Not had a lot of time to keep up with the blog over the year, work and family stuff mainly, but here's a short record in pictures as to where I've been to over the year. More for me than anything, a pictorial memory prompt.
Summer Solstice Megalithic Odyssey On Angelsey
Had a great couple of days camping out in Angelsey around the time of the Summer Solstice, something I'd been promising myself I'd do for years after completing a tomb type comparison for A Level Archaeology over 10 years ago. Had a wonderful time with beautiful weather and daylight up until 11pm at night.
Strange 'Breton' coach/head party at Bryn Celli Ddu, soaking up those vibes
Ty Croes campsite....all to my lonesome
Barclodiad Y Gawres from adjoining beach
Hut Circle up on Holyhead Mountain
Angelsey has a profusion of these lovely old CADW Signposts
As Above
Great Stone 'alignment' near Castell Bryn Gwyn Henge
Lligwy with it's 25 ton capstone...almost like the weight is causing it to sink into the underworld
Di Lligwy Romano British Settlement
Beautiful Headland entrance to Llanddwyn Island
South Stack, Holyhead
Early morning, Bryn Ccelli Ddu, minus Breton's
Sunlit Passage, Bryn Celli Ddu
View to Snowdon from Castell Bryn Gwyn
Lighthoouse keepers lodging, Llanddwyn Island
Cornwall August 2012
Had a lovely holiday with the family out on Bodmin Moor, though we travelled a fair bit cos' of bad weather. Saw some great sites, and as ever, I took myself off to look at, as my youngest says, Old Stones.
Buckfast, Butterfly Farm, Dartmoor
Dartmoor Otter Sanctuary
Buckfastleigh Steam Railway
River Dart
View from Merrivale, Dartmoor
Charlestown tall ships
Rough Tor, Bodmin
Rough Tor at Sunset
Rough Tor Stone Circle
Clapper Bridge, Bodmin Moor
Golitha Falls River - Bodmin
Trevithy Quoit Tomb
Caradon Mine, Bodmin... Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Ocean Rain' LP cover was shot here
So that's how Iron Man got his powers!
Dinscott Tank Museum
Llangollen September 2012
Wife's Birthday 'outing' was to Llangollen. The A5 in this neck of the woods is one of the most glorious stretches of road, nestled between mountains and wooded slopes, it's a beautiful drive.
Bran and the Holy Grail
Llangollen Steam Railway
Trevor Rocks from Castell Dinas Bran
Wonderful old Hazel tree, must be over 100 years old
Brown and Titterstone Clee, Shropshire, October 2012
View East from Brown Clee
The 'strange' echoing woods of Brown Clee
Old Quarry workings, Titterstone Clee
Thunderbirds set...Titerstone Clee Radar Station
Man made landscapes - Titterstone Clee
Distant 'Inca' ruins of a prior civilisation
View Back to the 'Station'
Titterstone from afar
Purton Ghost Ships - River Severn - June 2012
Came across a walk for Purton Ghost Ships, a man made erosion embankment on the lower Severn in a walking mag' I picked up and just had to go. It's all now an SSSI, and as well as thhose evocative 'hulks', has a great wealth of wildlife and plants. Well worth a visit if your in the area.
Severn Valley Ghost Train - October 2012
My youngest was badgering for something different to do on Halloween, so we found a Ghost Train for her and a few of her pal's to go on. Was great fun, and she was double chuffed cos' of the 'Harry Potter' carriage we found for the journey. Hell, they even dressed up.
The Ghost Train
Various Times and Locations
Kinver Edge
Kinver Edge and Rock Houses
Home of the Trogledites
Niew from Broadway to Stanton and Buckland, Worcestershire
Toposcope on Fish Hill, near Broadway and Chipping Campden
The Plague Church, Worcestershire
Windblown Spiders Gossimeratop Earl's Hill, Shropshire
Poisonous looking mushroom, Clent Hills, Worcestershire
Tre excited about this, just listened to the sample up on soundcloud and it's a much different beast to many of their previous albums. Hopefully better than their last release Apsolute II, which for me was a big let down, though I can understand that they want to explore a little further into territories outside their usual sound dynamic.
Anyhoo, due to be released on November 13th,the album is called 'A List Of The Burning Mountains' and takes a heavier, droned out and altogether spacier tack than much of their free psych catalogue. The album is made up of two drawn out 19 minute tracks, with free rhythm interludes. Intriguing!
Got asked for a few re-up's of files a while ago, apologies for my tardiness in uploading, and for not posting anything for some time, but here they are now.
Think these links should work fine, if not, let me know.
Had a request for a re-up of the above. Sorry it took so long, all my data has been deleted from various web hosts and had to dig it all out again. Hope you enjoy it.
Plus hear a new track from the forthcoming album WIXIW here
Released sometime June 2012 the new album is said to be more electronic and sample based than previous records, lets hope it's another interesting shift in direction for the band.
Gotta admit, I'm looking forward to this one big time, been too long between releases for one of my fav' contemporary acts. Link to tunes (2018).....Liars B-Sides
Couple of great Auteurs live shows - 'Black Sessions' is a French radio show from 1996 that had a limited unofficial release (2500 CDr's I think I saw somewhere), and the 'No Dialogue With Cunts' is a live freebie from 1999 given away a while ago two tracks at a time on Luke Haines website.
Apologies, been a while since my last post, busy at work, and the taking down of Megaupload means most of my content has been flushed down the pan, and I kinda lost heart re: re-posting stuff.
Anyhow, I'm off work with a stinking cold, and actually have some 'free' time, so, what he heck....
Been a big fan of all things 'Luke Haines' since I first discovered the band Auteurs in the early 90's. His insiteful and acerbic/acidic take on British life has been a stalwart of his lyrical output for most of his recording career, all laced with a dark humour and whit not always accorded to him.
This continued through his next incarnation with 'Black Box Recorder' and Baader Meinhoff and onto his more recent solo stuff.
Came across this clip whilst perusing You Tube and it's a corker.
Apparently 'Outsider Music' 51 is the final installment in the series of 50 bespoke CDr's, a live performance of the best songs contained on the limited edition recordings. Each copy of 'Outsider Music' was a true one off, with Haines re-recording each album to give each buyer a unique recorded artifact (apparently one of the discs has him answering the door to the postman)
A brief review of one of these impossible to find (and expensive...£75 each...phew, bit outside my pocket) releases is Here.
Here's a few clips of Mr Haines past (and present) glories...
Hopefully back to posting more regularly in the not too distant future, for now, I'm off for a nap.
Well I guess it's that time of year, pretty much every mag, blog or website has some sort of 'best of' roundup, so why should I buck the trend and be any different!
Thought I'd compile a little disc length download of some of my favourite musical moments of 2011.
So in no particular order, let's begin....
This kinda got under my skin after initially not really connecting with it. It's a strange record which takes a musical theme and runs with it through almost all of the tracks, I guess you could argue that it creates an album that sounds samey, but that's what I like about it, the continuity of sound. Wiry Guitars, taught rhythms, the strange scream/warble of the vocals. I guess the nearest bands sound wise that come to mind are Pere Ubu, The Scientists and the garage tremblings of someone like The Cramps. The singer/ lyricist Gick stated in an interview elsewhere, and I'm paraphrasing here.."I take all the things I dislike about modern life and use them as a basis for songs and music". This, you might think is a recipe for a slightly depressing turn of evens, but far from it, the taught pulsings of TV Ghost slowly unravelled and kept me coming back for more.
You could argue that it's business as usual with Fujiyama & Miyagi with their latest offering, but for me those motorik Krautrock rhythms, and the repetitious vocal simplicity are what I like about them. I guess their major touchstone would be Future Days era Can, but that you could argue is heavily filtered through decades of minimal dance music and a nod and a wink to other artists of a similar ilk such as Echoboy or Whitey (bot curiously from Manchester)
You can hear them playing some of this live in an earlier post on Sound Mirrors here from earlier in the year.
The yesteryear transmission from Belbury Parish have warmed the cockles muchly this year. For me, this is one time Hauntology inspired Jim Jupp's finest record to date. Packed to the brim with otherworldly, half recognised samples, simple electronic melodies and the tinge old tobacco, this is a psychological treat for people of a certain age. The theme of the album is based around the changing of the seasons, and the in-constancy (is that even a word) of the everyday. For me there are big nods to bands such as Broadcast and Boards of Canada, so if you like these fellows. maybe this is for you. Plus, a big bonus for me is the beautiful artwork of Julian House, whose visual ideology holds the whole Ghostbox genre under his retro fixated spell.
This is a record that has accompanied me on many a journey and walk, it really is a thing of great beauty, and for me, his best work in years. Eno composes the music, and the vocals/ spoken words are from a variety of sources, from the poet Rick Holland, to people whose voice he just likes the sound of that he met down the gym. Now this could reek of pretension, but for someone of Eno's stature, it works well. The 'songs' cover variety of themes from the lofty to the everyday. Some tracks are just instrumental, whilst the majority have some sort of vocal accompaniment. As I said, it's a real thing of beauty, and if you need a few minutes peace and quiet, it's something I dip into often. The album 'Sleepwalkers' by David Sylvian has a similar vibe about it, and is another I couldn't recommend enough.
Three years on from their debut self titled mini LP comes 'Transmalinnia', a wonderful dark psych epic from Lumerians, which, whilst not ploughing quite the same furrow of the debut EP, certainly inhabits an adjacent field. Swirling organs, droning guitars, tribal drumming and deep in the mix laconic vocals are the order of the day. To give you a flavour, if they made a Charlie Manson inspire movie, these fellas would more than be up to the task of sound tracking it. On the surface they are similar to bands like The Black Angles and Wooden Shjips, but there's definitely a dark streak to these fellas the others don't come near to.
Vulnerability isn't something that you usually associate with hip hop, but this debut by Ghostpoet isn't afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve, which makes for an album which is all to human in it's content. The sound musically is similar to Tricky or Massive Attack, but don't let that put you off, he's flying a different flag. Describing himself as a rapper with a lisp and some stories, he's much more than that. It's refreshing to hear someone telling everyday stories of their life and struggles instead of mucho bravado about guns bitches and ho's. Like Scroobious Pip, another hip hop artist/ poet making music and rhymes in a similar vein, it's a rewarding listen.
John Foxx is someone I've loved and admired ever since my 13 year old self marveled at the strange and stark future offered up by the epic Underpass single, way back in 1980. Unaware at the time of the record of his previous involvement with Ultravox, I've followed his career for many years, not always liking what I've heard, but always admiring his relentless pushing forward. Interplay is a wonderful collaboration with analogue junkies The Maths, made wholly on period analogue synthesizers, it's a real step back to those wonderful years of the seminal Metamatic, albeit heavily filtered through 4/4 dance floor conventions. Ahhh, if only more chart music sounded like this, I'd be happy as a pig in shit.
Spurred on by the success of a live reunion of a few years ago, here we have a brand new album by a once seminal post punk band. I gotta admit, Magazine are one of my fav' bands ever and I wasn't really looking forward to hearing this new material upon release and held back a while before getting a copy.
Well, what can I say, the music is definitely Magazine shaped, but as to the vocals/ lyrics, well, ahem, lets say some tracks are OK, whilst a few are more than a little preposterous, but hey, it's Howard, and I'll forgive him whatever.
Still a better effort than my next favourite at of the 80's, the Bauhaus reunion album 'Go Away White' really WAS a pile of shite.
Sometime head and psychedelic explorer Julian Cope releases filler from seminal 'Jehovahkill' album period, but would it be any good?
I gotta admit, I was really excited when I heard this was gonna be released, Jehovahkill, alongside Peggy Suicide and Autogeddon are by far my favourite Cope releases. The guy was really channeling something at the time, dunno what was in that Avebury water, but he certainly was a-full of it.
Now, I gotta be honest, 'Jehovahcoat' is not all great, hell, some of it isn't even good and stinks of more than a little of barrel dragging, but for all it's faults, it's an album I've returned to again and again, cos' the good bits are just soooo good, and TBH, it's still head and shoulders above much of his 'Black Sheep' output, which finds our be-German leathered Julian so far up his own rectum, I'm sure he's not smelt fresh air for quite some time. Here's hoping he revolution-ises himself back into reality at some not to distant future point.
Second album by Wooden Shjips offshoot. This isn't wholly great, straying somewhat into the territory of 'Da Shjips' but again, has enough of interest to keep me returning. Still ploughing that motorik Suicide meets Psych vibe, there are a few standout moments on this record, though in all honesty, I prefer the debut, it's a little rawer, which is something I'll always treasure, always preferring the burred edges, and buffed corners to the polished and pristine, just the way I am.
Dunno anything about Nightbeats, who they are or where they're from, but I love their Crampsian take on garage rock/punk. Sometimes a coming on like the 13the Floor Elevators, at other times more like Australian garage monsters The Scientists, it's a heartfelt guitar trebled din with more than a whiff of patchouli and joss stick about it, and screams of days spent sleeping and night out in the psychedelic basement.
You'll notice that for me, Sacred Bones Records have been the label of the year, with no less than three albums from the label on my list (Moon Duo, Psychic Ill's and Religious Knives) and like Ghostbox, they have great label identity/branding throughout. Psychic Ill's came to my attention through various posts on the Head Heritage unsung forum, a few of the peeps there whose taste I trust said I'd enjoy them, and dang em' if they were bang on the money. Coming on a LOT like Spacemen 3, they have that same droned out/ blissed out vibe about them, with the odd gospel/country tinged detour, this is definitely a record to kick back with, pop open your favourite beverage and hit the repeat button.
Whilst for me not quite up there with Spider Smile from 2007, it's a return to form of sorts, and a long time coming. More instrumental than recent recordings, having a more Silur like vibe to it for me, but no less enjoyable because of it. Its sad that there are less 'sung' tracks, as the laconic, chocolate melting delivery of Jestram is what I like about Tarwater. That feint German accent, has a real European exotica feel to it, it's measured tomes and choice of words. Musically, Tarwater are never less than interesting, investing their electronic shifts and swings with Krautrock/ post rock diversions and impeccable production values, they truly are one of Europe's great unsung recording acts.
Getting production assistance from non other than Beck, this is a killer of a record, and one I can honestly say I'd never have expected from one time Sonic Youth noise terrorist Thurston. I guess this was written during the parting throes of his longtime marriage to fellow 'Youther' Kim Gordon, another shock from earlier in the year. This record has accompanied me on many a meander, beautifully orchestrated and played gently on acoustic guitar, it's a record I never really thought I'd enjoy, but it's just so damn good. Why this isn't all over the airwaves beggar's belief, as Thurston opens up with songs of real heartfelt wonder and honesty. Fantastic...go out and buy it NOW.
Onetime Double Leopards produce new group and super psych jams.
This is another of those great Sacred Bones releases, a label that's shaping up to be a psychfest dreadnought. There's not a record I've heard from this label that I haven't loved. This album is awesome. Drenched in heavy heavy reverb, it's a wonderful and slightly un-nerving listen, tribal drums (check), deep drone guitar (check), reverbed vocal (check) largactil (check) al the things for a slightly disturbing 60's themed drug fest in fact, just don't put it on if your having a bad one...you might not ever come back.
Whilst not my favourite Shjips album, in that they probably stray nearer to Loop territory than they ever have before, this is still a mighty fine record that benefits from a bigger production values, and instrument separation. If your familiar with the band, then I guess it's business as usual, but they make a din I still enjoy, and am very much looking forward to the next one.
Now, if you've followed this bog for a while, you'll already know i adore Suuns. Kinda like a meaty Canadian Clinic with dance floor tendancies, and a krautrock backbone, these boys have more than rocked my world this year (though sadly missed em' live due to work, grrrrrr). Anyhow, rather than post something from the album (available here folks) or EP I thought I'd add the A-Side from the limited 12" 'Bambi'. .
This'll probably be my last post till after Xmas and the new year, so have a good one, and as as Wizard once sand
