(Originally posted October 2001)

Hey kids. I’ve just been listening to the 14 Iced Bears, and if you don’t remember them, then that’s not entirely important (although it’s quite important, as they were REALLY RATHER GOOD). The point is, where is all the good music these days? Why do I fill my time with all these old records, when surely I should be listening to the hip sounds of youth and getting down to where it’s at in the scene. I can barely get it together to buy anything even vaguely new any more, my shopping habits are erratic to say the least and leave me clutching weird armfuls of records from all over the place and from random years and people. Such is the delightful nature of aimlessly shambling through one’s musical life. Still, this isn’t a confession, it’s an excuse to pad out some space before I get started on a paltry selection of reviews of the only half-recent records I’ve got lying around here right now. Sit down comfortably, this won’t take too long…

First up is a 7″ split single featuring V/VM and PORTAL, on the simply marvellous Earworm Records, which upon first impressions looks a bit dull, sitting as it does in a generic Earworm company sleeve and having as it does no labels on the record to speak of, just an area of white. this does mean it’s difficult to tell which side is which, but you’ll know soon enough by listening to the damn record, fool. Portal’s two tracks are on the sinister side of relaxed, with super-repeated, super-barren frightening child’s story style melodies burrowing into your head and fiddling around with stuff, like the more melodic, more unnerving parts of the Aphex Twin‘s ‘Volume II’ in one way, and like stripped-down versions of an old David Cronenberg film soundtrack in another way. pretty cold-sounding, but atmospheric to the point of suffocation. V/VM, on the other hand, are clearly disturbed in several ways, and proffer some kind of twisted happy house tune which has been fed backwards through a sharp blender and brought up on a diet of sampling and knowing glances at people with worse record collections than itself. Strangely enough, for all its cut-up oddity and scratched record (in the traditional sense) charm, it manages to be simultaneously respectful and damning of the ten or so old tunes it’s sellotaped together with. You can’t say they’re not originals.

Next next next. This is a three 7″ box set from Rocket Racer records, and it looks fantastic – minimal yet a delight to open and treasure. As the insert says, ‘it’s been a while since i’ve seen a 7″ box set’, and i couldn’t agree more, it’s great to see effort being made to produce this kind of artefact, so much attention to detail, and so much belief in the music contained within. and the music? well, there’s more PORTAL, this time they seem to have cheered up somewhat and give us a skippy light breakbeat mixed with ominous synth sounds and quiet echo-heavy vocals. respect. the other side has THE AND/ORS who take the more traditional guitar band route and use it to good effect, with a lazy and plaintive song that sounds like an old Sarah Records band existing nowadays, operating at a slower speed, and with a slightly warped edge. The second record kicks off with YELLOW 6. I say kicks, but it’s more of a slow shuffle, with lulling, shifting sounds intermingling amongst pleasant acoustic guitar, like certain areas of Godspeed You Black Emperor! or even Aerial M. It’s bee-eautiful. LACKLUSTER bring things weird to the flip, with what some might pretentiously say is a ‘soundscape’, but what I pretentiously like to call ‘a bad-dreamy passing of noise’ which recalls cold winds on miserable evenings and drifting lost at sea. or at least recalls ideas like those. like Portal’s stuff on the earworm record, it’s certainly unnerving, and definitely memorable. STYROFOAM, next, sound the most electronic of the folks in this box, with a tune which could have been produced in the early 1980s on 1970s equipment. But recorded in the 1990s. It builds and builds, piano sound over synth sound over drum machine sound, not really going anywhere, but never getting dull. TANK round off this superb selection of talent, and stay true to their flawless form with a Neu! style urgent repetition, sounding utterly meaningful without the need for lyrics. They have it going on, or off, or something.

And there I will end. Only two reviews, you cry? Well, quality beats quantity every time. And those two releases are of The Quality which should make all you dear readers go form a band, or release a record, or write something, or produce something worthwhile. As Add N To X would say, ‘you must create’.

Go on then.

The fledgling Scottish label Autumn Ferment have done it again in sharing with the world another fantastically original folk artist. When not singing, Flake Brown is a father named Tony Ramsay, a folk-guitar fiddler fiddling his way around whirs of plucked strings and tastily surreal lyrics. Admittedly the combination of folk + odd voice + humour (albeit a slight, tasteful wit) does not immediately smack you of making an enjoyable listen. But his debut album ‘Help the Overdog’ is a real grower; his distinctive voice turns from strange to charming and you realise you’re in the company of a jolly good album.

Flake has a friendly bass-baritone voice which he shows off with terrific low humming. He’s the owner of what I would have assumed is a West Country croak, but Sussex is where he really hails so I’m a quite a few miles off at least.

There are some classic folk song-titles here: ‘Pilgrim Song’, ‘The Weathercatcher’ and ‘Eddie the Puss’, but nothing in the album suggests trite folk idioms. The latter song is wonderfully perplexing:

I am a mistress of fate,
I wait for you at the gate…
Staple my face to the hours…
Skate on the top of your breath,
Ride on the wings of desire,
Buy a house and then retire.
Be good to mum throughout life,
Go to the shops, buy a knife…

and includes some sinister chuckling and the two longest hums I’ve ever heard. ‘The Angry Courtyard’ hits you in the stomach with its sheer beauty, and is coupled with some spectacular lyrics: “Moon drips into the Angry Courtyard… I watch the life that dangled on your thigh”.

Flake is funny but never facetious and has a witty idiosyncrasy that makes comparison very tricky. Sadly, and this is very sadly, Flake’s guitar playing can be pretty scatty when trying to impress. Most of the album displays an original and reserved take on some very tricky folk fingerpicking, and this is when he performs best. His guitar playing is can be too ambitious towards the end of the album and songs are spoiled, but not ruined, by some pretty shoddy playing. He’s no Django and does at times attempt playing which only a virtuoso could pick, slide, hammer and pull off. This is, however, the only criticism I can (very reluctantly) find in such a fine, fine, grand, wonderful, humorous, comforting album – an album helped me find peace in a rush-hour, oh-shit-I’ve-lost-my-keys London. A must for metropophobes!

Flake Brown Myspace

Pascal Ansell

Shit. This’ll be the third time I try to review this record. Let’s hope I don’t scratch the CD any more or my crappy computer doesn’t crash from overheating again before I reach the end. Anyway:

This record came out on Monday 28th July. It’s in a limited edition of 500 in translucent red, which is cool because everyone knows that coloured 7″s are totally down with the kids now. And translucent red is always the best colour to have your vinyl. You can buy it here: www.myspace.com/brewrecords.

This review is pretty redundant. Not only because it’s late, but because you can listen to both sides of it here: www.myspace.com/kongdom.

But whatever. Maybe you want to read a little whilst you listen. So who are Kong? A power trio (guitar, bass, drums) from Manchester, I heard they contain members of Oceansize (who released their debut 7″ on Diskant-related label Errol back in about ’99) and Amplifier (who I have a demo CD by that must have come out in about 2000 and are apparently still going). There are a bunch of videos of them on Youtube, the most pertinent of which is probably this:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjHkWdB7gLU&feature=related[/youtube]

From this video you can make out a penchant for clown masks; that their guitarist manages to make a Fender Stratocaster sound really nasty for the first time I can remember in years; that their bassist seems to wish he was Andy from That Fucking Tank:

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Now, I can’t remember why I was sent a demo CD from 4tRECk – I get stuff sent for review, but I also get stuff sent that concerns Audioscope and/or Fourier Transform. I have no way of telling what this CD’s ‘purpose’ is. Damn my disorganisation.

Anyway. Regardless. I’ll mention it here because it’s veh good. A weird Anglo-French dinky-donky sounding set of tracks produced by one man and his portastudio, that mixes sensitive folk music with the structural oddity of American Heritage/Don Caballero/etc. Interesting for no other reason that it sounds both familiar and new, and it’s music that makes me smile.

The lot of a part-time reviewer is a strange one: half the time it seems like time is being taken away from listening to music I really want to hear, being instead spent piling through endless rounds of CDs from going-through-the-motions promo companies, where more art goes into the writing of a press release than into the music being desperately hailed as Something Important. It’s hard to remember the reasons for having got into this ugly scene in the first place; the occasional jolt of enjoyment to be had from one of two things:

1. Receiving a free promotional copy of a record I was already planning on buying;
2. Receiving a free promotional copy of a record I would never have bought, but which is a serendipitous glimpse into the world beyond my normal listening habits.

This three-track demo CD is an example of the second situation above. Far, far from the music I tend to listen to through choice these days, this is straightforward blues-based indie music, with one foot in the laddish guitar melodies of early Oasis and Ocean Colour Scene (remember the days when people genuinely, unashamedly liked those two bands?), the other in the unblinkered world of young musicians who have yet to be ground down by the relentless demands to be new, groundbreaking or boundary-pushing.

Sure, this is traditional, simple music – ‘Then I’ll Be Leaving You’ opening up like REM’s ‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth’ before loping into a blues-scale-verse-chorus-verse-mid-paced song where you can certainly see what’s coming. However, I find it absolutely listenable. It might be the vocal style, which is more Davy Jones sensitive than Liam Gallagher growl; or it might be the sheer lack of surprises (everybody’s doing musical surprises, these days); or it might be the nostalgic twist of pleasure I get from this. Two further tracks ‘Sebastian Melmoth, You’ve Got A Nerve’ and ‘Hollow Eyed and High’ introduce, respectively, a touch of Faces-tinged piano mixed with Byrds-style western strum, and, well, a combination of the first two tracks’ styles. (I did say that this wasn’t surprising stuff).

Obviously 4 Believers (terrible name by the way lads, I’d urge a change if possible) are never going to set the world on fire. But is that so wrong? Here’s a band just getting on with things, and it’s occasionally a relief to hear that.

By crikey, I really like the Johnny Foreigner album. I know it’s been out a little while now, but I’ll reiterate what you can already read in many other places – get it, it’s great. Here’s some music:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW6Bfy7K3Tc[/youtube]

How many albums do you know of that were recorded in an abattoir? The noise/drone duo Terry Burrows and John Bowers answer that question under the name of Tonesucker, whose 2006 album ‘Slaughterhouse’ captures the intense claustrophobia of a filthy parade through an abattoir.

The album opens with a monolithic guitar chord repeated every twenty seconds, the track’s title ‘Hook’ ominously punning on the portent of the horror that the listener / cow awaits. As the song develops there are some wonderfully weird guitar crackles that begin to burn then gently fizz out – just a sample of the great tones and effects the two guitarists Bowers and Burrows achieve in this album. One of the most nerve-wracking songs imaginable is ‘Crush’: a glacier-slow raising of pitch and tension, which achieved (I would guess) by gradually moving a slide up the guitar’s neck. On ‘Slice’ the duo treat us to hypnotic wavelength vibrations – that underlying hum synonymous with Earth and Sunn O))).

It’s amazing to think ‘Slaughterhouse’ was recorded with just guitars (plus pedals and amps) – the array of sounds squeezed out of a couple of the instruments is immense. It’s an incredibly intense listen packed full of triumphant droning and delicious noise. According to Terry the final product of ‘Slaughterhouse’ insisted on “tortuous amounts of audio sculpting” – all worthwhile in a particularly effective four songs.

Listening to this album makes you wish there was a drummer somewhere in the mix, and lo, Tonesucker have done the right thing. Drummer Steven Elsey joined earlier this year, and the band will surely benefit from this addition.

Tonesucker Myspace

Pascal Ansell

(Originally posted April 2003)

I feel that over the course of my tenure writing this enlightening musical column I have been on a quest. I have been searching for a style, a format that could easily support my acerbic observations and all-knowing wit. For a while I was doing the “ten reviews in one column” format. Then I switched over to the “reviewing music in the context of a greater storyline” concept that plagued my last three columns. But lately, I’ve felt the need for the change.

I brought up this desire during my latest meeting with diskant taskmaster, Gen. Simon Minter, while we shared a pipe at the local opium den.

“Minty,” I said, “It’s time for something new. Something to shake things up.”

“What did you have in mind?” he asked between demure puffs.

“What if, instead of reviewing musical albums that can be found in the bargain bins of pawn shops and used record stores, I began reviewing the vast collection of homosexual child erotica I have pertained from the Internet?”

“Don’t think I can sell that to Marcy,” Minty replied. “What else you got?”

“Well,” I said. “I suppose I could usher in a new format where I review one record per column, starting with my truck stop purchased copy of ‘Sony Music Special Products: Blue Oyster Cult’?”

“Tell me more about the child erotica,” Minty opined.

Fortunately, cooler, less opiated heads prevailed, and I herald my new, one album per column format. Men stare in awe! Women swoon! Children squeal! (Whoops – make that “Men stare in awe! Women swoon.” The “children squeal” part was from one of my homosexual child erotica videotapes.)

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(Originally posted December 2002)

“Zarcon, your time has come,” I yelled out as I leapt through the glass canopy of the palace, causing shards of vibrant colors to shatter against the concrete floor. I too soon hit the ground, but managed to mitigate the impact by performing one of my practiced roll and flip routines that could not have been better executed by the finest ninja. Upon completion, I popped up, unslung my M-16, and gazed about the room. The was General Zarcon, the Middle eastern despot I had come to apprehend, surrounded by his two sons, Tweedle and Deedle Zarcon, as well as a host of other official dignitaries and guards. They had not been expecting to see me and were seated at a table with a game of The Justice League Collector’s Edition Monopoly laid upon it. Several of the guards reached for their arms but I coolly popped off a few rounds from the M-16 and they flew back against the wall, cooing out their final death throes. As I watched, several birds descended upon their bodies, plucked out their eyeballs and flew off to feed them to their hungry birdlings.

Leaping forward I…. Oh. I can’t help but notice that confused look on your face dear diskant reader. Is it possible that you haven’t read the two previous episodes of Bargain Bin Culture and need to be brought up to snuff? Well, first of all, shame on you for not partaking in the finest music review column dedicated to the obscure albums and CDs found in the used bins of the finest pawn shops, second hand stores and music boutiques across the land. But I shall allot you one instance of such neglect and fill you in on current events. I had been chosen by the United State’s elite military unit to become the superspy that would invade the camp of Middle Eastern despot and master of arcane music triva, General Zarcon. My first mission had been to approach his daughter, young Sally Zarcon, a probe her for whatever information might prove relevant (like the size of her cervix). Then… stuff happened… and I ended up here, determined to either apprehend the feared General, or spray his cranial matter across the walls before he could unleash his dreaded “LP Bomb” – a nuclear device that would eliminate record LPs worldwide, thus destroying the backbone of western culture. Make sense? Good, let’s get back to the story.

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Noticed last week that Pita‘s Get Out album has been re-issued by Mego / Editions Mego. While it’s weird that a record label would shift from releasing bold new material to releasing bold old material, it prompted me to get out my own copy, and I am glad.

I remember getting lost in the cover, an obsessive overlay of blue lines that grabbed me like “proper” abstract art never has. I’m not a visual person. The music stands up well. Some avantgarde / noise stuff dates, in a way that pop doesn’t, else it loses its appeal after a while because it turns out to rely on an adrenaline rush / shock of the new for its effect. Here I can’t hear the edges, or any sounds characteristic of 10-year old software presets.

The album orbits the 2nd or 3rd track, where melody and dissonance flirt with each other and fire off flinty sparks in a slow dance before coming together and erupting in a fountain of static wrapping the ghost of a tune. The pattern emerging from chaos for me shares a lot with raw guitar music, specifically the moment towards the end of Sister Ray, where the riff seems to fall apart only to re-emerge, glistening.

It’s a record that for all its metallic sound, feels organic and alive. I think that’s why it’s an avant garde record that it’s actually possible (for me, anyway) to love.