Dubnovoodoobasswithmyheadman

Big Two Hundred - Drum Spell

Since disbanding Bizarre Inc back in 1996 after their second album, 'Surprise', was a commercial flop, Andrew Meecham and Dean Meredith have been incredibly creatively fertile, together and apart, with less chart success but with an increasingly eclectic sound. They both dabbled in Big Beat as Sir Drew and Psychedeliasmith respectively, before coming together again as Chicken Lips in 1999 and exploring the outer reaches of space funk, nu-disco and leftfield house. On the solo tip, Meecham has been recording spaced-out analogue disco as the Emperor Machine for DC Recordings since 2003 (more on that one day - the 'Vertical Tones and Horizontal Noise' series is brilliant), and Meredith's White Light Circus project (also on DC) is Moroder/Kraftwerk influenced dirty old school electro and celestial funk (again, I should really cover this some day as it is equally good).

But my favourite post-Bizarre Inc incarnation for Meecham and Meredith was Big Two Hundred. Under that alias they recorded a solitary album, 'Your Personal Filth', released on DC Recordings in 2003; a rampant collection of dub disco, punk funk and psychedelic garage rock, very much in thrall to Bristol's late-1970s post punk pioneers The Pop Group and with nods to The Clash and PiL. It's a fucking freaky far out and hugely underrated album with a dirty, stoned sound enhanced by the fact that it was all recorded on vintage analogue equipment. Check 'Drum Spell', which sounds like an outtake from a Can album - 12-minutes of locked Krauty grooves, a bucketload of spooky echo effects and insane, voodoo-influenced, dubbed-out percussion that sounds like it's being played with human bones. And to think this fell out of the same heads that made 'I'm Gonna Get You'. I want some of whatever it was they'd been taking...

Search eBay for Big Two Hundred
DC Recordings website
DC Recordings MySpace
Chicken Lips MySpace
The Emperor Machine MySpace
White Light Circus MySpace

I Just Can't Help Believing...

Johnny Boy - You are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve

Sorry it's been a bit quiet here of late. I've got a lot on my plate at the moment, but one of the things I have been doing is starting to think about my end of the decade list. Yep, the first decade of the noughties (I hate that term but can't think of a decent substitute) is almost over. While I was sorting out an initial list (91 songs at the moment, hoping to whittle that down to 20 over the coming weeks), I came across this amazing song by Johnny Boy. I don't think my iPod has ever thrown this up in any shuffle and as it's the only song I have by them it's got swamped, but by crikey it's GOOD! Named after a character in Scorsese's 'Mean Streets', the Liverpool-based duo of Lolly Hayes and Davo were a precursor to the Ting Tings - boy/girl duo doing catchy indie pop - only far, far superior. Their second single, 'You are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve' was a call to arms against consumerism, produced by the Manics' James Dean Bradfield and released in 2004, when it reached # 50 in the hit parade. It's a brilliant tune - like Phil Spector producing Saint Etienne - with an infectious, euphoric, shout-along chorus. Unfortuntately, for various reasons it took them three years and two record companies before their self-titled debut album hit the shelves, and nothing on the album matched the brilliance of '...Generation'. But not many bands get it so very right at such an early stage in their career, so for that alone they should be lauded. Definitely one of the great lost singles of the decade.

Search eBay for Johnny Boy
Johnny Boy MySpace

Paint the Whole World With a Rainbow

Black Moth Super Rainbow - Twin Of Myself

Black Moth Super Rainbow win band name of the year, if not the decade. But then great band names are in their DNA - previous monikers have included Allegheny White Fish (Pittsburgh-slang for a condom floating down the river) and satanstompingcaterpillars. Emerging from a chrysalis in an obscure Pennsylvanian forest glen in 2003, the fully-formed Black Moth comprise vocoder-wielding front man Tobacco, backed by four mysterious musical forces known as The Seven Fields of Aphelion, Power Pill Fist, Iffernaut and Father Hummingbird. So far so freaky deaky, weirdy beardy, right? Wrong. The biggest surprise of all is that the music concocted by the five-piece on their latest album, 'Eating Us', isn't as way out there as you might think. Sure, it's full-on under-the-influence-of-super-strong-blotter-acid psychedelia, but then whack your ears around 'Twin of Myself' - it's sublime psychedelic pop music, an inspired amalgam of Air's floaty Gallic goodness and some top drawer childlike melodies that could have come out of the Boards of Canada songbook. It's accessible and catchy - it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't worry the Top 40 if their UK label, Memphis Industries, released it as a single.

Granted, 'Twin Of Myself' is the poppermost moment on 'Eating Us', but the rest of the album is still easy on the ear. Produced by Dave Fridmann, it's a proper summer album, radiating warmth from start to finish, mainly due to the predominance of analogue electronic instruments including Tobacco's ubiquitous vocoder (which is set on soft and warm, not harsh and robotic), as well as a lush Rhodes piano and space-age Novatron. Other highlights include opening track 'Born on a Day the Sun Didn't Shine', which is a futuristic 'Strawberry Fields Forever', with heavy, looped beats and a gorgeous Rhodes, while 'Iron Lemonade' is a woozy bad trip, with a melody bizarrely reminiscent of the Grange Hill theme tune as re-imagined Plone. Not surprisingly, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips is a big fan, naming the song 'I Was Zapped by the Lucky Super Rainbow' after them.

'Eating Us' is a wonderful example of machine music with an organic, human heart and can be double-dropped straight into the day-glo melting pot of psychedelic classics.

'Eating Us' by Black Moth Super Rainbow is released in the UK by Memphis Industries on June 8th 2009. Pre-order it from Norman Records
Black Moth Super Rainbow MySpace
Black Moth Super Rainbow website
Memphis Industries website

Jackin' in the Community

Nathan Fake - Castle Rising

Norfolk’s finest big-haired knob-worrier Nathan Fake is back with a new six-track mini-album ‘Hard Islands’, which was released by James Holden’s mighty Border Community imprint on Monday. I caned the arse of Fake’s 2006 debut album, ‘Drowning in a Sea of Love’ - an inspired concoction of toytown synths, blissful, life-affirming distortion and thumping beats, and definitely up there with the best of the Noughties. His latest offering finds the prodigious 25-year-old hitting his stride, remodelling his style with a tougher sound, honed over the last few years spent roughing up the dancefloors of Europe. “Playing live a lot over the last couple of years has had a profound influence on the way I make music now,” Fake says.

Opening track ‘The Turtle’ is a straight-up banger – marvellous bubbly, squidgy acid, while on ‘Basic Mountain’, Fake staples his trademark fuzzy, pastoral electronica to hard-edged, analogue techno beats. ‘Castle Rising’ is rough, raw and loopily experimental acid house, recalling the glorious early years of 808 State, when A Guy Called Gerald was behind the wheel; and both ‘Narrier’ and ‘Fentiger’ are packed with gnarly Aphexisms, off-kilter melodies and brutal beats. I only have one complaint – it’s far too short. More please.



Nathan Fake - Outhouse (Main Mix)

The music of 'Hard Islands' is a return to Fake's roots - 'Outhouse' was the single he burst on to the scene with back in November 2003, an absolutely bruising monster of a tune, with only an eerie, dissonant AFX circa-Polygon Window melody to keep the relentless percussion at bay. If he's now 25 (I think) that means he would've been, er, about 19-years-old when he produced this. Suddenly those "Norfolk's answer to the Aphex Twin" comparisons have some resonance.

Buy 'Hard Islands' from Norman Records
Nathan Fake MySpace
Nathan Fake website
Border Community website

Spirited Away

LFO - Tied Up (Spiritualized Electric Mainline Mix

When I first got wind of this union between the Gods of bleep techno and Jason Pierce’s psychedelic space rockers - probably in the news section of the NME - I messed my pants in excitement. An inspired collaboration if ever there was one, the results did not disappoint as Jason Pierce took the original bass-heavy techno thumper and transformed it into a blissful nine-minutes of strung-out ambient wonder, easily on a par with Global Communication's reworking of Chapterhouse's 'Blood Music'. Coincidentally, the only other remix Pierce ever did (until last year's effort for Goldfrapp) was of the Global Communication track 'Maiden Voyage' around the same time as this.

Pierce had obviously been rummaging around in the darkest recesses of former cohort Sonic Boom's drug bag, as there's not a trumpet or gospel choir in sight. This isn't so much a remix as a piece of music inspired by the original, with oscillating synths and drones, a gently plucked guitar, washes of beautiful, dissonant noise and the vaguest hint of melody to tie this rework to the original. It evolves so gradually the changes are barely noticeable and is a wonderful demonstration of tonal control. This is right up there with the best things Pierce ever did, and if he's considering a change of direction post 'Songs in A&E' I'd suggest a trip back in time...

Search eBay for LFO 'Tied Up'
LFO MySpace
Official Spiritualized® website
Spiritualized® MySpace

The Return of Elf Magic

Wisp - Keeper Of The Hills

Deep in a mountain valley in Middle Earth stands the mighty Wisp – resplendent in his wizard’s robes, the Merlin of electronic music thrusts his knotted staff towards the three-mooned sky as he orchestrates a deranged army of dancing Orcs, goblins and elves, whipped into a frenzy by an insane musical collision between Aphex Twin and Genesis. Welcome to the wonderful world of Progtronica.

And no, that tag is not meant to be disingenuous. ‘The Shimmering Hour’ is an epic and conceptual album, as much influenced by medieval folklore as it is by the electronic music scene. Wisp came upon his artist name while reading ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy and has been known to dabble in the odd game of Dungeons and Dragons. The progressive element can also be found in Wisp’s exceptional musicality – the boy can play as well as program, and like the key protagonists of the progressive rock scene, he is not afraid to indulge himself. All he needs is to don a fox’s head for live performances a la Peter Gabriel and the link would be complete.

As an artist who has done all his growing up in public – releasing a plethora of high quality net releases for free and frequenting electronic music messageboards - Reid “Wisp” Dunn of Niagara Falls, New York has always been judged by the harshest critics of all; the notoriously hard-to-please IDM fanboy community. But Dunn has emerged unscathed, virtually bulletproof to the jealous sniping and totally driven by his own convictions rather than someone else’s idea of what electronic music should sound like in 2009.

‘The Shimmering Hour’ is the follow-up to 2005’s excellent ‘NRTHNDR’, Dunn’s first “proper” (i.e. you had to pay for it) album. There are references to all the various stages of his prolific musical career within, making ‘TSH’ his masterwork. There is no doubting Dunn’s technical prowess – his programming and production skills are exceptional - but what makes ‘TSH’ so special is the fact that you can tell he has poured his heart and soul into it. In an oft-faceless scene, Dunn’s quirky personality shines forth from every second of his music and his sound is unique. You could spot a Wisp track a mile off. Yes, he is undoubtedly under the influence of Aphex, but Aphex soundtracking ‘The Legend of Zelda’ as directed by Peter Jackson.

Joyous paint-the-sky melodies, fucked-up acid grooves, banging, emotive Euro-rave, Bukem-esque ambient jungle, bewitching medieval folk, lush breakdowns and complex, pulse-quickening breakbeats are all dropped into the musical cauldron and bubbled into life to create a magical brew, rich with the spirit of Bardic lore but driven by cutting-edge electronic production skills. Wisp is at the peak of his powers now; it won't be long before you all fall under his spell.

Buy 'The Shimmering Hour' from Norman Records
Incredible Wisp archive - all his net-label recordings are available to download for free!
Wisp MySpace

Box Fresh Techno

Laurent Garnier - Astral Dreams (Speakers Mix)
Laurent Garnier - Astral Dreams (Headphones Mix)

The thing about top-notch quality techno is that it never seems to age. Take Laurent Garnier’s ‘Astral Dreams (Speakers Mix)’. It is nearly 15 years old, but rather than sounding dusty and ancient it still sounds box fresh today, like it was cooked up on Reason and burnt onto a CDr by some prodigious teen techno producer last week. 15 years is a long time, but the track is timeless, with super crispy production. OK, so if you were playing it out now you’d have to pitch it up a bit, but I probably would have given it a bit of a nudge even back then - you want everything to go faster when you’re young. As the ‘Speakers Mix’ suggests, this was one for the dancefloor, designed to shred ears – if you stood too close to the PA it sounded like a gigantic metallic dog was barking directly into your brain.

The ‘Speakers Mix’ originally surfaced on a 12” on FComm – the precursor to the French techno wizard’s debut album ‘Shot in the Dark’, which was released in the autumn of 1994. There was a ‘Headphones Mix’ that I’m also posting - this is a laidback, trancier affair that is more of the period and does sound slightly dated. But when that insidious acid line kicks in it’s a dead ringer for peak-‘Brown Album’ Orbital, which is a very, very good thing indeed.

Search eBay for 'Shot in the Dark'
Laurent Garnier discography
Laurent Garnier MySpace

As a footnote - I'm on Twitter now. You can find me here. Not sure how I'm going to use it at the moment, but I am considering doing occasional exclusive Twitter posts - 140 character reviews with tinyurl links to downloadable tracks - that won't feature on the main TWNR site. It may never happen, but if you want to see if it does - follow me! If I get 12 followers, I'll organise a supper for us all somewhere nice*.

* I won't.

Liberation Through Collaboration

Mike & Rich - Vodka

Back in early 1996 when rumours of a collaboration between electronic behemoths Richard D. James and Mike Paradinas first reached my ears, I was so excited you would have thought it had just been announced that a re-animated Albert Einstein was getting together with Professor Stephen Hawking to finalise plans for a teleportation device. The reality was something far less highbrow - as Mike P revealed of their union: "With Rich it was ... fooling around pissed and on acid".

So not the groundbreaking, experimental electronic-fest everyone was expecting. Instead we got a couple of equipment-obsessed techno boffins getting mullered on vodka and acid in a studio and concocting some cheesy tuneage, though the resulting album, 'Mike & Rich' ('Extreme Knob Twiddlers' was a subtitle), is an underrated, joyful affair. Of the process itself, Mike P said in an interview with the brilliant Milk Factory website: "It started round his (Richard's) place and we just did this track. I think we both enjoyed working together, it was quite a laugh, so we carried it on. We were serious about the music though - it's not a pisstake, just elements of joy."

Many critics saw Mike P as the dominant force in the recording process, and the free-jazz keys of opener 'Mr Frosty' were certainly evocative of the music he produced under his Jake Slazenger moniker. Throughout, the playful synths and odd samples recall prime Rephlex-era µ-ziq material. But this simplistic view doesn't allow for the fact that (according to Mike P) the sessions were partly inspired by the unreleased Aphex Twin album 'Melodies from Mars'. Plus I can't imagine such a strong personality as RDJ would have been subservient to another producer - it's far more likely that he felt suitably liberated by the collaborative process, relaxed by multiple vodka shots, off his face on acid, and in the mood to create something a little bit different from his usual output. The crunchy techno of 'Vodka', with its off-kilter melodies is very Aphex, and 'Winner Takes All' recalls 'Cow Cud is a Twin' from the 'I Care Because You Do' album, while also being reminiscent of contemporary Luke Vibert's output as Wagon Christ.

'Mike & Rich' has aged pretty well considering and the cover is an absolute classic. Seeing the youthful Mike and Rich enjoying a game of Downfall is a reminder of more innocent times.



Squarepusher/AFX - Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid

Luke Vibert sent many a fan boy's pulse racing when he disclosed (again in an interview with The Milk Factory in 2003) that all of the electronic music scene's powerhouses have worked together at some point. "(Me and Richard) do work loads. Nearly every time I see him, we make music together. Same with Squarepusher. We’ve done tracks with Tom, I’ve done tracks with Mike Paradinas, everyone’s done tracks together." But, unfortunately, it appears that not many of these collaborations will ever see the light of day as they simply aren't good enough - too unfocused, sprawling and messy to be worthy of a proper release. Though tantalisingly, Vibert said that he might give some of them away via the internet - as far as I'm aware, this hasn't happened yet.

However, one track that did make it into the public domain was a collaboration between Tom 'Squarepusher' Jenkinson and RDJ under his AFX guise. Recorded to celebrate Warp Records’ 100th release and named after the popular high street shoe retailer, 'Freeman, Hardy & Willis Acid' marries some mournful Aphexian melodies to jazzy, rolling Squarepusher d'n'b beats. Then the ante is upped as the drums go all splattercore and it finally delivers on the acid promised by the title with some vintage squidge. With Warp celebrating their 20th anniversary this year, perhaps a few more collaborations between the old school heavyweights could be on the cards. Here's hoping...

Buy 'Mike & Rich' from Boomkat
Mike P's Planet Mu website
Aphex Twin fan resource/forum at WATMM - strictly for the hardcore fanboize - you have been warned!
Squarepusher MySpace
Warp Records website

A Scene Worth Celebrating Again

The Early Years - Like a Suicide

As documented many times on TWNR, I was a teenage shoegazer. Ride posters on my wall, Ride T-shirt on my back, sporting the duffel coat/Converse combo, silly girls hair and a winsome, fey expression permanently etched on my fizzog. Now I consider myself to be a massive fan with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the scene, but everything pales into insignificance when compared to the shoegazer extraordinaire, Nathaniel Cramp of Sonic Cathedral. Nat has single-handedly resurrected the shoegazing genre, breathing new life into the much-maligned scene (Richey Manic famously said he hated it "more than Hitler") with club nights and a record label. If you want some more background info, we wrote a piece about Nat and Sonic Cathedral back in 2007 - you can find it here.

Nat's mission statement, as told to Jude Rogers in the Guardian, was to "contextualise shoegazing in terms of its influences and inspirations". But as well as looking back, Sonic Cathedral is also moving forwards, so the music he releases on the label is not a tired, hackneyed tribute to the original shoegazing scene. Instead, Sonic Cathedral represents everything that is great about music TODAY. Nat's eclectic A&R policy and fine ear has led to him releasing a series of phenomenal singles. All hits. No misses. That is quite an achievement in this day and age. If I were a major label I'd be getting Mr Cramp on my payroll quick smart...

Just how consistently great the Sonic Cathedral label output has been becomes evident when you listen to 'Cathedral Classics Volume One' - a compilation of the first eleven 7" singles released on the label since 2006, out on CD on April 20, 2009. It is, without a doubt, the best compilation I have heard for eons - a real throwback to the classic Creation compilations that were a testament to Alan McGee's A&R talents during the 1990s.

Kicking things off, The Tambourines' 'Sally O'Gannon' is a heady burst of fuzzy guitar pop - like Jesus and Mary Chain crossed with the Dandy Warhols. Courtney Taylor-Taylor (one surname not enough?) of the aforementioned Dandys would cut off his cock and flog it to Satan to still be writing songs this good.

For the label's second single, Nat rolled out the big guns - the union of Mark Gardener and Ulrich Schnauss was one made in heaven. The latter's remix skills transforms the former Ride man's heartbreaking country song, 'The Story of the Eye', into a lush slice of celestial folk - not so much shoegazing as stargazing. They should make an album together and then I can die happy.

Another shoegaze luminary to feature in the Sonic Cathedral oeuvre is the former Slowdive mainman Neil Halstead. He rocked up on the seventh single, remixing the San Francisco folk rocker Miranda Lee Richard's tender country ballad 'Lifeboat' and transforming it into a feedback-drenched slo-mo trip hop wonder, more reminiscent of Portishead than Halstead's former band (for whom the phrase 'sonic cathedrals of sound" was originally coined).

Things get really post-modern with the re-interpretations of tracks from Japancakes instrumental treatment of My Bloody Valentine's 'Loveless'. James Rutledge (aka the mighty Pedro) turns 'Soon' into a bleepy microhouse marvel, the swoons and groans of the original just about audible amid the bonkers skittering electronics, while Ricardo Tobar's reworking of 'Touched' is six-minutes of blissed-out, technoid brilliance - a Balearic classic in the making.

But the stand-out single for me is The Early Years (Brian Eno's favourite band) dark epic 'Like a Suicide'. A distorted, pulsing drum machine holds everything down, steady as a metronome, while a melody reminiscent of Joy Division's 'Isolation' hovers into earshot. It all shifts up a sonic gear when the vocal drops - a Gary Numan-esque baritone intones, "I'm not falling apart, just into pieces", before a guitar is mangled to death. Fuck Editors - this is how a 21st-Century Joy Division would have sounded.

Having said there are no misses, I am not the biggest Kyte fan. Under their own steam the Leicester band are unremarkable; their overwrought, piano-heavy torchsong 'Planet' is just a little too close to Keane for my liking. But when James "Maps" Chapman gets involved it's a different story - his remix of 'Secular Ventures' transforms the band into a credible proposition - imagine early-OMD with spikey Aphex rhythms. They should ask him to join full-time.

Elsewhere, Maps and M83 swap remixes, the Contino remix of Sarabeth Tucek's 'Something For You' is a comedown classic, and Sonic Boom goes all Radiophonic Workshop on Dean & Britta's (of Galaxie 500 and Luna fame) 'White Horses', a cover of a 1960s kids cartoon theme tune. And finally, with SCR011, the label released something resembling old school shoegaze - the bloody marvellous 'Within the Boundaries' by Daniel Land and the Modern Painters, an epic soundscape reminiscent of prime-Cocteaus.

Nice sleeve too - a gloriously yellow pastiche of 'Loveless'. Hopefully this is just the start for Sonic Cathedral. The label is preparing to release its first artist album later on this year - from Sweden's Sad Day for Puppets, who sound a bit like the Concretes crossed with Dinosaur Jr.

Forget the scene, it's the label that is worth celebrating...

Buy 'Cathedral Classics Volume One' from Norman Records
Visit the Sonic Cathedral shop
Sonic Cathedral MySpace

People in Motion Again

Papercuts - The Machine Will Tell Us So

San Francisco is gearing up for another Summer of Love as there's a properly tasty scene building in the city at the moment. At its heart is Jason Quever, a guy with a very interesting back-story – he was raised in a commune in Humboldt County in Northern California, orphaned, and moved up and down the West Coast before settling in San Francisco. A talented multi-instrumentalist with a fine ear, he's become a focal point for West Coast musicians, playing with and producing a whole heap of acts including Devendra Banhart, Vetiver, Donkeys, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Cass McCombs and Beach House.

As well as his role as the Phil Spector of modern-day San Fran, Quever also has his own Papercuts project and the optimistically-titled ‘You Can Have What You Want’ is the third album he's recorded under that nom de plume, but the first to be released in the UK (on April 13 2009, by the ever-reliable Memphis Industries). It’s a dreamy collection of reverb-drenched pop songs, dominated by vintage analogue organs and Quever’s soaring vocals. The songs evoke hazy summer days, rich with melancholic drama and stunning arrangements – that Spector comparison was not a joke, though perhaps Brian Wilson circa-'Pet Sounds' is a more accurate sonic comparison.

It has a retro-future vibe - new sounds recorded on old equipment - that immediately brought to mind ‘The Noise Made By People’-era Broadcast (who incidentally have a song called Papercuts in their oeuvre – coincidence?), especially the drums, nailed on the press release as “Kraut-via Ringo”. Quever himself has flagged up 'The Twilight Zone' as a big influence on the album (he was watching the boxset on repeat during recording) - "It's clear to me that the show's mysterious, melancholic vibe seeped into the album", he revealed. This does actually make perfect sense. There's also a laidback, Gallic feel to proceedings; the evocative whiff of Gauloise and Gainsbourg permeate the tracks. Love it.

Catch the Papercuts experience live when Quever and his merry band tour the UK and Europe in April in support of the album -

09 April - Deaf Institute, Manchester
11 April - Bird On The Wire, London
12 April - Freebutt, Brighton
13 April - Rough Trade Instore, London
14 April - Cafe de la Danse, Paris
15 April - The Cellar, Oxford
16 April - The Legion, London
17 April - Buffalo Bar, Cardiff

Preorder 'You Can Have What You Want' from Norman Records
Papercuts at Memphis Industries
Papercuts MySpace