Ivan the Tolerable – The Aleph

This one came from the bandcamp feed, someone I follow had bought it and I salute them. They have impeccable taste.

Looking at the blurb, there is a connection to the wonderful Haress, but there is very little similarity between their sound and this. This comes under umbrella term of ‘jazz that I like,’ which is a small but growing field. I think ‘jazz that I like’ is where jazz meets psych, drone, groove and repetition. In fact, any genre that has a party in that area will probably do it for me.

This fella’s catalogue needs exploring, I feel. Just as well I haven’t got much else to listen to at the mo… oh, wait…

And also, this is the first time I have used ‘Middlesborough’ as a geographical tag.

October and the Eyes – Dogs and Gods

I actually discovered this album because Aldous RH on NTS played a song by her called ‘Tit Pic’ which is just fantastic and so I went looking for it. I can only find it on Spotify. Boo. I want to buy the thing. Someone tell me where I can buy the thing.

This is a very good second prize, though. It sounds to me like it’s a one-woman band, and also like she gives as much of a fuck about conventional production wisdom as I do. Example – dogmatic in ‘proper’ production land is the notion that you foreground the vocals and the drums, and if you can fit the rest of the music in, well, so much the better. After all, that’s how The Beatles did it and apparently all originality in rock music became impossible from that moment forth because they had Done It All. Ms October, on the other hand, wants you to hear her fucking guitars and basslines and stuff, and guess what? You can actually hear her singing as well, so it is possible to foreground everything. There’s a lesson there.

Obviously I know nothing else about her because I am lazy and don’t research, but I do like the music she makes. And I do hope Tit Pic is on an album/E.P. that is available to buy, I really do.

Sebastian Melmoth – The Dynamics of Vanity

For about the last week I’ve been obsessed with listening to NTS Radio and not just whatever is live but going back through archives of particular hosts, so much so I even put the app on my phone (which close friends will probably retort with ‘where is Jay and what have you done with him?’). I have mentioned them before but I originally only went there for that one host. I just had this desire one day to listen to dubstep for a while and I only have early Burial stuff so that made me wonder what would happen if I looked around here.

So the final track on this album – all 14 minutes of it – was featured on a show which made me go to this album and check it out. It is far from the only thing that’s happened with, and more posts may follow once I’ve checked out the relevant bandcamps, etc. But the reason I mention that is because – what is not to absolutely love about radio that plays 14 minute experimental tracks? This was far from an outlier, too.

I’m the last person in the world to go around dispensing descriptions. Sebastian Melmoth do experimental post-punk, according to the description on this page though it is a vague pointer at best. Art rock? maybe, whatever that is. That last track I mentioned is a classic but I would have no idea how to describe it. Ambient post-punk maybe. But the E.P. / album is all over the place stylistically. Not sure I can think of a meaningful reference point – at an absolute stretch, maybe one of the tunes reminds me of Faust.

One Dog Clapping – Twilight Communion

Thought I’d get my contender for album of the year in early!

This is a distinctly non-linear story that doesn’t start at the beginning, because it has no beginning, and doesn’t stop at the end because it never ends. Whether it’s true is just a detail.

This has been far from the only thing I’ve done in the lockdowns since Influx Arena. I’ve been updating some old stuff (a continuing project) and I have a shit-ton of new ideas in the works which might lead to a couple of new 2021 albums, although I’m not inclined to go an a mad spree like I did in 2018.

I’m rubbish at genres for other people’s stuff; I’m even worse for my own. I only choose post-punk as the main label because one or two others have thrown that in my direction and it seems as good a tag as any. If any budding labellers out there want to suggest something else (polite), I’ll be all ears. Or eyes, since I’m likely to read it.

Edit in June 21: I since came to the conclusion that my ‘genre’, since I probably have to have one, is Urban Blues. How can it be otherwise?

One Dog Clapping – Luna Takes Asylum (The Lunatics Return)

So, once I finished that series I did last year, I did, as promised, put my guitar down for a bit and listen to some music other people made. But I also had sessions of listening to my archive, probably for reasons of vanity but using the excuse that I wanted to hear it to get a feel of the context of what I’d done. And one thing happened quite soon – I was listening to Are You Hanging Comfortably? from this here album here, and I was getting annoyed by it. This had always been my least favourite album, largely because it was the last of the trio of albums I’ve since come to think of as the slapdash 3, and I was going through a period of self-doubt at the time I originally finished it which will also have coloured my perception of it. But as I listened to and got annoyed by the aforementioned track, what was bugging me the most was that I thought it was a decent tune thoroughly hidden in bad recording and production. ‘Well then,’ said an all-too familiar and frequent thing I’ve come to call That Bloody Voice In My Head That Always Thinks It Bloody Knows Best, Usually When Saying I Bloody Told You So, ‘why don’t you re-record it?’

Aaaand one thing led to another and here we are.

I haven’t spent all year on it; I’ve actually concentrated on new stuff seeing as I had a guitar in my hand anyway. But I decided to lean into the Mercury Retrograde periods by focussing on this during those, and those of you who know about such things will note that one has indeed just passed, and this timing isn’t a coincidence. Well, it is, but it’s more than just the coincidence of two things happening at a similar time.

For those of you who may have heard the original, this is different in ways more than just re-recording it. The opener on the original was called Lance, Speak, Deafening. Well, Lance… met and married a song I’d only ever recorded on 4 track in the 90s called 1000 Howling Devils and they had a child and that child now opens the album. Also, the original track two just wasn’t satisfying me anymore. I therefore replaced it with a song that was not only written contemporaneously but is also coherent thematically with the album. The rest of the songs are as they were, with some or more lyrical revisions.

I’ve also done something I haven’t done before by putting a nominal charge on the album, though each track does come with its own artwork now; the lyrics decorated with my inimitable doodles, and then inverted in some program or other. I’m going to add such things to my other albums over time, so if you want those others while they’re still Name Your Price, get in there now.

It is not beyond the realms that I may update one or two other albums during future Merc-Rets. However, the next thing I’ll put out, and it may even be this year but if not will certainly be early in the next, will probably be called Influx Arena.

Finally, I am incredibly and unimaginably indebted once again to my friend Chris Hall who helped me with Tech just as a typically merc-ret thing happened and my PC went dead when I was very nearly finished with this. Thanks again, Chris!

Naujawanan Baidar – Volume 1

Wile I’m on the Middle east / western rock fusion thing, here’s another one for you that I discovered yesterday as a side effect of someone saying they’ve got volume 2 upcoming.

I don’t usually post the things when the complete album isn’t available for listening because I’ve made the point before that only putting a couple of tracks up for preview is a dead business model that is irrelevant in an age of blooody Spotify and their ilk. However, this one has most of the tracks available for listening, and they are so damn good.

I understand that these recordings are kind of a side effect of the main project which will eventually yield an upcoming album. My appetite is whetted but my breath isn’t held. Because I don’t hold my breath. Stupid thing to do.

Opossum Sun Trail – Death Raga Run​-​on Sentence

I don’t remember how I came across this one but it was on one of my tabs this morning when I turned the PC on so I listened to it. And now I’m posting it.

I always have my browsers open on the tabs they were closed on exactly so I can leave stuff open that I intend to come back to. This does have the downside of meaning that some things that can be on there weeks before I get round to it. On this PC, most of the tabs are actually Youtube videos that the kids last watched, or Roblox games that the kids last played. Tuesday morning before my later than normal start is pretty much the only time I get to catch up, barring the occasional Sunday afternoon.

 

 

One Dog Clapping – Glitterheads on the Loose!

Glitterheads on the Loose! is the fifth and final instalment in the Meeting the Changing Landscape series I’ve been bombarding you with this year. I’m going to have a bit of break from all of this shenanigans for a bit and listen to some music made by other people for a while.

But first, for those interested, this is what it’s kind of been about. Bear in mind that the descriptions below are radically simplistic because that’s what happens when you have to use words for 4D concepts. I make no apologies for jumping between first and other persons willy nilly.

To give some context, I drew you all a picture:

Aren’t I nice?

The picture didn’t turn out quite how I intended – I had more of a kind of 3D spiral in mind but had to give it up when my lack of ability at drawing actual things made the futility of the effort all too apparent. So I went for more of a directional thing. But when I say directional, I don’t mean linear. This was not a linear thing.

The Castle is Burning is in the north. The north is associated with cold, restrictions, a harsh mistress, so it is naturally the obvious place for a burning castle.

Hills to Die On are naturally in the east. I shouldn’t have to explain that one.

Alternarratives are in the south. This actually works on several levels (hence why I wanted a spiral) but for the purposes of trying to make this seem a bit easier, these are the foundations and they are also a damn sight warmer.

Internal Route Fury has to be in the west, the land of death.

Glitterheads are on the loose above all of those places, and link them all together. They are both all of the preceding stories and something altogether more different.

The way I got to be a Glitterhead was by examining the Burning Castle for what it was, discerning it and not judging it, examining how I was reacting to the landscape it provides. It is quite one thing to say that this is what I don’t want, however, so I had to ask – what do I want? Hills to Die On were and are the answer. The tl;dr summary is that on those Hills you will find love, authenticity, your true voice, and the courage to express all of those things regardless of how you’ll look since the person you ultimately have to answer to is yourself.

To get to those Hills, I needed an alternative narrative, a better story – some Alternarratives. They have to take into context of where you are so that where you are going makes more sense, and most importantly, helps you want to buy into the journey.

There’s a reason we ain’t on them Hills, however. So I had to take these Alternarratives into the void where my demons lay waiting – they are actually rather active demons and don’t need much prodding; nonetheless, I felt that I had to take the fight to them this time.

This was the Internal Route Fury. In truth, this has been going on the whole time. I think it’s a feature of the human condition, rather than a bug. But if you can’t test your Alternarratives here, they ain’t worth telling.

Come out the other side, my friend, and you are invincible. You are a Glitterhead and you can be set loose. This does not mean perpetual gravy, far from it. You will still have to operate in a Burning Castle for the duration whilst you navigate towards your Hills, but you have Alternarratives and you can survive the Internal Route Fury. Of course I don’t mean literal invincibility, I mean fundamental invincibility. Bodies may come and go, but we will continue.

Any further questions should be sent by the ghost or on a broomstick, to meet me here at sunset when the tide has washed away. But don’t think you’re alone here. You’re a piece, not a fragment.

I offer this story and this series to Saraswati in perpetual and ongoing thanks for the continued flow of music through me.

One Dog Clapping – Internal Route Fury

Madness!

In many ways, but not all.

So I attempted linearity… actually, scratch that. I did no such thing. What I meant was that I attempted to make sense, but again, it’s just possible that I actually did no such thing.

So what happens when you purposefully take yourself through the void? Internal Route Fury, that’s what. You have to test these Alternarratives against your demons, after all, otherwise they’re a waste of words.

There is actually an overarching plan to all this. And if you believe that, you might just believe that it’s me that’s behind it. And one or more of those statements may only be a half truth at best.

The final instalment in this series will probably be called Glitterheads on the Loose! Because, ladles and gentlespoons, that is exactly what we are.

One Dog Clapping – Alternarratives

It is 9/9/18, and 9.09 pm (BST) when I click the publish button on Bandcamp. We have entered the time of the new moon. Fittingly, I have ‘Ritual‘ by Fire! Orchestra playing.

Alternarratives is the third album in the ‘Meeting The Changing Landscape’ Series, and the halfway point. It is about, broadly speaking, telling ourselves better stories so that we can head towards the Hills to Die On.

The next album in the series takes a turn back into the void as these better stories wrestle with the demons that would have them remain unspoken, and will be called Internal Route Fury.