Deugain Sain [40 years of Sain] - Various

Y brawd's own selection from Sain's 3 disc bonanza of 40 years' Welsh music in the popular vernacular.

Many will already be familiar with Andy Votel's Welsh Rarebeat primers.....meeah,  "look at these quaint people singing in Welsh in the 70s...who'd have thunk it?" 

Better start here with Sain's collection for a representative overview that strays outside Votel's acid-folk obsessions to take in 70s/80s new wave (Trwynau Coch, Geraint Jarman), 70s Mott / Lizzy melodic rock (Edward H. Dafis  - who bestrode Cambria like denim clad colossi), 90s indie (Catatonia), 00s sunshine psych (Mim Twm Llai) and varied points in-between.

Ever wondered what John Cale would sound like singing in his native tongue (and exactly why hasn't the grand experimenter who spoke only Welsh until the age of eight ever recorded in the language?), then Geraint Lovgreen's yer man. Looking for songwriting spirit of Bill Fay? Check out Daniel Lloyd a Mr Pinc.

An embarrassment of riches for all and for a few, memories of gigs past. (Sometime around 1979, Peel faves Trwynau Coch played the assembly hall at y brawd's school. It was bloody great. Ms. Cadifor, ble'r wyt ti nawr?)

Buy the album.

Artists:
01 Meic Stevens
02 Sibrydion
03 Edward H. Dafis
04 Daniel Lloyd a Mr Pinc
05 Trwynau Coch
06 Geraint Jarman
07 Y Cyrff
08 Mim Twm Llai
09 Gwibdaith Hen Fran
10 Catatonia
11 Bob Delyn
12 Sian James
13 Plethyn
14 Fflur Dafydd
15 Steve Eaves
16 Mynediad Am Ddim
17 Maharishi
18 Tebot Piws
19 Mairi McGuinness a Cor Meibion Llangwm
20 Geraint Lovgreen a'r Enw Da
21 Sidan

Oddi wrth y brawd
Cymru, Lloegr a Llanrwst

Other Channels - The Advisory Circle [Ghost Box 10]

And so to New Media fuelled nostalgia cult as creative act. Old Media - broadcast - time is simultaneous, punctual; New Media time is distributed, fragmented. Eliot's Waste Land modus operandi plays out nightly on cheapo Top 100 Funniest Sit-Com Moments: "These fragments I have shored against my ruins" - quite.

In an idiolectically narrowed world of highly personalised memetic re-composition, the OedIpod - to use K-Punk's phrase - has displaced pop as spectacle. Two examples from Momus: Bowie's appearance on Extras and the end of Top of the Pops - reinforce the impression that celebreality has subsumed pop. In each case, we see the triumph of the celebreality principle over fantasy and glamour. From playing the alien on TOTP  - and marginalising a nation in the process - to playing a banal yet unbelievable version of himself in the matey star cameo second series Extras, Bowie's trajectory is emblematic. Stick around long enough and haunting is the inescapable, cheapening effect of modernity.

Less risible and inarguably much more fun are the Ghost Box crew excursions into worlds of BBC Radiophonic Workshop, library music, test transmissions and public information broadcasts. Amongst the scattered electro-static and glitchy debris are some melodic reminders that cutting edge sounds of the 70s were as much the preserve of the parochial and pedestrian as the experimentalists. Indeed, parts of this release sound like a great lost Cluster album somewhere between Zuckerzeit and Sowiesoso.

The Ghost Box moniker is well-chosen of course. Earliest cited application of hauntology as music label or genre goes to Ian Penman in mid-90s edition of The Wire. The provenance of the term generally is still more venerable: a neologism coined by Marxist philosopher Jacques Derrida in Spectres of Marx. Derrida invokes not just the ghost of Marx's manifesto  - "a spectre [is] haunting Europe" - but also the shade of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

“Time is out of joint”  cues the tenuous connection between past, present and future. The past always haunts the present, obviously, but equally so does the future. In a Ballardian sense this "nostalgia for the future" introduces a ghost – in this case, Hamlet’s father – and so creates a tear and a fold in history. Derrida takes the point further with “To be or not to be”: introducing haunting into all conceptual constructs, beginning with the concepts of being and time. The nature of being or ontology is nothing less than hauntology-in-action. Ontology is fundamentally spectral.

In the original French the felicitous homophony works a treat: hauntology-ontology (try with French accent). Something of a sense of humour then these Marxist philosophers.

Humour too plays a role in Ghost Box plunderings. Though it's frequently humour on the edge of hysteria, panic and neurosis. Their treatment of the public information film Frozen Ponds is utterly chilling and made scarier than original creators could have ever imagined.

Make of all this what you will; Derrida is de writer...

Oddi wrth y brawd
civil defence is common sense

Disaro - Modern Witch (2010)

Bringing things up to date with young gun neophytes of low-battery 80s drum machine chug; devotees of caningly repetitive electro-punk vignettes fronted by dissolute female vocalist.

And let's praise artists for whom the 80s mark the beginning not the end of the holy mystery. The UK hauntology crew have betimes built an aesthetic out of attempts to claw back a glimpse of just-out-of-reach 70s wonderlands. Fellows such as Ghostbox and Mordant create music that dines out on wink of the eye cultural signfiers; grist to the critical mill for bloggers and Wire journalists keen to pull up a chair at the meme feast - drooling all the while over those hyper-designed album covers.

Extend the same courtesy then to Modern Witch and a more recent re-assemblage and re-enactment; dishing up pleasures a-plenty with a studied air of glassy-eyed ennui.

Oddi wrth y brawd
witchy women

                               

Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret - Soft Cell

In which y brawd atones for throwaway phrase Soft Cell and their ilk. For once the Mood labels on allmusic.com are on the money: passionate, provocative, hedonistic, brash, theatrical, sleazy, campy. Beyond the faux glamour and tawdry thrills, however, lie the enduring appeal of perfect synth pop and that voice. In time Marc would learn how to sing. Here the waywardly off-key warble is the grit in a particularly slinky oyster, and nowhere more so than on Say Hello, Wave Goodbye: the swell of keyboards and vocals as we rise into the chorus.... bona fide pop genius.

This year's Marc album, the very fine Varieté, is billed as a swansong. Looking back on the past 30 years, it gives nostalgic perspective to the milieu first explored in N-SEC. Buy it. Pay a visit to Marc's place.

Oddi wrth y brawd
torch

Martin Rev - Martin Rev

Tales are told of Ralf & Florian strong-arming copies of Suicide’s first album from Lester Bangs. Yeah...

God knows what record company / personal issues shenanigans led to this solo album release in 1980 on the Lust/Unlust label, only a year after 1979's Marvel, which in all but two tracks is the same album entire. No matter. This one idea = one song collection finds Martin perfectly poised between sublime synth pop (first two tracks: Mari and Baby O Baby) and proto-industrial experimentation (the rest). Highly influential. Pointing the way to Soft Cell and their ilk on the one hand, and on t'other the  PTV / Coil axis.

The naive synth melodies are a delight. Percussive industrialism riveting.


Oddi wrth y brawd
stigmata

Donovan Quinn and the 13th Month - Donovan Quinn and the 13th Month (2008)

Yeah heavy and a bottle of Quinn's lo-fi basement country-folk. John Wesley Harding glimpsed thru a drowsy haze of grass-chewing Americana. With a sound fleshed out with occasional sympathetic organ, piano and fiddle, Donovan plays out his frayed preoccupations over a sleepy-afternoon, showing strong songwriting, mostly expounding crumbled relationships and a casual  investment in spiritual imagery and allegory in the Christian vernacular. A low-key gem of an album.

(New collection Your Wicked Man out now on Soft Abuse. Donovan also plays leading role in the psych-ier Sky Green Leopards)

Oddi wrth y brawd
moose indian, indian moose

Click et Craque - Monsieur Mo Rio

Alongside Monsieur Mo Rio, Stereolab are glue-sniffing thugs and Belle and Sebastien are tooled-up psychopaths. Yes, it's bonjour soleil as you enter the charming, skewiff  world of MMR. Not to say there's a lack of experimental edge: MMR is after all a member of the Schwaben German collective Metabolismus. 

Click et Craque is a collection of tracks from mid 90s cassettes. A penchant emerges for taking a base popular tune - e.g. Good Day Sunshine; Les Sucettes; Sing a Song (!)  -  and defamiliarising and defracting it through a twisted electro-pop lens.

A delight. Just know what you're getting yourself into.

Oddi wrth y brawd
tip top

大江慎也 & ザ. ルースターズ/ Oe Shinya & The Roosters

1983/84. The beating heart of The Roosters, Oe Shinya is at the end of his  tether. Whether underlying psychic fragility leads to mental collapse or the wrong kind of drugs (or both)...the signs are all too obvious: the sharp sussed rocker has put down his guitar and taken to lying on a hospital bed on stage, getting up only to dance in an unsettlingly uncoordinated way.

The writing has been on the wall for some while. 1981's magnificent Case of Insanity:
"When my mind's away in the daytime
Watching TV with no sounds
You know I wanna make my life complete
It's harder and harder as time goes on
Oh I don't care, I don't care
'Cause now I'm just a case of insanity"

Ironically, the songs Oe gives The Roosters during the onset of his illness are among his very best. Post-Oe, The Roosters go downhill pretty quickly: lumpen 80s rock interspersed with pointless VU covers in big 80s back-combed hair.

Meanwhile, Oe retreats to his hometown in Kyushu - rumours have him tilling the earth and/or teaching in a cram school - working on his recovery. He is back in the Roosters /  Roosterz on and off but it isn't the same. He returns proper with a brilliant solo album in 1989, Peculiar (anybody who can supply y brawd with a link to this will earn undying love). A long time on the mend, the '00s have seen a triumphant return to form with new material as well as diginified reunion gigs with the original Roosters line-up (Fuji Rock 2004 a notable highlight).



Y brawd had the privilege of a brief chat with the man after his solo outing at Fuji Rock 2006. Standing in a post-gig line to get product signed; sticking out like a sore thumb next to teenage nu wave arrivistes (males in skinny ties) and original fans (females approaching middle-age but still living the dream). Oe-kun seemed quite shocked as y brawd reached the front of the queue and declared admiration in dodgy Japanese. So much so that the great man was moved to stand up and offer a bow of thanks...which of course wasn't on.

Y brawd still doesn't know the Japanese for: "No, sirrah. You are a hero of the Japanese new wave, and you bow to no one".

Time's arrow flies backwards:
01  Good Dreams  [1984]
02  Hard Rain  [1984]
03  C.M.C.  [1984]
04  I'm Swayin' in the Air  [1983]
05  Sad Song  [1983]
06  She made Me Cry  [1983]
07  Case of Insanity  [1981]
08  Let's Rock (Dan Dan)   [1981]
09  Sitting on the Fence   [1981]
10  One More Kiss   [1981]
11  Girl Friend   [1981]
12  Hey Girl   [1981]
13  恋をしようよ [1980]
14  Rosie  [1980]




Oddi wrth y brawd
get happy

Arkhaiomelisidonophunikheratos - Satanicpornocultshop

As deranged, diverse and compelling as cover and title would suggest. Band hail from Osaka, though this is incidental to their defining achievement: a multiplicity of sound layers pierced by one single breakcore beat making for a destabilisng futuristic hip hop attack, alternating with fried folkery in the female Fursaxa vein.

Accordingly, opener Next Year's Snow lovingly mimics Vashti Bunyan to the point of pastiche. Only gentle glitches give warning of cut-up madness to come. Next up, (R.I.P.) Tide, a psychedelicised mash up of Pentangle's Light Flight, in which we are invited to get our  collective freak on, repeatedly. Saddam Fed Bird While Jailed ups the ante on beats and samples and ushers in Stanley knife mayhem of next two tracks, slashing, ripping and pasting multifarious field recordings, riffs and songs and shaping them into howling beast beat  monsters. A light and dark pattern emerges as the acid-fried harmonium chill returns with the respite of Glaneurs and Diamond Day hip hop of Pinky (the latter with further exhortations to get our freak on - a given by this point). Thence the breakcore-tastic Custom Drum Destroyer delivers on its title: wholesale lo-fi sample of No Fun mid-way through is nothing short of sublime. Left-handed Darling is twisted J-Pop. 9 Headed Monster begins by asking: "Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" - a leitmotif for all this light and dark dialectic bethinks y brawd. So thick and furious are the subsequent breaks that the answer has to be "dazed and confused witch, thank you very much". Things then tail off into pleasing mellowness: a stab at 80s pop with Paradise; more Vashti / Fursaxa shenanigans on Kanariya; Margo Guryan over easy on Nido; a reprise of Next Year's Snow; to finish, a mad big beat electro-debris cover of Francoise Hardy's unassailable Comment Te Dire Adieu.

Easy then to understand criticism from some quarters aimed at the lack of full on breakcore onslaught with this release. However, to these ears the leavening of beats and samples with female oriented chilled out pop and free folkery work their magic. Proving perhaps that nothing is ever entirely black and white.

Oddi wrth y brawd
for twitchy witchy folk everywhere

Summer and Smiles of Finland - Various, A Fonal Records Promo Compilation (2006)

Additional tracks from previous posting faves coupled with a best of rest overview. 

Running order:

Paavoharju  (1,2) - lamenting exotica and glitch transmissions from collective of ascetic born-again Christians, sounding somewhere between Bollywood, church hymns, beautiful pop tunes and ambient esoterica.

Islaja (3,4,5) - young, clearer eyed Nico acid-folk chanteuse; beautifully phased, magically real.

Islaja: Pimeyttä kohti from Sami Sänpäkkilä on Vimeo.

Kemialliset Ystavat (6,7,8) - free form pilots of short spooling instrumentals building layers of simple repetitive riffs into laminal mudcakes; weaving ghosts of folk song into huge tunnels of drone.

Shogun Kunitoki (9)

Es (10,11)

Kiila (12)

Risto (13, 14) -  2 finsk mark version of Spector's wall of sound (in a garage)?

TV-Resistori (15, 16) - childlike melodies and cheesy synths ahoy; sound disconcertingly like a Japanese Stereolab

Es (17)

Visit Fonal records for free downloads, news, updates and to buy the music.

Oddi wrth lähimmäinen

tampere nights

Magneettimiehen Kuolema [Death of Magnet Man] - Pekka Streng & Tasavallan Presidentti (1970)

 

Presiding spirit of Fonal label, Pekka Streng's sole two albums of mystic, humanist psychedelia and acid-folk have enduring appeal and ensure continuing cult status. His first record Magneettimiehen Kuolema is the more lysergically euphoric of the two and prog band Tasavallan Presidentti along for the ride.

From the magical, intimate opener Gilgamesh Pekka engages ears and heart. Language is no barrier. A sense of yearning, transcendence and hymnal celebration underpinned by Pekka's keening vocals. He's really saying something, you don't know exactly what and it matters not a whit.

He died in 1975 at the age of 26. You need some Pekka in your life.

Oddi wrth y brawd
gate is open


 

Tuota Tuota [Well, Well] - Kiila

Tuota Tuota (2009) is Kiila's third outing and while there is no beginner's Fonal band, Kiila come close.  The motifs in the songs are not easy to render - elk antlers, tree bark, sound of rapids, fog, letters, calves, fingers - but the music speaks a universal tongue, stringing together loose threads of electrified folk, psychedelia and occasional far out improv jamming.

A sense of freedom permeates, upholstered with firm structure and well-rehearsed perfomances, whilst leaving enough primitive electro-detritus and sprawling fiddles to remind you that this is no ordinary folk-rock record. It trades in lush, North-European  arrangements and silvery group chants and wayward fiddle playing a la ISB (the spirit of the bowed gimbri abides). The rootsy, acoustic traditionalism of the songs get the patented Fonal left-field spin that by the closing minutes of Pollutukin Mietteet have morphed into phased funk guitars, wildman organ and ornery trumpeting. An odd end to an album mostly intent on homespun, crafted revels.

Oddi wrth y brawd
kiitos kiila

Huomen Tuone - Tulasi

Dusk and the Finnish wilderness. A forest clearing circled in light. Around pine-scented blaze  a troupe of wandering folk gathered. Smiles exchange. Take a seat. Music begins....flute, tablas, finger cymbals...Sips from communal bowl. Sleighbells appear in your hand. Darkness brightens. Low chants commence. This feels good. Gooood....

Oddi wrth y brawd
fonal freak fun

Kesämaan Lapset [Children of the Summerland] - Es

Y brawd declares a week of Finnish delight centred around Sami Sänpäkkilä's Fonal label. Harking back to days when an album's label stamp was indicative of a definable sound, Sami has orchestrated one of the most fruitful, stylistically consistent labels of the decade; stock in trade: Finnish experimental folk and electronica. 

Accordingly, we open with Sami's own transcendent Kesämaan Lapset (2009) under the Es moniker. Released four years on from the kaleidoscopic drone and chant of Sateenkaarisuudelma, Kesämaan Lapset dials down the former's glorious sprawl while exploring accessible electronic soundworlds in tribute to 70s Finnish acid-folkie Pekka Streng (more on Pekka later this week). This would explain the record's nostalgic summer feel, though eyes are set on much more distant and ethereal horizons than Streng's song-based structures.

We know we're on to something very special from the get go: Ennen Oli Huonommin fanfares a flamboyance of irridescent analog chirrups and twitters that skitter and dazzle across four major key minutes. Clearly, we're at the bright electronica end of the Fonal spectrum far  from the lo-fi folk forest dwellers. For all that, the opening conjures a sense of immanence and mystery that weave through the rest of the listen.

Next comes cheery homespun ditty Kesa Ja Hymyilevat introducing spacy vocals and free-roaming electronics. Vaguely reminiscent of Magical Power Mako. Then things start to get really interesting. Sateet Sun Sielusta plays with some piano phrases only to build into a celebratory cascade of drone combining disciplined minimalism with mind-manifesting kosmische synthesiser worship. 

Still reeling from the meteor shower of trickling lines and deep-space drones the listener hops aboard title track Kesämaan Lapset and a twenty minute ride from personal space and childhood summers past to euphorically expansive vistas of the possible. The first phase uses a repeated piano phrase  - almost a Dvořák steal - as nostalgic and pastoral grounding. This develops into electronic trills, washes and field (or maybe simulated) recordings  summoning woods, streams and sea-shore adventure. The final enveloping section builds to a heavenly crescendo worthy of Popol Vuh at their most blissed out and transcendent. Heady stuff.

The closing, comparatively brief Haamut Sun Sydamesta is a necessary psychedelic come down, serving to remind us that however abstracted the journey has been, this is a singer-songwriter album at heart. Which brings us back to Pekka.

This recording will enrich your life.

Let y brawd know what you think.

Oddi wrth y brawd
pekka up

Lunes - Headdress

Eerie stuff. Second album by Texas psychedelic duo is dark Americana meditation. These das blues Jim, but not as we know'em. Blues drone. Can you get to dat? The high plains still drift albethey street-lit canyons and brick dusted by-ways. Kosmischer Amerikaner. Howdy.

Oddi wrth y brawd
uncle eerie