SubVersion Stop 259: Wire Chart 2015

Another year, another set of fifteen purchases according to the principle “buying one record reviewed in The Wire each month”, plus three more in order to make up a "proper" Wire chart. It's the third year I've been engaged in this entertaining (for me), if ultimately pointless, endeavour. The lists for the previous two years can be found here (2013) and here (2014) – and now here's my chart for 2015. The # marks denote the issues in which the records featured.
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SubVersion 2015 15

#371 Rie Nakajima - Four Forms (Consumer Waste)
#372 Runhild Gammelsaeter & Lasse Marhaug - Quantum Entanglement (Utech)
#373 Björk - Vulnicura (One Little Indian)
#374 Beatriz Ferreyra - GRM Works (GRM)
#375 Tyondai Braxton - HIVE1 (Nonesuch)
#376 André O. Möller & Hans Eberhard Maldfeld - In Memory of James Tenney (Edition Wandelweiser)
#377 Alternative TV - Opposing Forces (Public Domain)
#378 Malcolm Goldstein - Full Circle Sounding (Kye)
#379 Amir ElSaffar - Crisis (Pi Recordings)
#380 Mario Diaz de Leon - The Soul is the Arena (Denovali)
#381 The Necks - Vertigo (ReR Megacorp)
#382 Harry Bertoia - Sonambient (Important) — on pre-order; I don't actually have it yet.

+#371 Heather Leigh - Nightingale (Golden Lab)
+#375 Alessandra Eramo - Roars Bangs Booms (Corvo)
+#376 Eva-Maria Houben - Air: Works for Flutes and Organ (Edition Wandelweiser)

Compiled by Jonathan Tait, subvertcentral.blogspot.co.uk
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Once again, this isn't a “best records of the year” list; it's a collection of releases that made me sit up when checking them out. If I had to pick one, it'd be In Memory of James Tenney. It's hard to beat the splendid noise made by two Tromba marinas in concert.

PS I do feel slightly guilty about leaving Sleaford Mods out this time, but Key Markets was reviewed in #377 and Alternative TV "won" that month – mainly because I was surprised Mark Perry could turn out a good album after all these years (cf John Lydon's dreadful record), whereas Sleaford Mods are... Sleaford Mods. Great to see the local lads doing so well, though :)

SubVersion Stop 258: Foci's Left - LUV Project (Grand Canaria Has Someting Good In The Air) - Nov 2015

Got a new CD coming out, I might pair it up as a double CD package with Clavinova if there's more than one comment/like/share for this post. If you mention it on Facebook or Twitter and tell me, you get a free disc sent to you (postage covered by me). There are 300 download codes currently ordered by me, to be dispensed with unique codes at @MuttleySV on Twitter in the coming weeks. Reimburse yours at www.focisleft.bandcamp.com/yum. If you want to help me buy food for half a week to feed myself, PayPal £10 to mbucki07 at hotmail.co.uk and I'll send you a double CD-R (read on for another option) of the finished LP from 1 Nov-14th Nov, and Clavinova, already released on focisleft.bandcamp.com as a free download.
The new LP is called LUV: Grand Canaria Has Someting In The Air. I'm uploading it right now for your listening displeasure. To be honest, it's the LP that's taken me the smallest amount of time to make, the easiest thing is sometimes the best thing. The album was created completely on a mobile phone on my holiday around the Canary Islands to keep me sane/from relapsing. It's 14 tracks long and should be ready for release by the morning. I had a breathtaking time around the Canaries, visiting Lanzarote and Madeira on land, and Lisbon, Tenerife, Grand Canaria, Las Palmas and La Coruna on sailaway photographed on deck port sightseeings from the ship (I could watch those for days and is handy because I'm a lumbering sleepwalker). The ship, Ventura had amazing entertainment: pianist Campbell Simpson, Dynamite Groove and Eletrixx, Megan and Joe on vocal songs, Kai doing Michael Buble, Jimmy Love as Elton John, and shout outs especially to the Cinnamon and Sindhu restaurants for providing 2 weeks of the best food I've ever had this lifetime. The Sindhu in particular, for the best Indian 4 course (korma/rogan/tofu salmon) meal I've had in over 20 years.
So, CD, 2CD, like or mention for freebies, donate huggably for LUV. Boh :)

Release day progress: sold my first copy to FuturePast zine today with an order of Nothing 3CD too.

SubVersion Stop 257: Curry Crew - The Dastardly Diaries Chapter 5

http://subvertcentral.com/showthread.php?tid=61343


Foci's Left, Magix, Fellow Concert Performers - Curry Crew - Muttley's Dastardly Diaries - Chapter 5

I just couldn't bee bovvered to vocalise or write at length in visual language and text format about TDD 5.
Well, it was called 'Dynamic Encounters With The Ultramundane' underneath. Then I called it somethin joyous. Curry!

What I really wanted to say originally is that two opposites put together equals transcending to a higher state. That's all there is to it really. Hence the 54 track 7.6 hours of free music.

I do not own copyrights to any of these recordings, but I recorded all of them. This is to cite one file with musicians. That's the last Sparkys night I went to before I go on holiday soon. Enjoy all the free music, studio and field recorded. Everything else is under Foci's Left (FL) name, and all of it can be downloaded individually, or Dropbox folder downloads.

I collated all this stuff together in one place because it's a lot easier to find, experience fully, as parts of an onion. It's also all of my best recordings from the last 2 months!

So have a feeding fix, and thank me when your hearing aid magic's your ears back to life.

On wiv der fred.

Yelp!

SubVersion Stop 256: SC's Handy New Tagging Index

This is a handy little thing thats been on the forum since it was refurbished in August-September '15. Scroll down the page to the bottom of the forum index and you will find a collection of about 25 sequentially (but not alphanumerically) ordered tags, updated every time you refresh. You can click on these to find new and old threads that you may have glanced at once but forgot to check, older stuff from 2002 initiation onwards, and sub-appropriated tagging by nature of threads having this function in their 'submit post' functionality.

Have a look: www.subvertcentral.com/index

:)

SubVersion Stop 255: Nissenmondia

New tune is LARGE. Sounds like acid houser Manacles of Acid live mixed with rock bombaism.

http://thequietus.com/articles/18743-listen-new-nissenenmondai

https://soundcloud.com/nisennenmondai/fan

SubVersion Stop 254: On the subject of Simon Reynolds...

SC thread lifesavers firefinga and Statto have been talking about the Energy Flash (released late 1990s) book refurbishment. It sounds good, in short. Meant to cover dubstep (still a bit Arnie-eurgh with me besides Actress, Burial, Zomby, Distance and Pinch) and EDM - which I'm commenting on in shorthand here since The Wire for October 2015 issue have EDM roots (electronic dance music, c'mon people, it just got anglicised = Americanised) on the cover. I'm not a massive keeper of hardcover books in my waking life, but I will be buying this. I'll report back later with a post edit.

(I will also be picking up a copy of Statto's SV reviewed The Sex Revolts on Joy Press from 2012).

SubVersion Stop 253: A Film Review (And A Bloody Good Film At That)

#muttleyfilm The Voices (Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton, et al., 2015)

Immediate thoughts: incredibly affecting biopic that takes in psychopathology in relation to paranoid schizophrenia.

In short: the easy choice is thr right choice.

I'm interested analysing psychopathy, being prone to psychopathy myself. And psychopathology - paths from the psyche, which takes in mindfulness - as less a severeance-rite.

For some, that's hells road. But for me, and a crucial backbencher ideologue of the film supports: "you're never alone". Health spreads out.

As Aristotle ‏@DailyAristotle says (in an effected context):

In medicine this [the good] is health; in strategy, victory; in architecture - a building- different things in different arts,

As *some* of us know, me from reading Garrick Alder's 'Mind Bombs', "the majority of psychopaths are non-violent". "Some even work in offices"  - see the film. "Like their cold-blooded counterparts, they are manipulative and controlling, lack emotional depth. In most respects they are to be seen as highly likely to succeed in corporate culture, where one person is just a cog in a bigger mechanism".

- But the reason ultimately that Ryan's character in the film doesn't succeed is because of complex aftercare from institutionalisation.

The rhizome (root) of all suffering can arise from childhood trauma; judge in the film for yourself.  When we take indoctrination, in any field - say schizoaffective (me, and partially psychopathic) with voices I hear (partial guides, but not always) - truth is corrupt.

Thusly this film, beyond just a cheap horror flick archetype with a tacked on message, is multidimesionally revelatory because of surrealism.

Psychopathology is the ultimate subversion. It leads all places, takes no prisoners. Yet it wields the ultimate dogma: for people to become prisoners of their own minds.

Re: and conclusion: the easy choice in paranoid schizophrenia is driven by mindfulness, but this is only the connective. Thusly psychopathy.

Mick Buckingham

[Editor's note: I stumbled across this film in an EE and Wuaki.TV company partnership offer for £1 a film a week for EE customers. I watched it on my phone at a less WiFi traffic time (230pm) and got a non-buffering excellent film for the price of 700mb data (1h43m length).

https://uk.wuaki.tv/movies/the-voices

SubVersion Stop 252: Muttley - Black Stars [2008]

Muttley - Black Stars - July2008 Poem

However adept one is at painting black over white
The moon will tell you otherwise within time
And these stars have many layers on their sights
And this sky is a tapestry of picture-perfect
Whenever you're down sing a song for hope
Even if worrying seems like all you can do
Ruminating over past actions won't help
Even if it feels like all you can do
These bright lights are your decision
Words aren't always meant to be red
Sometimes we're all wandering towards what was unsaid
But whether there's fruit is anyone's guess.
Black stars are in your head and heart.

~ This is a sleight edit to what I wrote in a mental health outpatients department in 2008 when induced with symptoms of bipolar disorder and psychotic depression. It has stayed in the back of my mind all this time. It is one of the favourite poems I've written. I will adapt it into an intuitive song-based improvisation at some point, as well as a mixtape. 

SubVersion Stop 251: Poem - Love's Blazing Trail 04.15

It was without seconds, yet with them
An eye of a needle broken in lightspeed
The brunt of a rhythm like a tension surge
Surging surreptitiously about the room.

These particles of air are like nebulae
Falling over each other in contortionism
Walking with two feet
In the same place
In the same step
Pattern

Patterns that radiate a cove of light.

It's loves blazing trail, a failed wound
Trips over it's two feet into the core
A heart beating in two rooms, two bodies
Yet as one, with all movement embodied.

Mick Buckingham

- Accompanying mixtape and free SoundCloud download to arrive shortly.

EDIT - actually 3 months later: https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/loves-blazing-trail-mix-wwwsubvertcentralblogspotcouk

subversion stop 249=250 - subversion recommends muttley: uncertain things (muttley's 27th bday mix)

subversion stop 249=250 - subversion recommends muttley: uncertain things (muttley's 27th bday mix)
feat. altus, asc, vangelis, foci's left (fl), little red, slow club, seconds before awakening, sky residents
(enjoy & eschaton), fanu, simon bean, 36, eveson, grouper; 1h 15 minutes length.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tkwiw3zez098z40/Uncertain%20Things....mp3?dl=0

/|
poetry by muttley
|/
doctrine of unexpected endings and quelled finalism.
kicking a habit like the smoke was blown out of the room by a vaccum.
diarising over a point-free exponent of the mind.
missing the details where there should be cognition inside.
changing the format as if it were pepperspray across a restaurant table.
finding sinuous connections until we're rarely unable.
controlling uncertain things may be a doctrine of unexpected endings i find.
but it's another thing being just controlled by the tide...

SubVersion Stop 248: Audiograft Night 3 - [rout] ensemble feat. Jennifer Walshe, James Saunders, Felicity Ford @ Holywell Music Room, Oxford, 13.03.15

Nightshift prospective review 11: [rout] at AudioGraft night 3, Holywell Music Room, 13.03.15

 

Audiograft's third event of 2015, organised by the reliable Oxford Contemporary Music and featuring sonic art from Jennifer Walshe, James Saunders, Felicity Ford and others, proves to be a remarkable event even just three pieces in. The [rout] based collective on display tonight forge new paths out of the finish Trevor Wishart, a pioneer of the term 'sonic art', profligated since musique concrete made headway from humble origins in the 1930s jazz destructuring, later advanced by The Radiophonic Workshop.

Recorded by Wire mag types Resonance FM London, this gig makes an oblique statement early: is the room about to explode? Because here the pipe system of the Holywell has been modified to impression springing a multitude of audible leaks. It's engaging enough stuff on the surface - peppered with instrumental sprinklings - but it's the second piece for full group, a dilated worldview organism of a score, that strikes as a collapsing limb trying to admirably rebuild its core aesthetic.

After a segmented voice and movement piece at its best in choral/body matching tendencies, then a 10 minute interval, the amply attended gig takes on a tutorial pattern recognition exercise where chromatic scale is treated as a cornerstone to voice a dual idea from - "A, B, E" - "strum, strum, strum", combining the small acoustic guitar and extrapolative leanings in body direction. A gong-y double bass tone starts out a more moat-mouthed exponent of castle-like sound sculpture. The wailing violin sonar counterpointed with saxophone and Christopher Bissonnette-esque tribal gong sounds like the waves began to play their own tune. The prepared piano sidelines a melodic bridge in higher register, only to be a postcard sent from a forgotten land.

The last piece is testament to [rout] collective's vision - a fantastic old school drama with disharmonic piano and mournful strings, topped off by French vocals. Strangely, for all the craterous pacing, [rout] seem to have their roots in all adventurous places possible.

Mick Buckingham (www.kapsil.net/muttley / www.focisleft.bandcamp.com)

SubVersion Stop 247: Do You See What I See (Audiograft [rout] proto-visiting poem)

Do you see what I see? 
All those red balloons

Those wines  and perfumes

Do you see they are beyond a tree? 

For, my lovers, a tree is where it started
An opal seed was planted
The seed grew in a vein of permafrost
Dissolving anything unlike itself.

The plant's leaves may be slanted 
Do you see what I see? 
Beyond the roof they have darted 
Like balloons, perfumes and costumes. 

Are they 
              Beyond a tree? 

[This is a poem I wrote down quickly in a notebook to mark my first visit to the Holywell Music Room in over a year - actually, since 2010 - the Audiograft festival night from Oxford Contemporary Music at the venue after some workshops in the day. I have been wanting to go back to the Holywell for some time; there are always good things to see; I put Greg Haines and Alexander Thomas (ANTA) on SubVersion's events in May 28th 2010; and tonight's live performance featuring Jennifer Walshe, James Saunders and Felicity Ford should benefit my mental health and continuously those around me]. :) 

 

SubVersion Stop 246: Balloon Ascents + Duotone @ The Bullingdon, Oxford, 23.01.15

Balloon Ascents + Duotone @ The Bullingdon, Friday 23rd January 2015

A duo tone, and a balloon ascent, both point to a shape or colour. Musically the monikers Duotone and Balloon Ascents seem equally sharing of colour and shape, as Barney Morse-Brown and the fast rising, late teens indie starlets prove on this double bill from Tigmus promotions.

Duotone, usually a one-man band, evade soulless pomp and on his first track lifted from 2012's "Ropes", the chirpy cello opener "Walking To The Shore". Barney beckons in well-orchestrated loops and exact delivery of his vocals in the manner of the record, but with a sense of place that is warming in the newly-refurbished confines of The Bullingdon. Speaking to the music promoter in the intermission, there seems wanting to put the previously pretense-heavy screen of the "Art Bar" name-change intent aside and make the bullingdon THE venue for live music in Oxford. With a start to the show like this from Tigmus, Barney at least hits his stride with the lilting loveliness of "Little White Caravan", one of Nightshift's tracks of 2015 so far. Peppered with two standouts from his first album "Work Harder..." - "Greetings Hello" and "You Don't Need Church", the result of the crowd's salute to Duotone tonght is shaping and colouring of ambient pop, in the eyes of one mass that doesn't need religiousity to power its group function.

And what a group function Balloon Ascents are in a longer linger around the clouds of shoegazey, dub-inflected indie that post-rock left behind. Subconsciously seeming to owe much bassline-wise to King Tubby, the wandering waltzes never meander in their own shadow, or fall over from friction between instrumentalists. The players all appear to be doing their job with a smile and this energy translates to the crowd. This is Balloon Ascents single ep launch since their Nightshift cover story
in September and the four tracks are "Cutout" and glued into the narrative tonight. Starting with that lead, then working systematically through to my personal highlight, "The Only One", for once a short, sharp shock of a 2-3 minute length works less well for the band, as they stretch their sonic intent further than the clandestine Radiohead influence. So while post-rock has been flipped out of the fold in terms of its peak/trough nature, the progressive nature of Balloon Ascents tracks
remains a strong connector that pushes their work further than genre limitations allow. This makes it sound fresh and exciting, for one, and also in terms of a live experience, they inject more welly into what may come to them by way of wonder. And wonder, duos of tones and shape and colour is certainly what their set is full of this evening.

SubVersion Stop 245: Storyteller + Autumn Saints + Little Red @ The Wheatsheaf, 16th January 2015

Storyteller + Autumn Saints + Little Red @ The Wheatsheaf, 16th January 2015

Just like tonight's headline act name, each performer in tonight's It's All About The Music showcase has a story to tell. Whether they succeed or not, at least on the merits of tonight's landmark crowd attendance (back to a packed 100) is debatable. But for this reviewer, each performer makes a greater sum than the parts, and a defiant showcase all their own.

"Defiant" isn't a word you'd normally associate with the generally wispy songs of folk trio Little Red, but tonight they are lacking a performer in the delicately-voiced Hayley Bell. Narrowing the track selection - seeing as the tunes are built on interplay between gender - say, "What Say You" which features halfway - and underpinned by a dark, bubbling core that deals with themes of love, hope and sometimes even quiet despair. Frontman Ian Mitchell and producer/guitarist Ben Gosling make the most out of a compacted message: more energy - playing to that well-worn stereotype of male strength - and less of the feminine charm that doted their warmly-received "Sticks And Stones" LP from late last year. As a result comparisons with Fink and even Level 42 support The Mercurymen on two of their new tracks bears more weight, but if the over-talkative crowd could shut up while they play so we could hear them in their best light, that would be most welcome.

"It's all vaporous my friend" is a lyric that can also barely be heard from second band, the Americanans Autumn Saints, and despite their set being fairly interesting, pretty much sums them up. They improve as they go, and although the majority are into it, and the Hawkwind/Jethro Tull-esque worded delivery of the vocals sometimes strikes attention, much is show and no substance, and they need a proper rhythm section and astute instrumental variation to reward patience. The Fender Rhodes keyboard style guitar notes that dot throughout the middle of the set brings the quality up a notch, as do the moments where clarity over loudness gives the band the knowledge of what works and what doesn't. They show promise, in short, but we sometimes wish they'd be autumn saints for real, not autumn leaves, blowing in the wind.

Headliners Storyteller take to the stage with a nippy blast of saxophone as the Sheaf upstairs reaches near maximum capacity. Their intriguing mix of jazz, ska and punky pub rock starts out brilliantly as does the turning of a Booker Prize novel. By the end though, with a nicking of almost the entire chorus of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" comes the catch 22. That is, like a story full of ideas, a novel chock full of pages, there's often a lot of chaff that could be edited down. Besides Little Red, who I really enjoyed, and the appreciated energy gradient of the night, Storyteller sometimes pen too many sentences into their sonic diction to leave you a little lost. They have all the elements to really go places, and a dab hand interplay between guitar and saxophonist. But like oversized books, autumn leaves and even maybe a little red, the vapour needs condensing for the ideas to fully blossom into something special.

SubVersion Stop 244: Ideologues Quotes And Clips Pt 3 - Foci's Left - Future Past (EDM Variation 29.12.14) (Unreleased)

003 Foci's Left – Future Past (EDM Variation)

Clip length: full track

Complete track length: 2:16

From: Unreleased, free www.soundcloud.com/subversion-2 dls

Link: www.focisleft.bandcamp.com

Clipticism:

"Remembering the past can bring hope to the present". ~ Our Daily Bread.

www.kapsil.net/muttley

SubVersion Stop 243: Ideologues Quotes And Clips Pt 2 - DZA - Sakura (Big Bang EP)

002 DZA – Sakura 

Clip length: 2:30 128kbps

Complete track length: 4:41

From: "Big Bang" EP

Link: https://how2make-rec.bandcamp.com/album/dza-big-bang-ep-luxurious-edition

Clipticism:

"Early in his career jazz player Herbie Hancock was invited to play in a quintet with Mies Davis, already a musical legend. In a interview Hancock admitted being nervous but described it as a wonderful experience because Davis was so nurturing. During one performance when Davis was near the high point of his solo, Hancock played the wrong chord. He was mortified. But Davis coninued as if nothing had happened. "He played some chords that made my chord right", Hancock said. What an example of loving leadership. Davis didn't scold Hancock or make him look foolish, he didn't blame him for ruining the performance. He simply adjusted his playing and turned a potentially disastrous misttake into something beautiful." ~ Our Daily Bread.

http://kapsil.net/muttley/Ideologues%20Quotes%20And%20Clips%20-%202015/002%20DZA%20-%20Sakura%20%20%282m30%29%20%2807.01.15%29.mp3

SubVersion Stop 242: Ideologues Quotes & Clips - 2015 Personal Archive - Pt 1

Ideologues Quotes And Clips – 2015 – www.kapsil.net/muttley

The premise is simple: to extend the 'Clipticisms' concept from The Dastardly Diaries in 2007 with a audio/visual/textual counterpointing for each piece of information in this www.kapsil.net/muttley folder. A personal archive and document of 2015. Encompassing music you should all hear about; texts that are worth reading ornately; quotes that inspire, self-penned or otherwise.

This folder-bound project will be the book-styled equivalent of the year, whereas the 15 Minutes Of Fame Mixes will have another dedicated folder. That's in the same directory.

Let's kick things off on an ambient tip with my forte music of choice: ambient.

http://kapsil.net/muttley/Ideologues%20Quotes%20And%20Clips%20-%202015/001%2036%20-%20Stasis%20Eject%20%28Version%29%20%282m30%29%20%2805.01.15%29.mp3

001 36 – Stasis Eject (Version)

Clip length: 2:30

Complete track length: 12:11

From: "Pulse Dive EP"

Link: www.3six.net

Clipticism:

"The immediate future will always be conducive to shallow reward - the immediate past, less so. It has had time to ferment, to be human" ~SV / www.subvertcentral.blogspot.co.uk

"Ideologues, Quotes And Clips" will appear throughout the year on that last address. I hope you gain something out of them.