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.