Hello You. There’s intrigue and mystery aplenty at Fog Towers this week, starting with the latest episode of Resonance FM’s FogCast, which opens with ‘Reflections’, the first of two remarkable electroacoustic works by the composer Phil Ellis. These come from two of three tape spools handed to me by the artist Brian Webb, a former colleague and collaborator of Phil’s who dates these to some time around the early 1980s. I’ve digitised the tapes, conducted a little basic restoration and now I’m playing them here as an appeal – in the hope that somebody can help us track Phil down as this may be the first time the work has been heard in 40 years!
You’ll also hear several tracks from Eleven Fugues For Sodium Pentothal, the new solo album by former Stars of the Lid member Adam Wiltzie, plus recent works from Will Gardner and Field Lines Cartographer. The programme closes with a second Phil Ellis piece,’Unquiet’, followed by four extracts from Maryanne Royle’s installation ‘Look at this Land, Look Around You’ at Gallery FRANK, an original Victorian Mill in Littleborough. ‘This work is about where I am and where I’m coming from,’ Maryanne explains, ‘growing up surrounded by the immense abandoned bodies of a deafening and consuming industry turned silent’. Composed using found sound, field recordings and local voices, it’s a sublime listen indeed.
Elsewhere, the mystery and intrigue also spills over into the kind of tawdry cheap melodrama you’ve come to expect on these pages with the thrilling arrival of the new single by The Howling – now accompanied by a decidedly snazzy promo video for your viewing pleasure!
Just when you thought it was safe to back into the Spook House for the Late-Night Monster Show, The Howling return with their latest single. This digital release offers radical new takes on two tracks taken from their recent Wormhole album Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway.
Track A is a video version of ‘The Skydivers’, The Howling’s deadpan exposition on a spectacularly lacklustre movie melodrama, backed by the throbbing of a customised street rod engine. Combining the original studio version of the track with visuals specially prepared with the expert assistance of Executive Producer Lori E. Allen, ‘The Skydivers’ offers all the highs and lows of this moody soap opera in which people either fall in love or throw themselves out of planes.
Track B is a pounding live version of another track taken from The Howling’s ‘Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway’ release. ‘The Picture of A Picture of Dorian Gray’ pays tribute to a 1970s Italian soft-core porn adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic novel. Using keywords scraped from the IMDB entry for the movie, The Howling reconstructs Wilde’s narrative as a fragmented sequence of plot points, themes and images. This recording was made in the teeth of severe technical problems at the Horse Hospital in London on 3 November 2023 and turned out to be greatly enhanced by them. This live version also includes a spoken-word introduction not featured on the album.
The Howling have presented work at Iklectik and the British Film Institute; and their track ‘David Gest, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’ was prominently featured in the Loewe SS24 catwalk show during Paris Fashion Week. They’re still not sure why.
Thank you to everyone who came down to Wow and Flutter in Hastings last week for a live in-store session by The New Obsolescents, especially our completely lovely and awesome hosts Tim and Susan for having us and putting up with our ‘spooky racket’ – all part of an extended run of events to celebrate their ten years in business. Happy Birthday guys! Tim shot this short video taster above and we’re hoping at least some of the material we recorded in the shop will end up surfacing on a second LP at some point. But before then I’m very excited to announce we’re playing Deliaphonic in Coventry on May 2nd!
Finally, thank you so much to Electronic Sound magazine for the fabulous review of the new Howlround LP A Loop Where Time Becomes in their latest issue! Always such a supportive bunch and a total force for good in the universe, I never miss a copy. This month’s main feature is all about the year 1981, a period of which my own memories are understandably hazy, so it’s proving a very handy guide. It also features legendary figures such as Dorothy Moskowitz, Man Parrish and ever-lovable curmudgeon Savage Pencil, so lots of bases covered. Just make sure you don’t drop a copy on your toe…
A Loop Where Time Becomes is out now on limited and delightful purple vinyl and available from the Castles In Space site and all good record shops. Plus some bad ones…
Robin The Fog 