Issue 19b / 24 May 2024
In part two of this week's wander through DIY electronic goodness... Track Of The Week: Nice Biscuit's 'Rain' + Good Stuff release round-up + Paul Hanley's Buzzcocks book 'Sixteen Again' + more...
Previously on Moonbuilding Weekly. In Part One of your pre-weekend journey into sound earlier today we had everything you need to know about our Album Of The Week, Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan’s ‘Your Community Hub’ as well as a wide-ranging interview with Gordon Chapman-Fox himself. Didn’t tune in? You’ll find it here… moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-19a-24-may-2024
Welcome to Part Two. No spoilers.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 19 Playlist: bndcmpr.co/46119284
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NICE BISCUIT ‘Rain’ (Bad Vibrations/Fuzz Club)
This lot mean business. How do I know? Well, last year they released a cover version of ‘I Feel Love’. You don’t do that lightly. Any good? Oh yes. Very. With a reputation for electrifying live shows, Brisbane's Nice Biscuit have been trickling out singles and EPs for a while now. Here we get a lone track ‘Rain’, which you suspect must be a precursor to a debut album. And on the strength of ‘Rain’ that album is going to be a belter. Make straight for the full-length, seven-minute version as seen on YouTube rather than the Bandcamp radio edit… unless you need a radio edit.
‘Rain’ captures the stark reality of climate uncertainty. They began writing it at the end of 2019/20 when bushfires were burning throughout Australia and revisited it again after a catastrophic flooding event occurred in Meanjin, Brisbane, in 2022, after weeks of constant rain.
“The song became a reflection of the impacts of climate change and the unsettling psychological impact, where you are at first wishing for rain and then begging for it to stop,” the band say. “We live in a system where action to mitigate climate change is ignored, but it’s a positive take on a situation that can make us feel powerless - to encourage us to keep going and to not lose hope when everything is uncertain."
nicebiscuitband.com / nicebiscuit.bandcamp.com
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Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
WORRIEDABOUTSATAN ‘If Not Now, When?’
Worriedaboutsatan’s Gavin Miller celebrated his birthday last week (happy birthday sir) by releasing a double album called ‘If Not Now, When?’ (see Insta for the official portrait). In an act of generosity, kind of like taking cakes into the office for everyone on your special day, the digital version is name your price on Bandcamp, while the double CD version is a total bargain at £7. It also turns out this is the very first worriedaboutsatan double album. “I kinda figured,” explains Gavin, “you know what? It’s been 18 years with this band and I’d never done one before, so if not now, when?” Gavin always wins when it comes to track titles and there’s some real winners here. ‘Everything Remotely Useful Must Be Destroyed And Replaced With A Subscription Based Streaming Model’ is especially good. As for the tuneage, it opens and closes with two epics – the eight-minute ‘Nobody Dreamed You’d Change The World’ and the magnificent 16-minute ‘Teufelstanz’ – but the standout is ‘Acid House Matinée’, an 18-minute pulsating thrummer that wouldn’t have been out of place on the ‘Drive’ soundtrack. Gavin is one of the original DIY artists I was writing about way back when and he often gets a bit overlooked. No idea why. He’s consistently excellent and if you know his work, you’ll know the kind of quality on show here. If you don’t, you’re in for a treat and an 18-year back catalogue just waiting.
worriedaboutsatan.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #2
NORMIL HAWAIIANS ‘Empires Into Sand’ (Upset The Rhythm)
Normil Hawaiians are an interesting outfit, a proper post-punk unit in the early 80s, ‘Empires Into Sand’ is their first new album in, oh, 40 years. They did a Peel Session, just the one, in 1980. It’s worth a listen for the definite version of their debut single, ‘The Beat Goes On’, which grazed the outer reaches of the independent chart. They holed up in a remote cottage in Wales to record their debut album ‘More Wealth Than Money’ and there’s all sorts of tales of mushrooms, UFOs and sheep marching in time to their music. Good times.
While they never split up, the world did seem to conspire against them with distribution issues putting paid to them actually releasing anything properly. In the last few years, Upset The Rhythm has been setting that straight and now it seems you can’t stop them releasing stuff. There’s been a good deal of reissue action and now there’s this, a whole new release. And very good it is too. Let’s call it motorik ambient post-punk shall we? Musically they’ve morphed from those early years and while they are clearly invested in experimentation, using samples from their old rehearsal tapes and live bootlegs in new pieces, they can still pen a cracking song. Recorded once again in a remote cottage, this time on the Scottish coast, there are many beautiful moments here. ‘We Stand Together’ is a really gorgeous love song, while the slow-build and sparkly throb of ‘Big City Sky’ wows. They are pleasingly political beasts too, the opening spoken word tales of real-life refugees who fled Latvia during Soviet occupation in 1942 and Syria in 2014 on opener ‘Exiles’ is very effective.
GOOD STUFF #3
NIGHTPORTS / MATTHEW BOURNE ‘Dulcitone 1804’ (The Leaf Label)
Well, this is rather lovely. The Nightports duo of Adam Martin and Mark Slater revisit their collaboration with pianist Matthew Bourne for an exploration of a 19th century keyboard called a dulcitone. I love how thoughtful the Nightports records are, they’ve also worked with The Comet Is Coming drummer Betamax on a rhythm-led offering created with vintage equipment and bass player Tom Herbert who shows off his double-bass skills. I mean, between them and their friends they’ve got quite band, right? Back to this outing. Invented in Glasgow in 1860-ish, the dulcitone is a frontrunner to the Fender Rhodes apparently, producing a sound when felt-covered hammers hit a series of tuning forks. Whatever, it sounds lovely. The label say the album came about by accident when Nightports were working at Matthew’s studio on a different project. They spotted “a small, unassuming instrument against the wall”. Of course it was a dulcitone and of course Matthew Bourne had one. The rest is on this very charming release.
THE ROUND-UP’S ROUND-UP
The excellent Gearbox label brings up ‘Magnificent Little Dudes Vol.1’ from ambient composer Chihei Hatakeyama and jazz drummer Shun Ishiwaka, two of Japan’s leading underground experimental proponents. Chihei Hatakeyama is especially prolific having released some 70+ albums since his first long-player, ‘Minima Moralia’ in 2006. He doesn’t put our Polypores in the shade, who has a similar number of releases but in way less time, but you know, it’s not a competition. The interesting thing here is this is an ambient outing, with a drummer. It really works, the drums sit low in the mix but you can hear he’s going for it in places and not just tapping a light symbol now and again. Chihei gets involved with guitars here, referencing My Bloody Valentine as an influence on his guitar treatments. Properly interesting stuff. And yes, there is apparently a Vol 2.
I seem to be going all jazz this week. Or maybe it is jazz week and I didn’t get the memo. Again. Next up is some astral jazz. LA-based multi-instrumentalist Angelica-Marie Lopez plies her trade as Low Leaf and this three-track ‘Red Moon’ EP (Leaving) is a proper smoky backroom filler. Angelica-Marie is classical trained pianist and a self-taught harpist, guitarist and producer. Chuck in a hip-hop vibe as spotted on last year’s ‘Microdose’ LP and you have a potent brew. She’s not mucking around here, the EP opens with a take on Alice Coltrane’s ‘Blue Nile’ recorded live at NeueHouse Hollywood complete with a drummer, bassist and flautist. It is bold stuff. The other tracks are original compositions and are much more in your face. ‘Innersound Oddity’ rasps with synth arpeggios and a rattling drum kit as the jazz dances around it, while the very harp-y ‘How To Open A Portal’ takes us back in the smoky room. Classy stuff.
Huddersfield’s Paul Morricone (no relation as far as I know, that would be a story) recently released his third solo album ‘Go Sanction Yourself’. He’s a proper DIY-er is Paul. He was in 90s outift The Scaratamanga Six, who were a kind of Brit Fugazi if you can imagine that. They mamanged themselves, released on their own label, Wrath Records, and Paul would direct their promos. His solo outings are more on the mellow side and here, like his namesake, he gets all cinematic. Think Barry Adamson and you won’t be far off.
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EVER FALLEN IN LOVE
Paul Hanley’s ‘Sixteen Again – How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester (And Me)’ (Route) really caught my eye, literally, which is no surprise as the cover is by design titan Malcolm Garrett who served up all the good Buzzcocks’ record sleeves from ‘Orgasm Addict’ onwards. And will you look at that title, don’t know how many markers the author wanted to hit, but you know.
Paul Hanley is an interesting chap. He was drummer in The Fall for what was most likely five very long years between 1980-85. He forms one half of a rhythm section with his bass playing brother Stephen, which seems like such a smart move. As well as both being in The Fall, the pair currently play in House Of All and are the brilliant minds behind ‘Oh! Brother’ podcast, which is about… wait for it… The Fall. How he has time to write books I don’t know.
‘Sixteen Again’ is Paul’s third tome and the first two are well worth catching up with if you’ve not discovered them yet. His first, ‘Leave The Capital: A History Of Manchester Music In 13 Recordings’, looks at the legendary music scene that rippled out across the decades from two local studios – 10cc’s Strawberry Studios and Herman’s Hermits’ Pluto. His second, ‘Have A Bleedin Guess’, hones in on the making, and subsequent impact of, The Fall’s 1982 album, ‘Hex Enduction Hour’. Once you’ve done those, and they are both excellent, you have this treat to look forward to.
‘Sixteen Again’ is at its heart an oral history of Buzzcocks, but beyond that Paul manages to combine a comprehensive history of the band in their own words and his own relationship with a band at the peak of their powers. I love a good footnote and this book is awash with them, more often than not they’re chatty asides from the author, working as a commentary on the main attraction through his own eyes.
Even if you think you know all about Buzzcocks, ‘Sixteen Again’ is one of those books that says think again. The level of detail Paul goes into around the Sex Pistol’s mythical Lesser Free Trade Hall appearences, which Shelley and Howard Devoto promoted, shows just how deeply this book delves. It always amazes me that volumes like this can can pop up so many decades later and the big takeaway is that the story hasn’t be fully covered. This is one such book.
Route-online.com / Moonbuilding bookshop
MORE MORE MORE
A few weeks ago I mentioned that Matthew Collin had launched a blog where he’s posting full transcripts of the interviews he undertook for his Moonbuilding Weekly Book Of The Week, ‘Dream Machines – Electronic Music In Britain From Doctor Who To Acid House’.
Matthew bagged in excess of 100 interviews with the good and the great of electronic music world and only ever used a fraction of those chats in the book itself. “A lot of the material couldn’t fit into ‘Dream Machines’,” says Matthew, “and there were lots of good quotes and anecdotes left over that could possibly be of interest so I decided to publish some of the raw Q&As as a resource for readers, researchers and anyone else who might be interested.”
The site is filling up at pace. When I first mentioned it there were two interviews – Chris and Cosey, and Dennis Bovell – now they’re joined by Stephen Mallinder, A Guy Called Gerald, Steve Hillage and Miquette Giraudy and Mark Moore. I mean, don’t know about you, but that’s my weekend reading sorting.
dreammachinesinterviews.blogspot.com
BRAND NEW NOT RETRO
A couple of weekends ago, turntable/tape loop trio The New Obsolescents (that’s DJ Food/Strictly Kev and the Howlround duo of Chris Weaver and Robin The Fog) set up in the Wow And Flutter record shop in Hastings for a live instore performance, which they recorded and will be using as the raw material for their second album, ‘Obsolete Strategies’. There’s a clip of the session below.
But that’s only half the story. This weekend, the shop will have 20 copies of the long sold-out first album, ‘The Superceded Sounds of The New Obsolescents’, for sale. But they’re not any old copies. The original album came with a very special patterned silver foil cover, which were made by minute differences in the angles of the foil coating which appeared to animate when moved.
Each one of these last 20 copies has a unique sleeve created by DJ Food in the run of tests he made for the album’s second pressing. They will be on sale for £25 and are only available in person from the shop. As they’re all different, so turning up at the shop from tomorrow means you can choose your favourite. This really is one for the Castles In Space completists. The shop is at 8 Trinity Street, Hastings, East Sussex TN34 1HG and is open tomorrow from 11am-5pm. Start your engines.
wowandflutterhastings.com / The New Obsolescents
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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.
Copyright © 2024 Moonbuilding
Excellent stuff and you are bang on about Wortiefaboutsatan. The new double album is amazing and he deserves far more recognition than he currently receives
Great reading once again. Thanks Moonbuilding!