Author: Robin The Fog

Hello You. Time for another breathless update from these pages, starting with news of a couple of live shows taking place in London this November. On Thursday 2^nd I’ll be unveiling a new audio-visual live work with Psyche-Tropes’ Merkaba Macabre as part of ‘Butoh Experiments’ at Iklectik, an evening of performances hosted by the 2023 Rebellious Bodies International Butoh Dance Festival. Also live on the night will be Pascal Savy and Ben Jeans Houghton. Details and tickets here.

The very next day, Ken Hollings and I will roll out The Howling once more for MEMOREX: Bonfire of the BASF, an evening of ‘Misremembering’ at The Horse Hospital, hosted by Travis Elborough. Further delights come courtesy of a performance by dear old chum Kemper Norton, plus Ruth Bayer and Caroline Wise in conversation.

Two of my very favourite venues, both a hugely important part of London’s historic and cultural landscape and of course both under threat from nasty greedmonger developers as a result. Almost inevitable these days, isn’t it? But it does mean that both venues welcome custom and support more than ever, plus you can join the campaign to save Iklectik and its Old Paradise Yard home here.

Elsewhere, I was chuffed indeed to be the guest on a recent episode of the Audio.Com Podcast, where I chatted with host Ilia Rogatchevski about Howlround, my work as a sound archivist, the wonderful world of Radiophonics and that dirty word ‘obsolete’, while also playing random blasts from the back catalogue. Have a listen and then head straight to the latest episode which features the superb ‘Krautfolk Collective’ Staraya Derevyna.   

Also check out my new Audio.com Profile page, which contains among other things, the Howling’s recent smash hit single ‘David Gest, Liza Minelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’ and a raw live demo recorded in one take with members of the crowd at last month’s ‘Dark Tales And Strange Sounds’ event at Copped Hall. Might just upload some more work in progress in the coming weeks there as well, as I’m currently awaiting the green light to move into a new studio space. Fingers crossed!

Speaking of smash hits, one outcome I had not anticipated in my own personal game of ‘outrageous fortune bingo’ was to have the aforementioned Howling smash hit single featured as part of the soundtrack to the catwalk show for fashion giant LOEWE’s Spring and Summer 2024 Collection. And yet here we are – Ken and I knee deep in the glamorous world of high couture, and it feels good and right. Never again will anyone dare to cast aspersions on my sartorial elegance! Might celebrate by investing in a pixelated hoodie:

And finally please cast your ears over ‘Ivy’, the rather splendid recent single by Benjamin Yellowitz. Can you hear just the faintest trace of tape machine echo in the background? It comes courtesy of Daphne, my semi-faithful UHER6000, who enjoyed a trip out Benjamin’s studio sometime last year. At the time the song was little more than an accapella and a clicktrack, so it’s amazing to hear how it’s blossomed in the interim. Bodes well for a future album!  

You are hereby invited to a very special event taking place at Iklectik on Tuesday 19th September, where Ken Hollings and I will reunite as The Howling and celebrate the (un)official launch of our brand new album Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway with some brand new live material as part of this star-studded collective. See you there?

drøne, English Touring Opera and IKLECTIK present: Vox Interruptus

19 September 2023 | Doors: 7:30pm – Start: 8:00pm

Tickets: £10 adv / £12 otd – link here.

An evening of voice versus noise. Operatic soprano from Julia Marika alongside drøne (their UK premier), The Howling (Ken Hollings and Robin the Fog) talk trash over tape loops and distortions and Dale Cornish delivers south London keening in all its joy, horror and sadness. JTM is the overseas special guest – the mystery voice (What’s My Line for the 21st Century?) in this eclectic lineup.

Incredible Night Creatures of the Midway is the long-awaited sophomore album by THE HOWLING, that beguiling collision of text, tape and trash from the tangled minds of Ken Hollings + Howlround officially released 29th September on The Tapeworm’s sister label Wormhole. The album’s lead single, “veritable trash aesthetics checklist” and our first ever recording together: ‘David Gest, Liza Minelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’ is out already, and comes as a free download when you preorder the album. Copies of the CD will also be available to purhase on the night – weeks in advance of its arrival in the shops!

The Howling is a collaborative project started by writer Ken Hollings and sound artist Howlround devoted exclusively to their shared love of text, audiotape and Trash Aesthetics. An intense collision of spoken word and analogue tape effects, The Howling provide the missing link between John Cage and Suicide. Their debut album All Hail Mega Force, released by The Tapeworm in 2022, was hailed by The Wire as a ‘mesmeric disorientation.’

One year later, and with some blistering live performances at Iklectik, The Horse Hospital and the British Film Institute under their belts, The Howling are back with a second album inspired by their passion for Trash Cinema. ‘Contents Warning’ pays tribute to the quantities of sex, horror and violence to be found in the genre as a whole, while ‘David Gest, Liza Minnelli, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor’ is a veritable Trash Aesthetics checklist.

Each of the remaining three tracks is devoted to a specific movie dear to The Howling’s hearts: The Skydivers is a deadpan exposition of a spectacularly lacklustre 1960s soap opera set on a California airfield, backed by the throbbing of a customised street rod engine; while ‘The Picture of A Picture of Dorian Gray’ is a pounding response to a 1970s Italian soft-core porn adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s classic novel. Finally, The Howling are joined by Beth Arzy of Jetstream Pony and composer/performer Ela Orleans for ‘Miss Frost Miss Leslie Miss Frost’, an exacting dismemberment of Miss Leslie’s Dolls, a creepy Florida-based slasher flick rumoured to have been produced with money smuggled out of Castro’s Cuba. We dare you to play it in the dark!

The whole package has been magnificently mastered by Steven McInerney with beautiful cover artwork by the great Stefan Fähler and design by Don Wyrm, so it’s really quite a team effort. Plus copy comes with a PDF download zine of the lyricas, so everyone can sing along!

Ken Hollings + Howlround = The Howling: ‘The First Name In Excitement!’

As the evenings draw in, and the nights grow colder, and following four successful sell-out performances of Dark Tales & Strange Sounds at Copped Hall, the team moves on to a yet darker new production. This time, we’re making use of much more of the Mansion, with performances happening in the Saloon, the State Hall, the Housekeeper’s Room, the Parlour and – of course! – the Cellars.

Featuring: Robin the Fog / Howlround, Gary Stewart / Dubmorphology, Julia Stallard, Sinister Masterplan, Dushume, Avsluta, Kate Carr, Mhairi Vari +++

This will not be a static evening. The audience will be free to move from room to room at will, choosing which performances to attend. This promenade-style event will occupy a variety of spaces in the Mansion. Storytelling will happen in the Saloon on the First Floor and in the Parlour on the Ground Floor. Other performances will take place in the cellars and other rooms.

Up for consideration are a chilling Edgar Allan Poe story, the grim tale of the Tolpuddle Martyrs and their farm at nearby Chipping Ongar, the exchange of the Two Graces on St Kitts, soundscapes of 18th Century life, and much more. You might even meet Lady Henrietta and the Housekeeper in person! Some of the performances will be based on original 18th Century documents from the extensive Copped Hall collection held by the Essex Record Office.

Returning for the show will be Sinister Masterplan (Laura Sampson, storyteller, and Sam Enthoven, Thereminist), actor Julia Stallard, and sound artist Gary Stewart with his extraordinary modular synthesiser. We’ll also have some fixed Sound Installations: Mhairi Vari promises ‘the trilogy of three and the power of whatever’ in the cellars; Robin the Fog / Howlround will reprise the Ruled by Darkness tape loops in the State Hall; Experimental noise and sound artist Dushume will provide new experimental noises and sounds; In the kitchen, deep in the cellars, Avsluta (Lucie Štěpánková) and Kate Carr will be creating new soundscapes based on found Copped Hall objects. The Bar will be open serving drinks, and a roaring log fire will warm you in the ground floor Servants’ Hall.

Tickets £20 – book online at: coppedhallevents.ticketsource.co.uk
Access to the Mansion is via the white gates in Crown Hill, Upshire Road (PLEASE DO NOT DISTURB THE LODGE RESIDENTS!) For Satnavs use CM16 5HR / What3Words: stow.crab.record

One year after 2022’s dazzling sold out spectacle, I’m bringing FOGFEST back to Iklectik for another eye-popping, ear-bending evening crammed full of delights from yet more pushers of the audio-visual envelope. This year we’re bringing you the exclusive debut of what might be the world’s first ever modified turntablism soundclash, while welcoming in very special guests from the US and Barcelona. Expect a fullblown sensory evisceration – and definitely expect a party!

Hello You. It’s been really rather too long since I updated these pages and I really must apologise to each and every one of you (and will probably be doing so in person quite soon if the stats are anything to go by). I wouldn’t want anyone to think that it constituted a lack of industry here Fog Towers, mind you, if anything 2023 has been crammed with intrigue and incident, sometimes rather more than is healthy and tolerable. Howlround’s Trespass and Welfare album has resurfaced as a very classy sounding LP on blood red vinyl with a handful of new tracks. There have been triumphant live shows in London, Geneva and Bristol, the last of which saw me in support of that absolute magnetic tape legend Jérôme Noetinger, which was every bit the honour and privilege I could have predicted. I’ll be hoping for a similar response later in July when I bring the tape machines back to Barcelona to perform an audiovisual set as a trio with old friends Pascal Savy and Merkaba Macabre (see above).

Plus I’ve just returned from a fantastic weekend in Utrecht running a tape loop workshop at the studio of another fellow tape aficionado Wouter van Weldhoven, where a number of spirited youngsters enjoyed using a single loop and a microphone to conjure up some spooky magic. The Kids Are Alright!

Elsewhere things have been a tad more fraught as I had to move all of my equipment out of one studio following not one but two roof leaks thanks to the inattention of a thoroughly incompetent landlord. I then set up shop in a lovely light and spacious room in an old school, before getting chucked out of there almost as quickly. How lucky that on both occasions I managed to assemble the most amazing moving out crew at extremely short notice!

As a result of all this the machines are now sat silently in my bedroom awaiting their next adventure, so any tips on cheap new studio spaces that don’t mind a bit/a lot of noise would be hugely appreciated! While the thought of having them reside at home and just rolling out of bed and straight into the studio every morning is indeed tempting, I’m guessing my flatmates and neighbours would be less keen.

Despite this unfortunate pause on studio activity, I can confirm that new Howlround material is in the pipeline, including a new project that I’m VERY excited about and hope to be unveiling soon (though for now I’m sworn to secrecy). In the meantime an exclusive track that was made last year in one take while scrupulously avoiding the Queen’s Jubilee has found its way onto Diacritical Mark’s ‘Noisy Mixtape‘ and is in very fine company indeed. Well worth bending your ears toward.

Was chuffed to bits to be the special guest on Resonance FM veteran Dexter Bentley’s Hello Goodbye Show last week, where we talked about the new Howlround album, making angsty music, the contemporary weltschmerz experience and that very British condition of being constantly plagued by overzealous public service announcements. Host Richard has been bringing noisy Saturday lunchtime delights to the ears of Resonance listeners for at least two decades now and I will always have nothing but love for ‘Hello Goodbye’, not least because of the years I spent as one of the show’s engineers, setting up live sessions in the rather poky downstairs performance space (this was before the ceiling caved in). Those Saturday mornings in Denmark Street all those years ago were where I first learned how to mix live bands and taught me life skills that I still rely on today (ie ensure you’re feeling quite groggy and sleep-deprived and that you keep one eye on the rapidly ticking clock. And avoid having the ceiling fall in). As it happens this edition of the show also features a vintage 2007 session by the mighty Teeth of the Sea, that I’m fairly sure was on my watch, if the foggy memory serves me correctly. I suppose now would be as good a time to apologise to them as any…?!!

And finally, will you be joining us for the Iklectika 2023 Experimental Music and Book Fair on 8-9th July? Two days of the very best independent labels showing off their latest wares, plus talks, performances, DJs etc. etc. It’s always the highlight of the summer social calendar and I’m being put in charge of the Touch stall once again, so do come and say hello if you’re passing. Might even have some rarities and exclusives up for grabs!

That about does it for now, but I’ll leave you once again with cinema iloobia’s absolutely enchanting promo video for Trespass And Welfare’s closing track ‘Frosi’, because it’s a sublime piece of work that simply hasn’t had as many views as it damn well deserves. He’s a pretty busy chap too at the moment, so have a gander and then head over to iloobia.com for some more. What it is to have such talented friends, eh?!

Reworked, resequenced, repurposed, remastered + represented – Howlround’s 2022 miesterwerk Trespass & Welfare, a swirling barrage of decaying acid-gash loops, molten techno loops, asynchronous machine noise and fourth world, reel to reel hypno-mulch – now on a super limited blood red vinyl LP.

Thrilled to announce that Buried Treasure are putting out a one-time super limited-edition vinyl reissue of Howlround’s 2022 album Trespass And Welfare on Friday June 2nd. Remastered to REALLY BANG on blood red vinyl, the colour of madness, and with four brand new tracks; this new edition is available in a super limited run of just 100 copies and that’s it. THERE WILL BE NO MORE! Don’t sleep on this one – order yours from Buried Treasure here.

Kicking out pieces that thunder and grind, rather than whisper and whine… Trespass And Welfare captures that causticity and roughness more thrillingly than any previous release – THE WIRE

With his inimitable sonic adventuring, our hero has once again crafted otherworldy sounds beyond our wildest expectations – Electronic Sound

Properly mind-blowing…. Robin The Fog is a crazy genius – MOONBUILDING

Frantic machine dialogues and sizzling circuitry – FREQ

Howlround are delighted to announce new release Noise Flaw EP – Live At Iklectik. It’s a collection of live (and quite noisy) extracts taken from various performances at over the past few years. 100% proceeds from the sale of this release will be donated to the Resonance FM Annual Fundraiser. Three lathe cut discs featuring two tracks from the EP are being released simultaneously and are now live on Ebay, with all proceeds raised going to help keep Resonance on air. Find links to all three via linktr.ee/robinthefog – these will be the only copies of this 7″ made!

Disc 1 is here. Disc 2 is here. Disc 3 is here. Get bidding!

And of course you can donate any time and any amount by visiting Fundraiser.Resonance.FM

Hello You. Time for another visit to the MSCTY School of Sound Art, my series of irregular video tutorials of sonic experimentation for Nick Luscombe’s long-running project exploring new ways of relating to the world around us through sound and space. And I’m exploring a rather more confined space than usual in this episode, produced as it was towards the end of last year when I found myself trapped in my bedroom by a very trendy virus. With studio and equipment several miles away, I was forced to rely on wit and imagination alone in the construction of this episode, which proved decidedly unproductive until I was reminded of two crucial facts: The first being that I’d made some rather intetresting spur-of-the-moment recordings a few days before being struck down with the dreaded lurgy; and secondly that my flatmate Vanessa was in possession of an Oboe and a clean bill of health!

Lesson 4 finds our audio adventurer fighting off cabin fever after spending a week confined to his bedroom … having succumbed to a rather enduring virus that’s currently on a non-stop world tour. Not to be outdone, Robin uses this opportunity to search for inspiration within the four walls of his home, eventually stumbling across a recent recording made entirely by chance, that sets him off on a journey into the wonderful world of the ‘Happy Accident’.

As well as creating a brand new work, we’ll take a brief look at some other artists who have incorporated chance and serendipity into their own practice, plus musician and flatmate Vanessa Howells drops in [at an appropriate distance!] to help out with some improvised oboe.

Those of you interested in further exploring some of the recordings referenced in the video can read more about the Whitechapel Bell Foundry tape archive and the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage team’s discovery of the ‘Accidental Ambience’ tape on the original London’s Sound Heritage blog post from 2021. The entire collection can be accessed through London Metropolitan Archives and there are plenty more sublime recordings on offer – the only difference being the rest were made by wonderful serendipity!

You can also find Ian Rawes’ original recording of the Tower Bridge Bascule Chamber on the London Sound Survey LP Thames via the Persistence of Sound label. The vast number of recordings created by Ian under that name have now also been entrusted to the London Metropolitan Archives, but can also still be accessed by visiting SoundSurvery.org.uk. Prepare to get yourself hopelessly, wonderfully lost!

The Conet Project CD boxset seems to be very rare these days, though I occasionally come across copies surfacing online for quite eye-watering sums. Ridiculous really, when you consider the entire released can be readily downloaded from the Free Music Archive. Prepare to get equally lost, but also decidedly spooked (this Pitchfork review from 2004 sums it all up nicely). The whole thing can be found on YouTube as well, so here’s the opening ‘Swedish Rhapsody’ that we used in the video (arguably the project’s most famous recording) to get you started:

In other news, what a week it’s been! Thanks so much to everyone who came down to my various outpourings over the last few days, be it with Ken Hollings as The Howling at The Horse Hospital, Copped Hall with Catherine Smith as part of the Dark Tales and Strange Sounds team or indeed at Boundary Condition with Alaa and the ever-redoubtable Iklectik crew. While no image could ever accurately depict the sheer lunatic intensity of it all, this picture of my two favourite clowns Tears | OV at a post-show debrief probably comes closest. Their performance was as fantastic as ever, of course!

But the biggest vote of gratitude must surely go to David Harper for literally saving our (vegan) bacon on Saturday night and fixing Revox B77 Wendy’s faulty power supply at the last minute, using the toolbox and soldering iron that he apparently just carries around with him for fun. The man is a hero and a legend and I don’t care who knows it. If there was any money in tape manipulation at all I’d be putting him on staff full-time.

Hello You. Apologies for the radio silence on these pages for the last couple of months, it’s certainly not been for want of incident or intrigue and my nose has been pressed hard against a number of grindstones. I’ve been recording tape loops in the basement of Somerset House, frozen lakes in Austria and even been trying to get my head around a rather complicated analogue feedback setup in Den Haag. Plus I conducted a sonic seance in memory of Avanti West Coast trains at Carlisle’s Vinyl Cafe over Christmas – their not dead, incdientally, it’s just the bottomlessly awful state of the railways in this country makes it feel as if they are. Anyway, doubtless all of this intrigue will find its way onto these pages in due course/once I get a moment. But for now our pressing business is a trio of live shows occurring this week that I would very much to waggle excitedly under your collective noses.

Starting off at The Horse Hospital on Thursday 9th February, featuring genius multimedia collective Tears | OV, plus myself and the redoubtable Ken Hollings teaming up once again as The Howling for a night of clown-related heaven and infomercial hell. Do come and join us, enjoy the premier performances of some brand new work and help support one of the finest venues Central London has to offer – like pretty much every other arts establishment in the city these days, the The Horse Hospital finds itself under continued threat from the usual forces of Turbocapitalist darkness. Further info available here.

An equally extraordinary building plays host to myself and the Dark Tales Team once again on Saturday 11th, though this one is perhaps at less immediate risk than the Horse Hospital – after all, Copped Hall has already burned down once! Join us at this remarkable partially restored Georgian ruin for an evening of spooky performances, including an exclusive site-specific new work created by myself and Catherine Smith from recordings made while roaming the darkened corridors This will be repeat performance of the Dark Tales And Strange Sounds event from last November, in an attempt to atone for all the disgruntled punters left out in the cold when the tickets quite literally flew out the door. Get yours here while stocks last. It’s a fantastic evening in great company and I always say that in the unlikely event that Copped Hall isn’t haunted already, it certainly moves closer to ‘at-risk territory’ by the time we’re finished with it!

And finally on Sunday 12th I’ll be back at good old Iklectik in Lambeth North for another fabulous Boundary Condition event. This particular edition features 9+ artists in a hybrid of multichannel live-sets & immersive projections encompassing ethnomusicological site specific film on Pamir, auto-destructive, acousmatic & generative compositions, fungal fetishist performance art and heavy tape machinery performed in the AMOENUS 17-speaker ambisonics system. What else do I need to tell you?! This is my third Boundary Condition, they’re always incredible and this time we’r joined by the remarkable artist and filmmaker Carlos Casas! Tickets are available here.

Well, that should about do for our business here today. All the other usual nonsense will resume ASAP – once I’ve had a nap!