Friday 28 October 2016

MuhMur Radio SoundArt Radio Broadcast 27:10:2016.




This programme features the work of Paul Daniel Knowles.
Back in the late 1990's I became aware of the sound of Dachise. I can't remember whether it was the CD album "Twin Braids" or the delicious 7" single "Sugar Path". Whichever it was, I was captured by the noise. Paul was then based in Harrogate, but soon moved to Dorset and delivered the album "Imbeciles In Love". The turn of the century and Dachise melged into The Digitariat and set up HQ in London. Live performances and a slew of tape / CDR releases followed.
I vaguely remember an assault at the Red Rose in Finsbury Park. Improvised chaos.
A few months ago I discovered Paul had reverted to releasing material under his own name. Where Putrefier became Mark Durgan, BBBlood became Paul Watson, Cheapmachines became Phil Julian so The Digitariat is now Paul Daniel Knowles.
https://pauldanielknowles.bandcamp.com

To round off the sounds I decided to play 23 minutes of artists that began with the letter "D". I hope you enjoy. Please copy & paste
 https://www.mixcloud.com/muhsteve/muhmur-radio-soundart-radio-broadcast-27102016/

Playlist :
01: The Digitariat : "Intimacy Problems" (Luggage Records) 2007.
02: Dachise : "The Sickly Raider" (Vigilant) 1997.
03: Paul Daniel Knowles : "Untitled #1" (Not On Label) 2016.
     (Recorded October 2016 especially for MuhMur Radio).
04: Dachise : "Sincere Embrace" (Tochnit Aleph) 1998.
05: Dachise : "Ultra Kappa Slappa" (New Noise) 1999.
06: Paul Daniel Knowles : "Untitled #2" (Not On Label) 2016.
     (Recorded October 2016 especially for MuhMur Radio).
07: Paul Daniel Knowles : "Euston Underpass #2" (Not On Label).
08: Paul Daniel Knowles : "I Was Like…He Was Like…She Was Like" (Not On Label) 2016.
     (Both tracks from an unreleased Demo CDR).
09: Paul Daniel Knowles : "Untitled #3" (Not On Label) 2016.
     (Recorded October 2016 especially for MuhMur Radio).
10: Dachise : "Sugar Path" (Tochnit Aleph) 1997.
11: Deutsch-Amerkanische-Freundschaft : "Gewalt" (Mute Records) 1980.
12: Dead Letters Spell Out Dead Words : "The Room Seems Empty Without You" (Killer Pimp)  
                                                                       2009.
13: John Duncan : "Aidayoki Passion" (RRRecords) 1994.
14: Aaron Dilloway : "Songs About Jason (Side A)" (Lost & Found Records) 2013.
15: Detonator : "Menneisyyden Aoveet" (Freak Animal Records) 2000.

Next broadcast will be on November 10.

Pictures:
01 : MuhMur Radio CDR.
02: "Imbeciles In Love".
03: The Digitariat (Live).

Thursday 20 October 2016

Wagner Ödegård






There are a few labels around these days that I will buy from on the strength of their catalogue. I may never have heard of the artists / projects they are releasing but they have never (or virtually never) let me down … I am thinking of labels like Verlautbarung and Fragment Factory in Germany, KIKS / GFR in the UK and Hibiskofon from Sweden. Sweden also have Hästen & Korset and Belaten as essential labels (although I think Belaten may have bitten the dust?). It reminds me of my youth back in the late 1970's when I would buy the latest releases from Rough Trade Records or Factory Records or Fast Product as I knew it would be "interesting".
Hibiskofon started in 2013 with cassette releases from Dusa and Tusen Är Under Jord. Earlier in the year I had played a live gig (as Dieter Müh) with Dusa in Stockholm and really enjoyed his sound. So, when the first Hibiskofon tape came out, Dusa "Segermännen", I had to investigate.
2016 and we see the fifth release from Hibiskofon. "Ur Törnedjuper" by Wagner Ödegård. I had no idea what to expect (soundwise). Wagner Ödegård could be a group or a solo artist … I had no idea and when the cassette came and I plumbed it in I still had no idea who was behind the sound.

"Ur Törnedjuper" is one thirty minute piece repeated on both sides of a C60 tape. Throughout it has the sound of worn vinyl, static clicks and skips. The sound is old and orchestral, opening with dark viking horns and beating drums. Impending and imposing, longships at dawn through arctic mists - think really early Laibach, back to the days when they were on L.A.Y.L.A.H. and Side Effekts Rekords. It's a captivating sound. And then there is a narrative, old Nordic voices start to tell a story, the horns switch to orchestral strings, to organs, to accordion and then piano and the story continues.
With the cassette comes a small piece of text, it may well be the story that is being told but I don't understand the language and the translation app I have doesn't want to know!
The piano plays a beautiful refrain as the story progresses, and then it switches, starts getting all choppy and changing, like the needle on the record is skipping. Perhaps Wagner Ödegård have gotten hold of some old Swedish 10" 78's telling old myths and fables? Perhaps they are treating this like Clock DVA when they added an alternative soundtrack to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"? Whatever, it is thirty minutes of magic and a composition / sound I have never heard the likes of before. Immediately turned over the tape to hear it all again. The stirring horns and beating drums … Classic.

So. Who are / is Wagner Ödegård? Research time. It came as a surprise to find that Wagner is a member of Swedish Black Metal group Tomhet. He uses the pseudonym Kumulonimbus, he is also known as Wulkanaz. The full dressed in black with corpse paint type of band. It is an area of music I know very little about. "Lords Of Chaos" on the bookshelf and a couple of Burzum albums I bought cheap to add a soundtrack to the reading (Although I did see Judas Priest live twice back in 1978). If I had done some research before buying this beauty I probably would never have bought it … but then again….I trust the folk behind Hibiskofon.

I have no idea how many copies are available, I bought my copy from Millstone Vinyl of Stockholm but try www.hibiskofon.se first. Essential.


Friday 14 October 2016

MuhMur Radio SoundArt Radio Broadcast 13:10:2016.



An interesting broadcast! Not as I had planned but it all turned out well in the end. Arrived at the station studio to find "Mystic Dave" of Mystical Voyagers Visionary Shamanistic Show banging out some mid 1990's hardcore techno and no turntables. A previous inhabitant had unplugged the equipment meaning I had to shuffle the playlist around until Engineer Dave turned up to fix it all ….
MuhMur Radio would be lost without Dave Mutch!
I altered the irregular "On This Day" feature to fit in Ultravox!'s "Ha! Ha! Ha!" LP. Released October 14 1977 it is one of my all time favourite releases. Top three at least. It has always been with me since 1977. My elder sister had their first LP, and went to see them live in 1976 so when this LP was released I had to get a copy first. Sibling rivalry etc.
The Copley Medal track is a studio version of the piece Ryan Martin (Mr. Medal) submitted to MuhMur Radio and was broadcast earlier this summer. It appears on a split cassette with Dekorativ Parasiter. The CAM tracks all appear on their second album "Mirror Confrontations" recently released via the Danish Skrat Records label.
Please take a listen : (Copy & Paste) :
https://www.mixcloud.com/muhsteve/muhmur-radio-soundart-radio-broadcast-13102016/

Playlist.
01: Maurizio Bianchi : "Infinitesimo" (EE Tapes) 2016.
02: Siegmar Fricke : "Eurocentik 2007" (Old Europa Cafe) 2008.
03: Deffektegg : "Incurable Absurdity" (Amek) 2016.
04: Kristian Olsson : "Vykort Fran Garma" (Old Captain) 2016.
05: Copley Medal : "Annex Proto" (Repartiseraren) 2016.
06: CAM : "Mirror Confrontations II" (Skrat Records) 2016.
07: Feine Trinkers Bei Pinkels Daheim : "A O B" (Drone Records) 1996.
08: Shifts : "Love One (A)" (Korm Plastics) 1999.
09: Beequeen : "Fab!" (SSS Productions) 1998.
10: Beequeen : "Cool!" (SSS Productions) 1998.
11: CAM : "Foetus Part One" (Skrat Records) 2016.
12: CAM : "A Place To Go" (Skrat Records) 2016.
13: John Duncan : "This Bitter Earth" (Ideal Recordings) 2016.
14: Jonathon Briley : "The Hunter" (Broken Flag Records) 1987.
15: Ultravox! : "Fear In The Western World" (Island Records) 1977.
16: Ultravox! : "Distant Smile" (Island Records) 1977.
17: Bene Gesserit : "Chaton" (EE Tapes) 2016.
18: Gilbert/Lewis/Mills : "Mzui (Excerpt)" (Cherry Red Records) 2016.
19: Hinageshi Bondage : "Tirez Sur Le Musicien II" (Verdura Records) 2001.

The nest broadcast will be on October 27 and (hopefully) will feature exclusive material from Paul D. Knowles (AKA Digitariat / Dachise / Spastic Burn Victim). 20:00 (gmt) at www.soundartradio.org or 102.5FM if your in or skirting about Totnes.

Photos:
01: The Playlist.
02: "Mystic Dave".

Sunday 9 October 2016

CAM.



This time last month I had never heard of CAM, and now I can't get the LP off the turntable.
My awareness came courtesy of Claus Poulsen. One third of CAM. I have been listening to the works of Claus for a few years now, his involvement with Small Things On Sundays and Star Turbine as well as his solo releases through Beartown Records, Striate Cortex and Sheepscar Light Industrial. Claus (to me) is similar to Anla Courtis who seems to release regularly (either solo or in collaboration) on a plethora of compact and bijou labels. And now there is CAM.
Apart from Claus CAM is comprised of Anders Berup and Mads Bech Paluszewski-Hau. New names to me but then again I am not too au fait with the Danish experimental abstract free-improv. electronic scene. CAM were created in 2009 in Copenhagen and "Mirror Confrontations" follows their debut LP "True Or False?".

First couple of plays had me thinking that I'd never heard anything like this before, or if I have it was a long time ago. There are some musical references, certain sounds evoked Storm Bugs and very early Clock DVA, but then again there was a synth sound that made me think of an old Greenslade album. Then after a time a story / concept / journey appeared and what was (at first) noncognitive now seems to make some sense….where perhaps it shouldn't? "Mirror Confrontations"  is comprised from improvised recordings made over three months in 2015 / 16. This is the album I am writing about.
The first two tracks play as one, like an introduction. "Foetus Part One" begins with low groaning and moaning, an awakening with scratched strings and a slow arriving pulse beat. The whole piece sounds like it was recorded next door to a drum & bass party. Anders is credited with "LFO Madness", it is well in evidence here with a shape/less form/less cacophony. Only one place to go .. out of the room, along the corridor, out of the building. Footsteps pass speeding traffic and neon blur and the voice in the head asks for "A Place To Go".
Silence.
Side A ends on "In-Between". A Billie Holiday on acid flashback nightmare, a street brawl, a fist fight with feedback moving through the dimly lit neon night.
"Amazing Greys" comes from a different space. A black & white soundtrack to a 1920's silent sci-fi movie. Machines are keyboards that assemble themselves at dawn and prepare for battle. Improv' electro jazz scratch fever. "Mirror Confrontations II" and the voice in the head returns as a drunken bar-fly. "Mirror confrontations in the afternoon" (vocals very similar in style to Storm Bugs here). The sound is an inward collapse finishing on a decreasing heartbeat and dying breath.
"Closer To The Tree" closes the album with a spiritual rise. An outpour of realisation. Huge electronic symphony. The story's end.

It is certainly the case that I heard a different narrative on the first few plays and chances are that narrative will change the more I hear it. Repeated listening is required. A bloody good album. Not one for the harsh noise lovers or techno-beaters, but if your mind and ears are open then this is definitely to be heard.
It was released by Danish label Skrat Records, so probably available through them, but try the CAM website : www.triocam.dk I don't know but Infinite Limits or Alt.Vinyl might carry copies in the UK.