Rack Monkey swinging from the 7" shelves

29/11/02

Last time round Tomcats Over Tokyo were reminding us of Mike Paradinas, this time round we’ve got a new one from his own Planet Mu label. Local hail from West Yorkshire and bring a noise not unlike Windowlicker re-edited on a Commodore 64; some amateur vocals and a tardy recorder add a bit of off-melody interest, but as an exercise in disjointed, chaotic electronica it goes no further than James and Paradinas did five years ago. Still, it has a certain addled charm and is at least preferable to the latter’s ‘drill’n’bass’ hiccup Urmur Bile Trax. www.planet-mu.com Hulk’s Fixed Star Day is scarcely more original, and consistency demands that it gets the same treatment. But Monkeys are wayward, fickle beasts, so it won’t. A little Four Tet, a little Boards of Canada, it builds genial, melodic whirs and hums over an unobtrusive beat, morphing into a downtempo beauty before you know where you are. Warm-coloured, earthy electro-acoustics like this would go down a treat with fans of Lemon Jelly if they weren’t suckers for pretentious urban kitsch and limited edition T-shirts. The sinister, insistent spookmusic on the reverse is even better, so eyes peeled. Due in December. www.staticcaravan.com We got hold of that one early, but you can’t be ahead all the time – you can only hope to have a good time catching up. So it was nice to be turned on to King Creosote this week via his last 7”. Brother to the Lone Pigeon (who was in the Beta Band when they were The Pigeons, as you’re all utterly sick of hearing) KC does a similar scattily tuneful, folksy thing, and So Forlorn hits the killer bittersweet tone you only get through keeping things beautifully simple. As such it’s a better pop record than its over-produced peers by several Firth-country miles. Drowsy melancholia you’ll end up singing on the way to work – if you liked the Betas and haven’t yet come across KC and LP’s Fence collective go to www.fencerecords.com immediately. Lastly and joint-leastly Lomax. Anglicized (which daftly or deliberately bears an Americanised spelling) has three pictures of Orwell and a warped St. George’s cross on the cover, so their politics aren’t a matter of debate. Nor is it any doubt that between them they own some records by Pere Ubu, Joy Division, The Clash and The The. What is at issue is that, despite a nice heavy bottom end and a nervy guitar lacerating their track in all the right places, they end up sounding like a Reef/RATM supergroup. A fair little track, but it’s stodgy where it should be spiky and keeps samin’ when it oughtta be changin’. Only a first release for Brick Lane’s 93 Records, though, so we’ll keep listening with interest. www.93records.com

24/11/02

You wonder sometimes what it would sound like if Supercollider and Depeche Mode went round Cabaret Voltaire’s to sing a song about getting off your mash. Rough Trade have the answer, and the answer is Relaxed Muscle’s Heavy. The verse is pure industrial-influenced electro – ARE Weapons but less frightening – while the chorus chucks in some guitars for a pre-being-shit Ministry/NIN type of thrill. Turn it over for one track of sickly electro-blues and one that goes even further down the same road, sounding more or less like Dempsey at a Hoxton fetish party. www.roughtrade.com Awkward Silence records come before the Monkey for a second consecutive time, bearing a Cathode / OJN split. The former’s This Just In is a haunting crackle with pleasant, ricochet beats that should remind you of Bucephalus Bouncing Ball on the back of Aphex’s Come To Daddy (if you’re gonna buy this, you almost certainly own that). A wall of guitar noise emerges about two minutes in and subsides at just the right time, leaving a chopped, piping synth to play us out Mego-style. On the reverse OJN’s Solanski starts more gently and means to go on that way – upright bass and sparse, gentle chimes rub shoulders with strings, trickles of piano and hushed, reverberating voices. Very nice. www.awkwardsilencerecordings.com

Shame about x is greater than y, though. Mirror and Cameras mines a seam of glossy paranoia similar to that expertly plundered by Faith No More on Angel Dust, but suffers from a generic vocal closer to humourless, throaty divas like Eddie Vedder than the once elemental Mike Patton. Happily the proceedings are punctuated by bursts of crunching noise pierced with manic violin abuse, steering the ship merrily into Jason Pierce’s waters. In fact, there’s his ship – the one with the plank sticking over the side and bodies floating round it. The Monkey suggests that XIGTY drop anchor here and chuck any further adherents to confessional MTV-Rock over the side. www.fiercepanda.co.uk Finally Tomcats Over Tokyo weigh in with Fish and Butterflies, a blue marbled one from the good chaps at Static Caravan records. A sound very much like Mike Paradinas on Tango’n’Vectif underpins it – angular beats offset by naïve, trebly melodies and plenty of mournful pitch bends. This is a busier, glossier and warmer production though; emotive, well-constructed, very much worth a look. The flip is a harsher offering, closer to Autechre’s chattering mathbeat on Chiastic Slide or Tri Repetae. Layered rhythms and swollen, teetering synths get topped off with random computerbabble and brought to a head with a series of bassy thuds. Satisfying stuff in all, and on good sturdy, coloured vinyl. www.staticcaravan.com

08/11/02

The Monkey makes no apologies for featuring a less-than-fresh release now and again: Schulterblatt, a shelf-shy objet d’art from the music/visual art trio Rechenzentrum on Dutch label Stichting Mixer, has been available for a while but sneaks in for being so nicely packaged and limited to just 300. RZ are generally good value while floating in the shallows of Minimalist Techno (I saw that look. It does mean something), but the freeform staticscapes they often pursue are presumably dead sound without Lillevän’s accompanying image track. The A-side Nordlicht is one of those, peddling an ambience of clicking, scraping microsamples with little rhythmic sustenance, while the flip’s main track eases up a bit with a cut-up folk song and some scattered, flickering jazz drums. It ain’t for dancin’, but those who know know that repeated listens will almost certainly reveal this that and the other, so don’t be writing it off. www.stichtingmixer.nl / www.rechenzentrum.org If you’re after something a little easier on the ear and a lot easier to lay hands on, bear in

mind that it’s time for the third Rough Trade compilation (the aptly titled Rock’n’Roll 1), which means us counter-botherers get thrown an appetite-whetter. So once again no apologies – it may be a promo of a compilation, and a branded one at that, but this 4-track taster does feature The Detroit Cobras’ gloriously raucous Hey Sailor, a late-fifties bar-room chant wrenched into 2001 and sent silly on mountains of cheap speed. Also present are Clinic’s spot-the-vocal fuzzbomb C.Q., Crime’s Hot Wire My Heart and the marvellous (I’m A) Don Juan by The Embarrassment, which apparently hasn’t been available on vinyl for x-long and is a thoroughly essential purchase. But then they would say that, wouldn’t they? A worthy home for two-and-a-half quid nonetheless. On Mute. www.roughtrade.com / www.mute.com Also benefiting from a generous dollop of hype is the potty-mouthed spoof rapper Pitman, whose debut Phone Pitman had belly laughs ringing from the review pages of jaded dance mags and even got a play on Gilles Peterson. Which latter doesn’t actually sound very likely, but, y’know, apparently. The deal’s essentially this: he knocks up a beat, loops it, then disses all and sundry in an East Midlands brogue, using the word ‘twat’ as often as humanly possible. First time round Jamie Oliver got it in the neck; on Witness the Pitness he nicks the backing from Roots Manuva’s Witness and lays into Tony Blair, MTV Base, Students, and, well, you. Try to imagine South Park’s Cartman collaborating with The Streets’ Mike Skinner. Who, incidentally, cops some as well: “talkin’ like a cockney… arn’cha from Birmingham, ya nob?” A guilty pleasure. pitmanworld@hotmail.com Finally, aren’t split 7”s from small independents great? Yes they are. So a barrel of gin to the Awkward Silence label for releasing nothing but. The eleventh in a series that begun with German electronica bods Arovane and Christian Kleine, this pairs a gorgeous slow-burner from Luisine ICL with a portion of hard-drive catharsis from a sensitive chap called The Buddy System. The latter builds up well after a worrying start (I miss you very much…I miss you very much…I miss you very much…repeat ad nauseam, with FX) but hangs around two minutes too long, while the former takes honours by making a grand job of some standard moves. Glitches – check. Reverie-in-a-hot-bath synth swells – check. Careful layering – check. Pack thus and you can assure yourself of a very pleasant, if rather too comfortable journey. www.awkwardsilencerecordings.com

www.the-echo.com/ Talk about these reviews on our forum now. Previous Rack Monkeys: October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002

GC(uk) Index           Site Map           Links           Discussion Forums         About Us          Link To Us           Adverts         Add a Link       GC(uk) Email           Advanced Site Search

Let Spyonit.com notify you when this page changes!

Search this site! Just type in what you want to find and click the search button.