New obsessions

Deliriously weird dream last night. I was in Mirfield, my mum's West Yorkshire home town (and that of Captain Picard himself, Patrick Stewart). I was staying in a B&B called The Overlook. And indeed it turned out that this was the place that inspired The Shining. I spoke to the landlord, and he told me that a few years previously, he'd been jailed for murdering someone with a rope (at this point he noosed it around my neck...) but that he had been set up. Now that he had got out, he was producing music which was, “closer to Boards of Canada than Orange Juice”.

Funny how these things work in, innit? Mirfield was there presumably because my mum's just been to visit. The Shining... not sure, but I do love the film. Boards of Canada I was thinking about yesterday, and I used to know a member of Orange Juice.



SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL HAUNTOLOGISTS

It's a fine time for admirers of Radiophonic weirdness. A couple of new net labels have sprung up over the past few weeks, no doubt inspired in part by Ghost Box, but offering music with a subtly different flavour.

First up is Café Kaput, run by Jon Brooks (Advisory Circle/King of Woolworths) with art direction by Ian Hodgson (Moon Wiring Club). As seems to be the way with this scene there's a healthy dose of humour at work. The first release is an unearthing of DD Denham's lost classroom-based electronic experiments. Except that's a load of old bobbins. DD Denham never existed and it's all Brooks own work in a bleepy, bloopy John Baker style. Ruddy lovely it is too; tricksy, playful and weird. You can stream and download it here:

http://dddenham.bandcamp.com/album/electronic-music-in-the-classroom




Then this weekend I stumbled across Pye Corner Audio. Wobbly synth and tape distortion is the order of the day, and the three tracks they've put online (from their album, Black Mill Tapes Vol. 1) have been on repeat ever since. 'We Have Visitors' builds for ages before opening up into something that reminds me of Ken Freeman's Tripods theme. 'Theme Number 4' meanwhile sounds not unlike early Boards of Canada. I was hoping to be the first to blog about these guys, but alas Mr Brooks has beaten me to it!

The full Black Mill Tapes Volume 1 will be available to download on October 31st for a fiver. In the meantime, check out the preview tracks here:

http://soundcloud.com/pye-corner-audio/sets/black-mill-tapes-volume-1

http://pyecorneraudio.wordpress.com/

Hang along!

Currently in the throes of another bout of Ghost Box obsession this week with the arrival of the new Roj album, The Focus Group's collaboration with Broadcast, and my purchase of their '07 album We Are All Pan's People. In the words of our Prod Ed, I am Ghost Box's bitch. But that's because they're the best label in the whole wide world. Don't believe me? Check the website below.

http://www.ghostbox.co.uk

You can find my Clash mag review of the new Bernard Fevre album here...

http://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/black-devil-disco-club-presents-the-strange-new-world-of-bernard-fevre

Last week I started an episode-by-episode review of the new series of Dollhouse for SFX. See the link below this for episode one,'Vows'. Part two should be up Tuesday/Wednesday, certainly before I head off to Whitby to see my dear ol' mum for her birthday.

RADITUDE!

Bleary eyed today, following a great night on the town with the SFX crew and Filmstar's Steve O'Brien. I got home somewhere around 7.30 this morning, tried to watch an episode of Sky, an odd bit of seventies kid sci-fi which, in my admittedly broken state, appeared to be about a magic boy hiding in some leaves. Witchy and painfully hauntological, man. The Ghost Box folks would love it. Gave up ten minutes in and staggered to bed instead.

Anyway, two things that are making me smile through the pain...

1. Beck, proving he's still a genius. He's currently covering a Leonard Cohen record, one track at a time. Last week's 'Suzanne' was a godawful mess. This week it's 'Master Song' which has somehow mutated into a wonderfully bad bit of impromptu hip-hop.

http://beck.com/record_club

2. Totally stolen from Pitchfork this, but too good to miss. The cover art to Weezer's new record, superbly titled Raditude - a word we should all incorporate into our vocabulary more often, I feel. Just look at that!