To consolidate all the stuff floating around on other threads. Because I've looked and we don't really have a thread for all this.
Can we talk about this here, maybe?
― Germanic Street Preachers (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 09:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Erm... Magick Bus = new monthly club with Prins Thomas and Espen Haa
Details:
FRIDAY 22nd MAYMAGICK BUS LAUNCH PARTY...
We are proud to announce a very special treatfor London. Full Pupp Record label & Club nightfrom OSLO is landing at Cable. Anyone whoknows their music will know Full Pupp is run bynone other than Prins Thomas and partnerEspen Haa. We are very excited to have thesetwo on board for a Bi monthly residency alongwith Richard Norris (one half of Beyond TheWizards Sleeve) & Nathan Gregory Wilkins(History Clock Rec/Private Party/ESP nights).These four likeminded people have joinedforces to treat you to what is known as themost innovative music played on theunderground scene today.Your ears will be treated to Psychedelic-Cosmic-Space-Rock with elements of Dub-Balearic-Acid-Disco both from the decks and stage.Prins Thomas will join us in July when MagickBus becomes his exclusive London residency…Jump on board and enjoy the trip!
MUNGOLIAN JET SET - 1st ever live UK show (Jazzland Rec)JARVIS COCKER & STEVE MACKEY (Pulp)TODD TERJE (Full Pupp-Bear Funk Rec)ESPEN HAA (Full Pupp Rec)NATHAN GREGORY WILKINS(History Clock Rec-Private Party-ESP)RICHARD NORRIS (TheTime and Space Machine/Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve)more to be announced
― Germanic Street Preachers (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 09:12 (fourteen years ago) link
So, there's a small article in this month's Word.
OK, how come I didn't know about their remix/elongations of classic 60's psyche stuff?
Because I don't, that's why... I do have their remix of "Promises" BDB...
― Mark G, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 09:13 (fourteen years ago) link
Oh! Is there? I don't read Word, maybe I should. Which project?
Can't remember if I was talking about this on the Erol Alkan thread here, or on the BTWS forum. I've been listening to an inordinate amount of "dance music" because this little corner of it seems to "get" what I'm looking for in music - texture, psych, good drone, kosmische, etc. - a lot more than the current incarnation of the nu-gaze scene.
The BTWS stuff is a lot easier to chase down than the TASM stuff. Richard Norris's A to Z was fantastic, but I think it's disappeared from the BBC site by now.
― Germanic Street Preachers (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 09:19 (fourteen years ago) link
Hi Kate,
Here's something I wrote on this stuff circa beginning of 2008.
Balearic Part 2:
Perhaps the other key difference between Balearic and disco-punk is the way in which the two styles pursue their strategies of intensification. Disco-punk approaches its desired fusion very seriously, combining urgent disco rhythms with the most honest-to-goodness rock signifiers it can think of (jagged guitars, shrieked vocals, songs about girls and politics), as if to say: “I can be both of these things absolutely without compromise.” Balearic’s strategy is more oblique, preferring to fail on both rock and dance music’s terms, as if by doing so it could establish a new yardstick. As dance music it’s too torpid, decadent and tentative; as rock it’s simultaneously blanched-out and excessively manicured. A lot of my favourite records this year felt a bit like inspired failures: on Kathy Diamond’s gorgeous ballad “I Need You”, the arrangement drifts from deep sublimated bass riffs into an unnecessarily loud and showy percussion work-out, the yawning gap between Kathy’s delicacy and the robustness of the drums coming on like some lurid combination of alcohol and pink lemonade I can’t stay away from.
Of course at the edges “Balearic” begins to break down and become nothing more than a convenient tag for describing stuff I liked that otherwise I’d have to group separately. But the genre works this way too: Erol Alkan’s Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve project doesn’t have much of a solid aesthetic identity beyond a gimmicky love of backwards guitar – used to great effect on the sighing, surround-sound folk of their remix of Findley Brown’s “Losing the Will to Survive”. The remix of Midlake’s “Roscoe” is even more subtle, more like a proper 80s extended mix than a remix (it actually reminds me of the extended mixes The Cure had done for the singles from Disintegration): all shimmering keyboards and slippery backwards guitar being subsumed into the glorious harmonies of the original song. Perhaps Alkan and his co-producer Richard Norris knew they didn’t have to do much to perfect “Roscoe”: as a rock song I find this deeply treasurable and inscrutably affecting.
The Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve remix of Badly Drawn Boy’s “Promises” is more radical: you can hear the duo trying and failing to produce something brilliant from less sterling material (A Mountain of One’s effort is much better, but “effort” is the right word – its overblown avalanche of sound feels like hard work for creator and listener alike). Reverso 68 succeed where Alkan and Norris fail, concocting moody MOR disco with all the duo’s classic touches – hushed and reverent strings, breathy swirls of synthesiser, heartpiercing Chic guitar, breezy bongo patterns and a bassline as old and as constant as the universe itself.
The first piece I wrote on “Balearic revivalism” was almost three years ago, talking about Reverso 68 remixes and their deep forest vibe: humid, luscious and decadent in excessive plushness. The not-terribly-prolific production team have hardly changed their sound in this time, but they haven’t needed to – like spiders at the centre of an enormous web, they’ve been able to sit and watch dance music come to them. “Promises” isn’t their best work but it’s perhaps their ultimate, their effortless disco grooves finding a perfect partner in Badly Drawn Boy’s vocals – here sounding particularly ghostly and melancholy as they glance off Reverso 68’s carefree arrangement. If much of Reverso 68’s work is unabashedly utopian, this feels conflicted, wondering: does dancing your cares away somehow dishonour what you care about?
In many ways, all this nu-balearic is a feminised (perhaps effete) take on the sort of hoary “beardo disco” offered by Rub’n’Tug or DJ Harvey, but with beardo’s rock signifiers stripped of their proletariat masculinity in favour of androgynous and worldly refinement – if the hypothetical pinnacle of beardo disco would be a DJ edit of Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock’n’Roll” (play it next to Zazu’s “Captain Starlight” for maximum thrills), Balearic already found its ideal standard of soft-hands androgyny in Todd Terje’s astonishingly pretty, dub-drenched remix of Paul Simon’s “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” (although I reckon a disco version of The Dream Academy’s “Life in a Northern Town” would also work nicely – apart from Dario G, I mean). Of course, the two sounds overlap significantly, not least because one senses that the pomo bad taste running through them both is born of knowing too much music history rather than not enough: widely accepted consensus picks begin to seem too obvious, while the dodgy marginalia of genres acquire an aura of comparative freshness and unpredictability.
“Marginalia” might be overstating it somewhat: “Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes” is hardly obscure. But in a sense it’s contextually marginal: hitherto, it was by no means clear that this song and hip dancefloors had much if anything to do with one another, and the Paul Simon’s 80s output has long been verboten as a reference point for new artists (if anything, the sudden success of Vampire Weekend supports rather than refutes my point). The same is doubly true of Bob Seger, not to mention all the big middle of the road guitar rock bands of the 80s – Foreigner, The Doobie Brothers, Journey etc. All of will inevitably be receiving the Balearic “edit” treatment at some point soon. Some already have: Rune Lindbaek’s edit of Toto’s “Africa” suffers only by its failure to top the cod-spiritual, touristic glamour of the original.
While Dolly Parton is both relatively respected and no stranger to dance music – of late I’ve been obsessed with house versions of her cover of “Peace Train” – the Peter Visti edit of “Jolene” has something of the same frission about it… a well-known and loved hit that nonetheless has little business being reproduced as a cosmic disco epic. My MP3 copy of Visti’s edit appears to have been ripped at 33rpm rather than (the proper) 45rpm, but sounds great in a totally new way: slow, ponderous, and melancholy, it approaches the 4X4 beat as if it were the soundtrack to an arduous quest for enlightenment. Dolly’s voice, sounding male and oddly, resonantly histrionic in the way so many 80s rock singers were inclined to, throbs with distress. The sudden new homoerotic connotations don’t hurt either.
... I'll try to do a Cosmic Psychedelic Bobbins POX for your too.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 19 May 2009 09:29 (fourteen years ago) link
A Cosmic Psych Bobbins POX would be great, thanks! So long as it's more psych than bobbins.
I'm not so sure that I "get" Beardo Disco - as you point out, it's kind of too... masculine. When I prefer the feminine in music. Softness, fuzziness, textures, the margins. (Had this kind of thought at Disco 3000 the other night - it was strange, these LADS onstage (if you can call a man as long-haired-vegan-girly-indie-boy as Alkan a "Lad") - but the pulse of the music, all these anonymous female diva singers from long ago, kind of recycled as anonymous female. It was very odd. (But as I've said a thousand times on this, board, I simply, in terms of aesthetics and sound - PREFER the sound of female vocals.)
I know that you wrote all that over a year ago, but I do think that BTWS have evolved their own aesthetic that goes beyond "backwards guitar gimmicks". I'm most excited to hear their original material. (Though I kind of accept that it's probably not going to be as 60s as I'd ideally like it. Though I *like* the fact that they are not slavishly adhering to the 60s aesthetic - which is my problem with a lot of nu-gaze era dronerock.)
I dunno. In my explorations, I kinda want to avoid that whole "Balearic" thing - not just because it's so overused on ILM as a shorthand term. But simply in terms of sound, I've found myself more attracted to the more krautrock influenced end of the stuff. DO NOT WANT Italo-disco and French electro-house and that nonsense.
― Germanic Street Preachers (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 19 May 2009 10:47 (fourteen years ago) link
Is it really going to be worth sitting through 3 days of beardy chin-stroking nonsense and having to sleep in A TENT in order to see BTWS at Green Man Festival?
Richard promises a full lights/projections show.
But it's WALES. ANd it's CAMPING. and it's BEARDY JARVIS FUCKING BEARDY COCKER and a whole slew of boring men with boring beards. And Animal Collective.
Can I fucking stand it?
― If My Body's A Club You're My Disco Ball (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 2 June 2009 11:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Is this a one-off that they're doing then? I'll probably be there and it'll probably be a laugh but going just for that does seem sort of extreme!
― Down In The Babestation At Midnight (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 2 June 2009 11:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Richard said: "Sat night 4 hour set with full visuals.... could be the best BTWS set ever"
It's one of those things where, if there was ANYTHING else at the Festival I was remotely interested in, I'd be all over it. But it's really far to go and a lot of money to pay to see one artist.
Especially when the rest of the festival is such a beardy testosteronefest. :-(
― If My Body's A Club You're My Disco Ball (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 2 June 2009 11:33 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah it sort of is looking at it... there normally seems to be a lot more women on the bill I guess. (Moreover there's almost literally no folk music.)
― Down In The Babestation At Midnight (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 2 June 2009 12:53 (fourteen years ago) link
TONITE 9PM - 11PM
BTWS TAKE OVER DIESEL.U.MUSIC
/// TUNE IN ///
CLICK HERE http://cult.diesel.com/dum.html#radio/dum_radio.html
OOOOOOOH!!!!!!!! SHIT!!!!! DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish my home connection were fast enough to listen to this.
― Violent In Design (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 12:21 (fourteen years ago) link
really enjoying the remix collection "re-animations vol. 1"
― moonship journey to baja, Saturday, 20 June 2009 19:44 (fourteen years ago) link
these guys are weird... it's crazy that the group was responsible for both that glittery sunkissed tracy thorne remix and the fleetwood mac-ish midlake remix, i wouldn't believe you.. two amazing tracks but extremely different stylistically.
― guammls (QE II), Sunday, 21 June 2009 02:54 (fourteen years ago) link
i wouldn't believe you
the first time i heard the midlake remix, in ewan pearson's ra mix i think, i was really taken aback by how amazing the drums and keyboards sounded for a mellow rock song.. but i kinda of felt ouch maybe i was getting nostalgic for late-period Eagles recording techniques? it mostly sounds like fm's dreams, though, if i were to narrow it down
― guammls (QE II), Sunday, 21 June 2009 03:00 (fourteen years ago) link
aghhh sounded for a contemporary mellow rock song
― guammls (QE II), Sunday, 21 June 2009 03:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes, this is one of the things I love about them, they have such a stylistically wide range. It's not just "balearic by numbers" - they do seem to take into consideration the mood and the feeling of the song and make it psychedelic in different ways.
one of the girls I DJ with on a regular basis *always* plays "Losing The Will To Survive" and it somehow manages to surprise me every time. They have that ability, where you notice a different thing each time you play it.
a little owl gave me the link to the radio show:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/2cfrka
they basically just get very drunk and play a load of dodgy psych records.
They keep saying that they're working on original material, but Alkan is so bloody secretive. I will continue to pester them until I can get some.
― Violent In Design (Masonic Boom), Sunday, 21 June 2009 07:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Can't stop listening to the BtWS remix (or re-animation) of Outlaw.
It's just some ordinary chords, some trite lyrics, but it sounds impossibly exciting. Really great.
― Jamie T Smith, Sunday, 21 June 2009 13:51 (fourteen years ago) link
Come on, let's get high.
― Violent In Design (Masonic Boom), Sunday, 21 June 2009 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
hi...there was a Magick Bus event w/Prins Thomas advertised for 24th July at Cable but it's disappeared from all the listings now (apart from the Full Pupp myspace). anyone know what's going on with it?
― jesus is the man (jabba hands), Wednesday, 15 July 2009 10:58 (fourteen years ago) link
I'd been wondering that myself, especially as I'd been really looking forward to it.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 15 July 2009 11:44 (fourteen years ago) link
YAY I am going to see BTWS on Friday! callooh callah o frabjous day!
::bounces like a psychedelic frog::
Ah, and by the way, discovered what happened to the Prins Thomas club thing - it is now happening at Corsica Studios.
― ...and the wizard blew his horn (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 6 October 2009 13:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Any idea about what they'll be doing? they basically just get very drunk and play a load of dodgy psych records? or is it live music?Anyway, please report back.
― willem, Tuesday, 6 October 2009 14:10 (fourteen years ago) link
They get very drunk and play loads of really wonderful dodgy psych records. The past few times they've played they've had psychedelic light shows and stuff - but that might just be for the festival shows.
I'm HOPING that they might want to debut some of their original material, but I've learned not to hold my breath with those two.
― ...and the wizard blew his horn (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 6 October 2009 14:15 (fourteen years ago) link
So Richard/Time & Space Machine is doing a Balaeric night of his own in Kings Cross.
Details here:
http://setphazertostun.blogspot.com/
― LOL my penny (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 17 November 2009 14:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Looking forward to Norris on beats in space this week
― Roger Sánchez Broto (vain_bowers), Monday, 23 November 2009 14:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Time and Space Machine album coming out 29th March! Hurrah!
All the clips I've heard off it and the bits and bobs in various Richard Norris podcasts and the like sound wondrous.
I've stopped believing in the BTWS album. I don't think there is such a thing.
― There's Always Been A Dance Element To (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 11 March 2010 15:52 (fourteen years ago) link
I thought there were loads!
Or do you mean "original material" ?
― Mark G, Thursday, 11 March 2010 16:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, original material. The remix comp came out ages ago. But when I interviewed them, they both claimed there was an original album in the works, in fact, I've heard snippets of description of what the songs are supposed to sound like - yet no audio evidence they exist, besides those two talking about them.
Ergo, they made it up in a puff of green smoke. No such thing.
― There's Always Been A Dance Element To (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 11 March 2010 16:44 (fourteen years ago) link
Was that Oasis remix all smoke and feathers, or something?
― Mark G, Thursday, 11 March 2010 17:11 (fourteen years ago) link
What Oasis remix? Amorphous Androgynous did an Oasis remix, but I'm not aware of BTWS ever having done one.
(Could well be wrong, though.)
― There's Always Been A Dance Element To (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 11 March 2010 17:14 (fourteen years ago) link
Sorry, going x-eyed. yr right.
― Mark G, Thursday, 11 March 2010 17:15 (fourteen years ago) link
is the time & space machine album going to be more of the same/volume 3? or will there be original productions this time around?
― a lagoon par la mer (psychgawsple), Thursday, 11 March 2010 18:07 (fourteen years ago) link
Original productions! This is why I'm exciterated!
― There's Always Been A Dance Element To (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 11 March 2010 18:08 (fourteen years ago) link
that IS exciting, do you mind linking to one/some of those podcasts where he plays the material? i have no idea what to expect
his remix of sorcerer's "chemise" is worth a listen too, even if i still prefer the original
― a lagoon par la mer (psychgawsple), Thursday, 11 March 2010 18:13 (fourteen years ago) link
There were a couple in his Beats In Space mix...
http://www.beatsinspace.net/playlists/496
He had them streaming somewhere for a while, but of course I've forgotten if it was on his blog or on his MySpace or where.
― There's Always Been A Dance Element To (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 11 March 2010 18:15 (fourteen years ago) link
Well, he's got a couple on his MySpace, as well, though they might be the same songs...
http://www.myspace.com/thetimeandspacemachine
― There's Always Been A Dance Element To (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 11 March 2010 18:18 (fourteen years ago) link
cool! will check it out once the boss takes off today ha
― a lagoon par la mer (psychgawsple), Thursday, 11 March 2010 21:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Finally got the TIME AND SPACE MACHINE album. (It came out last week but I was in Cornwall.)
IT'S UTTERLY FANTASTIC.
Perfect mix of 60s psych and floaty cosmic bobbins. I have the feeling this will be the soundtrack of my summer.
― Delia & Daphne & Celeste (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 20 April 2010 10:52 (thirteen years ago) link
I really want to hear this.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 20 April 2010 13:19 (thirteen years ago) link
IT IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, I'll stop shouting. But there's just something about this album that makes me want to stand on top of a mountain with a megaphone while wearing wizards robes intoning about its psychedelic wonderfulness.
― Delia & Daphne & Celeste (Masonic Boom), Tuesday, 20 April 2010 13:24 (thirteen years ago) link
Anyone who fancies going to Wales for some psych...
http://thetripfestival.co.uk/Trip/Contest!.html
Me, I'm just going to listen to the mix. Because you know how I feel about Wales.
― The Curve Of Binding Energy (Masonic Boom), Thursday, 20 May 2010 09:24 (thirteen years ago) link
have to say, i'm really looking forward to getting this.
but as i'm house bound for the next few days, i will have to just do with this slice of old school ambient-techno that richard released back in the early 90s.
http://www.discogs.com/image/R-118185-1149471989.jpeg
― mark e, Thursday, 20 May 2010 10:06 (thirteen years ago) link
Their new single is called 'Pill Party In India'. Be less fucking lazy with your signifiers, dudes.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 7 February 2012 12:07 (twelve years ago) link
picked up ARK 1 in oxfam in bath today for 3 quid.
its fruggin' ace.
― mark e, Friday, 18 May 2012 17:00 (eleven years ago) link
(dropped this on a non-ilm thread ..
komische musik request: sounds like "zoetrope" by boards of canada
going to add it here as well)
this is brilliant for anyone wanting more of that 70s tangerine dream, analogue synth excess.
3rd track in this set is 13 minutes of perfection
https://soundcloud.com/higamoshogamos/sets/spacerocks-more-modulations
i have been given permission to post individual mp3s on my blog, but thought i'd pass on details here so see if this hits the spot for anyone else
note : spacerocks = steve from fort lauderdale/the black neon, bands which saw steve revive his love of glam amongst his love of old analogue sounds, whereas he has dropped the vocals totally for this new stuff.
― mark e, Wednesday, 12 February 2014 10:39 (ten years ago) link
Now I *know* they're trolling me.
http://www.dummymag.com/new-music/premiere-stream-interpol-my-desire-beyond-the-wizards-sleeve-remix
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Thursday, 23 October 2014 17:50 (nine years ago) link
haha.when i saw richard post details re this on his FB page i immediately thought of you !
― mark e, Thursday, 23 October 2014 17:51 (nine years ago) link
Ha!
It's the one track on the album that I could never really get with (the damn sloppy rhythmic timing; I don't know who's off, Paul or Daniel, but someone on that track is out synch with the drums and it drives me NUTS) so... I know! Let's have two of your favourites remix it into wibbling psychprogtronica. That'll do it.
Fuck you, guys. Fuck you. I hate loving you at this point. I feel so pandered to, like I'm walking around with a giant marketing target on my back.
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Thursday, 23 October 2014 17:58 (nine years ago) link
it reminded me that i really need to track down the re-animations set.
i found '3rdmynd06' by accident in a charity shop a couple of years back and could not believe my luck.
never seen 'ark1' ..
― mark e, Thursday, 23 October 2014 18:02 (nine years ago) link
Been playing the Jagwar Ma / Time & Space Dub EP a lot lately. So good.
― brotherlovesdub, Thursday, 23 October 2014 18:05 (nine years ago) link
I need to track down that Time & Space Dub; sounds amazing.
I haaaaaaaaate being poor. ;_;
― Jacques Lacan let me rock u; let me rock u, Jacques Lacan (Branwell with an N), Thursday, 23 October 2014 18:15 (nine years ago) link
i hate digital/vinyl only specials ..
― mark e, Thursday, 23 October 2014 18:21 (nine years ago) link
this was amazing
https://soundcloud.com/erolalkan/beyond-the-wizards-sleeve-annie-mac-mini-mix
― piscesx, Thursday, 23 October 2014 18:34 (nine years ago) link
hola. am i allowed to shamelessly plug some edits wot I did make?
go on. dont be a c http://fhfs.bandcamp.com/
― mr_sausage, Thursday, 23 October 2014 19:23 (nine years ago) link
New one is great stuff. Somehow they're in the Stereolab/Broadcast zone now. https://soundcloud.com/beyond-the-wizards-sleeve/sets/creation-ph53-1
― everything, Tuesday, 7 June 2016 18:45 (seven years ago) link