by Vinyl301 -

The Normal: Warm Leatherette

Folder

Mute Records 1978.  MUTE001

Discogs

A few days ago, I posted the first ever 4AD release, and today it’s the start of another iconic label, Mute.  Unlike The Fast Set, this is not only a great single, it was really groundbreaking and its influence was huge.  The Normal is actually Daniel Miller, founder of Mute so it’s a surprise that this was his only release.   What it has in common with the Fast Set is primitive electronics and, as a result, a record very much of its time.

TVOD was actually the A side, but I’ve ripped it the other way around because it was Warm Leatherette which got the attention and airplay, and which appears on the front cover.  The song is based on JG Ballards novel Crash, since filmed by Cronenberg, which Miller wrote an unfinished screenplay for, and explains the Motor Industry Research Association cover of crash test dummies being, well, crashed.

The music is utterly minimal, repetitive, sinister and robotic.  It packs a punch now – what must it have sounded like in 1978?  I’m afraid I’m too young to have bought it back then…

According to Discogs, my copy is a first pressing, and it looks it.  It has a rough textured label and those serrations around the label so you could pile lots of singles on an autochanger.  Truly from another age.

by Vinyl301 -

Cabaret Voltaire: Nag Nag Nag

Folder

Rough Trade 1979.  RT 018

Discogs

This is the Cabs second single, ripped from an original 7″.  Nag Nag Nag is relentlessly lo-fi, both in terms of the gear they used and the recording, but it works really well.  I’m not enough of a techie to say much about it, but to my ears it sounds like the most primitive drum machine imaginable, although I guess in 1979 there was nothing else available, with other backing from crude electronics which sound to me very home made.  The vocals are similarly lo-fi – they sound as though they’re coming through a megaphone with flat batteries.   In a way it reminds me of watching the original series of Star Trek – a vision of the future which never came to pass.  It’s a deeply weird record, but Nag Nag Nag is also a great tune.

The B side, as the title suggests is 5 minutes of pointless noodling, made bearable by more retro sounds and, surprisingly the copious vinyl crackle which is largely absent on the A side.

by Vinyl301 -

Mild Man Jan & Mark E Smith: Fistful Of Credits

1000

Switchflicker, 2000.  SWALF1

Discogs

This is a rather mysterious 7″.  Mark E Smith is of course the man behind The Fall, so not mysterious at all, but that seems to be all that’s straightforward about this release.  Mild Man Jan appears on several V/VM albums, and is, I suspect, one of V/VM’s founder James Leyland Kirby’s aliases.  According to Wikipedia he lives in Stockport, so there’s a distinct possibility they know each other.

The music is downtempo electronica, not the assault on the eardrums Kirby usually produces.  Fistful Of Credits has, as expected MES on vocals, but the B side, Skin Deep which is credited to “My Mate Mark” isn’t, as you’d expect, MES again, but a woman who sounds very much like Martina Topley-Bird who sang on Tricky’s Black Steel, but it seems unlikely it really is her.

I can’t tell you much else.  It’s on pink vinyl and is really very good, but that’s about it.

Postscript:  Well, the knowledgeable people over at The Fall Online have filled me in on some of the background to this.  It turns out Mild Man Jan is a guy called Spencer Marsden, and that the A side of this single is available on the Fall compilation A Past Gone Mad. 

by Vinyl301 -

Various Artists: Edward Not Edward (Edward Barton Tribute)

front

Wooden Records 1989.  WOOD 7

Discogs

This is a remarkable album by any standards.  On the face of it, it’s a tribute album to the maverick Manchester artist, Edward Barton, but there’s more to it than that.  The usual tribute album is about a long established, legendary artist (like the Neil Young tribute I posted a few days ago), and the performers are either newer artists or unknowns, but this is the other way around.  Many of the artists on this album were well established, at least in independent music circles, whereas Barton was little known.  It also appeared on Barton’s own label, Wooden, and it appears, was compiled by him.  The last odd element to this is how unlistenable Barton’s own performances of these songs were.  He was at the time best known for a disturbing appearance on The Tube where he performed I’ve Got No Chicken, But I’ve Got Five Wooden Chairs solo, playing his acoustic guitar with a wooden spoon with a manic vocal delivery which generated a surprising number of complaints, despite the absence of anything obviously offensive.

However, as this album shows, Barton was much more than a novelty act.  With his, er, difficult delivery removed and replaced by some of the best Manchester had to offer in 1989, his songs are revealed to be startlingly original, both musically and lyrically.  Apart from Chapter and the Verse’s contribution which hasn’t aged well, there’s hardly a duff track here.  Highlights are 808 State, whose inspired version of Sorry Dog features a couple of young kids on vocals and tells of a man’s feelings of  guilt after he shits on the floor and blames the dog.  The Ruthless Rap Assassins (more music from them at some point in the future) deal with the sorry tale of a car crash in Z Bend, also covered strangely poignantly by Ted Chippington.  I’d been listening to this album for years before I realised that when A Guy Called Gerald said “pump the jack” in Barber Barber that he was talking about the barber’s chair, not some sort of dance move I was way too uncool to be aware of.  As always, Gerald is excellent.

There’s a surprising amount of Edward Barton material available.  His new (ish) album which is by far his most accessible to date and really worth a punt is available here. It’s obvious his early releases didn’t sell well, so you can buy them direct here.  There are also a few free MP3s if you hunt around.

EdwardBarton-EdwardNotEdward-UK-LP-Tracklisting

by Vinyl301 -

Burial & Four Tet: Moth/Wolf Cub

moth

Text Records 2009. TEXT006

Discogs

Perhaps the most hyped release of 2009, at least in the world I inhabit, was this 12″, a collaboration between what I think have been the most exciting musicians in the electronic field in recent years.  A stupidly limited pressing (I was lucky to get a copy) and black labels and covers all added to the mystique.  The only information supplied is what’s etched into the runout grooves.

For once the music lived up to the hype.  Moth is the better of the two tracks and sounds like nothing  either have produced before.  It’s very laid back, very eerie sounding with manipulated vocals wandering in and out.   Wolf Cub sounds more like you’d expect, to the extent that it’s possible it’s simply an amalgam of material worked on prior to this collaboration.  Whatever, it works really well, and is only overshadowed because it’s paired with the remarkable Moth.

Unfortunately it’s a very noisy pressing.  I’ve put it through my record cleaning machine twice, but to no avail.  Normally I’d have sent it straight back, but since there was no chance of getting another copy, I decided to live with it.

Further listening?  Well Burial’s first, self-titled album is essential, and Four Tet’s new 0181 is working well for me, that is if you can find a copy.  Both are so consistent though, that it’s worth buying anything you see, especially the very limited Text 12″ singles.

by Vinyl301 -

Techno Animal – Re-Entry

Techno Animal - Re-Entry

Virgin Ambient 1995. AMBT 8

Discogs

I seem to be having a weekend dominated by Kevin Martin, but I suppose there are worse things. This is Martin as musician (alongside Justin Broadrick of Napalm Death and Godflesh fame) rather than curator; here we have his second album under the moniker Techno Animal, another release in the Virgin Ambient series.

At the time, this was a ground breaking album, so much so that it stands up pretty well 18 years down the line. It’s dark, sinister and slow with a distinctly industrial feel; it reminds me very much of Burial’s material over the last couple of years (I’ll be posting some Burial vinyl here at some point), which is perhaps not surprising as Martin currently records as King Midas Sound for the same label: Hyperdub. It also has elements of hip-hop, and is even sometimes psychedelic. This all sounds like a horrible mish-mash, but it works together superbly and is for me one of the best electronic albums of the 1990s. Just don’t listen to it alone, late at night.

More music? Well I’ve never heard Kevin Martin put a foot wrong so anything you find would be worth getting. In terms of what I have that’s still available, Waiting For You by King Midas Sound is fantastic.

by Vinyl301 -

Various Artists: Macro Dub Infection Vol 1

Various - Macro Dub Infection Vol. 1

Virgin Ambient 1995.  AMBT 7

Discogs

This is another installment of Virgin’s excellent Ambient series from the 1990s.  Like Jazz Satellites, this was compiled by Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, Techno Animal amongst others.  Martin is always worth listening to; always innovative, always interesting.

There’s not much on this album you’d call dub in a traditional sense.  What it’s about is artists using dub ideas in other genres, in other words, the legacy of dub rather than dub itself.  A project like this is of course spoilt for choice given the overwhelming influence dub has had in experimental music, so the success of this compilation lies in Martin’s skill as a curator.  It spans electronica, hip-hop, jungle and even jazz, but what it all has in common is a spacey feel, thundering bass lines, and elements of the tracks, especially vocals  swinging in and out of the mix.

Standouts are Tortoise, Bedouin Ascent, Coil and Spring Heel Jack, but what makes this a great compilation is how it hangs together.

It’s a double CD ripped as though it was a very long single because it plays better that way.

by Vinyl301 -

Lindstrøm: It’s A Feedelity Affair

lindstrom_its_a_feedelity_affair

Small Town Supersound 2006.  STS126CD

Discogs

We all need some Nordic Space Disco in our lives.  Maybe you haven’t realised it yet, but believe me, you do.  This is a compilation of some of Lindstrøm’s singles issued between 2003 and 2006, and there isn’t a duff track here.  In fact every track is pretty much stupendous and it is one of the most consistently brilliant albums I’ve bought over the last 10 years or so.

It achieves the remarkable feat of using every corny retro trick in the book to make a catchy dance record, with a lot more than a nod to Abba, while not sounding kitsch at all.  It’s very retro while at the same time very contemporary.  It ought to be a really irritating record, but I find it utterly distracting – I can’t get anything done while it’s playing.

I don’t get why he’s not a lot more successful – I guess maybe at home in Norway he is.

More Lindstrøm?  Well this is my favourite.  Some of his later albums haven’t been as good, but the new one, Smallhans is quite a return to form.

by Vinyl301 -

Muslimgauze: Occupied Territories

occupied1

Staalplaat 1996.  STCD10

Discogs

Muslimgauze, aka Bryn Jones who died in 1999 was an intriguing artist.   In life he released around 90 albums and countless singles, and since his death the number of releases has climbed to over 200.  Muslimgauze was focused primarily on the Israel/Palestine conflict, but also to a lesser extent other conflicts in the region, although Jones himself was not a Muslim and never visited the region.  He justified this by arguing that the moral issues involved had nothing to do with his own location, and that occupied regions shouldn’t be visited until they are free.  He likened it to opposing apartheid without visiting South Africa.

Most of his music is instrumental, and so the politics enter only through the titles, the art work, and sometimes samples of  news broadcasts.   With such a vast back catalogue, it’s difficult to generalise, but the stuff I have has a very middle eastern feel thanks to the samples and percussion he uses.  In all cases it sounds like no-one else.

This double CD from 1996 is unusual in that it is a remix project.  Usually Jones didn’t let anyone near his work, but here his source material is reworked by a variety of artists, mostly obscure people from the world of underground electronica, but a few who are better know, like Pan Sonic, Zion Train, People Like Us and :zoviet*france: .  Several of the tracks are remixed by Jones himself.  The two discs are quite different; the second, Occupied Frequencies is by far the best with it’s relatively ambient, freeform experimentation.  The first disc, Occupied Beats is as the title suggests more dance orientated, and rather generic as a result.  Standouts for me are all the Bryn Jones remixes and :zoviet*france:.

This is the original CD issue from 1996.  It was re-issued in 2004 but the material was the same and I doubt it was remastered.  I’ve left the rip as two separate discs because they are intended to be listened to that way.

It’s difficult to recommend specific Muslimgauze releases.  I’ve heard only a small fraction of them, and have tended to buy based on availability more than anything else because they’re always so limited and difficult to get hold of.  Right now, as has always been the case, almost all of his back catalogue is unavailable, and when re-issues appear, they usually sell out on pre-order.   What is available is distributed by Staalplaat.

 

by Vinyl301 -

Photek: The Hidden Camera EP

Folder

Science 1996. QEDCD1

Discogs

Photek had been producing great drum n bass for a while when this, his major label debut was released.  I bought it on the back of a rave review in Wire magazine; in fact I seem to remember it figuring highly in their end of year round-up.

It has the rhythmic complexities you’d expect, but it has a fantastic sinister jazzy feel which makes it sound as good now as it did back in ’96.

Photek is still active and has a new album out on his own Photek Productions imprint, available from his web site, together with a few free downloads and some delicious heavyweight vinyl.