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QUARTET: 4 ALBUM REVIEWS

Return of the Spouse

“Are you Being Serious???”

The latest heavylight effort from local Indie legend JP Baron comes in strong with the enigmatic opener “Dirt and Cellophane” complete with lulling vocal harmonies like a bedroom pop Brian Wilson. The repeated chorus line “are you being serious” echoes the album title making it kind of a title track. Lyrically it offers much intrigue with lines such as “scrambled my veins with dirt and cellophane” which leave you guessing what the image might mean and how literally to take it as the author’s voice, or perhaps a fictional speaker… like we learned on gcse Eng Lit. The drum machine underneath everything provides a foundation and also serves to propel the pieces forward. The guitar work, as you might expect given the years JP has been at this, is confident and playful in a hooky melodic sort of Dinosaur Jr way. If you’ve ever had sparkling red wine, it’s at once lively and soporific, and this is the image comes to mind for this record. Full bodied, but with pizazz and gentle verve, reminiscent of Graham Coxon in his quieter solo moments. It packs a wistful sorrowful punch while remaining amiable and fun.

Listen here:

The Cool Greenhouse

“S/T”

Repetition, repetition, repetition. Literate post punk bands are always welcome round here. Perhaps reasonable given the jarring guitars and even the vocal delivery to suggest a large debt to the late Mark E Smith and The Fall circa Hex Enduction Hour or Grotesque. But given we’re not going to have any more albums from Mark himself, these particularly well assembled and competently throwaway songs with droll, satirical lyrics, that altogether circle and build like some kind of electric tornado full of jagged building blocks, are most welcome and come more under the bracket of expert homage than being accusable of say being derivative or copyists. I write this just to deflect any such accusations and say I’ve considered it and this vital work is great recorded and would be a great live experience no doubt, one in which I hope to catch soon.

Listen ‘ere:

Lovely Giraffe

“Will this do? (No – Ed)”

Joseph Turvey AKA Lovely Giraffe set himself a mission of covering as many songs as he could in his sophisticated and playful (mostly) MIDI style all in (mostly) one day. In fact he admits he started a couple of covers and finished them to put them on the album but nobody is calling him lazy. It seems in fact an amazing feat, and incidentally it’s quite listenable too! The only two covers I recognised were the anomalous acoustic number “Love You” (Syd Barrett) and “My Sharona” which weirdly sounded to me like early Joy Division via a 16 BIT overhaul. Lovely Giraffe have been persisting in their computer music for many years and by now have gathered a few followers and crystalised a distinctive sound. The titles can be sardonic, but this is music made in earnest surely even if it “fails to take itself seriously” by LG’s own admission. The context to read this music in is complex and sophisticated as it is simultaneously straightforwardly just what it is. It’s very hard to review, I’d suggest you get yourself a cup drink and listen to the back catalogue, but “Will this do? (No – Ed)” is a fun way in and I’m told contains a Bob Dylan number (license to kill) from the 80s when of course after his 60s Hayday and the 70s creative peak but before his 90s revival fewer people were listening. This take on Dylan reminds me of lofi king Magnetic Fields. I’m pretty sure a few of them are metal covers done with programmed drums and synths with effects on. The addition of vocals is most welcome to me. There’s a lot of lesser heard music from obscure artists that deserves attention and this is one such artist. If you like veering off the beaten track into more unusual terrain, it’s one for you.

Listen. Hear.

Procrastinatrix

Contra indications

Toby Godden AKA Procrastinatrix was good enough to send me this review copy through the post. I suppose I was in a worn out, defeated kind of mood when I played it because it didn’t speak to me on first listen, and I got in a pickle about whether I ought to review it at all. This was maybe two months ago, during which time I lost the CD and its hand drawn case. I suppose its appropriate for a project based on the concept of procrastination that I have taken this long to review the CD. I had been going through ideas of getting someone else to review it who might have something more inspiring to say about it.

            Anyway, thankfully I am in a more receptive frame of mind, and the slow paced octaving pulse of opening track “Wherefore” is putting me in a gentle trance and making the words flow. The jazzy guitar samples (maybe played live?) contrast with the shamanic type beat, yet gel well and make a crazy kinda sense. Five minutes in and some new textures are shimmeing in the background. It’s a very chilled sort of music, and there’s an admirable degree of restraint in the arrangements. If I ever make electronic music I tend to add more and more things including the kitchen sink until its just a hot mess. This track holds back from that, with pleasing repetition but enough variety. I wonder if “wherefore” is a lovesong? The title suggests Shakespeare’s most well known love story. I think this is electroacoustic music you’d call it, with samples from IRL recorded with a mic and looped and filtered and arranged on the computer.  

            I’m listening to this in real time but I don’t want to do a track by track review for risk of raising the spoiler alert. This home produced record offers to my waxy ears a pretty decent standard of production and overall has a chillout room or late night after party vibe, sounding in places like “My angel rocks back and forth” era four tet, or bringing to mind moments of Susumu Yokota. Procrastinatrix is ironically very productive (if this is a procrastination project then he’s stealing serious time from some other activity) and I gave his last effort a good review, hence probably why I was sent this. It would be shitty to write a bad review of a local artist who is still gaining attention, but thank heavens the clouds have lifted enough for me to hear this intelligent electronic music properly. It veers from the cerebral end of Detroit techno to electronic minimalism. The perfect soundtrack to post pub physics chats about applied time travel over a herbal cigarette or tea or something. The album is planned to be released by end of day today (wednesday 30 august), and as with all these artists there's more material to explore on their bandcamp pages.

https://procrastinatrix.bandcamp.com/album/contraindications

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Union of Trades was a commission for the Arts Council England funded Traders Tracks program, curated by Sally Payen from Salt Road for New Leaf Sustainability Ltd.

Artists were invited to respond to Alfred Watkins 1920’s old straight track postal club Hereford Library archive at Hereford Archive and Records Centre. This club of 30 people mapped pre-Roman trading routes across the UK, creating nearly 40 boxes of archive material.

For me this is a story of pre-colonised indigenous people in the UK having a sophisticated system of straight trading routes. That straight tracks were here before the invasion of the colonial Romans. It is important for me to explore British colonization through that lens of an inherited imperialistic history.  

I invited the dancer Will Hodson from 2 Faced Dance to visit the archive with me and them two of the Iron age camps that were on the first Ley (trading track) that Watkins mapped. Croft Ambrey and Risbury Camps near Leominster Herefordshire.

This work is a result of his choreographed movements at those camps. It will be exhibited at The Nature of Cities Festival in March 2022

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Nice n crunchy toe tapping mind melting garage psychedelia from Raptor! Check out Escapism and drift away. New material in the pipeline...

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Listen to (the) “Rain Fall”

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SATURDAY 26th FEBRUARY: - I wanted to review Andy Williams’ impeccable and stylishly oblique yet accessible new exhibition at The Loft Cinema, which in a way is what I am doing, but the whole day was such a welcome roundabout jolly excursion from show to pub to another pub to chippy and beyond that I thought I’d review my whole day. I hope Andy will not be disappointed by this, as it was lovely to meet him and speak about his love of derivee (which he calls “nature walks”, rather less pretentiously, and inclusive, both in the sense of not alienating his audience with talk of flaneurie or Baudelaire, but also inclusive in the sense that his nature walks cover man made objects as well, presumably because we are a part of nature, but I digress...) we also spoke about his process with the sumptous pinhole photographs and his influences. I saw shades of William Egglestone, Peter Fraser, and much else in his astute observations of the apparently mundane, which appeared here, literally elevated onto the gallery wall. They looked good against the black walls, which is a novel decision on behalf of The Loft, who have had a fair few exhibitions over the last year, including, if I may mention it gratefully, my own Outsider Surrealism exhibition which was a right hoot. Anyway, the Lofet is a cool place and where else are you likely to see a Wild Hare Club presented double bill of alternative music documentaries? The Velvet Underground doc was outstanding. But I digress... and will continue to, shamelessly allowing my mind to wander in its own sightseeing tour of my memories at the exhibition and beyond.

Going back a couple hours, winding the time travel watch... five to two ande I was in town with Bizzy and Russell texted to see where i was at. I said I’d be there in two minutes, loaded the polaroid camera I’d taken with me with the film that’s sat in the fridge maybe for a year (I don’t even know if you’re meant to keep it in the fridge. Colour and black and white film, yes. Polaroid? Not sure) snapped a photo of Bizzy before kissing her goodbye. It came out too dark so I’ve tried to colour correct it but it looks green and high contrast and strange. Other than the colour and tone it was a nice shot. When I saw Russell outside the loft I got a better result. After catching up a little we walked up the stairs and deliberated on whether to go to the bar. On balance we realised it was the best course of action, as it’s standard procedure. Fiona welcomed us and sorted us out with drinks. Russell got entangled in some banter about drinking the same beer as the man sat behind us, which I thought he handled admirably. Most social encounters spin me out and frighten me, particularly with strangers, so I was impressed. We went through to soak up the photos and met Andy who is pictured above in front of one of his imaginatively and inventively composed pictures.  Which takes us up to where we were.

Is this too all over the place? Has everyone stopped reading alreadye? I’m now sat, as I write, in the annexe of my parents’ house typing with persistanct velociety bar for the odd correction, which is needed more often due to the jammed e key which I’ve not had fixed yet. I said to Bizzy I’d be home at seven. Dry Cleaning EP2 is playing on my laptop and said something about “Facts and relevant information”. I suppose that would be an idea.

Russell and I went downstairs and I had a cigarette. He was eyeing up the Hereford Beer House. I said I had found the atmosphere a little flat but they had an array of excellent beer and were knowledgeable. We went in, and I realised after the first couple of sips of what turned out to be a 12% beer (I only ordered a third of a pint thankfully) - I think it was a porter, the owner behind the bar told me it had coffee, chocolate, and vanilla notes, which I thought sounded excellent. As we drank (me, a lightweight, and out of practice besides, so very slowly) the owner talked to another customer about how people complain about the prices but it’s cheap for craft beer and there’s always wetherspoons.... TBC

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Music Review: Mould EP by Procrastinatrix (Bandcamp)

 There is a strand of electronica invariably made by men who remember the hayday of 90s IDM, the acronym if you don’t know standing perhaps embarrassingly for “Intelligent Dance Music”. Many of the proponents of this phase of music are still going now – Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Bonobo, Matmos. Music to make your brain dance more than you’d actually jig about to it. Samples are looped and reconfigured, and generally messed with all over an often glitchy or irregular somehow beat. It’s a genre of music that the few leaders are fairly widely known while a hoard of imitators lurk in the shadows. So what makes Procrastinatrix effort worthy of your attention?  Well, I’m going to approach this question track by track. There is a range of sounds and a focus at play that makes this effort stand apart from its peers. Mould is an EP and there are five tracks, so bear with me.

           Track 1 is called ScissorSlice – the name alludes to the cutting and splicing of sounds that cycle over the incessant beat. It is purposeful and trance inducing, the synth sounds both classic and fitting to the piece. ScissorSlice evolves, almost with glacial slowness, wheras track 2 Zaphod’s Hangover is a more hectic Aphex-esque arrangement starting with a swirl of reversed and cut up sounds before a speedy beat comes in. It is frenetic and the playful shifts in tempo keep you on your toes. This is more reminiscent of the fun side of Squarepusher. The clipped snippets of vocals integrate well. Track 3 Paying for Algorithmic Friends has shades of Boards of Canada and even early Chris Clark, with a satisfying loop being made the most of with a cyclical beat over the top, but some changes so subtle you think you just didn’t notice them last time around. The production throughout is impressive and appropriate to the style. Opticon is track 4. A more brooding one that builds. As soon as the beat comes in we are reminded of some of Chemical Brothers more strident moments. There is an air of that shortlived genre of Big Beat here but an earnestness not shared by that whimsical genre. It’s like a soundtrack for a film in your head, if you’re an imaginative type and would lend itself well to film. Track 5 is called Mothers All The Way Down and has a bitcrushed beat echoing over some saturated synths.  This is the kind of music that would be perfect in the background in a late night session drinking and chatting but you’d find yourself drifting off and listening to the music and being like where were we oh yeah we were talking about the monopoly Spotify and YouTube have in the music industry and how its difficult for smaller artists to get anywhere so why not indulge your curiosity and listen to this record on bandcamp and maybe even buy it or explore his back catalogue because like those memes say about small makers Toby would probably do a happy little jig. Stay tuned for the forthcoming album which promises to be a vivid and lively selection of magpielike collected sounds, a vertitable time machine that goes back into simpler, happier times while facing a brave new future, and certainly and album worlds away from the mainstream formulae you hear on the radio at work.

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Theatre Review: Ernie’s Journey by Clementines Live Arts, at The Globe@Hay.

Sunday morning, and the auditorium is filling up with friendly families for this family friendly theatrical extravaganza. Off the back of a hectic outdoor tour all over the UK, in Brighton, Reading, Coventry, the Lake District and other venues, Clementines Live Arts are today in beautiful Hay-on-Wye. We are played in beautifully by one half of the company “Emmy the Harp” as we find our seats and wait for the performance proper to begin. The eponymous “Ernie” has a much longer full name, but says we can call him “the Captain”. Thus begins the adventurous story of “Ernie’s Journey” in a flurry of icebreaking audience participation and sensory experiences that bring the ocean storm into the globe in an expedient manner.

           Expect jaunty sea shanties, and the kind of silly jokes that make you groan pleasantly but you have to admit actually take a degree of intelligence to come up with. Also, convoluted tongue twisters you wouldn’t want to say after a bottle of rum, me hearties.

           The storytelling is engaging and dramatic, since Jackie Clementines is both clearly well-rehearsed and obviously a natural performer. Through his dramatic persona, he engages absolutely and thoroughly entertains the crowd. Clementines plays the title role with commitment and aplomb, and the accompanying musical passages are integrated smoothly, as are the regularly included feats of circus skills, slapstick moments, and puppetry.

           The children in the audience seemed very much engaged and intrigued by Ernie’s Journey, and furthermore, the adults seemed quite happy to be there too. Maybe enjoying it through their children’s eyes, but enjoying the show no less. The narrative of the play is essentially a vehicle for the host of skills and stunts that are seamlessly woven through the tapestry of the play. Knives from the ship’s kitchen are juggled, a sword is balanced, and the adept and understated musical accompaniment adds a dreamlike quality.

           The scope of the musical accompaniment goes beyond the harp, to also include melodica and chimes. The plot is imaginative and fun and included conventions from pantomime but without being formulaic or wearing thin. Expect a bit of “it’s behind you” slotted into the story as well as calls of “I can’t hear you” when the audience participation is on the shy side.

           The circus skills on display are genuinely spectacular and impressive, and even more cynical parents have to hand it to Jackie Clementines that he’s pulling off some amazing stunts. Swashbuckling fun for all the family – a marvellous journey with Ernie with a positive message of the transportive power of imagination and self-belief.

  Future shows:

Wem Town Hall, Shropshire on October 16th

St Michael's Church, Somerset on November 20th.

Clementines Live Arts will also be doing an indoor theatre tour around Easter which will include the Courtyard in Hereford.

 https://clementineslivearts.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/clementineslivearts/

https://www.instagram.com/clementines_live_arts/

  Omar Majeed 3/10/21

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New podcast ft. OG Russell Taysom at the recieving end of my wayward interviewing style, talking about his zine with 20 years of flyers, and his 3 story comic, Genius. woahohwoah https://soundcloud.com/scree-zine/johnnys-podcast-sweet-episode-sixteen-anti-illustrator-russell-taysom-guests

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Ambiently inspired by the sound of Bristol during his time living there, Marc returned to Hereford and borrowed a load of pedals off a friend, and during lockdown recorded the sound sketches which when combined with expediently collaged drum loops on the cheap computer software he acquired, would become his emotive and trance inducing album “Endings...” out now on Scree records via the bandcamp https://screerecords.bandcamp.com/album/ending

Omar Majeed (co-founding editor of SCree) interviews Marc about his inspirations and influences.

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Marc Reeves’ debut album“Ending”out now on SCree records.

A record that has been on the horizon for a quarter of a century, but life got in the way. Better late than ever, SCree records are proud to present the stunning debut by guitar hero, Marc Reeves. Like a no budget My Bloody Valentine, Marc has produced a visionary album with a guitar, some borrowed pedals, and computer software called mixcraft. The result is intoxicating.

https://screerecords.bandcamp.com/album/ending

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the 15th or so edition of the gloriously rambling Johnny’s Podcast, ft. Artist/Crabman Rex Birchmore