Tuesday 25 June 2013

MIND DE-CODER 37


    MIND DE-CODER 37

‘To rally every Black Sheep is my goal’
                                                    Julian Cope, 2008



MICHAEL COLE AND MICHAEL JESSETT     FINGERMOUSE AND FLASH PLAY 
    THE GUITAR 



Does anyone remember Fingerbobs? If you’re English and grew up in front of the telly in the 1970’s then you probably do – in fact, it probably brings a nostalgic lump to the throat and a yearning for something once familiar now half-forgotten. Johnny Trunk of the very fine Trunk Records feels the same way too. With music by Michael Cole and Michael Jassett, and sung by Canadian folk singer and former Play School presenter Rick Jones, FINGERBOBS – ORIGINAL TELEVISION MUSIC, released in 2011, is a musical collage put together by Mind De-Coder favourite Jon Brooks of The Advisory Committee, taking in songs, instrumentals and even a story from the 1973 series. It’s a lovingly created work and exactly the kind of release Trunk specialises in. Check them out here   

Rick Jones, the show’s gentle presenter, has admitted that he was pretty much high all through the show's 13 episode run.


THE FOCUS GROUP     ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL



This is title track from The Focus Group’s most recent release by Julian House, ELEKTRIK KAROUSEL, which came out earlier this year on his very own record label, the fairly wonderful Ghost Box, through which House releases all things of a hauntological nature. His sound is a blend of influences, taking in old library music LPs, public information films from the 1970’s  and soundtracks from that era, but on this album he’s also added a playful acid folk feel to the Victorian steam fair music and broken melodies, distorted children’s TV programme themes, Cold War psychedelia and all-round English weirdness. Check out Ghost Box records here.


SENDELICA      MAGGOT BRAIN



The first of three singles served up to you by splendid Fruits de Mer record label who produce covers of classic psychedelia, prog-rock, acid folk and Krautrock all lovingly reinterpreted by new bands and released on ludicrously limited coloured vinyl.  In 2010 they got the Welsh astral rockers in to record a cover of Funkadelic’s Maggot Brain and The Velvet Underground’s Venus in Furs. If the Velvet’s cover is truly mesmerising then their take on the Funkadelic classic is jaw-dropping - they take the original and turn it into a Morricone atmospheric work-out that will have you drifting across the prairies of your mind.

To find out more about Fruits de Mer check them out here 


SCHIZO FUN ADDICT     THEME ONE



Ever since George Martin thought to add brass to The Beatles Strawberry Fields I’ve liked the idea of your psychedelic trumpet, but apart from, oh, Love on their classic FOREVER CHANGES, who has picked up on the challenge of a psychedelic brass section? Well, Schizo Fun Addict for one, who, on the debut release for the brilliant Fruits de Mer record label, cover Van Der Graaf Generator’s Theme One, (which was, by no small coincidence, written by George Martin) and is awash with Mexican brass and lysergic prog bliss.

Other than that I know very little about the band, who appear to be an American four-piece who’ve released three albums so far that pretty much sound like the band’s name suggest they might.


MOON WIRING CLUB     BETWEEN TWO WORLDS



More hauntological going’s on from Ian Hodgson’s Moon Wiring Club who, on the CD version of his 2012 release TODAY BREAD, TOMORROW SECRETS (the vinyl version of the album comes with a different cover and different content) creates music for the accompaniment for almost all of the ‘pre-digestion dances’ that are sweeping the private woodlands and secret societies of the country.


COUNTRY JOE AND THE FISH     BASS STRINGS



I came quite late to Country Joe and The Fish because I think I didn’t like the name. I’ve since learnt that they were one of America’s most politically inspired bands and that the group’s name was derived from communist politics; "Country Joe" was a popular name for Joseph Stalin in the 1940s, while "the fish" refers to Mao Zedong's statement that the true revolutionary "moves through the peasantry as the fish does through water." And it turns out I really like their debut album, 1967’s ELECTRIC MUSIC FOR THE BODY AND MIND, too. It’s a psychedelic masterpiece, in the same way that debut albums by fellow San Franciscans, The Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful dead weren’t;  released at the very beginnings of the Summer of Love and in many ways a defining moment, capturing the psychedelic zeitgeist of the underground as it introduced itself to mainstream society. It’s as musically creative as anything The Beatle’s were doing at the time and as tripped out as it is accessible. I’m quite the fan, me.


JOE BYRD AND THE FIELD HIPPIES     PATRIOT’S LULLABY



A lovely bit of acid folk from Joe Byrd And The Field Hippies; the band he put together following the demise of his previous group The United States Of America. Patriot’s Lullaby appears on the band’s only album THE AMERICAN METAPHYSICAL CIRCUS (named after a particularly lysergic track from the United States Of America’s sole album) released in 1969 – the group in this case consisting of the most avant garde studio musician’s Byrd could find and who existed only for the length of time it took them to record the album – they never actually played live or anything. Nevertheless, it’s a cult album and one which, with its use of synthesisers, vocorders, effects, delays, echoes and other studio trickery took it years ahead if its time. It’s also very pretty in places.


JON BROOKS     WALKING FROM WOOD GREEN



Jon Brooks, he of The Advisory Circle, took a wrong turning in North Somerset and found himself in the village of Shapwick. Inspired by it’s psycho-geographic location as much as anything else, he produced the album of SHAPWICK in which he creates an imaginary impression of the village, conjuring up an atmosphere of bucolic ease morphing into subtle oddness. We get piano, plucking acoustic guitars, tape effects and field recordings, the spectral radiophonics of A Cognitive Distortion, the analogue synth, pastoral Winter’s Hamlet, and a bloke talking about bats, all recorded onto pre-used tape for that authentic hauntological feel.


MICHAEL COLE AND MICHAEL JESSETT     FINGERMOUSE PLAYS THE ORGAN



Another example of just how high presenter Rick Jones actually was during the recording of the series.


PETER PAN AND THE GOOD FAIRIES     BALLOONS



Very little is known about Peter Pan and the Good Fairies, possibly because there was no such band and this is the B-side to a one-off single called Kaleidoscope released in 1967 by a group of session musicians put together by the semi-legendary Jim Gordon.  Gordon served time in Derek and the Dominos (he played the elegiac piano coda for the title track, Layla, co-written by himself and Clapton); played drums on The Notorious Byrds Brothers, and was responsible for that drum break on The Incredible Bongo Band’s cover of Apache which is so beloved by your hip hop artists. These days he’s sadly serving time in jail for murdering his mother in a schizophrenic attack. But I might be talking about someone else.


CRANIUM PIE     MADMAN RUNNING THROUGH THE FIELDS



Another single release from the hip, cool and groovy Fruits de Mer record label, this time featuring Mind De-Coder favourites Cranium Pie, who in 2009 covered Dantalion’s Chariots Madman Running Through The Fields and made it even more tripped out and messed up than the original – featuring a manic trombonist, Sparky's Magic Piano and possibly a Romanian wrestler on vocals. Inspired. As the blurb goes: If you've heard an excerpt on Amorphous Androgynous’s  Monstrous Bubbles…, you've only heard half of it.


VELVETT FOGG     COME AWAY, MELINDA



Velvett Fogg, are something of a curio, notably for featuring Tommy Ioni before he went off and made good with Black Sabbath. He was long gone by the time the band recorded their one and only album, the eponymous VELVETT FOGG, released in 1969. Come Away Melinda is something of a hard rock psychedelic cover of the anti-war folk anthem popularised by Judy Collins and later, indeed, by Uriah Heep. It’s the best thing on the album otherwise characterised by pretty turgid acid-rock work-outs. Good cover, though.


PETER SELLERS     SHE LOVES YOU



This must have been recorded around 1965 (by George Martin, by the way, who started life as a comedy producer) but doesn’t appear to have been released until 1999 on the album A CELEBRATION OF SELLERS. Always gets a laugh out of me – send them home smiling, that’s my motto here on mind De-Coder.


TAME IMPALA     FEELS LIKE WE ONLY GO BACKWARDS



THIS IS JUST ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS, Kevin Parker has away with a tune that makes yearning sound absolutely delicious. Taken from 2012’s LONERISM –  my album of the year.



BOREDOMS       7 (BORIGINAL MIX)



Inspired acid wig-out from Japanese psyche-rockers, the Boredoms who, on the sixth installment of their SUPER ROOTS EP series (released in 1998) take a riff by post-punk agit-poppers The Mekons (their 1978 indie-smash hit Where Were You?, for the train-spotters amongst you) and turned it into a 20 minute long meltdown that comes across like a speed-induced freak-out between Jonathon Richmond’s Roadrunner; that incredible groove the Velvet Underground lock into on that live version of What Goes On that appears on their 1969 album, and a spaceship taking off. It’s really that good.  


CHRISTOPHE F. AND BLACK SHEEP     BROTHER MOTHERFUCKER



This is taken from the album HEATHEN FRONTIERS IN SOUND, released 2009, in which anarcho-folk collective Black Sheep member Christophe F explores the nature of Revolution and the manner in which, he believes, this can all be effected. It’s a gentle track that puts me in mind of Brother John by acid-folk ensemble Bread, Love and Dreams, although without the ‘motherfucker’ in the title, obviously.


SPACEDOG     WILLOW’S SONG (HAMMER SANDWICH MIX)



Spacedog  seem to be something of an arts collective whose  music reflects their obsessions with defunct machines, faded variety acts and the darkest English folk tales. They are loosely aligned to the hauntological aesthetic, if not quite part of it – they collaborate with the Belbury poly on one of the Ghost Box study Series singles, and singer Sarah Angliss appears on the CD version of the Moon Wiring Club’s Today Bread, Tomorrow Secrets. On this lovely live performance of Mind De-coder favourite Willow’s Song, recorded in 2008, they bring their usual mix of instrumentation to the performance using theremin, vocals, percussion, saw, laptop and their famous uncanny musical robots.


3 LEAFS       THE GRASS HOPPER LIES HEAVY


Regular listeners might remember how taken I was with Josh Pollock’s DJ  Female Convict Scorpion and his particular take on psychedelic non-hip hop turntablism a little while back . Well, 3 Leafs appears to be his day job – an improv based spaced-out psych-rock band from San Francisco. On their second album, TITULAR LINES, released 2011, from which The Grass Hopper Lies Heavy is taken, they create a sprawling canvas that shifts, twists and turns into hypnotic spells of sound that are capable of engulfing the listener in swathes of sonic wonder – or something like that anyway.


SOFT HEARTED SCIENTISTS     SEEING FURTHER



The opening track from FALSE LIGHTS, like a lot of the music I’m listening to of late, has a hauntological quality about it. Released in 2013, the rest of the album is otherwise characterised by haunting pastoral psychedelia but has a darker tone than their earlier releases and was shaped, according to the sleeve notes, by, amongst other things, Job-mageddon and grim, gap toothed, witches mouth high streets; the Grand Prix; tabloid newspapers; certain psychotic corporate titans; and neighbourhood watch groups. On the other hand it was inspired by cats that purr like little motorbikes; jaw dropping South Wales beaches; secret singing sand dunes; foxglove bells singing in the summer; and the sight of the Ghost monks of Tintern Abbey kicking the ghost arse of Henry the Eighth – so there’s something for everyone, really.


RICK JONES     THE STORY OF THE WOODEN TOWER



Our last visit to FINGERBOBS – ORIGINAL TELEVISION MUSIC today and I hope you enjoyed your time there. The title doeth what it sayeth on the label.


MOON WIRING CLUB     MISTY APPLEYARDS



 He’s very good with the titles, Ian Hodgson, isn’t he? This is one of the slightly longer tracks from the vinyl version of TODAY BREAD, TOMORROW SECRETS, released the same time as the CD version but, as mentioned earlier, with an entirely different play list and content.

‘For those amongst us who favour entertainment of a more ‘experimental’ nature, the Moon Wiring Club is as infamous and inevitable as cod-liver oil. One might say that no gentleman whose adventurous instincts have not been warmed and purged by what is on offer here, can hope for much future in the English-speaking world.’
                                    Dame Priapus Fripps, 1936


JULIAN COPE     THEY WERE ON HARD DRUGS



REVOLUTIONARY SUICIDE is Julian Cope’s 29th studio release. What with his Teardrop Explodes albums and fan club releases, I seem to own 44 albums by the Arch Drude. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after all this time I’d stop getting excited by a new album release, but I never do and this album is the best thing he’s done in ages (following a slump in 2005/2006, say). On Revolutionary Suicide his muse has taken him down something of a pastoral road; he’s singing folk songs now, albeit folk with an umlaut over the ‘o’ – they’re intimate, personal, they invite the listener in. The song They Were On Hard Drugs posits the theory that all of human kind’s greatest achievements were inspired by people on hallucinogenic drugs. Visionary philosophers such as Terrence McKenna and Bill Hicks argued the very same point. I wish Bill Hicks weren’t dead. He and Copey could have made a GREAT record together.

That was Mind De-Coder. I thank you.

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Tuesday 18 June 2013

MIND DE-CODER 3


MIND DE-CODER 3

To listen to the show just scroll to the bottom of the page

“The past is a foreign country, one where people are inordinately fond of polka music”.
   (Pat Long, 2012)


TUNNG     HANGED


Tuung's particular take on folk and blippy electronica really does make for the most disorienting music. This particular track is from the album COMMENTS FROM THE INNER CHORUS, released in 2006. I placed a few left over bits and pieces on it from that MASHED IN PLASTIC tribute album from a few years back, and added an excerpt from a documentary about LSD wherein an 11 year old kid explains that it's better than reading the bible six times. I think it's my favourite intro so far...


PRIMAL SCREAM     DEEP HIT OF THE MORNING


Primal Scream on mind-bending form with the opening track from 2002's EVIL HEAT album. I don't think I'm being entirely inaccurate when I say that, until recently, this was the most amazing thing they'd done for ages.


FAUST     LAÃœFT...HEIST DAS ES LAÃœFT ODER EST KOMMT...LAÃœFT


This lovely, understated track, with more umlauts than you can shake a stick at, is from the often underrated FAUST IV, released in 1973. This album is the Faust oddity - not because it has real songs on it, but because it was made away from their beloved school-house in Wumme. It has an entirely different feel to anything they'd done before, but was still very much a Faust album. Lauft... has a gentle Syd Barrett vibe to it that appeals to me greatly; it's the Faust song I like most to put on compilation tapes for friends - I have no idea what it's about though. I think the title is a typically long-winded German way of saying : “it’s running”, umlauts notwithstanding.


ESPERS     TOMORROW


An impeccable cover version of a song by The Durutti Column by psych-folk collective Espers from their album THE WEED TREE, released in 2005. (They actually do a very fine line in cover versions on this album, taking in tracks by Bert Jansch and Nico amongst others). It's one of those songs that makes me feel vulnerable, which I like every now and again. It reminds me of a time that I took a bus journey across America and didn’t manage to sleep for three days. They manage to capture that dislocated feeling of loss, bewilderment, bad breath and sleep deprivation just right.

At this point I played a reading of the final verse from STOPPING BY WOODS ON A SNOWY EVENING, by Robert Frost, probably not read by the author. 


PENTANGLE     ONCE I HAD SWEETHEART


I love Jacqui McShee's vocals anyway, but on this track she shines. Once I Had A Sweetheart is taken from BASKET OF LIGHT, released in 1969 and to my mind the best album Pentangle produced; it's way up there with Fairport Convention's LIEGE AND LEIF but beats it on account of the tunes. Pentangle just have more tunes, and Once I Had A Sweetheart is one of those tunes that can just nag at you while you're waiting in line at the flower shop.


JAMES BLACKSHAW     SPIRALLING SKELETON MEMORIAL


James Blackshaw was born in 1981, for a start, which always freaks me out. Spiralling Skeleton Memorial is taken from his album O TRUE BELIEVERS, released in 2006. It's a 12 string acoustic album that seems to be largely improvised but from which he has been able to craft the most beautiful, heart-stopping tunes. Quite simply, it's gorgeous.


THE ALIENS     LUNA


Largely a filler; a few moments of weirdness and strange sounds from Luna, taken from their second album LUNA, which was released in 2008, a consistent favourite of mine.


TRADER HORNE     MORNING WAY


Trader Horne - purportedly named after John peel’s nickname for his nanny - were, like Mellow Candle, one of those magical, short-lived bands that existed as the 60’s crept their way into the 70’s in the hope that no one would notice. It featured the voice of Judy Dybble, who was in the original Fairport Convention but was replaced with Sandy Denny when it was felt that her voice wasn't up to the direction that The Fairport's were pushing in, and guitarist Jackie McAuley, previously with Them, who found himself at a loose end after the curmudgeonly Van Morrison went solo and the band’s final two psychedelically-tinged albums failed to find an audience interested enough to buy them. They only made the one album, the very fey MORNING WAY, which was released in 1970. It was never promoted because Dybble left the band before the record was released, and yet...some bands exist only ever to make one album or one song that makes sense of their existence, even if they only exist for five minutes, and in this case, the wistfully lysergic Morning Way does the job quite nicely.




GALAXIE 500     ANOTHER DAY


The joke is, is that Galaxie 500 formed, released three albums and toured enough that I got to see them three or four times and then split up, in the time it took The Pastels to release their second album. It's not much of a joke I grant you and tells you nothing about Galaxie 500 but quite a lot about The Pastels, who aren't featured on tonight's show and I don't know why I'm going on about them so much. Can I just say that when Galaxie 500 released ON FIRE, from which this track is taken, in 1989, I played it to death. Their simple, atmospheric pop songs may sound somewhat sweetly dated nowadays, but guitarist Dean Wareham’s sparse guitar solo's used to thrill me in an age when guitar solo's were frowned upon for being wanky. There's nothing wanky about the guitar solos in Galaxie 500. Bassist Naomi Yang takes the vocals on Another Day, and her voice sounds so beautiful and lonesome that it makes me yearn for a daydream that just passed me by and left me wondering just what happened to my 20's. Dean Wareham went on to form Luna with The Chill's Chris Martin, and Naomi Yang and drummer Damon Krukowski became Damon and Naomi and went on to release a handful of albums in this vein, but neither act made a record that meant anything as much to me as ON FIRE does - did I mention that I love this album?


BRAN     DYDDIAU DWYS


Seriously, I can't even pronounce the name of this song (it may translate as ‘intensive days’), but here's what I know about them - they were a Welsh-language prog band from the late 70's/early 80's who seem to have released three albums before they turned into an acid-folk band called Pererin. They sound ever so slightly like a cross between Jefferson Airplane, Clannad and an early 70's version of Fleetwood Mac, but in Welsh, of course. Obviously I have no idea what they're singing about, but singer Nest Llewellyn Jones could be singing a shopping list for all I care and it would still sound mysterious and lovely. Dyddiau Dwys is from the album HEDFAN, released in 1976, but it also appears on the very fine album WELSH RARE BEAT compiled by Andy Votel and the Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys Jones, which pretty much does what it says on the label and remains a must-have album for every household as far as I'm concerned (but then I would).


WHITE RAINBOW     MYSTIC PRISM


Another track that also pretty much does what it says on the label, Mystic Prism can be found on the album PRISM OF THE ETERNAL NOW, released in 2007. The liner notes of his album claim that the music within has healing properties, and who am I to doubt that?


THE SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN     THE JAYBIRD


Mind-blowing heavy vibes from the amorphous The Sunburned Hand Of The Man. The Jaybird is taken from the album THE JAYBIRD, a record that Julian Cope describes quite pithily as 'one motherfucker of a psychedelic trip - it's grooves run rings around Saturn and it's bass penetrates Uranus' - what more needs be said? It's not an album for the faint-hearted - it takes over everything else in the room and rides it long and harrrrrd!


CAN     OH YEAH


One of Can’s prettiest and most mysterious songs, taken from their 1971 release TAGO MAGO. Damo Suzukie’s vocals are backwards and beautiful and the track itself is more or less indescribable. Copey gives it a go in the good book, KRAUTROCKSAMPLER, when he calls it ‘fucking gorgeous’. Nuff said.  


SPROATLY SMITH    PENDA’S FEN


Ghostly and lysergic, Herefordshire’s Sproatly Smith are channeling something buried deep in the border country where spirits and legends live on in the half-life of myth and belief. Spine-tingling, really. Taken from their album GREATEST HITS VOLUME 1.


MARK VIDLER     STRAWFIELDS AND SKYPLAIN/
MAGNET     LULLABY


These are both largely instrumental so I combine the two of them to what I think of as pleasing effect. Strawfields and Skyplain came from a Blueroom session that Mark Vidler did for Radio 1 back in 2006, Lullaby is hummed by Magnet from the newly-realised soundtrack to THE WICKER MAN, released in 2002.


LESLEY DUNCAN     LOVE SONG


In these cynical times it's almost necessary to play something as honest and beguiling as Lesley Duncan's Love Song. She originally used to be one third of Dusty Springfield's backing singers but had to wait until the 70's before achieving any real success. This is from the album SING CHILDREN SING, released in 1972, but you may have heard the version recorded by Elton John and Olivia Newton John that earned her a great deal of money, so that's alright then. 


IN GOWAN RING     A LULLABY ERE CLOSED EYES


1 minute and 15 seconds of folkish ethereal loveliness from In Gowan Ring, taken from the album COMPENDIUM 1994-2000, released in 2000. In Gowan Ring is the name under which the mysterious, reclusive and nomadic B'eirth records - he favours traditional instruments and which he often designs and makes himself. He sounds like the sort of bloke who should be living in medieval woodland on the Welsh border with a bodged chair, a broken water jug and half a candle as his only possessions. In fact, he seems to come from Ohio, near Salt Lake City, where he's related to the fourth prophet of the Mormon Church, Wilford Woodruff, his Great-great-great grandfather, but he really can't be doing with that sort of thing.


THE TEARDROP EXPLODES     WINDOW SHOPPING FOR A NEW CROWN OF THORNS


Psychedelic whimsy from the b-side of Teardrop's single COLOURS FLY AWAY, released in 1981(although it also appears on the re-released version of their second album WILDER as a bonus track. You know, sometimes that just makes it too easy. It took me years to re-find the original 7" version after I lost it at a party back in 1983.) Referred to by Cope himself, in his autobiography Head-On, as a dreary harmonium and brass freak-out, I've always found it quite pretty and I'm glad I finally got to play it on the radio.


THE BETA BAND     SHE’S THE ONE


The first time I heard this song I was driving home late one night along the winding country lanes of Devon, listening to the radio, when I had a John Peel moment and had to pull the car over because my eyes had inexplicably filled with tears. As I sat there in that lay-by, letting the music wash over and comfort me, I thought it was the most perfect song I’d ever heard, and not much has happened since to make me change my mind. It’s from the band’s second EP, THE PATTY PATTY SOUND, released in 1998, which also formed the basis of their first album, THE THREE EP’S, released later that year, which, as the title suggests, is comprised of the first three EP’s and is a most wonderful thing. The problem is, it was a bit too wonderful and despite releasing three further proper albums they were never this good again. For a while though, they looked like being the best band in the world.

FRANK ZAPPA     THE CHROME-PLATED MEGAPHONE OF DESTINY


This is taken from Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention’s classic 1968 album WE’RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY,  Zappa’s response to The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s and a general taunting of the flower power generation and the summer of love. The Chrome-Plated Megaphone of Destiny is supposed to be his final word on The Beatle’s A Day in The Life, on an album that many critics regard as the final word on the 60s, but then, that's exactly the sort of thing that they would do.

And that was Mind De-Coder 3 - I thank you. 

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