Phil Hartley - "Demos,Sessions,and Live (1988-89)" (A Die or DIY? Collection) 2022/1988

A devastating loss to the pop world was the break-up of Bog-shed sometime in 1987/1988-ish during the last flowering of classic British independent pop. An even greater loss was the life of erstwhile lead warbler and unheralded absurdist poet of the aforementioned Bog-Shed group, Mr Philip Hartley;who left this mortal coil during October 2006.Swiftly followed by drummer Tris King (Brain Tumor),who also moonlighted with those other classic mid-eighties Ron Johnson types,the equally cursed, 'A Witness';whose guitarist managed to fall off a mountain in 1989.

Sometimes one suspects a record company conspiracy to put a permanent end to any bands,slash,music, that appeals to those who require more than just lovesongs and peado-propaganda from their unpop-pop.

Where did they all go when Bog-Shed dissolved,one wonders? One of them's an illustrator and the sole 'success story' in the ranks;and of the others,only Phil Hartley made a short attempt to carry on the legacy.There was obviously an album's worth of new material, and it sounds like...er....Bog-Shed.

A Peel Session was made,live appearances,and Demo's.....then.....nothing!

“This week the score draws are plentiful!” (Slave Girls)......he liked that line apparently,and very representative, it is, of the current musical situation we find ourselves trapped in.

There were no studio recordings made before Phil disappeared somewhere,and died of something unspecified.

A notable unrecorded gem, captured live in 1989, was "Dirty Filthy Pop Presenter", where Jimmy Savile is name-checked.....just when you thought serial silly-billy John Lydon had a monopoly on outing the vile Sa-vile, after mentioning it once ,vaguely, in an interview,did nothing about it,then claimed to be the only moral human in the UK....although I think rather,that Phil Hartley was sort of fulfilling his weird absurdists fantasy of being one of those awful TV pop Presenters from decades past.He had a history,name-dropping former Basil Brush sidekick Roy North in an early Bogshed song,"The Amazing Roy North Penis Band"which was also the working title of the first Bog-Shed incarnation around 1985.

Here's the great Roy North singing his version of Tenpole Tudor's "Swords Of A Thousand Men" back in 1981.....you really couldn't make this up!

I am assuming that Roy did not indulge in the same depraved pastimes that kept the blindingly obvious sex monster Savile entertained for decades.....but his sing-a-long versions of charts hits places him well above suspicion.He was from Hull anyway,which is a crime against humanity in itself,so we'll let him off any reluctant investigations in to potential dark doings in 1981 he may,or certainly is NOT, responsible for.

Tracklist:

1. Regulation

2. Lord Smutty Lips (Demo Version)

3. Can I Use The Phone?

4. Have You Done Your Chores?

5. Teenager

6. You All Look The Same

7. Lord Smutty Lips (Peel Session 13/11/88)

8. Inspector of Crime (Peel Session 13/11/88)

9. Prepare to Change Sandals (Peel Session 13/11/88)

10.Purchase Nicely (Peel Session 13/11/88)

11.Are You Real (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

12.Who Are The Sane (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

13.Prepare to Wear Sandals (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

14.Inspector of Crime (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

15.Master Life (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

16.Purchase Nicely (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

17.Yeh Yeh (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

18.Teenager (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

19.Dirty, Filthy, Pop Presenter (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

20.Lord Smutty Lips (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

21.You Are, You Are (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

22.Say No (08-03-1989 The Source, Wordsley)

DOWNLOAD this dirty filthy pop presentation HERE!

The Fear Merchants – "Mental (remastered)" (Emotional Response) – ER84 1983/2019

Fear NOT!....I'm not going to mention "The Special Military Operation" that is saving us all from Nuke wielding Neo-Nazi's. The only Fear Merchants I wanna listen to today are the almost God-Like Amos and Sara under another of their many guises.Featuring Jim Welton,late of the almost God-like Homosexuals, and Sara Vaughan of Sara Vaughan fame.

Originally this was a cassette on the almost God-like "It's War Boys" DIY label, or should I say "It's a Special Military Operation Boys" label.....the original cassette rip of which can be found HERE!...if you like that sort of thing...which of course you do?

This rip is from the much awaited vinyl re-releases from 2019,or thereabouts.This also means that we now know what all the tracks are called.If anyone likes a good Larry Olivier Nazi Doctor pastiche then this is the record for you.

If you wanna read my original review splurge blurb write up then click HERE!...'cus i can't be arsed to do it again.

Meanwhile a parting message for any poor lickle Russians (ahhh bless 'em!) that are still able to read this.....I'm just going to MacDonalds for a burger and a coca-cola,but first i'll have to withdraw some cash from my open banks ATM machine,then maybe do a bit of shopping before settling down to watch some of the myriad of TV channels available to me.May even browse Facebook too?......and just think, at least you've got a fine permanent leader like Vladimir Putin and we have to cope with rubbishy old Democracy. I envy you.......altogether now..."WAR!...what is it good for? Absolutely nothing".....whoops you've just been arrested as a precursor to a sound beating!?...."Huh! say it agaaaaain"......not likely Edwin,it's fifteen years banged up in a Russian Prison if certain nationalities say it twice.

Ain't life great?

Tracklisting:

1. Act One
2. Un Choix Du Mal Song
3.Meanwhile.....back in the Doctors Surgery
4. U - Boat Captain
5.Enter Giant Whales Mouth​.​. Leaving Through Its Anus Back into Surgery of Doc
6. The Uzbeck Connection 9
7. The Irate Psychiatrist is Shaking His Head in Disbelief at the Patient's 'Stories'
8. Industrialist's Dirge
9.Reflections in Psychiatrist's Spectacles Theme
10 Act Two
11. Fiasco
12.Visibly Brighter the Psychiatrist Thinks He's Getting Somewhere at Last
13. Ya Habibi
14.She Runs off Across the Sands and Vanishes in the Ripples of Hot Air Rising Upwards
15. Aristocratic Hunchback Out-cast Song
16. Absolute Misery Theme
17. When She Weighs Eighty-Six Stones
18. Mental Theme

DOWNLOAD without fear HERE!

Gerry And The Holograms – "The Lost 1979 L.P. By Mancunian D.I.Y Sarcastic Synth-Pop Anonimites" (Finders Keepers Records – Cache018LP ) 2017/1979

 

Blimey, just when you thought the well was dry, up pops a lost album by Absurd records' Situationist-indebted masked art-eynth studio duo from Manchester,England...Gerry and the Holograms!

Yes the very same Gerry and the Hollograms who released a conceptual and unplayable anti-record in that nutty situationist art tradition so beloved of Malcolm Maclaren. Each record came glued into its picture sleeve, rendering the disc completely unplayable ,called, if i'm not mistaken "The Emperor's New Clothes" .Oh,those wacky but anonymous Krazy Kats.

Q: How many Situationists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: If 'changing a light bulb' is already in everyone's head, why do it at all?

Like The Residents, the veil of secrecy has now been stripped away, revealing  Gerry to be none other than that bloke and resting actor,C.P.Lee from  satirical rock band  Albertos Y Lost Trios Paranoias;and ,it says here,electronica excursionist John Scott...yeah... THAT, John Scott?!

More Residents references were abound on their only ,playable, release on the great Absurd Records,in 1979, "Meet The Dissidents"......Meet The Residents?....Geddit?

Of course CP Lee made a career out of making subtly satirical piss takes of many genres that were easily confused with the actual  targets of their biting wit. like the "Snuff Rock" EP which was punkier than most of the 'real' punks,and had a track covered by the Damned no less("Kill"); Another song of note is their Status Quo pastiche,"Heads Down No Nonsense Mindless Boogie", a fine tune.

It's basically a tongue in cheek version of the synth-duo's/groups that were gaining popularity in 1979,and without knowing what we know, this stuff could easily have scraped the bottom end of the charts had they been on Virgin,and not Absurd Records.

The unplayable single makes its debut appearance on track 8 as two minutes of silence...so don't think your media player is fucked 'cus its only dem zany situationists innit,reaping havoc with your reality.

Q: No,Really, how many Situationists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Zero. They all have day jobs, or classes, are at the café, or are expelling each other - and find lights inauthentic.

Tracklist:

1.Gerry And The Holograms
2.Tubular Belles
3.Curiosity Killed The Gath
4.Fake Moon
5.The Forty Three
6.Increased Resistance
7.Jeep
8.The Emperor's New Music
9.Just Desserts
10.Space Invaders
11.Gerry And The Holograms (Alternative 1979 Drumbox Version)

DOWNLOAD the hollow world of gerry exposed HERE!

Two Daughters – "Gloria / Kiss The Cloth" (United Dairies – UDT 026) 1981

Two Daughters...Two cassettes!? Who'd have believed it?

On this one they courted the ear of Steven Stapleton,yes he of Nurse With Woooooounduh.....sorry, I nearly dropped off there for a minute. 

So this is on United Dairies as a result.

The Burkes,Anthony and Paul, upped the ante in the tape loops department,and eagerly manned the fader knobs on their cheapo mixer. Whereas NON made loops of Nazi marching bands,the Burkes shockingly use 23 Skidoo-style loops of Gamelan orchestra's,something the Skidders took to its logical limit,and please don't do it again,on the studio side of the otherwise brilliant "The Culling Is Coming".

Blatant copying, some call it 'Inspiration' was thinly disguised in the early industrial world,the most popular source of inspiration ,along with many other item's Cab-like,was Cabaret Voltaires' found dialogue method.....of which there are thankfully none on this tape, well-done Daughters.Others went for Cosey's space-echoed badly plsyed Cornet....see 400 Blows (and indeed 23 Skidoo again)for that one;also not nabbed by the daughters. With relief they also don't plagiarise Genesis P. Orridge's obsession with murderers and Nazi's,or any obvious pilfering of anything William S. Burroughs. All clichés that induce within me a inescapable desire to sleep....even more than that bloody Nurse With Wound List for prog rock trainspotters like me. But they obviously had a chat with the Turnbulls of Skidoo fame, who evidently lent them an album of the music of Bali to indulge their zest for making tape loops.

Having said that, if this tape had a couple of Skidoo style funky workouts, it would have wiped the floor with anything the Skidders did......which,frankly isn't saying much.

Update: I just listened to the extended version of Seven Songs and its fucking brilliant...although on a couple of tracks they do sound uncannily like Modern Romance or Haircut 100,but whats wrong with that?..so ignore that last paragraph,print it out, burn it,eat it, and swallow the evidence......but they (23 Skidoo) went shit rather rapidly after that;going Hip Hop is an unfathomable and unforgivable crime worthy of being indicted by the Hague international court of terrible music, of which i am the self-appointed and only Judge.

Tracklisting:

Kiss The Cloth

A1 Part 1
A2 Part 2
A3 Part 3

Gloria
B1 Part 1
B2 Part 2
B3 Part 3
B4 Part 4
B5 Part 5

DOWNLOAD something loopy HERE!

Two Daughters – "Two Daughters" (Methane Music ) 1980

More Old Skool Industrial chaps ,chapettes and other types of chaps? Anyone whose gender self identity I've not included,write your name and address on a postcard and send it to Vladimir Putin who has recently come out as a Chick with a Dick......no....wait....small error on my part...a bloodthirsty dictator and child killer.Please feel free to add that definition on your postcard.

This cassette was made by a couple of Burkes,Anthony and Paul, who had excitedly just heard about the festive joys of Tape Loops and 23 Skidoo's more ethereal percussive moments. Add to that zesty cocktail a stiff portion of cheap effects and you've got one thick slice of DIY Industrial, 1980 style.The watershed year for popular music.

Suitably analogue and darkly ambient, I could could listen to this in a darkened room for at least an hour,non-stop, breaking only for tea and biscuits and a nice long piss. Hang on, this only runs for fifty minutes, so it's not a shop bought brand name C-60,these Burkes spent money on it!The sell-outs!

Of course, newly rediscovered cassettes like this are lauded as works of near-genius by culture starved geeks hither and yon,but back in 1980, everyone was doing this.....some still are,like a UK Subs of Industrial music.What d'you want?....A Medal?

Tracklisting:

A1 Ladder Of Souls 

A2 Return Call - We Are

A3 Sad Horizons

A4 So I

B1 Return Call

B2 Drums

B3 Air Lair

B4 Aaaaaar

DOWNLOAD and arrange a visit from your daughters HERE!

Metamorphosis – "Great Babel Gives Birth" (Flowmotion – FM 003) 1983

It might seem a great leap sideways to go from Jandek to a forgotten Industrial group native of the east Midlands of the UK;but musically i think they would have made a very fetching couple if wedded in the church of unpopular music. The representative's ear wax rattling moan would have been the missing icing on this particular cake;so what we're left with is some backing tracks left to posterity like the room of a missing teenager left as a shrine to better days by their destroyed parents.

These experimental industrial funksters came from Nottingham if my memory serves me correctly.Normally I would be slagging them off about football,but recently Nottingham (pronounced Notts Forest to wind 'em up) Forest,a very shit footy team from Nottingham,had the audacity to knock the great Leicester City out of the cup 4:1.Leading to much humble pie being consumed by their more successful Modern Era rivals from twenty-odd miles down the A46.

Musically, Nottingham developed in a dumping ground for every genre of Metal you could name in 60 very dull seconds, and home to Earache Records.

So apart from Medium Medium, a gang of four-a-likey, they manged to produse a peripheral Industrial act in the same mould as the very inconsistent and unduly praised 23 Skidoo.

Nowadays Industrial means endless varieties of that 'Harsh Noise' stuff,but back in the post Throbbing Gristle world subtlety was the way,and more emphasis on the creepy rather than the crawly.

There's low budget Gamelan ,which certainly seem to be saucepans,some filled with water being struck here, and my personal favourite alt-synth device, the Short Wave radio.Of which there's not enough of in these darkening days.

With the impending fall of the new Iron Curtain, i'm hoping for more weird spy transmissions and persistent blocking dissonance to be sent skywards(.....check out the Conet Project numbers station post HERE!  )

They could have been 24 Skidoo if they had had a funky drummer,or maybe even 25 Skidoo if they had a Jandekian Singer.

Tracklisting:

A1 Untitled
A2 Untitled
A3 Untitled
A4 Untitled
A5 Untitled
A6 Untitled
B1 Untitled
B2 Untitled
B3 Untitled

DOWNLOAD from just down the road HERE!

Jandek – "London Sunday" (Corwood Industries – CORWOOD 0847) 2021

This one's from 2008.......he is dead isn't he?......Recorded in front of a full house of London metrosexual trendies. If it wasn't enough to have the Representative on stage as your performing monkey, there's a bloke form the No-Neck Blues band on bass to make any avid Wire magazine subscriber cream his jeans....and believe me, it is always a he/his when it comes to stuff like this,no further pro-nouns required.

Whether it be making unprovoked warfare, unlistenable clap-trap that you are told is 'good'.or appreciating paintings by kneeling down on one knee and tweaking ones chin for twenty minutes, it's all done by the male of the species. Women are only now saving us non non-binary types from the joys and pitfalls of association Football,now we XY chromosome nerds need the fairer sex and their derivatives, to help save us from the joys and pitfalls of rubbish music passed off as works of genius...(something I am regularly guilty of?)....if that's successful,and this is the big one,maybe the onslaught of non-binary humans can save us from War?.......I doubt it very much, especially as its becoming increasingly clear that we maybe on the wrong end of a tactical Nuclear weapon or two very shortly thanks to the distinctly binary,as in split personality,self-elected president of the shithole that is Russia. He certainly has a split personality,and I hate both of them....i can sum up how i feel about this Phil Collins look-a-likey in the verses of one of England's finest poets:

Mr John Cooper-Clarke's "Twat":

Like a nightclub in the morning, you're the bitter end
Like a recently disinfected shithouse, you're clean round the bend
You give me the horrors
Too bad to be true
All of my tomorrows
Are lousy 'cause of you
You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain
You're certainly no raver, commonly known as a drag
Do us all a favor, here, wear this polythene bag
You're like a dose of scabies
I've got you under my skin
You make life a fairytale
Grimm!
People mention murder, the moment you arrive
I'd consider killing you if I thought you were alive
You've got this slippery quality
It makes me think of phlegm
And a dual personality
I hate both of them
You're bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away
Like a death a birthday party
You ruin all the fun
Like a sucked and spat-our Smartie
You're no use to anyone
Like the shadow of the guillotine
On a dead consumptive's face
Speaking as an outsider
What do you think of the human race?
You went to a progressive psychiatrist
He recommended suicide
Before scratching your bad name off his list
And pointing the way outside
You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart
You're heading for a breakdown
Better pull yourself apart
Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss
Your attitudes are platitudes
Just make me wanna piss
What kind of creature bore you
Was it some kind of bat?
They can't find a good word for you
But I can
Twat!

 

The Jandek album is very good by the way,a return to old skool electric Jandek...but then again what do I know? I'm one of those Metrosexual Trendies who I referred to earlier, who would say that wouldn't he?

I also referred to myself in the third person,something I have yet to hear Vlad the Pute do,but if he did I'd hate all three of him.

Nazi Russians Fuck Off!

Tracklisting:

1-1 Torrential Blues 12:59
1-2 These Blues 8:49
1-3 Incapacitation 10:15
1-4 If I Can’t Lay Down 8:29
1-5 Deep Deep Blues 9:03
2-1 Throbbing Pain 9:10
2-2 Savage Pain 9:11
2-3 It’ll Be All Right 10:17
2-4 Come Over Here 18:09
2-5 The Dawn 12:04

DOWNLOAD and become a russophobe with me HERE!

Jandek – "Chapel Hill Sunday" (Corwood Industries – CORWOOD 0853) 2022

Yes, I tried living too,believe it or not,but then I started to listen to Jandek records again. This is time I'll never get back,and will probably rue this irrational decision to listen to all of Jandek's albums, on my death bed surrounded by any loved ones who will still have anything to do with me.

So,here's another hour and a half where i could have been making love to a beautiful woman...or their alternatives (I'm Hip ain't I?)...meaning one of the self-identified represented by the extra letters tagged onto the popular and ever lengthening acronym that begins with LGBTQ...etc......so maybe i wasn't wasting my ever decreasing allotted time in this reality after all?

Would I sooner be making sweet luuurve to a beautiful lady, rather than listen to endless Jandek?....well....er....yes please. I think Jandek would too,although, his lady,slash, victim, would undoubtedly be of the Prince Andrew variety.

This one was recorded in 2009,so Jandek may still indeed be dead? Which is a pity, because we could have tried threatening Putin with endless Jandek pumped into the Kremlin. Vlad has promised us "Something We Have Never Seen Before",but we westerners have got something He has never heard Before, and far more lethal than the nukes he was alluding to.By the time this double CD has finished its first few tracks Putin would be grovelling to be sent to the Hague,and plead guilty of waging an illegal war of aggression. 

I suppose i should turn my attentions away from imminent nuclear annihilation,and turn to something far more important....the music....if indeed ,music this may be?

"You wanted my Body" whine's the Corwood rep in the opening improvisation, cosily entitled "I tried Living". I can also now go on record and say in all honesty, that I have NEVER wanted Jandek's body.

A trio of new buddies make stuff up around Jandek's guitar abuse,and I have to say I have heard better.The drummer in particular seems to be struggling to come up with anything we haven't heard a thousand times before,treading water in an 'i've got a Free Jazz collection' kind of way.Incredibly, the guitar player seems to be the one with the most clue here.....wait a minute, Thats Jandek innit?....blimey he's found musicians who are almost as bad as himself.Now that's something to be applauded.....we came here to hear the ginger mist in person,not the pale one and a bunch of trendy jazzers who would be better off on ECM records than Corwood,which is what we usually get for these live performances since 2004-ish.They're not quite there but,at least this selection approaches somewhere near the nebulous standard required to make a cohesively uncohesive Jandekian outing into the outside.

Tracklisting:

1.I Tried Living 29:52

2. Broken Sky 12:49

3.I Think I'm Unstable 9:03

4.The Slide 15:14

5.All My Time 13:15

6.Just As Well Off 11:46

DOWNLOAD sunday chapel for jandekian agnostics HERE!

Jandek – "The Mountain Step" (Corwood Industries – CORWOOD 0851) 2021

Another Studio album by the black clad ginger whinger,....we are not worthy....well...we are very worthy actually. Just wish Corwood would get on the vinyl reissue trail. Trouble with that is that none of modern Jandek would fit on one disc,a double albums at best. They would however be a thing of great beauty,clad in Gatefold sleeve,and four of Sterling's inexplicable photographs adorning the available spaces.

We will wait and see if that Canadian 'superfan' (forgot his name) who sporadically threatens me with violence could possibly suggest that to the man himself,as he reckons he's his manager whenever the Jandek visits Vancouver.

This very acceptable droning atonal scraping violin stained epic, suggests overdubs,which I can't recall The Representative ever doing before.....of course he likely has,its just hard to pinpoint any particular recorded event from the ever widening canon of the king of all things Outside.

This is The Corwood Representative's version of Tony Conrad and Faust, even further outside the Dream Syndicate, with the best violin abuse this side of 'Danny and the Dressmakers' all encapsulating violin solo in "Don't Make Another Bass Guitar Mr Rickenbacher"...except Sterling has managed the impossible and stretched that out over the course of a very entertaining fifty fun packed minutes.

It also appears that Jandek is the only (uncredited) musician, unaccredited, in the recording process of this, one has to say, very good album indeed.**** out of *****?

The date of the recording also seems to be absent,so I can't decipher if it's a recent recording or not.So, as a result one cannot ascertain if this disproves my increasingly tenuous Jandek is Dead theory. Someone working down my local Chip shop however, is a ringer for Sterling Smith,but he insists that he's never heard of Jandek......his pupils dilated as he said it,then after serving my Savaloy sausage,chips and curry sauce,promptly disappeared into the back room,from whence i'm sure i detected the muffled cries of a young woman.I could have reported this to the police but I was pissed out of my brane and had to drive home!

Tracklisting:

1 The Mountain Step 3:56
2 The Linger 13:03
3 The Ladder 10:51
4 The Languish 20:33

DOWNLOAD from the mountain HERE!

Jandek – "Motion Energy" (Corwood Industries – CORWOOD 0854) 2021

Out of pure laziness,i'm gonna take a restful sidestep from French Prog, yet make a tenuous connection with Jandek, who sounds exactly like Mahogany Brain, a French Prog band who incidentally sound like Jandek. However, unlike Mahogany Brain, Jandek did more than a couple of albums,in fact this recent release from 2021 has enough material on it to make two new Mahogany Brain albums. I hear Corwood are releasing another eight albums this year alone,as the representative's back catalog approaches the 150 mark.

Incidentally Has anyone seen him recently? He may be dead for all we know,and a massive stash of Jandek recordings are waiting to enter the market spaced over the course of the current, and maybe even, the next, century? In fact, even if there were no more fruit left on the tree it would be fairly easy to make new Jandek albums without the man himself. Even his voice could easily be mimicked. 

To achieve this post mortem creativity it is essential that one's public exposure is kept in the shadows .A lack of gigs could be explained away as a return to his reclusive years.....which I wish he would do anyway. Simply put, Jandek could become immortal,artistically at least. The same could happen to The Residents, and others who would shun the cult of personality. I hear that Daft Punk have decided to come out of retirement,or at least 'someone' has come out of retirement,we would never know who it was under those shiny helmets.It could be Putin and Lavrov for all we know,other wise known as Chuckles and Laughing Tammy to their adoring friends . For example Phil Collins couldn't carry on in secret after his death,because he didn't wear a mask.Schoolboy error. Anyhow, the wheel chair would give the game away if he started now.Always plan ahead..but...maybe Philip is one step ahead of all of us and really he's Vladimir Putin,and Putin is Phil Collins? This could go viral,and explain a lot of unanswered questions?

Vladimir Putin

Phil Collins

This double CD seems to have been recorded in a studio,hence the title lacking a day of the week and a place name.Its basically the same improvised stuff,otherwise known as Mr Smith pissing about for an hour or so,that he's been doing,with his talented friends, for the best part of the last twenty years.Really it could be anybody from the vast world of improvised music playing on this record for all we know. The give away is that there's only one person playing who doesn't really have a clue what he's doing......ahhhaa that must be Jandek......or,someone pretending to be Jandek, or even a representative of Jandek? We may never know.....or care?

Tracklisting:

1-1 Slow Walk 28:05

1-2 Amble21:11 

2-1 Picking Up The Pace 21:43 

2-2 Running With It 24:20

DOWNLOAD what may or may not be jandek HERE!

Archaïa – "Archaïa" (Choravox – CC 77.976) 1977

Unlike Punk Rock,which was at it's zenith when this Zeuhl homage was released. Zeuhl took its time to have any copycat groops following in Magma's footsteps.Whereas, there were legions of little Sex Pistols cropping up within 48 hours of the pistols first gig propah!...it took a good 5 or 6 years to get any little Magma's.

Incidentally John 'Lie'don of PiL (see what I did?) was a big Magma fan,and attended any London appearance of Christian Vander's outfit with his equally enlightened mate, John Wardle....aka Jah Wobble.

Also a big fan was Pierrick Le Bras and his mate Michel Munier,of Archaïa. Although a pair of Magma nuts ,they admirably tried to play something inspired by Magma's music but via a different path: using only percussion,no drums(great idea),guitar and keyboards.

The result is a less oppressive form of Zeuhl...if this is Zeuhl at all(?),,,or maybe its because they couldn't play their instruments,leaving,in my opinion, more space in the music,and less chance of smothering the listener. A bit like the difference between The Sex Pistols and PiL in fact;who also couldn't play, so they say.Daring to be minimal.leaving room to breath and grow,the art of subtlety free from the oppression of Vander's attempts to be Wagner's most favourite Rock band.Thankfully also absent are Vander's Brünnhilde substitutes,who do tend to get on one's fucking Titz!

Today I think that this is better than Magma, but tomorrow I may think the opposite,it depends on how pissed off I am.....or,for those superior purveyors of the noble mother tongue of ye olde Albion.....in English, how Pissed I am. That means 'Drunk' to those from the colony where we exported all our religious nutters to...sorry about that,but it had to be done.We,the English. also exported our criminals to Australia.which is probably why they always beat us at sport.That suggests a strange correlation between crime and sporting prowess? Hummmm? ...either that or Stupidity? So, as an tenuous attempt to provide some evidence,i can only point to the fact that my Aussie relatives are mostly stupid,and my american family are mostly MAGAphiles.....or worse....if that's possible?

Just one final topical observation from leftfield to close....PUTIN IS A TOTAL FUCKING CUNT OR WHAT?!...and any of you conspiracy twats who wanna argue the toss about how this prick is a dove of peace...please come forward!

Tracklisting:

A1 Soleil Noir 4:31
A2 L'arche Des Mutations 9:29
A3 Sur Les Traces Du Vieux Roy 5:00
B1 La Roue 2:31
B2 Le Festin Du Lion Vert 4:42
B3 Massa Confusa 3:18
B4 Le Grand Secret 4:18
B5 Vol Du Phenix 3:50

DOWNLOAD the alternative 1977 HERE!

Weidorje – "Weidorje" (Cobra – COB 37014)1978

The envious ears of a bunch of over-paid Parisian session men vibrated to the sound of Magma and they thought that they could do the same...but,as musicians are prone to think, they were better at it and could do better.

They managed to release just three tracks in their lifetime,which made up their sole album,here beefed up with a couple of live outings
They were of course very Magma styled,even nicking their Kobaian name from a Magma track,blending in elements of systemic music, and some saxophone.An element long ago dropped in early Magma giving it a distinctive sound of its own(it says here!).Yep....more Zeuhl-lite for potential chart action.The ill-advised use of Brass steers proceedings firmly towards the Fusion-end of Zeuhl,but at least those Wagnerian Brunhilde vocalists don't make an appearance.

The session men involved soon realised that there was no money in having their own Zeuhl band,and soon melted away back into playing guitar solo's for Johnny Hallyday or arranging romantic string sections for Sacha Distel.

They did however leave us one of the most listenable French Prog records,that may even attract people into the room rather than drive them away from it....dunno if that's a good thing, but sometimes its useful.Even if it's just to avoid the noise of the unenlightened majority demanding that this racket be turned off.

Tracklisting:

1.Elohims Voyage 16:33
2.Vilna 12:20
3.Booldemug 7:10

Bonus Tracks:
4.Rondeau 8:49
5.Kolinda 12:28

DOWNLOAD this wee orgy or for the benfit of Donald Trump that's kobaian for pee pee party HERE!

Eskaton – "4 Visions" (Eurock – EC 81002) 1981

Fun to see that this cassette was released on the Eurock label,which not only draws a clear demarcation line between continental europe and the anglo-saxon music empire,but reflects the section in the record store of my youth,which was called Euro Rock;where i first gained access to the unfathomable world of what those european types did for entertainment when they weren't churning out toe-curlingly bad cheesy disco hits ,tooth-grinding ABBA-fuelled Schlager anthems and truly horrible wrist slashing Euro Metal like "The Final Countdown". 

Yes there was indeed unmistakably modern,continental music, that,unless you saw the band pictures,didn't first invoke laughter on behalf of the willfully ignorant average Anglo-Saxon pop picker.

These Euro-rockers looked like clowns,but free from the shackles of having to gain a 'hit' in the UK or USA,they could spend a longer time actually making the music that they wanted to. This was especially evident in West Germany,who had that great burden of post-war German Sartorial ineptitude to grapple with,as well as a dumpster full of Holocaust guilt to assuage. The french didn't have that burden of Holocaust guilt to attend to;although not squeaky clean in that department,they did largely get away with it.Sartorially, marginally better dressed than the average modern Bosch gentleman,musically they came up with the very Wagnerian concept of Zeuhl.....I say 'They'....it was more or less invented by Magma,or to narrow it down some more, Christian Vander done it guv'r sir so he did......said the Hollywood Pearly King.

And it is Magma that immediately comes to mind when listening to Eskaton. The only difference i can detect are the vocals, which are in French rather than Kobaian.....which,for the few of us who don't know, is the made up alien language that literates the parole of Magma's operatic female singers.

Like Magma, Eskaton also have a pair of operatic hippyfied Brunhilde's at the fore,who adequately up the aural oppression stakes like a less Nazi-fied version of ABBA,but somehow seem more accessible than Christian Vander's Wagnerian rockers. I dunno weather Zeuhl-lite is appropriate here, but they are as Zeuhl-lite as that particular format goes.......i may have to post a Magma Album I suppose?

DOWNLOAD something to like the french for HERE!

XAAL – "XAAL" (Xaal Self-released – Xaal 01) 1990

More lo-fi cassette culture Zeuhl in classically fuzzy chrom-dioxide quality,enhanced by a lo-bitrate to make it an even better smothering experience.

XAAL sound very 1990's......there's damming evidence of Fretless bass use,probably with seven strings and a lovingly looked after varnished wooden body.I strongly suspect that all of XAAL's instruments are shiny and well looked after. It's a phenomenon that began in the 90's,shiny chrome mike stands, tidy amplifiers,as new guitars, and tasteless natural wood bass guitar bodies.

One thing I noticed during the recent co-vid hysteria was that the number two item to be seen in the background of Zoom calls,after full bookshelves, is an brand name electric guitar sitting on a stand in the corner .All shiny and new,in barely used condition,to show that the caller is literate, but, cool.

Every fucker has an electric guitar and vast digital multi-tracking facilities these days....even those despicable Politician bastards.All that shite started with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair thinking,mistakenly, that liking Pop music would magically transform them from the awful grinning fools that we know they are, into something cool for Generation X to take seriously.Fool not Cool! Why would anyone want to know that David Cameron's favourite band is Radiohead for fucks sake? Dick'ead would be more appropriate one should suggest,especially as he is officially the second worst British prime minister of alll time,just behind his Eton educated chum/rival Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.....who to my knowledge doesn't own any musical instruments,but cringingly expresses a liking for The Clash,led.of course, by fellow posh boy,but in this case a dead one,Joe Mellor.....Boris obviously was not listening when he heard their punk socialism by numbers recordings.

Just as refusing to have a Tattoo or any piercings,was an almost subversive stance a few years back,now is the time to throw all those home studio's and guitars onto a large bonfire in the Rock'n'Roll hall of shame. Silence is the new route to self-expression through self censorship...stop repeating this mantra of terminal boredom.  Turns out that the great unwashed took this DIY thang far too seriously. There's too much fucking music now,made by people who don't know any better.STOP IT!.....I crave the return of untouchable rock stars, exclusivity and cliques .The moment the moronic majority like the same things as you ,you know that the games up and its time to give it up.An If they're 'Punk' I definitely fucking ain't!...kinda thing.

XAAL are one of those groups who not only have sparkling equipment, but have that deadly disability of just playing the notes,and forgetting the rest.Like an exercise in theoretical music.

But i'm sure there'll be plenty out there who will delight in their shifting time signatures, and accurate playing.....i know I do.

But that don't mean it's Gud bud.

 

DOWNLOAD boris johnson's new favourite band HERE!

Shub Niggurath – "Shub Niggurath" (Self-Released) 1984

If ever there was a recorded medium made for a Zeuhl group it was the Compact Disc.It's crisp soul-less click free reproduction qualities marry up cosily with the icy pseudo intellectual soul-free exactitude of this obscure branch of the progressive rock joshua tree.So naturally we will opt for Zeuhl, as recorded on the always humble never grumble, compact cassette.

The music,judging by the standard made up language type Zeuhl moniker ,Shub Niggurath, is,like the name,fairly typical french progressive rock of that word that I'm using too much that begins with 'Z' variety.It's Jazzy,proggy,metally,full of funny time signatures and starts to suffocate the casual listener half-way through the first track.There are better examples,but this one began to get on my proverbials by the end of side one;but one persevered and ultimately found it rewarding thanks to the silence that was regained by its ending.

On another day I could easily praise this as one of the best things I've ever heard.But today it felt like being slowly asphyxiated by a large square of roof insulation.

Also, of course, they sound somewhat like a Magma tribute band....don't we all? 

Tracklist:

1 Yog-Sothoth 11:36
2 Entresol 6:53
3 Introduction 3:19
4 Barback 14:49
5 In Memoriam 5:23

DOWNLOAD run shub niggurath run HERE!

Happy Family – "Happy Family" (Cuneiform Records – rune 73) 1995

In this crazy,or do I mean Ker-aaaazzzzzy(?), mixed up muddled up old world that we tragically find ourselves imprisoned in, with no means of escape other than Death itself?....... I would have said Death Himself, but I'm flirting with being cancelled if I tread on the squeaky floorboards of sexual politics. So i'll leave the pronoun simply,as 'IT', or "ça" ,as they apparently say in France.Which is strange because I thought "ça" meant "That",until i saw the title on a French copy of Stephen King's "It!" was translated as "ça"......y'know, I think i would have read that schlock nonsense tome if it was called Stephen King's "That!"...a far better title.

Aha! France got mentioned again i noticed! As i've loosely been meandering through the murky ox-bow lakes of French Prog,in it's many mimicking forms,and brings us swiftly to the one form of musique moderne that is firmly rooted in that unfathomable land of Basque beret's, stripey shirts ,onions on strings,apalling body odeur parfum and cassoulet (which is basically bangers and beans for those lucky enough never to have had this reputation busting  crime against basic culinary standards).....where were we again?....ah yes...Zeuhl!

Basically Zeuhl is French Prog disguised as Frank Zappa's smarter brothers more intricately scored works as played by a heavy metal band of Jazzers.....and it ALL sounds the same. Usually they have very impressively crisp Jean Jacques Burnel Bass sounds, heavily miked up,and, massive,Drum Kits;as normally played by the band leader,who will come down hard on anyone a nano-beat out of time. The time signatures are strictly anything but 4/4,and they sing in made up languages. Sounds fun huh?

And this time claiming to be Belgian will not help your inevitable fate.

So here's one of the very best ever Zeuhl records,and ironically, as we've just had a French band playing Canterbury Scene Prog,as well as several French Krautrockers, here we have some Zeuhl as played by a bunch of Japaneses.Just as Japan is the only other country dumb enough to play baseball outside of the USA,they seem to be the only country outside of France to play Zeuhl. Infuriatingly, as normal, our Japanese brothers.....ok,and sisters(!), have a enviable talent of taking western musical forms and cranking them up a notch,from 10 to 11, to repeat that rock satire cliché one more time.They're better at Punk,better at Metal, better at Psych, better at Free Jazz, better at Harsh Noise, and they're better at Zeuhl as well. I suppose Japs are like fat girls in bed....they have to try harder or be binned off and ignored,bless 'em?

Maybe I exaggerate? Not like me I know,but in this case I definitely........am? 

Naah! Jap music rules dude...as some awful fucking yank skate-punk kid would say....but allow me to over-emphasise at will ,will ya.......duuuuude? I think i'm gonna be sick......it's that fucking 'orrible Cassoulet I ate for lunch coming back up to say sorry.

Sadly this fine CD album,is/was not available on Vinyl,which was the fate for countless numbers of poor lickle artists in the mid-nineties.If you see a vinyl album by a half-decent group from between 1990 and 2005 at a reasonable price, buy it,cus they are worth an eyewatering amount of your stolen crypto-currency. I sold all my Shoegaze collection for so much I nearly had to move to the British Virgin Islands and pass myself off as a British Virgin. That Ride album with the ocean on the cover (Nowhere?) paid my mortgage for a month!? I also found out that My Bloody Valentine's "Isn't Anything" was ironically worth quite a lot of something after all.

And No, Sonic Youth are NOT Shoegaze!

Tracklist:

1 Rock & Young 6:39
2 Shige Et Osanna 4:51
3 Partei 7:05
4 Rolling The Law Court 4:53
5 Kaiten (Ningen Gyorai) 8:22
6 Naked King 19:03
7 Drums Whisper Spacy 1:33

DOWNLOAD some japanese whale blubber cassoulet HERE!

Moving Gelatine Plates – "Moving Gelatine Plates" (CBS – S 64399) 1971

CBS (Can Be Shit), not very DIY (Do It Yourself) I know, but however misguided the corporate interest,these evil organisations can sometimes do world culture a favour and provide for us monkeys something worthwhile.Yep, it's the Moving Gelatine Plates' debut album, which,despite an inferior cover to its successor is,probably,slightly, better? Yes dey waz a gallic Canterbury scene Soft Machine tribute band in essence,but if you close your eyes it could actually be our heroes reformed and back on Soft Machine's Third form?...well almost.

Inevitably,the corporate interest waned when the dumb bastards(CBS) realised they weren't gonna get a number one hit on the Billboard top 200, and sadly had to cease spinning the plates and let them crash to the floor.As was the destiny of 99.999994% of all pop groups (figures taken from the national office of Statistics).It's dog eat dog out there,but you might get laid for your troubles,which is basically all a young male human wants out of life anyway so who's complaining?Money and fame you will NOT get......especially in the present.

Without randy dick-led show-offs there would have been no new inventions,new discoveries,No Art,and forever relevant to this blog, FUCK ALL MUSIC!

As your author's labido is currently winding down,this blog's continuation is in the greasy hands of mother nature;although I have yet to get laid because of my wordy internet activities,at least not to my knowledge.I did wake up in a post alcohol stuper  a few times with a sore arsehole.....but the doctor assures me that was just hemorrhoids or a Freudian Adjective about myself?  

Shit! That means the only reason for making music theses days is "Art for Arts Sake" for Fucks Sake!....hey,wasn't that a song by 10cc?

Tracklist:

1 London Cab 8:30
2 X-25 2:00
3 Gelatine 8:10
4 Last Song 15:20
5 Memories 3:15
6 Destruction 2:47
7 Tout Autour De Toi 4:13
8 Fréquence Nocturne 4:22
9 Solaria 3:45

DOWNLOAD the very moving gelatine plates HERE!

Moving Gelatine Plates – "The World Of Genius Hans" (CBS – CBS 64146) 1972

Prog died the day the Moving Gelatine Plates signed to CBS.

Not really, but it sounds good dunnit?

Often compared to Caravan and other Canterbury scene proggers, MGP sound most like jazzy era Soft Machine,who are also lumped in with the Canterbury lot themselves;mainly because some of the members came from that sleepy tourist hotspot and UNESCO world heritage site in Kent,known as Canterbury.The one which gave us,not only The Soft Machine,Caravan and Egg,but Geoffrey Chaucer as well.

Luckily for the  bands who sprung up in small numbers in Saint Thomas a Becket's old stamping ground,where Tom took one for the team; with almost saintly impeccable timing,the M2 had just been finished by the end of 1965,coinciding with the beginning of the UK Psych era. So Soft Machine and buddies had plenty of gigs at UFO and Middle Earth awaiting them in swinging London,just at the other end of the motorway.

Sadly for the Gelatine Plates, they were stuck on the pop music desert island of France,where Soft Machine were becoming rather popular too.So there was plenty of work awaiting any Soft Machine tribute bands who turned up,when the real thing weren't off partying in London.

Despite that Ker-razzy name,and the bizarre cover art,the band don't really live up to their promise.Its all fairly standard Canterbury style jazz prog,nothing wrong with that,but, that was being done elsewhere,dare I say better? There were dozens of petit Soft Machines everywhere in Europe,especially in Germany,where it now gets called 'Krautrock'......but,you silly hipsters, its obviously Canterbury rock innit?

I ain't got two or three hundred quid at hand to buy a copy of this on vinyl,but the CD is reasonably priced,but not as reasonably priced as it is on here.

The bonus tracks are shite from 1980,but they are included just in case you're bothered?

Tracklist:

1 The World Of Genius Hans 14:00
2 Funny Doll 4:25
3 Astromonster 6:15
4 Moving Theme 3:46
5 Cauchemar 3:46
6 We Were Lovin' Her 3:28
7 Un Jour... 1:25
8 Syntheme 3:28
9 L'Alchimiste 3:20
10 Les Êtres D'Or 5:50
11 Ombres 3:30
12 Rire De Peine 7:07

DOWNLOAD this machine molleux HERE!

Mahogany Brain – "With (Junk-Saucepan) When (Spoon-Trigger)" (Futura Records – RED 02) 1971

 

Mahogany Brain ARE,and this statement could be controversial, the Best band ever to come out of France. This I truly believe,and would arm wrestle,or play a winner takes all game of Casdon Soccer with anyone who disagrees.

I probably said the same about Helden and Magma,but this time I mean it maaaaan.

What's more is that I think they are genuinely French and not Belgian,as is usually the case.

Like a Red Krayola from french-rock hell,they deconstruct the 15 years pre-Mahogany era of the evolving Rock'n'Roll cliché and spit it back out in the eye of the discerning pop consumer.Slipping from the womb fully formed, and fully dee-formed enough to put 99% of the fuckers off music,..... forever!

If this fact doesn't even make you fantasize about leaving the room in faux-disgust and slamming the door in a pique of crypto-anger, then you're already dead,or,a bastard,or, a musician,or, all three.

Epic,Absurd,Pretentious,Unsane;i'm running out of adjectives here!

If your significant 'Other' doesn't hate this record's gutz within the first 5 minutes of your stylus making contact with these grooves,then i will send you a ten shilling postal order made payable to myself and me mam.All entries to be written on the back of a Casdon Soccer's wildly undulating pitch and sent to BBC Television Centre, Teddington Lock, NE3 from 4, Milton Keynes.

I'll Repeat that!.......alright,is it that obvious? I'm getting ready to write about The Moving Gelatin Plates,aka,The French "Caravan" innit? This could be my Waterloo,who knows?

Tracklist:

1.Bloody Hide And Seek In The Rain 0:30
2.Wrong Reincarnation 5:15
3.Hot Milk Elbow (Part I) 3:15
4.Sky-Fish 2:30
5.Unbottoned Eyes 2:30
6.Screaming Zenith 2:40
7.The Child With The Wind, The Snow, And The Yellow Top Waiting For The Magical Toy 4:47 
8.Universe (Naked Speed) 0:25
9.The Secret Body Of Wind 3:10
10.Hot Milk Elbow (Part II) 2:53
11.Head Of Night 2:50
12.Zevagho Chzechago 3:35

DOWNLOAD this rare wood as rare organ HERE!

Mahogany Brain – "Smooth Sick Lights" (Pôle Records – PÔLE 0013) 1972 /1976

Mahogany Brain invented UK DIY,even though they are French, and Outsider Punk!? You know rather like how The Ramones didn't Invent Punk Rock, and the Bad Brains didn't invent Hardcore.The difference is that Mahogany Brain didn't claim to have done anything, after the fact.

This album could be passed off as a lost Jandek album,in fact, this was released,four years after it was recorded, around the time Jandek was called The Units,and made "Ready For The House". It could also be the first No Wave album,or Danny and the Dressmakers on a bad day,The Prats ,or any number of UK DIY legends......but these nutjobs are french ain't they? There's no way Mahogany Brain would get a cultural arts grant from the French government making stuff like this.They can't play!....which was especially rare in 1972 when this was recorded.The only chord these zany chaps knew is the cord that leads from the guitar to the amp,and that's exactly how it should have been.Sounding like four persons playing four different tunes,all out of tune, at approximately the same time.Outsider Prog is the best i can do to categorise this rare work of Gallic genius. Like all of the realllly great bands,they played only one gig,then it was mission accomplished.Which explains the look of confused satisfaction that adorns the face of band leader Patrick Geoffrois.They would have been huge in 1979,if only they had waited.

Tracklist:

1 Green Winter Of Revolvers 8:35
2 Cathedral's Skirts 3:09
3 Church 0:50
4 Purple Overdose N° 102 1:32
5 Silkskin Dawn 1:15
6 Tongues Movie: Docteur Cloud 2:40
7 Rose Sad Sea 2:45
8 Diamond Voices Of Stars 4:17

Bonus Track:

9 Buring The Vibes 21:22

DOWNLOAD this exotic wood HERE!

Besombes - Rizet – "Pôle" (Pôle Records – PÔLE 0006/0007)1975

Another French electronic duo,but this time without disguises,and looking at them maybe they should have? Dunno which is which, but one of them, be it Bescombes or Rizet smokes a pipe.Not enough pipe smokers in progressive rock for my money.

They also had a remortgaged house worth of keyboards: VCS 3 AKS, ARP 2600, Electrocomp 101 and 500, Farfisa Synthorchestra , YamahaF Y 1, Oberheim Expander , Solina Stringensemble , Crumor electric piano, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Hammond Organ and,last but not least,a Mellotron 400.

All that and a pipe too!On paper this sounds perfect.

They didn't waste time on creating a trademark sound.There's nothing here that, if you didn't know better,you could sit back and say, "Ahhh, that's Bescombes and Rizat that is".Bouncing between Cluster duetting with Rick Wakeman after his fingers were amputated, to Robert Rental before he was Robert Rental,but spacey enough to be Robert Rental after his death. It's as if they,shockingly, had never heard of Mozart,which was an obligatory influence for all progressive rockers in 1975,alongside numerous versions of 'Lick My Love Pump'by many a proto-nwobhm band in Birmingham or Essex; Not for Bescombes and Rizet was the electrification of the usual suspect suspects from the sleep inducing classical era; they wanted to experiment!?

There's also not many albums that are named after their record label either......how cool is that? As Captain Oates said on the now speedily melting Ross Ice Shelf, "I'm going outside, i may be some time".....when in fact he was checking out this immortal French Prog double album on the hotter part of the Pôle,to be thawed out approximately fifty years later at the most southerly record fayre held in the spritual wreckage of Shackleton's Discovery. Now everyone wants a piece of this Discovery,so here's your chance to step outside and stay there for the duration of the four splendid sides of this electronic prog miesterwerk.

Just a small francophobic  aspersion to come, as i've been quite nice to them recently. If Scott's crew had been French, they would have pushed Captain Oates out of the tent to certain death to save themselves rather than rely on his noble deed of self-sacrifice.

Bescombes and Rizet got to the Pôle lomg before Amundsen,and they didn't even have to leave the warmth of the studio....all likely paid for by the French Government's vast Art Grant's department;to the astonishment of the UK Tax Payer,and beyond.Bloody Socialists!

Tracklist:

A1 Haute Pression 10:56
A2 Evelyse 7:17
B Armature Double 18:00
C1 Lundi Matin 5:41
C2 Montélimar 7:37
C3 Rock À Montauban 3:30
D Synthi Soit-Il 21:42

DOWNLOAD the first men to reach the Pôle HERE!