WOEBOT

Swag.

Driving in the car down the M11 in the dark. On the radio I heard two children being interviewed about their collections:

Grown-up (earnest): "Why did you start collecting?"
Little Boy (playing with own fingers): "Well that's a really long story, but the main reason was to impress my friends."

I know what you mean mate. Let's face it, often it does boil down to (adopts that pose held by noble men in Renaissance Italian pictures, forefinger pointed adroitly at the sky): "Look at my splendour!"

(cut to)

Little Girl: "The best thing about collecting is that you can share your collections with your friends."

That's a softer, nicer way to look at this impulse to hoard. A Milk Chocolate Button for you sweetheart.

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My friend Gwen came round last night. I've known Gwen for about ten years. In the early nineties he was making music with Charles Bullen from This Heat. Together in 1991 they put out the Circadian Rhythms 12" in an edition of 100. They gave one to Colin Faver I believe. I wonder whether he could have made it's head from it's tail. It's one of those mythic records, a quite sensible "pointe zero" for "Electronica", in the sense that that constitutes a Post-Acid-House form of Electronic Prog.(own eyes pop out on stalks)

I thought Gwen, whose family is French, was working at IRCAM in Paris. Actually he got a scholarship and is studying at Xenakis's institute the CCMIX. He's got his head buried deep in Maths and Stochasticism and has been given tutelage by Bernard Parmegiani, Francois Bayle, Luc Ferrari and Michel Chion. Gwen, the inveterate fanboy, has had all his Music Concrete LPs signed and adorned with drawings by these magi. The unit has amazing compositional hardware, including one computer which will perform realtime timestretching. Hey Geeta check that out! Gwen works incredibly slowly. He'll think about about a piece for 4 months and then knuckle down and compose it in a month. Sadly he forgot to bring any of his music over with him.

Wonderboy makes very good money on the side as a record dealer. Bar possibly one or two people (he insists they exist) he's Europe's pre-eminent dealer. His list of clients is beyond scary. Interestingly a major part of his trade is in Modern Jazz; selling Argentinian Trios to Japanese collectors, and Tubby Hayes records to the highest bidder. Apparently he's losing interest in the dealing game, becoming buried deeper in making his own stuff. I picked up four records off him, which I could scarcely afford, however we don't hook up all that often. I'm going to keep the identity of those ones a secret, but I thought you might be interested to know what else he had in his bag; records I didn't buy. He'd already sold three apparently amazing Bruno Nicolai Italian Soundtracks before he got to me.

Karel Appel: Musique Barbare.
Quite a few famous artists have made records. I have seen LPs by Salvador Dali, Kurt Schwitters, Jean Dubuffet and Jean Tinguley. Usually the great men are assisted by a few musically-inclined chums. I've always been fascinated by Karel Appel, the Dutch "Abstract Expressionist" and founder member of COBRA. That collective's stuff pushes at the boundaries of the acceptable, it takes Expressionism down one of it's ill-trod paths, towards a scatalogical, wilfully out-of-control naiveity. I'm surprised COBRA isn't a bigger touchstone for musical things like Throbbing Gristle, Gabba etc. It's one of those rare instances of a hooligan bourgeois art-form. Have a giggle at this *GREAT* photo from the lavish insert photo-booklet:

Weighty and Solid, Heavy and Light.
A library record from 1966 distinguished by the fact that it contains one brief two minute track by a very early incarnation of Can. Apparently the Can heads are doing their nut in about this record, which *NO-ONE* knew existed before. The track is a very choice little slice of Soundtracks-era Can, a piece they recorded for a porno film (natch). What threw Gwen initially was the flute on it, apparently contributed by an itinerant Englishman, or at least that's what Holger Czukay told him.

Dream Sequence: Cosmic Eye.
This record should have been in that Routes to India spiel I did way back. It's from 1970 and includes John Mayer in it's line-up. Damn it's a beautiful record, better than the Harriott Indo-Jazz ones. A languid, echoing, baubled vision of something twixt Jazz, World and Electronic music. Couldn't afford it sadly.

Mauricio Kagel: Atem.
You might remember me alluding, in that piece immediately after The Silver Records thing I did, to another series of Avant-Garde Records. A series which inspired Sonic Youth's design of their "Avant" collection. Here's another one from that Perspectives Musicales collection. According to legend these were originally produced with clear ribbed plastic sheathes which, when slid on and off, exaggerated the optical effects on the sleeves. Gwen told me he sold Thurston Moore one of this series.

Musikalische Gruppen-Improvisation.
Not a clue what this was, but (before someone pins me down and tells me) to be honest not that interested. Nice cover though.

Theatre Du Chene Noir: Aurora.
A truly exquisite bit of melodic drifting improvisation by an obscure Theatre troupe from Avignon. Amazingly confident performance from a group of totally obscure players. This is on the legendary Futura label, which allegedly outshines BYG and Saravah, indeed parts of this were reminiscent of Don Cherry's Mu (Part 2), though possibly more sublime. Sealing it's status as lost classic is and extraordinary super-intense half-sung monologue by some insane French hippy-chick, adopting the pose of a deity surveying mankind, warning us (in words even dumbo here could understand) to beware of the "Bird People" who will snatch us and carry us from planet to planet, from star to star. Nuts! And before you try and drop me a line to pester me for Gwen's number with a plan to buy this, you ought to know that he was selling it for, gulp, $1,000. Yeah, now we're ALL frustrated!

Umiliani: il Corpo.
Lovely lovely warm "Axelrod-esque" Italian Soundtrack by this master of the genre. This has recently been been reissiued. Form a queue!

Umiliani: Suspense.
(weeps) I desperately wanted this one, which *hasn't* been reissued, but again couldn't afford it. Though it was something like a fifth of the price of Aurora, it was still out of my league. It's darker, emptier and more electronic than the other score.

Marc Moulin: Sam Suffy.
Also REALLY wanted this, an original pressing from 1975, though mainly because I missed last year's reissue of it, which our friend Kirk Degiorgio wrote the liner notes for. As the story goes, Moulin was subsequently involved with electro-disco-pop outfit Telex. His career path strongly resembling the relationship Harry Hosono had with YMO. Gwen also insisted that I track down Placebo "3". I'm afraid this is a game of catch up which I can't afford to play..

BJT.
A great French Jazz curio on the mighty Saravah label (Brigette Fontaine et al), sustained harpsichord over crisp flowing cymbals. (punches sky) I won points by comparing it to the Art Ensemble of New York on Folkways.

The Vampires of Dartmoore: Dracula's Music Cabinet.
Funny how when we English think of the eldritch we imagine Nosferatu in the forests of Bavaria, while these Germans picture Dracula on Dartmoor. This record has a certain notoriety as Andy Votel (Not really in the same league as my Parisian colleague. Ha!) used it on a compilation he put out on Twisted Nerve.

Musica Ed Eletronica.
Grand Piano and Electronics. Nice but/and a little kitsch.

Philosophis.
Er, pass.

Sound Sculptures.
Cute compilation on the interesting Spectrum Label.

Michel Portal: Our Meanings and Feelings.
French Free Jazz stone tablet.

Michel Magne: Musique Tachiste.
Absolutely extraordinary mid-fifties record by this undiscovered genius. Michel Magne had his own manifesto of "Tachisme", a "Tache" in French being a stain. This wonderful bizarre record sports a full orchestra along with close-miked chanting. The thrust of it is extremely rhythmic, bringing to mind Cage's Prepared Piano Pieces like "Mysterious Adventure", but is less monk-ish in that it's scored symphonically. Very "3D" sound. Magne was a proper jobbing musician, he recorded strange Bossa Nova 7"s for the Tourist market and also turned his hand to a genre-defining Exotica record, which hardcore fans of Lyman/Denny/Baxter believe trumps the masters.

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All in all a fascinating haul. I had a bit of fun playing Gwen "Igloo", some Cold Rush stuff, "I Luv U", Linda Perhacs, and The Books, none of which he'd heard before (you can see he's yet more retro than me!) and which I was delighted he loved. I've been sworn to send him a Grime CD. Lovely to see you bad bwoy.

Posted by Woebot at December 21, 2003 10:01 AM