Eden Pure Ale

In the interests of bringing you information on new and exotic beers I ventured to the Eden Project in Bodleva, Cornwall and bought some Eden Pure Ale. Eden Pure Ale is brewed at Sharp's Brewery in Rock, Cornwall and I'm not too certain on its' availability outside the Eden Project but it probably isn't worth paying the £22 entrance fee to try it - go to the Sharp's Brewery web site and buy some online. ( www.sharpsbrewery.co.uk).
A 500ml bottle set me back £2.50, so it's not a cheap tipple and runs at only 4.5% Vol. It is however quite tasty - refreshing almost, very light and fruity. Sharps brew another ale called "Doom Bar" and Eden Pure Ale is very similar. There is a new ale by Sharp's called "D.W." brewed for the Xmas drinkers market (hello)! and proceeds go to a Cornish Hospice so I'll try and hunt some down. Drinking for Cancer.

Pictures.
1: Sharp's Eden Pure Ale.
2: Myself entering the Eden Project.

Forced Womanhood

I had an E Mail the other day from a friend who had been to the "Colours Out Of Space" weekender in Brighton and his comment on some of the festival was "Everybody thinks they can be a sound artist / poet these days".
"It's not easy, to make you feel uncomfortable, it's not easy....it's not just £1.30" to quote Throbbing Gristle's "Wolverhampton £1.30". I get that feeling whilst playing the compilation release "Forced Womanhood" on 23 Productions. A 2xC60 package put out a few years back. A lot of tracks on this release are bland one dimensional noise efforts, pleasing to neither man nor ear....but there are a few gems. I remember getting it on release and playing it and liking some of the tracks and with this in mind I have been revisiting the release over the past couple of days.
Side A begins with Cleanse. Cleanse are are early incarnation of US "dronesters" Hive Mind. Here they present "Angel's Trumpet" a great slice of Industrial pulse and grind. Clew Of Theseus offer a slice of American Power Electronics with distorted shouting and chaotic electronics. Early doors for Clew here. Prurient follow with "Tailor". Well presented stuff with amplifier feedback and metal percussion. Prurient giving an isolated sparse vibe. Prosexist follow. I remember a few years back reviewing the cassette release "Krimkall" on the Krimljud label for "Idwal Fisher" magazine. On the compilation is a project called Assdestroyer - it was some young chap in his bedroom knocking out "naughty" tracks whilst his mother was downstairs doing the ironing...anyway, I did say then that you should never name yourself after a Whitehouse "song". It is too obvious and Whitehouse stand alone in the field of power electronics...it is pointless. Sure, I've just been talking about Animals & Men and myself naming a band I was in after a This Heat track title but This Heat and Adam & The Ants are not Whitehouse. Anyhow...Prosexist offer amp' feedback (yawn) and shouty shouty vocals. Karlheinz follows with a noise track. Side A ends with "Penal Exile" by Ga-Ne-Tli-Yv-S-Di. (A new name to me). It is layered synth with effects pedals and hidden (subliminal) vocals and probably the best track so far.
Side B starts with Immaculate Grotesque. This is noise that I don't quite understand. I don't understand why anyone would make it or want to listen to it. Eugenics Council follow with two pieces both called "Taint". The first track is horrible noise, the second feature an American voice shouting insults before it all fits around a rhythmic beat and it all seems to fit. Black Leather Jesus hits like a train. Chaos and noise at 125 miles per hour. V.D. give us the excellently titled "No Love For A Bottom". V.D. is a side project of Keith Brewer - he of Taint fame. It begins (again) with insults, and therefore boring...yes I am a motherfucking dicksucker who'll burn in hell...thank you very much...and it is a shame as what follows is a slice of excellent powerful electronics, just a shame it begins all cliched. Loop Retard give a Smegma style tape collage before Sweden's Survival Unit end the side with the best track "Let Me Die A Woman", a dark brooding atmospheric instrumental.
Side C starts with Prosexist (not again!!) with Raquel De Grimstone. "Paint You Up" has a good old industrial noise feel to it, it's not that good, just a pleasant surprise. Moribund offer nothing new with two tracks of slowed down sluggish vocals over distorted noise and The Viodre finish the side with an epic piece of directionless tat called "Phalcam Mancunt".
Side D kicks off with "Slut Torture" by Panicsville. Where do they get these titles from? The sound is forced and poor. A poor de force. Two pieces by Karmanjakan Intonarumori follow and these two slices of innovative, cleverly constructed masterpieces is what makes the compilation worth having. No comparisons to any other artiste / sound can be made here. Slow staggering electronics and spoken madness. K.I. is an early project of Bestializer, and one of Sweden's finest noise makers. Human Is Filth offer up "Penectomic Scission Vivisection", an insane onslaught of pounding electronics and feedback. Concrete Violin follow. It is a strand of thought amongst "noisefolk" that when recording a "noise" track that sticking everything "in the red" sounds good. Misguided fools. A track of tiresome tape splicing tomfoolery ends the compilation. "Bitch Me In" by the strangely titled project Mansfield Deathtrap. Are they from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire?
The release is finely packaged in a DVD type slim case with a booklet of "naughty schoolboy" pictures. Anal penetration, castration, open vagina collage stuff. The tracks were compiled by Clay Ruby and Karen Eliot (the Alan Smithee of noise albums)!
If seen - buy - if just for Karmanjakan Intonarumori, Survival Unit and Prurient.

Animals & Men

Have spent a pleasant while listening to the 2008 LP "Never Bought, Never Sold" by Animals & Men on US label Mississippi Records. Animals & Men first existed in 1979 and were based in Frome, Somerset (When in Frome....). They named themselves after the Adam & The Ants song. A lot of that kind of thing went on in the late 1970's. I remember 1979 and trying to chose a name for my first band (band!!...duo more like), we wrote some names on a bit of paper and tossed them into a (bowler) hat, on one piece I had written "Whips & Furs" a favourite track from the first Vibrators LP. I was thinking "well if it works for Stiff Little Fingers then I'll give it a go", luckily it never got pulled from the hat. (The Attempted Rape Of Dave Kirten and The Arrival Of A Train At La Ciotat Station were both drawn before we plumped for So Commercial). In 1982 we (the "we" is Dave Uden & I) did the same again and became Diet Of Worms. A love of the track from the first This Heat LP rather than any Lutherian leanings.
Anyway, back to Animals & Men.
In the summer I was told of a "drummer who used to be in a punk band in the 70's" working in the bowels of Torbay Hospital and lo and behold I met Geoff the guy who tampers with Medical Devices and somesuch. Geoff is the drummer in Animals & Men and he kindly gave me the vinyl LP and CD re-issues to listen to.
The CD is OK. "Revel In The Static" on the Hyped2Death label. I do feel it is the case of the unnecessary CD. A lot of unnecessary CD's have been released of late - by this I mean full over the hour albums by old bands that only released one or two singles in their brief "career" 4 or 5 songs that last under 15 minutes...and now there's a bloody hour of their stuff - unreleased demos, live tracks, alternative versions etc. In some cases the power and mystique is lost. For some reason I am thinking Steve Treatment, Pseudo Existors and Cyanide here...has anyone released a Gaffa CD?? Anyway, "Revel In The Static" falls into that category for me. The early stuff is great but there are too many "fillers" with stuff that sounds like music that could have been heard on a Sunday night in the back room of The White Horse....If you know what I mean? (great song). So, luckily, there is a vinyl LP available that delivers the goods.
"Never Bought, Never Sold" contains the two Animals & Men 7"'s as well as the 7" "Evil Going On" which they released under the moniker of The Terraplanes. Infact The Terraplanes tracks run at 8, whilst there are only 5 Animals & Men tracks.
The LP starts with the instant classic "Don't Misbehave In the New Age", a highly infectious sing-along from 1979. "Waiting For My Stranger" follows, a John Peel favourite which, again, has an infectious rhythm. Two tracks in and we switch to the Terraplanes and a demo version of "I Never Worry". This is from a cassette that Adam Ant heard and wanted to get involved. I can hear why...it has an Amazulu or The Belle Stars feel about it. 1982 and everything was foppish hair, Bananarama and the Funboy 3 on the cover of "The Face", African chic and music like "I Never Worry". A song that hit the zeitgeist rather than charts. "Terraplane Fixation" follows. Back to Animals & Men and the song I remember them for. I used to have the song on a cassette of Peel favourites - along with Bunnydrums, Pere Ubu and Last Words....it fitted beautifully. The next couple of numbers we are back to the Terraplanes sounding like Bow Wow Wow before a Terraplanes version of an old Animals & Men song called "Treasure Of The Damned", a great proto-goth tracks where the bass guitar leads esoteric vocals around a heavy (double) drum beat.
Side two kicks off with sides A and B from the only Terraplanes single "Evil Going On" and "It's Hip". To quote lead Animal Ralph Mitchard's sleeve notes: "(It) was an attempt to create a new genre entirely, fusing blues and punk-we thought we could inspire a movement of blues beatniks digging obscure films but it flopped big time...Even Peeley didn't like it..." It (now) sounds like a strange hybrid of Joy Division jamming with 9 Below Zero and The Young Marble Giants. The B-Side to "Don't Misbehave In The New Age" follows, the excellent teen angst song "We Are Machines". Back in the punk days everyone had their "We Are Machines" song. Factory life, nine to five, white collar working..not for me type of stance. A couple of bluesy pub rock numbers follow before the LP finishes with a demo recording of the Animals & Men track "Headphones" which contains an "Antsian" guitar riff (sounds like "Friends") and then the excellent "Shell Shock", the B-Side to "Terraplane Fixation". Here they sound like Repetition - the band not the Fall song. Beautiful stuff.
The LP is recommended, the CD not so - unless seen for a fiver or less.

One of the joys of both releases are the sleeve notes. Funny detail and the story of what it was like to be in a punk/post-punk band in a small town in the late 1970's is hit on the head beautifully by Ralph. Their lack of ambition, their not wanting to move out of Frome, or to London. "Think Art, Act Local" as Grey Park once said. Animals & Men didn't play many gigs but when they supported Toyah and didn't like what they heard or saw they knew the "big time" wasn't for them. They had name changes and dalliances with Adam Ant before packing it all in and deciding to start families and play music to amuse themselves and friends.
And then the Internet happened and interest arose in old punk and post punk bands. I even had an e-mail from Chuck Warner asking if I had any old recordings of ESP Disk-rd (the band I was in after So Commercial that was named after an old Fall song title which got changed to "Psychick Dancehall"...the song title not the band) because I released a cassette back in 1979 and it got a mention in "ZigZag" magazine and "The International Discography Of The New Wave" book. And so, Animals & Men reformed in 2008. They still don't gig much (Paris on December 1) but I would love to see them live, I'd love just to sit around a pub table and share a few pints and chat with them.
The LP is available from Mississippi Records direct (just google it), or via Discogs.

Pictures.
1: Animals & Men, 1979.
2: "Never Bought, Never Sold" Sleeve.
3: "Revel In The Static" Sleeve.
4: Geoff Norcott 2011.

Nigel Ayers: Compost: Live at Tate St Ives

Nigel Ayers: Compost: Live at Tate St Ives: Field Club & Friends - late at the Tate St Ives Friday 25 November: FREE ADMISSION Multimedia artist Nigel Ayers, will perform a live psyc...

Mauthausen Orchestra #3

Today I resumed my playing through the 12xcassette album "Gravitational Arch Of Sex" (Slaughter Productions) by Mauthausen Orchestra, I have reached #5 : "Bloodyminded". (Good name for a band). Originally released in 1984 on the Italian Aquilifer Sodality label.
With its' beginnings, the sound of microphones being left on a deserted beach to record the lapping of the waves and the winds across the sands to the intermittent bursts of powerful synth to a track that sounds like a project called Mauthausen Orchestra should sound like. Harsh tones that cut through the air with manic male agonising screams morphing into a lyrical attack. No idea what is being communicated here (I speak no Italian) but it does sound like The Sodality track "They Never Learn" and Ultra's "I Can't Stand A Bitchy Chick" rolled into one. Excellent track.
By 1984 Mauthausen Orchestra had released on the UK Broken Flag label and maybe the influence of Gary Mundy's work along with that of Whitehouse is starting to show on "Bloodyminded"?
Side two has two instrumental pieces. It starts with industrial grind and rising and lowering oscillations before the chaos sets in. "Carcrash Electronics" is the best way to describe the sound. Manic/chaotic, all over the bloody shop! Radio space and pink noise calm the side down before a chaotic reprise and fade out.
"Bloodyminded" is a bloody good cassette and well recorded too. I suppose it is pretty daft to say that if you ever see a copy - buy! But you never know....there was an unofficial re-issue on the Australian Zero Cabal label that might be easier to find.

Craig Colorusso

Just spent a pleasant while listening to the latest 7" by Craig Colorusso. "Sun Boxes", which may or may not be on the MUUD label. The single is beautifully packaged in a colourful open out picture sleeve and is on slightly camouflage coloured vinyl. I discovered this release whilst reading the excellent "Dead Formats" blog spot.
Sun Boxes are small boxed speakers generated by solar power. The speakers each contain a different guitar note loop in each box, the guitar notes collectively make a b flat chord. The boxes are then placed in different environs and experienced. Craig Colorusso builds these boxes and installs them across America.
Over the past few days Hartop Towers has been hit by the drone. Firstly with the latest Andreas Brandal album "Eight Secret Messages" on the American Ilse label and then Preslav Literary School's "La Reflexion Du Tir" cassette, this single fits in beautifully. I am playing it at 33rpm. Two pieces recorded at two different locations. "Frozen Pond" in Plymouth Massachusetts and a "Grassy Field" in Newburyport Massachusetts. The sound on both pieces is meditative, calming and all inspiring. Beautiful.
Please go to www.sun-boxes.com to find out more about Craig and his sound, the single is available there as well as (gulp) downloads for those who don't like vinyl!

Pictures.
1: "Sun Boxes" Sleeve.
2: "Sun Boxes" Vinyl.
3: Postcard.

Preslav Literary School #2

Just spent a pleasant while listening to the latest release from Preslav Literary School. "La Reflexion Du Tir", a cassette (C40) limited to 75 copies on the Russian Full Of Nothing label (www.fono.tihiiomut.ru) and worth the 7 Euros.
The cassette is inspired by the artwork of Benjamin Laurant Aman and Mathias Enard's novel "Zone". The novel centres around a spy/soldier called Francis Servain Mirkovic and his attempt to escape his past and live a "regular" life as Yuan Deroy. The two pieces on this cassette are named after the character(s). Benjamin is the man behind the excellent German label Razzle Dazzle.
"Francis Servain Mirkovic" starts very quietly and builds into a sixteen minute celestial, harmonious drone. "Yuan Deroy" also has a slow fade in, begining its' fourteen minute journey with a choral feel, the atomosphere of Gregorian Monks before adopting (again) a harmonious drone but this time more meloncholic and inward looking. It plays like an old wax cylinder of pumped organ music. Deep and beautiful stuff.

I am glad that the Preslav School Of Industry that appear on the latest "Feral Debris" compilation CDr are nothing to do with Preslav Literary School. The 'Industry track is so poor. It is hard to believe that someone/persons could name themselves such - they must know of the Literary School's existence? Still, I played the Venn Festival in Bristol a few years back and on the bill were a band from Bristol called Hunting Lodge! Anyway, I wholly recommend this release, get in touch with Full Of Nothing or Preslav Literary School at www.preslavliteraryschool.co.uk buy and enjoy...I even think there is a (gulp) download version!

Picture.
1: Preslav Literary Scool "La Reflexion Du Tir" Cassette.

Sorry about the poor picture....Scanner is still not working.