Issue 18b / 17 May 2024
In part two of this week's blast of DIY electronic goodness... Track Of The Week: Mieke Maimi + Good Stuff release round-up including Lines Of Silence, SEM + James Nice's Vini Reilly book and more...
We all need to hitch a ride on the incoming weekend express, right? It’ll be along very shortly, so to get you there here’s our second issue of the day packed to the gills with the good stuff.
Part One, which lands at 9.30am every Friday, featured everything you need to know about our Album Of The Week, Ex-Easter Island Head's 'Norther', including an excellent interview with the band’s Benjamin D Duvall. Missed it? You’ll find it here… moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-18a-17-may-2024
One more thing before we go. If you could share our newsletter with someone you think might like it, that would be very kind. Just click the little green button below. The one that says “Share Moonbuilding Weekly”. Or maybe you could tell people about the playlist we do for each issue. It’s an especially good one this week, well worth sharing. Thank you.
Right then, that’s us. The weekend starts here.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 18 Playlist: bndcmpr.co/3751183e
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MIEKE MIAMI ‘Whispering Pines’ (Sonar Kollektiv)
Don’t know if it’s the sunshine and blue skies of late, but Berlin-based multi-instrumentalist Mieke Maimi is sounding very much in the right place with my windows open and a gentle breeze swaying the curtains. If I had curtains. There’s a blind that kind of bangs against the frame when there’s a breeze, but that is, for sure, not the vibe of this track taken for her third album, ‘Birdland’, which is set for release on 27 September.
Mieke trained as a jazz saxophonist before she started penning her own songs, which are described as a “unique fusion of psychedelic jazz and leftfield electronics”. The title of the new album is, of course, a reference to the legendary NYC jazz joint, but also the many venues that have sprung up in Germany with the same name. Mieke grew up in Hamburg where the best-known jazz club was called Birdland. “When I was a teenager,” she admits, “I used to tell my parents every Thursday night that I was going out to visit a friend. Instead, I took the S Bahn into the city and went to the Birdland jam session and tried to figure out what the hell they were doing there.”
We’ve all be there, right? Oh, and the title also refers to the abundance of migratory birds in Mieke’s hometown of Luckenwalde, which is unexpected. Probably a tale for another time that one.
Got an upcoming release? We’re all ears. Find us at moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
LINES OF SILENCE ‘The Long Way Home’ (Analogue Trash)
You know I said I’d like to cover more singles and EPs last week? This three-tracker from Lines Of Silence is real Krautrock-y treat. Until recently, LOS was the solo project of Todmorden’s David Little (check out his ‘Stations Of The Sun’ long one on Dimple Discs). It seems that of late he’s hooked up with Scissorgun’s Dave Clarkson. A Dave and a David to avoid confusion there. The first fruit is ‘The Long Way Home’ (Analogue Trash), the title track from their forthcoming album, which I’m very much looking forward to on the strength of this. They say the record is “an eclectic mix of motorik grooves, psychedelic drone rock, ambient passages and even occasional sprinklings of exotica and electronic jazz”. What not to like there. There’s a good tale attached too. It seems the Lines Of Silence project was re-energised after jamming with members of Faust at the base of the Pyrenees in 2023. Like you do. There’s also a krauty version of the title track by Ulan Bator and Faust collaborator Amaury Cambuzat. Faust Faust Faust. It’s all you talk about.
GOOD STUFF #2
SEM ‘Phox/The Demon’ (Bytes)
We picked up on this release on the excellent Bytes label a while back, making ‘Phox’ our Track Of The Week and this is the full release of these reissued EPs that first saw the light of day on J Saul Kane’s Electronic Industries label in 1995 and 1996. SEM is Damon Baxter who you will almost certainly know as Deadly Avenger. This is what he was up to in the 90s. Both EPs have been remastered by Two Lone Swordsman’s Keith Tenniswood, a man who very much knows what he’s doing when it comes to quality electro. The tracks have never been available digitally before and while there’s no vinyl release you can snap them up physically on a limited edition CD with signed obi strip or… wait for it… a Sony Minidisc with printing on the case and disc, which are of course long sold out. Why I’m telling you about something really great that’s totally sold out I don’t know. I am sorry.
GOOD STUFF #3
VARIOUS ARTIST ‘Industrial Heritage’ (Negative Vibe Merchant)
This is an interesting find. It’s a cassette compilation of artists from in and around Glasgow working in the “Industrial Tradition”. “Over 60 minutes of material, covering drone, death industrial, blackened noise, tape loops, power electronics, and dark ambient” they say. Artists include Ziggurat, Pripyat, Fingsmill, Lodge, Toil and Greying Snout whose ‘Day 666 In The Big Brother House’ is a winning track title. The label, Negative Vibe Merchant, isn’t on Bandcamp preferring instead to stream via YouTube and sell on Big Cartel. I do like people who don’t run with the crowd. The tape will set you back £6, which is a total bargain if you ask me.
negativevibemerchant.bigcartel.com / instagram.com/negative_vibe_merchant
THE ROUND UP’S ROUND UP
I don’t know what’s going on this week, but there are a LOT of collaborations. Is it national collaboration week? Did I miss the memo? First up is the brilliantly named Church Andrews, whose real name is the equally brilliant Kirk Barley, and drummer Matt Davies with ‘Yucca’ (ODDA), a mini album where “tracks are built around rhythmic ratios of the Fibonacci sequence”. Not entirely sure what that means? Well, “mirroring spiral patterns exhibited in nature, each track evolves like a cellular structure of its own” they say. Erm, still not sure? Not to worry, it’s sounding good and the artwork is very nice too.
churchandrewsmattdavies.bandcamp.com
Multiples ‘Two Hours Or Something’ (STOOR) is quite the piece of work. A gang-up between techno titans Speedy J and Surgeon, the project has only ever been spotted at the occasional festival or club appearance where the pair serve up full-blown improvised live jams. Here, the Rotterdam-based lab at Speedy J’s STOOR label played host to a mammoth two-day session where the two of them let rip into the improvised unknown and this is the result. There’s some epic stuff, with many of tracks clocking in over 10 minutes. The way ‘Spirit’ builds from its scratchy beginnings adding filthy kicks and then bright arpeggios is especially good. STOOR specialises in very limited run lathe cuts, but this one is also being pressed up for wider distribution, and rightly so. Form an orderly queue.
stoor.bandcamp.com
Heffernan & Pärk’s ‘Sun Reflector’ stars Middlesbrough’s Oli Heffernan, who is better known as Ivan The Tolerable, but answers to various pseudonyms including King Champion Sounds, All Structures Align and Detective Instinct, and Colorado’s Patrick R Pärk who himself is no stranger to a pen name or two. Try Kosmonaut, Teeth Of Glass, Black Tempel. This release runs with the collaborative theme and is a co-release between the UK’s Cardinal Fuzz label and the US-based Feeding Tube. Just the five tracks, but the runtime is over 40 minutes of swirling, motorik, psyche synth wigging out that is “steeped in a haze of primitive drum machines, fanned phase and sustained scuzz-rippled guitar chimes”. Very nice it is too.
kosmonauten.bandcamp.com / cful.bandcamp.com
One final team up to mention this week sees the mysterious Xqui join forces with artist, poet and composer Jude Montague for the equally mysterious ‘Moon Landing Television’ in which Jude does spoken word over the top of Xqui’s “manipulations and arrangements”. The only information about this is one line, which says “Flying to the moon and back”. I’ve had it on a couple of times and I’m none the wiser, which is often the case with Xqui. The track titles don’t give too much away. ‘John Logie Baird’? Well, that’s the television. ‘Sussex Sidewalk Astronomers’ is a bit space-y, but ‘Morris-Hey-Oop’ and ‘Maurice’? Answers on a postcard.
xqui.bandcamp.com
A couple of singles to finish with… Naples-based duo Not Me But Us, who we’ve mentioned more than once round here, release a brace of mighty fine remixes of tracks from their Sonic Cathedral-released debut LP ‘Two’. The first sees Maps’ James Chapman do his thing and serve up a sleek hands-in-the-air belter, while Dawn Chorus And The Infallible Sea do their thing, which is perhaps the exact opposite of Maps, a meditative sigh of a reworking of ‘No Words’.
notmebutus.bandcamp.com
Mining, who turned heads with their album ‘Chimet’ (The Leaf Label) the other week, return with a new version of the opening movement, ‘Ophelia’. You may recall that the album used data from Hurricane Ophelia, as recorded by Chichester West Pole Beacon weather station, and turned it into music. All very interesting. On this ‘Remapped’ version of the lead track the artists took the chance to “re-evaluate the relationships between the output of data and their sonic representations”. Fascinating stuff.
mining.bandcamp.com
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VIN’S YARD
The pun I was going to use to headline this piece is in the book title isn’t it? Cuh. I’ve been waiting a while for ‘The Durutti Column – A Life of Reilly’ by James Nice (Burning Shed) to land. It’s an authorised biography of the mercurial Factory outfit with input from Vini Reilly himself, which is a rare sight these days, along with band and family members, including long-time musical partner and manager, Bruce Mitchell.
Formed in 1978, The Durutti Column were originally managed by Tony Wilson who set up Factory Records with the sole purpose of having somewhere he could release their music. So Vini Reilly has a lot to answer for. If it wasn’t for him there’d be no Factory. Imagine a world where Factory didn’t exist, eh?
The book is every bit as thorough as you’d expect from James Nice, who you should know from his excellent ‘Shadowplayers: The Rise And Fall Of Factory Records’ as well as being the guardian on earth of Factory Benelux, Les Disques Du Crépuscule and LTM Recordings.
From the off you know you’re going to get sucked into this book. There’s a spread right at the beginning where the name Durutti Column is picked over. Turns out it isn’t named after the Spanish Civil war militant Buenaventura Durruti. The Situationists are involved you won’t be surprised to hear. I won’t spoil it for you.
There’s so many amazing photos, including Vini’s younger days from the family archive, early live outings and a raft from the Factory years. There’s an incredible Kevin Cummins shot taken at their live debut from May 1978 at The Factory, the night that Wilson and Alan Erasmus put on at The Russell Club in Hulme. Dotted in among the linear story there’s also a bunch of interludes – Vini on various subjects, music magazines interviews, some incredible letters to Tony and Lindsay Wilson and to Michael Duval and Annik Honoré at Crépuscule, extracts from tour diaries and so on. They offer a fascinating, not to mention intimate insight.
Which is kind of the nub of the book. The thing about James Nice is he’s lived at the heart of all this for decades. He knows this stuff inside and out, what he doesn’t know isn’t worth knowing really, and as such he’s able to go knee-deep in the detail. He’s interviewed everyone and probably more than once so here we get the voices of people like Alan Erasmus – who hasn’t done an interview in decades – and, of course, there’s the late, great Tony Wilson throughout, which is always a treat. Oh, and do spend some time with the “notes and sources” section at the back of the book. I can’t imagine how long that took to compile and there’s so much info and nuggets of info hidden away it made my head hurt.
James describes the project as a labour of love and explains it was considerably delayed by lockdowns, which did have a silver cloud. “The long gestation meant that I was able to track down and talk to lots of associates who I frankly never dreamed would open up,” he says. “It’s an authorised biography, but also very candid, and I hope I’ve done all the principals justice.”
Oh he has. It’s such a rich and fascinating book, there is just so much on these pages that you won’t have known. It is very, very good. Essential reading I’d say.
ERR WE GO
Can I point you in the direction of my excellent Parisian friends Bolanile and Gilles Maté whose ERR REC label is marking its 10th anniversary this year. The duo are serving up a bunch of events and special releases, among them a rather brilliant compilation ‘ret.rə.spekt / 2014-2024’ featuring remastered tracks from the label’s long sold out early cassette releases, including cuts from the likes of Bernard Grancher, Takahiro Mukai, Domotic, Dreyt Nein, Leeaves and more.
To mark the anniversary they’ve launched a bumper crowdfunding campaign around the release with a raft of rewards including vinyl and cassette versions of the retrospective, a very desirable tote bag, T-shirts, sweatshirts and there’s a rather special enamel badge for top tier supporters.
They’re looking to raise €5,500 and are about halfway there with only 10 days to go. The funds will help ERR REC thrive with the cash raised going towards the pressing of the label’s next two LPs, one of which is Volume Five of their brilliant Library series, as well as other products including cassettes and merch.
“To celebrate this 10th year and fiercely attack another decade, and after having been badly damaged by the pandemic and inflation like many, ERR REC needs a helping hand,” say Bolanile and Gilles. “We decided to launch a crowdfunding campaign as a giant pre-order for this very special year.” Please give generously. These people are worth it.
The crowdfunder is here… ulule.com/err-rec-will-survive
ERR REC HQ is here… err-rec.com
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The latest issue of MOONBUILDING is full to the gills with the good stuff. On the cover, 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.
This issue’s CD 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.
Moonbuilding Weekly is a Castles In Space publication.
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