Stereo Sanctity

I wish the ape a lot of success.

Stereo Sisterhood / Blog Graveyard:
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Other Place. // One Band. // Another Band. // Spooky Sounds. // MIXES. // Thanks for reading.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

The 25 Best Records of 2012: Part # 3.

15. The Choo Choo Trains – tape

(self-released)

One of the best live performances I saw this year was London trio The Choo Choo Trains, in a crowded room full of chattering bodies not paying a great deal of attention. Playing in slow, quiet and determined fashion, the band pretty much ignored their audience and surroundings, building a solid, self-contained universe around themselves amid the chaos, running through a series of skeletal, minor key pop ballads and sad, strange guitar instrumentals, reluctantly allowing us a glimpse into a private world that seemed very special indeed.

From a know-it-all music fan POV, the band possess a kind of wallflower otherness that very much aligns them with Dolly Mixture or The Marine Girls, with a persistent sense of melancholy that seems to come entirely from the latter. But there is nothing deliberately referential going on here. Absolutely none of the contrived scene boosterism or ill-advised C86 nostalgia that so often blights this sort of thing. The world of The Choo Choo Trains seems wholly self-created and self-sustaining. Not precious or arch or garish or ironic, just… simple, and modest, and different. And good, more to the point.

I don’t want to push the naivety angle over-much here, but, rather than carefully composed (ie, boring) album, this lengthy ‘complete recordings’ style tape release is a format that seems to suit this band very well. It has the feel of an unedited collection of things they came up with during a long, long, unhurried practice session, quietly discovering the joy of making music together. And if it could perhaps be argued that, conventionally speaking, we don’t really need to hear a repetitious five minute organ instrumental with snatches of foreign language spoken word (‘Rockabilly Blue’) or an awkwardly executed bit of high school prom night incidental music (‘Something About Dancing’), they all form part of the overall spell being cast, and I’m glad that they are here.

Though the atmosphere remains remarkably consistent across the tape, variety is plentiful. Ramshackle indie-pop bangers (‘Hilma’, ‘Dreaming’), subdued, carefully crafted twangy guitar instrumentals (‘Peppermint Gardener’), hesitant recreations of Buddy Holly-esque heartbroken ‘50s pop (‘Lonely’, ‘(all I Ever Think About is) Rabbits’), eccentric Jonathan Richman style hymns to the everyday (‘Rocket Bicycle’) – all are present and correct.

Touching & inspiring, this is music made with no audience in mind, no real purpose beyond its creators’ own satisfaction. The feeling it conveys reminds me very of such holy documents as Epic Soundtracks’ ‘Debris’ or The Clean’s early EPs – a reassuring flame, and a timely reminder of why I do all this stuff in the first place.

14. Mi Ami – Decade (100% Silk)

I’m really at a loss for something to say about this one, but I’ve certainly listened to it a hell of a lot this year, so there must be something going on here.

Last I heard, Mi Ami were some sort of conceptual art rock duo who released a record with Bob Marley’s face on the front. Now, apparently, they make straight up techno / deep house sorta stuff, and, utterly absurd though it may seem for me to fall back on a couple of ex-indie dingbats for my repetitive beats when there’s a whole churning, ever-changing universe of actual dance music out there, I can’t deny that the results please me greatly.

Opener ‘Horns’ contrasts the gleaming urban sprawl of its glacial synths and echoed hi-hat pulse with an utterly unhinged vocal line buried just below the surface, a somewhat terrifying sounding individual of unguessable gender trying to clamber aboard the hover-car of the music from below, chanting and screaming, “I feel so fucked up, get me out”. The overall effect is akin to pulling into a giant, utopian silver railway station in a hyper-modern bullet train, and looking out of the window to see a disfigured, acid-damaged hobo gesticulating wildly at you. Unnerving, but revealing. Human spirit crushed beneath the machinery and all that.

Second track ‘Time of Love’ lacks such jarring tactics, but I like it even better – a blissful eleven minutes of celestial disco perfection, glass towers of quivering bass rising from the metronomic pulse as dubbed out voices and echoes speed through the side streets in slowed down Doppler effect style.

Years ago I’d probably have despised this record, raging against shitty, inoffensive, backgroundy electronica designed to make graphic designers and fashion students feel better about themselves. These day, 20+ plays on itunes tells you all you need to know, I suppose. S’good, I like it. Look, it’s got a VHS-warped ‘90s straight-to-video sci-fi jacking video, so it must be good:

13. Getatchew Mekuria & The Ex & Friends –

Y’anbessaw Tezeta (Terp Records)

The saxophone is one of those instruments that, like the violin or the accordion, allows no room for amateurs. Either you know how to get a good sound out of it, or you should probably shut up. Getatchew Mekuria knows how to get such a good sound out of it, he seems to throw most accomplished first world players back into the amateur category. His tone is so deep and rich and sonorous that its effect goes beyond the immediate feelings of warmth and welcome and actually becomes slightly queasy and overpowering – an overwhelmingly generous sound, like a Blue Whale stepping out of the ocean to say hello and shake hands.

As is extensively chronicled in the sleeve-notes to this album, the initial meeting
between Mekuria and The Ex seemingly proved a life-changing turn of events for both parties, giving the “grand negus of Ethiopian sax” a new lease of life, allowing him to present his music to audiences around the world after years present playing standards to VIP guests in an Addis hotel lounge, and helping the Dutch punks to undertake perhaps the most rewarding tangent of their long career, reconfiguring the gigantic, cyclical melodies and gargantuan swing of Ethiopian big band jazz for electric rock and avant improv formats, with the earth-shaking results presented on 2006’s incredible ‘Moa Anbessa’ album.

Apparently it was Mekuria himself who expressed a wish to get together with them to make another album – one that the sleeve notes repeatedly refer to as being perhaps his last, the implication being that his health is no longer really up to the demands of performance, and that retirement beckons (proceeds from this album go straight toward his retirement fund). As such, ‘Y’anbessaw Tezeta’ is Mekuria’s record through and through, with his European collaborators often remaining distant in the mix, slightly hesitant to disrupt their leader’s flow, with only the steady, rolling pulse of Katherina Bornefeld’s drumming remaining a constant, as the horn section of regular Ex collaborators interject only for brief, carefully controlled bursts as a counter-point to the central voice of the sax.

Certainly, listeners anticipating something as pulverising as ‘Moa Anbessa’s ‘Ethiopia Hagere’ will be disappointed, as the mood here remains more restrained and contemplative, more in keeping with the original laidback sound of vintage Ethiopian jazz recordings, with the warlike roar of The Ex’s lurching punk rock only occasionally making its presence felt, as the guitarists often fall back on providing more gentle textures of scraping and feedback.

Just hearing Mekuria do his thing is more than enough to satisfy though. His playing here remains as powerful as ever, representing the legacy of a man who has given his whole life over to perfecting and existing within this sound. Stormy discontent brews through the seven slow-burning minutes ‘Ambassel’, a beautiful, expansive track full of mournful trumpet and double-picked guitars, that requires me to use all my self-control to avoid going on about desert winds and shadowy, masked armies. Traditional melody ‘Bati’ presents an even more restrained performance, with The Ex creeping on tip-toes through the undergrowth as Mekuria’s sax turns bewitching, arabesque shapes. ‘Yegna Mushera’ is another definite highlight, remaining similarly low key but somehow overpoweringly bright and reassuring, like the feeling of a joyous family reunion captured in sound.

As my fruity lingo perhaps indicates, this is supremely evocative music, in which the oft-intimidating technique of the players and the strict yet organic lines of the compositions swiftly give way to a heady, transportative effect. Far be it from me to try to define *where* it sends you, but it certainly does send you, and that is very much the point. If this does turn out to be Mekuria’s final recording, it’s a fittingly intense conclusion to an extraordinary career.

12. Motion Sickness of Time Travel – self titled
(Spectrum Spools)

From July:

“Before digging into these LPs, it’s helpful to read up on the methodology Evans used in constructing them. Basically, sides A, B and D were assembled from the kind of shorter pieces that have featured on her previous records, threaded together into twenty minute ‘suites’ in time-honoured ‘70s fashion. Side C – ‘Summer of the Cat’s Eye’ – meanwhile is a one-take live improvisation, and maybe that goes some way toward explaining why it’s my favourite track here. Not that the other sides aren’t great too of course, but ‘..Cat’s Eye’ is really something, by-passing the kind of snidey “sounds like..” comparisons used earlier in this review for a really engrossing trip into the unknown, steady tremoloed signals crashing headfirst into waves of chattering chaos and unknowable space-voices, like original series Star Trek unexpectedly drifting into a Tarkovsky-esque realm of terrifying alien beauty. So that’s pretty good.

As to the other tracks, the whole ‘suite’ concept seems the like kind of thing tailor made to annoy the hell out of me, given my general distaste for stop/start dynamics and liking for distinct, self-contained pieces of music, but in actual fact it works pretty well, to the extent that you probably wouldn’t notice the methodology if not informed in advance. The run-off from each ‘bit’ is nicely calibrated with the rise of the next, further building the established mood rather than upsetting it.
[…]
There is a kind of hermetic purity to Evans work that I think really sets her apart from the potential tedium of the ‘mystic synth explorer’ aesthetic. I may have thrown around plenty o’ names in the paragraphs above, but the truth is that there is absolutely NO “he he, yeah, Tangerine Dream dude” type intent going on here. It sounds instead as if she’s simply sitting down in front of her gear, taking a deep breath and firing it up to make some wide-screen, expressive music, the way it naturally comes out, filtered through the technology, not defined by it – and the celestial depths scraped by the results speak for themselves.”

11. Six Organs of Admittance – Ascent
(Drag City)

Who’d have thought it? A Six Organs record riding high on the list in 2012. After the best part of a decade spent pursuing pleasant but rather inconsequential psych-folky directions on a series of Drag City albums, Ben Chasny’s project would likely have remained very much in the corners of my radar, were it not for the announcement that ‘Ascent’ represents what is to all intents and purposes a reformation of Comets On Fire, a band whose singularly chaotic psychedelic tumult has been increasingly missed round these parts since they faded away sometime in the mid ‘00s.

As you might expect, erstwhile Comets leader Ethan Miller – still mired in the aftermath of Howlin’ Rain’s disastrous mess of a Rick Rubin produced un-breakthrough album – is strictly on second guitar here, following Chasny’s lead as we get a hefty glimpse of what CoF might have sounded like with the positions of the two guitar-slingers reversed. And what it might have sounded like is, you’ll be glad to hear, bloody stunning, as ‘WasWasa’ kicks in with the headiest brew of unashamed heavy-psych fret-mangling I’ve heard this year, afterburners roaring through a text-book perfect emergency descent into a hostile alien world, nerve-shredding solos blearing out like torpedoes across a fearsome High Tide/Pink Fairies groove. Fucking awesome, in other words.

‘A Thousand Birds’, an extended electric reworking of an ancient Six Organs acoustic number, follows suit, with the rhythm section of Ben Flashman and Utrillo Kushner locking down a fine Rallizes style eterno-groove over which Chasny can sprawl and sway as he pleases, intoning verses between cascades of chiming, electrified string texture to fine psychedelic effect – full bore star-dazed rock awesomeness that continues across the hulking landscapes of ‘Close To The Sky’ and ‘Even If You Knew’. Unlike Comets, the sound here is sharp and clear, with more of a progressive edge rounding off the fuzz (kinda matches the outer space concept art), but the playing and the instrument tones are mighty enough so roll with such precision, and the chaos and noise of earlier outings is rarely missed. Quite what all-purpose electronics/effects guy Noel Harmonson adds to proceedings I’m uncertain, but I’m assured that he’s in there somewhere.

A blinding album then, for the most part, but the problem (for me at least), comes when Chasny switches back to his regular solo mode for ‘Solar Ascent’ and the rather anaemic closer ‘Visions (From IO)’. He’s a cool guy and a phenomenal player, and there’s little wrong with these tunes as such, but personally I’ve never been fully sold on this side of his work, and his folkier musings have a slippery, silvery quality to them that I can’t help but find slightly contrived - too overtly studied, veering more toward ‘candle shop mood music’ than the private press cosmic revelations he’s no doubt aiming for.

Still though – for a good 70% of the run time, ‘Ascent’ hits the spot like a battering ram. More please! Official Comets reunion..? C’mon! I’d certainly buy the ticket.

Labels: best of 2012, Getatchew Mekuria, Mi Ami, Motion Sickness of Time Travel, Six Organs of Admittance, The Choo Choo Trains, The Ex

Posted by: Ben / 2:22 PM (0) comments

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Motion Sickness of Time Travel –
self-titled double LP
(Spectrum Spools)

Staunchly ‘experimental’ music fans liable to find themselves bored and annoyed by the faithful reiteration of electronic musicks past might be well-advised to approach Rachel Evans’ prolific recordings under the MSoTT name with caution. For those of us in the ‘ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ camp however, her stuff remains a solid sender, with these four side long tracks adding up to her biggest, most consciously ‘ambitious’, musical statement to date.

For Side A (perhaps knowingly titled, ‘The Dream’), we’re in pure Tangerine Dream territory, no apologies offered. Two silvery synths at work, one holding down a clean, sustained drone whilst the other tinkles across one of those bleepy-bloopy little note patterns that’ll make those of us raised in the ‘80s instantly think COMPUTER. The tone here is futurist – not post-, not retro-, just completely straight up, like Vangelis and Jean-Michael high-fiving as they look over the Tokyo skyline.

Until you drift back into consciousness a few minutes later that is, and realise that suddenly it’s all desert….

Before digging into these LPs, it’s helpful to read up on the methodology Evans used in constructing them, as elaborated in this interview with The Quietus. Basically, sides A, B and D were assembled from the kind of shorter pieces that have featured on her previous records, threaded together into twenty minute ‘suites’ in time-honoured ‘70s fashion. Side C – ‘Summer of the Cat’s Eye’ – meanwhile is a one-take live improvisation, and maybe that goes some way toward explaining why it’s my favourite track here. Not that the other sides aren’t great too of course, but ‘..Cat’s Eye’ is really something, by-passing the kind of snidey “sounds like..” comparisons used earlier in this review for a really engrossing trip into the unknown, steady tremoloed signals crashing headfirst into waves of chattering chaos and unknowable space-voices, like original series Star Trek unexpectedly drifting into a Tarkovsky-esque realm of terrifying alien beauty. So that’s pretty good.

As to the other tracks, the whole ‘suite’ concept seems the like kind of thing tailor made to annoy the hell out of me, given my general distaste for stop/start dynamics and liking for distinct, self-contained pieces of music, but in actual fact it works pretty well, to the extent that you probably wouldn’t notice the methodology if not informed in advance. The run-off from each ‘bit’ is nicely calibrated with the rise of the next, further building the established mood rather than upsetting it. Gradually, contrasting layers and textures fuse into odd and engrossing new patterns, successfully diffusing the whole shoddy ‘been there / done that’ comparison biz that each side's opening minutes may evoke, as is demonstrated when ‘The Center’ (side B) kicks off with a wonky organ pattern straight outta Terry Riley circa ‘Poppy Nogood..’ - obvious to fans of this sorta thing perhaps, but it becomes less of an easy touchstone as soon as the volume of Evans’ wordless sunrise-in-the-desert vocal line rises like a shapeless city on the horizon, and the track takes off on a different journey entirely.

There is a kind of hermetic purity to Evans work that I think really sets her apart from the potential tedium of the ‘mystic synth explorer’ aesthetic. I may have thrown around plenty o’ names in the paragraphs above, but the truth is that there is absolutely NO “he he, yeah, Tangerine Dream dude” type intent going on here. It sounds instead as if she’s simply sitting down in front of her gear, taking a deep breath and firing it up to make some wide-screen, expressive music, the way it naturally comes out, filtered through the technology, not defined by it – and the celestial depths scraped by the results speak for themselves.

Labels: album reviews, late night listening, Motion Sickness of Time Travel

Posted by: Ben / 7:03 PM (0) comments

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

THE FORTY-TWO BEST RECORDS OF 2011:
Part # 7

So, that idea that I should start early so that I’d have time to wrap this up before the New Year…? That went well, right…?

15. Night Birds – The Other Side of Darkness (Grave Mistake)

One of those descriptors, rather like ‘erotic thriller’ or ‘acid jazz’, that inevitably fails to deliver on either of its promised components, dropping ‘surf punk’ in the opening sentence of a review is a good way to wave bye-bye to whatever tenuous engagement w/ a readership one has left. Nonetheless though, it proves unavoidable here, as New Jersey’s Night Birds are, unmistakably, a punk (PUNK) band, incorporating the conventions of the surf (SURF, or perhaps ‘INSTRO’) genre into their music, and doing so with a fearsome competence that sees the results lurking comfortably in the shadow of prime-era Dead Kennedys and (especially) Agent Orange.

At least some of the personnel here – sadly I know not how many or which ones – cross over with the phenomenal Psyched To Die (whose ‘Sterile Walls’ 7” I still like to find time to play at least once a week), and indeed, much here – the shrill, bug-eyed rage of the vocal delivery, the twitchy velocity and incongruously ‘hot licks’ of the music – has evidently come along with them. Whilst lyrical themes remain pleasantly bleak though (demonstrative song titles: ‘Failed Species’ , ‘Can’t Get Clean’), the surf element can’t help but foster a certain irascible goofiness within PTD’s straight-faced nihilism – a goofiness which some listeners may find trying, as cuts like ‘Day After Trinity’ veer about as close to Man..or Astroman? territory as you’re likely to get this side of a Man..or Astroman? tribute album, an effect bolstered by the inclusion of some choice sci-fi movie dialogue. Personally though, I’ve been listening to Man.. or Astroman? a lot this year, and sampling tons of bullshit from movies, so I think all this is just swell. (In particular, the guy toasting the end of the world with a can of beer on ‘Oblivious’ is just plain beautiful.)

As is necessary when monkeying around with surf stuff, the musicianship and recording on this record is frighteningly ‘professional’ for a punk band. Thankfully though, Night Birds (veterans of probably about a thousand other groups between them, I’m sure) are experienced enough to use such – ahem - ‘ability’ to enhance rather than diminish their overall attack, and those uneasy with the goof factor can still enjoy exemplary h/c rippers like ‘Sex Tape’ and ‘Neon Gray’ without having to crack a grin that’s anything less than evil.

Great punk music, great surf music, ‘Other Side of Darkness’ is simply a kick-ass record in every respect, the kind of welcome shock to the senses that has me flailing around for ill-judged metaphors involving whirlwinds and red hot pokers and stuff, so I should probably shut up now before I embarrass myself further.

14. Circuit Des Yeux – Portrait (De Stijl)

Third time out the gate for Haley Fohr under the Circuit Des Yeux name, and in a move that very few would be ballsy enough to attempt, she opens proceedings with a crackly recording of some old time bluesman (I think it might be Son House, but could be completely wrong), discussing ‘the meaning of the blues’ and so forth. A potentially preposterous statement of intent for a young indie-ish type artist, but with the weight she hits us with on ‘Portrait’, it makes good sense.

If her previous records were essentially anonymous – opaque documents of some kind of non-specific pain and unease – then ‘Portrait’ represents an astonishing opening up on Fohr’s part – a big reveal of the voice, emotions and back story behind the music that’s almost unprecedented amongst artists of an avant/noise-type persuasion.

Taking one’s music in a more personal, song-based direction is not necessarily something to be celebrated of course, and neither is striking out at new styles on each record just for the heck of it. But to move straight from abstract basement creep-outs to fully-formed Cat Power / Neil Young guitar balladry in the space of one album is, I think, a fairly astounding progression for anyone, all the more so given that Fohr not only maintains the dread atmospherics of her earlier recordings here, but actually intensifies them, her new-found yen for song-writing simply adding form and narrative to what was previously a big, dark unknown.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the centre-piece track ‘3311’ at first – I mean, christ… it’s not like it’s confessional or sensationalist or anything, but it’s.. pretty straight-up, y’know? The kind of song whose intent you can’t question, whose details you don’t need spelt out.

Troubled times are equally evident on ‘101 Ways to Kill a Man’, where plain-spoken reportage of drug abuse, poverty and parental abandonment can’t help but cast a new light on the cathartic terrors and suburban dread of Fohr’s previous records. Some of the lyrical phrases and musical decisions in these songs might seem a bit rough, a bit overwrought, but as stated above, there is an honesty of feeling to them that bypasses criticism – the bluesman’s opening remarks taken to heart and acted upon.

There are also some holdovers from the old stuff of course – cuts like ‘Crying Chair’ and ‘Falling Out’ ooze a familiarly murky, experimental menace. But, sonically speaking at least, nothing as perverse and terrifying as the strange vistas of ‘Sirenium’ is in evidence here, and it’s clear where Fohr’s new focus lies. Suffocating depression odes like ‘Weighted Down’ and the heavily goth-damaged ‘Twenty and Dry’ could be taken straight from some long lost Nico recording, and ‘Portrait’ closes with a live deconstruction of Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’, causing me yet again to wonder what it is that draws female singers to this most macho of love songs (seriously, I have, like, four covers of it in my music collection, all sung by women). For all of ‘Portrait’s unexpected embrace of the tools of classic rock though, the intent this time round is characteristically unsettling, the ritual demolition of The Boss’s mojo in a hail of formless distortion marking a fitting conclusion to a very dark and brave record.

13. Motion Sickness of Time Travel – Seeping Through the Veil of the Unconscious / Luminaries & Synastry (Digitalis)

I’ve really been dreading trying to find something pertinent to say about Rachel Evans’ (not the one from Comet Gain, obvs) recordings under the Motion Sickness of Time Travel name. Prolific to a fault, there have been at least a few splits, tapes etc this year in addition to these two mammoth LPs (‘Seeping Through..’ is from late 2010 I think, but I got it in 2011 so I’ll count it). Hours and hours of deep haunty-glazey synth-bliss that I have listened to for many, many more hours and hours. Always late at night, after watching some movies or getting back from a gig or just pissing about on a quiet week night, Motion Sickness of Time Travel is almost always on, everyday cares forgotten. The world fades out into sepia. Sleepytime!

On the surface, I suppose there’s nothing much I can quite grab on to (other than a cool name) to help distinguish Motion Sickness.. (straw poll: should I call them MSoTT? No, thought not) from any number of solo analogue-ambient cosmic drifters clogging up my iTunes (I’m always happy to have them). But we tired kosmonauts care not for the surface, right? And there’s something about Evans’ approach to this form really strikes a chord with me, rendering her an immediate big-hitter in the ever-expanding legion of twenty-first century avant-psyche ladies, slotting in nicely somewhere between Grouper and the LA Vampires/Maria Minerva Not Not Fun axis.

And beyond that… well there’s little I can say to really justify the extent to which I like this music, beyond the fact that I think it uses its palette of analogue-generated drones, spectral synth-lines and heavily-effected worldless vocalisations very well indeed, and that it allows me easy access to a wide range of thoughts, feelings and internal spaces that I very much like spending time in.

I suppose that of the two records, ‘Seeping..’ is by far the most nocturnal and potentially sinister, actually even touching on the lofty domain of Leyland Kirby/The Caretaker at some points as Evans builds a thick blanket of decaying textures, the kosmische dream slowly collapsing back into a murky past – tones wavering as the batteries run low, drifts of static as phantom blackbirds peck at the cables, cooing space-voices lurking forever on the edge of hearing, a mulch of dead leaves across the studio floor… or something like that. ‘Luminaries’ by contrast sheds a more optimistic light on the signifiers of nostalgia, the blanked out couple embracing against blinding Pacific glare on the cover providing a perfect illustration of the wistful, memory-tripping games within – faded seaside photos, kaleidoscopic patterns of light on the water, sunstroke visions… same fingers on the same machines, but I think now there’s sand on the floor of the studio. Sometimes the motion sickness is worth it, I’m thinking.

12. The Spits – The Spits V (In The Red)

Hey, a new album by the Spits! Fuck yeah, I love The Spits! They’re the greatest! This is a new album by them, and it kinda sounds like they always sound, more or less.

Well, I mean, it’s not got as many instantly catchy hits on it as IV (the one w/ the kids school photos on the front), but it still rules. It’s got a heavier guitar sound and louder drums, and more of that kinda malfunctioning retro-futurist punk-sci-fi kinda thing they like so much going on, like the sound of some perpetually drunken KBD punk band rampaging around the wastelands in some second hand Damnation Alley wagon held together with duct tape. Pretty damn cool, huh..?!? Yeah!

People say The Spits records pale in comparison to seeing them live. I dunno, I’ve never had the pleasure, but in the meantime I like their records just fine.

Song-wise, we got ‘All I want’, which is a rule-ass pop song, and ‘My Mess’ and ‘Fed Up’ which are about making a mess and being fed up. They’re great! Quite a few of the songs – ‘Tomorrow’s Children’, ‘Electric Brain’, ‘Fallout Beach’, ‘Acid Rain’ are all creeped out sci fi / post-apocalyptic doom kinda things. Alright! ‘Last Man On Earth’ might be inspired by the Vincent Price movie, or it might not, but it definitely steals the melody from some classic rock song I can’t quite put my finger on. Awesome!

And, uh, yeah, that’s it. This rules!

Whatcha looking at? Expecting me to write more or something? Show’s over! Go listen to The Spits.

11. Peter Stampfel & Jeffrey Lewis – Come On In (self-released)

When I went to see Peter Stampfel and Jeffrey Lewis play a concert in Brixton just under a year ago, I suppose I was expecting a fairly laidback affair – a folky, acoustic instruments only sorta show, Jeff maybe breaking out some of his mellower numbers in between paying homage to the septuagenarian Holy Modal rounders founder, a few hippy laff-fests, a gentle stroll through the Alan Lomax songbook and off we go. Y’know the sorta thing.

Boy, how wrong can you get! Turns out it was actually one of the most raucous shows I attended all year, both performers having the time of their lives, bashing out riotous, rough-as-a-bear’s-arse folk-punk as Stampfel pulled hit after hit out of his murky solo back catalogue – a seemingly endless barrage of hilarious, weirdo rock n’ roll songs undreamt of in the halls of man. ‘Black Leather Swamp Nazi’! ‘Duke of the Beatniks’! ‘Stick Your Ass in The Air’! That great song they did about going to bars and causing trouble! This is some mad, bad, wonderful shit going on right here; my kinda music, my kinda people.

The dynamic between these two guys was really beautiful, each seemingly realising that they’re a different generation’s version of the same person, goofing around on stage swapping endless anecdotes of comic-book shopping orgies, Victorian drug-taking practices and forgotten New York boho antics, infusing each other’s songs with new sparks of inspired oddness.

Somewhat more mannered in presentation, this self-released tour CD perhaps doesn’t quite reflect the leery enthusiasm of that live show, but it’s nonetheless a fine collection of the fruits of this particular meeting of minds. The first half showcases a handful of great new Lewis numbers, the wonderfully self-explanatory ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea’ and ‘I Spent The Night In The Wax Museum’, whilst Stampfel toasts his collection of vintage bottlecaps on ‘Bottlecaps Are Cool’ (“..if you don’t believe me you’re a fool”), and summons the aforementioned spirit of raucous abandon perfectly on his frenzied drunk-driving anthem ‘Busted’. Things mellow considerably on the second half, Stampfel’s age and experience showing through as his voice cracks on a beautifully spare rendition of ‘God, What Am I Doing Here’, a strange, simple and deeply moving song written by his long-lost wife and writing partner Antonia. The incredible early work of Stampfel’s old comrade Michael Hurley also gets a look in on a renamed version of his signature ‘No I Won’t Come Down’ and the unvanquished hippy ghosts take on full substance on the gentle stoner testimonials of ‘Little Sister in the Sky’ and the psyche-folk epic ‘On We Went’.

If Lewis and Stampfel’s respective careers prove anything though, it’s that hippy and punk when properly expressed are one and the same notion, and through listening to their collaboration and hearing their rambling dialogues, I’ve come to realise just what a goshdarned inspiration Stampfel in particular is – living proof of how far following your weird dreams and obsessions can get you, still overflowing with enthusiasm for comic books and cultural detritus, still presumably penniless, still making new friends and cranking witty, weird-ass punk songs, still a thousand miles off anyone’s radar, yelling off-key like a foghorn and whacking his violin like he just picked it up for the first time yesterday, still laughing in the face of any notion of respectability. What a hero. Here’s hoping he keeps at it for a good while longer.

This song isn’t even on the CD, but it’ll kinda set the tone nicely I think: