Robin The Fog

Why is tape so great? @StuartMaconie finds out with the help of @RobinTheFog from @Howlroundmusic https://t.co/tSa2icULDI

— BBC Radio 6 Music (@BBC6Music) June 4, 2016

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Huge thanks to host Stuart Maconie and producer Rebecca Gaskell for allowing me to come on and play some of my favourite tape music on last week’s Freakier Zone on BBC 6 Music. The full programme can be found here (for the next 25 days at the time of writing) and includes a brand new Howlround track that will hopefully surface officially later on in the summer. It seems the show was very well received and the positive feedback has been most gratifying. Though really there’s little to argue about with a tracklisting of the calibre of Pierre Henry, Miles Davis, Sculpture and Tom White, is there?

Always a good freakier zone when @RobinTheFog is on.
Inspires me to go searching for stuff.

— (((Jerry Thomas))) (@lushattic) June 4, 2016

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This week’s Near Mint show shouldn’t give anyone much reason to complain either, as I’m paying tribute to the recently departed, late-great Muhammad Ali in fine style by dusting off my copy of his 1976 dental hygiene classic Ali and His Gang vs Mr. Tooth Decay. While listening, please do take a moment to savour the above shots taken from the album’s cover, in which Ali and the kids hang out in a surrealist nightmare painting that appears to be a more up-beat version of Picasso’s Guernica. Set in some sort of organic tooth-garden – perhaps we could call it ‘A scene from ‘Dente’s Inferno’? – such images set the listener up nicely for the audio delights to be found within, with the lurid cut-and-paste cover artwork perfectly echoing the lackadaisical production handiwork of whichever pioneering genius was charged with putting the recordings together. Thanks to that person’s efforts (or lack of – it’s hard to say), the result is a beautiful and confusing train-wreck of an LP that appears to have been mixed and edited using an entire bag of hammers and goes far beyond the contemporaneous cut-up works favoured by the likes of William Burroughs et al and far into the realms of the dangerously avant-garde. Plus it has a happier ending – Ali beats the crap out of this guy while the kids all cheer:

Without giving too much more away, the record tells the story of Ali and the Gang’s battles against Mr. Tooth Decay, a truly wicked character instantly recognisable by his sallow greenish skin, evil frosty glare and the sporting of a personalised cassock. In contrast, the titular gang consists of a confusingly large number of children, none of whom seem to possess any kind of distinguishing features or personality traits at all, which makes it really quite tricky to keep track of what’s going on or who’s doing what; particularly as listening closely to the decidedly haphazard mix suggests less a room full of corporeal beings and rather more a parallel dimension populated by disembodied voices floating around one another in mid air, only to vanish without trace a moment later. I’m no Beckettian scholar, but I don’t think even he was considering exploring this kind of territory back then. Furthermore, the kids appear to be operating as a sort of collective consciousness or hive-mind, which manifests itself in their frequent and chilling tendency to speak complex sentences in absolute unison. I’m reminded of that classic 1960 movie Village Of The Damned, in which another band of spooky children terrify a rural British community, with no sporting legends available to assist. I was even going to suggest creating a remake entitled  Village of the Dental Damned at this point, but then I remembered what a dental dam is actually used for and decided against it – not sure Ali ever got round to making a record that dispensed that kind of wisdom.

There is so much to treasure on this LP and some surprisingly groovy music underneath it all too. Some of my favourite moments include the sudden and brief ‘Ali in Dub’ section with liberal use of tape echo, the extended ‘bragging and gasping’ interlude in which a single sound-effect is used over and over until it has dramatically out-stayed its welcome; the scene where several of the children appear to turn into chickens, Ali’s attempts to pick up another chicken that he thinks is trying to thumb a lift, the moment where the story is temporarily paused while another child collapses into near hysterics at Frank Sinatra’s inability to grasp why it is that a heavyweight boxer and a large number of children are standing in his shop and refusing to buy ice cream… I could go on. But I think perhaps the best is saved to last, when the album closes with well-known sports commentator Howard Cosell incanting a poem in the grimly-competent style of a man whose knows his appearance fee requires him to read out loud whatever has just been put into his hand. There’s an amusing moment where he pronounces the word ‘put’ as ‘poot’ and they just leave it in. Plus if you can sit through him pronouncing the word ‘Lally-parp’ without giggling you’re a finer fellow than I.

It’s certainly a novel approach to personify health and hygiene problems as Bogeymen figures to be vanquished by being placed into a boxing ring and pounded into submission by whichever passing heavyweight champion of the world is available. But if I may offer one morsel of criticism, Mr. Tooth Decay is really a rather dreary name for such a heinous fiend. Surely they could have come up with something more evocative – The Cavity Kid? Count Plaqula? Dr. N’Dentulous*? It seems we’re gradually losing the knack as a society for this sort of thing –  having celebrities do battle with social ills on our behalf. And so, as an attempt to address this situation, I’ve come up with a few ideas for modern-day follow-up albums aimed at tackling some of the very different problems the ageing members of the original gang might find themselves facing in the 21st century. So far I’ve come up with Chris Eubank and his Gang vs. Captain Stood-Up-Too-Quickly, Tyson Fury Battles Madame Bunions, George Foreman Meets The Lumbago Kid and Rocky Marciano vs.  Mr. What-Did-I-Come-In-Here-For-Again? No doubt they’ll be plenty more where those came from. Any potential investors are warmly advised to send a cash-stuffed envelope to the usual address.

*This made me laugh for almost ten minutes.

Thanks to everyone who organised, performed at or attended last weekend’s Extraction Music fundraising all-dayer in Cardiff. I thoroughly enjoyed all the performances I was able to catch, including Rhodri Davies, Form Constants and Clive Henry amongst others, all helping to raise money in aid of the current refugee crisis in Calais and elsewhere. My particular gratitude, however, must go to chief protagonist and driving force Ian Watson for just happening to have a spare UHER tape machine on hand when dear old troublesome Daphne failed to make it through the soundcheck. What are the chances of that happening, I wonder? We certainly would’ve been screwed if Daphne had decided to kick the bucket in Portugal, Copenhagen, the US or indeed anywhere else that we’ve played in the last year – Howlround really does have the best kind of bad luck! Anyway, for those of you who couldn’t make it, please enjoy the above short teaser from Howlround’s closing set and do have a look at these rather natty T-shirts produced especially for the event, a limited number of which are still available online, with £10 from each sale going to charity.

Thanks must also go to David for the loan of his sofa and toaster, Ben for tending to the sick Daphne and to Victoria for general fetching, lifting, delivering and precarious balancing skills. Under her suggestion, the new addition to the ranks has been christened Jenyth after one of the lesser-heralded female members of the Radiophonic Workshop. Isn’t she cute? The machine, that is…

On a similar subject, commiserations must go once again to our friend Ian Holloway of The British Space Group who was unable to attend Extraction Music after landing himself back in hospital with yet more broken bones. His latest project, the complete collection of the group’s rather fine Phantasms EPs is now available online as a single album entitled Phantasmagoria. Clocking in at an impressive 42 tracks, I’m convinced t it would speed up his recovery no end if you were to click on the link below and have a listen and a purchase.

Finally, thanks to Mr. Adrian Shenton of Phonospheric Recordings for kindly donating me a copy of his Unseen Landscapes album recorded in collaboration with Banks Bailey. That’s worth a listen, too and I shall be checking this label out further once the dust has settled. He describes Phonosheric’s the output as ‘immersive, atmospheric, experimental and broadly ambient in character – sound that surrounds’, which is exactly what I could have done with on the train home, chock-full as it was with bellowing rugby louts, drunken hen-do princesses blasting tinny iPhone house and a veritable army of screaming children. Hardly what one would expect at 8am on a Sunday, but I guess that’s just how they roll in Cardiff. No wonder it’s such a stronghold for ambient music – how else would people cope?!

The latest episode of Resonance FM’s Near Mint show comes to you courtesy of Bob Corsi, commander in chief of the quite fabulous Penny Records. After our special of a few week’s back focusing on the label’s series of compilations such as Monster Mash and Don’t Be Square, Go Ape!, he sent us over a very special mixtape focusing on another side of the label’s output, Italian crime soundtracks. And it’s a thing of wonder!

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To paraphrase the man himself, ‘Criminale is a cinematic trip into the world of 70s italian crime movies through library music and soundtrack cues. Many of these tracks were included in the four volumes of Penny Record’s Criminale vinyl series. It also includes tracks from Amore Tossico (the label’s latest release) and some italian movie classic cuts’. It’s deep, it’s dark and it’s just a little bit dirty and we’re chuffed to bits with it. As you will be too, I’ll wager. Here’s the tracklisting in full:

Armando Sciascia – Circuito Chiuso
Lesiman – Milano 72
Amedeo Tommasi – Effetto di tensione
Ugo Busoni, Paolo Ferrara, Massimo Di Cicco -Rullio
Pietro Montanari – Lupin
Gerardo Iacoucci – Violenza
Detto Mariano – M6 – Affannosa ricerca di un limone
Alessandro Alessandroni – Corruzione al vertice
Stelvio Cipriani – Danger Flight Zone
Franco Tamponi/Stefano Torossi/Sandro Brugnolini/Massimo Catalano – Fuorilegge
Lee Selmoco – Chemin De Fer
Ennio Morricone & Rita Monico – Thrilling
Giorgio e Franco Bracardi – Il pozzo e il pendolo N° 5

We’re so delighted with Bob’s contribution to the show that I’m throwing in the first Penny Records special from earlier this month for good measure. This is an especially good idea as I seem to remember not originally posting it on these pages as I was dying of the plague at the time. It’s a heady combination of monsters, apes, wild men, a gay caballero and the only documented incident of an ancient Mummy encountering a Beatnik.

The Revels – Midnight Stroll
Dave Bartholomew – The Monkey
The Ebonettes – Wild Man Walk
The Cadets – Stranded in the Jungle
Bert Convy – The Gorilla
Nervous Norvus – Ape Call
Bob McFadden & Dor – The Mummy
The Rivingtons – Mama-Oom-Mow-Mow (The Bird)
Shirley Gunter & The Flairs – Ipsie Opsie Ooh
Hadda Brooks – Jump Back Honey
Janis Martin – Cracker Jack
The Chips – Rubber Bisquit
Billy Byrd & His Penguins – Boom Pacha Boom

Probably best to consume both programmes in a single sitting. And then go visit your local record emporium and bag as many Penny titles as you can find. Sadly they go for quite a bit more than that in actuality…

Following our recent adventures into the outer reaches of the exorbitant jungle, we bring you something of a sea-change on this week’s Near Mint show on Resonance 104.4FM; as we’re joined by special guest, writer and spoken word artist Dolly Dolly. As well as being the narrator and spirit guide for the recent Delaware Road album and launch party and releasing a handful of jolly fine writings and recordings of his own; he’s also something of an expert on the poetry of The Beat Generation, the jazz-influenced literary movement that found it’s spiritual home in San Francisco’s City Lights book store (still very much flourishing) and included Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac among it’s alumni. For this week’s show we asked him to pull out some of his favourite Beat recordings and line them up for inspection and the result is a broad and intriguing selection including some of the movement’s lesser known figures alongside its more bankable names. Listen closely and then go and check out some of Dolly Dolly’s own recordings, which are clearly a contemporary and very British riposte to the Beats: His debut album Antimacassar is a good place to start, but you’ll find his work pops up everywhere – including last year’s collaboration with Band Of Holy Joy’s Johny Brown and myself under the name The Trunchbulls for the XPYLON charity album. Almost forgot about that one in the white heat of a busy 2015…

Staying in radio-land, please enjoy my latest BBC report, on the subject of Sound Baths, a form of new-age therapy in which gongs, bowls, bells and the like are used to send participants into a state of deep meditative relaxation – and supposedly can even help to cure physical ailments, the different sound frequencies said to stimulate different parts of the body and bring them into harmony. Whatever your opinion on this (and you all seem to have one!), it’s certainly a fascinating experience that I’ve been rather intrigued by ever since my visit last year to the Integratron, a geodesic dome in the heart of California’s Mojave Desert which plays host to visitors seeking sonic enlightenment from all over the world. Now highly recommended by the so-called ‘wellness movement’ which seems to be very much in vogue at the moment, I thought it might make an interesting subject for the World Service after a prominent LA lifestyle blog announced that Sound Baths are the next big thing for 2016. Thankfully my editor agreed and hopefully so will you. Sound baths have been popping up all over the world for years, of course, and many about as far away from the Mojave Desert as possible; even as unlikely a location as a cold, wet side-street hidden behind London’s Waterloo Station.  Here a gentle soul called Otto Haddad runs his own sound baths several evenings a week. Perhaps predictably I’m forced to admit I spent much of the session I attended thinking ‘Wow! I wonder how he’s making that noise?!’, which may well have been counter-productive; but nevertheless it was a unique experience that I would certainly recommend. Why not visit Otto’s website and book yourself a session? It’s amazing how quickly the rest of the world melts away, even in Waterloo!

Howlround news now, and I’m excited to announce  our participation in a new release by A Year In The Country, the blog and record label dedicated to exploring the freakier fringes, twisted folklore and haunted bucolica of the British Countryside.

The Quietened Village is a study of and reflection on the lost, disappeared and once were homes and hamlets that have wandered off the maps or that have become shells of their former lives and times. Inspired in part by images of sections of abandoned, submerged villages and the spires of their places of worship re-appearing from the surfaces of reservoirs and lakes, alongside thoughts of dwellings that have succumbed to the natural erosion of the coastline and have slowly tumbled into the sea. Some of the once were and lost villages which were seedlings for this body of work still stand but their populations are no more, those who lived there evicted at short notice and never to return so that their homes and hearths could be used as training grounds for those who would fight during great conflicts between nations. Such points of reference have been intertwined with possibly more bodeful reasons for this stilling and ending; thoughts of Midwich Cuckoos-esque fictions or dystopic tales told and transmitted in times gone by and imagined/re-imagined in amongst the strands of The Quietened Village.

The first in a planned series of compilations, The Quietened Village features an exclusive track from ourselves as well as The Straw Bear Band, Polypores, The Soulless Party, The Rowan Amber Mill, Cosmic Neighbourhood, Sproatly Smith, David Colohan and Richard Moult, our old friend Time Attendant and A Year In The Country (aka label head Stephen Price) himself. Once again it’s the decidedly spooky and surprisingly cohesive listen we’ve come to expect from the label and the little community of artists that are growing around it and like-minded labels such as Buried Treasure et al. Order your copy here. True to the nature of the compilation, our contribution ‘Flying Over A Glassed Wedge’ was recorded in a genuine ghost town (albeit one with that retains a working Post Office), though I was initially worried about it’s location in the middle of the Mojave Desert (it’s second appearance this week – but it is pretty big) being some considerable distance, both literally and metaphorically from Midwich and the ghosts of Albion. However, the theme of a previously bustling town being suddenly annexed overnight and gradually returning to the dust fits the bill pretty solidly, so hopefully there won’t be too many complaints. I shall reveal the name of this special town if you haven’t already guessed it at some point in the future – there’s talk of further material seeing the light of the day sometime later this year. For now my lips are sealed…

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I can, however, offer a tantalising glimpse of the next full-length Howlround album, which will be an audio-visual collaboration with film-maker Steven McInerney and released on his label Psyché Tropes.  These pictures are from a test screening of the film complete with a brand new soundtrack that occurred as part of SOPOROSE, an all-night sound and sleep research event that Psyché Tropes were involved in in last month at St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, a tiny 15th Century church/community centre nestling between the brash glass and steel towers of London’s frantic Bishopsgate and a surprising oasis of calm in a city increasingly not built for the likes of you and me. I was lucky enough to attend and can confirm that it’s looking and sounding fantastic. Quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever been involved in. Currently in the final stages of shooting and further details will follow….

And lastly for this week, please enjoy the latest in the series of Art Assembly‘s documentaries for Resonance FM. Presented, curated and masterminded by regular host Julia Dempsey and mixed and edited to within an inch of its life by yours truly, this month’s programme  investigates a thematic thread running through the practice of four artists from the city of Sheffield: Chris Watson, Oberman Knocks, Adi Newton (Clock DVA, T.A.G.C.) and the brilliant Aino Tytti, whose Millennium Mills last year on Touch was one of my very favourite releases of 2015. Beautifully mixed and realised (though I say so myself) and full to bursting with fascinating and important work, this might be Art Assembly’s best programme yet!

2016 is pretty white hot as well, so far, isn’t it?