Issue 1 / 19 January 2024
Bumper launch edition, electronic DIY goodness galore... Album Of The Week: Scanner's 'Alchemeia' + Robin Rimbaud interview + essential release round-up + Track Of The Week from ACR's new LP...
Well hello there. Apparently people spend ages coming up with names for things. Ahem. Welcome to Moonbuilding Weekly, a dose of all the things you like from our zine in a weekly email. We have a zine? Find it at moonbuilding.bandcamp.com
So what to expect here? Well, more of everything. Each Friday they’ll be our Album Of The Week pick, which we’ll give full attention with a big read of a review. We’ll also provide a handy round-up of the week’s other essential releases. There’ll be an interview with someone good. It’ll definitely be someone you like. There will also be things to listen to - tracks from forthcoming albums, previously unheard stuff, remixes, live sessions perhaps - plus all the latest news, events, books, gadgets, oh you know, the shiny stuff that catches our eye.
We’ve plans, plans and more plans. But we’re going need your help.
Moonbuilding Weekly will be free for a bit so you can get a feel for what we’re up to. Once we turn the paywall on, if you could see your way to sticking a few quid behind the bar each week you will be directly helping us support independent DIY artists and labels. Money coming in here is work I don’t have to do elsewhere. And I’d rather be here, with the lot, if I’m honest.
Sound like a plan? We’d love it if you could tell all your friends about us. This could be the start of something rather lovely.
Right, let’s get on with it shall we?
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
SCANNER
Alchemeia
Alltagsmusik
Is it cold? Is it dark? Is payday too far away? Must be January, a month made to make you feel glum. But fret not because this year is shaping up to be all about new ventures, a couple of which have been decent enough to reveal all in the middle of this most dreary of months to cheer us up.
There’s Moonbuilding Weekly, of course, but snapping at our heels comes a bold new offering from Robin “Scanner” Rimbaud. His big idea is a new label, Alltagsmusik. The utilitarian name translates as Everyday Music and promises “a vast body of work ready for release over the coming years”. Years! That said, anyone who’s followed Scanner over the last three decades or so won’t be at all surprised there’s so much work waiting in the wings.
The label is divided into four sections - solo releases, collaborations, live recordings (which Robin says total over 400 stretching back to 1990) and contemporary dance scores (precisely 66). The artwork is by Matthew Shaw (whose designs you should know from Tone Science, Ian Boddy’s DiN offshoot) and offers up “a modular system that will adapt and accumulate as the releases develop”. All of which sounds great. There’s clearly been a lot of thought, not to mention time and effort, put into Alltagsmusik already. And as we know from Alex Gold’s quiet details, thinking these things through properly really reaps rewards.
With ‘Alchemeia’, the label’s first fruit and a solo Scanner release, Robin sets out his new stall in style with an “affectionate tribute to the early 1960s and 1970s library music”. He talks about using a limited palette, avoiding the computer as much as possible and working with hardware. “No digital trickery or processes were applied the recordings,” he says, “as I wanted it to feel as authentic as possible”.
‘Alchemeia’ certainly invokes the spirit. As Robin puts it, the record’s explorations are in an “otherworldy cinematic fashion” and it does all feel very filmic. Indeed, opener ‘Chimaera’ is the sort of thing you’d expect to hear over the title sequence of a snowy Scandinoir series.
Robin’s reference points for this record are interesting. There’s Delia, but there’s also Tod Dockstader, Bernard Estardy and Ron Geesin, not household names, even in electronic music circles, but they’re all touchstones that are more expansive and adventurous than the all-stars of KPM who many would more readily associate with library music.
You can hear Delia in the skittish arpeggiations of ‘Hollia’, a track that is a proper piece of radiophonica and exactly what you’d imagine Scanner dialing into the 1960s would sound like. She’s also there in the incidental ‘Quenina’, which sounds like a gull exploring a garden shed in places. US pioneer Tod Dockstader is renowned for his work in musique concrète and there’s concrète appreciation here for sure. ‘Matiea’ is not only the most curious track, it’s also the most concrète, its cat-purr rhythm (I don’t think it’s an actual cat, but it might be) and juddery piano are both warm and unsettling at the same time.
If you don’t know French blazer of trails Bernard Estardy start with ‘Gang Train’, a kind of space funk ‘Theme From Shaft’. It’s as crazy and delightful as that sounds and here Scanner borrows the same quirky humour on the theremin-y wobbles and insistent Bontempi drum machine-like rhythm of ‘Sestinea’, a spooky, corridor-stalker of tune. And Ron Geesin? His influence is everywhere. When you consider his work featured extensively on the schools TV programs that many of Scanner’s generation grew up with, he will have been an influence whether they knew it or not.
While these are all good names for hanging coats on pegs as far influences go, part of you wonders if Robin isn’t also nodding at Eno’s ‘Music For Films’. Released in 1978, it was billed as the soundtrack to imaginary movies, the irony being many of the tracks went on to be used in actual films. You can hear much of the work here being snaffled up by eager indie filmmakers looking for a sinister soundtrack.
So ‘Alchemeia’ is probably a calling card on more than one level. And while this first fruit for Scanner’s new DIY project isn’t perhaps the sort of outing you’d expect to bear his name, that’s the joy and surely much of the appeal of running your own label. That Robin can do this sort of thing is a very welcome move. Can’t wait to hear what’s next. (NM)
Scanner’s ‘Alchemeia’ is out today on Alltagsmusik. Robin will be hosting a listening party at 7pm (GMT) on 25 January. From more see scanner.bandcamp.com
… At some point soon you will need to be a paid subscriber to get the full benefit of all this. There will always be stuff for our free subscription friends, but we hope you’re not going to be happy with just a bit. It’s going to be free… until we decide it’s not.
VOLUME ONE>ISSUE ONE: SCANNER
Who better to kick off our weekly interview-like chat than Robin Rimbaud, Mr Scanner himself. We cover some decent ground here as he unveils his new label to the world. We talk New Year resolutions, his 85-year career in music, modular artwork, the beauty of CD, Paris Hilton, good skin and the importance of loving a bit of maths…
Interview: Neil Mason
Image: Jonathan Stewart
Hello Robin, how’s tricks?
“Rather fine, thank you for asking. Honky dory, and all that.”
Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? Still going strong are they?
“I’m trying to think if I’ve ever actually considered a New Year’s resolution. I’ve never drunk alcohol, tea or coffee, smoked or taken any drugs, so don’t have any vices to reconsider. Perhaps my resolution should be to do all of them. I like this resetting of the calendar though. It always fills me with positivity where it feels like almost anything is possible. I don’t necessarily plan any year ahead. I enjoy what follows.”
Let’s get down to business. You’ve set up your own label, Alltagsmusik…
“I have indeed. It’s something I’ve dreamt about for some time and finally I’ve managed to convince myself! As has happened with a lot of my titles, the name appeared in a dream and I loved the playfulness and openness of ‘everyday music’, which suggests it could embrace countless possibilities.”
How long has it been in the making?
“I’ve been releasing music now for close to 85 years, well, actually over 30 years. I’ve worked with countless labels and generally been quite content with them, but I have such an extremely active output I began to wonder what to do with all this music. I’ve been recording several hours of new music every month since the 1980s. During lockdown I recorded at least a dozen new releases, both solo and in collaboration. So in a sense it’s been in gestation for many years, but somehow the stars aligned, and it just felt like the right time for this to happen.”
You’ve not run your own label before… have you?
“Actually, I’ve co-run two labels in the past. The first was Ash International, which I began with Mike Harding of Touch, to host my earliest Scanner releases. We saw it as a way to release eclectic and strange recordings such as the extraordinary ‘Runaway Train’, a cassette I’d been sent by a friend that captured the conversations between Wesley, a driver on a runaway train, and Alfie, his controller, who happened to record the drama as it happened in real time. We released it on a vinyl LP and rather surprisingly DJs began to incorporate it into their mixes.
“Then, in the late 1990s, I set up Sulphur Records (UK) and Sulphur Records (USA) in collaboration with Beggars Banquet to release a host of recordings I wanted to share with the world including albums from American sound artist Stephen Vitiello, Michael Wells/Greater Than One, Ashley Wales of Spring Heel Jack, Future Pilot AKA, Simon Fisher Turner and more. This closed down due to restructuring in 2002.”
So why a new label now?
“Since it’s been over 20 years that I held any such autonomy over releases, I wanted a place to release my own works, in physical formats as well as digital, and importantly to set it up in a very creative manner in terms of both presentation and design.”
The releases will be divided in four distinct sections, right?
“Yes, the label will be the umbrella for four separate, distinct sections. My own solo albums, collaborations, of which there are at least eight mastered and ready to go, live albums, at least 450 recordings in my archive going back to the early 1990s, and scores for film and contemporary dance, which is around another 80 recordings.”
The first release is a solo album, ‘Alchemeia’, which is a nod to library music of the 60s/70s. I don’t think people associate your work with drawing on the past. Is this something new for you?
“That’s a good point as my work is very rarely retrospective. The idea began when I was approached by Kirk Degiorgio, better known as As One. We’ve been friends for many years and he wanted to create a library series on vinyl for his ART label, and so I started to write this album. A few tracks were briefly available as a download, but the costs at the time were too extortionate and the label was cancelled. I decided to rework it all and add new material and create this tribute to library music. I tried to keep it as authentic as possible, avoiding the computer as much as possible and working with hardware, with occasional input from software. No digital trickery or processes were applied the recordings as I wanted it to feel as authentic as possible.”
The label also has “modular artwork”? Talk us through that…
“I’m working closely with the fantastic designer Matthew Shaw, who you might know from his work for the Tone Science releases on DiN. Here he’s developed this wonderfully playful modular artwork that will follow the same structure with each release, but with subtle differences. He photographed a Post-It note and wrote a sequence of numbers on it, 1, 2, 3 and so on. The first release features a green Post-It with ‘1’ written on it. The second release will feature a second post-it note stuck on top of the first one, with ‘2’ written on it. By the 10th release there will be a huge mess of notes stacked up upon one another. Each of the releases on the label - solo, collaborative, live and scores, will also follow a different colour coding system too.”
So these are all CD releases?
“Every release will be CD and digital, but there will be some special editions on vinyl. These might be exclusively for Fan Club members through my Bandcamp page only though. Signing up as a member for the cost of about two artisan coffees a month gives you every new release, plus at least 40 exclusive back edition releases. I think it’s important to recognise people who support you directly in this manner. The main releases will also be available on all streaming services, but not the vinyl editions. They will remain exclusively on the label only.”
CD seems to be a popular format again doesn’t it? How so?
“The combination of the rising costs of vinyl, and the ever-increasing postal charges means that CD offers a vastly superior way of carrying sound and to be honest, lined up on your shelf, the colour coding on the spines will look magnificent!”
What’s next up on Alltagsmusik?
“I’m literally just confirming the schedule for releases for the year ahead. I’ve also had some beautiful enamel badges manufactured to wear with pride on your battle jacket or cap.”
You’ve done your share of interviews over the years, right? Is there a question people ask that you wish they wouldn’t ask?
“I grew rapidly tired of questions regarding my relationship with Paris Hilton and how do I manage to maintain such good skin. But I’m a patient, and well-moisturised man, so I’m flattered people continue to be interested.”
And is there a question you wish people would ask?
“‘Tell me what it’s like spending Christmas with Paris Hilton?’.”
I know you’re a big maths fan, one final question - if a hen and a half lays an egg and a half in a day and a half, how many eggs will half a dozen hens lay in half a dozen days?
“Well, this assumes that these are real hens, following actual physical laws and not chickens laying half an egg for example, which might be a challenge for the poor little chicken. It feels almost inevitable that the answer will be 42, as with all other immeasurably difficult mathematical questions.”
Thanks for your time Robin. Have a lovely day.
“My utter pleasure. Remember, it’s good to talk.”
For more Scanner, visit his excellent website at scannerdot.com
A CERTAIN RATIO ‘ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS’ (MUTE)
There’s a new album from A Certain Ratio out 19 April on Mute. Which seems like a long time to wait, but it’ll here before you know it. ‘It All Comes Down To This’ sees the band working as the core three-piece of Don Johnson, Martin Moscrop and Jez Kerr for the very first time. Which is pretty remarkable. To add to the spice it’s produced by Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, whose neat line in decluttering boils the trio down to their very essence. Eau de ACR. It’s tight as heck and funky as hell. The first track popped up online this week. We approve. Very much so.
There’s been a Moonbuilding release round-up on Twitter/X every Friday for a while - *Looks at watch* oh, seems it’s been about two years - but we’re not going to do it like that any more. We’ve got a whole new way of doing things. You’ll find our recommendations here each and every Friday. Got an upcoming release? Keep us informed at moonbuildingmag@gmail.com. Can’t wait to hear from you.
GOOD STUFF #1
zakè ‘Lapsis’ (quiet details)
Earlier this week quiet details released their first offering of the year in the shape of zake’s ‘Lapis’. zakè , who like a lot of people in the ambient world likes to do thing lowercase, is Zach Frizzell, one of the artists behind the Indiana-based Past Inside The Present label, which anyone who knows their stuff will know is a go-to.
This is (another) corker of a release from qd. zakè’s work has real soul. There’s an atmosphere to his work that is something special. I suspect it comes from his use of “real” sounds including pianos, vintage synths and a plethora of field recordings. Opening track, ‘vow’, is like listening to a brass band sleeping while the scratchy, melodic swirl of ‘origin’ feels like it could turn January into July.
Six tracks, nothing under seven minutes, most around the nine minute mark. And it all comes in the now signature qd artwork. What a release, what a label. It’s also their 12th outing. What a way to celebrate a year of existence. This really is the good stuff.
GOOD STUFF #2
Made By John ‘Music For Waiting Rooms’ (Waxing Crescent)
Waxing Crescent always seemed to fox me with their releases as they appear on US time and more often than not I’d be sat here doing this on Friday mornings. But no longer and thank goodness because I’ve always really liked what Phil Dodds’ Bishop Auckland-based label is up to. Just seeing the psychedelic sleeves all together on their Bandcamp page makes me smile. The latest outing, Made By John’s ‘Music For Waiting Rooms’ is a treat. South London YouTuber John Simpson does a very neat line in feel-good acid-dipped lo-fi electronics and it is as tight as you like. The drums on opener, ‘South Croydon Call Centre’ are have a very satisfying snap and swing about them. “Music to assist you whilst you wait” he says. All very Eno. You can’t imagine Eno having this much fun though.
waxingcrescentrecords.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #3
Warren Rasmussen 'The Art of Loving' (Difficult Art And Music)
It’s real chicken and egg here. Do you buy Daniel Alexander Hignell-Tully's graphic book ‘Everything Is Wonderful: 16 Ways To Celebrate The Ceaseless Joy That Is Modern Life’ and get a free copy of Warren Rasmussen's 'The Art of Loving' album or is it the other way round? The album is proper curio built around words of romantic wisdom from psychoanalyst Erich Fromm’s book ‘The Art Of Loving’. It reminded me a bit of Will Power’s ‘Kissing With Confidence’, which is a heck of a story. Will Powers was rock and roll photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The lone album - ‘Dancing For Mental Health’ - saw her working with a bunch of collaborators including Steve Winwood, Carly Simon, Sting, Nile Rodgers and Tom Bailey. You know, like you do. Anyway. I digress. I tend to do that.
difficultartandmusic.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #4
Cabbaggage ‘Bird Of Passage’ (Submarine Broadcasting Company)
I’ve really been enjoying Cabbaggage’s ‘Bird Of Passage’. They’re an act I feel I should know more about. It’s the solo project of Vancouver-based singer-songwriter Levi Taschuk (thanks for sub, sir). I stumbled across his ‘A Place With No Guns’ album from last year because it was released on the excellent Moolakii Club, which is a real favourite round here.
Here Levi returns to Submarine Broadcasting Company with a second release for the label (must dig out the first), which at its core is an album of piano pieces. The thing you will quickly discover about Levi is it’s never going to be that simple. I’ve seen what he does called “post-noise jazz”, whatever that is. I’d say it’s more like late-period Talk Talk covering Godspeed You! Anyway, Levi wrote four pieces on the piano and then, feeling a little burnt out and uninspired, he handed to the tracks to other artists to continue their evolution.
There’s some excellent sleevenotes from Levi, which should be studied carefully. Across the four tracks Simon McCorry offers some incredible cello work, Iker Garmendia adds the flute and Moolakii Club’s Jez Thelwell brings the beats before Simon McCorry, The New Emphatic, hyacinth and autumna each offer up remixes. Cracking stuff.
submarinebroadcastingco.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #5
Andrew Brenza / Alka’s ‘pod (Chapter 2)’ (Mortality Tables)
Mat Smith’s Mortality Tables arrives in 2024 with a bang - actually it arrives packing poetry and sound art, but you know. Andrew Brenza / Alka’s ‘pod (Chapter 2)’ finds experimental writer Brezna reading extracts from his book of “channelled visual poems”, ‘pod’, while sound artist Alka - Philadelphia’s Bryan Michael - goes to work with the accompanying sounds. Brenza’s gentle tones meet Alka’s similarly gentle swirls and drones in a very listenable journey. Nothing less than we’ve come to expect from this delightfully experimental label.
Said it before, will say it again, I’m a big fan of Mortality Tables and Mat in particular. He was one of my go-to writers at some magazine I used to work at, but he really excels as a label boss. The way he thinks about this stuff and the pure invention of the releases are a delight.
… Oh hang on, before I go how about a little round-up in a round-up? There’s a couple of things I missed from earlier in the month (dragging my heels this year. Ha). There’s a very welcome remaster of Pye Corner Audio’s 2015 long-player ‘Prowler’. Long out of print, a decent copy of the LP will set you back £40+ and it’s not been available digitally since More Than Human, who originally released it, shut up shop in 2018. £5 gets you this acid-flecked growler of record. Money well-spent.
There’s also a new Melodien album, ‘Morii’. I’ll just wait here until everyone has finished cheering. This is the sixth long-player from Liverpool’s Harry Sumnall, whose previous five releases were all on Poly Youth/Deep Distance. Which, you know, tells you all you need to know about quality of his work. The vibe here is ambient krauty, it’s very mellow. ‘Urizidil’ is like Kraftwerk writing songs for Depeche Mode.
Oh and talking of Poly Youth, as I was writing this an email landed from Dom Martin with the latest release on his Feral Child imprint - a vinyl debut for Holy Fuck’s very much sold out ‘Cassette No1’ from 2014. It’s two long (15 minute-ish), very lo-fi electronic/psyche jams recorded on phones by the band in various cities around the world. It’s a real treat (love the budgies towards the end of ‘Side B’). When Dom releases anything you need to be seriously on the ball to bag it. His email landed on Wednesday so I’d say there is little chance of this peach still being available. But you never know. To be in on the ground floor get yourself on his mailing list, which is thegreatpopsupplement@hotmail.com Drop him a line, tell him I sent you. As a consolation you can listen to ‘Cassette No1…
Right, I really have stop this now. No, really.
PRIMAL ZINES
There’s not always the space to cover as many books as we’d like in the printed version of Moonbuilding so expect much writing about books here. This year is already promising a slew of cracking titles, but before we get to those there’s one from last year that deserves your attention.
An oral history of British fanzines, Gavin Hogg and Hamish Ironside’s ‘We Peaked At Paper’ (Boatwhistle) is a proper piece of work. Five years in the making, it finds the pair travelling the UK to chat with current and former fanzine editors. The whole shebang is mostly music, but not totally. They acknowledge that zines as we know them didn’t start with Sniffin’ Glue, but rather with sci-fi some four decades before punk was even a flicker. There’s a great opening chat with a guy called Rob Hansen, a sci-fi zine editor/expert, who sheds some light on the subject.
Punk godhead Mark Perry of Sniffin’ Glue features, of course, and again the chat is fascinating. There’s a few other names you should recognise - Manchester author Mick Middles for one and our pal Pete Paphides is here talking about his short-lived Peturbed zine, which is described as a “DIY, sweary version of Smash Hits” and got him his job at Melody Maker.
Many of the interviews will be with people you’ve never heard of, publishing zines that didn’t last long, but that’s all part of the fun. We all had our favourites and it kind of depended on where in the country you happened to be. The idea that anyone could put something together and that other people would actually be interested - and let’s not forget this was a world where the weekly music press ran to several titles and the monthlies even more - is mind-blowing. It’s the spirit that Moonbuilding was created in and hopefully we do it justice.
boatwhistle.com/we-peaked-at-paper
WERRA FOXMA RIP
We started the year with some bad news as the West Lothian-based Werra Foxma label announced they were shutting up shop. With spiralling costs and increasing demands on everyone’s wallet it’s properly tough out there. They released some dazzlers since they arrived on the scene in 2020, among them albums by Veryan, Bendu, Elizabeth Crompton, Sulk Rooms, Salvatore Mercatante, apta, autumna and in-house band Dohnavùr.
“They have brought so much great stuff to us and Fra is one of the biggest hearted and lovely people you could ever wish to meet,” said young Colin Morrison of Castles In Space. “There's a new Dohnavùr coming on CiS later this year and I really hope it's not the end of the journey for Werra Foxma.”
They are still running their WFR Central festival in Derby on 23 March, which should now be one heck of a last hurrah. They are also having a fire sale on their Bandcamp page until the end of March. With all vinyl less than £10 and tapes/CDs under a five, you will be able to pick up some prime listening.
Moonbuilding salutes Fra, Hazel and the whole WF crew for services rendered. “Don’t be sad that it’s over,” says the pair in a statement on Facebook. “Be happy that it happened.” Indeed.
skiddle.com/whats-on/Derby/Deda-And-Dubrek/WFR-Central/36365034
werrafoxmarecords.bandcamp.com
WALKMAN OH MAN
CES 2024, the showcase for innovative consumer tech coming down the pipes wrapped up last week at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand and among all the gaming laptops and gigantic TVs there’s always something that turns our gadget-y little heads. This year it’s Fiio’s CP13 personal cassette player, which by the looks of it could rival We Are Rewind’s fast-becoming ubiquitous machine.
There’s no sign of the Walkman-a-like on FiiO’s website, but word on the ground at CES was that it’d be available in early March at £129 and will come in three finishes - white, black or blue/silver, which mimics the original Sony Stowaway. The CP13 is proper old school and isn’t Bluetooth, which still gives We Are Rewind the edge in my book, but you know, #swoon. It really does say something that a cassette player is a wowing at a cutting-edge tech fest like CES 2024. Who knew? Well, we did.
Righto, that’s us. Week one. Went quite well didn’t it? Same time same place next week? If you like what you’ve seen please share us with all your fine friends.
A MESSAGE FROM THE MOTHERSHIP
The current issue is available from moonbuilding.bandcamp.com and it’s full to the gills with the good stuff. On the cover we have star-in-the-making Maria Uzor, we profile label-of-the-moment quiet details, there’s an incredible interview with Captain Star creator Steven Appleby, and Ghost Box’s Jim Jupp gets busy with our There’s A First Time For Everything questions.
We review a big pile of releases from labels including Castles In Space, Woodford Halse, Persistence Of Sound, Assai, Ahora, DiN, Werra Foxma, Ghost Box and many more. There’s a column from The Orb’s Alex Paterson and the world-famous Captain Star cartoon strip, which you will know all about once you’ve read the incredible feature with creator Steven Appleby. We’re repeating ourselves now so it’s clearly time to stop.
Oh, hang on. Forgot the CD. This issue’s disc is ‘The Moonbuilding Miscellany - Volume One’, which is put together by CiS supremo Colin Morrison. It’s a belter featuring tracks from the likes of Lo Five, Lone Bison, Twilight Sequence, Ojn, NCHX and more, have a listen below…
Moonbuilding Weekly is a Castles In Space publication.
Copyright © 2024 Moonbuilding
Good stuff! Scanner cd to be purchased ASAP!
Lovely stuff. More please 👍