Thanks to everyone who came down to Resonance FM’s Gala performance from inside White City’s East Tower on Wednesday. Part of White Noise‘s programme of residencies inside the towerblock in the weeks leading up to its demolition next month, the evening featured the premier of a brand new Howlround work inspired by and recorded inside the building, using only sounds found amongst the abandoned office spaces. At some point I’m going to do something with all the material I’ve accumulated from recording the building. – it’s resulted in quite a handful of new tracks, but with the next two albums already in the pipeline, I’m not quite sure what to do with them yet! I’m hoping also for one last crack at one of the pieces which had reached an ‘interesting stage’ by the time of the performance but to my ears could benefit from further exploration. Hopefully the above extract will whet your appetites for the time being. For added intrigue, have a listen while admiring Nick Balloon’s beautiful photos of the tower interior’s abandoned office spaces.
Speaking of all things Resonance-related, this week’s Near Mint show is pretty darn fabulous though I say so myself, featuring as it does a trip round the Teutonic turntable and a generous portion of German library and soundtrack music originally purposed for soundtracking the sci-fi, sex and shopping adventures of our continental cousins of the 1960s and 70s. And yes, it it’s every bit as tantalising as that sounds!
Also in radio-land, the July edition of Mike Harding‘s ‘Longwave’ show on Los Angeles-based station Dublab is now available for a stream and a download. Recorded in a rather noisy pub in Crystal Palace on the night England endured the ultimate humiliation at the hands of Iceland, with Mike and Stephanie John. Stephanie talks about and played an extract from Steel Cymraeg, her recent quadraphonic sound installation at the Royal College of Art, which was comprised of field recordings of the Trostre steelworks, Llanelli; while I’ve contributed an extended Foggy Megamix of some of my all-time favourite records, old and new. From a chap called Jim Henson to A Guy Called Gerald, from an African Lullaby to a Landscape Sculpture with Foghorns, it’s all there. It also features tracks from new albums by JP Hartnett and Merz, both of which are thoroughly worthy of your attention! Stream or download here.
Meanwhile, big thanks to Alannah Chance, producer for Late Junction and 6Music among many other goodly works, for including a radio piece of mine in the latest instalment of Folded Wing’s ‘Listening Post’. ‘If you don’t have time to listen to any of the others, take 2 minutes to listen to this’, she says, which is jolly flattering given the calibre of the other work on display. Have a listen and a dig around her other selections here. Much obliged, Alannah. I owe you a cherryade.
Wrote a thing about some radio I like @foldedwinguk ft @cathyfitzg @AndyVotel @NTSlive @AllusionistShow @RobinTheFog https://t.co/1xAwXydGPc
— Alannah (@Miss_chance) July 8, 2016
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Finally, don’t forget that Howlround are playing Homemade Disco evening at Paper Dress Vintage in Hackney on Tuesday, alongside the ‘soul/blues/grime and psych folk’ of Le Juki and the ‘generative systems and analogue synthesisers’ of David. It’s at 352A Mare St in Hackney and further details can be found here.
Well, that’s probably enough to be getting on with. Certainly an improvement on the original idea for this post, which was just going to be me screaming ‘BORIS JOHNSON!?!! YOU’RE JOKING, RIGHT?!!’ It’s lucky that all this great music and radio continue to be made or else there surely would be a mad collective dash off Beachy Head. 2016 will now surely go down in history as the year that everything went officially batshit bananas…
Robin The Fog 