The Listening Club - 26th November 2017

Greetings folks,

Hope all are fine. Wet and moody here in Amsterdam, so staying in and enjoying @nessiest's finest soup experiments is the order of the day. Neglected last week to discuss the upcoming bits and bobs on twitter, so I'll just repost what I wrote last week to remind myself...

Advance notice warning alert - M'self and that @nessiest are going away for a long trip over Dec / Jan to faraway climes (mainly Japan and New Zealand), which means we could really do with a guest manager (or several) for a few Sundays, at the very least 17th Dec & 7th Jan, as looking at the calendar (god I hate it when it reaches that time of the year), this year Xmas Eve and NYE are Sundays, which is rather inconvenient for #LC-ing, so we could take a couple of weeks off and do the Trad #xmasvortex on 7th Jan? Please voice your opinions. Whatever happens, we'll need some help...

Okaydoke, last week in the land of #LC, that @Saucer was in the chair, going for something rather bleepy with his pick of Smagghe & Cross's "Timothy Dalton", which went down pretty well for the most part. Thanks to him for the pick and for flipping the frisb across to @xpollen8, who is here with this week's intro...

"Presented for your tolerant consideration is a conceptual piece - a meditation on capitalism.  This was an early cassette-only release by a guy who could lay claim to having invented the modern mash-up when he discovered that a popular 60's instrumental track was the same BPM and duration as a particular rap artist's vocal track.

Hilarity ensued and a genre was spawned.

What you are about to hear is not a mash-up, but is indicative of the playfulness and experimentation of this artist. (I also have in my collection his wax-cylinder release)

If you like Negativland or Plunderphonics, then you may enjoy this. If you're here for deep grooves or guitar virtuosity, then you will be disappointed."

Direct download is here, and the HearBeNoSpoilersThisWeek stream is below:


See you 8pm GMT.

The Listening Club - 19th November 2017

Greetings folks,

Hope all is good in your hoods, yep, we're back from our weekend of musical insanity, feeling suitably mind blown, having taken in everything from Lebanese balladry (in the company of ambassadors no less) and skronking free jazz (ambassador-free, to the best of my knowledge) to balls-to-the-wall punk rock and a balloon solo or two. A mighty fine festival indeed, even if it did seem a little too busy this year, but that's the price of success I guess...

Big advance notice warning alert - M'self and that @nessiest are going away for a long trip over Dec / Jan to faraway climes (mainly Japan and New Zealand), which means we could really do with a guest manager (or several) for a few Sundays, at the very least 17th Dec & 7th Jan, as looking at the calendar (god I hate it when it reaches that time of the year), this year Xmas Eve and NYE are Sundays, which is rather inconvenient for #LC-ing, so we could take a couple of weeks off and do the Trad #xmasvortex on 7th Jan? Please voice your opinions. Whatever happens, we'll need some help...

Last week whilst I was away, @JimMcCauley was running things, and @cdrose_writer was keeping the assembled in the manner to which they have become accustomed with his pick of The Mekons & Kathy Acker's "Pussy, King Of The Pirates", which garnered much praise indeed, quite right too. Thanks to him for the pick, and for sailing the frisbo across to @saucer, who is represented below in text intro form...

"Lately, oddly, a lot of the music that speaks to me isn't so much psychedelic, surreal, or dada (perennial faves) but more in the direction of deconstructionist...  by which I mean music employed as an operating theatre, with the subject under the microscope, under the knife, that very same music. 

Tonight's pick is minimalist, hypnotic, and mostly instrumental. It seems to somehow coerce nonverbal attention and appreciation, and, like so much good music, seems hard to describe because language seems to miss the point.

No, this is not another Horselords album ;)

Some quick meta info: it's the first album recorded by this duo, but they released it second (they released albums 1 and 2 out of order). It features a favorite guitarist of mine as a guest on many tracks. Although, as in the band he's best known for, the guitar is not always recognizable as such."

Okaydoke. Direct download is here, and the HearBeSpoilers stream is below...


See you at 8pm GMT.

The Listening Club - 12th November 2017

Hey there, listening chums! @JimMcCauley at your service, what with @kleptones (along with @nessiest) being away this weekend at Le Guess Who, where all things being equal he'll be getting a load of Jane Weaver by the time we tee off this evening. I’d be very jealous if not for the fact that I'm seeing her myself in a couple of weeks.

So then, last time it was @lsperia_ at the controls with his maiden pick, and he came up with a good'un in the form of the first two bits of Archive's Controlling Crowds, resulting in a good few of the assembled going straight off in search of part 3. Which is a pretty good result in anyone's book, so thanks to Teppo for the pick, and for chucking the old frisbaton thing at @cdrose_writer, who naturally is here now to say things.

"Some things only make sense twenty years later.  This was a record I vaguely remember coming out at the tail end of the 90s, but despite the fact it drew on my twin loves of music and writing, I ignored it and it sank into the dregs of my memory, only recently to resurface in the flurry of attention given to one of its principal creators: a deceased American writer about whom a new biography has been written. 

"A collaboration between the writer and a semi-legendary English post-punk band, this imaginative audiobook of the writer’s final novel is a picaresque tale of travel through various underworlds.  Frequent spoken interludes using the book’s text match music which ranges from chanson to shanty to disco.

"N.b. 1: contains a fair amount of language perhaps best described as ‘salty’, so if you have younger listeners around, it may be best to listen on headphones.

"N.b. 2: includes pirates.

"Drinking recommendation:  rum."

Yarrrrr. Direct download's here, and HearThis (spoilers etc.) is below.


See you at 8PM (GMT)!

The Listening Club - 5th November 2017

Greetings folks, and happy Bonfire Night to Englishers, although I suspect many already celebrated it last night and are now suffering the consequences *throws a banger in your general direction and legs it*...

Second reminder that I'm away next weekend at Le Guess Who (watching, by my estimation, at least three previously #LC-picked artists, yay!), so if anyone feels able to help out here, please take a step forward and let me know on the tweets, ok?

Last week we broke from regular tradition and pocketed a corporate shilling from The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, spinning their 2003 debut "Fever To Tell" to celebrate it's re-issue, which went down rather well indeed, not surprisingly. And the corporate shilling raffle, in the form of a vinyl test pressing of that very re-issue, was won by @emmaprice! Congratulations to her, and thanks to all for participating.

Casting back the minds, we find @isperia_  left clutching the frisbaton, so it's over to them for their debut pick introduction...

"Greetings!

It's my first time in the chair, and I'm honored to be here.

It's a good thing I had two weeks to think on what to play you guys, because I had loads of ideas but none of them seemed right somehow. Finally I stumbled upon a song that has been a come-and-go favorite of mine, and remembered that I have the album with that song somewhere and that I indeed saw it when I last moved. Finding the album was an adventure all of it's own, the details of which I shall not bore you with. Eventually, (blessed be my two weeks) I had it in my grubby mitts.

After finding the album I also found out it lasts about 80 minutes when listened in one go, but luckily it is comprised of three parts. We shall be listening to only parts 1 and 2 today, but if it catches your fancy you can always take a gander at part 3 after we're done.

Now, the British group behind this piece titles it's style as "trip hop progressive alternative", which is a bit of a mouthful. All these terms are worth keeping in mind when listening tonight, though, because the album treats that phrase like an accordion: squeezing and pulling it into different directions, having more trip and less alternative this moment, and almost fully just hop the next. It's a ride - not that wild maybe, but well worth sitting out. 

Hope you enjoy it."

Reety-ho. Direct download is here, and the HearBeSpoilers stream is below:


See you at 8pm GMT.