Monday, 18 November 2024

MIND DE-CODER 113


MIND DE-CODER 113

To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page

Surrealism to me is reality. Psychedelic vision is reality to me and always was.

John Lennon


THE BLACK WATCH     WHEN YOU FIND FOREVER


Check out that title. WEIRD ROOMS, the current release from L.A.-based The Black Watch, is sequenced to be listened to in one heightened setting - with When You Find Forever, the album’s opening track, I give you precisely 31 seconds and I exhort you to check out the rest of this remarkable release immediately.


THE RASCALS     INTRO-EASY ROLLIN’


As The Young Rascals they were responsible for the chilled-out soulful single Groovin’, which was a huge hit in the summer of 1967. By 1968 they were The Rascals, and their fourth album, ONCE UPON A DREAM, showcases a gleeful embrace of LSD. I’m no great fan of their earlier work, but this is a gem of an album, full of experimental flourishes which seamlessly integrate elements of jazz and psychedelia into the quartet's sound, along with adventurous arrangements and introspective, philosophical lyrics. 


PETER DALTREY     IN THE TIME OF TREES


Peter Daltrey, one time singer and chief songwriter for legendary 60s psychedelic band Kaleidoscope (the English version, although the American version were not to be sniffed at) has recently released his 26th solo album, THE LEOPARD AND THE LAMB - a psychedelic deep dive through the looking glass, combining 60s vibes with (no doubt) hard won cosmic wisdom. In The Time Of Trees is the perfect soundtrack for your next existential crisis or tea party.



THE SHIVER     HEY MR HOLY MAN


The Shiver were that rarest of things - a Swiss psychedelic rock band. I’ve never given it much thought before, but if you’d have asked me, I would have suggested that Switzerland is exactly the sort of country that the 60s most probably by-passed altogether, but it turns out that The Shiver were known as one of the most legendary (and mysterious) Swiss psychedelic quintets of that inestimable age. Hey Mr Holy Man, which very much seems to be based on that old Gregorian chant Dies Irae, is taken from the band’s only album WALPURGIS, released in 1969. It charts that exact moment when prog began to emerge beneath the paisley sheets of psychedelia - the creepy ethereal mix of organs, hazy percussive drive and dueling aspects of spaced out choral vocal utterances with spoken narration and a groovy free flowing melodic groove is the best track on the album and one of the highlights of all acid rock of the era. (The album’s cover features the first album cover work of legendary surrealist painter H.R. GIGER, fact fans.)



PICTUREBOX     CONSIDERATE CONSTRUCTORS/THE STORY OF BISCUIT MAN


Two short tracks from the Canterbury-based Picturebox, a band who exist on the same sort of spectrum as Blur at their most Syd Barrett-est and Dan Treacy’s Television Personalities, with just a bit of XTC thrown in for good measure. They really are that good. Their most recent album, MOBILE DISCO, released earlier this year, features songs about girls, animals, mobile discos and how a bag of 10p’s won’t get you anywhere these days. Charming.


RIVAL SELF     MANIFEST


Manifest is the opening track from DJ/producer/turntable musician and cassette looper Rival Self’s eponymous debut LP, released last year but still getting regular plays here at Mind De-Coder Heights. It pretty much lays out the stall for what to expect from the rest of the album - a meticulously detailed field trip through an immersive soundscape that encapsulates the spirit of early Shadow, psychedelia and jazz for the art loving crate digger.


BROADCAST     I WANT TO BE FINE


I think I said in my last show that with the release of SPELL BLANKET, it was time to let Trish Keenan return to the ether from whence she came, but since then Warp Records have released a collection of early demos of songs that would subsequently appear as finished productions on the albums HA HA SOUND, TENDER BUTTONS and THE FUTURE CRAYON and that promises to be that. In that spirit I just wanted to include I Want To Be Fine from SPELL BLANKET, because I find it, well, spell binding.


GER EATON     SEASON CHANGES


Ger Eaton (pronounced ‘Jair’, just in case you were wondering) - multi-Instrumentalist, Songwriter, Hair Stylist and Retro-Vintage Aficionado - is most recently known as keyboardist/guitarist for Dublin alt-rock heroes The Pale, although he’s been something of a mainstay of the Irish music scene for many years as a member of Premonition, Las Vegas Basement, Les Marionettes, Pugwash, The Carnival Brothers and many solo and collaborative recordings besides. That being said, I only came across him following the release of his most recent single, Season Changes, released earlier this year, a song inspired by a late night viewing of folk-horror classic The Wicker Man, but I find myself drawn, inexorably, to it. 


BEAUTIFY JUNKYARDS     SISTER MOON


The haunting Sister Moon is a collaboration between Lisbon’s Beautify Junkyards and Paul Weller, taken from their most recent album, NOVA, released on the Ghostbox label, home to all things hauntological. It’s a surprisingly good fit - Weller had a recent flirtation with hauntology, and Beautify Junkyards mix of Tropicalia and acid folk has taken an increasingly hauntological bent, especially in this instance where the group apply analogue synths to their wyrd/psych mix to create something disquietingly atmospheric. Weller provides vocals and guitar, while the band create an electronic landscape that sits somewhere between White Noise, Piero Umiliani, Mort Garson and Broadcast. Distinctly marvellous.


MAGICK BROTHER AND MYSTIC SISTER     THE EMPRESS


Gorgeous, pastoral acid-folk from Barcelona’s Magick Brother and Mystic Sister. Their most recent release, TAROT, PT. 1, looks to a deck of Major Arcana Tarot cards for inspiration, through which they weave a phantasmagorical journey through the outer realms of space-prog, cosmic jazz, krautrock and magical folk. It’s a truly trippy experience - exotic percussion, flute, cosmic and sitar sounds abide, inviting the listener to take a deep dive. The album is released in two parts, with the first part becoming available earlier this year, giving the listener more time to meditate on music and the universe of Tarot. When the second album is released, the two records are designed to be combined, with the interior gatefolds forming an astrological mandala - frankly there’s not enough of this sort of thing going on these days and they are to be lauded.


OBERON     NOTTAMUN TOWN



This dreamy, plaintive rendition of the American folk traditional Nottamun Town, was covered by Oberon, then a septet of teenage students at Oxford's Radley College, in 1971, for their only album, A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM. Recorded in a vacant classroom at the beginning of their school holiday, the album has taken on the status of a cult classic, possibly because it was limited to a privately-pressed run of just 99 copies. It’s very much of its time - a fascinating dropped stitch in the fabric of the early Seventies underground folk cosmology - but when it’s this enchanting, it provides everything you need.

JULIAN COPE     R. IN THE HOOD

 

On which Julian Cope channels the spirit of Robin Hood through The Sweet’s 1975 release Action (We All Want A Piece Of The Action) in order to question the very nature of peace (or does he mean piece?) itself. R. In The Hood, all garage-fuzz dub, is taken from his most recent release FRIAR TUCK, an album of 12 brand new humdingers: all hummable and lyrically compelling and replete with wah-acoustic guitars and beautiful orchestrations of Mellotron 400 from Liverpool’s Blondest.

THE DEEP    SHADOWS ON THE WALL


There’s some debate regarding which band first used the term ‘psychedelic’. The 13th Floor Elevators and The Blues Magoos are oft mentioned, of course, as are The Holy Modal Rounders, but may I add to the mix The Deep, who’s album, PSYCHEDELIC MOODS, released in 1966, purports to be the first album that musically replicated the experience an individual was exposed to while under the influence of LSD. It’s something of a curio, and given that it was recorded by studio musicians (reportedly on acid), it has the aura of a cynical studio cash-in about it, despite the fact it was released a year before psychedelic music hit the mainstream. Nevertheless, the resulting sound, achieved with weird sound effects, haunting vocals, sexual moans and acid-soaked lyrics, is well worth a listen if you’re a fan of this sort of thing (and I assume you are.) I should mention at this point that the actual first mention of LSD on a rock record was the Gamblers' 1960 surf instrumental LSD 25, so now you know.


THE SMITHS     HOW SOON IS NOW


I had to play this at some point, I just can’t believe it took this long. Deeply immersive, sonically ambitious, swirling, lysergic, transcendent. This being Mind De-Coder I decided to play the ultra-rare unfinished studio out-take that found it’s way onto the Italian-only release of William, It Was Really Nothing, released in 1985. The story goes, Rough Trade sent the incorrect master for the b-side to Virgin in Italy. The mistake was not discovered until copies were delivered to the stores, with a rough estimate of just 100 known copies to have escaped into the hands of collectors before it was swiftly withdrawn. (I wasn’t one of them, btw.) It’s not quite as good as the version with which you’re familiar, but if the definition of psychedelic music is that it discombobulates the senses, then stick around until the end.


THE ATTACK     LADY ORANGE PEEL



Inhabiting a region of the sonic solar system somewhere between the Creation and the Small Faces, The Attack languished in comparative obscurity back in the day - their four singles failing to crack the charts was more down to bad luck and record company incompetence than any shortcomings on the band’s part. These days they’re considered one of the finest examples of freakbeat, although the hazily langourous Lady Orange Peel, the b-side to their final single Neville Thumbcatch, released in 1968, shows just how much that scene (it wasn’t really a scene so much the more obscure, hard-edged bands of that era that failed to make a mark on the listening public) was prepared to dip its toe into the limpid pools of psychedelia.


ANDRE 3000     GHANDI, DALAI LAMA, AND YOUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JC - 

                      BUNDY, JEFFREY DAHMER, AND JOHN WAYNE GACY


An album of devotional mediations influenced by spiritual jazz musicians and minimalist composers is possibly the last thing we expected from Andre 3000 (Andre Lauren Benjamin to his mum) or even this show, but what can I tell you? Light a candle, smoke a joint, put it on while taking a bath, and drift away. You may have thought that experimental flute music is not your thing (or possibly thang) and I expect that, on the whole, you’d be right, but set and setting is everything, and NEW BLUE SUN, released last year, is a sublime listen, frequently beautiful and spiritually uplifting to boot. He spelt Gandhi wrong, by  the way. 

KLAUS SCHULTZE     MINDPHASER


I guess the same can be said of krautrock legend, Klaus Schultze. I have to pick my moment to enjoy his electronic improvisations, but get the timing right - dusk works for me, it’s when I’m at my most contemplative - and I can be quite receptive to some pulsating synths. Mindphaser is taken from his 1976 release MOONDAWN. I’ve only played an excerpt because the original track runs to some 25 minutes and takes up all of side 2 of the album. Not that I’m opposed to playing 25 minute tracks on the show, of course, but about halfway through this track it goes off on something of a tangent, and I thought, well, if you’re going to go off on something of a tangent, then let’s play something by…

FAUST    ZWÖLF METER UNTER DER OBERFLÄCHE/I AM…AN ARTIST


My love for krautrock was first and foremost formented through Faust, most memorably THE FAUST TAPES, which pretty much changed the way I thought about music forever. Zwölf Meter Unter Der Oberfläche (or Twelve Metres Below The Surface, Google Translate fans) is Faust at their most Faust-iest, a disorienting experiment in tape-splicing innovation that is almost entirely discombobulating in nature. It’s taken from the album MOMENTAUFNAHME III, a collection of snapshots gathered from their legendary 1970s recordings (although some of these recordings also appear on 2001’s BBC SESSIONS+ where this track is titled 360) released earlier this year. By contrast, the delicate I Am…An Artist is taken from the album MOMENTAUFNAHME II, released in 2023, one of two albums that collects together music recorded between 1971 and 1974 in a similar vein to the way in which THE FAUST TAPES was assembled - which is to say, they contain a montage of minimal electronic pulses, ambient dreamscapes, vocal collages to heavy drone, ritualistic percussion and psychedelic grooves that provide a very good introduction to the band should you be in anyway interested.


SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     PHANTOM OF CANTON


Hot off the press, and available to buy for three days only, Phantom Of Canton gives us a taste of the new album from Welsh wizards Soft Hearted Scientists, who are in the process of recording it now with a release date pencilled in for 2025. The song captures the band whimsically reflecting upon life beneath a lysergic haze of vintage instruments and beautiful harmonies. It bodes well.

JOHNNY ALMOND MUSIC MACHINE     VOODOO FOREST 


The eminently strange Voodoo Forest is taken from the album PATENT PENDING, released in 1969 by the acclaimed saxophonist and woodwind player Johnny Almond. It’s a classic of its kind, capturing that emerging mix of jazz blues and rock that would create that special Brit sound of the era - the whole album could be used as a soundtrack to an Austin Powers movie. Almond earned his chops playing with the likes John Mayall, Zoot Money, Alan Price and Chicken Shack, before he formed his own group in 1969. He was an outstanding multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger, equally at home as a producer where he treated the studio as an instrument in the same way as George Martin or, now I come to think of it, Carlos Esquivel. In fact, posit him somewhere between the two and you won’t go far wrong with this album.

BLACK CAT BONES     FEELIN’ GOOD


I’m no great fan of your blues-rock, me, but only a hard-hearted villain could take issue with this track, recorded by a post-Paul Kossoff Black Cat Bones for their only LP, 1969’s BARB WIRE SANDWICH (which, let’s face it, sounds like a Spinal Tap album from more or less the same period.) Although the album was known for its hard rocking blues, Feelin’ Good was written by the legendary Anthony Newely for the 1964 production of the musical ‘The Roar Of The Greasepaint - The Smell Of The Crowd.’ Black Cat Bones, purveyors of your raw progressive blues, make it all about the sentiment, and the sentiment is all about feelin’ good.

MAYA ONGAKU     PILLOW SONG


Japan’s Maya Ongaku combine a sublime mix of psychedelia, folk and jazz, very much in tune with, and encapsulating, the essence of the trio’s sleepy native island of Enoshima.  Their debut album, APPROACH TO ANIMA, released last year contains chiming guitars and ethereal vocals, languid basslines and woodwind and percussion, all of which converge to create a sonic experience that helps you transcend whatever physical environment you might find yourself in. Pillow Song is perfectly idyllic. Until that bit at the end. Which I really like.


Monday, 24 June 2024

Mind De-Coder 112


MIND DE-CODER 112

To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page


 The snowflake has melted!

 

ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)


 Mash-up artist, screenwriter, polymath - in truth, Alan Black retired from the world of creating mash-ups back in 2019, but he’s left a treasure trove of albums to download and explore on his website . Expect to discover aural soundscapes and ambient creations adapted from a plethora of sources which include the paranormal, historical, literary, philosophical, film, radio, and comedy excerpts, and, in this instance, Disneyland. Adventure Through Inner Space is taken from his 2018 DISNEYLAND REVISITED and is all over the show, allowing the listener to dip into inner and outer space as the mood takes you…

 

APPLETREE THEATRE     …IN THE BEGINNING…


 This spoken word track almost gets lost with everything else going on in the first few minutes of the show, but In The Beginning is taken from the 1968 release, PLAYBACK, by Terrance and John Boylan, previously of The Ginger Men, an act blending rock 'n' roll with folk and blues. After landing a solo contract Terrance recruited his brother and a group of session musicians to concoct this psych-baroque concept album under the name of Appletree Theatre. It was a loosely woven affair, divided into three acts, an overture, and an epilogue, with full-length pop songs linked by vocal narratives and snatches of music, including elements of jazz, acid rock, and classical music. It sold moderately well, given a certain definition of 'moderately well', but both John Lennon and John Peel counted themselves fans, which still counts for something in my book (that would be The Mind De-Coder Book of Vicarious Pleasures, but it sadly got lost on the way to the printers).

 

MOON WIRING CLUB     GHOSTS OF THE UNDERGROUND MARKET


 Witness the entirely shonky, cronky and wonky Ghosts Of The Underground Market, summoned from a congealing swirl of antique cultural entertainment detritus! This is taken from the most recent release from Ian Hodgson’s Moon Wiring Club, SEPIA CAT CITY - the ill-logical conclusion to the Cat Location LP Trilogy that began with THE MOST UNUSUAL CAT IN THE VILLAGE, continued with THE ONLY CAT LEFT IN TOWN  and now presented as a magnificently dilapidated denouement with Maximum AudioRot Collage techniques in unique MWC stylee. SEPIA CAT CITY is a place seemingly drained of vital nutrients, where architectural styles overleap and overlap, infrastructures crumble, concreted underground markets team with monochromatic-kaleidoscopic memory patterns and unruly yet stylish ghost youth gangs such as the MOSTLY ALMOST SEPIA SOCIETY gather around closing-down department stores and glass corridors over the motorway to jeer mockingly: “GET ON THE TELLY!”

 

RIVAL SELF     PHENOMENOLOGY


 Phenomenology is taken from a superb trip of an album by producer, DJ, turntable musician, and cassette looper, Rival Self, an artist well known within your hip hop circles since the mid-90s, but who seems to have passed me by until the release of his self-titled debut LP last year. It’s a meticulously detailed field trip through the mind of a 60s-obsessed crate-digger, very much aligned with the likes of DJ Shadow and Kid Koala. Combining a love of psychedelia with the spirit of jazz, he’s not beyond stitching together the stoned philosophical musings of Eric Burden alongside snippets of wordplay from the likes of Rakim and Blackalicious, appearing to have accidentally created his own sub-genre of instrumental hip hop in the process. I count myself a fan.

 

THE LOVE MACHINE     INNER EAR FREAKOUT.


 This track pretty much does what it says on the label. Inner Ear Freakout is taken from the 1968 psychsploitation release ELECTRONIC MUSIC TO BLOW YOUR MIND BY!!!, a cynical studio ploy to cash-in on the hippie craze sweeping America. Recorded by session musicians eager to try out all the new buttons on the mixing desk - stereo panning, phasing, outer space synth, and moog sounds abound - it shouldn’t work but it does, and the result is as groovy as fuck.

 

BROADCAST     I BLINK YOU BLINK

I Blink You Blink is  short vignette from SPELL BLANKET, a recently released collection of Trish Keenan’s demos, home recordings, and voice notes for what would most likely have been Broadcast’s fifth album. Oscillating from minute-long loop fragments and textural studies to more fleshed-out, properly arranged songs, Keenan’s otherworldly vocals bring a hauntological ambience to these once lost tunes. I understand that the basket is now empty, and that this is the last material Broadcast will ever release - if so this album plays out as a very fine tribute to the band’s singular brand of retro-futurist psychedelia. The time has come to finally let Trish Keenan go, I guess, and let her return to wherever, or whenever, has made a home for her; and for James Cargill, who formed broadcast with Keenan in 1995, to finally move on, too.

 

ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)

 We return for another brief dive into the immersive world of Alan Black and the Disneyland ride.

 

JOHN ST. FIELD     DUNE VOICES


 John St. Field was a pseudonym adopted by the semi-legendary Scottish songwriter and folk-musician Jackie Leven back in the early seventies, due to unspecified problems with ‘the forces of law and order.’ Whatever those problems were, they resulted in Jackie’s debut album, CONTROL, recorded in 1971, only being made available in Spain upon release. It’s a whimsical affair, very much at home to the copious amounts of LSD he was taking at the time, as evidenced by this track, the effects-laden Dune Voices. He went on to build a devoted cult following during his lengthy, wildly varied, and often turbulent career but never achieved the level of success that he deserved, but it all began here.

 

PAUL ROLAND     SUMMER OF 1810


 Summer of 1810 is taken from the psych-folk gem WYRD TALES OF ANTIQUARY, released last year, by English singer-songwriter, author, music journalist and all round psychedelic cult celebrity Paul Roland (he’s also been credited with spearheading steampunk music, but we won’t go there). The album (his 25th) features a combination of pastoral interludes and delicately orchestrated acoustic songs which create an atmosphere as evocative as the title suggests. Magickal and transportative.

 

NICK NICELY     DAY THAT NEVER CAME.


 …and speaking of semi-legendary psychedelic cult celebrities, the new single from the greatest pop star that never was, nick nicely (always in the lower key) is a bit of a lysergic treat, and is available to download from Bandcamp right now.

 

RIDE     LIGHT IN A QUIET ROOM

For their 7th album (their 3rd since reforming), Ride have taken all the power from their debut album and dialled it up to 11, or possibly 13 - every track sounds like the momentous closing track from a stupendous album - Light In A Quiet Room, for example, is only track 3, but is epic, a psychedelic barrage of sound that grows from an understated wistful beginning. Amidst the sonic-cathedral sound palette of swirling guitars and dreamy vocals, INTERPLAY also contains funky basslines, shuffling breakbeats, ephemeral synths, fragmented samples, strings and pianos, and moments of electronic processing. It’s a dynamic listen, to say the least.

 

THE APPLETREE THEATRE     LOTUS FLOWER

 

A second track from the baroque-psych concept album PLAYBACK, this track, something of a delightful instrumental groover, complete with reverse tape effects, also appeared as the b-side to the second and final single released to promote the album in 1968.

 

NICK FRATER     LOOSE TEA IN DISGUISE

Croydon-based singer/songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist Nick Frater has made the ultimate pastiche album - a pastiche of a pastiche, in fact. NICK FRATER PRESENTS THE PREBUTLES 1967-1970, released last year, is a loving homage not to The Beatles, but to The Rutles - the original pre-fab four. Eleven unheard songs from The Prebutles' time experimenting with tea and the studio. Recorded using period instruments and techniques, it’s heartwarming stuff, but remember…nothing is real.

 

ASTRAL SON     NOTHING REMAINS


 Astral Son is the moniker employed by Dutch musician, studio wizard, and artist Leonardo Soundweaver when he needs to scratch his psychedelic itch. He creates a lysergic soundscape that exists somewhere between Pink Floyd at their most Astronomy Domine-ness and Spacemen 3 at their most Transparent Radiation-ness - truly it is a place to lose yourself in. Taken from the album MYTHOS, released last year, opening track Nothing Remains shimmers with Barrett-esque chord changes over a motorik groove. Trippy progressive psychedelia at its best.

 

LES BIG BYRD     THE NIGHT BUS


 … and speaking of trippy, progressive psychedelia at its best, Sweden’s Les Big Byrd return with the immersive and experimental DIAMONDS, RHINESTONES AND HARD RAIN, released last year. It’s a mesmerising swirl of sound influenced by everything from disco to a kind of astral spacerock that puts me in mind of Hawkwind as much as it does Spiritualised. But as Jack Kerouac used to say: All comparisons are odious, and album closer The Night Bus finds room to wander down sonic avenues all of its own. I’m no fan of the saxophone, me, rating it barely above the recorder for what it can add to a song, but on this track, the effect is electrifyingly kosmiche.

 

HIERONYMUS HARRY     MARSH OF LOVE

Hieronymus Harry is the non de plume employed by the Toronto-based Harrison Forman, whose debut album, released originally on cassette and then digitally in 2022, invokes a time, place, and feeling that is strikingly different from our present moment. Harkening back to the late 1960s when artists like Pentangle, and the Incredible String Band conjured madcap, mystical worlds, THE RIVER OF DOOM captures naturalistic performances on acoustic instruments to create spellbinding surrealist folk songs.  Marsh Of Love enjoys a haunted melody that puts one in mind of Skip Spence embracing his inner weirdness, but the whole album has this surreal outsider vibe that’s best enjoyed sitting by a campfire deep inside your mind.

 

 ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)

 In which our hero explores a snowflake. A real one. Not a Trump supporter.

 

LAETITIA SADIER     LA NAGEUSE NUE


 ROOTING FOR LOVE*, the latest release from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, employs a palette of humming synths, wandering bass, gentle vibraphone clatter, exotica-hued lounge elements and the sort of intricate backing vocals that suggest this is a Stereolab with the guitars turned down. But the disparate textures and dreamscapes hide an understated fury that can be quite shocking when you actually begin to pay attention to the words. The sociopolitical spirit that always drove Stereolab is still proudly on display here, with songs calling for an end to this era of isolation, fragmentation, and a striving for collective knowledge. I’ve no idea what the Wurlitzer-enhanced La Nageuse Nue is all about (a quick Google search translates the title to The Naked Swimmer, if that’s any help) - Sadier’s deadpan delivery is playfully arch - but it slips and slides across an exotica-tinged landscape with a lysergic melody all of its own.

 (* Don’t get me started on what that title means here in New Zealand.)

 

EAMON RA     HAPPIEST DAY GONE ASTRAY 

Happiest Day Gone Astray is a small perfect interlude of gauzy woodwind and backwards bits taken from the album DUNCE WITCH SNOWMAN, released last year by Seattle DIY pop maven Eamon Ra, an artist very much at home to The Kinks, although not necessarily on this track.

 

LUNER DUNES     FREE TO DO 

Trippy instrumental space music from Luner Dunes, a band whose second album, GALAXSEA, looks to both krautrock grooves and Miles Davis for inspiration. Released in 2011, it was a truly kaleidoscopic mix of trippy acid-rock, haunting choirs, lounge moves, and deep bass dives. It’s recently been given the re-release treatment with a bonus six tracks. Essential listening for space cadets.

 

JULIAN COPE     POET IS PRIEST


This is the full 22-minute version of Poet Is Priest, originally recorded for Cope’s heathen folk masterpiece JEHOVAHKILL in 1992, but rejected by his record company at the time (alongside much of the rest of the album, truth be told - Island Records dropped him from their roster within a week of the album’s release). That version of the album featured a considerably truncated version of the track, but 2006 saw a deluxe version of the album re-released with the full-length version included as a bonus track. It’s an epic piece, in every sense of the word, a krautrock funk song featuring a shamanic guitar riff, rave influences, and incorporating "acoustic astrology" from astronomer and musician Fiorella Terenzi, an Italian-born astrophysicist, author, and recording artist who is best known for taking recordings of radio waves from far-away galaxies and turning them into music. I was listening to it the other day whilst driving over the Remutaka Hills and it sounded mind-blowing. It’s been a long-time coming, but I had to include it in the show.

 

Fans of the arch-drude might be interested to learn that a 6th installment of Cope’s Notes has just been released which delves deep into the making of this most notorious of albums. It includes 40-plus minutes of rare demos, versions and unreleased music, and a 48-page booklet featuring handwritten lyrics and rare photos and is available here just in case this is the sort of thing that makes you unfeasibly excited.


 ALAN BLACK     ADVENTURE THROUGH INNER SPACE (excerpt)

 A final visit with Alan Black to our adventure through inner space. The snowflake melts, although that sentence probably means something entirely different these days.


Facebook