me.

The first is Haruomi Hosono’s Paraiso. When I lived in Tokyo, which is about ten years ago now, I spent a lot of time digging for vinyl. Using the second-hand stores as an excuse to get to know the city, and searching for stuff, both for my own collection and to sell. Paraiso was one of the things on my “wants list”. It was on there because Jose Padilla, the former DJ at Ibiza’s Cafe Del Mar, had mentioned it in a radio interview. Even back then this album wasn’t so easy to find. It wasn’t expensive because the boom in Japanese music was still off on the horizon but there didn’t seem to be that many copies around. Produced in 1978, maybe it hadn’t been issued on CD, and those folks with were hanging onto their copies.

Anyhow when I did find one I didn’t know what to make of it – why was it in Jose’s favourites? I’d already hoover-ed up most of the Yellow Magic Orchestras output – the band Hosono founded with Yukihiro Takahashi and Ryuichi Sakamoto – for its chugging electronic afro / cosmic crossovers, but this was acoustic guitar-driven, softly strummed singer-songwriter stuff. But then bumping the needle, scanning from track to track, I hit the title number and understood – as Hosono-san used studio effects to deconstruct the song – send it into the stratosphere. Mid-way through it just dissolved into sonic shimmer, like a passing comet’s tail. Creating an extra-terrestrial exotica – an easy-listening muzak with its sights set not on Hawaii but the stars.

The second record is Sth. Notional’s ‘Yawn Yawn Yawn’. For me this is a defining Japanese downtempo / chill out release. Again it was a favourite of Jose’s – but I only learned that in hindsight. It was Mancunian balearic guru, Richard “Moonboots” Bithell who tasked me with finding a copy. His London-based counterpart, Phil Mison, had one and he didn’t. This record was and still is super rare, since it was made in the early-90s, and kinda opposite to Paraiso, was far more abundant on CD. But then the CD didn’t have all the mixes. Jose and Phil had both championed the break-driven G-Tar Canyon Mix at the Cafe Del Mar, but it was Moonboots who picked up on the Dream… Another Reality version – which is an eight and a half minute meditation of sampled shore-line, piano and poetry. A hippie ode to Mother Nature – which to the West might sound cheesy – but captures a spirituality that exists in everyday Japan – something you only really appreciate, learn to respect, and hopefully come to understand, by living here. These are largely islands of gentle souls.

Moonboots later put this mix on his Originals compilation – co-selected with “Balearic” Mike Smith – for Claremont 56. I can’t tell you how ecstatic I was when I came across the record’s sea-blue sleeve in a rack labelled “Major Force & Friends” in Shibuya`s Recofan. I was seriously in double-take shock. To date I’ve only ever found three copies of the OG. Yawn Yawn Yawn was however reissued by Italy’s Archeo Recordings in 2018. The package expanded by a host of new remixes, and spread across six sides of vinyl. Reworks by Max Essa, Chee Shimizu, and Kuniyuki Takahashi. The update by Tadashi Yabe – ex of Untied Future Organization – is truly amazing. It’ll catch you off-guard. A fucked-up funky, psychedelic collage that – I’ll stick my neck out here – is the best Japanese “balearic” track of modern times. In my opinion if you only own one Japanese downtempo / chill out record then this Archeo reissue of Sth. National’s Yawn Yawn Yawn should be it.

What Japanese Chillout record has made the biggest impact on your sound as a producer, and why?

Max Essa: It’s difficult to single out one particular record, but I’m going to go with ‘Julia’ by Seigen Ono from the Comme Des Garçons Volume Two LP (1989). I got my first break making records in the early 90s through house music. Dance music genres/sub-genres are very rigid stylistically. When one is making those kind of records you can’t just make something that exists purely because it’s a beautiful, emotive, powerful piece of music, it ‘has to be’ a certain tempo, it has to have a 4/4 kick drum etc etc. This is the way I ended up thinking when I approached making music and I thought like that for many years!

I remember hearing ‘Julia’ for the first and being utterly charmed by it. It’s a very elegant piece that combines a calming tranquility with an ever so slightly mysterious, emotional undertow. The effect it had on my own approach to making music was to make me place far more value on the music for it’s own sake. I wanted to start creating music, moments, combinations of sounds that appealed beyond dance floors, DJs, beat-mixing.

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spamzineglasgow · 4 years ago

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(HOT TAKE) Notes on a Conditional Form by The 1975, part 2

In the second instalment of a two part HOT TAKE (read part one here) on The 1975′s latest LP, Notes on a Conditional Form (Dirty Hit, 2020), Scott Morrison ponders the tricksterish art of writing about music, before riffing on the history of the album as form, questions around genre, nostalgia and a sense of the contemporary, not to mention that saxophone solo and why Stravinsky would love this album.

Dear Maria,

> How pleasant it feels to begin a review with a note to a friend.

> Shoutout/cc:/@FrankO’Hara – I always liked his idea to write a poem like it’s addressed to just one other person. It strikes me as interesting to begin a piece of criticism in the same way. So, this is the mode I will try to inhabit throughout.

> As I read your words, and pondered, and learned, I was caught in the twin state of delighting each time you hit upon something already identified in my own thoughts – some of which I will expand upon here - and equally delighted every time you wrote something I could or would not. Such is the joy of conversation.

> I suppose in this preamble between speakers, which keeps up the pretence of our characters conversing - which will, inevitably, lapse as the form of this review gives way to a longer, more oneiristic, probably, onanistic, possibly, enquiry into the album (an act impossible in real conversation, by the way, imagine, imagine someone actually speaking for this long, how boring and alienating that would be, and yet that is usually what criticism is). Anyway, before all that, to help set the scene, I should mention a few ‘real world’ details. All of which happened either online, of course, or in isolation, because that, as you mention, is the real world now, during the violent interlude of Covid-19.

> I was delighted – that word again, repetitions and patterns begin anew already – to be asked to write this review. Firstly, because, like you say, I am a fan of The 1975. But also, because I am a writer and I am a musician and I am trying just now to forge a new mode of writing about music, one that can be both analytical (technically, socially, historically) and expressive (personally, lyrically, emotionally). And, most of all because I have always been, at best, suspicious, and, at worst, dismissive, of album reviews.

> I wrote, in our Messenger chat, ‘I usually find music reviews unhelpful’, which makes me sound like a bit of a dick, really. But what I meant is, what I meant is.

> There’s a saying I think about a lot, as the aforementioned writer and musician who writes about music: ‘writing about music is like dancing about architecture’ (Martin Mull, Frank Zappa, or Elvis Costello, or any of the other people that sharp quote is blurrily misattributed to.)

> Incidentally, I would love to see a dance about architecture. But sometimes I think the sentiment of the statement is true. Will writing about music always be missing the point? Will it, through words, ever really be able to get to the essentially wordless essence of music? But I am a writer. And I am a musician. And I like writing about music. (Incidentally, I like making music about writing less). Yet I do feel there is some truth to the saying, I guess. Twists and turns. Try again. Here is another way of saying what I am trying to say.

> Music reviews make me hate adjectives. And I love adjectives. But often commercial reviews – for dozens of reasons, many of them valid, most of them related to that capital prefix – become attempts to describe a sound, invariably an artist’s ‘new sound’, again related to that capital prefix. Often, the goal is to generate press, to entice people to listen – or not – and so feed the music industry and the market. And to describe these new sounds, adjectives are piled-up like car crashes. Trying to describe a sound at any great length is, I think, ultimately fated to fail. Adjectives, up to a point, can provide greater and ever-more strident clarity. But, after a certain point – that appears very quickly in most pop reviews - saturation point is reached, and the clarity disappears, and we are left very far away from the music we were originally trying to pile word upon word to reach. ‘Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied’, you might say, if you were into foreshadowing. Which I am (obviously).

> So, I suppose, to continue thinking out loud (in silence, at my keyboard) I am interested in writing around music. Not describing the sounds (‘Let sounds be themselves’, says John Cage, whispering in my memory’s ear), but I am interested in writing that can tease out some of the ideas in and around the music and extend them in new directions. That, I think, is a different and interesting kind of dance worth attempting.

> We understand a review, then, as this kind of dance: as a record of the reviewer’s experience of listening to a record, which will accept that it will largely take as its subject the listening, and not the record. Even better if it’s a dialogue between two. So, here’s what I think about the album.

> Ok, before I talk about the album, actually, I would like to talk about a book. I hope that’s alright. There is no objective correlation between the album and the book except the proximity in time in which I experienced them. Let’s get that out of the way at the very beginning. The book has nothing to do with the album. But it does have something to do with how I heard it.

> The book is called An Experiment with Time. I mentioned this to you once already over Zoom. It was written in 1927. My copy belonged to my grandfather, in fact, and his writing – and so his pen and then his hand and then his whole vanished being – appeared occasionally at marginal or pivotal points throughout the text. That was part of what I liked about it, I guess.

> The book – which I allowed Wikipedia to tell me only after I had pushed my way through it – is regarded as an imaginative curiosity, but one which science has never taken seriously. That’s fine for me, because I am far more familiar, fluid and fluent in the language and implications of the imagination that I am of science.

> The book, broadly in two halves, sets out in its first strange span experiences of premonitions in dreams. That will give you the idea of the kind of science book it is. The second half is an attempt at a logical, philosophical, and occasionally mathematical explanation of Time that can account for these premonitory fissures.

> It posits that, in addition to the three dimensions of space (height, breadth and depth, I suppose), that time is a fourth dimension in our universe. I’ve heard that said, but I never really got it before. I do now, and it is very beautiful, because it begins to make me imagine, how, like a sculptor, I can ply, fold and shape with this new dimension. You can imagine how this might be useful to a musician, music being an art that can only exist through time.

> Anyway, the book then goes on to posit that a fourth dimension in which something can be observed to travel (our consciousness), must necessarily imply an observer in a fifth dimension to observe that travel, and then one in a sixth dimension, and so on, ad inifitum, infinite regress, serial time.

> I confess this somewhat surpassed the boundaries of my metaphysics (and/or silently slipped over my head), but the image of the infinite regress has stayed with me, the clickanddrag of old Windows windows ossified and pulled to leave twisting, spiralling trails; the gold-tipped rhythm of tenement window embrasures, repeating, far off, clickanddragged up a hill (hints and twists of Escher), on my daily walks.

> Wikipedia later told me that an infinite regress is a shaky ground on which to base a philosophical proof. Again, this is fine for me: I am a bad philosopher, because I am not competitive, and so this does not bother me very much.

> The infinite regress is a beautiful image, with lots of possibility in it for further imaginings, and it entrances me. So, keep this idea of serial observers and the limitless extension it implies close, please (foreshadowing again, you’re welcome).

> I will switch now, briefly, too briefly, from critic to fanboy (I contain multitudes, etc.).

> Notes on a Conditional Form as an album title made me smile a smile that was very close to a wince or wink. Classic Matty, was probably the thought that came next. You have already summarised dastardly, dear, endearing, calamitous Matty, so I will move on assuming that, Matty Healy, yeah, I know.

> Back to the critic. The conditional form, in this review has already been (drumroll, eyeroll) music reviews themselves. See part one.

> Now I would like to take the album as the form in question – not this album, but albums generally, as this album is an exploration of the album form. The Album, capitalised.

> Albums have become normalised. But let’s play dumb for a moment – one of the cleverest things we can do - and we’ll see that albums are anything but inevitable, especially in the boundless age of streaming.

> Before this, albums used to be defined as collections with physical bounds. The capacity of a CD; before that, a length of magnetic tape; before that, the edge of a vinyl, a shellac, a wax cylinder. That about takes us back to the start of recorded audio media, I think.

> After Edison’s initial, waxy curiosities, albums began - like most things we love and hate - as a product. The form of the album was a circle. The music was a line. The edge of the line was the end of time. Marcel Duchamp’s Rotoreliefs, as a fun aside. And, as another, did you know that there’s a funny B-plot in all of this to do with Beethoven. (It’s always to do with fucking Beethoven.) Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony became the arbitrary marker for the desired length of the CD. It had never before been possible to fit the symphony onto a single, uninterrupted piece of media. And so, the B-plot goes, this is why the standard CD holds the amount of time that it does.

> Anyway, regardless of who shaped them, physical recorded media have, since their staggered births, profoundly shaped culture. Pop songs, especially singles, are still 3 and a half minutes long because that was the maximum amount of time that could be squeezed onto a 78, in the shellac days. Time was short and simple then, seemingly.

> Notes on a Conditional Form is 81 minutes long. It had 8 singles leading up to it, released over a span of ten months. Clearly, physical boundaries and marketing timelines, are not being treated in the usual way. You could just release singles forever now. But the fact this ended up as an album shows some belief in the concept beyond the physical and, yes, the commercial. Let’s press on, look elsewhere.

> Since we’ve started talking about classical music – ok, since I started talking about classical music – I’d like to dwell there for a moment, because there are foreshadows of The Album, conceptually speaking (and this album specifically) several layers up, several parenthesis ago, criticism as serial digression, in classical music.

> Collecting songs as albums was a favourite pastime of the Romantics, early emos. @FranzSchubert, @ClaraSchumann, @JohannesBrahms – there’s another B-plot in that trio if you want to look it up, by the way. Also, Clara Schumann is overlooked, like all female composers, because the classical music world is deeply patriarchal. It’s important to say that whenever we can.

> Anyway, the Romantics did not develop the album as a physical form – the only available recording medium at that time was sheet music, which they did sell in a big way, actually. But really, they helped develop the album as a conceptual form. They collected a group of shorter songs to make a larger statement – Schubert especially. In the 19th century, this was known as a song cycle, a lovely phrase, that makes me think of cycling through meadows, which I have done more than usual recently, as part of my state-sanctioned exercises, though the meadow was in fact an overgrown golf course, and no less lovely for it.

> Schubert’s Die Winterreise is a classic example of the song cycle – and another example of the emo-Romantic - a cycle of poems set to music that take the listener on a journey over time. Sound familiar? Albums. Song cycles. Song spokes. Meadows. Grasses and wildflowers. Meandering journeys.

> Anyway, here we finally return to Notes on a Conditional Form. Collecting songs together allows for an exploration of ideas that can evolve or expand over time – a Brief Inquiry, you might say. Art as a tool of investigation. Process. And this album certainly does that. You already touched on some of the ideas in the album: the climate crisis, the Anthropocene, digital communication, social unrest, calls to action, my favourite lyric on that theme, while we’re here:

Wake up, wake up, wake up, we are appalling

And we need to stop just watching shit in bed

And I know it sounds boring and we like things that are funny

But we need to get this in our fucking heads-

> You explore these ideas well so I will not pursue them more for now. Thank you!

> The other effect of collecting songs – or anything together – is that it gives birth to form. (Gasp, he said the title of the movie!)

> Yes, collecting things together as an album is what creates the form in all senses of the word – physical, commercial, conceptual. Form, pure form, is not the things, or the arrangement of the things, but the relationship between the arranged things. Glimpsing this is like getting a delicious glimpse of time as a fourth dimension. As I may have already let slip, I am very interested in time. And so, I am naturally interested in musical forms, which can only be apprehended through time, with time, thanks to time – thank you, time. We don’t often say that.

> This is where I will, at last - god, imagine I had been speaking at you this whole time - this is where I will at last get into the main topic of this review. The remarkable form of this album.

> Wait, sorry, one more thing before I do. A really quick one. As well as time, musical form also needs contrast. For sections to appear as distinct, and thus for us to clearly apprehend the difference between them, and thus get a glimpse of Form, they must contrast with one another, for how else would we apprehend change, notice borders, know we are somewhere else. (An interesting digression here is process music, which I love dearly, and which has an entirely different relationship with form. Look it up, if you like.)

> Anyway, for our purposes now, musical form requires contrast. This could be achieved in many ways: traditionally, it was done with different melodies or harmonies; but it could be done with volume, instrumentation, tempo, texture etc. etc.

> The main way that this album delineates its striking – and, to my mind, for what it’s worth, unique and new – form, how it creates its contrast, is using all of the above tricks, but, even more so, by contrasting styles/genres. This was immediately what struck me and thrilled me about this album, and it’s kind of funny – for me as the annoying writer, perhaps less so for you, the reader, I mean listener – that it’s taken me 2,534 words to mention it. This I think is the brilliance of this record. This is why we can call it not just contemporary, but new.

> The 1975 have always been shifting, but never like this. This album contains, sometimes literally right next to each other: punk, orchestral music, UK garage, Americana, shoegaze, folk, dancehall, 80s power ballads – and, of course, pop, whatever that means. Stravinsky became famous for sharp juxtapositions of distinct musical blocks. He would fucking love this.

> I messaged you, after my first listen, to say that the album reminded me of one of Sophia Coppola’s soundtracks. That was an instinctive, emotional response, but, having thought about it, I can now demonstrate the reason for the similarity. The stylistically varied end products are similar to one another because the methodology is similar: soundtracks select music practically to achieve emotional affects. Soundtrack albums use music as a tool to heighten ideas that lie elsewhere, in their case, in the filmed scenes they accompany. If you believe Matty Healy, this is also what The 1975 do. They use beauty, in whatever style or genre they find it:

‘Beauty is the sharpest tool that we have - if you want someone to pay attention, make it beautiful’.

> What do you make of that, @Keats? No, really, I would love to know.

> I think this is a remarkable musical strategy, that requires flexibility, knowledge and skill. That there is such a high level of all these things in the band is what allows it the strategy to be successful.

> I would like to pause here and consider the implications of this strategy on a personal, social and cultural level.

> Musical genre and personal identity have been as fused for as long as pop music has existed. This could be a trick of the market, or it could be a need of the individual psyche, or both. I think there is some truth in theory that in the increasingly widespread absence of God – by which I mean organised religion – people need to find both a guide for their metaphysics and morals, and a structure for their community, as these are some of the most effective tools we have discovered for constructing our Selves, making sense of our lives and the world. Art can provide the guide for many people. It also provides community. These communities, collections – albums? - of political, moral and aesthetic views, then become subcultures.

> Until very recently, subcultures were fixed. ‘Hardcore till I die’, ageing ravers, old punks. Interestingly one never really sees ageing emos. But that’s a subject for another essay.

> This, I think, is perhaps what is so striking here: musical genres are normally culminations (or roots, depending on how you look at it) of lived sub or counter cultures. These usually result from a fixed viewpoint about life and society, shared by the individuals that comprise them. The individuals identify with what the music says, how it is presented and how it looks as much – or perhaps even more - than how it sounds.

> Before now, it would have been shocking to imagine a band switching effortlessly from one style to another – this occasionally happens over the course of a career, between albums, but almost never in the same album itself - because it would feel like a betrayal, if we accept that bands and styles represent fixed ways of life and viewpoints and that neither lives nor viewpoints can change. Which, obviously they can. And which, obviously, they do, nowadays, with increasing speed, @Coronavirus.

> Matty’s appearance is a perfect demonstration of this. Minging Matty, Hearthrob Matty, Matty in vintage jeans, in a skirt, in a pinstripe suit. If we accept the old association of musical style/subculture and the clothing/uniform each produces, what would the ideal garb of a The 1975 listener be? A screen. A real, working search engine, fused with their body.

> Previously, the model was that bands had ‘influences’ which they ‘blended’ to create a ‘new’ sound. Here, The 1975 don’t really focus on blending sounds at the level of individual songs: the blend, boldly, happens at the level of the album. If the album is like a soundtrack, it is the soundtrack to the algorithmic age of effortless consumption of media.

> And I would like an examination of that idea to be the final track on this album. I mean, review. I mean conversation.

> The 1975 are inseparable from recorded media. Not just their own, but recorded media from the past. They are not able to invoke and inhabit this startling panoply of styles, to my knowledge, because they have studied in individual places or with masters of each craft or tradition – they are able to do it because they, like us, are able to consume recordings of these styles, and they, like us, have done so all their lives.

> When The 1975 invoke these styles, they are not evoking a tradition, or a way of doing things, or even seeing things. They are invoking personal memories of experiencing recordings, encountering media. We can take a look at a few examples of this.

> Let’s start with the classical stuff. The orchestral interludes do not sound like they are written by classical composers, or even composers of film soundtracks - the use of orchestration is different. It sounds, to my ear, like acoustic instruments playing what were originally MIDI parts. Which, I imagine, is what happened. That would usually be called bad orchestration. I am not interested in saying that. I am slightly interested in the effect of getting classical musicians, with their classical training, to play music written by people without classical training on a computer. What are the implications of writing for the flute as a soundfont, rather than a person, instrument or tradition?

> And what is the significance of placing an orchestra, playing instrumental compositions, on a pop record. These are not backing arrangements in an existing pop song, as we commonly encounter; nor are they classical arrangements of a pop song (see Hacienda Classical et al).

> These are standalone orchestral compositions on a record that also includes shoegaze, UK garage, two-step, Americana, punk. What, then, is the significance of this? The instruments, I believe, are being chosen less for their own sonic timbres, and more for their social or cultural timbres. I will try to explain this thought.

> Matty has often spoken about ‘Disneyfication’; he said he wanted ‘The Man Who Married a Robot / Love Theme’ on A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships to sound like a Disney movie. What does that mean? It means, I think, he wants it to sound like old movies, childhood, nostalgia. The orchestra is a sinecure for the ‘symphonic’, the cinematic, the dramatic; the orchestra is used like a banjo, which is, elsewhere on the album, used to conjure the exoticism of Americana as heard by someone listening to it in the UK, to paraphrase Matty’s words.

> The stylistic references in the album are as much references to media as much as they are to music. Disney: orchestral sounds, likely filtered and wobbled through VHS cassettes. The orchestra, already made symbolic by its association with movies, made a double symbol, a reflection of a shadow, being invoked through the original sound not really for this sound but for our associations with it. The banjo invoked as both an instrument of yesteryear and over there. The music constructs frames of otherness to facilitate wistfulness, longing, memory.

> The chart success of ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’ is that it’s a modern bop that sounds like 80s bangers. Its artistic success is that it contrasts the feeling of halcyon safety created by its imitation of 80s bangers (experienced for millennials usually as triumphant climaxes in movies, jubilant moments on oldies stations), and rubs this up against some of the disturbing parts of the present: the angst of online relationships, nudity with people you don’t know and have not and may never meet. This is a simple but highly effective juxtaposition.

> ‘Bagsy Not In Net’ does this too: a quotidian, painful experience of childhood (not wanting to play in goal in a football game), expressed as a yearning and grand orchestral statement. This is true, too, of ‘Streaming’. This is pop music Pop Art: the contemporary quotidian expressed in the language of an old tradition and invested with the significance of an Art it simultaneously questions the power and validity of.

> And, to linger on ‘If You’re Too Shy’ for just a little longer, what is the meaning of a saxophone solo in pop music in 2020? It is symbolic: a shortcut, practically a meme. Saxophone solos exist in a present in contemporary jazz - they are a living history making new futures. But saxophone solos almost always only exist in pop music as ghosts (careless whispers) of the past. This particular sax solo is so euphoric to us less because of its musical content and more because of the emotions we have learned to associate with sax solos through other media.

> The final, most perfect example of this, of everything I have been getting at, really, is the UK garage references. These are themselves references to artists like The Streets, and Burial, who, themselves, were referencing the primary records of UK garage which they (The Streets and Burial) never experienced in clubs, but as recordings. And The 1975 experienced these recordings of recordings. Layers and layers of reference. And here, abruptly, we find ourselves back at the opening image of the infinite regress.

> At times, this album wants to express the present moment back at itself, and so prompt reflection and action. The fright of the zeitgeist. In this we can include Greta Thunberg, ‘People’, and the overtly socio-political statements on the album. I hope these tracks will be successful. In the future, they will take on the significance of historic artefacts: preserved truths from a vanished time, fixed and rich, like amber.

> But there are long swathes of the album, that do not have this intent, and which will, I believe, have a different longevity. These are the (often wordless) lyrical sections: the abstract, the vague, the instrumental sections – in all senses of the word. Records of the individual imagination listening to another individual imagination listening to another individual imagination. What will these tracks become in time, in Time?

> There is something ethereally delicious about the thought of people in the future coming across people in the past’s nostalgia of another past, now three links distant to their present, compoundly insubstantial, glittering, compelling. Fifth, sixth, seventh dimensions - serial nostalgias.

Notes on a Conditional Form is out now and available to order.

Text: Scott Morrison

Published: 26/6/20

#review #reviews #album review #music criticism #music review #Scott Morrison #The 1975 #Maria Sledmere #Matty Healy

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