taking a look at other blogs: All My Ideas Are Stolen and Union Pole Tapes appreciation

 

I love blogs that are dedicated to a particular theme or music period, because they are more often than not very well researched and erudite. One such case is the blog All My Ideas Are Stolen (link here) which is run by none other than the one and only Joe Murray aka Posset, the best dictaphone brain haemorrhaging drooler noise maker straight outta Tyneside, who I actually had the deep honor to meet in person some time ago in Newcastle. It was such a rock-star meeting/Santa Claus type of encounter for me as I have been raving about his stuff for a long time and he also brought a good amount of goodies, so I feel like a small child getting to meet his idol.

But enough of my Posset worship and onto his great idea of a blog that All My Ideas Are Stolen is, as it is devoted to exposing us to the awesomeness of the early 90s tape label Union Pole Tapes from Olympia, WA. In this blog not only does he write about the actual music made on the first 76 tapes produced by the label but in fact conducts interviews with the groups/artists. Can't describe what a great idea and execution this blog is, so I'm just gonna take my hat off before Joe and just post some links to a few Union Pole releases I really dig and note that you can get download the whole Union Pole discography for five dollars on bandcamp, so go over there and do your duty. Oh, don't forget to listen to Posset and his several incarnations, either on this blog or on his bandcamp.

Wallpaper - The Various Decorative Examples: noisy, skronky weird psych pop shoegazy fuckness

Wallpaper - Slow Love Songs About Drugs & Horsies: lo-fi Dinosaur Jr/Slint /blues hybrid

Wham-O - Confused Over Expressions / Impressions: Wham-O (along with Coits) has also been covered by me here, but this is way out, stretching over acoustic black metal ala Impaled Northern Moonforest to improvised noise rock to acoustic beauty.

Action Pussy - Hi!: mainly calm psychedelic rock with a Syd Barrett cover and great guitar work, not unlike the music of early Jim Jarmusch films. Kinda seems to me this thing had a great impact on early Dirty Beaches music.

Wallpaper - Domestic Landscape Activities Vol 5: far out noise garage surf madness.

Dancing Test Tubes/Cock E.S.P: Gerogerigege-y like live noisecore attack vs dictaphone harsh noise fuckery

Neil Campbell - Face Of Scurf: noisy drone and acoustic improv damage by a master

Coits - Construct Your Own Guitar: as it is well-known, Coits (check out other Coits posts here), is an awesome project of Joincey here doing everything from kitchen field recordings to acoustic guitar noise to excerpts from old techno songs.

Posset ‎– Slippery Caption tape

This isn't a tape, this is musical blasphemy. Posset always manages to release the most cleverly retarded recordings of all times, with this one not being anymore a combination of found objects and Betadine gurgling, but full-blown emetic sound poems exploring the possibilities of the sounds of the vowels of the English alphabet, while still performing throat washes. My brain feels violated every time he brings out something new, and so should you, so there's your parental advisory to avoid this by any means necessary. 2018 tape on Sound Holes.

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Midnight Doctors - Through A Screen And Into A Hole

Jazz project conducted/masterminded by Phil Begg, who was also behind the very good ambient/drone project Hapsburg Braganza. This is the second effort of Midnight Doctors, after 2013's self-titled, which was graced with the presence of Mike Smith and Mike Vest of Bong, Dario-Lozano Thornton, and Posset, only the latter one appears on this. In contrast to that album's short vignettes of dark soundtrack jazz, this is a more focused attempt at creating long tracks. The music style is similar to Bohren & Der Club Of Gore's Sunset Mission and Black Earth, both in terms of the nightly foreboding atmosphere (minus the more horror-ish aspects of the latter album), and of the ambient feeling, which here is also accentuated by samples, electronics, and the droning of cellos, pianos, and other instruments. However, I wouldn't do this cd justice if I said that it's a rehashing of Bohren's masterpieces, as there is more at play here. Apart from the soundtrack aspects, there are also elements of deep spiritual jazz at its heaviest and finest,akin of Alice Coltrane's more experimental and improvised moments, reaching epic proportions on the penultimate track "Climactic Loss." Another point of reference could be The Embassadors more laid-back and spacious take on dark jazz. I also dig the slightly noise rock elements at play here, which remind of Reeks And The Wrecks (complete with a touch of New Orleans funeral jazz) and Oxbow's two latest jazz-tinged releases. A great album that has been on repeat for the last few days. 2015 cd on Ourodisc.

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(The) Solar Plexus ‎– Sushi Roll cdr

A side project of Joe Murray (Posset) with Isaac Murray, who is probably a relative of his? The glories of Posset have been sung many times in this blog, and the sounds here are pretty much in the same vein: dictaphone sample manipulations, musique concrete improvisations on home tools, retarded scat-singing; here there is a bigger emphasis on percussion, with a lot of banging on cymbals. Ideal for those who like their experimental music skronky and incoherent. 2012 self-released cdr.

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Papal Bull - In Is In, An Is An, Nrmeegecy Is Emergency, Uyo Is You, Cna Is Can, Siht Is Shit, On Is On, Polihs Is Polish, Tiancvdseetas Is Sedevacantist cdr

Papal Bull is a project of Joe Murray (Posset) and Jon Marshall (Singing Knives). The approach is similar to Posset's musique concrète/sound poetry, i.e. the soundtrack of dental suction, accompanied by noisy improvisations on piano, violin and a very cool demented jazz track called "Brassy Exit Burrs" with jazzy drums and mouth horns. I also must mention the title; I love the anagrams and I also love doing this mentally, i.e. when I watch a movie and I place vowels or consonants of words I here separately and alphabetically very quickly. Then my brain hurts. Shit. 2016 cdr on Chocolate Monk.

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Posset - Incumbent Failure Ambassador 3" cdr

Starts fairly typically with Posset's patent dictaphone decay and improvised percussive sounds, and then "Technological Music" comes in with beautiful 8-bit chords over sound manipulations and ends with some lo-fi beatbox. Last track is a slowed-down, very low tone sound poem which at the end sounds as if it says "cock you up." Well, I'd be honored. 2018 3 cdr on Bells Hill.

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Posset / Trancers II / Hapsburg Braganza ‎– A Clutch Of Eggs cdr

Posset's high-frequency tape hiss is juxtaposed against Trancers II's nice old-school-industrial-meets-hypnagogic (think of a mix between Throbbing Gristle and old James Ferraro and early Dirty Beaches) and Hapsburg Braganza's two very different tracks; first one is a dreamy floating ambient orchestral piece a-la William Basinski and Stars Of The Lid, while is a dictaphonic piece mixing various old talk shows and old jazz music. Nice shit. 2011 self-released cdr

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Posset - Mump Grumpy cdr

Posset doing his thang, playing up chewed tapes of field recordings from classical concerts, forests, your grandma's TV set et al. 2009 cdr on Infinite Exchange.

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Sindre Bjerga & Posset ‎– Jazz Hands, Bloody Jazz Hands tape (2016, Sound Holes)

Here comes Sindre Bjerga and Joe Posset Murray again, wielding dictaphones in one hand and Betadine oral gargle antiseptic on the other, roaming the streets of Gateshead to leave their salive on some random kid's neck. By now, you should have known what to expect; tape cannibalism of loops of TV shows and AOR and free mouth jazz played by people with over 70% disability. How these two weirdos found their way into this blog I don't know, but hey, if you are into that thing, well, I don't judge people. Damned Freaks. 2016 tape on Sound Holes.

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TQ #14/ No-Audience Underground Tapes/ Posset - Another Forever Tomorrow cdr

New TQ issue continues in a more retrospective note as in the previous John Peel issue, with the main part of the zine focusing on accounts of kraut rock giants such as Can, Holger Czukay, first Faust, and Kraftwerk.

The most important part, though, is an interview with David Howcroft, the person behind No-Audience Underground Tapes, which I have talked about here; in the interview David talks about his connection to Blyth and Fuckin' Amateurs, the formation of N-AuT, consideration on its future, and the story behind the Another Headache For the NHS compilation, which was released in order to gather financial aid for a shockingly serious accident David had had. I already knew that that comp was released in aid of David, but I wasn't aware of how dangerous his condition was, and I wholeheartedly wish him the best.

I grasp the opportunity to remind readers of the blog that No-Audience Underground Tapes is an important effort to document the life of the North-East England drone/noise/experimental scene, recording and releasing gigs by such amazing musicians and groups like Vampyres, Posset, Smut, Fells, Witchblood, Möbius, Death In Scarsdale, Wrest, Noize Choir, and so many others. More than 50 tapes have been released so far, and I really hope that David will keep at it for as long as it takes. I would offer the full list here, but I highly recommend that all of you drop David an email, ask for the list, get some stuff and give him your support; after all he is doing it for free, without charging for the tapes, which is an important aspect of the underground.

Finally, this most recent issue of TQ comes with a free cdr of Posset's Another Forever Tomorrow. Posset is obviously one of my favorite artists ever, and on this release he proves again his expansive vision of electronic music, from his patent dictaphone manipulation of vocals and voices to an amazing gamelan-like tune called "Rubber Whiskey Decisions," and from a dictaphone blues anthem called "Dub Touch (Two)" to more ambient/drone incursions with the cd's intro and outro. Great stuff as usual, you can listen to it here.

TQ Zine # 12 & # 13: Belated Happy Birthday!

Life’s been too busy lately with family, work and studies so I had no time to make a happy birthday post about TQ, so now I’m posting something about both latest issues. Last month TQ Zine marked its first anniversary with #12 celebrating it with a 3-cdr compilation of artists making tracks inspired by three previous issue covers. This is over 3 hours of noise, ambient, and experimental sounds. I haven’t been able to pay full attention to the music, but through two listens I have discovered some new stuff which I might have read about before but didn’t get around to listening to, plus tracks by artists I had already heard. The tracks I particularly distinguished are: an amazing jazzy ambient track by Chlorine (must hear more from them), a cacophonous reed and guitar detuning jam with surreal lyrics from Chow Mwng (congrats for making a track with lyrics for a cover), beautiful floating droney ambient from Ghost Signs, vocal drone and throat singing by James Worse, throbbing and reverberating subterranean drone by Joined By Wire, an amazing combination of early Swans, Skullflower and My Bloody Valentine by Penance Stare (must find out more), this blog’s favorite Posset making a great number poem, organ and string drone by The Daughters of Conceptual Sex Death, and the absolutely best discovery of recent months called Möbius, a vocal ambient drone duo from Newcastle offering an AMAZING witch invocation drone that I can’t stop listening to. How the fuck did these people elude my drone radar? Thank you TQ for ceaselessly teaching me about good music. The content of # 12 is filled with descriptions of the tracks’ recording processes by the artists themselves, and is complete with Rob Hayler’s essay on the origins and characteristics of the No-Audience Underground. Check out the full compilation here.

#13 is a heartfelt tribute to John Peel with accounts of getting to know him or recording Peel Sessions by various artists, and a truly warming comic about him, plus some reviews. I have to say that not having grown up in the UK or the English-speaking world in general I never had the chance to really listen to him during his lifetime, although I had read lots about him through magazine about psychedelic rock as a child. But as I grew up and I became obsessed with grindcore and crust punk I read about his promotion of heroes of my adolescence like Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, and I realize how important it was for someone like him to exist in the established media. This issue is accompanied by a DVD of the documentary Republic about the city of Blyth being voted worst town in England in 1992. I was very intrigued about this doc when I read about a few months ago, but I still haven’t watched it, but looking forward to it.

Next issue seems to have another good offer for its subscribers, namely a Posset cd, which is reason enough for someone to subscribe promptly.

For info about TQ go here.

Various ‎– Fuckin' Fifty? (Fuckin' Amateurs compilation 6 X cdr)

The two recent posts about Xazzaz and TQ Zine were more or less related to Fuckin' Amateurs, so I thought to post this. In short, F#A was a ten-year-long project started by Martin Gregory and Jamie Stewart, documenting the life of the North-East English no-audience underground, mainly by bootlegging gigs of those artists and bands located or playing there, many of whom have received posts about here, or are going to get! That scene is really vibrant, diverse and creative and F#A did an amazing job keeping the light alive, until its folding of operations last year, which has fortunately been taken over by No-Audience Underground tapes. In this mammoth six-cdr compilation celebrating the fiftieth release of the label, a long series of artists ranging from drone, noise, punk, dictaphone and free jazz are compiled. Some are blog favorites, such as Jazzfinger, Posset, Waz Hoola, Culver, Wrest, Basilica, MC Blazin, Mechanical Children, Hapsburg Braganza, Lobster Priest, Charles Dexter Ward, as well as enigmatic car-race radio broadcast dictaphone worshipper Chris "Pause" Richardson. The highlight, though, is the last track of the last cdr, which is a band called The Nice People From Straightsville doing a cacophonous lo-fi castrato-voice cover of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine" renamed "I'm Going to Ashington." 2009 6-cdr set on Fuckin' Amateurs.

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Disc 2
Disc 3
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Posset - The Sultan EP cdr

Dictaphone manipulation, found noises and musics, and clanging, albeit without any salivating on the mic by Joe Murray, aka Posset. WTF is Putin doing on the cover wearing a Russian flag skullcap? 2010 self-released cdr.

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Posset ‎– Peed-trofm:oc tape

This is surprisingly varied given its short duration. It features Joe Murray-Posset's standard drooling madness, severely autistic moanings and field recordings dicta manipulation and then moves to cooking pots banning with an admiringly aptitude at creating drum rolls and even blast beats (he's like the Pete Sandoval of kitchen drumming), ending with a calming ambient loop w/ tonal alterations. Sweet little thingy. 2010 tape on Gold Soundz.

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Posset - The Silver Conch cdr

A garden of musical and non-musical sketches played on dictaphones, ranging from musique concrete skronk to Nurse With Wound influences and droney moments. 2010 cdr on Striate Cortex.

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VA ‎– New Horizons From The Distant Void cdr

 

9-track compilation featuring drone, ambient and musique concrète by The Good Time Guys, Culver, Very Rich Lexion, Bjerga/Iversen, Nils Rostad, Dead Wood, Dictaphonic Youth (aka Posset), No Context & Sindre Bjerga, and Gish. 2010 cdr on Striate Cortex.

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VA - With Friends Like These: 10 Years Of Pissing In The Wind cdr

 

One way or another I'm gonna drone ya, I'm gonna dict'ya, I'm gonna Bjerga. Bjerga, Bjerga, Bjerga! No, we aren't going to stop posting Sindre-related stuff here, so here's a comp by his label Gold Soundz celebrating 10 years of operation, with multiple short (max 1 minute and a half) tracks by Dylan Nyoukis, Posset, Jan M. Iversen, Cock E.S.P., Terje Paulsen, Hal McGee & Danny McGuire, Nils Rostad, Bjerga/Iversen, Torstein Wjiik, Kema, Anders Gjerde, Joey Chainsaw, Tobacconists, Crazy River/Monolab, Pål Asle Pettersen, Staplerfahrer, Andreas Brandal, NXP, Adults With Chicks feat. Mah-Ruk Ali & Mira Craig, Ronny Wærnes, Origami Boe, Mesmer Korsbols, Cape Of Seaweed, Rogaland Hot Club, Jazkamer, Frans de Waard, Hans Einar Gulliksen, Flesh Coffin, Full Narkose Band, Koff Koff, Kunstlusk, Ezdanitoff, and Rust & Rot. Expect various styles, from harsh noise and drone to dictaphone and glitch. 2010 cdr on Gold Soundz.

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Posset / Robert Ridley-Shackleton ‎– Untitled split cdr

 
 

Posset is the Lord of the Almighty Dictaphone, an avid lover of drooling mouths sounds, and a central writer of the supreme Radio Free Midwich blog. His side ranges from the sounds most of us do after swallowing too much sea water combined with reverse cocaine snorting to gamelan-like sounds on the supremely titled "Tubular Balls." Robert-Ridley Shackleton is the owner of Hissing Frames label and another knight of the Almighty Dictaphone and for his part he starts by looking for something in his drawers (the precise sounds of how I used to search for things that my mother had criminally thrown out without asking) and ends up trying to make a portable generator on batteries. Great. 2014 cdr on Hissing Frames limited to 12 copies.

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