Dilated Choonz: weird

Murcof - Rostro

T Pot — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 17:52:00 +0000

Just having a look at some old recovered MP3s that I previously lost…..just came across this one. Its very minimal ambient techno….Murcof uses samples of Orchestral Instruments alot – this track is no exception.

This track is ‘Rostro’ from the 2005 LP Remembranza.

Amazing production skills here for sure.

Very nice tune – glad I found it !!

Buy Remembranza from Amazon

murcof.com

more tunes on youtube

Enjoy. T-pot.

File Download (0:00 min / 0 MB)

Something I have been working on recently

Hal Berstram — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:11:00 +0100

Brother Typewriter – Hushed Tones in The Recording Industry (edit)

This is just a little thing I was working on last month with the Burning Lodge immersion composition group.

I miss the old days of 1970s vinyl when you could get albums which had one track on each side, normally about 17 or 18 minutes long. So I did an album like that.

“Hushed tones…” starts off a bit Floyd and then goes into something a bit like the 70s Tangerine Dream. When the sequencers were primitive and didn’t like to be tuned properly. And then… who the hell knows.

At some point I might post the other “side”, titled “The Great Shortage of Songs About Shop Work”. Named in honour of an in-joke too lame to explain here.

More mad stuff as it becomes available.

File Download (11:50 min / 14 MB)

pizza hut i don't do...

The Mighty Alboy — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:23:00 +0000

A completely compelling song about fried chicken and chips- amazingly catchy, hilarious and completely bonkers!

peep this…

Anybody for the Keith Emerson synth sound?

Hal Berstram — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:08:00 +0000

Like-A-Tim – It Ain’t Perfect Till It’s Perfect

Strange little track, this, primarily because it combines a minimal, D’n’B-ish techno backing with a lead synth sound from an entirely different arena – prog rock. And it was in the arenas that you were most likely to see Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP) complete with large Moog modular system – which was probably the most interesting part of the band.

The late, great John Peel described ELP as “a waste of talent and electricity” and he was certainly right. I mean, I will listen to quite a bit of prog – I’d die in the last ditch for early Yes, for example – but most ELP LPs are unlistenable pomposity. Brain Salad Surgery is the only one I can listen to for pleasure. But I can confirm that Keith Emerson’s favourite solo synth sound (which I think was included as an example patch in the Minimoog user manual?) is reproduced faithfully on this track.

“Like-A-Tim” is an alias for Timothy van Leidjen who has been doing fairly bonkers techno for many a year now (his other pseudonyms include A Bald Lunatic…) this is taken from his 2000 LP Red and Blue Boxing as well as the Rephlex records (the Aphex Twin’s label) compilation Rephlexions (which is where I found it.) The whole compilation is recommended if you like this sort of off-the-wall thing. Which I do.

Discogs page for 'Red and Blue Boxing' ::
Like-A-Tim website :: includes a couple of free download tracks
Minimoog patch settings :: for Keith Emerson's trademark lead synth sound - signed by the man himself!

File Download (0:00 min / 0 MB)

Merry Christmas Everybody

Hal Berstram — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 11:06:00 +0000

Brother Typewriter – Merry Christmas Everybody

Now, I must let it be said here that I’m no great fan of Christmas-themed songs in general. They’re either lame tracks by artists who are usually good, or super-lame tracks by artists who are usually lame. Even The Wedding Present’s “No Christmas” is weak compared to their other output.

So I decided to do a Slade cover – but not as we know it, Jim. Now I’m not gonna diss Slade as they were probably the best of the early seventies glam rockers (not difficult many of you might say, but have you managed twelve number one singles in a row, or whatever it was?) but ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ represents probably their worst track – if you had one seventies track that you could delete from the timeline and never be listened to again, it might well be that (god knows though, it’s got serious competition). Just imagine December 1973. Flared trousers, the 3 day week and then “Merry Xmas Everybody” at Number 1 – how did anybody make it through alive?

So this is unpromising material to cover and I’ll admit that with no qualms, but I have attempted to use the ‘record the words backwards and then play it forwards’ technique as pioneered by Michael J Anderson – aka “Little Man From Another Place” in Twin Peaks – and it’s worked OK. I forgot to say “So here it is… ” at the beginning (or in fact “si ti ereh os” at the end) but never mind.

Next year – similar treatment for Wizzard’s “Wish It Could Be Xmas Everyday”. Or, in fact, not.

...ydobyreve eno doog a evaH

File Download (1:27 min / 2 MB)

If you're gonna be a bear...

The Mighty Alboy — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:14:00 +0000

Grizzly Bear – “While You Wait For The Others”

Had to post something from these guys, as they’ve been solidly on my playlist ever since I was somewhat randomly introduced to them on Halloween, when I saw them play at the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra. Random happenstance caused by a longtime associate of german/greek extraction, given to equally random and happenstance appearances.

Never been a massive fan of fusion experiments, and the rock/orchestral combo didnt do a lot to change my mind, but it was interesting listening. The band drowned out the orchestra a fair bit of the time, and given there’s already a good deal of harmonies and depth to Grizzly Bear’s tracks- and the fact that their one-man-band bassist plays everything from the bass to some weird kind of sax whilst singing flawless falsetto- there wasnt a lot the orchestra could bring.

It’s like if you have a band that pretty much make a wall of sound type sound, there’s not much point in putting another wall of sound behind it. And cumulatively, the effect was likened by my associate to being spoon-fed heroin.

Anyway, it was a memorable night for various reasons, and I found myself caught on a number of their tracks over the next few days, leading to me buying their latest album Veckatimest which is pretty awesome. And also is on Warp Records a long time personal and DC label of choice.

So here is a good example- an off-kilter somewhat soul-enfused number off their latest long player. Worth checking more- and especially the video for Two Weeks, linked below…

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"Synth Britannia" tribute

Hal Berstram — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:51:00 +0100

The Human League – Flexi Disc

This post was inspired by the BBC4 documentary “Synth Britannia” which aired last Friday (still available on the BBC iPlayer for UK residents) – a good documentary on the late 1970s and early 1980s UK ‘synthpop’ scene. Well worth 90 minutes of your time.

Synth-”pop” started out as a bunch of geezers in industrial locations such as Sheffield, Liverpool and East London influenced by science fiction and early Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream records. The Human League were right up with the best of them. This is from the commercially unsuccessful, but more quirky and probably more interesting ‘Mark I’ line-up which featured frontman Phil Oakey plus Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware (who later became Heaven 17).

‘The Dignity of Labour’ was the Human League’s second release (1979), a 4-song instrumental ep with a picture of the first man in space, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, on the front. It wasn’t really what you’d call ‘commercial’ – certainly not compared with the reasonably catchy debut single ‘Being Boiled’. In an attempt to boost sales, the group decided to include a flexidisc with the single. For the benefit of anyone under about 30, flexidiscs were one-sided flexible vinyl sheets with a music track pressed into them which could be played with a standard record player – although the quality wasn’t great (as you can hear on this track, which was included on the remaster of the League’s debut LP Reproduction as a bonus track – sounding like it’s been remastered from an original copy.

In an inspired move, the flexidisc track features the group deciding whether to have a flexidisc or not (and what to put on it). It’s a piece of self-referential humour which shows that the League could just as easily have been an alternative comedy group as an experimental pop outfit. Oakey’s line at the end is inspired:

“What we’ve got in this is not simple like everything else, and it’s not even complex… it’s MULTIPLEX. The picture of Yuri Gagarin isn’t just about the Russian space effort and it’s not just about Russian society… it’s about the individual as opposed to the group, and it’s about human frailty; no matter how big you are, you’re gonna be dead pretty soon.”

Well you can’t say fairer than that.

Blind Youth :: fansite - lots of info about the early Human League and other related Sheffield outfits
Buy 'Reproduction' :: from Rough Trade - including 'Dignity of Labour' and other bonus tracks

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Soundtrack for a bad day

Hal Berstram — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 09:36:00 +0100

Angelo Badalementi – I’m Hurt Bad

The first in (hopefully) a series of soundtrack-related postings from me over the next two weeks. This is taken from the second CD of music from the TV series Twin Peaks which was released in the US in 2007 but – like the Series 2 DVD box set – has yet to come out here. (The first Peaks CD came out in the early 1990s, closely followed by the soundtrack CD for the prequel film Fire Walk With Me.)

Although this new CD bills itself as ‘all new Season 2 music and more’, a lot of the best tracks are actually from Season 1 rather than Season 2, and “I’m Hurt Bad” is one of these – in fact it’s from the pilot episode.

For those of you that know the series, it’s the tune that Bobby Briggs puts on the jukebox in the RR diner when he leaves with Shelley Johnson. Or at least the first minute or so of the track is… it then devolves into strange ambient territory. Not a long track, but the piece was one of my favourite bits of music in the series, so it’s good to see it released at last.

Buy the Twin Peaks Season 2 CD :: (US import)
IMDB profile for Dana Ashbrook :: who played Bobby in Twin Peaks, and seems to have done not enough since. Mind you, neither would you if you were a guy who shared a first name with a female Eurovision winner.

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71 years and still groovin'

Hal Berstram — Sun, 24 May 2009 06:47:00 +0100

Holger Czukay – Persian Love

This post is as a tribute to the best gig I’ve seen in years – Holger Czukay at the Roundhouse, London on 14 May. It was the best performance I’d ever seen by an artist in the free bus pass age group, and indeed one of the best performances I’ve ever seen by an artist of any age. More details here.

My previous hero in this age group was country star Willie Nelson – largely because Willie had to record an album for the US Internal Revenue Service just because he owed so much unpaid income tax, and also he was busted for possession of mushrooms at age 73. ROCK’N’ROLL! I can’t see Willie Nelson contributing live improvisation over a Schubert string quartet at a gig, though (although I would be pleased to be proved wrong.)

I should say something about the track really… this is from Holger’s 1980 album “Movies” which was a pioneer in fusing Western dance music beats with sounds from “the East” (middle East in this case). “Cool In The Pool” from the same album is better known but I really like this one. One could call it “fusion” except that that particular category is reserved for the frenetic 1970s collision of jazz and rock… I’ve put this in the “funk/weird” category but it defies easy description.

Right, now it’s off to the car boot sale and I may post something that I find there later on (if it’s suitable. Or even better, if it’s not.)

buy online :: from the ever brilliant Rough Trade shop
Holger Czukay's website :: Crazy stuff from the ex-Can Man

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The genesis of sampling?

Hal Berstram — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:53:00 +0000

John Cage and David Tudor – Variations IV (excerpt)

Now here’s an interesting piece of experimental work which could perhaps be one of the first extended uses of sampling (or indeed ‘DJ mixing’) in the recorded medium. John Cage (1912-1992) was a brilliant (and/or notorious, depending on your POV) American composer who spent most of his career exploring the role of chance processes in music. The typical Cage compositional process involved the composer setting up a system for producing music (e.g. rendering star charts as musical notes, or using the I Ching to decide performance length, number of performers, and the score each would play) and then accepting whatever came out of the process. Sometimes this made the results unlistenable to most of us (although Cage would probably have argued that the term ‘listenable/unlistenable’ was meaningless) but sometimes he happened on the most amazing sonic innovations through this technique.

“Variations IV” is a series of excerpts from an audio-visual installation at an art gallery in Los Angeles which Cage set up with friend and fellow composer David Tudor in 1964. The sound sources consisted of tape decks, radios and record players, plus some microphones inside the gallery itself and outside in the street. These were mixed and broadcast in the gallery and recorded to tape for later mixdown and release as an album.

What you’ve got here is an excerpt from the proceedings between 7pm and 8pm. Pretty random stuff, but a massive influence on later artists including Orb, Future Sound of London, Scanner etc. And a good listen in its own right – I particularly like the banjo at 1:55 or so. The poor quality of some of the vinyl reproduction (whether due to worn records, knackered styli, bad original recording, or was that just what record players sounded like back then?) adds to the charm.

More weird and wacky stuff as I get time to post it.

Buy 'Variations IV' on CD (US import) ::
Buy 'Variations IV' on MP3 download :: at emusic

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Be careful when the mike is switched on...

Hal Berstram — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:59:00 +0000

Christian Bale vs Microsoft Songsmith – Nice Guy

The novelty of Microsoft Songsmith is beginning to wear a bit thin for me after only a few days of experimentation (an attempt at an acid-jazz remix of Joey Beltram’s ‘Energy Flash’ came out so badly that it couldn’t even be posted here!) but I was lucky enough to pick up this on-set tirade from Christian Bale on ‘gossip’ website TMZ.

To be honest, it’s pretty a standard Extras – style wigout… most notable for the ease with which Bale slips between a British and American accent, both sounding pretty fake, throughout. I think we’ve found the new Lloyd Grossman.

Anyway, on a hyper-minimal ‘techno’ setting, Songsmith just about makes a fist of it. I particularly like the onset of melody in the final two ‘finishing bars’ which Songsmith appends to every song…

Next up – a bluegrass remix of Sir Lord Comic’s reggae classic “Jack of My Trade.” Maybe.

File Download (3:54 min / 4 MB)

The even more interesting sub-genre of synthetic backing tracks

Hal Berstram — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 07:35:00 +0000

Rick Astley- Never Gonna Give You Up (Microsoft Songsmith metal mix)

The laughably titled “Microsoft Research” (what, you mean the company that took 11 years to launch a rip-off of Apple’s 1984 Macintosh operating system actually has a research department?) recently released Songsmith – a program that generates synthetic backing tracks from a vocal track that you feed into it.

The idea is that you take a mic and sing into the computer, having set the bpm and a music style (e.g. techno, indie, big-band) and a ‘feel’ (laid back, lively, etc.) and then the program works out an ‘appropriate’ musical backing track for your warbles.

Sort of karaoke in reverse… a limited novelty idea at best, until some bright spark came up with the idea of running the vocal tracks from well-known pop hits into the software to ‘remix’ them.

Already several dozen of these efforts are up on Youtube: I’m a particular fan of Survivor’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’ done as a Billy Joelesque piano ballad, and the Doobie Brothers’ ‘Long Train Running’ done as a 70s funk extravaganza.

For this submission, however, rather than poppified rock, I’ve chosen rockified of pop. In this case Lancashire’s er… “finest” export Rick Astley, who made a splash in 1987 with the Stock-Aitken-Waterman written-and-produced ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’.

Those of you under about 25 are lucky in that you can’t remember just how shite the late 1980s were in pop terms. PWL (Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s record label) were the biggest sellers of the period. It was Thatcherism put to music: disposable, production line candyfloss for the masses, while the moneymen counted the readies and gave a little back to Maggie Thatcher so she could bash any dissenters over the head. It were less subtle back then, my friends.

This is my favourite Songsmith remix so far because it beats PWL at their own game – not only is this completely manufactured, there’s no-one even writing the tune – just some computer algorithm. A serendipitous, John Cagesque by-product of this process is that Rick Astley is revealed to be the greatest AOR vocalist we never had. REO Speedwagon eat your heart out… ‘Metal’ as a description of this may be stretching the trade descriptions act, but hey, that’s what they called Def Leppard, too.

Microsoft Songsmith :: available as a free trial download
The Youtube video version ::
azz100c's Youtube page :: The genius who produced this - several other versions and tracks by other artists available

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Deeds not words!

Kevvy K — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:36:00 +0000

Combi – It A Late

Hurrah for the Climate Suffragettes!

Last year, I came back quite bruised from the Climate Rush on Parliament – the 100 year anniversary of the suffragettes storming the House of Commons to demand the vote.

Last Monday, I went to another Climate Rush event – a very civilised picnic at Heathrow to protest against the Third runway expansion. It got good media, involved a very broad spectrum of society, even if it didn’t have the adrenal element of trying to storm Parliament.

Anyway, after Gordon Brown’s ridiculous decision to go ahead with the proposed runway, three autonomous suffragettes, wearing the distinctive red shashes went out and put bricks through the Department of Transport windows in the middle of last night. Amidst all the desparation of the stupidity of the 3rd runway decision, this sort of immediate response gives me enormous amounts of hope as to the massive campaign of direct action that is to follow.

You can check out the bricking take place here:

Dilated Choonz salutes you ladies!

For those who lack that sort of smashing windows in the middle of the night militancy, there’s also a great Greenpeace initiative going on. They have bought a piece of land in the middle of the proposed site, and they are going to divide it up into as small as possible pieces so that the government has to go through the whole Complusory Purchase Order business with as many people as possible. Check it out here if you want in on the action.

Oh yeah – and the tune. This was on my list of top 3 edits of 2008 that never actually materialized. Sorry.

This ones kind of hard to describe.. Don’t go expecting any disco action – it has a gothic, brooding quality with a very 80s guitar thing going on and very androgynous vocals. I couldn;t even really tell you why I like it so much, but I just do. The amazing thing about this is that it embodies one of the maxims of the edit – that is that you can indeed polish a turd. I don’t even want to tell you who did the original version as it would too heavily prejudice the casual listener.

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Tribute to the Losers of the 2008 US Election

Hal Berstram — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:55:00 +0000

The Tubes – White Punks On Dope

With great respect to any American blog readers, I felt that some kind of tribute was needed to the John McCain – Sarah Palin ticket which came so close to winning the White House in 2008, a mere 6 percentage points of the popular vote behind Obama – Biden.

Senator John McCain, a fresh and exciting anti-Washington “maverick” voice, brought a level of energy and vigor to the campaign not witnessed in any major industrialized country since the similarly sprightly Michael Foot led the Labour Party to a narrow defeat in the UK’s 1983 general election.

What I particularly liked about McCain – apart from his being sponsored by the manufacturer of oven chips – was his refusal to pander to the worst aspects of the Republican political base. No racism, Bible-bashing or accusing the opposition of being terrorists here, thank you very much.

Obviously, his choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as running mate was inspired – an intelligent, centrist campaigner who ticked all the right buttons among swing voters. This interview demonstrates her encyclopediac knowledge of foreign policy and shows incontrovertibly why she was the woman for the job.
Putting all that together with the brilliant campaign support from their buddy “Joe the Plumber”, I’m proud to call them White Punks On Dope. John and Sarah, this one’s for you.

Ah, yes… I should say something about the music as well as the lame-ass politicians. Well, The Tubes were kind of American “new wave” in 1974/5, just before new wave happened. A weird mixture of Steely Dan, Frank Zappa and just being completely OUT THERE. My trusty Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979 edition) says: “vocalist Fee Waybill has the most unique range in rock: two notes, both flat.” As usual with that particular publication, utter bollocks. I like it, anyway. In a bit, I think Babe Rainbow is gonna post a tribute to the winners…

Buy it here :: 27 used and new from £1.98 - you can get a "McCain-Palin 2008" T-shirt even cheaper!!

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"Put A Banging Donk On It"

The Mighty Alboy — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:14:00 +0100

The Blackout Crew- “Put a Donk on It”

I’m in a bit of a conundrum over this tune- how can I blog it?
and how can I not blog it?

Ok- I’ll say straight off the bat, it is completely ridiculous, and it ought to be irritating as f*ck. But instead I’m finding it bewilderingly moreish.

Is it the cheeky chippy Boltonian flow of the Blackout Crew MCs? Or the overwhelming feel-good, high energy vibe? I dunno – I’ve certainly never been a fan of happy hardcore, and this is that without a doubt- tho nowadays at least the yout can rhyme fast enough to keep up with it, what with all their grime and everything…

Maybe it just comes down to the donk- it is a great noise, even if it is completely moronic sounding when used on the off beat as it largely is here.

You tell me… am I losing it here or is this not a brilliant song? Please, I’m not joking, I REALLY DON’T KNOW and I’m scared :)

To get the full effect, check out the video below- the donk machine is particularly snazzy looking- you can just see it in the right of the youtube screenshot below…

blackout crew myspace ::
buy it at Juno ::

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One of the craziest cover versions ever

Hal Berstram — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:52:00 +0100

We’ve had some pretty weird cover versions on Dilate Choonz in the past, for sure, but this has to be one of the weirdest ones I’ve ever heard.

I was lucky enough to pick up Blood, Sweat & Tears’s 3rd album very cheap and in good condition at a car boot sale last week – I had a vinyl copy on long-term, er, “loan” (sorry Paul) from a while back but it had unfortunately become warped beyond playability on most equipment. Given the subject matter, perhaps it was Satan himself distorting the fabric of the record. That’s what Sarah Palin said, anyway, when I raised the matter with her in the run-up to next week’s Vice Presidential debates.

Blood, Sweat and Tears was a late 60s US ‘jazz-pop-rock combo’ outfit (for want of a better term) put together by the legendary Al Kooper, who was a member of Bob Dylan’s touring band in 1965-66 (he played organ on ‘Like a Rolling Stone’.) Their debut album Child Is Father To The Man featured jazzy cover versions of tunes by such luminaries as Tim Buckley (who surely should be featured on DC himself at some point), Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman and Carole King. Unfortunately, Kooper left after the debut, leaving a still-commercially-successful outfit increasingly unsure what to do with itself.

By the third album, the intelligently titled Blood Sweat & Tears 3, vocalist David Clayton-Thomas (described by my trusty, well-thumbed copy of the Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979 edition) as “an acquired taste at best”) had joined the group, giving them the confidence needed to produce berserk masterpieces like this.

An avant-garde classical brass opening is bolted onto something that sounds a like Tom Jones locked in the recording studio with Herb Alpert’s Tijuana brass and an organist who plays any chord he wants just as long as it’s not in the key of the song, all fed very bad acid and told that Miles Davis is coming to eat their children. And it gets weirder still, with the hilarious spoken/whispered third verse.

One wonders what the Rolling Stones made of it all. Probably they thought ‘some nice royalties coming to us from this.’

I haven’t yet managed to find anything else in the B,S & T canon that comes anywhere near this for sheer craziness (and given the tedium of most of the rest of their 3rd album, I’m not that inclined to explore much further) but do let me know if you know differently.

Available to buy here :: in a 2-CD package with the next album, called - you guessed it - Blood Sweat & Tears 4.
Al Kooper's website :: See what the great man has to say.

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Doing it Wright

Hal Berstram — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 19:09:00 +0100

Richard Wright (Pink Floyd) – Sysyphus pts 1-4

Last night, whilst scanning the BBC website for news about the ongoing collapse of the world financial system, I came across the news that former Pink Floyd keyboards man Richard Wright had died, aged 65.

As 70s rock keyboardists go, Rick was never really in your Keith Emerson/Rick Wakeman/Tony Banks virtuoso category – and all the better for it. He concentrated on great chord sequences and getting some incredible sounds with the technology of the day – check “Echoes” on Meddle, “Any Colour You Like” on Dark Side of the Moon, “Absolutely Curtains” on Obscured by Clouds and pretty much the whole of the Wish You Were Here album, for examples of just how good he was.

As a tribute to Rick, though, I thought I’d dust off some old vinyl and post probably his most ambitious 13 minutes on record: “Sysyphus” from Ummagumma. On this 1969 double album, the Floyd had one LP of live stuff and one LP of studio stuff, with the studio stuff split into half-a-side each of solo material for each of the four musicians. Certain other bands have tried going down this route – for example Yes (on Fragile), and the simultaneously-released 1978 solo albums by each member of Kiss. But I don’t know if anyone’s tried it since about 1980, and if not, that’s a real shame.

In later interviews Wright claimed “Sysyphus” was ‘pretentious’, but remember this was 1969 and that went with the territory. Some great experimental keyboard work on display here – and anyone who likes the mellotron (tape-based machine loaded with samples of strings, choirs etc) is in for a real treat.

Thanks, Rick, for a lot of great music.

Thanks also to my old mate Simon from school, whose tape player chewed up my double play cassette of ‘Ummagumma’ and who bought me the vinyl as a replacement. I don’t think you know just how much of a favour you were doing me – those double-play tapes sounded awful. :-)

Buy 'Ummagumma' on vinyl replica double CD :: Released in November - as usual the album cover will look feeble reproduced at that size, though!
Planet Mellotron :: FANTASTIC site for all things Mellotron - reviews of virtually every album by anyone who ever used one of the things

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Meanwhile, back in the land of the unlistenable, strange things are stirring

Hal Berstram — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:46:00 +0100

Pete Namlook – Aliens in My Suitcase (Intruder 7)

My first posting at dilate.choonz, many moons ago, was from Namlook & Hawtin’s From Within and at this juncture, I thought it would be nice to give you a slice of Namlook’s solo work from the mid-1990s.

The ‘Namlook’ series of recordings (cunningly titled Namlook I, Namlook II etc.) were mostly live sets recorded with various combinations of exotic analogue electronics. This can mean that they lack the structural definition of his studio-based work such as From Within, Air and Dark Side of the Moog (the ongoing series of collaborations with Klaus Schulze. However, it also means there is a good chance they will be totally off the wall… and the most off the wall (and IMHO best) of the Namlook solo discs (at least the dozen or so I have heard) is Namlook III – Aliens In My Suitcase.

Basically Namlook III is just Pete, an EMS Synthi-AKS (very weird synth built into a suitcase: couple of nice pictures of it here), and a Roland TR-606 drum machine. For 63 minutes of utter craziness.

This is the kind of music that really divides even the hardcore faithful who used to rush out and buy every CD Namlook produced (and at this point (1994) he was releasing about one a week, so you needed a large wallet to do that.) A cursory glance at the review site on the Fax CDs review page (link given below) will show the depth of feelings – positive and negative – produced by the album.

The CD is one continuous piece of music split into 9 parts (according to the particular type of weird noise that Pete was making at that time), numbered “Intruder 1-9”. “Intruder 7” is about as out there as this piece gets (with the possible exception of “Intruder 8”) but it’s all good.

I was reminded of the sound of this when I bought a Burford Electronics ‘Robot’ ring modulator pedal this week (again, link given below). Burford are a small UK-based company who make ‘boutique’ effects for prices around the same money as the mass-market nonsense that the likes of Boss and Digitech bombard us with. And I’ll certainly be using the Robt a lot on guitars, drums, samples – you name it! So at £65, it’s very good value as a studio tool (much cheaper than the Moog ring modulator – although that is an excellent piece of kit also). Seriously, if you are into unusual analogue gear, check ‘em out.

If you want to know what a ring modulator sounds like – if you made it through even 5 seconds of this track, you’ve already heard it. :-)

For sale (usually) in discogs marketplace :: Alternatively available from iTunes (will sound cack at 128kB encoding rate though)
Review page for this masterpiece :: e.g. "weird, freeform, law-unto-himself stuff that you definitely won't want to play more than twice in your entire lifetime"
Burford Electronics pedals :: Get yourself a ring modulator

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Sonic terrorists from the Neu! wave

Hal Berstram — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:24:00 +0100

Deutsch-Amerikansche Freundschaft – Ich Unde Die Wirklichheit

More late 70s mayhem from the Edinburgh based Fast Product label for ya, following up on my Human League post of a couple of months back and also Kevvy K’s post from DAF member Robert Gørl. This is from the double 7-inch (unusual format indeed) compilation ‘Earcom 3’ which Fast put out around 1979 or thereabouts, and was the first UK vinyl release for DAF. Sonically, it starts off in a Neu! vein, like 45 played at 33. Renegade flanged guitar meets weird bouncing-down-an-alley electronic sequencing coupled with a drummer sounding like Blondie’s Clem Burke after a heavy dose of ketamine. All in all a bit like a ‘krautrock’ version of Public Image Limited’s classic Metal Box, except a good few months earlier. I’ve only ever heard a couple of DAF tracks (I have an early 80s compilation LP called Methods of Dance which features another) but I’m hungry for more. Can’t find this on any of the DAF CD releases out there but I’m no expert on this group’s back catalogue so correct me if I’m wrong!

This one is dedicated to Kevvy K and all the other brave people down at Climate Camp (see Kev’s earlier post), trying to save the planet at the same time that energy companies are trying to destroy it by building more coal fired power stations. Combinations of overwork, bad planning and just bloody lameness mean I haven’t made it myself but we should send a whole contingent down to the next one.

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Book 'em Phil - Murder One

Hal Berstram — Sat, 31 May 2008 10:41:00 +0100

The Human League – Circus of Death (Fast Product Version)

Real horrorshow stuff here from the very early Human League, circa 1978. This was the B-side of their first Single “Being Boiled” on Fast Records, a Sheffield-based label who released a 1979 compilation album inventively called ‘Fast Product’ which featured these two League tracks The Mekons, Scars, 2.3 and a couple of blistering early tracks from Gang Of Four (which I would post up if I could find the bleedin’ cassette which I’ve had for about 20 years but mislaid. The cover is inspired and if I do find it I’ll scan it in and add it to the post.)

Early Human League was an extremely weird scene even by the standards of the late 70s. This lyric appears to be partially based on the TV series Hawaii 5-0 and features the most ludicrous spoken intro I have ever heard, by vocalist Phil Oakey.

The tune isn’t as good as “Being Boiled” actually, but “Boiled” doesn’t have lyrics about Steve McGarrett, or a clown, or a spoken intro, so that counted against it – this time. Also it’s in mono (in 1978?! How low was the recording budget?) so I could have encoded it in half the space but couldn’t find the right LAME options – sorry.

“Circus of Death” was re-done for the League’s 1979 debut lp ‘Reproduction”, in a slicker but less comedic version, like all these things (check the equally suspect re-make of “Being Boiled” on their 2nd lp ‘Travelogue’).

It’s certainly synth heavy – in fact early Human League releases featured the slogan “synthesisers and vocals only”, as a response to Queen, whose 70s LPs carried the slogan “no synthesisers” (ludicrous in the light of what Queen went on to sound like in the 80s, but there ya go.)

After 2 LPs of this kind of weird stuff, the Human League Mk1 split in 1980, with Oakey going on to form a much more commercial Mk2 version with the addition of 2 girl singers and some other guys who could write well-structured pop, selling many millions with “Dare” in 1981. Meanwhile, the 2 synth guys from the original line-up – Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware – went on to form the mostly underwhelming Heaven 17 with vocalist Glenn Gregory. There should have been a “Rock Family Trees” programme about all these people, but instead we got Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac. Which probably reflects the kind of people who make TV documentaries about music. Rock on.

Buy 'Reproduction' from here or somewhere less corporate :: 2003 remaster contains this version of the song
Hawaii 5-0 Season One :: Get yourself up to speed with classic US TV

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