Issue 41 / 01 November 2024
This week's essential DIY electronic gubbins... Track Of The Week: The Green Child + Good Stuff from Woodford Halse, Collins, An-Ting, Eric Loveland Heath, Warmfield + Music Press Rewind...
The weeks fly by don’t they? It’s hard to believe we’ve just tipped into November. Once we’ve got Bonfire Night out the way, and my mum’s birthday, it’s downhill all the way to you know what. Which means time to start thinking about Moonbuilding Albums Of The Year. We’ve tried to do something special for the last couple of years, but keep getting scuppered by real life. I will do an Albums Of The Year special this year. I will. There, it’s in writing now. No going back.
The latest installment of Music Press Rewind features the first-ever press interview with The Beta Band. They refused to do interviews early doors and managed to hold out until the release of their third EP. No idea what changed their mind. It was usually tours or records not selling, but The Betas were riding the crest of the wave at that point. It went horribly wrong when their debut album came out (it was rubbish), but those first three EPs were almighty. And their first interview was with me. Read all about it below.
Any other business? I’ve got a couple of ad slots available in the 15 November issue if that’s of interest to you, 22 November is filling up too. Suddenly Moonbuilding Weekly is the hot ad ticket. Don’t go missing out!
Righto, that’s me. Happy Friday.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Issue 41 Playlist: bndcmpr.co/757085c6
Moonbuilding Fighting Fund: ko-fi.com/moonbuilding
***ADVERTISE HERE***
email moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
THE GREEN CHILD ‘A Long Beautiful Flowing Cape’ (Upset The Rhythm)
One of the nicest things about doing all this, beyond the labels and artists filling my inbox with their mighty wares, is when people just send stuff my way because they think I’ll like. This taster from the forthcoming album from Melbourne-based quartet The Green Child winged its way in from my pal Guy who runs the Dell’Orso label. He has a pair of ears I really trust and this gem only confirms that. The band’s third long-player, ‘Look Familiar’, is due in a couple of weeks and there appears to be a good chunk of excitement gathering around the release. I remember covering their last album, ‘Shimmering Basset’, which is also very good, and only the other day I popped the radio on to hear Steve Lamacq warbling on about them. There’s people mentioning their name in the same breath as words like “Stereolab”, “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” and “Dots And Loops”. Which is big talk, I appreciate, but everyone needs a peg to hang their musical hat on. Well, us writers do anyway. It does have that kind of ‘labby feel. There’s two tracks currently doing the rounds, this one and the warm thrum of opener ‘Wow Factor’. The album is as good as you’d hope, more of which nearer the time, but you’re going to be hearing more about this lot before too long.
‘Look Familiar’ is released by Upset The Rhythm on 15 November
Got an upcoming release? We’re all ears. Find us at moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
VARIOUS ARTISTS ‘Undulating Waters 8’ (Woodford Halse)
Woodford Halse’s brilliant compilation series returns for an eighth edition and very welcome it is too. This is where the whole label adventure began for Mat Handley as the first two volumes, released in September and October 2018, were the first two releases on this fledgling Woodford Halse label. Both those collections, along with the A Year In The Country releases, really made me sit up and pay attention to what was going on musically in DIY world. So all this is pretty much your fault Mat.
Originally billed as “featuring new or exclusive recordings from some of the most exciting underground artists from across the world”, those first two volumes featured early glimpses of Polypores and Field Lines Cartographer as well as the likes of Panamint Manse, Revbjelde, Spaceship, Grey Frequency, The Heartwood Institute and Midwich Youth Club, along with a bunch of names that I’ve forgotten, but surely bear reinvestigating with the distance of time.
Volume 8 has lost little of that early vim and vigour. There’s some great stuff here. Apta’s opening ‘Jurema’ is great, there’s offerings that draw a line back to those early collections from the likes of Panamint Manse, Grey Frequency and The Heartwood Institute and there is also a smattering of new names, or new to me at least. Red Setter’s ‘The Great Indoors’ is rich and lovely, while Twenty Three Hanging Trees’ ‘L’aiga Clara’ is a dark-sounding soundtrack waiting to happen if ever there was and I’m really enjoying the swirl of ‘Maes Y Circles’ ‘Conf-l’. If you like this sort of thing, do keep an eye out too for the Woodford Halse ‘Annual Statement’ collections, which have morphed into quarterly salvos of tracks taken from his label’s releases. It’s all fuel for the fire. The musical one, not an actual one, I do appreciate it is Bonfire Night soon.
Each volume of ‘Undulating Waters’ also comes with a further installment from Paul Bareham’s strange saga set in the fictitious village of Woodford Halse. I particularly like the beginning of this one. “I don’t know if you’ve ever been shot. I wouldn’t recommend it. Not only does the place where the bullet hits hurt like hell, it also sends a shockwave throughout your nervous system, a tsunami of pain. It’s even worse when, as in this case, you’re been shot by your own father.”
If you want a snapshot of what’s catching the ear of one of our finest DIY labels, this eighth edition of ‘Undulating Waters’ is for you.
GOOD STUFF #2
COLLINS ‘VHS’ (Spun Out Of Control)
Spun Out Of Control do seem to have stepped up activity of late. There’s been a slew of recent releases and all of them of the same high standard we’ve come to expect from Gavin Stoker’s cassette label over the years. Someone remarked to me the other day that surely there’s no demand for cassettes these days. Good job I wasn’t sat in front of them and drinking a cup of tea, because it would have ended up all over them. I’m just looking at my We Are Rewind tape player and the pile of cassettes next to it on my desk. For some of us, the joy of the cassette has never gone away. So here we have perhaps my favourite release from Spun so far this year. It’s their second excursion with Gary Collins, a name you may recognise from his work with the horror disco label, Giallo Disco. If you don’t know that label, buckle up. Horror and disco in the same sentence. What’s not to like? So Collins’ ‘VHS’ is a belter. It’s inspired by the music of Patrick Cowley, Bobby Orlando and Giorgio Moroder and consists of the imagined theme tunes to soundtrack “a vintage VHS collection”. Gary talks about treasured memories of visits to the local video shop when he was young and mentions the video rental man in a van. I had one of those in the early 00s. Was probably DVD, but he’d come round, you’d browse, rent a couple of films, and he also had snacks and drinks. Of his man in a van, Gary says “my father, brother and I would eagerly select titles from the racks of colourful cassettes, full of demonic beasts dripping with blood, beautiful babes and pumped up action heroes. It was a magical time”. Indeed it was. I mean, life has changed, right? What I love about ‘VHS’ is it’s so upbeat. A lot of this sort of work is dark and foreboding, not this. It’s a total hoot, Collins really understands how to work the four to the floor. There’s infectious Moroder synth licks everywhere, the tsk-tsk-tsk energy of ‘The Deuce (1985)’ has flickers of Daft Punk about it, while the pounding kick drum and squelchy synths of ‘Flesh Cult (1982)’ really cuts the mustard. This is excellent hands-in-the-air stuff.
GOOD STUFF #3
AN-TING ‘Lost Communications 失絡之聲’
I’ve had this release for a while and it’s one of those albums that goes on in the early mornings. But don’t be fooled, it’s not as peaceful as a record that draws inspiration from birds might seem at first. An-Ting is a Taiwan-born, London-based artist who has travelled extensively around the UK, Mongolia, Sichuan, Hong Kong and Taiwan making recordings of birdsong as she went and mixing them with “dark experimental electronic music with droning soundscapes and hard beats”. “There is a light and darkness in nature that civilisation has made us numb to and that we want to explore,” offers An-Ting. And she’s right. The opening track, ‘Blackcap 黑頂林鶯’, uses audio recorded in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, which is where the whole adventure started. “Perched atop a tree beside me,” she says, “it sang a captivating melody that left me spellbound. From that moment, my journey to capture the essence of nature’s sounds began.” That particular track plays the birdsong straight and lays a lovely backing track behind it. But An-Ting does a lot more than just music up the birds. She also messes with her binaural recordings as on ‘Eurasian Wren 鷦鷯’, which makes the birds sound like a siren at times, and on ‘Chiffchaff 嘰喳柳鶯’ that has the birdsong chirp along in dancefloor time. It’s lovely stuff. On ‘Black-collared Starling 烏領椋鳥’ we get the urban birds of Hong Kong. “Despite the cacophony of urban sounds, the birds remained lively and cheerful, offering the busy city a glimpse of natural beauty,” says An-Ting. A lot of people work with this kind of material, An-Ting seems to be doing things differently, which is always great to hear.
GOOD STUFF #4
ERIC LOVELAND HEATH 'Fragments (Volume One)' (Plenty Wenlock)
I’ve mentioned the Powys/Shropshire label Plenty Wenlock before and it keeps catching my attention. You’ll recall in the summer they released a Shropshire Number Stations album called ‘Recordings Of Covert Shortwave Radio Stations (Shropshire & Mid Wales)’, which isn’t a title you’re going to see gracing the Top 40 any time soon, unless Coldplay have a serious rethink. I mean, they just should have one anyway, but you know. The label is run by Eric Loveland Heath and Victoria Clinton, which are fantastic names, you can imagine them on a wind-lashed rain-soaked moor in a tale of lost love, or something. It’s very Heathcliff and Cathy. Anyway, the label is a vehicle for Eric’s work. I missed E L Heath’s ‘Longnor’ in September, which is a new edition of the release that came out as part of Wayside & Woodland Recordings Haunted Woodland series, here with two extra tracks, and recounts the legend of the White Lady of Longnor and very spooky it is too. There’s a saw on one track, that noise is pure ghost isn’t it? The latest offering from the label is 'Fragments (Volume One)', which is, well, 12 fragments, a series of what he describes as “orphaned melodies, live undeveloped sound sketches, impromptu synth programs and songs which could have been”. They’re titled as numbers from 1-12 and there you have it. In places they feel like Aphex sketches, like on the gentle ambient drift of ‘4’ or ‘11’, or the intro to a song, like the piano-driven ‘12’, or sometimes like a machine malfunction as on ‘10’. Last week we were talking about Mat Handley’s Pulsliebhaber project, which is outtakes from his Pulselovers project, this is much the same. Like I said, it’s an artist showing you their sketchbook, which I rather like and would absolutely encourage.
plentywenlockrecords.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #5
WARMFIELD 'The Dreadnoughts' (DIE DAS DER)
A second long-playing outing this year from Paul Broome’s excellent Warmfield project. For those not up to speed, Paul has embarked on “a parageographical exploration of the people, places and folklore of the West Riding and its fringes”. It started back in the spring with ‘Warmfield-cum-Heath’, an exploration of a number of locations in the West Yorkshire parish where Paul spent much of his childhood living in a 400-year-old cottage. It came with a 16-page A6 zine that acted as kind of guide to the whole thing. I recall him mentioning that he was working on something about rugby and, well, here it is. ‘The Dreadnoughts’ features four tracks inspired by “reports, memories and the locations of four particular legendary matches that Wakefield Trinity Rugby League FC have played in their 151 year history”. It’s different I’ll give him that. “I’m not aware of another rugby league-inspired electronic music release,” says Paul, “but if there's another out there I'd love to hear it.” And me too. The tracks here really do span the club’s history. The first is ‘8th February, 1873 - Heath Common, Wakefield’, the last ‘22nd September, 2002 - Belle Vue, Wakefield’. If you like what Warrington-Runcorn does, you’ll like this, musically and concept-wise. Interesting fact supplied by Paul, Wakefield is the largest place in Britain to not have a professional football team, which explains the obsession with Trinity. As a life-long fan, Paul says a lot of soul searching has gone into this release and he feels like he’s plumbing some darker depths this time. He says it’s a combination “of the weight of supporting a struggling club, the rose-tinted reflection of glory days that happened before I was born, plus the physicality, commitment and sheer bloody-mindedness of the sport itself. While local industries and institutions have failed around it - the city changing beyond the recognition of many - the club remains.” It’s a limited edition run of 30 cassettes. I suggest you get your skates on.
***ADVERTISE HERE***
Email moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
In July 1998, I did the very first press interview with The Beta Band. They were just about to release ‘Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos’, the third of their classic EPs. The Betas were big news and had done precisely zero press up to this point, which drives hacks mad. So when Melody Maker were offered a jaunt with couple of live dates and a chat with the band, I didn’t hesitate.
You were pretty much always accompanied on trips by a PR. The Beta Band had the brilliant Caffy St Luce, who at the time was also Radiohead’s PR. I always enjoyed a trip with Caffy. She was great company and knew the game inside and out. To prove the point, there were two other publications along for the ride. As well as The Maker, she’d lined up a feature in Select as well as a piece in NME. Select was a monthly so didn’t bother us much, but there was always much horse trading where NME and The Maker were involved. Usually acts weren’t in both at the same time. I guess in this case we all wanted the Betas so our respective editors chucked us in to scrap it out.
As I recall, NME weren’t at the Brighton show and joined us in Sheffield where the interviews were scheduled for the afternoon. We met up with the band in a Brighton hotel bar after the show and drinks were taken. Quite a few in fact. So many that Select missed the train to Sheffield the next morning and only arrived at the venue in the early evening. They entirely missed the interview slots and had to snatch a few quotes at the soundcheck. Which was a shame. Meanwhile, I’d filled my boots with the band’s first sit-down interview, closely followed by NME. I’m pretty sure The Maker piece ran first, my features editor was competitive, which you had to be when you were pretty much always second in a two-horse race.
I really enjoyed the NME piece, it was by the very gracious James Oldham who included a brilliant line from frontman Steve Mason. When he clocked James’ stereo dictaphone he asked if his questions would be twice as good as the guy from the other paper only had a mono machine. Always liked Steve for that.
THE BETA BAND: GRINGO STARS
Melody Maker, 25 July 1998
Take an explosive mix of the Primals, The Verve and Billy Smart and, voila!, THE BETA BAND: proof that UK music is fighting fit and up for a scrap. Brighton and Sheffield fall first
DANGLING helplessly from the talons of a demented giant green parrot isn’t exactly how you’d expect to meet anyone. Hello Robin Jones, the angelic-looking Beta Band drummer. The huge fluffy bird, It would seem, has stolen him.
The rest of the band promptly give chase on magic carpets, obviously. After a whistle-stop trip around the world, singer Steve Mason, decks/sampleman, John McLean and bassist, Rich Greentree - take their search into outer space where they finally catch up with the parrot. After the drummer is wrestled from the thieving bird’s clutches, a huge banquet is thrown to celebrate. The parrot is, of course, invited. Pleased to meet you.
BRIGHTON in July shouldn’t be this cold. The brisk sea breeze blasts across the promenade with such force it could blows the chips out of our vinegar-soaked cones. The town’s seafront Concorde venue is about to be blown away too. But not by the salty swirl outside.
Inside, The Beta Band are preparing for the first date of their UK tour, which takes them up to the eve of the release of their third EP. Following the frothing at the mouth their previous two release caused, the third, ‘Los Amigos Del Beta Bandidos’, doesn’t disappoint. Softer and more organic than its predecessors, it is the sound of your brain tuning into their wavelength. Press repeat and watch their drifting acoustic melody meets technological kitchen sink approach stick to you like glue.
Live too, they are shaping up into quite a treat. The first thing you notice is the extraordinary amount of gear they pack onstage. There’s a Hammond, assorted keyboards, two drum kits, a pair of bongos, record decks, a sampler, guitars everywhere, an electric double bass, all manner of stuff to hit including a hefty brass bell, tambourines and cowbells, a number of unidentifiable gadgets which make great noises and erm, some saucepans. . . not to mention half a dozen palm trees and two huge projection screens.
“It’s so much more exciting to turn up at a venue to find the whole place has been turned into something else for an evening,” explains the newly-bearded Steve. “No matter where we play, we’ve got so much crap to put on the stage, it always ends up feeling like home.”
It should come as no surprise that Robin’s kidnapping escapade is just one of the impressive visual accompaniments to the live show.
“The films are all simple ideas,” says John. “It’s not like we’ve gone into huge editing suites, we’ll just dress up and run about for a while and film that.”
Yet The Betas don’t - like most - use visuals as a distraction. If anything, there’s almost too much to take in. Just watching the band is mesmerising enough. Instruments are swapped like football stickers in the playground, everyone gets to hit, rattle or shake something and guitars come on and off so frequently it almost makes you dizzy. At times, you’d be hard pushed to believe anyone is playing their instrument of choice.
“I feel most comfortable playing the drums,” concedes Steve, “I’ve always played so it’s not something I have to concentrate on, I can just sit there and enjoy it.”
Point made?
THERE’S something rather satisfying about taking over the lavish bar of a posh hotel. Tonight it’s the turn of The Grand in Brighton - the very hotel where, as everyone reminds everyone else with alarming regularity, Jimmy discovers the uber-cool Ace working as a bellboy in ‘Quadrophenia’.
The staff seem somewhat alarmed by the sudden deluge of band, crew and friends who all seem to have room keys - your passport to success at the bar.
“It was chaos tonight,” offers Steve as the beers fly. “Nothing fitted on the stage properly, the videos were lost because of the low ceiling. There were a few hideous mistakes because we did three songs we’ve never played before, but it was a f***ing ace one, I loved it.”
“It was the best yet as far as our performance goes,” adds John. “We expected the worst during the soundcheck so we just relaxed and thought, ‘Oh F*** it, we’ll just see how it goes,’.”
IF The Beta Band had a philosophy, it would be, “Just see how it goes”. The next day, munching on toasted sandwiches in the bar of a proper mum and dad hotel in Sheffield, John and Steve offer the clearest reason why they are such an exciting prospect.
“The Beta Band is like this,’ begins Steve drawing a circle on the table with his finger. “Half of it is the music, the rest is whatever else we decide to go into. We didn’t get into this for a career - if that’s the case, we might as well have been joiners or butchers - we got into it to have some fun, to learn about each other and about things we didn’t know about. The exciting part is we don’t really know what’s going to happen next.”
Current projects include their own magazine, ‘Flower Press’, Steve has plans to make a solo record and, after the tour is over, John, an accomplished artist, is heading to Glasgow to set up an exhibition of his work. The band have just starred in, directed and edited a short film to go with their new EP and then there’s an album to come (“Oh, I forgot about that,” laughs Steve as his head buzzes with everything else they’re up to) recording for which begins in the autumn.
Uppermost though, is tonight’s gig at The Leadmill in Sheffield. As the soundcheck gets underway, there’s obvious relief that everything fits on the stage: the screens and palm trees in full view. Brighton may have been a musical triumph, but Sheffield is going to be the full Beta Band monty.
But there’s still one problem nobody can do anything about. Nerves.
“There’s a situation which occurs that’s called ‘auto bomb drop’,” explains Steve, ‘which involves everyone running to the toilet. I get so nervous I can’t eat, it’s the worst feeling in the world. . . well, not the worst.”
Apparently, the worst thing is John losing his records. . .
“I’ve got five records I use in the set,” he smiles, “If I lose them we’re in trouble. I tend to keep misplacing them.”
One of the most surprising aspects of The Betas is the way they uphold the hip hop ethic of decks as instruments. Where does it come from? Talk to them about favourite records and you’ll hear about the criminally under-rated Ultramagnetic MCs, ‘Paul’s Boutique’, De La Soul, The Pharside and Cypress Hill.
“Hip hop,” offers Steve, “was the soundtrack to the summer when we got our demo tape together.”
But it doesn’t stop there. At the same time you’ll also hear about The KLF’s wondrous ‘Chill Out’ album, The Stone Roses classic debut, Barry White, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, ‘Saturday Night Fever’, Falco and erm, Doctor And The Medics (it’s a long story). And the magic five in the box, John?
“It’s probably a trade secret,” he smiles. “But there’s two copies of Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions’ that we use in ‘Shepherd’s Dub. A live recording of a circus, a breaks and beats record and a BBC sound effects record which we use for scratching.”
A circus? Turns out it’s a recording of Billy Smart’s Circus, which was never off the flipping telly in the Seventies. Ask your mum. Lifted wholesale, it’s used for the set opener - wait for it - ‘Circus Song’. It’s all dee-dut-dee-dut-dee-dilly-der. . . dee-dut-dee-dut-dee-derrrr. You know the one and yes, The Beta Band’s interpretation has to be heard to be believed.
As Billy Smart would have it, “Roll up, roll up, it’s the greatest show in earth”.
MEET THE BETAS
* If John’s prepared to argue he’s usually right, which Steve claims “is a problem unless you shout him down”. According to Steve, John has “got big feet, a comedy haircut and a six pack. It’s upstairs, it’s a five-pack now because he drunk one.”
* Steve has a tendency to pretend he’s not intelligent to get out of doing things. Claims to be ‘mostly just miserable’.
* Their trumpet player, Neil, joins the band for two songs in the live set. The rest of the time he sells the band’s T-shirts.
* Steve wears his slippers onstage. ‘More comfortable’ apparently. He does own a nice pair of trainers too.
* ‘Needles In My Eyes’ from the new EP was record outside in Cornwall. Listen out for the real bird sounds and the sea.
A MESSAGE FROM THE MOTHERSHIP
***MOONBUILDING ISSUE 5 IS OUT NOW***
Bloody hell! Will you look at that? MOONBUILDING, Issue 5, is a scorcher. On the cover, depicted by 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 your ears.
Yes, we are giving you a 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 recent Castles In Space opus ‘There Are Other Worlds’.
Want to try before you buy? No bother. 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 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 Steven Appleby’s brilliant Captain Star cartoon strip.
This issue also features a pile 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.
Copyright © 2024 Moonbuilding