www.fluid-radio.co.uk Retrograde Review: Francis M. Gri - Boke (Krysalisound) - Mick Buckingham review

Francis M. Gri - Boke - Krysalisound - Mick Buckingham review

Having recently lost a close(r) family member to Alzheimer's related illnesses, I can partially sympathise and empathise with how Francis M. Gri, owner of Krysalisound label, feels with this neat new record. Boke means "Blur", and is made to represent memory disorders and the time it takes for an image to do just that. Gri calls it "the memory illness" - it's always dementia, Alzheimer's or some such. Great novelist Terry Pratchett was taken from us by the latter; many its link.

On with the record itself, and this uses repetition as a narrative device. Give 'em a few rounds, then hit 'em with the boomerang. It catches us unawares. Succinctly peaceful, the album is so decent it dispenses with nom de plume's such as "beautiful art" - I don't want to wax insincerely about a delicate subject that has affected so many, and is being shown to put pay to Covid figures among others. What does one do when the memory is ready to pack up? Francis communicates the point well in some of my investigative email questions: "you transform in an empty box...we ARE memories it's undeniable!"

It is like that - life is a blur, because the present is at best a memory, since memories are about dream or goal meeting, and fantasy becomes secondary. Memory loss is rife with grief, and that is presented emotionally on "Boke". Especially that track, which closes the record. The music sounds like it comes from a very faraway place. A bit like Bvdub's, and his recent record "Ten Times The World Lied" on Glacial Movements, of similar ilk. Directionally but not genre wise, the sombre feel of Massive Attack tracks with Tracey Thorn and the like. Those have a similar emotional trippy poignancy to them.

In its palette spectrum, much ground is covered, painting in cool blues, treading miles upon miles in a dead body's shoes. That lifting of a classically trained surfeit, Francis working with many musicians over the years, now producing his own material most of all, has never sounded so comforting in my own rough time with with coming to terms. I can tell you now, "Boke" is destined to be a quiet memory in the back of your mind for years to come. It, like a blur, will wait for you.

Blue, Reflected 2020 Variations

In the squawked pigeonn English of Kali the foul-mouthed pigeon, "you will see me do sumfinng!" with my next record.

I'm using basic recording tech and also some resampling. I plan to integrate speckled live sounds across tracks, with software intervention. Sample manipulations.

The result will be a development on "Neurondisiac" project, in terms of stylistic density. Software "and" hardware. A real blend.

I have a track right now that is resampling audio from my flagship cheap analog keyboard, the Casio CTK (available in Argos 8 years ago), which puts analog Clavichord and Warm Pad presets through electronic Crystal Reverb, the filters of my hardware, and the reverb module built in to the synth. It's basically a remix of "Blue And Reflected Instrumental" with the FX used, and the way it sounds. Really pleased with it.

Ed: here you go...

1- Blue, Reflected, 2020 Mix
https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/fl-blue-and-reflected-2020-remix
2- Disco Cravings
https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/patho-disco-cravings
3- You Beauty
https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/fl-you-beauty-21032020
4- Buttercup Fields
https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/fl-buttercup-fields
5- Curry Aperitif
https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/curry-aperitif
6- As Lossless As Breathing
https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/fl-as-lossless-as-breathing
7 - The Fate Of The Idle Randomite
https://soundcloud.com/subversion-2/longformacus-the-fate-of-the-idle-randomite

The March 2020 Foci's Left LP - Blue, Reflected Variations (Unsigned)

DJ Muttley - 2 new mixes for ya

DJ Muttley - Afro Waffles (St. Vincent, Junior Senior, Cigarettes After Sex, DJ Friction & Nu Balance...
DJ Muttley - Skinned Potatoes (Mood Music CD samples, Supergrass, Explorer Flamenco Music, 40 minutes)

What can I say about these...home studio curated, plenty of ducking and diving, slipping and sliding. Love the Masseduction remix, that's big. Also fancying the DJ Friction & Nu Balance mixed with the supergay Junior Senior. "Skinned Potatoes" takes a more ironed out route, but perks up half way through flamenco music. I was inspired by one of my Paco Lucia CDs bought for my father the paralyzing and hypnotizing power of Spanish Flamenco music...like being locked in a lover's gaze. Mixing the flamenco with Britpop seems a original idea, not many people have tried that except Santana.

Enjoy the soundscapes. They're in .m4a format, straight from studio microphones. No messing about. No hipster FLAC lol.

http://subvertcentral.com/thread-63018-lastpost.html

SV Stop 239: BORRITWEM

That's an acronym for “Buying One Record Reviewed In The Wire Each Month”. The ethos was explained in Stop 215. Round-ups for successive years (2014-19) can be found in Stops 237, 259, 267, 304, 320 and 326 – if you care to search for them.

In which case, you might also like to know that I'm now building a dedicated blog to this project. Each post, headed by a The Wire issue number, will feature the title of the chosen purchased record, a picture thereof, a sentence or two from its reviewer – and no further input or explanation from me whatsoever.

Anyone wishing to view the ongoing and “almost completely pointless” list can do so HERE.

SubVersion Stop 328:

I wanted to write an article, on a brighter note, for this publically redundant site. So, here I am. FTEL Valentines '20. FTEL peeps (Electronica lovers) know Burial music, and yesterday saw the public release of his compendium of 2011-2019. Burial tracks like "Loner", "Come Down To Us" and "NYC" still give me shivers. This stuff sprung from the post-everything but especially post-dubstep continuum. 130-145 beats-per-minute dub and acid techno music with wonky, buckle bent riffs.

This compendium is spread across 149 minutes and 17 tracks over 2 compact discs. It retails around £14.99. Much cheaper than vinyl of a 2LP, probably destined to be around £24.99 at least. The lacqueur manufacturing costs we know. Timeless electronic music with as much gravitas as early Omni Trio, Rufige Kru and Rob Playford.

Speaking of Goldie related music, his 4CD DJ Mix is really, really good. Early jungle thru hardcore styles, rave-o-matic jacket potato overdubs and Skrillex antidote dubby bombers. There are very few red herrings, rubber ducks or mind-numbing areas to be had. Of course I am referring to the brain-drain of rave music; an assault on the senses (at the best of times) often needs an anchor to rely on. Cliffy Goldie's mixing chops are pretty good, he doesn't train wreck the tracks or lazily mix them, and it's pretty damn fun while it lasts.

When I think of Goldie in later years, I think The Heritage Orchestra he played with, a full, rich sound with an oddity value. Oddity value is also a part of the electronically-sequenced and tracked Texas Sun project by Leon Bridges. It's a highly addictive four-piece EP of electronic big band country, with a dub and urban-centric undercurrent. Think Michael Kiwanuka's latest record with a dash of Jimmy Hendrix and you get the picture. Hendrix and contemporaries are very crucial to the eclecticism and growth of taste among non-electronica musicians; note the additional "a" next to electronic, as it's elements of computer manipulation that make this stew work.

Electronic manipulation is Katie Gately's speciality on her latest album, "Loom" (part of serpentwithfeet). It's a good record, very astute and encroaching on the drone axis, with lots of mellifluous field recordings; some partially there, some lost in the fog. Identification becomes a story to be told rather than a misnomer, there's a special atmosphere in this CD, which at times veers into the colossally brain-shaking. That feel, of defiant rejection and alertness, comes, it would seem, naturally as a jig around the Maypole. Like an old past-time, there's chances of things going sour, but it never does. The drones are crisply bubbling, encapsulating the growl of a wolf, or a shriek of a banshee, cast off into the distance like a tropical storm coming to an end.

That's another thing with this update's batch of music(s). These feel ever-tied to the neural centrifuge of understanding natural phenomena like Storm Ciara, Storm Denys and Hurricane Michael before it. Basically as long as we stay rooted to our origins, we can break away when we allow ourselves - ideally. Case in point: I haven't written an article worthy of Fluid Radio, Wire, hyponik, Soundium, A Closer Listen, Dogs On Acid, ATM et al, for some time. Mainly, because I've been afraid to be myself - as Leon Bridges sings, "chained to my sin". Music makes us forget all that woe behind inactivity.

SV Stop 327: Altruism And The Power Of One

I was feeling a few different ways in the last few months about more than just music. It was a lifestyle thing. Altering lifestyle for the better, not just eating a healthier diet.

For some, or lots of subverts, depending on their viewpoint (reader, poster, critic, editor, et al), altruism, the "power of now", "power of one", basically another way of saying transcendence too, became part of all this hypothetical stodge, a stew of hefty energy. 

Altruism, to me, is truancy of a belief system, or many belief systems. A "because obviously" kind of thought soon follows. But it's so essential to doing basic tasks, being, basically any bloody form of living.

In this thread we aim to collect all the balls about altruistic principles, from Brian Enosification, to mood music effects and techniques, just because I'm too lazy to work my fat Cartman ass into writing a prequel book about life and death parchment.

So feel free to join in. No pressure though, having me waffle on in a self-propelled space. Hey, you might even have an idea for your own book project from this. Mine was simply going to be called Book 3 of the Freeze Dry series: "Altruism Failure".

Hugs and sneezes

Muttley

 

PS: Subvert had a 500 Internal Server error when I posted this; the maintenance of the site is still ongoing, long may it continue; not everyone is an admon here. 

SubVersion Stop 326: Wire Chart 2019

Somewhat belatedly, here's my seventh (2019) set of acquisitions, all according to the criterion “buying one record reviewed in The Wire each month” – plus three more to make up a proper Wire 15 chart. For reference, the previous six years’ were: 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018.

The # marks denote the issues in which the records featured.
___________________________________________________

SubVersion 2019 15

#419 Éliane Radigue - Oeuvres Électroniques (Ina-GRM)
#420 Black Thought - Streams of Thought Vols.1&2 (Human Re Sources)
#421 Alvin Lucier / Trevor Saint - Ricochet Lady (Black Truffle)
#422 Wendy Eisenberg - The Machinic Unconscious (Tzadik)
#423 Mopcut - Accelerated Frames of Reference (Trost)
#424 The London Sound Survey - Thames (Persistence of Sound)
#425 9T Antiope & Siavash Amini - Harmistice (Hallow Ground)
#426 K-X-P - IV (Svart)
#427 Olivier Messiaen / Linda Catlin Smith / Apartment House - Quatuor pour la fin du temps / Among the Tarnished Stars (Another Timbre)
#428 Haino / Merzbow / Pándi - Become the Discovered, Not the Discoverer (RareNoise)
#429 Zonal - Wrecked (Relapse)
#430 Eve Risser - Aprés un Rêve (Clean Feed)

+#420 Hedvig Mollestad Trio - Smells Funny (Rune Grammofon)
+#427 Pharmakon - Devour (Sacred Bones)
+#429 Morton Feldman / Philip Thomas - Piano (Another Timbre)

Compiled by Jonathan Tait, subvertcentral.blogspot.co.uk
___________________________________________________

And my record of the year for 2019: Harmistice, which is available for streaming at The Wire website, or you can go and actually buy it via the Hallow Ground bandcamp. “A cross-continent project inspired by a nightmare” seems pretty damn appropriate for 2019.