X-TG - Desertshore/The Final Report

This final statement from most of the remaining members of Throbbing Gristle (the "TG" of X-TG) is a tribute to founder member Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson who died suddenly in 2010. Containing 2 CDs in a typically esoteric and artistic cover, Desertshore is a cover of Nico's 1970 album of the same name, and Final Report is as it implies, the last offering of TG, although the notes say that there is more to come from the sessions and a live album is also on its way.

More on that later, but for those of you unfamiliar with Throbbing Gristle here's some background:

Punk was essentially a load of spotty yoofs giving society the finger. Revolutionary? Not a bit of it, most of us grew out of it, I certainly did. No, if you want revolutionary look no further than the art terrorist collective COUM Transmissions that became Throbbing Gristle. Now there was a scary "band", although they were much more than a band in the conventional sense, mixing confrontational performance art and film into their repertoire from the beginning. However, TG as a group would probably not have existed in the format we knew were it not for punk; as ever, the nihilistic movement acted as a catalyst. The people who made up TG were put off by the faux-intellectual snobbery of the street art movement of the time, instead preferring the more direct and honest methods and attitudes displayed by the do-it-yourself troupe of spiky-haired urchins of the nascent indie record industry.

The members' awareness of the punky stirrings happening around them led to TG as a band, and to the very weird musical statements it made. Musical statements that were far far out on the fringes, wilfully staring over the precipice. Far too weird for this spotty yoof of the time, that's for sure. Their live act included all manner of confrontation, as this entry in Wikipedia attests:

"The first Throbbing Gristle performance was at the Air Gallery in London on 6 July 1976. The band performed in one room with the music "appearing" in an adjacent room. Peter worked in special effects and provided the performers with simulated scars; meanwhile, Chris actually used a razor to slash himself" (it should be pointed out that the "razor" incident is awaiting confirmation, but it is highly believable if you know anything at all about this merry collective!)

In 1977 with their introductory sonic blast, the suitably perversely named Second Annual Report, subsequently re-released in many formats and in many altered guises, TG invented what became known as "industrial" music, creating in the process a kind of modernistic musique concrete. Always very experimental, to the point of building their own instruments, those early albums along with their unusual packaging were genuinely revolutionary in a way that makes the Sex Pistols look like the musical hall puppets that they actually were. Being utterly and resolutely uncommercial they made little impact beyond a niche audience, but the influence of the band remains in the avant-garde to this day.

Of course, no words on Throbbing Gristle would be complete without mention of the visual focus of the group, one Genesis P Orridge. For those not familiar, GPO came across as if Peter Gabriel circa Foxtrot had been filtered through an outrageously sexually ambiguous nightmare of your worst imaginings. The band originally split in 1981 and re-formed in 2004, GPO leaving in 2010. The fact that he is not even mentioned in the extensive notes with this issue indicates that the parting of ways was maybe less than friendly, but then again would you expect anything less?


And now to the record...

Desertshore is a "re-imagining" of Nico's third solo album, re-positioning the work in the 21st century, and a damn fine thing it is too! Given my ramblings above, you may wonder that the noise made will be a terrifying cacophony, but you would be wrong, try the sample below to put your mind at rest:



Back in 2006, Peter had the idea to make this record with the intention of inviting several different vocalists to feature on selected songs. Through the next 4 years musical parts were added, performed, recorded, tinkered with again, and in November 2010 Peter resumed work on the album utilising "equipment acquired for the project" when his unexpected death led to the work being put on hold until it was once again re-started by his friends and band colleagues, Chris Carter and Cosi Fanni Tutti. The result of all that work is what we have here. A cast of Peter's friends from many different artistic fields intone their tribute to him, one by one, on the new title track - there was no "title" track on the original. "What is beyond the Desertshore?" they may ask, where the endless desert ends and endless sea begins. A metaphor for passing on to the next world, perhaps. A sad lone piano fades away in the mist...

Whereas Nico's album is a glacial and minimalistic construct, the light and shade of voices, including that of her then 8-year old son, backed with harmonium or John Cale's keyboards and basic electronica, X-TG's soundscape offers a fuller and more experimental picture.



A lone cornet, mournful over swathes of dark synth introduces Janitor Of Lunacy, Anthony's (of The Johnsons) angelic soaring voice being in delightful and perfect contrast to the swirling maelstrom of the music. Lovely, in a very black way. The pace is never rushed, but sometimes insistent. Blixa Bargeld's declamatory Mütterlein barks to the march of robots. Blixa also gets to star on Abschied, his Germanic tones fitting perfectly over another but less scary marching beat.

Some of the guests are not singers in their "day jobs", Argentine film maker Gasper Noé taking on the part originally sung by Nico's son on Le Petit Chevalier, which lends the threatened innocence of the original an altogether different aspect. Sasha Grey, a former adult film star, semi-speaks/drawls her way through the funereal paced Afraid, a threatening tale of subjugation. Performance of the album for me is Marc Almond's The Falconer, coming over like the evil alter-ego of no-man, as fronted by Scott Walker.

The remaining two songs are fronted by fine performances from Cosi Fanni Tutti. All That Is My Own was the de-facto title song of the original album, ending side two, and the enigmatic repeated verse that ends the song encapsulates the lost soul of the protagonist.

Your winding winds did sow
All that is my own
Where land and water meet
Where on my soul
I sit upon my bed
Your ways have led me to bleed

X-TG's version is less musically spartan but more dystopian, screeching treated guitar (possibly?) and dark waves of strangeness swirling all around the stately rhythm, while Cosi does an almost straight Nico impersonation. The other Cosi vocal is the nightmare nursery rhyme of My Only Child, looking out over frozen musical tundra, "Their bodies close to freezing".



I bought this album on the strength of the songs from Desertshore I had heard on YouTube, having been led there by the CD's appearance on Steven Wilson's Best of 2012 list. I'll admit to not being at all familiar with TG's sound, so was not sure what to expect from the second CD in this set. The Final Report is a collection of parts recorded by Peter at his base in Thailand and also from the group's final sessions together in the UK 2009/10.

Experimental to the end, the results are always engaging. Stasis introduces itself over a looped industrial drum rhythm, topped off with synth patches, echoes and swoops; and so we enter a strange world where everything is not quite as it seems. As I said earlier, the cacophony is kept to a minimum, and what is left can be eerily spartan as on Breach or Kraftwerkian on Um Dum Dom right down to the robotic vocals.

A knowing smile greets the fact that the "bonus track" is in the middle of the album, but the track is called Trope which kind of explains it all. They're fond of marching, or in this case slightly lurching rhythms, and this piece is another example.

I was looking forward to the track Emerge To Space Jazz purely because of the title, and preceded by the shamanic and frightening Gordian Knot with its treated voices writhing through the mix, Emerge... has a synth beat that ebbs and flows, stopping suddenly, the cornet bleating lone notes across treated guitar strumming, flying off to the infinite beyond. As odd as I would have anticipated.

This is the kind of record you might want to play as a come down from Scott Walker's utterly fascinating but exhausting Bish Bosch. Not for the faint-hearted, but definitely rewarding.

Buy at Industrial Records

throbbing-gristle.com

Tracklist:
Desertshore
1. Janitor Of Lunacy (6:47)
2. Abschied (4:32)
3. Afraid (4:38)
4. The Falconer (6:04)
5. All That Is My Own (4:58)
6. Mütterlein (5:17)
7. Le Petit Chevalier (4:24)
8. My Only Child (5:16)
9. Desertshores (4:54)

The Final Report
1. Stasis (6:38)
2. E.H.S. (4:00)
3. Breach (5:04)
4. Um Dum Dom (2:03)
5. Trope (bonus track) (6:12)
6. What He Said (6:50)
7. In Accord (5:56)
8. Gordian Knot (3:55)
9. Emerge To Space Jazz (6:03)
10. The End (1:42)

Line up:
Chris Carter - rhythms, synthesisers, keyboards, radiophonics and special effects.
Peter "Sleazy" Christopherson - vocalisations, samples, Eowave Persephone, keyboards.
Cosi Fanni Tutti - vocalisation, guitars, bowed guitar, cornet, melodica, harmonica, percussion, keyboards.
  

Human Factor - 4 Hm.f

Human Factor is a Russian band whose drummer and bassist, Konstantin Shtirlitz and Alexander Meshcheryakov respectively are former members of instrumental prog band Infront, while keyboard and guitar player Sergei Volkov and guitarist Ivan Ivanov both have backgrounds in the burgeoning Russian prog scene.

On this enigmatically titled debut album, released last year on Russian eclectic music label R.A.I.G. (appropriately enough standing for Russian Artists of Independent Genres), they create a vista of melodically instrumental spacious rock music, the guitars and keys eschewing soloing and taking on mainly textural roles.



Although separate entities, if you close your eyes the tracks meld into one long trip through a sodium streetlight-lit urban landscape at 3am, cold and damp, no-one about, a mood of contemplative melancholy taking over.

Combining influences from Quark-era Hawkwind, Porcupine Tree, classic space rock and straight-ahead hard alt-rock, the band are propelled along by Konstantin's powerful drumming and Alexander's melodic bass lines. Sergei's keyboards create the atmospheres while simple but effective lead lines are played out by Ivan, building to climatic rushes built on expansive powerchording.

The good thing about this record is that it works both as background music and also as an in-yer-face turned up to 11 headbanging session, albeit suffering slightly from maybe being a bit too one-paced and instrumentally similar-sounding. An exception like Polaris shows what the band can do when they shift up a gear from the usual mid-tempo, which works best on Tika, a big sprawling expansive space rock symphony in E (possibly!).

While there is nothing particularly innovative here it is nonetheless a good listen and at 51 minutes is just the right length. It will be interesting to see where the band go from here, as I would hope to see a little more variety enter their sonic palette.


Find out more, and buy from RAIG Records

Tracklist:

1. Revealing Secrets (7:14)
2. The Mist (6:13)
3. Polaris (5:09)
4. Yellowstone (8:02)
5. Stargazer (6:16)
6. Tika (6:44)
7. Objects In The Mirror (5:32)
8. Equilibrium (6:40)

Total running time 51:52

Line-up:

Alexander Meshcheryakov – bass
Ivan Ivanov – guitar
Sergei Volkov – guitar, keyboards

Konstantin Shtirlitz – drums

Ummagma - Ummagma & Antigravity

Announcing itself with the charming Euro synth-pop of BFD, this self-titled album is the "pop" album of the twin debut releases from Canadian-Ukranian duo Ummagma. Shauna McLarnon hails from Canada and sings and writes the lyrics, while Ukranian Alexander Kretov twiddles knobs, plays keyboards, guitars and bass and contributes some vocals, taking occasional lead as on the Depeche Mode-goes-post-rock of Upsurd (great title!).

Human Factor has some nice bottleneck guitar and almost rocks in the traditional sense, fretless bass lends Orion a jazzy grounding over which a star-point synth melody plinks and plonks dreamily. The shoegaze influence is apparent on a lot of songs and having a female lead it is inevitable that comparisons to the Cocteau Twins, Slowdive and the like will be made. Ummagma manage to stamp their own modern identity on the classic British sound of years gone by, and Alex's guitar on Outside shows an almost Bill Nelson-like quality, and there are few better influences to have in my 'umble opinion.

I suppose the most snugly fitting description to use for this album is dream pop, especially with a song like NIMBY, restrained electronic percussion to the fore over which Shauna gets all wistful, and it's really quite lovely! But for the heavily reverbed guitar, River Town could almost be folk-rock, with an early Floydian bent.

Tracklist:
BFD (4:23)
Upsurd (4:45)
The Road To Lees (3:48)
Human Factor (2:35)
Orion (2:36)
Outside (4:17)
Rotation (4:18)
Risky (3:23)
NIMBY (5:18)
River Town (3:14)
Talk To Her (3:46)
J.S. Bach (4:53)

Total running time 47:23

Antigravity is the slightly wilful experimental twin to Ummagma's pop stance, but it is still infused with the ghosts of shoegaze past, going right back to the proto-gazers Altered Images and their trademark jangly guitars and girl vocals on Live And Let Die, hazily filtered through a fuzzy gauze, giving the song an otherworldly feel. The swampy echoes and reverbs continue on Colors which swirls around mist-like occasionally revealing itself as a building ballad of fairly simple construction; but nothing is quite what it seems on this album, the song soon going under the waves again. More Galaxie 500 than MBV, this is the sound of dreaming.

The usual adjectives tend to get wheeled out when describing this sort of sound but "ethereal" and "gossamer" would certainly apply. Fittingly given the album title "floating" is another one that you wouldn't be wrong in using, as a song like Beautiful Moment slowly swings through the air feather-like to the ground. Things turn post-rock on the following vocal-free Autumnmania, a playful song that dances around your ears.

The next one, Balkanofellini, is for me both the surprise and the highlight of the album. Shauna, sounding as if she is singing through the wrong end of a megaphone is backed by an off-kilter (synthetic?) brass sound not unlike a euphonium, which lends the all too brief song a kind of Tom Waits vibe, overlaid with sundry electronica. More of this please!

Ending with the longest song 1+1=3, all dark ambience and brooding synthscapes, this has been a strange and enjoyable trip, and given the numerous influences present and the briefly hinted at future directions this duo should go far.

Tracklist:
Lama (5:00)
Micro Macro (3:34)
Back To You (2:52)
Kiev (3:33)
Live And Let Die (4:59)
Colors (3:38)
Photographer (3:36)
Beautiful Moment (2:33)
Autumnmania (2:51)
Balkanofellini (2:48)
Titry (2:13)
1+1=3 (4:15)

Total running time 41:59


You can grab both albums for free from Bandcamp, so what have you to lose?

http://ummagma.bandcamp.com/album/ummagma
http://ummagma.bandcamp.com/album/antigravity

Machine Mass Trio - As Real As Thinking

In which Belgian guitar monster Michel Delville and the highly experienced "tight but loose" jazz drummer Tony Bianco, both of jazz-space-prog maestros douBt lose the keyboard player and gain Jordi Grognard, a reeds player of some style, who also plays bansouri and electronic tempura, and become the jazz-rock beast that is Machine Mass Trio.

Originally conceived as a side project of douBt, MMT are no doubt (sorry) now a force in their own right. Kicking off in a languorous lounge style with Cuckoo we are soon introduced to Jordi's accomplished playing, from where we venture into more rocky territory on Knowledge with some tight ensemble playing as Jordi free-associates over Michel's spiky guitar theme, Tony pummelling out the beat while also skittering all over the shop. Fast'n'furious, this is a prime example of the group's power.

The album is full of mood changes and Khajuaro, with its meditative Arabian-Indian flavours wherein Michel picks up his bouzouki, followed by the off-kilter funk of Hero are fine examples being in complete contrast to one another. On the latter Michel turns in a solo that sounds like the bastard offspring of Zappa and Holdsworth, followed by Jordi's marvellous reed blowing. Nice!  

After the Dave Brubeck from another galaxy of UFO-RA comes Falling Up, the longest track on the album, which although described in somewhat understated fashion on the CD sleeve as "...a joint improvisation by Bianco and Delville" is an avant-fusion tour-de-force, Tony's never-ending drum rolls overlaid with wildly oscillating and distorted guitar and strange electronica, that after a time becomes quite hypnotic as it flies off into the heavens.

We end with more exotic flavours as Palitana Mood, although possessing a title that sounds like a track from a Mantovani LP is actually a spacey flute-led piece of some elegance and beauty.

Recorded entirely live with no overdubs, the unavoidable rough edges serve only to give the album its powerful attitude. This band demand to be listened to.

Sadly, Tony tells us "This record was recorded as my beloved wife, Mary, was fighting for her life. She has thus passed away and my playing is a tribute to her beautiful soul."

Tracklist:

01. Cuckoo (9:26)
02. Knowledge (6:11)
03. Let Go (4:56)
04. Khajuaro (5:23)
05. Hero (10:16)
06. UFO-RA (6:46)
07. Falling Up (18:03)
08. Palitana Mood (3:06)

Total running time 64:07

Line-up:
Tony Bianco – drums, loops, percussions
Michel Delville – electric guitar, bouzouki, electronics
Jordi Grognard – tenor sax, bass clarinet, flute, bansouri, electronic tempura

Listen and buy here.
...

Marbin - Breaking The Cycle

Breaking The Cycle was the second album released by Marbin, back in 2011. This fine band take their name from two young Israelis; guitarist Dani Rabin and saxophonist Danny Markovitch, ably assisted by Americans Paul Wertico (drums) and Steve Rodby (bass), both multiple Grammy Award winners with the Pat Metheny Group; not to mention a few distinguished guests (see line up list below).

Back in 2007 the duo famously interrupted a family dinner at Paul Wertico's home by turning up unexpectedly - but presumably not uninvited! The two Dans soon put down their musical roots in their adopted country, and in 2009 as well as releasing their self-titled debut album, Wertico gave them starring roles on his lauded improvised album Impressions Of A City. Since then a seemingly endless list of gigs has established the band as one of the hardest working outfits of any genre, and their road-honed experience shines through on this album. The fact that two veterans of the jazz-rock scene such as Wertico and Rodby were more than willing to hook up with the young duo for this album speaks volumes about the Israelis' musicianship, which, listening to this expansive album sounds like it's coming from players of twice their short experience.

The advantage of being young is that you are not hidebound by expectations, and so the pair lead the band through many styles including the straight ahead but energetic fusion of opener Loopy, Paul's rolling drum rhythms pulling the thing along in a joyous fashion. The piece also features a soaring solo from Dani and a short and to-the-point solo from Paul. We also get Tom Waits 12-bar scuzz-jazz (the marvellous and suitably titled Bar Stomp featuring some great hip-grinding guitar from Dani), Euro-jazz waltzes, melancholic wordless lullabies, expansive big sky sax ballads, folk and world music influences, and ending with the cinematic campfire balladry of closer Winds Of Grace, which features the plaintive lyrics and singing of Daniel White, bookended with an achingly lovely solo from Danny.

Featuring throughout is well respected percussionist Jamey Haddad (a member of Paul Simon's band), and he is another indication of the pulling power of the duo's musicality. With its superb band interplay and the wide open vistas of the arrangements Breaking The Cycle goes way beyond fusion and is simply good music with a human heart. Lovely!

Tracklist:

01. Loopy (5:59)
02. A Serious Man (3:49)
03. Mom's Song (2:05)
04. Bar Stomp (3:04)
05. Outdoor Revolution (3:08)
06. Western Sky (2:12)
07. Burning Match (5:11)
08. Claire's Indigo (2:11)
09. Snufkin (2:48)
10. Old Silhouette (4:12)
11. Winds Of Grace (8:39)

Total running time 43:13

Line up:

Dani Rabin (guitar)
Danny Markovitch (saxophone)
Paul Wertico (drums, percussion on 1/8)
Steve Rodby (bass)
Special guests:
Jamey Haddad (percussion 2/4/6/8/9/10)
Matt Davidson (vocals 3/6)
Leslie Beukelman (vocals 3/6)
Makaya McCraven (drums 4)
Daniel White (lyrics and vocals 11)

Listen and buy here.
...

2012 - A year in review

Firstly, thanks to all of you for reading my typo-strewn and occasionally acerbic nonsense in 2012.

Another day, another CD, or so it seemed this year; as fast as I was putting CDs away they were arriving, the piles on my desk never getting smaller. Of course, I love it really, and 2012 was another year of great releases in ye olde progressive genres, rock or otherwise.

In very rough chronological order, here are the releases that impressed, linking to reviews. The cream of the crop are in bold, although everything here is top-notch.

Gavin Harrison & Ø5ric – The Man Who Sold Himself
This shouldn't work but it does, very complex but highly enjoyable. My big regret of the year was that due to flu I had to miss the gig, which also included Tony Levin's Stick Men...damn!

no-man - Love and Endings
Live document of the headline act at Burning Shed's 10th anniversary bash, the best gig I attended in 2011.



Storm Corrosion - Storm Corrosion
The first (or possibly the second) of 312 projects involving The Hardest Working Man In Showbiz to see the light of day in 2012. A meeting of minds with Mikael Åkerfeldt.

Peter Hammill - Consequences

The Thin Man has sill got it. 

Øresund Space Collective – West, Space and Love 

A departure from the ØSC template - chillin' 

Thinking Plague - Decline And Fall
A hugely intricate intellectual avant-fest from one of the best bands currently working. Simple as.

Inner Ear Brigade - Rainbro
Highly enjoyable and not at all frightening American avant-prog. 

Gazpacho - March Of Ghosts
Sublime...'nuff said.

3 Mice - Send Me A Postcard
For whom I invent a new genre - alt-café music, if you will. Quaint and lovely.

Ancestors - In Dreams And Time
Extreme heaviosity with no cookie monster in sight - result! About as different from the previous album in this list as can be.

Autumn Chorus - The Village To The Vale
Is it post-rock or pastoral prog? I've no idea and couldn't care less, but it is lovely in a quintessentially English way.

Subtilior - Absence Upon A Ground
Slightly difficult chamber-prog for brainiacs.

Daal - Dodechahedron
Italo-Gothic instrumental magnificence.

Ligro - Dictionary 2
Power trio swamp-jungle-fusion-rock from Moonjune's latest Indonesian discovery.



Lee Fletcher - Faith In Worthless Things
Studio whizz-kid emerges from behind the console to make a lovely album with a stellar cast. Pop for thinkers.

Janel & Anthony - Where Is Home
Who would have thought a cello and a guitar and effects could make such a charming soundscape? Pastoral loveliness.

Motorpsycho and Ståle Storløkken: The Death Defying Unicorn
Many thanks to Jon Bradshaw for turning me on to this previously unexplored strangeitude! Scandi-psychedelia meets Led Zeppelin bang in the middle of a Wagnerian jazz symphony, all played out on on the high seas in unchartered waters. Epic!

Big Big Train - English Electric (Part One)
Once I got past the "Trick Of The Wuthering" on the first track, this album really surprised me with its high class songwriting. Very nice!

Tohpati Bertiga - Riot
More wonderful stuff from prolific Indonesian guitarist Tohpati Ario Hutomo, this time in power trio mode.

Änglagård - Viljans Öga 

Welcome return for Swedish prog legends.

Cosa Brava - The Letter
Fred Frith's "prog-rock group", about as far removed from "rock" as you'd imagine. Infectious off-kilter tunes by the shedload.

Travis & Fripp - Follow
Steven Wilson gets to mess with Robert's soundscapes and some unexpected scorching guitar work from the archives, while Theo is his usual undemonstrative but wonderful self.

Mike Keneally - Wing Beat Fantastic
Although uncredited on the cover, this album's quirky pop inflections result from Mike's collaboration on most of the songs with the one and only Andy Partridge. A truly marvellous meeting of styles, bought on the strength of Mark Huges' review - no regrets. XTC lovers note that Steven Wilson will be remixing Nonsuch in 5:1 surround sound next year - can't wait!



Dissonati - Reductio Ad Absurdum
Part post-rock, part retro-prog with a big VDGG influence, but thoroughly modern all the same.

Aranis - Made In Belgium
Wonderful chamber-prog from Belgium - where else?

douBt - Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love
Fusion and improv from another galaxy. This is what "prog-rock" should be all about.

Thumpermonkey - Sleep Furiously
In-yer-face avant-prog, and Steve Davis' album of the year. Is it interesting? Yes, it is!

Yugen - Mirrors
Who would have thought that such mind-boggling complexity could be recreated live with such panache? Marvellous!

Scott Walker - Bish Bosch
EEK!

The ones that got away
There are more than a few albums I probably would have bought had I not been deluged by review CDs, two of which I've just ordered; Paul Buchanan's Mid Air being one, and from what I've heard on YouTube it promises to be a truly marvellous piece of intricate minimalism, that, in the absence of a new Mark Hollis album will more than do. The other is Can's The Lost Tapes, which if it lives up to the hype should be the definitive and probably final statement from the top dogs of Deutschrock. Also, thanks to Steven Wilson's Albums Of The Year list, sounding worthy of investigation are The Seer by Swans, Animal Joy by Sheerwater, and Desertshore / The Final Report by X-TG.

Reissues
Bleedin' hundreds of 'em, where to start, where to start? Well, there's the obvious; King Crimson's Larks' Tongues In Aspic, which should need no introduction, the budget Magma - Trilogy box, the fab Moe Tar - From These Small Seeds, and Gazpacho's Night, to name a few worthy of your time, but the reissue of the year in my 'umble opinings is the simply stunning Eros by Dün, an obscurity rescued by the very fine Soleil Zeuhl label. 

Label of the year
As ever a close fought battle between AltrOck and Moonjune, with kscope making it a three-way battle, but sneaking up the inside on the home straight to take the crown is Alain Lebon's Soleil Zeuhl. A labour of love and a highly interesting roster. Read my interview with Alain here.

Archaeological find
...was a simply stunning unreleased version of Levitation's near-invisible second album Meanwhile Gardens, featuring the irreplacable Terry Bickers (one half of the driving force behind The House Of Love). Fools that they were, Levitation did actually replace him, re-recorded the album re-recording most of his vocal parts, and the result is ok if underwhelming. Probably wisely the thing was only released in Australia. If you have any affinity for what is sometimes dismissively labelled shoegaze, but in this instance infused with tabs of psychedelia and a more than a touch of prog, then you'll love Levitation. Here's a track from their one and only official album (not forgetting Coterie, a collection of EP tracks) with Sir Terrence of Bickers at the helm. Groovetastic!




Judging by all that little lot above, the old adage that there are not enough hours in the day rings truer than ever!

Gigs

A fairly sparse year on the gig front, but just about topping a rather short list is Gazpacho at The Garage, Highbury, London, back in March. If there was any justice, this band should be huge.

...and finally
A quick mention for my former editor at DPRP who took his foot off the gas for a well deserved break from the OCD demands of us scribblers. Have a good holiday, Bob!

Have a great Xmas and a Happy New Year, see you on the other side. XXX

Scott Walker - Bish Bosch

Prepare To Be Scared...and possibly Scarred



Album website

As I used to read "proper literature" avidly and still occasionally sit down with a heavyweight tome, I have always thought it is the duty of anyone who has ever considered themselves even a semi-serious bibliophile to tackle that weighty volume of impenetrable verbosity, James Joyce's Ulysses. This I have attempted on at least three occasions, but I have never made it past about a hundred pages, such is its sheer intellectual mass. In conclusion, I ain't clever enough, and I'll leave it to Joyce and the likes of Will Self who may well be a modern Joycean equivalent to bamboozle me, and I've no doubt quite a few of those in possession of a higher IQ than mine.

Much the same can be said of the serious alternative music fan and the latter works of Mr Noel Scott Engel. Although a vein of wilful artistic intent can be traced right back to Scott's first solo album in 1967, the true seeds of the creeping vine of strangeness were sown with The Walker Brothers 1978 reunion album Nite Flights, progressing through 1984's Climate Of Hunter, taking a sharp turn left with 1995's Tilt and latterly with 2006's The Drift. With those last two albums, the artist known as Scott Walker had produced works of increasingly frightening complexity, full of literary obscurantism cast adrift on an obsidian ocean of furious pessimism. A bit wordy, that; maybe Scott's verbosity is rubbing off!

I was quite proud of myself as I coped quite well with Tilt, "coped" being the right word, for one cannot "like" this kind of thing, it is more an exercise in intellectual rigour than a pleasant listening experience. Tilt may as well have been The Walker Brothers' Greatest Hits in comparison to The Drift, which was Scott taking another step or three down the ladder to the rose garden of funeral sores. I think I've listened to The Drift all the way through no more than three or four times, and indicative of its sheer scariness is the fact that on Clara, a dark tale ostensibly about Mussolini's doomed lover, part of the rhythm track is actually a percussionist "meat punching." It may well be apocryphal but it has been said that the meat in question was a side of pork hung up in the studio, and given Scott's Jewish lineage and his highly idiosyncratic sense of humour, I'm inclined to believe the tale. Another story, this time from that fountain of almost-truths Wikipedia has it that Mikael Åkerfeldt wanted Opeth's Watershed to be a heavy metal version of this album, but "it proved to be impossible simply because his [Scott's] head is sicker than mine and I also love melodies and dynamics." Shame, that would have been some experience!

Musically and lyrically ambiguous in extremis, what we can say with certainty about Scott is that he makes the music he wants to make, when he wants to make it, as is evidenced by the 11-year gap between his last two releases, and a further 6 to Bish Bosch. Popular culture isn't so much ignored, rather it is completely below the level of Scott's wayward and strange antennae. Amazingly The Drift reached the dizzy heights of No. 51 on the UK album chart, which given that it was at that point, and probably remains the oddest piece of what can only be very loosely described as "popular" music I have ever heard, and I've heard a fair few, is testament to the artist's reputation as had an unknown come up with something like that it would have sold about 27 copies.

To say I am looking forward to placing Bish Bosch in the CD player is another incorrect description; "nervously anticipating" is much nearer the mark. In fact, I'm actually writing this intro before I've even received the CD let alone heard it, the preview snippet above excepted, such is my need to mentally prepare myself for another blast of Scott's dystopian fearfest.

Three weeks later and the CD has arrived.

As I said earlier, anyone who professes to "like" this kind of thing is either lying to impress his (and it will nearly always be a "he", there is very little appealing to the feminine side about Scott's later work) peer group of oddballs, or, more worryingly, if he's actually telling the truth then he must be somewhat disturbed. You can admire or respect this work, but "like" is an adjective too far. One can only hope that for Scott's sake the process of extracting these tracts of disconsolate dyspepsia from the subterranean depths of his psyche is cathartic, or his analyst will be using him as a case study for years to come, particularly as he has repeatedly insisted that none of his writing is self-descriptive.

To start at the beginning, which in itself is probably far too linear a thought to work where this music is concerned; as it says on the album website:

Bish (n. sl.), bitch

Bosch, Hieronymous (c. 1450–1516), Dutch painter

Bish bosh (sl.), job done, sorted

The About Bish Bosch tab says all you need to know about how to approach this work, but to summarise, much like a Bosch painting, there is too much going on to absorb in one, two or three sittings, a bit of effort is needed. Scott states, enigmatically enough, in the third person “It’s moving on a bit each time we go. Hopefully it’s getting nearer and nearer the kind of thing that’s in our heads. Little things are improving, a bit more focused. The style is improving.” He states that his work is in no way autobiographical, and if we are to believe that, then what is "...in our (his) heads" is by definition entirely removed from ego, which necessitates that the listener takes a different approach in return. Is it even possible to listen in the third person?

Scott is possessed of a very dark and ironic humour, announced in the album title, as an album that takes a mere 3 years from commencement of writing to completion is "bish bosh"; well by his standards I suppose it is indeed lightning fast. Mind you, I know a few builders like that...

"Take that accidentally in the bollocks for a start"

As if to soften up his audience, the opening track batters us into near submission. Although only 4 minutes in length "See You Don't Bump His Head" is built around a non-stop 160bpm (or thereabouts, my guess) bass drum sound high up in the mix that repeatedly rabbit punches the synapses into jelly, while Scott relates a tale that may be aimed at music critics, with the oft repeated phrase "While plucking feathers from a swan song" possibly pointing at the critic picking away at his possibly last album while the other lines seem to relate the never-ending process of "life must go on"? On the other hand I could be entirely wrong, such is the overwhelming feel of abstraction. The song takes its title from Montgomery Clift's cut line in From Here To Eternity cautioning his troops to be careful with Maggio's (Frank Sinatra) body when putting it in a truck.

"Cholestoroled mansions crowded with sulphured air"

The black humour rears its ugly head on several occasions, a slapstick focus on bodily functions playing a full part, serving to break the listener's high concentration levels with a wry smile. Corps de Blah is a 9 minute journey through bodily dysfunction replete with the sound of farts and piss-tinkling. On the other hand it could be about torture; charming whichever way you look at it!  Musically spartan, silences cut through with swishing knives as percussion, and a shard of distorted guitar. Elsewhere we get a return to Scott's longtime interest in dictators, and suitably for an album released in December it ends with its very own Xmas song, jingle bells aplenty as The Day The "Conducator" Died imagines the detached state of mind of the soon to be executed Romanian dictator as "Nobody waited for fire", Ceaușescu and his wife being gunned down before the order was given.

"To play fugues on Jove's spam castanets"

The centrepiece of the album is the 23 minute SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter) a song so obscure it gets its own essay of semi-explanation in the booklet. A tale of a deformed dwarf jester (Zercon) in the court of Attila The Hun; flagpole sitting, a craze in the early 20th century involving odd chaps who took to sitting on top of flagpoles for long periods of time, the record being 21 days; and finally the discovery of the Brown Dwarf given the index number of the title and the coldest body in the known universe. Unravel that lot if you can, but it seems that Zercon rises up past the sitting-poles and away into the far universe, morphing into the stellar object and along the way we have a very very odd tale indeed that will take several listens before I could even begin to give an explanation.

The music on this piece is the most complex and intricate of the album with all manner of instruments from orchestral arrangements, pedal steel guitars, electric baritone guitar, ukelele, tubax (a low bass saxophone), rams' horns and sundry other more "normal" instrumentation, and of course weird electronica. Oh, and the odd complete silence. If you are aware of the band Faust and their more obtuse works, then this is akin to the "grown up" version of that band's sometimes cacophonous soundscapes.

 "If you're listening to this you must have survived"

Elsewhere Walker rails at Biblical certainties on Tar, punctuated by machetes being sharpened as percussion, and on Epizootics we have an apparent collision between street-hipster slang and disease infection rates punctuated by more blasts on the rams' horns. Dimple points to things evolving from a fixed point beyond recognition, and...Hell, these are only first impressions. I think you'd have to listen to this album for a year before coming to any even partly certain conclusions about any of the themes going down here.

"Where does this fit into the pantheon of popular music?", you may well ask, and I'm jiggered if I know, for this is way beyond any convenient pigeon-holing. I cannot begin to intellectualise this as some other reviewers with far better minds than I have attempted, but in order to comprehend all the references in the lyrics you'll probably need access to Wikipedia as your finger hovers over the pause button, or invite Stephens Fry and Hawking along for a listen. The former for the literary references and the latter for the astronomical tendencies that some of this tract seems to be exhibiting. Above all you need discipline, and a lot of it.

As I said ages ago, you cannot "like" this, and I would not recommend this to anyone of a nervous or anxious disposition. Handle with caution.

"Here's to a lousy life"

Scott Walker will be 70 years old in January. It amazes me that at that age he can still produce art that burns with such pin sharp intellectual passion, laced of course by his unique brand of fierce pessimism.

These are not so much songs, as psalms from an unsettling parallel universe. This music, like all music, was always out there, it just needed someone wilful and single-minded enough to pluck it out of the ether. Scott says he is not worried by having little appeal as he has a dedicated band of followers who buy enough of his CDs to pay the rent, and as for people who dismiss his work as pretentious, he says they should all "try harder". I couldn't agree more; art like this is worth putting in the effort for. Far too much music nowadays panders to the lowest possible denominator, and seeks to be no more than entertainment, and while that has its place, so does intellectual - not pretentious - music.

True art should take you to places you can only half imagine, and this piece of conceptual music does just that. 

"If shit were music, you'd be a brass band"  

Tracklist:

"See You Don't Bump His Head"
Corps de Blah
Phrasing
SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)
Epizootics
Dimple
Tar
Pilgrim
The Day The "Conducator" Died

Line up:
Hugh Burns - every type of guitar imaginable
Mark Warman - keyboards, programming
James Stevenson - more guitars
Peter Walsh - keyboards FX
Alasdair Malloy - percussion
Ian Thomas - drums
John Giblin - bass
Paul Willey - violin harmonics
Michael Laird - rams' horns
Pete Long - tubax, baritone sax
BJ Cole - hawaiian pedal steel
Guy Barker - trumpet
Tom Rees-Roberts - trumpet
Andrew McDonald - low rumbles & white noise
Scott Walker - voice (& keyboards on Pilgrim; percussion, electric guitar & keyboards on The Day The Conducator Died)

A chamber orchestra consisting of 1st & 2nd violins, celli & double basses features on Zercon, Dimple, & Corps de Blah.