WOEBOT

Nick Gutterbreakz has sent a copy of his Birthday mix to quite a few people. And me. I respect the way NIck, like Johnny Prancehall, has whole-heartedly embraced a genre. I think he was more than slightly nervous that I might, in his words: "throw it in the bin in a fit of rage." But how could Dubstep, such unassuming, polite music invite such a reaction?

There's almost nothing unpleasant about the array of exclusives and dubplates Nick has assembled. Especially to an old raver like myself who is extremely comfortable with its sonic language, the bass troughs, the trotting half-speed jungle drums, the discrete reggae samples. Unfortunately this changes nothing about how I feel about the music. Even despite the presence of a few stand-out tracks: Headhunter's fabulous "Final Cut" (superb riddim tricknology, exquisite poise), the Tektonik track with the deftly-manipulated sitar and the LTJ Bukem aqueous stylings of Scuba.

Earlier on the blog I made a remark about the Frankenstein-ian qualities of the music. I half admit I expected someone to detourn my remarks, spin them into a Zombiest manifesto, hail the music's hollowed-out qualities. It's that "shell-like" ghostly feeling of the shuddering cavernous half-step that is its most alluring feature, and the most noticeable shift in its character over the last couple of years. In the past I used to complain it needed vocals to fill its vacuum, but it's clear that hole is destined to remained unfilled. Better to accept it for what it is.

I'm making it sound good! The thing is I don't find anything to latch on to in the tropical tundra. Dubstep, unlike Gloomcore, is always warm and that works against it I believe. Actually the thought I keep coming back to is Marx's. Marx famously remarked that in the future everything would become pregnant with its other: low-fat cheese, low-alcohol beer. Dubstep is like Rave music without the Dionysian hook, I guess (and now I maybe being slightly mean) that's why its appeal lies with the Old Raver demographic regardless of race or sex. Just clock the pictures at Grievous Angel and you'll know what I'm talking about.

If the bad news is that curmudgeonly naysayers like me are complaining that the music doesn't emote, the good news must be that this music is destined to be huge. It's got a startlingly pan-global roster of artists (scratches head- all this from something which grew out of London Pirate Radio!) and it'll presumably lock into the enormous IDM audience of The Aphex Twin's by merit of its discrete take on race as much as anything else. Also now with the highly-touted, and lets face it good, Burial CD
it has its calling card.

Posted by WOEBOT at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

These 7"s have been around around for two years, they're by the mysterious Various Productions. Marcus first pointed me in their direction in February. XL snapped them up in the end. It wasn't until a interview with them in the (excellent) last edition of FACT that I pulled my finger out and tracked down some of their vinyl. You'll only find stuff at Boomkat, and I wouldn't sleep on the current reissues because they'll be like gold dust.

Obviously the sleeve art is winning, but their crisp pellucid grooves are intriguing too. They've pretty much abandoned the cause of superficial coherency. My batch of four contains a Missy Elliot bootleg, the hollowed out half-speed half-step drunken folk chanson of "Hater", the morris-dancing hip-hop collage of "Biker Walk", mandolin-mania on "Home" and the albino Grime pastiche of "In This". Still, there's an unmistakeable sonic fingerprint. It's refreshing to hear bohemians not cleaving to movements, feebly trailing behind black music, but relishing in their cultural status as privelleged orphans. Not seismic, but exceptionally pleasant.

LP due in the Summer apparently.

Posted by WOEBOT at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

OK, lets wrap this thing up. These three bands are certainly the most important Prog rock outfits to have emerged from France. In keeping with that movement they each possesses a gigantic, complete vision. These discs must rank as the groups finest.

If you'd told me a year ago I'd be singing the praises of Ange, I'd have looked at you askance. I blame the fruitcakes at Gnosis, which if you haven't explored it, you'd do as well to. Although Magma and Gong are probably better-known in this country the experts, it seems, are in no doubt that Ange are the greater band. My copy of "Le Cimetière des Arlequins" (1973) is blessed with a super Pop-Art sticker which nicely undercuts the gothic pomp of the cover. The sleeve art on it surpasses that of "Au-delà du Délire" (1974). Excepting these two records, Ange must have had the worst sleeve art of any band ever. See for yourself here; quite the most excruciatingly repulsive designs I've ever seen, as though they were homages to Marillion rendered by a truck-driver from Lyon.

"Le Cimetière..." is churchical garage rock, dominated by what sounds like a liturgical pipe organ. There's a serious seep in timbre between all the instruments, some people describe the mix as "muddy" but it's fearfully evocative; as though it were a live mix of a band droning away in a cavernous crypt, hunched over their instruments fitted-out in cowls (the tonsured The Monks on the "Black Monk Time" cover spring to mind). There's loads of highlights but it's hard to pick them out so fluid are the records symphonic qualities: the excellent cover of Jacques Brel's "Ces Gens Là" stands out, the patterned filigree of "L'Espionne Lesbienne", the majestic k-hole of "Bivoac (Final)", the title track itself is a killer.

Greg Northrup at Gnosis sketches a comparison between Ange and Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator (which I now, after my own proGnosis, take to be a high compliment) but actually there's a clarity and directness to Ange's music which has less to do with turn-on-a-dime musical theatrics and sonic obscurantism. I'm slightly less keen on "Au-delà du Délire", which seems more self-consciously florid and schizophonically heavy, but it's growing on me after repeated listens.

The vertical detail on "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh" (1973) is quite astonishing and the clarity of the organisation of this volume of sound is stunning. Choirs atop a big band augmented by a rock group with nary a superfluous note and surprisingly quite a nimble lightness-of-touch. It's a masterpiece of propulsive post-Orff-ian big band Jazz (!) which reminds me, not of Ra or The Soft Machine but of righteous 60s choral jazz like Donald Byrd's "A New Perspective" or (most accurately) the ghetto workshop sonix of Eddie Gale's "Ghetto Music". Magma's rock music tag is quite obviously a red herring. This isn't wannabe Jazz in a MC5 do "Starship" fashion, but amazingly, the real McCoy Tyner.

I case you're interested the subtext to Magma's LP the story behind the grooves runs thus:

"One of these people who remembered the essence of the Kobaians' visit was a man named Nebehr Gudahtt, a spiritualist who is the subject of the third Magma album, Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh, recorded in 1973. His message to the people of Earth is that their only salvation from an ultimate and certain doom is through self purification and communion with the divine spirit of the supreme being, the Kreuhn Kohrman. With this album we are introduced to the story of the Theusz Hamtaahk (literal translation: Time of Hatred) concerning the period of time on Earth between the Kobaian visit and the celestial march for enlightenment led by Nebehr Gudahtt which concludes this album. At first Gudahtt's message is rejected, and the people march against him, but as they march they begin to question their very existence and purpose. One by one, they begin to see his truth, slowly reaching enlightenment, and begin to march with him instead of against him."

A typically obscure but nontheless intriguing slice of Vander's convoluted 1970s mythology, a surreal entirely virtual cult.

1974's "Kohntarkosz" is often described as Magma's masterpiece. I used to own a copy of that back-in-the-day and it's good, but trust me, the unmistakably distinct pile-driving "Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh" is the one. Indispensable.

Somewhat fittingly (it being the last record I'm looking out in this epic French series of mine) Gong are not easily classified as French; 'Bringing it all back Home', innit. Daevid Allen was an ex-pat Australian and the presence of Englishmen Steve Hillage and Tim Blake confuse matters further.

I've always avoided Gong in the past, especially their frivolous "Camembert Electrique" (1971) / "Flying Teapot" (1973) / Angel's Egg (1973) trilogy, but in this topsy-turvy headspace I'm in at the moment, I may find myself prey to relativism and be unable to avoid checking them out again. "You" (1974) however has a fearsome reputation, apparently standing heand and shoulders above the rest of their output. Interestingly it is marked by Allen distancing himself from his own groop, as though the band are left to their own devices. What's there to say? It's full-on space-rock nuanced by Jazz and Funk (again the white French showing their comfort with these forms), nowhere is this svelte over-caste phusion more evident than on the fidgety ohr-worm of "You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever", strafed with doppler-synth and laced with scat-babble. Groovy, baby.

Posted by WOEBOT at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I was rooting around trying to get some advice on this thread as to a good stacking system of boxes for my squares.

My previous shelving unit, in its tenth year, had by then given way to the stress. I had to wedge a specially-cut piece of wood between it and the wall of the sitting room as the weight of vinyl had collapsed it sideways against the wall, breaking many of the vertical supports. In an earlier attempt to make it a safer addition to our living-room furniture I'd dismantled it and drilled rawl-bolts into the wall, devising a system using four nautical eye-hooks to attach it to the wall so as to prevent it toppling outwards. I've always feared that, symbolically, the stack would come tumbling down like the walls of Babylon and crush one or other (or both) of my children. I had a little life-script all drawn-out in the event of this happening (in spite of my best attempts): compliant divorce followed swiftly by the sale of the guilty records followed by the default desert hermit existence. Eventually the horizontal slats started to snap under an amalgam of gravity and black plastic, and I made haste to replace my old rig.

The good news was that Spybox boxes have succeeded where my last system failed. First I ordered 15, then 25 more, then two more (cos my maths was so bad I hadn't realised I needed 6 x 7). I tried adding another layer on top but eight high is a tad unstable, and then I'd be back to square one and sleepless nights. They boxes aren't that cheap, but they're extremely solid and Spyder (think: old skool rural raver) goes out of his way to be helpful with delivery and awkward customers (like yours truly). For a month or so my room had the not entirely unpleasant whiff of a chicken-hutch, but that has now subsided. My records are now housed in my study, not the sitting room which I guess designates their present social signification.

Posted by WOEBOT at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I'm having a bit of a yard sale at eBay.

Each of these ten records are doubles of ones I already own, eight of which I picked up on a recent trip to France at prices that were so low it was ridiculous not to pass. They're all absolutely wonderful. Endorsed, seen.

As many of my fellow bloggers are aware, I've made a habit in the past of handing on doubles as gifts. Since I wasn't sure exactly who would want these, I thought I'd have some conceptual fun and present them for sale. In the spirit of this blog they are all being offered up at precisely the same price I paid for them.

While I'm on the "selling vinyl" tip, I ought to draw everyone's attention to the newly-instituted website of my chum Gwen Jamois. Gwen is probably Europe's pre-eminent dealer. I imagine iueke.com will be an eye-opener for some people. It'll put these humble offerings into perspective at the very least!

Posted by WOEBOT at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The previous entry might well be my last dump of printed matter. I thoroughly enjoyed enjoyed writing for FACT and The Wire but quite suddenly came to the conclusion my job was done. I'd like to thank Sean Bidder, Joe Stannard at FACT and David Stubbs, Louise Gray and Chris Bohn at The Wire for having me over the past couple of years.

Is there really so little exciting going on in music? I've been stuck contemplating this for weeks. Certainly whatever groove I had established for my own tastes that sustained me so well over the past few years kind of faltered on January the first. It's OK, I've been in places like this before, doldrums, and like getting a flat tyre on the motorway and being forced to contemplate roadside fauna and unnecessarily dysfunctional relationships, it can end up being an interesting place to be, a worthwhile place in retrospect. People felt this way in 1975 and some super music was made that year.

However if one's taking a strictly negative point of view - 2006(!) must be the worst most depressing year for music, I dunno, maybe EVER! The "Energy Flash" of Acid House which Grime for was for some time the last living manifestation of, finally flickered and faltered. I say "living" to distinguish Grime from Dubstep, which I'd argue is the first properly retrogressive manifestation of post-Acid dance music, it's Frankensteins monster, dead flesh propelled by a wholly artificial electricity. I know there are legions who enjoy the music, there are even articles like the new Burial CD, which are perhaps richly deserving, but for whatever reason it fails to enchant me.

Then there is the Indie axis, why sure, the Arctic Monkeys ARE sort of wretched. I guess I like them because in these times of over-inscription, of weighty codification, they represent a signal. I don't think you could argue that the musical pre-history of The Arctic Monkeys had any great significance to them, in the way history is so clearly important to something like Burial (even if he struggles to negotiate/negate that...) Like The Sex Pistols, who chromatised the most utilitarian and pedestrian of music, trad "Rock'n'Roll", and burnt through it, at least with The Arctic Monkeys there's a sense of a burgeoning elan vital. It's that which is cruelly absent from so much in 2006.

On a positive note, there are things which are good, great even; perennials like Ghost Box for instance. There's also the challenge for me of having to re-evaluate my own tastes. I've been following tips from Simon Silverdollar and have been checking out some Microhouse TM. I've been listening to Nathan Fake's excellent "Dinamo", Luciano's "Sci-Fi Hi-Fi" (which I was pleased to see a friend had done the sleeve for), checking the ultra-lush production of Villalobos "Ach So", picking up "Alcachofa" three years after I passed it over. My collection of this music in the past amounts to the Michael Mayer Fabric mix, Matthew Johnson's "Pipeline" and a couple of CDs Tim Finney burnt me a very long time ago. It's really nice. It doesn't quite set my heart aflame, but it'll do.

Likewise if over-inscription is the mantra of the times, then it's surely right to get my head around Prog rock. There's more posts forthcoming about further aspects of prog. My current pet theory is that in many ways the cul-de-sac I've arrived at has been a case of choosing Beefheart over Zappa. I reckon that may be the key musicological choice. I think you could trace the critical appeal of Rave music, at least in the way Simon Reynolds constructed it, to that crossroads. "Our" path stems from Lester Bangs's tradition of musical integrity and 'orrible prole racket. I've never gelled with Zappa, even though I've copies of "We're Only in it for the Money" and Freak Out" kicking around, but you couldn't deny his centrality to Prog rock. Zappa is like the strange attractor of Prog. So I picked up "Apostrophe" (the second time I've owned this) and am determined to get something out of it. When you've thought yourself into a corner, y'see, you have to work your way clear.

One final thought. Simon wrote very recently of the queue's around New York wholefood store Trader Joes. I have to admit I thought his angle was kinda nuanced. I reckon there's a sense that Simon is actually not wholly dismissive of that in the way that Mark Fisher seems to wholeheartedly deplore it. The case study you have to examine is the Third World. Revolutionary Art-Strikes in Third World culture are extremely rare (I get sick to death having to explain to tedious people what is meant by this, you know what I'm fucking talking about aight...). There's the Kalakuta republic (a one-man revolution essentially), there's Tropicalia and that's pretty much it. If day-to-day existence is a struggle people don't go Castlemorton-curazy. I read Bataille's "Accursed Share" too, and how I understood it (as an ethnographic study) was that what is abandoned is "the cream", the surplus in other words. In almost everywhere in the world apart from the disgustingly affluent US and Europe, there is no surplus. The hedonism of the sixties, for instance, was nothing if not a reaction to what appeared to be a never-ending prosperity.

I don't think people feel they have a tenth of the security they used to. Mark Fisher is ever-so slightly patronising about a generation of youth who haven't been inculcated with the same post-sixties values that he and I have through exposure to left-thinking university culture and the flaming rock press. From this point of view, crucially a global one, I think (fear) that actually we're entering a period of normalcy.

Posted by WOEBOT at 09:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Jeff Zimbalist and Matt Mochary’s documentary focuses on the life and times of one Anderson Sa. Anderson was a drug-dealer in Rio de Janeiro’s notorious Vigario Geral slum before the murder of his innocent brother at the hands of corrupt police, deployed to avenge the death of a senior official, precipitated his decision to join the revolutionary community project Afro Reggae. With humble origins as “Afro Reggae Noticias”, a fanzine dedicated to the Black Brazilian positivity, Afro Reggae grows in stature. Anderson quickly becomes the figurehead of the movement, which soon seeks to recruit young people before they’re ensnared in the grimly seductive and well-paid career path of the drug dealer, a path invariably leading to early death. Afro Reggae’s strategy at the grassroots level most visibly revolves around Capoeira classes (Brazil’s fighting-dance) and Batacuda workshops (where in the absence of proper instruments, kids pound giant plastic oil drums to dazzling effect) but also extends to hygiene and literacy programmes. Their contribution to the life of their favela seems almost immeasurable, a glorious manifestation of Director Jeff Zimbalist’s desire to depict “communities that succeed, that overcome great adversity, that unite and reach and achieve. In short – communities that work.”

Afro Reggae’s signing to Universal Music as “a group” marked a definitive shift in the project’s fortunes. Although the film is keen to posit Banda Afro Reggae as nothing quite so uncomplicated as the mouthpiece of the movement, it is worth making a subtle distinction between the mediatized entity and its origin. While on the one hand, like the Zulu Nation, Anderson Sa’s collective have succeeded in channelling street energy into positive forms; on the other the music of Afro Reggae fails to strike quite the same enervating and radical shapes as that of Bambaata’s movement. Plying a comfortable, soft-focussed fusion of Funk, Reggae, and Hip-Hop with nods to the Miami-bass-inflected thoroughbred mongrel of Baile Funk, Afro Reggae’s music never quite lights the wick. It may be that Zimbalist, who though he succeeds admirably in wrapping the audience up in the gripping roller coaster ride of Sa’s street-life (culminating in a fearfully poignant climax which it is kind to not ruin for the reader), capturing the cultural milieu in thrilling graphics, doesn’t quite manage to do their music justice. The film, a tremendous bare-knuckled odyssey, hardly suffers. One is left inspired by the humility and generosity of these selfless visionaries.

Posted by WOEBOT at 09:43 PM | Permalink