Boards Of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children Vinyl

Just got the first (1st pressing) catalogue edition "Skalp" of Boards Of Canada (BOC)'s "Music Has The Right to" LP.  I have wanted to own this artifact on dubplate, acetate or plain record for more than 15 years. Now I have a dub vinyl. I use the term dub vinyl because there's little variation from the original pressing, but enough to keep it fresh.

The pressing quality is good. I got it from Truck Store Oxford. The vinyl sounds better than the digital. It's of course warmer, but very clear, at the same time. And punchy, too, but not so that the drums swamp the mix.

To me MHTRTC was always BOC's best album. There were two EPs before its official release in 1995. I think those were "Twoism" and "Hi Scores". Also very good releases. Especially for "Happy Cycling" and "Oirectine".

For me personally, the early stuff was when they were itchy, untamed and scratchy.

Then as they smoothed out, they got itchy and scratchy but were tamed by then.

It's also worth noting the type of anti-austerity mix and mash of the vinyl sides on this repressing 25 years on.

"Rhombuses And Triangles", one of the interleaves from Twoism EP, closes side 1 of 4. A fitting serenade. I wanted to provide audio linked in my post like I used to do, but YouTube's reliance on its subscription is beating me. So you'll have to make do with these words. It's all very well put together as incidental music sequences go.

Honestly, "Music has The Right" is one of the finest albums by older electronic musicians I've ever come across in life. It's just right. Like it has the right. And like that it uses that right. The right of music. Giving plans to children. Even if you never plan to raise children yourself (I don't want kids), Boards Of Canada provide a good working score. Sit back with a glass of water, a doctor's apple and a lime and sprinkle over your glass the essence of true British vim.

One for the home bodies.

An Open Letter To The Wire about Bark Psychosis, and symbolically, psychosis in general

"Now she's gone to ground, now she's gone, she's sticking around / "she can't be found, to ground"

Where did I lift this lyric? It's from Graham of Bark Psychosis, and I think it's apt for much of their ambient rock, minus soft rock style of the post-rock idioms of their alternative remix EPs, and their LP, "From What Is Said To When It's Read". Back then, from research as I did not get into BPsy until 2001, the granular richness of their records became truly spellbinding.
I think what it was, most of all, was the concentric regard for a good song. Not quite, not quite a tufty bygone lyric exercise, but something that germinates from its roots into a mellifluous, stodgy Golden Syrup porridge, enjoyable whether you milk or water the contents. Yes, that was it. And nothing has really stuck with me the same since. At least in post rock. Mogwai, Mono and Godspeed might have the bombs, ASMZ and Rival Consoles might have the wonder, and Penguin Cafe Orch and the Denovali catalogue at large might have the jazz, but I dunno; Graham's way with a good vocal, and a non-whiny voice really set Bark Psychosis apart at the time, and surely long before I even registered them. That, was a good era.

FTAL/FTEL/FTCL Reco: Kosheen - Independence LP [2012]

I'm presenting here Kosheen's 2012 ambient ebm album, well, kinda. It's along those lines. You will know Kosheen if you have been in the dnb scene for over five years. Their album "Kokopelli" was featured in SubVersion Stop 1 of 230+. This LP, "Independence", is actually eight years old, from a similar time, but is very different to even that. It's seemingly a real fuse between those sounds, with the use of new wave and goth/darkwave elements. The only new wave in it is the synths, but the whole vibe is gothic and headstrong. Definitely something worth checking out if you are a fan of NIN, Scorn or Decoder.

ESB - Covfefe And Bleach Illumination Mix (SoundCloud)

ESB - Covfefe & Bleach Illumination Mix

An hour's worth of electronic techno lushness. Treads the boards in terms of style. Mostly minimal however. The affection for efficiacy over flights of fancy is admirable. Nothing about this is too tired or tiring to the listener. The whole set is a lot of fun. Across the hour, is a feeling of anti-luddite power. While in the grips of the music I feel no redundancy; I feel like I actually matter; that I have a purpose. And that's a great feeling to achieve.

"Covfefe..." is cordially recommended if you like music by Morgan Geist, the treatments of Brian Eno, and the glitch tech of Surgeon and Jeff Mills. The hamper sits well on the stomach here, taking in a handful classical techno alternatives and brushing through the debris that breaking house and Goa trance up left behind in the late 1980s pirate radio Chicago scene.

That might sound like an altercation, but it's a reality for most of us. In Oxfordshire for example it was apparent full stop that the nightlife scene for progressive electronica: techno in its purest form - never really made it promoter wise. All the promoters were concerned about were banging on and packing out clubs, not that type of IChiOne vibe ESB also shows that I traveled miles for previously to experience (see Geiom, Neil Landstrumm, Peverelist, Pinch, Nubian Mindz, Andy Stott).

So my point remains that while this is techno, through and through, techno as descriptor used to just really mean open-minded club music, and music that was forward thinking, tick-tocking like a multiplier reel taut on a big catch. That the generalized castration-angst of bleep kicked everyone in the balls who had balls quite literally along the way is a tad of a long story not fit for articulating in small print.

Whether you choose to be on the inside or outside, or before or behind the beat is up to where you enter the data stream...

SubVersion End Of 2019 Highlights: Muttley

Pokemon TCG Trainer Club - www.pokemon.com/tcgo
The Plough Inn, Alvescot - www.tripadvisor.co.uk
Random encounters with old acquaintances
Understanding marriage
Understanding soulmates
Understanding triggers
Recapitulation of the what when where hypercube
Ambient labels being more sharity alike
Less trash media
Mixing with the right people, at the right time (staying offline!)

SV Stop 301: SubVersion End Of Year Chart by Muttley for 2017

3rd October 2017, 12:43

Looks like it'll be three to five key subverts this year end contributing a roundup chart. The best thing is there is no limit on amount of entries by one person. So that means you can add different unique things to your chart while I get time in listening to it and potter.

Since I posted my full chart just before Xmas Day, there's been a nice little wellspring of contributions from www.subvertcentral.com regulars, and some not so regulars too. Very nice of them.

Rest assured I found it difficult to make any definitive entries at all in 2017. It was a year of recovery, both for the media (Grenfell Tower anyone?) Hence the influence for this record: 

  Best LP of the year: Black Swan - Travesty Waves.

...And when I actually owned up to creating the frequencies, my Best record this year was "May Everyone Be Safe From Harm". Followed by "Warneford Hospital Wanderings". Followed by the magic alterations of mind of Leyland Kirby's "Everywhere At The End Of Time 3CD".

Food wise, I ate like a pig, spent like a spendthrift, returned to restaurants, and lost 2 stone in total!

Best food of the year eating out: The Beehive Asian Inspired Swordfish 12pm-230pm Tuesday lunch. Shouts to Big Steve Sal Kelly Chloe Liam (two of whom are no longer working) and others I knew from the local area. I go there for everything good, and I've never had a bad day there.

Best random moment: celebrating my Grandad's 90th birthday in Carterton with a meal at the Plough with tea and friends. The Plough has revamped itself as full of tradition and flavoursome food.

Best Indian meal eating out: the Aangon "excellence and expertise with a touch of brilliance" owned Dovecote Spice Indian English and Carvery in Burford, Minster Lovell. With: Indian Hot Pot. Chicken, Lamb, Green Chili, Peppers, Prawns, Spicy Sauce and all dolled up with a fancy ceramic pot topped with Nan pastry lid. Only available in restaurant. £10.95.

Now I've filled my boots, Best track confirmed. Which is:

Sub Loam - Elevation, A Map Unfolding And Simultaneous Apprehension Of A Pineapple Mayweed (Wist Rec. 2017)

Layering up, Best song is:

Cigarettes After Sex - Apocalypse

"Your lips my lips...apocalypse".

Best mix: Goldfrapp live at 02 Academy OX4. 20th March 2017.

Favourite book: Josephine Cox in the tradition of Catherine Cookson novels - Outcast.

Favourite lyrics: Tracks-wise, Im a huge fan of the partially unreleased Ric Gordon operation, "Despairs Lover EP". Particularly "Suddenly Single". The lyrics are really well voiced in a cool, fluid tone. "Hands in the air, nobody move / dangerous games make your spine tingle, when you're suddenly single".

Favourite upcoming artists: Calexico and Scanner also really got my attention with their latest album tunes. Im also really partial to Goldfrapps "Systemagic" and "Ocean".

Favourite computer game: Pokemon Moon Beta on the Nintendo 3DS XLR and friends Clubs.

Favourite 2017 Pokemon: Popplio.

Favourite SC thread: MMA.

http://subvertcentral.com/thread-62257.html?highlight=mcgregor

Fave ambient blog: a tough one, but Low Light Mixes never fails to calm my schizophrenia disorder down. I read a lot of http://www.ambientblog.net and http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk in the summer to spring of this year. Asip has been grand for features.

Favourite boxing fight: Anthony Joshua vs Wladimir Klitschko.

Other good ones...too many to list. The big money McGregor stoppage was great to watch, as well as Canelo Alvarez draw with Gennady Golovkin. Editing tonight I watched the best bits of Billy Joe Saunders vs. David Lemieux. I was really impressed.

I tend to remember boxing fights more...more chess. Plus it's what I want to see. I've done Muay Thai focussing for years. I don't need to see the kicks; I can imagine them, in replacement or combination.

Favourite dedication concept confirmed:

"Utopia" CD by Bjork & Arca that I have a deluxe copy of. The "pearl inside the clam" poem inside joke notice made me emit a heartfelt lol.

My review of the year is this...

Malk - Death From A Love

Can we really imagine death from a love? It's one of those rare things that happens all too often, painted into the fabric of
cotton goods promises and soft-hearted tenderness. Say a love leaves us unexpectedly, dies suddenly, and we are insatiable to
that love originally - that could be marked as death from a love. Like something inside us has died, ready to be replaced with
something else that we don't really want to replace at all costs. This is the "love" element, closeness, some would say clinging,
but I don't know about you, love never comes through death...

And I don't know either, whether you also feel how mental transmogrification turns the concept of "it" inside out, with fake
society, conceited people, counterfeit claims and all that negative mind-melting stuff that comes through death. Do some people
enjoy perverting the concept of death? Of over-dramatising what life is actually always eternal? Seriousness is seriousness, and
words are just that - dust in deserts of sound. It is only when we find material serious and mature enough to tranquilise the
sheer grief that non-psycopathic people feel that we find albums like "Death From A Love". It's a great title, a great album and
a great package. One that will last for all eternity in the eyes of those willing to use that oh-so important word: care.

You need patience, in other words, to tackle a concept like "Death From A Love". The weak-minded fall down and have no patience.
The creator of this recording has a lot of patience, I would wager. How else could one commit to things that are seen as trite
in the minds of the unminded robot-hybrids of our generation? Pedalling out the unreal at every turn - this album is real. From
the opening lines, where morose tones touch the back of the neck in a FareWell Poetry style, the anger that we all feel is self-
contained and instead of being left to fester, is expressed in musical, and here, reviewer language. It's the least trade-off a
true artist could expect of intelligent life, after all. As represented by electronic skeletons throughout the central coda.

In life, nobody is better than anyone else. We are all winners. And every album is a treasure, whether you choose to "like" it
or not? And what is like? We may as well be all self-defeatist - I'll tell you what; we may as well all be Franz Kafka. Never
finishing our stories properly - I've wrote a lot of those stories over the years. But the deciding factor on whether we keep
art in our collections (we are ultimately nerdy collectors if we are perusing this area of music by nature, after all) is if the
central concept is a successfully realised one. Come tune in to "Death From A Love" and find out why we have something special.

Fave streaming service: Spotify.
Fave streaming playlist: "drone music" 203 h Spotify continuous playlist.
Fave new music video app: Box Plus.
Fave longstanding Mp3/Mp4 hybrid: YouTube.
Fave app game: World Chef virtual restaurant manager.
Fave exercise: cardio kickboxing.
Fave virtual exercise: UFC brainstem endurance training.

Fave new channel sub: Boxnation.

Fave drink: hot chocolate.

Feel free to send your charts in to the usual address.

CHAPPY CHRISTMAS CURMUDGEONLY SNAXXOR CREW

285: Goldie - The Journeyman 3 CD Synopsis (Metal Heads / Cooking Vinyl Ltd. ) by Andy Popin

...official SubVersion review of Goldie - "The Journeyman 3CD", by Andy Popin

It's fine to comment on whole triple albums...and if you are reviewing for publication purposes other than self, it is just the kind of sheet you do, implicitly. But for me, there's something extra extra special about the closing (read: not bonus) third CD that concludes Cliffy 'Goldie''s best work since "Timeless" in his triple disc mother lode, "The Journeyman" on Metalheadz. Not only did it manage to make this hefty rockhead shed a few tears at recent exterior memories on my favourite piece of his whole album, the totally friggin terrific "Run Run Run" piano focused piece (yes it has piano, go figure) but "The Instra Suites", as this ascending journey disc spanning nearly eighty minutes and no less is titled, confirmed to me what I love best about Goldie - when he "actually finishes a tune".

Insult? No way. 

For anyone who knows Ciiffy, whether it's just journalistically from afar like me and the average Joe, the ethic of putting the kitchen sink in good and proper - on each tune - is clear, and that dialectic genius he has of one of the precious few which too much weed didn't mess up musically from the 1990s is as clear as day on, for me personally, and to agree with Goldie for once, a better opus effort than "Timeless", the album that garnered so much acclaim. 

Let's dispense with the long-winded verbals for a moment, and just appreciate the scene. Goldie has been around. God, is that an understatement? James Bond's assasin in The World Is Not Enough; the two left-footed Dad on Strictly Come Dancing; faux-thug on soapy depressant Eastbenders (pardon no pun); first-year psych workout Celebrity Big Brother glam points on a career spanning over three decades from the foundations of B-boy graff, Reinforced Records graft and London street seller grit and grime. It really shows on the closing dnb-turned-Detroit-tech cut "Redemption" at the end of disc three, a fiercely inventive swipe at the hangers-on of Jeff Mills, Frankie Knuckles Chicago-an House, Laurent Garnier acid techno Eiffels; his 'ardcore Rufige Cru life. Meanwhile as on the opener to this journey, "Natalie's Truth", "tomorrow lies in a sculpture", which points towards the Body Of Songs project "Electric Abyss" paradox-psychology of concept construction. 

Speaking of more close-to-home, hearty influences, the sounds of "Timeless" engineer Rob Playford (Omni Trio) are dotted all over the analog bass balm and early club warming up sounds of "Horizon". The bass pattern plays a simple trajectory; minor 7th addition to major 7th subtraction but the drum counterpoint reverses and kaleidoscopically explodes the flow. In addition, musically so, glimmers of light piano and Rhodes points to roads untravelled by liquid funk since Lincoln Barret and Dom of Calibre subtracted the stepper breakbeat multi-match and doused in the rinse-and-repeat club putty of rolling percussion. These sounds speak of the unspoken divide between the liquid funk sub genre and atmospheric techno, rotating their influences like a heart-on-sleeve pallbearer passing out pamphlets of multi-faith worship at a parish. In lesser terms, that does not normally happen. 

The next chapter takes us down into a Massive Attack and Portishead style meander - and a great one, with utmost focus - called "Mountains". It's too heavy for a strictly chill station; too light for a jungle tearout station. The best kind of description for stuff like this is "saturated hip hop", that Photek tune of the same name. This to me is better, and not just because it's more musical, it also has production balls, not saturated fat. "Ballad Of Celeste" takes that blueprint and adds violin, reducing (or rather transducing) the overall granular convolution that comes with forgetting memories on a journey as they start to happen. The album is low on lacular amnesia, to borrow from The Caretaker's titles; everything fits into place nicely, and is recollected as a memory pure, as it should be. Nice rice-grained harpsichord irons out the attention tenets of the time listening to "Celeste", which is "Mountains" romantic candour and counterpoint suggestion, also bookend with baby chuckles and samples of twinkling Poinsetta prettiness. "Castaway" ups the pace to around 162bpm by my internal heartbeat. 

For the first time in this CD, wind instruments are ferociously introduced, darting all over the beat like a moth caught in a circus lightshow. Echoes of the synth used on Seal's "Killer" ("solitary brother, is there still a part of you that wants to live? Soiitary sister, is there still a part of you that wants to give?") sprinkle in the background like a kind of confetti-coloured moss; a disguised past. And that's exactly what "The Journeyman" feels like, on the whole...and a "glorious future past". The transition from hardcore to dnb reimagined for a less nascent, more grown up audience. It's an absolute mind killer of a journey, to use that dnb buzz word; it takes me to spiritual and heavenly palaces of the eye andear without moving a finger, except those on the hand to put this in the CD player with. Everything fits into place, as I have stated throughout. 

It's like "The Journeyman" just came to show us that in tomorrow, and even yesterday, lies a sculpture of optimism...and that the journey of life never ends. 

Andy Popin

283: FR Retrograde Reviews - Mick Buckingham - Chihei Hatakeyama - Mirage (Room40, Kranky)

Chihei Hatakeyama, after a healthy decades good exposure in the ambient field as a torchbearer of peaceful drones and sibilance should he strike the strings of his delayed electric guitar, presents “Mirage”, an album in the vein of classics like “Saunter” from 2003 and “Light Drizzle” from 2009. Generally focussing on the possibilities of decay trails, Mirage moves with an unearthly abandon. Field recordings of industrial action and children’s play recalls Chris Dooks, while the ambience is alike to Tom Honey’s Gòod Weather For An Airstrike project.

A summary does never do Chihei Hatakeyama due justice. For all this time I have spent collecting his albums, since his major label releases (Room40, Hibernate, Nomadic Kids Republic I believe were sent demos when BVDub picked up the wings of underexposed drone exports and jet-packed them into real ambient consciousness). Wherever you picked up on Chihei – maybe even as mainstream as Wire magazine and Fluid Radio on the web...I have to assert he’s one of my top 10 droners. That list includes big names like Hakobune, Liz Harris (Grouper), Oophoi, Steve Roach, Stars Of The Lid, Simon Scott (Slowdive), Brian Eno, Harold Budd, Hammock...mmmhmmm...some of my fave “others”.

Opening with the bereft breath of “Sad Ocean”, one immediately realises this is simply breath taking music set to scenic views of ambient scenes. Car windows being opened; cool breezes blowing in; or an early morning 5am walk. Thus quality is athletic styled lather, and the soft emotional heft is rendered like real leather interior design, here lies the elasticity principle of Chihei’s sound. What is supple and you get lost in it just as you would the focus of this sentence if it curved into discussion about fabric only. I’m to question how this music collection is so important that it will soundtrack my entire life comfortably. And it does, it will, it can. This sense of comfort and familiarity one feels when taking a listen to these serene wafts of new ago atmosphere is the opposite of new age kitsch.

The answer to why “Mirage” works so well, lies in a somatic response slowness yet paradoxical freedom. Attitudinal its an escape from life’s stasis field – take the lighthouse beacon sound of “Starlight And Black Echo”. Chihei sounds like he was searching deep within when making this. The strange echoing surfeit calms the nerves and puts pay to the hauntological idea of our memories being captured and left to bounce between the speaker system. Like ghost code, it is an aural monologue...is that the meaning of the mirage, we wonder? Pulsing tones reach a refrain then ebb away into comparable dark matter. It is time to see the light, the gut feeling, the mirror; of really belonging.

Indeed this is an lp conjuring mainly lighter shades on the colour wheel of life. With a fine Eton Mess of strawberry creamed texture cranking the cooker DC until the electronics have buttered us up completely, “Distant Steam Train Whistle” introduces a atmospheric harpsichord to lay the table and create a conversation portal for less hazy, more smoky guitar. The whole thing stands up to criticism of going on too long, as to me about an hour is the perfect length for a drone fest. Given the subtle placations throughout, it is amazing the music sounds so peaceful. I’m truly in awe of its warmth.

When I consider drone benchmarks, I think Budd & Eno – The Pearl is comparable here. Nothing borders on creating non-environmental tuning – the music is subtly weaved, controlled, and never totally knockout visceral. The pastoral essence is bottled and releases in places like a effectively placed land mine...a gaseous land mind, excellently perfumed and fighting the bad odour of cheap petrol-heavy streets where everything gets recorded (unless Chihei really lives far out). Indeed, if made in the 60s, hippies would be getting high around a bong to sounds contained here.

With most of the morass a lost-phase, a haze-dream, a bushy-nature-reserve of ambient logic, the ambience throughout “Mirage” is ripe when viewed through the first year psychology topic of reverse psychology. Why is this? Because the drones are: dense, thick, organic, unfiltered, healthy and extremely nutritious in the context of the drone music lovers palette. Like the aforementioned comparison of Tom Honey’s work, “Anatolia Mirage” hums a short poem of tones – tone poetry, a melodic haiku, with drones that are rather not long-winded, instead they are carried by the wind.

The a plus transcendental introspection created by the soliptic stress-straining slipstreams cajoles the listener’s expectations like kale being filtered through a sieve. Or pillows before bedtime laid out for a siesta or long snooze. Perfect for night and day time, but cornerstone logic is for weightless contexts, in a nutshell. There needs to be music like this made, for certain. I would not mind betting Hatakeyama has a third life from production and field recording for nature program music.

If there is any weakness of “Mirage”, it is as such that it is not very energising. Some would say it is too samey. To me though, when you have mood music as classy as this, sideswipes like that become irrelevancies. It becomes meaningless. When the music is this inspiring and meaningful, on the other hand, your perspective changes. The little man in your head vanishes. At least it does mine. I’m tired of half-assed critics who don’t know what a good opus sounds like. Mark my words, there is no way any educated listener of taste could describe this music as bland.

May we see more fantastic mirages from Japanese artist Chihei in future. The lps on the Kranky repped Room40 imprint after all – it had to be something special. This to me is Chihei Hatakeyama’s most realised work to date – never disappointing, never ghostly...this time, the mirage is permanent.

Mick Buckingham Retrograde Reviews: Jan Linton - I Actually Come Back

Jan Linton, on the intriguingly titled "i actually come back", returns to offer us a classic ushering of all the artistic tropes that made angelo badalementi, david sylvian and "blackstar" era david bowie's music a greatly worthwhile venture to listen to, regardless of any earlier experience with its genres of influence. it is a highly respectable and inviting listen that warrant mature attention. the now extended to twelve track excursion includes lyrics in the sleevenotes, lyrics that deserve to be read and heard. this is very warming sound that does its best not to dance about architecture, but instead feel like its actually the blueprint to a great work. underlying the question is: does it finish sounding like a work in progress? the reality is very different - this is while rooted in 80s new wave symptomatica of the synth pop and art rock engine (jan linton amongst others had links with the burning shed label that released some of his earlier output, and collaborated with duran duran guitarist john taylor and bill nelson), moves the influences and time forward to a pleasant kind of eden garden romance. what one means with this compliment is to respect the angelic style of vocal, and the serene use of synthesisers. it is a genuinely pleasant piece of art, art that stops trying to be art the moment linton breaks into song. all songs have leo abrahams collaborating with linton, eno protege.

and why is that, we wonder? well, it might be down to the art of lyrics being not inextricably linked to songcraft. some have become very analytical about their lyrics, to the point that there are lyric and song meaning sites all over the internet in the 21st century. this statement questions who is perceiving the lyrics of course, and in most cases, it's the fans. for me the idea of being unpretentious about what one says - "funny, funny how people change" a simple case in point for linton = is the real special thing about this record, because the songcraft, rather than the lyrics alone, tows the whole meaning behind creating a actual point to actually releasing. indeed, "i actually come back". the seed is sown, the instruments untangle listener woes. that title might seem a bit naive to some of us who have spent their twenties at least in dead end jobs, thirties heads who suffer from information amnesia, and the fortysomethings who may as well be managers of the common diplomacy of the interweb by now. not everyone wants to live online, though, and this strays from the point of the album...it's about regeneration. what meaning you take from regeneration is always subjective, to some it will be about "depending on the kindness of strangers", in one of linton's stories. at other times it may be a more ambiental affair, a forest weave as in one of the closing cuts to the 12-track compact disc (subsequent presses have different art than the originals, it can be noted). whatever. the important thing is that coming back, for linton, abrahams and all his influences produced a classic selection, the twelve tracks presented here.

2017 FN (Foodie Noodlings) - Home Made Pasta Carbonara

home made pasta carbonara recipe

20p packet noodles with bbq sauce powder
4 rashes bacon, sliced thin
3 spring onions, chopped coarsely
3 mushrooms, chopped small
pancetta powder packet mix
2tbsp semiskimmed milk
2 green chillies

chop all ingredients
transfer in any order to a wok, ideally pancetta and milk into the oil or water base first
cook and stir continually for 15-20 minutes, until mix congeals and thickens to taste.

Finit.

Subversion Stop 268: Muttley's Reflections On The Year 2k16 (Shortform; all)

A little diary entry to sum up the year. 2016 has been very strange. In every way, it's the year that at 28, I REALLY grew up.

Good times: First Floor, Aangon, Suwanna Thai (birthday), World Chef (virtual), My Cafe (new Xmas game), Angrid restaurants.

Understanding what copyright really means: respecting the rights to privacy by the creator not to literally spread recordings.

Wishing Uncle Paul a safe passing on at this time on Xmas day. To me he fell asleep 2 days ago, I had a moment at 1131pm Fri.

Made him and the rest of the family an emotional instrumental mix. First time I've felt inspired to bind tracks in a while. (Ed: that's on www.subvertcentral.com in time - search "Dust Bowls")

Gifts from wifey this year. The love, the laughs, the chance encounters, the doting, soft tender care, her tailored river mix.

Music: Locrian, Haffenetty, Sharon Van Etten, Ulrich Schnauss, Radioactive Man, Macc & dgoHn, DJ Trax, new FL, ASC, Bat FL,

Ryan Teague, Reinier Van Houdt, Drawing Virtual Gardens, LYEF, Francis M. Gri, Alan Courtis, BJ Nilsen & Stillupsteypa, Steve Roach, Steve Brand, all the Soma.FM artists, Delia Derbyshire, Jandek, Harry Bertoia.

Electronica: Hed Kandi 2006 3CD, Chicane, Noname, Daniel Thomas Freeman, Aphex Twin, Brigid Mae Power, Peter Broderick, Marina and The Diamonds.

Live: seeing any of these people out, otherwise Toney Batey, Sal, Sparky and crew, The Firegazers, Kosmosis, Ras Brother John, James Berwale, Matt, Hurricane.

Treasured memories: David Bowie for Blackstar (RIP), Tremble & Medika & Shady Novelle MC for my tracks of the year, "Trouble" and "Penitentiary Dub".

All the ZIPDJ.com music from their sub service, eMusic's ever-growing catalog and excellent app. Ableton Live 8 and studio production.

Games: for two. Me and soulmate. Me and friend. Pvp. P&P. No postage and packing, all app games and 3DS and PC games. Easy. Retro City Rampage much fun. Super Street Fighter IV channelling aggression and anger of my old fighting days. Also inspiring me to train and stretch limbs. Game Of War, Slotomania Free Slots Game, Candy Crush, Nano Assault on 3DS. Zelda: A Link
Between Worlds. Sonic Shattered Crystal. Advanced Wars Dual Strike. Command And Conquer on PC and Rogue Assault and RedSun S6. Challenging games with structure and good rewards systems.

Converts beauty into my waking life and portion controls on BMI. Knowing smaller is really bigger.

Benefits: changed and stayed the same. Provided with money to eat. Left with no money to save, or a paltry sum. Cut back as much as possible.

Mental health: still schizoaffective. Worse in some ways than ever. But importantly more wise. Capable of real EFT therapy.

...Read my full spiel and more writings on the year at www.subvertcentral.com; search "SubVersion".

Merry Crimbo and Happy New Year.
All the best
Y

Retrograde Reviews: Reinier Van Houdt - Paths Of The Errant Gaze LP

Reinier Van Houdt - Paths Of The Errant Gaze LP
Your only enemy is atrocity.

The only enemy in your life is your imagination...

But then, heck, it was mine for many years when it came to creating ambient music. And as an empath thing, the piano is a solid beginner's point that can, for one, cause a lot of inspiration, and second, in a see, saw, fashion, formulate a lot of writer's block. While it is difficult to believe in yourself, believing in your own music is the biggest factor, for me in my own experience, in whether me and my acquaintances succeed or not. For most of us, the guitar and piano are the main two instruments one starts with, after all...and the piano is exactly what Reinier Van Houdt does best on this new promo from Hallow Ground label. "Paths Of The Errant Gaze" is a portentuous meditation on the 81-note instrument, and a album that presents many twists and turns in the pianistic repertoire.

It's not all flurries of furore by a long shot, though. Opening the album is a dark Murcof-like set of atmospheres that are positively disconcerting in a Demdike Stare catalogue kind of way. Sonic Pieces is a touchstone in theatrical menace. This isn't dark ambient however; there is something sinister but it's more deep and chilled, a strange foreboding chill without the fright at the end of it. The music is deeply transcendental, like the hum of a ghost ship, or the echoes of bat sonic supersound from a cave exit. Maybe it's time to get out? No, let us wallow in these atmospheres a little longer, for we are dreamers who at one point are on our own memorising elephant and next we're in the shallows like a hippopotamus, resting in uncandid serenity. These resonances are heavy on pastoral drone without the irritable hum. They start to fissure and rattle like bones in a dementia fit on second piece "The Fabric Of Loss". Sounds from a torture chamber set into an unpleasant - but strangely comforting - catharsis. It is frightening and gravitates to a dislocated navigation of the spices of life.

By this third track, we need a certain peace. The violins, high pitched in their operatic stalagtite status, create a fair come down period, where the mood irons out any turbulence. Turbulent is a good word to describe this album. If you've ever heard the dissonance of Kevin Drumm or Merzbow you'll get an idea of exactly what this album is going for. Scary, gripping stuff, but not stuff to keep the kids on your side. It is nightmarish at points, but never evil. It sounds like the contents of a troubled mind fighting with a demon that keeps prodding a scythe in the subject's back. For that only you get the feeling this music is from some other dimension, a place where angels are in purgatory (13 minutes into track 2) and the subject is trying desperately to find his or her way out.

When we get past the crackling trail of "Transfinite" there is a vignette to close us out. Impending doom, and all the light goes out on a truly remarkable release.

By track five, "Gaussian Veils", which I've no idea what it means but sounds like some Greek linguistic variant on gossamer, a crepuscular rhythm is held together by stalking piano and the introduction of a ghostly choral voice. This is the stuff of legends. Pure transcendence, "springs of light, I chase upon your reach, this situ, a path of ideas I lose". The sound of it, just the sound of it! It is utterly doueur and utterly fantastic. The minor and augmented aeolian modes of the piano paint a haunted mid section to the record, and the spectral tones of the voice in question is like a magisterial tormented soul doing naked cabaret for the pleasure of Satan and his little elves.


Mick Buckingham

Retrograde Reviews: Bonnie Prince Billy & Bitchin' Bajas

"Nature, makes us, for ourselves".

The music on Bonnie Prince Billy's latest rustic folk outing starts melodically enough, before embracing woodwind and the suitably gentile lines "may life throw you a pleasant curve". It's on the second track that the rhythmic focus really kicks into gear, loosening the weight of a breathy introduction. "Nature, makes us, for ourselves".

You see, with a track title aim to be storyteliing meets self-help-provoking, this album can be taken kindly to from the first listen. The meanings spread out like fireflies, meeting a warming destination, a natural concave. Bonnie Prince is ast as the governor of a hundred baritones; instruments serve his plans to assist us in becoming calmer, getting happier.

Much of the sound palette is pure rustic folk, a Johnny Cash meets Joanna Newsome quirkiness abounds throughout. There are no female vocals though, only a journeyman's horn of plenty with guitar chops to match. I first heard about BPB, not so humbly around 10 years ago, so I know he's been about the field for a long time. But at the same time, it's as if he's trod a heavy path through folk and country, meaning he understands how to not complicate a tune.

This is most evident on euphoric closing piece "Your Hard Work Is About To Pay Off. Keep On Keeping On". Incidentally the ending is abrupt, leaving the listener craving a second shot of the honey-whiskeyed atmosphere Bitchin Bajas and Billy create. That's how the record feels essentially, like whisky. It's so addictive I can drown in it, but for the luck of the draw, it's only my sorrows that are cleansed.

Mick R. Buckingham

Jo Quail - Five Incantions (Mick Buckingham review)

The uniting factor in Jo Quail's music has always been its all-consuming omnipresence. How it engulfs the listener whether listening loudly or quietly, softly or harshly. Where opener 'White Salt Stag' on this beautifully designed digipak CD edition is earthy and enchanting, closer 'Gold' takes a malleable, shaping of man-made metal angle in the form of Quail's use of electric cello and electronics, and the formulation of solid materials. There is a probability you'll not have a
whisper to it, but a blast, as the mourning strings stretch up through the inner ear and the drones throe-in the low ebb.

I am certainly taken by the 'Five Incantations' theme: take five simple steps, craft five complex tunes with over twice the narrative arcs interwoven. It is spectral music; to borrow Simon Reynolds' term, it creates a "cathedral of sound". A line can be traced like a silken sheet, a thinly woven cloth, a metal wire, all tension and never enough to satisfy in one take. Indeed, the music doesn't sound one take at all. Jo as her name goes knows how to put the work into her rhythms of refuge, her insomniac getaways. The sound art is rife with the kind of aching passion that teased through Greg Haines'
'Until The Point Of Least Resistance' from 'Until The Point Of Hushed Support', 2009. The psychological unease of it all.

Luckily for us there are plenty of moments where the tension reaches satisfying climaxes rather than plummeting us down. This factor makes a good album, in short, especially one that takes mood music so seriously. Mood music has a specific aim:to create that mood, to set one mood, no other mood, and anything else is futile. Resistance from the creator of the music would be his or her achilles' heel in the eyes of a mood music connoisseur. I have spoken of fine lines, and this record
is like a spider diagram, in that respect. Full of bewitching Bjork-esque cello and viola-register harmonies, the genie inside 'Five Incantations' is no fickle spellcaster - that thing has a mind of its own, an organic one, one that grows on you like greed does to a gambling addict. What does this mean? If you have any money left by now, by now, buy it.



www.joquail.co.uk

Mick Buckingham

SubVersion Stop 240: SubVersion's End Of Year 2014 Charts

An example of a previous chart:

2012 (7 contributors - 10 entry format)

This year it's a max of 15 extravaganza with the SV Drip-Feed underpinning everything.

I'm at the bottom for reasons of space. :)

Jonathan

01. Favourite track: Tom Chang - Spinal Tap: Goes to 11

02. Favourite album: various - The Orchestra of Futurist Noise Intoners (Sub Rosa)

03. Favourite label: Dancing Wayang

04. Favourite mixtape: DJ Trax - Mixrace 92-96 mix (for Blog to the Oldskool)

05. Favourite SC thread: In this thread we post tips to decrease apathy

06. Favourite gig: Dave Phillips, Rammel Club, Nottingham

07. Favourite book: Ivan E. Coyote & Rae Spoon - Gender Failure (Arsenal Pulp Press)

08. Favourite food (or Snax): Borders' Dark Chocolate Gingers

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: I'm too old to feel guilty about pleasure.

10. Favourite random moment: looking at the Championship table today and seeing Brentford in third after a 4-0 win

InfiniteSloth

Label (overall): Samurai
Label (for concept and art direction): Weevil Neighborhood
Snax: almond butter and raw cashew cheese tacos
Remix: Hidden Element and Liquid Break - Outsider Blues (Icarus Remix)
Gig: NOizefest, New Orleans
Streaming platform: Spotify
Dig: Max Roach 4 Plays Charlie Parker
Youtube channel: Numberphile
Random moment: Lenny Kravitz strolling down the street while I was walking the dog.
SC thread revivalist: firefinga

Kermit McBollocks Muppet Version 10

Favourite trak - Kermit Ensemble - It's Not Eezy Being Green
Favourite albm - ASC - Troof Bee Told (Soylent Seesawn)
Favourite fred - Kermit's Dictionary Fred, wer I correct der fadar about his grown up werd usage.
Favourite muppet - Muttwee, the ever-stinking ferris Wheel Of Fortune of the internet.
Favwit book - Pool Mackendra - Change Yor Loif In Seven Daze - vewwy moteevational!
Favwit feckwit - Russell Brand, he iz raizin his Sultan status of shitness by der day.
Favoureet telly - Mongrels, so oi can curse at der Nelson for not pimpin der Destinee
Favvit food - caveearr, ho ho ho and a bucket of finest Champagne.
Favourite mix type - Stattzi
Favweet label - Elmo, it bee zee ome of Muttwee's loif in pictures, and in the past tense.

Yelp! 

firefinga

*) SC Thread of the Year:

Most "current" sounding subvert dnb made in the 2000's?
http://subvertcentral.com/forum/show...-in-the-2000-

*)Label of the Year:

Euphony's Omni Music, Pinecone Moonshine, Subtle Audio, R & S

*)Mixtape/Radioshows of the Year:

DJ Trax and Nucleus' "Catch A Groove" Shows, Code's "Sublte Audio" shows, both on Jungletrain.net.
Euphony's Omni Sessions, Law's and eXtreme's mixes.

*)Guilty Pleasure 2014:
Reading the News section on Factmag.com and occasionally posting links on here.

*)TV Show 2014:
Last season of "Breaking Bad"

*)Movie 2014:
Snowpiercer
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1706620/

*)Book 2014
Bernie Krause "The Great Animal Orchestra"
http://www.thegreatanimalorchestra.com/

*)Album 2014:
+)Subtle Audio Vol. III
+)The Bug "Angels & Devils"
+)Dev Null's "Darkside Compilation" on 8205 Recordings:
http://8205.bandcamp.com/album/darks...mpilation-2014

*)Track of the Year:

DJ Trax and Naibu "All Is Silent" on Subtle Audio Vol. III

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Q-OvAYtkq0A

Euphony

01. Favourite track: Too numerous, but the following had me groovin' in my undies; Entama - Primeval Forces (Cadence)

02. Favourite album: Cryogenics - Through the Eons LP or Rainforest - Path of the Warrior LP

03. Favourite label: Monochrome

04. Favourite mixtape: Anything mixed by Cryogenics :)

05. Favourite SC thread:

07. Favourite book: Intelligence in nature (Jeremy Narby), Chaos, Creativity and Cosmic Consciousness (Sheldrake, McKenna, Abraham) and Ninja by John Man

08. Favourite food (or Snax): My delectable spicy casseroles

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: Walking on my own in the rain

10. Favourite random moment: Either: going out for a pub meal and sitting there complaining about the fact that they had to change the menu, as the previous one was really good and better value, and complained to the staff as a result. We also didn't like the way they had re-decorated, but we kept that whinge to ourselves. Anyway, it wasn't until we were driving home out of the village that we suddenly spied the pub we were meant to (and thought we were!) eating in! d'oh!....That's something my dad would do! jaysus....or: Trying to gatecrash Brad and Angelina's film set in Gozo only to be chased away by dogs

J-Breaks, www.omnimusic.org

02. Favourite album: Kontext - Dispersal (Absys Limited). Definitely my favourite release this year! I've come to expect original ideas from Stan for a while now and I'm never disappointed.

Daniel Crossley, www.fluid-radio.co.uk

08. Favourite food (or Snax): It's cooking fillet steak 'asado style' over the grill outside our van in the many wildcamping spots we found throughout Argentina

dionysus

01. Favourite track: Maybe not the greatest song eva! But the track I've listened to the most is:

Dawn Day Night - The Re-Animation of Scottie

Have a good New Year y'all! Off to Barca...

 
Muttley

01. Favourite track: Grouper - Holding (Kranky, released October 31st 2014).

(1st of Top 20; remainder 19 of Top 20)

Angel Olsen - Windows
Ryan Teague - Scale And Ratio
Digital & Spirit - Wayout
Colo - Doorframe 1
Betty Davis - If I'm In Luck I Might Get Picked Up
Audion - Motormouth
Tropic Of Coldness - Distressing Dilemma Of Rational Choices
Saaad - After Love
Blue Six - No Two Things
Little Red - Down
Bat For Lashes - Skin Song
ASC - Some Other Life
Mizeyesis - Spring Hope
Equinox - Tribulation
VVV - Turn Away
Jo Quail - South West Night
36 - Always
DJ Trax - '89 'Till Infinity
Foci's Left - Anything Becomes Possible With Time

02. Favourite album: Little Red - Sticks And Stones (All Will Be Well)

(1st of Top 5; remainder of Top 5)

Grouper - Ruins
Jo Quail - Caldera
Christopher Willits - Opening
Metamorphosis - Conception 1982

03. Favourite label: For once, as there's too many labels I like to choose from, it's a production house: Novation.

I bought this analog synthesiser in the Summer as a proto-housewarming present, and have since been making several practice live sets with the machine. It looks like this:

http://d19ulaff0trnck.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/novationmusic/products/Bass-Station-II/BS-II-Banner-ii.jpg

Here is the ongoing live sets archive:

http://subvertcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?60699-Foci-s-Left-Live-Set&highlight=foci%27s+left+live

04. Favourite mixtape: Little Red @ Old Fire Station, Oxford, Friday 14th November 2014. Second would be Blevin Blectum's Liveondublab set (on SoundCloud), actually from 2012, while following that is SB81's 92 Hardcore Favourites Mix.

The latter two are reposted at www.soundcloud.com/subversion-2, my and Statto's joint account.

Of my own spurious output it's FTAL 005 - Handling Grief (in the 60,000 unique viewers strong For The Ambient Lovers (FTAL)...review and mixtape archive 001 thread:

http://subvertcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?56404-For-The-Ambient-Lovers-review-and-mixtape-archive-001/page12

05. Favourite SC thread: "today, I..." (begun by Statto in January this year. Because I'm partly a narcissistic bastard).

http://subvertcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?60224-today-I

06. Favourite gig: Little Red + Stuart Clark + Gus Hewlett @ Old Fire Station, Oxford, Friday November 14th 2014.

http://www.subvertcentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/subversion-stop-233-little-red-stuart.html

07. Favourite book: Carlos Castenada - The Art Of Dreaming

(Excerpt from the book, as I haven't really read any other books this year)

"You are not yet ready for a true merging of your dreaming reality and your daily reality", he concluded. "You must recapitulate your life further".

"But I've done all the recapitulating possible", I protested. "I've been recapitulating for years. There is nothing more I can remember about my life".

"There must be much more", he said adamantly, "otherwise, you wouldn't wake up screaming".

I did not like the idea of having to recapitulate again. I had done it, and I believed I had done it so well that I did not need to touch the subject ever again".

"The recapitulation of our lives never ends, no matter how well we've done it once", don Juan said. "The reason average people lack volition in their dreams is that they have never recapitulated and their lives are filled to capacity with heavily loaded emotions like memories, hopes, fears, et cetera, et cetera.

"Sorcerers, in contrast, are relatively free from heavy, binding emotions, because of their recapitulation. And if something stops them, as it has stopped you at this moment, the assumption is that there still is something in them that is not quite clear".

"To recapitulate is too involving, don Juan. Maybe there is something else I can do instead".

"No. There isn't. Recapitulating and dreaming go hand in hand. As we regurgitate our lives, we get more and more airborne".

Don Juan had given me very detailed and explicit instructions about the recapitulation. It consisted of reliving the totality of one's life experiences by remembering every possible minute detail of them. He saw the recapitulation as the essential factor in a dreamer's redefinition and redeployment of energy. "The recapitulation sets free energy imprisoned within us, and without the this liberated energy dreaming is not possible". That was his statement.

Years before, don Juan had coached me to make a list of all the people I had met in my life, starting at the present. He helped me to arrange my list in an orderly fashion, breaking it down into areas of activity, such as jobs I had had, schools I had attended. Then he guided me to go, without deviation, from the first person on my list to the last one, reliving every one of my interactions with them.

He explained that recapitulating an event with one's mind arranging everything pertinent to what is being recapitulated. Arranging means reconstructing the event, piece by piece, starting by recollecting the physical details of the surroundings, then going to the person with whom one shared the interaction, and then going to oneself, to the examination of one's feelings.

Don Juan taught me that the recapitulation is coupled with a natural, rhythmical breathing. Long exhalations are performed as the head moves slowly and gently from right to left; and long inhalations are taken as the head moves back from left to right. He called this act of moving the head from side to side "fanning the event". The mind examines the event from beginning to end while the body fans, on and on, everything the mind focuses on.

Don Juan said that the sorcerers of antiquity, the inventors of the recapitulation, viewed breathing as a magical, life-giving act and used it, accordingly, as a magical vehicle; the exhalation, to eject the foreign energy left in them during the interaction being recapitulated and the inhalation to pull back the energy that they themselves left behind during the interaction.

Because of my academic training, I took the recapitulation to be the process of analysing one's life. But don Juan insisted that it was more involved than an intellectual psychoanalysis. He postulated the recapitulation as a sorcerer's play to induce a minute but steady displacement of the assemblage point. He said that the assemblage point, under the impact of reviewing past actions and feelings, goes back and forth between its present site and the site it occupied when the event being recapitulated took place.

Don Juan stated that the old sorcerers' rationale behind the recapitulation was their conviction that there is an inconceivable dissolving force in the universe, which makes organisms live by lending them awareness. That force also makes organisms die, in order to extract the same lent awareness, which organisms have enhanced through their life experiences. Don Juan explained the old sorcerers' reasoning. They believed that since it is our life experience this force is after, it is of supreme importance that it can be satisfied with a facsimile of our life experience: the recapitulation. Having had what it seeks, the dissolving force then lets sorcerers go, free to expand their capacity to perceive and reach with it the confines of time and space." ~ Carlos Castenada, The Art Of Dreaming, p147-149.

08. Favourite food (or Snax): Beef Rogan Josh, Slimming World Fakeaway Style, with added Chickpeas.

Rogan recipe (For clarity when using Lamb instead of Beef as in the original Slimming World guidelines - just get some fry Beef Steaks or Boneless Beef for the Beef version and cook for the same time)

"This rich and meaty north Indian stew is infused with enticing spices that leave a lovely warmth in your mouth. We've
added carrots and swede, though you could use other root vegetables like potato or parsnip).

Free on Extra Easy and Original SlimmingW plan, 9 1/2 on Green (more vegetable based weight loss plan, the quickest diet)
Ready in 2 hours.

Ingredients

low calorie cooking spray
500g lean lamb steaks, visible fat removed, cut into bite-sized chunks
2 onions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
2cm piece of root ginger, peeled and finely grated
2 cinnamon sticks
2 tsp chilli powder
2 tsp paprika
1 tsp cardamom seeds, crushed
4 tbsp medium curry powder
400g can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp sweetener
600ml boiling lamb stock
2 carrots, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 swede, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
salt and freshly ground black pepper
small handful of finely chopped fresh coriander, to garnish

(Me: you might want to add natural yogurt/creme fresh to cool the heat down).

Spray a large, heavy-based casserole pan (or wok) with low calorie cooking spray and place over a medium-high heat.
Add the lamb and cook for 4 minutes, stirring, or until browned (you may need to do this in batches).
Transfer the lamb to a plate with a slotted spoon.

Spray the casserole pan with low calorie cooking spray again and add the onions.
Cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring often, until soft and lightly browned.

Add the garlic, ginger, cinnamon, chilli powder, paprika and cardamom seeds.
Stir-fry for 2 minutes then add the curry powder and return the lamb to the pan (or wok).
Stir-fry for 2-3 minutes then stir in the tomatoes, sweetener, stock, carrots and swede.
Season well and bring the mixture to a boil.

Reduce the heat to low and cover tightly. Simmer gently for 1 hour 30 minutes or until the lamb is meltingly tender.

Remove from the heat, scatter over the coriander and serve with rice of your choice.

*

I have had so much amazing food this year, mainly from The First Floor, Cowley, my favourite restaurant in my life so far. Some dishes:

Indian: Mutton Dopiaza / Handi Ghost / Butter Chicken / Chef's Special Lamb / Lamb Madras
Chinese: Szechuan Beef and Sweet Chilli Curry / Lamb in Oyster Sauce / Tofu in Sweet Chilli Sauce / Chinese Seaweed / Chicken in S&S sauce
Thai: Chicken Massaman Curry / Deep Fried Fish / Chicken Satay / Chicken in hot Mustard sauce / Deep Fried Thai Noodles

Other Oxford restaurants that come recommended are: La Cucina Italian (St. Clements); Thai Orchid (St. Clements); Arbat (providing you don't have an unremarkable starter, the Cheese-topped grilled Gammon with a Toffee Madeira Cake for dessert is great - Russian  - Cowley); Majiliss (Cowley); Mirch Masala (Cowley); Rice Box (Cowley); The Beehive (Carterton - particularly Puy Lentil & Sweet Potato curry).

09. Favourite guilty pleasure: losing 1 1/2 stone by Summer to take my weight down to a much healthier 16.7. For 6'5 I want to be getting down to a weight that still isn't overweight - hoping to touch 16st next year.

10. Favourite random moment: Favourite and least favourite at the same time - struggling with personal identity and family relationship as to how my family in relation to my friends fit into my world.

11. In light InfiniteSloth's adaptation list I'm adding two optional to others entries to mine, one being: favourite festival. Which is:

Pindrop Performances Presents: Midwinter Drone Fest @ Modern Art Oxford, 11.12.14 (Petrels, Paddox, After The Thought, James Maund, Lee Riley)

Mind blowing event.

12. Favourite below radar movement: Eilean Rec. - https://eileanrec.bandcamp.com/

EOY Charts 2013-2015 SC thread

SubVersion Stop 239: Tropic Of Coldness - Personalised For Muttley Live Session 17th December 2014

SV Xmas Drip-Feed Pt 5, exclusively available in For The Ambient Lovers (FTAL) archive. 

Tropic of Coldness are an ambient and electroacoustic superduo with former members from psychedelia/electroacoustic band Fuji Apple Worship. They've careened their complexity in disparate, streamed arrangements into "Demography Of Data" as Tropic of Coldness, a highlight album of my 130 subjects on www.fluid-radio.co.uk (under my penname). That LP is available here in CD and digital formats for an inexpensive price - make sure you check it.

https://organic-industries.bandcamp.com/album/tropic-of-coldness-demography-of-data-oi014

If you like what you hear and want something the duo made for me personally, under their agreement I'm dripping this for Xmas 2014. It's a 28:33 long live session with somnambulant, sleepytime bent. Recommended if you like Eno's "Music For Airports", Harold Budd & Robin Guthrie's "After The Night Falls" and ASC's "Truth Be Told", all timeless records in Muttleyland. 

Find the live session as #300 in FTAL (For  The Ambient Lovers...review and mixtape archive 001)

http://subvertcentral.com/forum/showthread.php?56404-For-The-Ambient-Lovers-review-and-mixtape-archive-001/page13

28:33 / 320kbps

Tropic of Coldness' track "Distressing Dilemma Of Rational Choices" is included in SubVersion's End Of Year 2014 Charts in my contribution. :)

SubVersion Stop 236: SV Recommends Muttley - Take Me Where The Giver Grows Mix (December 2014)

http://kapsil.net/muttley/2014/SV%20Recommends%20Muttley%20-%20Take%20Me%20Where%20The%20Giver%20Grows%20%28December%202014%29.mp3

SubVersion Xmas Drip Feed Pt 3.

If you're interested, don't listen with a look at the tracklist to start with. It sinks in deeper this way. When you look at the tracklist after, it makes more sense. ;)

A birthday present for my 2014 linkworker Jo this is. But it's universal enough to warrant publishing. All Muttley / Foci's Left sets have concepts.

For the tracklist, see the ID3 tag.

Enjoy :)

SubVersion Stop 233: Little Red + Stuart Clark + Gus Hewlett @ Old Fire Station, Oxford, November 14th 2014

Little Red + Stuart Clark + Gus Hewlett @ Old Fire Station, 14.11.2014

"I know Friday night at a folk club is not a normal place to go" posits Little Red songwriter and night promoter Ian Mitchell in the headlining of this All Will Be Well label launch gig. The aching lack of affluence towards intimacy in a hyper-accelerated city creates a cause for discomfort and movement. It's one thing feeling safe in a packed club but another feeling like you really belong, which is a quality Mitchell and co elucidate on my gig of 2014.

Speaking to Ian before the event, Gus Hewlett, a folk guitarist equal parts Bill Frisell and James Blackshaw is said to have drum'n'bass chops, a contrast that couldn't be anything more sonically different tonight. Through a generous 45 minute length Hewlett hacks at his strings in sophisticated fashion, adapting a Bob Dylan piece for his second tune and elsewhere trailblazing an arpeggio wedge to gently impose his semi-auteur ear for a melody. Worthwhile, in short.

Stuart Clark is a commanding presence mid evening, an arpeggio-heavy storyteller in the vein of "Lady Grinning Soul" Bowie with just guitar for company. Disappearance's rhetoric echoes on one of his later tracks, where stop-start rhythms fuse with a folly towards lonely abstraction. It's not all reverbed abandon though, as he swoops and swoons about subjects as broad as nature creating stopgaps between time and place. There is a definite sense of human body spotlighted. Pristine playing, gently crystallising voice over instrumental backbeat. The audience are generally at ease by a paradoxically uneasy set. One to watch.

Opening with drum-free, acoustic "Cures", the vocal interplay of frontman Ian Mitchell, producer Ben Gosling and the elusive female vocalist parries inflections from Finn and more contemporarily Fink, but is sweet-natured enough in lyricism, "names carved in a tree"-esque as they sing to engrave itself onto this reviewer's memory. It's a tale about where two lovers first met, and the usual bushy beard, folk-centric influence in context of there being woods that can lead either lover astray. This leads into "The Garden", the triplet acoustic, vocal assemblages making things "wrong to right" - here the sound carries further than the "face melting" joke Mitchell coyly nods to later in the performance, about the material not being wall of sound enough for the Friday night gurner massive. "What Say You?" resonates stronger, the lead track on "Sticks And Stones", what Mitchell dubs to me as an EP on the night, even though the 9 CD tracks are filled out naturally for full length status.

Little Red definitely sound like a very new band, but instead of amateurish triptych on behalf of the singers and instrument players, they form a cohesive whole not dissimilar to Duotone or XL's Blue Roses. They close post-"Chapters" (a track from their forthcoming record) with "The Boxer", where Ian sings "I'll still be coming back for more" after metaphors for being a broken man. Given the right studio treatment of the exciting live incarnation, Little red could have a rosy future, and close this night so finely.

http://www.oldfirestation.org.uk/event/original-folk-music-little-red-stuart-clark-and-gus-hewlett/

SubVersion Stop 222: SubVersion Recommends - Burning For Love - Muttley - Christmas 2013 Special

SubVersion Recommends Muttley - Burning For Love - Christmas 2013 Special

A Christmas present from me to you, to your friends too, covering what sounds really cool, and what puts a spark inside of you.



01. 00:00 John Davis - Palestrina (Ask The Dust LP, Students Of Decay, 2013)
02. 01:40 36 - Dangerous Days (Heather Spa EP, ASIP Places Series, 2013)
03. 04:00 Siavash Amini - A Mist Of Grey Light (Futuresequence Sequence 7, Bandcamp, 2013)
04. 07:33 Faures - Asthenospheric Movement III (Continental Drift LP, Home Normal, 2013)
05. 12:00 Fabio Orsi & Pimmon - Garnacha (Procrastination LP, Home Normal, 2013)
06. 16:00 Abandon - White Summer (Abandon LP, Bindsight Records, 2013)
07. 26:25 Goldfrapp - Stranger (Tales Of Us LP, Mute, 2013)
08. 29:15 Imbogodom - Summer Fungus (Metafather LP, Thrill Jockey, 2013)
09. 31:45 Foci's Left & Mike Twelve - In Our Lives, There Have Been Many Terrors (Life In A Less Southern Town LP, Omni Music, April 2014)
10. 35:20 Borealis - Jawberry (LGBT Rights For Russia Now! Compilation, Bandcamp, 2013)
11. 38:03 Atoms For Peace - Default (Amok LP, XL, 2013)
12. 41:45 Kapsil - Deliverance (Missing Link EP, Complex Logic, 2004)
13. 44:45 Total Science feat. Riya - See Your Face (See Your Face EP, Shogun Audio, 2013)
14. 50:22 Hakobune - The Length Of The Wind (Watching The Prescribed Burn LP, Pure Wave Recordings, 2013)
56:38 end

Download

SubVersion Stop 221: Muttley's 20 favourite ambient albums of the year

In no particular order, my 20 favourite ambient releases I enjoyed listening to in 2013 - some new, some old:

01. Hakobune - Watching The Prescribed Burn

http://acloserlisten.com/2013/04/01/...escribed-burn/

02. Foci's Left - Grumpy Love

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2013/09/focis-left/

03. ASC - Time Heals All

http://shop.silentseason.com/album/t...als-all-sscd14

04. Secret Pyramid - Movements Of Night

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2013/10/secret-pyramid/

05. Slow Walkers (Grouper & Lawrence English) - Slow Walkers

http://boomkat.com/downloads/814173-...h-slow-walkers

06. Dirk Serries - Microphonics XXI-XXV

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2013/11...onics-project/

07. Steve Roach - Soul Tones

http://www.ambientblog.net/blog/2013...lf-ultra-tribe

08. Futuresequence - Sequence 7

http://futuresequence.bandcamp.com/releases

09. EUS - Sol Levit

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2013/10/eus/

10. Various Artists - Piano By The Sea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzvX2nz4zLQ

11. Ateleia - Formal Sleep (my favourite LP of all time, in any genre)

http://boomkat.com/cds/28386-ateleia-formal-sleep

12. Isnaj Dui - After The Flood

http://isnajdui.bandcamp.com/album/after-the-flood

13. Faures - Continental Drift

http://acloserlisten.com/2013/12/02/...inental-drift/

14. The Seaman And The Tattered Sail - Light Folds

http://www.fac-ture.co.uk/The-Seaman...il-Light-Folds

15. The Angling Loser - Author Of The Twilight

http://www.fluid-radio.co.uk/2013/10...-the-twilight/

16. Jon Hopkins - How I Live Now OST

http://www.justmusic.co.uk/store/TAO...y-jon-hopkins/

17. How To Disappear Completely - Still

http://astrangelyisolatedplace.com/2...pletely-still/

18. Stars Of The Lid - The Tired Sounds Of Stars Of The Lid

http://boomkat.com/downloads/167604-...ars-of-the-lid

19. Foci's Left & Geoff Brooks - Hypnosis Session 1: Dreams

http://focisleft.bandcamp.com/album/...-november-2013

20. 36 - Heather Spa

http://astrangelyisolatedplace.bandc...36-heather-spa

Check one, or two, or whatever :)