After a decade out in the cold, I finally got some of my hi-fi gear, and specifically a turntable, back into the living room at home, having removed all the kids' crap and reorganised the furniture, thus reclaiming this room as an adult living area.
Oh, the simple joy of playing a record on a decent stereo system whilst lounging on a sofa. It's almost like the old days...except I'm not allowed to smoke anymore...and if I get too comfy I will invariably doze off.
Yes, there's always the possibility that the little buggers will fuck with my shit, and possibly break something, but I'm willing to take that chance.
You will notice that this is a purist system. Turntable, tape deck and amp only. No CD player. This is a digital no-go zone. Though admittedly there is an emergency USB interface jacked into the Aux input, should the need to play digital/Spotified music via laptop ever arise, but so far only the kids have taken advantage of this facility (I may have removed all their stuff, but their presence still stubbornly remains). Me, I'm trying to keep the faith, baby.
"Once upon a time, people believed in the future. When I was growing up in England in the 1970s, one of the most popular programmes on TV was called 'Tomorrow's World'. Every week scientists would talk about how new and wonderful inventions would make our life better. Sociologists talked of an impending leisure society, where our biggest problem would be what to do with all the spare time created by increasing automation..."
"The future we were sold in the 1970's/1980's where robots would be our servants and we would hop into our hovering cars in the twenty-first-century techno cities never quite materialised. Here we stand, twenty years on from seeing chip-shop-chips on compact discs and things are the same but worse as our optimism of the future has been eroded away collectively.
'Tomorrows World' never came."
Leyland J. Kirby, from recent press release
An interesting point, aside from the convergence of thought in the two above texts, concerns the stylistic differences between the two youtube clips. The first is the opening titles for Tomorrow's World as it appeared in the 1970s - a jaunty, exciting, endearing and kind-hearted view of the future with a bright easy listening soundtrack. The second clip shows the new title sequence introduced at the start of the 80s - cool, spacey and mysterious, propelled by a synthetic euro-disco beat that informs the work of modern day retro-futurist Belbury Poly. What was it about the 80s that demanded such a clean break with the old? Other programmes given quite dramatic overhauls at the time included Top Of The Pops and Dr. Who (with Delia's original theme finally superceded after 17 years). It seems we couldn't wait to leave behind the stylistic signifiers of the '70s. Yet each decade tinted the future with it's own distinct hue. Both promised us a better world. If only...
There's a program on my laptop called 'Windows Movie Maker'. I've never opened it before, but tonight I was feeling bored and listless so I opened the fucker and, for the sheer hell of it, 'created' the above promo clip using a few old pictures from my raving days and the first two minutes of a killer tune called "Elephants" by October. It is scheduled for release around late July or early August on Immerse Records.
Here's what Immerse's Kid Kut had to say about it:
"...created back in 2003 when Jules (October), myself and a few others used to go out to parties and get a little worse for wear and wanted something to listen to when we came home, didn't have a label then but now is definitely the right time to put these out, definitely captures an era for me personally, a time when i was first getting into dubstep, ThinKings mix and SLT with that amazing ep on Soulja."
And if you understand what he's saying, like I do, then that probably means you were vibing on early Mark One, Plasticman, SLT Mob, Soulja and Road 12-inchers and getting really excited about this ice-cool new form of UKG that was so fresh and underground it didn't even have a firm name yet.
Nothing unusual in itself, but I'm taking this one personally.
All my life this little retail space at the bottom of Cleeve Hill has been an off-licence. My dad used to come in here to buy his cans of Hoffmeister and packs of Marlborough. Sometimes I would go with him and wait obediently and patiently while he chatted with the ever-jovial proprietor about the football results, hoping that he might feel inclined to buy me a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar or maybe some Opal Fruits from the enticing selection of snacks on display at the counter.
Years later, having moved back into the area, I began frequenting the shop myself, to buy my bottles of Budweiser , Drum tobacco and Rizlas. Occasionally my children would accompany me and, if they were well-behaved, I might feel inclined to buy them a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar or even a packet of Starburst. But I never had any idea who the proprietor was. The counter was now a plexi-glassed fortress with a little opening where cash would be furtively exchanged with an ever-changing staff of young student-types who always seemed vaguely annoyed at my presence. Perhaps because I had disturbed them in the middle of some urgent text-messaging.
And you wonder why I keep going on about the past.
The atmosphere, lay-out and even the brand names might have changed, but there's one thing that's always stayed the same about that shop: the smell. I think it must be something to do with the wood. The shop has dark wooden walls and floors, and they secrete a particular warm, woody odour that is, in my experience, entirely unique to this shop. I've never smelt it anywhere else in the world. It's a lovely, comforting smell. Whenever I smell it I connect with a little 8-year-old kid, holding his dad's hand, happily biting into a Cadbury's Fruit & Nut bar. I hate the idea that, for the time being at least, I am denied access to that smell and the sensations it inspires.
Following on from the Cabaret Voltaire post, I've tracked down a few other clips that stand out in my memory as particularly influencial in my personal development. It is perhaps hard to remember now how influential these brief televised encounters could be for a teenager growing-up in the '80s, thirsty for fresh musical experience, yet desperately restricted for choice and information by today's standards. Yes, we had the radio, and we had the music press, and sometimes we even had enough pocket money to buy an actual record, but often it's these fleeting, unplanned televisual experiences that burn brightest in the mind's eye. Perhaps the slower rate of intake allowed these things to be inwardly digested better. I mean, I can't remember what I was watching/listening to on the internet last week, yet these clips from over twenty years ago still linger...
I didn't see the original broadcast, but this clip was repeated on Whisletest sometime in the mid-'80s (during the Mark Ellen/Andy Kershaw years). At that time I knew very little about Pil apart from maybe recent hits like "Rise". I'd never seen a group playing like their lives depended on it before, and I remember being utterly gobsmacked by Keith Levine's deft, almost violent, approach to synth-playing. As the clip finished I suddenly realised I'd been holding my breath.
I'm not sure when and where I saw this clip, originally broadcast on one of Granada's regional shows, but it was my first exposure to the music of Joy Division, viewed without any knowledge of their history or growing legendary status, nor any inkling of the dark, tragic story attached to the lead singer. I wasn't as immediately blown-apart by the music, but the image of the group on those raised podiums, so starkly intense and transfixed by their own sound, (plus the singer's rather curious dancing technique) is the first image that comes to mind whenever I think about Joy Division.
The Southbank Show did a documentory on the Velvet Underground in 1986. I'm not sure if I'd even heard of the group at this point, but I would always make a point of watching the programme when they were covering music. This one totally hooked me into the sound and mythology of the Velvets. It looks like the whole thing is now up on youtube, although this section, with it's evocative description of the creative tensions that spawned "Sister Ray", made a particularly heavy impact on my young mind.
To finish (for now), here's one that was actually a current, brand new track at the time. Again I have Whistletest to thank for playing this video and thus irrevocably cementing my love for Mantronik and electro-flavoured '80s hip-hop in general.
A couple of links sent my way earlier today - Jan Jelinek's 'radiophonic' hoax album (via Bob) and a Conny Plank podcast (via Matt) - converged in my mind and sent it flashing back to a little-known krautrock-inspired hoax album entitled Auf Die Mond! I always assumed it was a hoax, anyway. Promotional cd-r copies were floating around in 2001, yet when I googled it I couldn't find a single reference to it's existence! Hard to believe, I know, but somehow this particular item has managed to remain undocumented on the web...until now.
After a good deal of searching through mountains of dodgy old promo CDs, I finally found it. The sleeve notes, written by one Clifford Snouts, claim that the master tape for this 'forgotten krautrock gem' was discovered by a retired German recording engineer in a filing cabinet. The album, by an unknown artist/group, was apparently recorded in late 1974, possibly in Hamburg. Stylistically, the music recalls Kraftwerk circa Ralf & Florian, although the title track is clearly endebted to Neu! But perhaps the closest overall comparison would be with Cluster, as the music veers between the formless dronescapes of Cluster II and the naive cyclic melodies of Zuckerzeit or Sowiesoso.
Now I'm not usually one for wholesale filesharing, but on this occasion I've decided to share the entire release with you, dear readers, complete with reproduced sleeve notes. Afterall, this is one of those weird little forgotten electronic projects that is so obscure that the chances of anyone actually finding a copy are practically nil. Plus I'm almost hoping it's creators might spot this and get in touch to solve the mystery of it's origins once and for all.
As I said, I'm pretty sure this must be a hoax, but it's still an enjoyable and quite authentically retro-analogue listening experience, full of filtered rhythm machines, Farfisa organs, backwards guitars and clunky hand-played monosynths.
