Keith Seatman - Disjointed Oddities and Other Such Things EP

I've had the great pleasure of being on the receiving end of Keith's promos for a good few years now and it's always been an absolute delight.  This new five track EP featuring four new tunes and a remix of a tune from Keith's earlier album - A Rest Before the Walk - by Wyrd Britain faves Revbjelde is no different.

Musically he walks a capricious, queasily disconcerting and idiosyncratic path.  With his sounds balancing on the edges of radiophonic playfulness and acid folk's twisted pastoralism filtered through the dark prism of Coil-esque post-industrial decay he has assembled another collection of deliciously serpentine and indefinably nebulous psychedelia fuelled by oneiric logic and arcadian phantasms.

All Hold Hands and Off We Go

Keith Seatman
K.S. Audio
CD

We at Wyrd Britain are long time fans of the work of the estimable Mr Seatman.  Over on our old music blog - Wonderful Wooden Reasons - and here on WB we've sung his praises on several occasions with his last album, 'A Rest Before the Walk', being a real favourite around here that still gets brought out to play pretty regularly.

Keith's music, particularly of late, offers a twisted pastoral and darkly bucolic melding of electronic music and english folk, the latter in collaboration with North Devon Singer/Songwriter Douglas E Powell.

This is music that is redolent of place and time and like all good hauntological music the exact location of each is fluid and never entirely specific.  It's music of a lost Albion, a windswept land of steel skies and old ways, of dark, satanic mills built upon psilocybin drenched earth fertilised by the endlessly copulating ghosts of generations of cunning folk. Through it's hands runs a stream of British outsider music from Coil to Bowie at his most enigmatic and it feels like it's redefining the boundaries of what constitutes a truly British music.

Best of 2015 - Music to Heal Bones To

So, happy new year to you all.  I hope 2016 brings you good times aplenty.

For much of the last 6 months of 2015 I was fairly immobile due to the whole broken leg fiasco which finally seems to be properly on the mend and I'm able to get around a lot easier although as you can see my tibia now looks like a meccano set.

What this whole palaver did give me though was time to sit and read some of the books that have been piling up and to explore some new music.  I've written about the books on the blog already but have neglected to mention some of the music so it's time to put things right.

So, with the usual disclaimer of them being in no particular order, here are some of the records that I enjoyed over the last 12 (but particularly 6) months.

John Baker - The Vendetta Tapes
Magnificent radiophonic jazz and ruler twanging archive digging from Alan Gubby at Buried Treasure
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/the-vendetta-tapes

Keith Seatman - A Rest Before the Walk
Keith mixes folk and electronics to sublime effect to create a natural and human hauntological narrative.
https://keithseatman.bandcamp.com/album/a-rest-before-the-walk

Howlround - Tales from the Black Tangle
Loops as darkly immersive as a dip in the Mariana Trench.
http://thefogsignals.com/album/tales-from-the-black-tangle

Martin Gore - MG
Depeche Mode's Martin Gore guides his enviable collection of modular synths to create a stunning set of vintage sci-fi ambience.
http://mute.com/martin-l-gore/releases-stunning-instrumental-album-mg-out-2728-april-15-on-mute-listen-to-europa-hymn

The Assembled Minds - Creaking Haze and Other Rave-Ghosts
A late addition to 2015 or an early one for 2016 as it's not actually out yet.  Matt Saunders' haunted rave is filled with half remembered techno dreams.
http://patternedair.com/assembled-minds/

The Twelve Hour Foundation - Macaroni Cheese (7")
A hugely enjoyable 2 song set of 1970s style radiophonic pop.
https://thetwelvehourfoundation.bandcamp.com/album/macaroni-cheese

Various - The Delaware Road
A comprehensive and diverse compilation based around a fictional radiophonic narrative.
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/the-delaware-road

Peter Zinovieff - Electronic Calendar / The EMS Tapes
Beautifully presented two disc retrospective of the low-key career of a core figure in British electronic music.
http://www.adasamshop.com/index.php/record-labels/space-age/peter-zinovieff.html

Cat's Eyes - The Duke of Burgundy OST
A sumptuous soundtrack to the Peter Strickland film that owes a debt to Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks recordings and that's no bad thing.
http://catseyes.store-08.com/the-duke-of-burgundy-presale/

Revbjelde - The Weeping Tree
Yet another appearance on this list from the Buried Treasure label this time from head honcho Alan Gubby's own band.  The EP is a bloody lovely collection of electronic folk featuring some fabulous guest vocals from Emma Churchley.
https://buriedtreasure.bandcamp.com/album/the-weeping-tree