Cosmic slop part 2

CHROME





JT IV

Emeralds live in Nottingham

Ok the next Rammel club night will be on the Sunday 25th of January and features Ohio's Emeralds. I'm stoked about this gig, if you haven't heard their recent Hanson LP 'Solar Bridge' then you're missing out on some pretty amazing kraut synth juice. This is how the gig stands so far, might be a few minor changes but i'll post as i know more...

Emeralds

“…fantastic, no-mind drone that swells in bloom after bloom of pink F/X-irradiated clouds, crossing the kind of planetary scale gravities of Tangerine Dream's Zeit with the sun-climbing-tenement-walls feel of classic Cale/Velvets jams and the new dawn zone of the best Klaus Schulze, Cosmic Couriers and Taj Mahal Travellers sides. The jams have an ecstatic slow-burning euphoria to them, expanding with beautifully sublimated melodic detail into synth hymnals and flat-on-your-back visions of now/then/forever. Post-noise eternal music gnosis doesn't come any more gracefully fucked than this.”
Volcanic Tongue

www.emeraldsohio.com/

Birds Of Delay

“Beneath the mounds of tape loops, keyboard mysticism, and vocals rests the human forms of Luke Younger and Steven Warwick aka Birds Of Delay”
Arbor

www.myspace.com/birdsofdelay

Gareth Hardwick

“a super slow, drawn out languorous soundscape of deep warm melodic swells. Soft and rounded, muted and dreamlike, endless and repetitive. Simple melodies, pulled apart into abstract notes, allowed to surface one at a time, like sonic detritus in an expansive sea of sound. Reminds us quite a bit of Stars Of The Lid, or maybe a Philip Glass piece slowed waaaaay down.”
Aquarius Records

www.myspace.com/garethhardwick

Modulator ESP

“Modulator ESP produces improvised experimental music using analogue and digital synthesis, analogue sequencers and processed sounds to create strange worlds of sound somewhere between '70s space music, prog rock and dark ambient drone and pieces are like abstract journeys into the imagination.”

www.modulator-esp.co.uk

Sunday 25th January 2009
CHAMELEON(market sq. next to bell inn, above Clinton Cards)
Nottingham
8.00pm start £5/4 (cons)

Cosmic Slop

Picked up a copy of Funkadelic's 'Toys' LP yesterday. It's a compilation of outtakes and jams from the early '70s. It's always nice to have some new Funkadelic in my life but it's not a great record by any means,some blazing guitar and squelchy Bernie Worrell keyboards aside it meanders a bit and just served as a reminder that i really need to dig out 'Maggot Brian' when i get home tonight. Here's the video to 'Cosmic Slop';

Mods for Christ

He doesn't look much like a mod to me, more of a pipe smoking, "Judas" shouting real folk fan but hey....

Photos

These are some photos that were originally intended for an issue of Feral Debris but were never used. I love the way photocopying blurs and distorts a photograph, leaving it grainy and murky but sometimes the photos (usually the ones i've taken to be honest) are so murky to begin with that there's no real point including them in the fanzine.

These are taken from a Jack Rose and Chris Corsano (performing seperately) gig in Nottingham a few years ago.

Chris Corsano

Jack Rose

These photos of Sunn 0)) were taken by Dave Stockwell of Souvaris

More damn books

Published in 1964, i remember this as being a pretty killer slice of sci-fi teensploitation. The adults top themselves with 'Easyway' pills leaving the kids "smashing, looting, killing, loving".
Apparently the Rolling Stones wanted to make a film out of this and bought the rights in 1966.It never got made unfortunately.

Madog

I have a house-guest. His name is Madog. We're getting on pretty well i think...

Vodka Soap plays live in Nottingham

Ok, a couple of friends and i have joined forces to become The Rammel Club and put some gigs on in Nottingham. This is going to be the first one, i'll update this as we add support acts etc.

Rammel Club presents...[the last minute pre-launch event]

Rammel Club #1

VODKA SOAP (US)

APALUSA

MOLTEN GODS

WED 08 OCT@ CHAMELEON(market sq. next to bell inn, above Clinton Cards)
Nottingham
8.30pm start £4/3 (cons)

VODKA SOAP

Vodka Soap or Voadka Soap is Spencer Clark's solo project. He is one half of The Skaters. He's a.k.a. Monopoly Child. He is so tall that he has difficulty finding trousers.

"Solo work from Spencer Clark of The Skaters that teleports straight into the nowhere zone with Native American rhythms and power visions, sudden spurts of percussive tape spool, choirs of alien visitation and what sounds like gamelan works scored for tiny pulses of light. With every jump cut the whole thing just seems to devolve into deeper, more primal alphabets until it sounds like the first music you ever heard, while your auditory canals were still connected to the source. Aspects of Cluster and Harmonia, Sun Ra's wiggiest keyboard visions, Terry Riley, early choral music, Nico and even Fripp and Eno combine in a fog-shrouded paean to black exotica. This is some of the deepest psychedelic sound to come out of the underground since Angus MacLise's skull exploded in Kathmandu." -- Volcanic Tongue

APALUSA

Apalusa is Dan Layton, guitarist with post-rock behemoth Souvaris, and he maketh music of an ambient nature. Little 'a' please. Here's what Norman Records had to say about his latest release 'Obadiah';

"Onto the delightful Apalusa on the ever useful Low Point label. Obadiah is packaged in a lovely letterpress 'arigato pack' in an edition of 300, so from the off it's a bit sexy looking like. Here we have 3 tracks of droney tunes which veer on the dark side of things. For me the obvious comparison here is some of the earlier Stars of The Lid music before they went more classical. Throbbing low end droney bass with some lush sounding feedback combine to make a really thundering warm sound. Listening to it on headphones it's proper taking me somewhere else as well which I like.... It's one of those floating in space records which you shut your eyes and imagine you're off there floating about minding your own business. Though there is a certain ominous presence on there hence me saying it veered on the dark side of things. It's fantastic though and if you're into drone music this is one of the best things I've heard in ages. Excellent!!"

You can find him at www.myspace.com/apalusa
And buy his records here www.low-point.com/

MOLTEN GODS

A trio of Nottingham faces (recognisable from such groups as Flotel, Ultralame and other such numerous improv/electronica/whathefuck groups) combine to make something HEAVY. I have no idea what to expect but those who are in the know assure me that this is the shit. Indeed.

We now have a dedicated Rammel Club site, check the links on the side there for more info. If you wanna play Notts then get in touch.

Feral Debris review

We got reviewed in Vice of all places. Funnily enough i've not had any orders since the piece so i'm thinking that their readership probably isn't that interested in obscure psych rock and the like.

Blood Ceremony s/t LP (Rise Above Records)

Hell’s teeth this is a fun record, not an original one but a fun one nonetheless. From George Barr’s pulpy painting of “Sorceress Conjuring” to the college of goat’s heads, woodcuts and big bosomed ladies on the inner sleeve the signifiers of vintage DOOM are all present, correct and ready for glorious battle. It doesn’t stop there; the riffs are pure Sabbath and the lyrics are a relentless barrage of Lovecraft, R.E.Howard, and Clark Ashton Smith lifts steeped in stoner rock ceremony, ‘quaalude eyes’ urge you to ‘smoke black drugs with Saturn’s bong’. It’s a tribute to the strong, clean lungs of Alia O’Brien that when she roars ‘It’s a black mass and I’m ready to go’ that my response isn’t a clever smirk but a fist in the air and an emphatic “O Lord YEAH!”

So as I said Blood Ceremony love Sabbath which is fine by me as they manage to channel Iommi pretty damn well. Their love of progressive folk such as Mellow Candle and Black Widow makes itself known in the addition of whirligig flute solos and some warm fuzzy organ playing that helps temper the gravestone riffs and Blood Ceremony stand out from the blackened crowd. It’s all real clean sounding, no scuzz or murk and that goes for Alia O’Brien’s vocals as well, no wraith-like growls or screams here, she just belts ‘em out imbuing tracks like “I’m coming with you” and “Hymn to Pan” with a grandeur that they might have otherwise lacked.

If you’re looking for a record to push the boundaries of sonic violence then this LP probably isn’t going to be for you. Blood Ceremony cherish the past a little too much to be true originals but that doesn’t matter. It’s a little like the scene in the film version of Conan the Barbarian. Conan stumbles into the burial chamber of a long dead warrior king. He wrests the sword from the skeletal hands of his predecessor and sets forth to forge new myths and future glory.

David Shrigley vs Feral Debris

A while ago artist David Shrigley invited people to send in ideas for events for which he would design a poster. I think he then exhibited these posters as part of an exhibition (which i never went to). Mine was for a gig to promote the first issue of my fanzine, Feral Debris. The gig never happened due mostly to my inability to organise a piss-up in a brewery but here's the poster anyway. It occupies the same kind of half-reality as most of the bands on the bill, in my mind it really happened and i had a whale of a time- you should have been there.

To be honest i think its a bit shit really (my friend had one designed for his birthday and it featured an amorous robot about to jump his bones) and he spelt Johnny's surname wrong but there ya go.

Bookmarks

Leicester Haul

I hadn't noticed the H.P Lovecraft quote on the back until this morning when i scanned this in. Will be interesting to read this one.

More paperbacks

If you've never read 'sirens of Titan' by Kurt Vonnegut then i heartily recommend it. Has perhaps one of the saddest endings i've ever read in a science-fiction book. I read this and Lem's 'Solaris' in quick succession- boy, did i feel low after that.

The Slime Beast

The Groundhogs

This flyer for a Groundhogs/Egg/Quicksand gig was found glued to the inner sleeve of an LP. One of these days i'm going to make it into a t-shirt...'cos it looks boss.

Paperbacks

I'm a bit obsessed with old sci-fi paperbacks and their covers. I buy loads from charity shops- here are a couple of recent favourites.

Found sound.

On a recent charity shop foray in Wolverhampton I found this collection of hand drawn 45 sleeves. Ok, they may not be high art but there’s something about them that really reminds me of my teenage years.

I picked up a Faust LP on the same jaunt and was made up until I got home and discovered the actual vinyl was a white label copy of some charity shop high priest like Des O’ Connor. I guess you can’t win them all.

Peter Gabriel- games without frontiers/the start/ I don’t remember

There’s a definite gangster theme going on here. Blood spattered bullet holes and a scarfaced, stogie smoking tough In the corner.



Maybe if I listen to the record then this concept might become a little clearer…maybe.



Buzzcocks- everybody’s happy nowadays/why can’t I touch it?

I’d have to say this is my favourite of the bunch. There’s so much going on and you can see the definite influence of school stationary such as a compass and set square.



There’s fingerprints incorporated here so in theory I could track the artist down and present him/her with his masterpieces but I’m not going to…I’m gonna keep them.




Dire Straits- where do you think you're going?/lady writer

One of the lesser efforts in this particular oeuvre i feel.





Jon and Vangelis- thunder/I hear you now
I really love the armless ghost and lightning/fire/thunder combo. Reminds me a little of Deerhoof’s ‘Milkman’ LP cover.



I have no idea what’s happening here, fiery asteroids orbiting a sinister black mountain? The singing cloud (with teeth) is a great touch as is the lightning keyboard.



Roxy Music- to turn you on/jealous guy 7"

The original 7” had been replaced with Showaddywaddy which I didn’t fancy much so I replaced it in turn with Joan Jett. I like the futuristic ‘space’ vibes of this sleeve (the spaceship and meteors) and the ‘jealous guy’ himself seems to be dissolving into abstract fumes of pure jealousy.

Elvis Costello & The Attractions- Olivers army

Issue three out now!

Long overdue but still potent, Issue three of Feral Debris contains interviews with the newly reactivated sci-fi proto punks Simply Saucer, Katheryn ‘Shishonee’ Krupa; harpist with The Trees Community a 1970’s Christian commune responsible for the classic acid folk LP ‘The Christ Tree’, New Zealander Peter Wright- creator of finely wrought ambience and drones, and the now defunct skronk trio Lambsbread. Also included are contributions from Stuart Crutchfield, Mr Dorgon, Blue Firth and the Sound of Drowning, plenty of record reviews and art from Anna Kraay and Sian Macfarlane.

The accompanying cd-r contains small ‘a’ ambience, guitar rumblings and small hairs on the back of your neck tingling from; Core of the Coal Man, Alistair Crosbie and Peter Wright, some sharp jazz rummaging from Owl Xounds, Solar Fire Trio and Sann Yassin, a little improv tinkering from Patrick Farmer and a large slice of The Michael Flower Band (featuring John Moloney from Sunburned Hand of the Man on drums for good measure). It’s a goodie.

£3ppd in the UK/ elsewhere get in touch for prices.