Issue 24b / 28 June 2024
In part two of your essential DIY electronic music bulletin... Track Of The Week: Bonfire Hill + Good Stuff round-up starring Lone Bison, BUNKR, Autuma and more + cracking Josef K book
Previously on Moonbuilding Weekly… In Issue 24a this morning we entered the wonderful world of retro TV theme tunes with The British Stereo Collective’s Phil Heeks. Read all about it…
moonbuilding.substack.com/p/issue-24a-28-june-2024
Sure it’s not just me, but has anyone else been following the Copa America seeing as The Euros is having a rest day? Uruguay eh? 5-0. Oh and don’t forget the new Moonbuilding Weekly summer schedule, only one issue on a Friday, starts next week at 3.30pm. See you there!
Thanks for reading.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 24 Playlist: bndcmpr.co/6e8c6613
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BONFIRE HILL ‘A Year On Bonfire Hill – Sendelica Remix’ (Bonfire Hill Records)
Not so much a track, but a whole flipping record. I’ve had this on the listening pile for a while and it’s a dream team gang-up. Bonfire Hill is Rebecca Denniff, who you may know as Subphotic, and David Owen who is The FLK and Band Of Cloud. Last year they released a track a month, each was 12 minutes long and tuned into the folklore, customs and traditions of the particular month.
Of course, a collection of all those tracks would make a great album, but running to 144 minutes of music it would’ve been a triple album. “So,” say the pair, “we decided instead to commission an edited remix.” Their first port of call was Peter Bingham of the ever-inventive Welsh psyche outfit Sendelica. “Peter chose his favourite three or four minutes from each month and then seamlessly mixed, cross-faded, blended, adjusted, warped and over-dubbed them into an incredible 45 minute psychedelic remix.”
It comes as a lovely package, delightful pink/orange splatter vinyl, a couple of inserts and a pile of cigarette cards. The music itself comes as two halves, ‘Side A (January-June)’ and… wait for it… ‘Side B (July-December)’. It reminds me of The FLK’s gob-smacking ‘We Know Where The Times Goes’ such is the job Pete has done here. It’s kind of a swirly folk dub mix if you can imagine that. Each side follows the months so Jan-Jun gets slowly summery (well, there’s birdsong) towards its conclusion, while Jul-Dec gets more wintery. I still can’t work out which way I prefer to listen. I’ve found myself going round a couple of times so Dec melts into Jan… anyway, enjoy. It’s great.
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Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
LONE BISON ‘Talk About It’/’Origin Story’ EP (Castles In Space)
A new Lone Bison EP? Don’t mind if I do. The work of Ramsgate’s Nick Bonell should be familiar to anyone reading this. If it’s not you have catching up to do. We can wait. This new EP lifts two tracks from last year’s debut outing on CiS and offers up remixes from Concretism and Paul Cousins, which I’m sure you’ll agree is quite the package. “The Concretism remix adds massive slabs of synths,” says CiS’ Colin Morrison, “while Paul's remix brings to the fore his Mad Professor tape-based jiggery-pokery.” Indeed, the Concretism mix is vast, utterly glorious, those towering synths will give you vertigo, while Paul Cousins sounds almighty, going full ferric on his offering, serving up tape slurs like he’s a scratch DJ. The packaging is worth noting. That there is Nick Taylor’s CiS disco bag design, which hasn’t been seen CiS038/CiS039. You will of course know those releases as the deadly double whammy of The Home Current’s ‘Palermo Traxx Vol 2’ and Antoni Maiovvi’s Time Precinct’s ‘British Interrail EP’. Both corkers.
GOOD STUFF #2
BUNKR ‘Antenne’ (VLSI)
It’s been a little while since we had a full-length from Brighton’s BUNKR. We had a track on the ‘Moonbuilding Miscellany Vol 1’ CD called ‘Speckled Doves’, which he told us was a “misty-eyed ode to the early rave and trance tracks that informed much of my youth”. Love a bit of post-rave and ‘Antenne’ follows on from that and brings us an entire album of the stuff. “We could never pinpoint the location of Antenne,” say the accompanying notes. “We don't even know if Antenne was the name of this enigmatic station, we just affectionately lent it that title and seemed fitting for its seemingly unending broadcast of widescreen techno, breakbeats, ambient washes and occasional forays into obscure German synth music.” And that’s what we have here, an imagined broadcast from the long-lost pirate station, Antenne 97.9FM. What happened to it? No one knows. Early one November morning in 1996 it just stopped transmitting, “Our beloved frequency once vibrant with all manner of cosmic sound was replaced with the eerie stillness of fizzing radio static”.
GOOD STUFF #3
NICHOLAS LANGLEY ‘Cinema Du Look’ (Spun Out Of Control)
I remember the days when Spun Out Of Control only did cassettes. They were happy times. Anyway, on vinyl comes this tribute to the new wave of French cinema from the Third Kind label’s Nicholas Langley. Cinema du Look was movement of the 80s/90s that focussed around three directors, the mighty Luc Besson who directed films like ‘Subway’, ‘La Femme Nikita’ and ‘Leon’, Jean-Jacques Beineix most famous for making ‘Diva’ and ‘Betty Blue’ and Leos Carax whose most notable work was ‘Les Amants du Pont-Neuf’. They were films that looked great and focused on the young, disillusioned youth of Mitterrand’s France. It was popular stuff, some great films, but the term was first coined by critics as an insult, labelling the flicks as style over substance. Anyway, the soundtracks were classy affairs, full of saxophones, rolling basslines and walls of rich synth. Inspired by the music of French composers like frequent Besson collaborator Éric Serra, Gabriel Yared who scored ‘Betty Blue’ and the prolific composer Vladimir Cosma who served up countless French films from the period, ‘Cinema Du Look’ is a similarly classy homage.
GOOD STUFF #4
THE ALL GOLDEN ‘Sympathetic Magic’ (Island House)
Released as part of the Island House’s Tramway Digitals series, the New York-based label describe The All Golden’s Pete Gofton as a “prolific UK indie rock lifer”, which I’m sure he’ll be delighted about. It says here that “Gofton explores the concept of ‘bedroom music’ – the freedom, excitement and potential yielded by the interaction of a solitary artist and a simple set of tools, translating their experiences into sounds”, which is a good description of pretty much everything that happens in Moonbuilding world. “As a listener,” continues the label’s notes, “you are both lulled and prodded, but most importantly you are reminded how vital the alchemy of solitary musical creation can be.” I will be keeping tabs on this label, I like the cut of their jib. As always, ‘Sympathetic Magic’ is quality gear from Mr Gofton. I’m very much liking the rattling racket and locked down groove of ‘Chinatown Bus’, which is set alongside the shimmery low-key guitar lines of ‘The Hurrying Of The North’, the Fripp-y ‘City Pop’ and the clank and grind of ‘Wild Abandon’. All hail The All Golden. This is lovely stuff.
islandhouserecordings.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #5
AUTUMNA ‘When Lilacs’
And talking of remixes, which we were, but a while ago, up the top with Lone Bison… Belgium’s Emile Wauters brings us a new Autumna track and four proper dazzling remixes from a who’s who of artists. The track itself was written following the loss of a family member to cancer and is inspired by the epic Walt Whitman poem, ‘When Lilacs Last In The Dooryard Bloom’d’. The remixers – Sulk Rooms’ Thomas Ragsdale, Pulselovers’ Mat Handley, Salvatore Mercatante and Survey Channel’s Matt Donatelli – keep with the Autumna faith and turn in work that follows on from the original track and makes for a very peaceful listen. “On a whim,” explains Emile, “I reached out to a few musicians I sincerely admire to do a remix. Most said yes.” With all proceeds going to Kom Op Tegen Kanker – a Belgian organisation raising funds for fight against cancer – I would love to know who said no.
THE ROUND UP’S ROUND UP
A collaboration between Italian composer Eraldo Bernocchi and British avant-garde composer/experimental artist Christopher James Chaplin, ‘The Same And The Other’ (Curious Music) finds the pair improvising within self-imposed parameters, with Bernocchi limiting himself to only using an Elektron Analog Four MKII and Chaplin utilising a synth (unspecified) and Abelton Live as a sampler. Visual stimulus came in the shape of an art installation by artist, designer and photographer Petulia Mattioli who has worked with Bernocchi on numerous installations. Her exhibition lent the album not only the concept of exploring the relationship of the body to time, knowledge and memory, but the title too.
curiousmusicia.bandcamp.com
It says here that Copper Sounds’ ‘Sequenced Ceramics’ (TBC Editions) is “deconstructed club/ambient music” created using “seven purpose-built ceramic vessels played using a custom-made sequencer and mechanical beaters”. Ha! Brilliant! As if that wasn’t enough, the album is also being released as a limited edition ceramic vessel, based on the ones used for the recording, each one glazed with a download code. There’s seven sequences, one for each vessel which were made by Copper Sounds themselves. There are also a raft of remixes that give the thing a whole different slant. There’s just so much going here. This really is music that has been thought through. You can buy one of the limited edition pots for £65, which doesn’t seem that bad all things considered.
tbceditions.bandcamp.com
When Lo Recordings send me stuff I always listen. Ecovillage’s ‘Crescendo’ is a collaboration between Swedish production duo and “a plethora of musical luminaries”. I mean, luminaries is a relative term, right? It’s funny how quickly you find yourself outside of your world isn’t it? But everyday is a school day and I’m always up for some discovery. This is delightfully calm, ambient jazz, if that’s a thing? If it isn’t, it is now. It’s all very gentle and warm. Another one of those records to listen to with the windows open and let it melt into the outside sounds. Liking the moody swirls of ‘Around The Fire feat Nightlands’ and the whispy sax of ‘Corner Of The World ft Nat Birchall and Thore Pfeiffer’. Saxophonist Birchall is “one of the best musicians in the UK” according to Gilles Peterson, while Pfeiffer is a Kompakt artist, with pop ambient sensibilities. See, luminaries.
ecovillage.bandcamp.com
Some fine work here, Unstern’s ‘Es Geht Der Tag’ (Alter) is a collaboration between deep ambient artist Arzat Skia and prodigal pianist Leo Svirsky. And no, that doesn’t mean he’s played with The Prodigy. Here we get “lush electronics, two pianos refracting across the stereo field, processed recordings from the Peruvian Amazon” … Peruvian Amazon! There’s some great track titles too. The opener is ‘All the Kingdoms Of The World In A Moment Of Time’. Chunky stuff all round.
unstern.bandcamp.com
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SONGS IN THE K OF LIFE
For those who haven’t come across Jawbone before, they’re a brilliant small press who specialise in the kind of books we get excited about here at Moonbuilding. The late Helen Donlan’s history of Ibiza, ‘Shadows Across The Moon’, Jeanette Leech’s post-rock saga ‘Fearless’, Jeremy Allen’s ‘Relax Baby Be Cool: The Artistry And Audacity Of Serge Gainsbourg’ and ‘Renegade Snares: The Resistance And Resilience Of Drum ’n’ Bass’ by my old muckers Carl Loben and Ben Murphy are just some of their titles that should be on every bookshelf. Well, not my mum and dad’s, but probably yours.
You can now add to that list Johnnie Johnson’s ‘Through The Crack In The Wall – The Secret History Of Josef K’ (Jawbone), which is a book I’ve been itching to read since I first heard about it. Josef K are one of those bands who are still, 40-odd years after the release of their 1981 debut album ‘The Only Fun In Town’, a best-kept secret. They were young, good looking, stylish, talented, read Kafka, wrote great songs and were explosive live. They went toe-to-toe with their Postcard labelmates Orange Juice every step of the way and by rights they should have been as big, but…
Writer Johnnie Johnstone spotted that there wasn’t a biography of one of the greatest post-punk bands ever and so set about writing one. Featuring brand-new interviews with the band members and “those around them” as well as writers including Simon Reynolds and Jon Savage, “the book,” says the blurb, “explores the band’s inner workings and analyses their relationships… it re-evaluates their position in the pantheon of post-punk greats and considers how their music helped shape the UK independent scene of the 80s.”
What really hits home is not only how brilliant Josef K were, they went toe-to-toe with Orange Juice early doors, but just how quickly things can go wrong when you’re riding the seas of pop music. For Josef K the whole thing came crashing down in a matter of months. There was the small matter of their first album, ‘Sorry For Laughing’, being shelved, and the poor critical reception for the actual first album ‘The Only Fun In Town’, but they split in early 1982 with only a handful of releases to show for it with frontman Paul Haig the instigator.
I love the chapter entitled ‘It’s Kinda Funny / We Don’t Talk Anymore’ that deals with the end. What happened is still a moot point. The author talks about how only Franz Kafka knew what really happened to the protagonist of ‘The Trial’ as the novel was never completed. And so the end of the band named after that Kafka protagonist has also remained something of a mystery to most. “Curiously enough,” writes Johnstone, “as time has passed, it has become even more of a riddle to the members of the band themselves”. Soaking all this up, you can only imagine just how great they could have been. This book lays it out for all to see. Wonderful stuff and long overdue.
WIRED FOR QUARTER POUND
Some 40 years after it first appeared in student digs up and down the country, Audio-Technica’s Sound Burger makes an almighty return. There was a limited edition version released in 2022 to mark the hi-fi company’s 60th anniversary and it proved so popular they decided to give their much-loved quirky turntable a proper relaunch.
This new take on the AT727 is, of course, an upgrade. The original 1982 version ran on three chunky C batteries, had dual headphone sockets and RCA outputs. The dual headphone thing was a popular thought in portable hi-fi. The original Sony Walkman had two headphone sockets, the thinking was you’d want to share your music with a friend. Nope, turned out listening on ’phones was a personal pursuit that no one wanted to share and soon those dual sockets disappeared.
So with this new version you get a minijack output for an analogue connection to your home set-up and USB port for charging, with cables included. It also has Bluetooth, course it does, for paired listening via headphones or speakers of your choice.
The original Sound Burger came with a pair of headphones, sort of suggesting it was intended for music on the move. While it was a “portable” turntable you could only take it places, not listen while you were heading to those places. There’s a great instruction leaflet that came with the original model that spells out the dos and don’ts, the first of which is “Do not move while playing!”.
So is it any good? The reviews are very positive. While it may look like a toy, it is packed with the sort of Audio-Technica goodness that makes their budget turntables serious options for entry level purchases. In other words, the Sound Burger actually sounds good. And no wonder. The published specs are exactly the same as A-T’s more conventional turntables, which is a plus if you like the look of the Sound Burger but are worried it might be a bit gimmicky. It’s available in black, white and Wasp-y yellow, one of these charmers is your for £199.
A MESSAGE FROM THE MOTHERSHIP
MOONBUILDING ISSUE 4, £5 (+P&P). GRAB YOURS WHILE STOCKS LAST … MOONBUILDING.BANDCAMP.COM
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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