Issue 39 / 18 October 2024
Issue 39 / 18 October 2024
This week's essential DIY electronic goodness... Track Of The Week: Moon Diagrams x The Other Two remix + Good Stuff from Minotaur Shock, WH Lung, Emma Anderson, Sophos, Rubbish Music and more...
Well hello. How are you? How’s your week been? It’s been all go at Moonbuilding Towers. We’ve been busy lining up the next issue of the print mag. Can’t tell you about it just yet because not a single word has been written, but our cover star is in place and it’s someone really brilliant. I mean, aren’t they all? I’m a huge fan of this person’s work and chuffed to bits they’re on our next cover. The interview is in the bag and we have an exclusive CD about to head to the… what do you call a place that makes CDs? Pressing plant is vinyl. CD makers? Dunno. Anyway, it’s off soon. Stay tuned.
I had a little panic on Wednesday because for the first time in ages we had no adverts in the newsletter. I took to the socials and had a really positive response. There’s two ads in this week now and a bunch lined up for future editions. If you want to get your release in front of what is a seriously discerning audience that is growing all the time, please drop me a line.
Music Press Rewind is back this week and I’ve republished the interview I probably get asked about the most. It stars the late, great Elliott Smith who I met in a north London pub just before his second ever UK live show in 1998 and had a high old time. Read all about it below.
Righto, that’s me then. Let’s crack on. Happy Friday.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 39 Playlist: bndcmpr.co/39dc093c
Moonbuilding Fighting Fund: ko-fi.com/moonbuilding
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MOON DIAGRAMS ‘Fifteen Shows At One Time (The Other Two Remix)’
(Sonic Cathedral)
This was a very welcome arrival in the Moonbuilding inbox. We would, once again, like to refute the idea that we’ll cover anything with the word “Moon” in it. I mean, we probably will, but it’s not a given. Moon Diagrams, as you will know because we’ve told you before, is the side-hustle of Deerhunter drummer Moses Archuleta. We said nice things about his recent-ish James Ford-produced album, ‘Cemetery Classics’, and here comes a handsome brace of remixes from that collection. Moses has done this before, serving up two remixes from his 2017 debut album ‘Lifetime Of Love’, which was called ‘Remixes’ and hence this is ‘Remixes #2’. We like it when people are all neat and tidy. So anyway, leading the charge on this collection is the rework by The Other Two, the Stephen Morris/Gillian Gilbert wing of New Order, which are my favourite NO offshoot. ‘Cemetery Classics’, as we said at the time, is like the wonky soundtrack to your odder dreams, but The Other Two plumped for remixing ‘Fifteen Shows At One Time’, which is perhaps the record’s most dance-fuelled offering, giving it a rather sleek, locked-down krauty feel. The flipside (if it wasn’t a digital-only release) features a reworking from Dent/Elizabeth Colour Wheel’s Lane Shi Otayonii in her solo otay:onil guise and a glitchy industrial-sounding take on ‘Very Much My Promise To You’. But you don’t need me to telling you what it sounds like, listen with your own ears. I’m just the spirit guide pointing you in the right direction.
Moon Diagrams’ ‘Remix #2’ is out now on Sonic Cathedral
Got an upcoming release? We’re all ears. Find us at moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
MINOTAUR SHOCK ‘It All Levels Out’ (Bytes)
One minute Joe Clay’s Bytes is a brand-new label releasing Minotaur Shock’s ‘MINO’ as it’s debut outing, the next minute it’s five years old and releasing the latest Minotaur Shock offering ‘It All Levels Out’. It’s a satisfying virtuous circle if ever there was. The plan for ‘It All Levels Out’, David Edwards’ 10th Minotaur Shock album, was for something “a bit looser than usual, more ambient but still melodic”. Thematically, it’s a “hopeful mediation on getting older”, which we could all probably do with. David talks about that point in life when you “finally get to know yourself” and the gentle title track is about that realisation, and “the nagging feeling that you probably wasted a shitload of time caring about things that didn’t really matter”. There’s a track called ‘Memory Crates’, which came from a weekend tidying the garage sorting through musical paraphernalia for a trip to the dump. Except nothing got thrown out. He decided to keep it all. “I’m pretty sure I’m on a one-way street to losing it totally,” says David. “So I kept all the stuff on the off chance that it will trigger some long lost memories when I’m in assisted care or whatever.” As well as being able to relate, it is such a beautiful piece of work. ‘Moulding Physical Air’ is his tribute to the people he knows who “make beautiful physical things out of nothing”. “I’m bad at all that,” he says. And yet here he is, bending electricity into such glorious shapes. Minotaur Shock never fails to impress.
GOOD STUFF #2
WH LUNG ‘Every Inch Of Earth Pulsates’ (Melodic)
Manchester’s WH Lung are one of those bands who seem to go quietly about their business, but once you discover them you kind of wonder how on earth you missed them in the first place. This is their third album and it sees a shift in producer with the five-piece heading over the hill to work with Ross Orton in Sheffield. If you know Ross’ work with Working Men’s Club you’ll understand why he’s such a good fit for WH Lung. The idea, the band say, was to make an album as close to their live show as they could. Their last two albums - 2019’s ‘Incidental Music’ and 2021’s ‘Vanities’ were very much in our wheelhouse, here they move up a notch. Here they sound so fully formed, so accomplished. It reminds me of the sort of bands you used to see in the 90s who would kill at festivals. Not your headliners, your dusk type of bands. Embrace, Delakota, Doves, that sort of thing. Really, really solid live units who could properly wow in a field. WH Lung are obviously not just going to talk the talk, they’re going to be walking the walk with a bunch of dates from 16 November. Tickets from linktr.ee/whlung. Album-wise, ‘Lilac Sky’ is a proper opener, the intro is a minute long, the drums sound huge, they’ve got a pile of power synths and the whole thing feels epic. The killer live, they say, is going to be ‘How To Walk’, which was our Track Of The Week a while ago. I mean, they’re right. It’s all frantic drum machine, tight krauty guitar chug, singalong Ooooooh Ooohs. I’m hoping that live they wig this lot out. You know, extended versions, long intros, longer outros. I’ve talked myself into being really excited to catch them live now. It’ll be like the old days. Mine, not theirs.
GOOD STUFF #3
EMMA ANDERSON ‘Spiralee: Pearlies Rearranged’ (Sonic Cathedral)
It’s like it’s national Sonic Cathedral week round here. Track Of The Week up there, now this, there’s something else down there. Cuh. ‘Pearlies’ rearranged is of course ‘Spiralee’, which is a rearrangement of Emma Anderson’s excellent album from last year. The original version is one of those records that just felt right - Emma doing her own thing, being released on Sonic Cathedral and getting great reviews across the board for her trouble. You have to love stuff like this. The thinking here is smart, don’t call it a remix album say the label as everything has been rearranged, the tracks, the running order, the title, the artwork. It’s a whole new record. Often this sort of thing is a bit of damp squib. I always hold up Global Communication’s radical reworking of Chapterhouse’s ‘Blood Music’ as such a bold, forward-looking piece of work from both artists. While this isn’t quite as radical, it contains many treats. It’s interesting that they’ve treated it as a new record and sequenced it with the new versions in mind rather than relying on the original tracklisting. It works really well. The cast is very cool too, a mix of Sonic Cathedral alumni and let’s call them special guests. Ladytron’s Daniel Hunt sets the scene nicely with his warm take on ‘Willow And Mallow’. He keeps that lovely swaying melody and beefs things up with a synthpop arsenal. It’s followed by ‘The Presence’ by Concretism’s Chris Sharp, a name very familiar round these parts. I am such a sucker for fake tape slurs. Even if I’m listening to a stream they make me jump, imagining my teenage tape player is chewing up another of my beloved tapes. Here the slurs on his thrumming synthy fuelled rubdown are close to heart stopping. Lonelady’s slo-mo take on original album closer ‘Clusters’ is a stunner and James “Maps” Chapman - who produced ‘Pearlies’ - turns up here with ‘Xanthe (Witching Time Version)’, which Emma says reminds her of Roger Webb’s ‘Hammer House Of Horror’ theme, it’s spookily like it. Spooky, ha. All this and so much more. It’s a real joy when there’s thinking like this about and it produces something this good.
GOOD STUFF #4
SOPHOS ‘Sending Signals’ (DiN)
As always with Ian Boddy’s very fine label you never know what’s coming next, but whatever it is you can pretty much guarantee it’s going to be quality. Here we get a new artist to the label, Ulises Labaronnie, from Buenos Aires, who Ian explains has been active in the experimental electronic music scene since the mid-90s releasing work both solo and with his projects triØN, Ensemble Circular as well as Sophos. While DiN has often been an outlet for Ian and friends, in recent times the label has been spreading its wings with forays into the new school, notably the releases from Field Lines Cartographer and Polypores spring to mind. With ‘Sending Signals’ Ulises is inspired by the work of British astrophysicist Roger Penrose, in particular his concept that advanced civilisations could leave markers for the next cycle or rebirth of the universe, which I’ve typed, but don’t really understand. Needless to say, it’s peaked my spacey interest and you know what I’ll be doing later. Musically, you can hear why Sophos ticks boxes at DiN HQ. There’s a decent lick of the Berlin School, and some glorious Vangelis-like melodies, like on the epic near 10-minute opener ‘Unveil The System’. But Ulises brings his own take to party too with glitches, field recordings, dancey rhythms and the like all adding his own sheen to proceedings. Head straight for the longer cuts, like the 11-minute title track, which sounds like the inside of some spaceship travelling to distant worlds, or the closer, the 10-minute ‘Laniakea’ that fizzes like it’s firing afterburners. Ian describes it as “a totally unique album that crosses the boundaries of musical genres, which is something DiN has always encouraged”. We’d always encourage that sort of thing too.
GOOD STUFF #5
RUBBISH MUSIC ‘Fatbergs’ (Persistence Of Sound)
Of course, Rubbish Music is anything but. One look at the label and you’ll know Persistence Of Sound is the home of Langham Research Centre’s Iain Chambers. Here Iain hooks up with the brilliant field recordist Kate Carr of the equally excellent Flaming Pines label for an album that, as you might have guessed, is more than a little troubled by rubbish. The bête noire of the title is the fatberg, the growing mass of our waste gathering unseen in our sewers. I mean, there’s more uplifting topics for albums, but few would argue we have a long list of issues that do need addressing. “As we go about our daily lives,” write the pair, “malodorous monsters are constructing themselves from our discarded detritus beneath the streets of our cities. Built from wet wipes, nappies, food waste, fats and oils, fatbergs haunt us as a nightmarish return of the soiled, rejected and rotten.” Which when you put it like that is pretty unpleasant. They talk about the record being an anti-fairytale, “amplifying a version of waste itself as an active presence”. It’s not like you’re aware of the gathering fatberg when you flush whatever you flush down the loo. That action as the artists point out is “not an ending, but a new beginning”. Which is quite chilling. The five tracks see the duo “turn to sound to examine the complex and unpredictable encounters which generate these gigantic conglomerations”. Now, you’d expect that to probably sound more unpleasant than it does. There’s not a fart or flushing lav in sight. Well, there might be. I think that could be a toilet flush on ‘Slithering Fatberg’ but I can’t be sure. The track titles are great, won’t spoil it, but they’re all describing a fatberg of some kind and just how big it is. Beyond that, it’s all rather serene, which is what you’d expect from Persistence Of Sound. Now Matthew Herbert would have made a right old racket with the same subject wouldn’t he? You suspect, and hope, there’s more to come from Rubbish Music.
persistenceofsound.bandcamp.com
A ROUND-UP IN A ROUND-UP
Just as we’re getting excited about Emma Anderson’s reworked album, labelmate Dot Allison arrives with ‘Demo-Itis’ (Sonic Cathedral), a cassette of, well, demos. The tape was first available last weekend when the label’s 20th birthday celebrations concluded at The Social in London’s glittering West End that saw Dot playing a top-secret set. There aren’t many tapes left so if you want one best hurry. It’s mostly acoustic and recorded on Dot’s phone at Edinburgh’s Castlesound Studios I presume during the making of her ‘Consciousology’ album. Apart from the belting ‘220Hz’ which was written on a plane at 30,000ft and ‘Moon Flowers’ was written on a ferry and performed by a loch. Here it appears as ‘Chords Of Moon Flowers’, which is the chords of the song and family background chatter. I love how utterly fragile her voice is and how even as demos it still sounds as if it could break if you squeezed too hard. She’s a long way from her One Dove days, but as her recent releases have proved, she’s no less impressive. dotallison.bandcamp.com
It’s been five years since the last Bogdan Raczynski album, which is wait. Still, if you’re a fan you’ll be used to waiting for his music. We had a 12-year hiatus following the release of ‘Alright!’ in 2007, which he claimed was due to a “bass drum accident” that damaged his hearing. And even then the return in 2019 was a collection of old Rephlex tracks, which makes ‘You’re Only Young Once, But You Can Be Stupid Forever’ (Disciples) his first new music in 17 years. Bloody ages. So is it any good? Well, you don’t get to be Rephlex alumni and not be any good. I’ve had this a while and it goes on the Moonbuilding stereo very regularly. It’s lots of little sketches, some beatless, some with lof-fi beats and lots of mad noises. There’s such a keen ear at work here you’d be churlish not to like what Bogdan does. The problem is all the arsing around. The notes give you a multiple choice as to what’s going on here. Is it an album made by AI? Were the tracks created by Bogdan to crack the coffee shop playlist market? Or were they commissioned by Tesla for an infomerical, but rejected by Elon Musk? Are all the tracks over 10 years old or were they made in one frantic weekend in early 2024.? And then there’s the QR code cover, links to his website for more ramblings… the music is great though, really great. bogdanraczynski.bandcamp.com
While we’re on a dance-ish tip, Automatic Tasty’s mini-album ‘One Foot In The Rave’ (Winthorpe Electronics) is very good. It’s the work of Wicklow’s Jonny Dillon who is well-known among those who like their electronics acid flavoured. I think he first came my way via Sheffield’s excellent CPU label, which is such a reliable source of that sort of thing. Anyway, expect “melodic melancholic acid jams, bleepy funk and warm analogue electronics”. Perfect. automatictasty.bandcamp.com
One more for today, as usual I’m running out of time. Experiments & Observations On Electricity is such a great name it’d be daft not to listen. It’s the work of south London-based Craig Thompson, who judging from his accompanying notes really thinks about this stuff. Which of course is no bad thing. ‘The Ascensión’ is his second album and follows his eponymous debut from last year, a release that was 40 years in the making. Here, he wants to prove to himself that first album wasn’t a one-off, that he could do it again. Much like the first outing, it’s at the experimental end of dark ambient. His experiments clearly aren’t over yet. experimentsandobservationsonelectricity.bandcamp.com
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My interview with Elliott Smith is something I get asked about a lot. I had a guy from a film production company asking me earlier this year if I still had the interview tape. From 1998? I didn’t, no. I used to do a lot of interviews and would often record over them to save on cassettes, especially when the pieces were with new artists. It was all about the written word back then, the chat on the tape was a means to an end. I know, I know…
I interviewed Elliott Smith just as this third album, ‘Either/Or’, was being released as his UK debut by Domino. I’d been to his first UK show, can’t remember where, and a week later I saw his second UK show, which I know was at The Garage because I met him beforehand in nearby pub for our chat.
We parked up in a quiet corner and talked for ages. He was great company and I always found his subsequent portrayal as this dour songwriter hard to understand. As I think did he. I discovered after his death in 2003 that he was in the throes of various addictions when I met him. It didn’t show. He was articulate, thoughtful, open and funny, the perfect interviewee. I do have the full transcript of the interview, which I might share here at some point. My published piece, below, appeared in Melody Maker in June 1998. We used to asterisk swear words, which seems quaint now. I’ve left the asterisks in for authenticity.
ELLIOTT SMITH: ACOUSTIC SPLENDOUR
Pigeon-holes. Genres. Categories. Music needs to fit into neat and tidy boxes doesn’t it. Sure makes our job easier anyway. Elliott Smith isn’t too arsed.
“The press at home really like ‘folk hero’,” shrugs the charmingly deadpan Smith sat in the corner of a north London pub hours before his second-ever UK show. “It conjures up images of serious fellows who make grand pronouncements about what’s wrong with the world. I’m not quite sure what I’m doing, but it’s smaller than that.”
His third album, ‘Either/Or’, has just come off import for a UK release proper. Within, you’ll find crystal-clear songs. Simple as that. Beautiful melodies entwined around vocals equally capable of making a still night stop dead in its tracks. But it could have been a whole lot different.
“When I was about 12 or 13, my dad gave me an inflatable raft and a nylon-string guitar for my birthday. I tried to play the guitar, but it was really frustrating. I liked the raft a lot better at first.”
As much fun as rafts are, Elliott persevered with the guitar spurred on by his early life being soundtracked by The Beatles.
“Last year, my dad told me I probably like The Beatles so much because when I was an infant, he’d dance around with me listening to them.”
AC/DC and Elvis Costello combined in his teenage years to spur both his guitar playing and help him get through school respectively. Aged 14, he moved from Texas to Portland, Oregan, and finally found himself in a band. Formed with a bunch of friends, Heatmiser lasted an inordinate amount of time considering.
“We were really good friends, so that part worked out great,” grins Elliott stubbing out another Camel Light. “Musically it was really dissatisfing. It didn’t get bad until we started to record because then we had to hear what it sounded like! I did it for way too long, records had come out that I didn’t even like. Eventually, we had a major label deal, which happened right after my first solo record had come out and the next one was about to come out. I’d become fully committed to playing my own thing and not being in the band anymore. It was a strange situation.”
But no more strange than the situation he found himself in earlier this year. . .
“Ever since I played on a big awards show in The States - I’ll just bring it up and get it over with - since then, there’s been people who recognise me virtually all the time but it will pass.”
So that’ll be his appearance at the Ocsars then. Six of his songs appeared on the soundtrack for ‘Goodwill Hunting’. One of which, ‘Miss Misery’, was nominated for an award.
“My manager called me up at seven in the morning the day they announced the nominations. I thought somebody had died or something. It seems so bizarre. At the time, it just seemed like I was playing a really weird show that consisted of one song and the audience was like Jack Nicholson and company.”
Even more bizarre - especially for those who reckon Elliott to be some kind of folk messiah - is how he goes about writing his lilting missives.
“I make up songs with the TV on and the sound turned down,” he smirks, stabbing a dagger through the heart of those who’d like to believe he’s some kind of tortured soul who writes outside his log cabin front of a babbling brook. “It occupies your eyes so you don’t watch what your hands are doing and you can surprise yourself more often. I made up two songs during an episode of ‘Zena - Warrior Princess’. I was pretty into that show for a little while, I don’t know why. I probably had a crush on Zena or something. I can’t get anything done if I go, ‘Okay, now I’m going to try and write a big song’.”
So that’s the music. The lyrics come from sitting by babbling brooks right Elliott? Elliott?
“I write a lot in bars. I just like to describe things. Something’s got to be going on, I can’t write a song in an absence of activity. I only end up with things I already know I can do. When I’m at home, I do it pretty much every night, just go out, visit a few bars that I know in Manhattan. I don’t do it on weekends though, there’s too many guys come into town from New Jersey, you know sporty guys, ‘What you doing? Writing f***ing poetry?’. I should be like, ‘Yeah, lots of it. I’m writing a really long novel and I have no time to spare so please’. Sometimes people in New York will want to write on my piece of paper. There was this one girl who wanted to read what I’d written and continue it! I was like, ‘You don’t understand, I’m just doing my thing here you know. I interact with people all day and now I’m not.”
Only now he is. ‘Either/Or’ is more proof than could be necessary.
Words: Neil Mason
A MESSAGE FROM THE MOTHERSHIP
***MOONBUILDING ISSUE 5 IS OUT NOW***
Bloody hell! Will you look at that? The new issue of MOONBUILDING, Issue 5 for those of you who are counting, is here. Yes, we’ve taken our sweet time, but it is very much worth the wait.
On the cover, with another cracking illustration from the untouchable Nick Taylor, is the awesome Polypores. In our free-wheeling chat we get right under the hood of Stephen James Buckley’s musical operation, offer up a listening guide to help you safely navigate his extensive back catalogue and we also have an whole new Polypores album exclusively for you.
Yes, you read that right. We are giving you a freshly minted, not available anywhere else new album called ‘The Album I Would Have Released In An Alternate Universe’, which happens to be the sister recording to his forthcoming Castles In Space album ‘There Are Other Worlds’. Read all about it in the new issue where Stephen talks you though it track by track.
If you’d like an extract from our Polypores cover feature interview where Stephen Buckley talks about his formative influences, which probably aren’t what you’d image, you can do that here… moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-28a-26-july-2024
Elsewhere in the new issue, there’s a profile of our new favourite label Mortality Tables, Pye Corner Audio gets in on the There’s A First Time For Everything act, we round up an absolute mountain of recent releases and serve up our thoughts on the best albums from the last few months, including Loula Yorke and Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan. There’s a column from The Orb’s Alex Paterson, which starts off about Jah Wobble and ends up about Andrew Weatherall, and an all-new instalment of the brilliant Captain Star cartoon strip.
We’ve gone book crazy of late and this issue features a shit-tonne of great book reviews (that’s great books, reviewed, rather than the reviews being great, although they are pretty good). There’s a cracking chat with Justin Patrick Moore, the author of ‘The Radio Phonic Laboratory’, and a bonus chinwag with the world’s finest music journalist, Mr Simon Reynolds.
The virtual shop doors are open at moonbuilding.bandcamp.com for your purchasing pleasure. This magazine ain’t going to buy itself.
Moonbuilding Weekly is a Castles In Space publication.
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