Issue 6 / 23 February 2024
DIY electronic goodness galore... Album Of The Week = Howlround ‘A Loop Where Time Becomes' + Robin The Fog interview + Track Of The Week = Ex-Easter Island Head + bumper release round-up + more...
How’s things where you are? Another week, another load of things happened? Following on from the last issue and all the banging on about Castles In Space’s action-packed Iklectik fundraiser compilation, sales were brisk and on Wednesday the label handed over £2,285. As of 9am this morning, the total raised by the former venue’s crowdfunder stands at £47,500 with a week to go for them to hit their £55k target. As you will know, this sort of thing is all or nothing. You hit your target or you get nothing. There is still time for you to make a difference. Remember, the compilation will be deleted when the crowdfunder closes next Friday (1 March). Grab your copy while you still can and help a very good cause along the way… iklectik-cis.bandcamp.com
Talking of the cash money, a big thank you to everyone who has made a pledge to support Moonbuilding Weekly. We remain entirely free for the time being, but that’s likely to change at some point. As a thank you to early pledgers your subscriptions are locked in at a discounted rate so when the payments are turned on you will be getting all of this (What? The curtains?) for less. And that’s because we love you the most.
Righto, that’s all. Let’s crack on. Happy reading.
Neil Mason, editor
moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
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HOWLROUND ‘A Loop Where Time Becomes – Rare & Unreleased Recordings 2012-2017’ (Castles In Space)
If you’re unfamiliar with the work of Howlround, brace yourselves. Robin The Fog, the man behind all this, is a ferric wizard. What he does with tape is little short of astonishing.
His debut album, 2012’s ‘The Ghosts Of Bush House’, is a masterpiece. It was created in Bush House, the iconic home of the BBC World Service, where he worked as a studio manager before it closed its doors in July 2012. Jim Jupp called the record “the last piece of true radiophonics that will ever be produced”. It is hauntingly beautiful.
And yet he is just as capable of making a LOT of noise. Exhibit A – 2018’s ‘The Debatable Lands’. It’s what Robin calls ‘tape loop techno’. It’s created by two reel-to-reel machines, a microphone and a bunch of tape loops. With no edits, overdubs or effects, it is an extraordinary listen. The Quietus described it as “unearthly audio monoliths with hidden, ancient properties”, and indeed his work does feel otherworldly, like a communication from somewhere else. Which it sort of is.
Howlround’s ‘A Loop Where Time Becomes – Rare & Unreleased Recordings 2012-2017’ is, well, a collection of rare and unreleased recordings curated by Castles In Space grand fromage Colin Morrison, who was given unfettered access to Robin’s archive. Colin doesn’t much do cacophony so this is the mellower side of Howlround. Listen and marvel that he does this, basically, with thin air. That’s Robin, not Colin.
With a recording career that has spanned 12 years and 10 albums, it could have just as easily been a “Greatest Hits” collection, but it’s all pretty much previously unheard work made between 2012-2017. ‘An Error For Olga’ was made for the documentary ‘It’s Getting Dark’, while the shimmery ‘Bush Fountains’ tracks (there’s two versions here) were made from field recordings that formed the aforementioned debut album, but reworked a few years later. The rest, as Robin puts it, is “stuff that came off the spool on the day in question” and is seeing the light of day for the first time.
The closest we get to the tape loop techno is the delightfully titled, rather hectic ‘Splattering Penge’ that goes off like a box of fireworks in dustbin, with sonic squibs and squiggles everywhere. ‘With Teeth’ sounds like a glitch at the light sabre factory and the beautiful ‘Night Call, Collect (Test Mix)’ twinkles like the stars, its bright sounds forming delicate melodies that would’ve had Delia looking over her shoulder and nodding in approval. Likewise the evocatively titled ‘Kefalonian Space Programme’ that creaks away like you’d imagine old hulking metal left out in the weather would. It almost sounds as if it’s alive.
I’m such a sucker for a tape slur, the way it sticks or stretches sound just because it can. If I was listening to a cassette and it slurred I’d be up and across the room like a shot because it is the sound of a beloved album being chewed up, but here it’s a cheeky nod to those who know. Or a heart attack on plate for Robin as a loop gets mangled. But that’s the joy of all this. Here he shows off some slurs on a loop that speeds up and slows down on ‘Middle Gelt’, a track that seems to teeter on the edge of falling apart but never does.
The amazing thing when you listen to all this is that there are no instruments involved whatsoever. No nothing. It all comes out of the air, be it a field recording he’s buggered about with, or his collection of reel-to-reel recorders capturing the sound of each other. There’s two versions, the vinyl, which delivers 12 tracks and the digital that’ll give you six bonus tracks including the epic 10-minute plus ‘Cradle Spools Version Tk3’ which feels like being hypnotised by bad weather as distance fog horns tell you all about it.
Said it before and I’ll say it again, what Robin The Fog does with tape is pure magic. [NM]
‘A Loop Where Time Becomes – Rare & Unreleased Recordings 2012-2017’ is out now on Castles In Space, find it at castlesinspace.bandcamp.com
ROBIN THE FOG
Spinning a good tale or two is all in a day’s work for this south London-based tape maestro and loop guru. We catch up with him to talk about nicknames, Altern-8, the BBC World Service and why his tape machines all have names…
Photo: John Barrett
Interview: Neil Mason
Hello Robin, how’s things?
“Not too shabby, thank you for asking, although I’m currently searching for a new job, so if anyone has any audio production work in need of an editing and mixing ninja let me know. My rates are competitive and I’m super clean and punctual.”
I feel like I should know this, but why “The Fog”?
“They say your nickname chooses you, but in in my case it was chosen by Jonny Trunk while I was engineering his Resonance FM show back in the mid 2000s. I was downstairs in the office applying cheap deodorant in anticipation of an evening out and it transpired I was standing too close to the ventilator, which then asphyxiated the studio live on air during one of his links. He immediately recognised the source of the smell and started calling me Robin The Fog and as a result so did everyone else. There came a point where I thought I might as well take ownership.”
It’s quite Ivor The Engine/Jones The Steam, I thought maybe you had a bit of Welsh in you?
“Ah, if only! My grandad was a Jones, but he was from Cumbria by way of Bootle. My other grandad was from London and worked on the railways, but not as a driver. So the Ivor The Engine angle is probably a little far-fetched.”
Can you explain what it is you do, with what, and how you do it?
“I’m a composer and sound artist who makes music by manipulating field recordings on reel-to-reel magnetic tape, with all instruments, digital effects and artificial reverb strictly forbidden – no synths, no samples, no pedals, no plugins. I work under the name Howlround and also have a side hustle creating text, tape and trash noise with the writer Ken Hollings as The Howling, do check out our recently issued second album ‘Incredible Night Creatures Of The Midway’. Oh, and I also present ‘Fog Cast’, a late-night, deep listening show every Wednesday at 23.30 on Resonance 104.4FM.”
How did it all this start for you? Were you one for taping ‘TOTP’ off the telly?
“The family did indeed gather around ‘Top Of The Pops’ every Thursday and it was all harmless fun until I saw Altern8 performing ‘Activ-8’ at the age of 11 and then lights started winking in my brain. Laser noises! Whooshes! Chipmunk diva vocals! Clattering drum machines! A massive robot! In some obscure way I realised this was what I wanted, somehow, 33 years later and here we are. It’s been downhill ever since.”
What is it about tape that appeals?
“After several years of making dodgy dance music I was so sick of moving colourful shapes around on a computer. Working with tape appealed to me immediately, you’re relying on your hands, your ears and your sense of coordination. Plus tape is beautifully unpredictable, it moves in a strange way and you never can quite tell what kind of effect it will have on the material you feed into it so it’s perfect for surprises, improvisation and working on the fly. Slow it down or play it backwards and you’ve got a whole new sonic world opening up in front of you without even really having to do all that much.”
You ended up working for the BBC World Service at the famous Bush House. That must’ve been a pinch me moment?
“I was very proud to work as a studio manager for the World Service and have never been happier than my days in Bush House – a role that began the careers of several members of the Radiophonic Workshop. I was already interested in the history of that department and early electronic music in general, so I guess it was inevitable that I’d start tinkering around with machines myself.”
Your debut album ‘The Ghosts Of Bush House’ marked the end of the BBC’s stay at the building. That must’ve been bittersweet?
“It was released on the day the BBC left the building, a sad day for so many. I loved Bush House and I never managed to feel anything close to that affection for New Broadcasting House, where the World Service was moved. It replaced the labyrinth of corridors and studios with an open-plan, corporate call centre environment, which, for me at least, was completely counter-inductive to being able to concentrate or get any work done. Although I did briefly run a record label from a quiet corner of the 5th floor. Once I’d actually found a quiet corner, that is.”
You’ve been at tape loop coalface for 12 years and released 10 albums, ‘A Loop Where Time Becomes’ could easily be a retrospective or maybe ‘Greatest Hits’?
“‘Greatest HISS’ was the working title, actually. I suppose it’s not really either of those things as the tracks remained unreleased all this time, but it’s stuff that I’ve always wanted people to hear somehow. The more recent Howlround material is often a lot darker and heavier, so it’s proved quite restorative to go back to some of this older, more gentle work.”
So it’s a collection of previously unreleased pieces made between 2012-2017?
“Yes! Up to now only one track has been physically released, via a compilation on A Year In The Country several years ago. Another appeared in a documentary and a third on a download-only compilation. Some of the earliest pieces are outtakes from ‘The Ghosts Of Bush’ sessions that I reworked later on. Some I can only faintly recall making from a clue in the title, and others are from just before I left the BBC when the project moved from being sort of hauntology towards a more gnarly, noisy, broken aesthetic.”
Oh?
“I remain a huge fan of radiophonics and hauntology, of course, but I’m trying to aim for something different these days. I’m not generally much of an advocate for looking back, so perhaps this album feels a touch hypocritical, but I’m hugely proud of these pieces and didn’t want them just sat on my hard drive forever.”
That “something different” is creating sounds from thin air, from the machines themselves. Tell me a little about that?
“Increasingly, the thing that really excites me about tape machines is playing with the idea that they only function as a kind of conduit. Essentially they are supposed to record voices or sounds or whatever, then play them back seamlessly and that’s it. But I love the fact that you can ‘trick’ them into creating sounds themselves by feeding them back into each other with the creative use of a ‘no input’ mixing desk. You can create all manner of bass pulses, bleeps and squelches, plus the inner workings of the machines and the infidelities of the tape passing over the head add some wonderful moments of surprise. It’s a curious truth that the further inside the machines I explore the more the horizons seem to open.”
And the machines? They’re very special to you aren’t they?
“They are. Each one has their own name and their own personalities, which is another way of saying they all have something wrong with them. All of them are a bit broken in different ways, just like us. In the past certain detractors have suggested that my naming the machines is perhaps a little, how to put it, ‘affected’. I would counter with three points. 1: When you’re working with several technically identical models of tape machines, it is useful to give them some kind of unique identifier, especially when handing them over for repair, 2. Just giving them a number would be boring, and 3. SHUT UP you joyless bastards.”
Just guessing here, but suspect there might be a Volume Two at some point that takes in 2018-2022-ish?
“Sounds like a plan. There is plenty more where this came from. I seem to remember Castles In Space picked from a shortlist of around 60 tracks just from this period alone. Haven’t even started going through the 2018-2022 pile yet. What do you reckon, Colin?”
First Robin Rimbaud, now Robin The Fog, there’s a disproportionate number of people called Robin landing Album Of The Week round here, how do you explain that?
“It’s a fine and noble name and Mr Rimbaud wears it well. I’ve been a big Scanner fan for the longest time. I read once that ‘Robin’ apparently means ‘Famous and bright’ in old German. Or it might have been ‘famous, but not commercially viable’, I forget. Knowing my luck, ‘Fog’ is probably old Estonian for ‘cult following at best’.”
Thanks very much for your time Robin, very much appreciated.
“Thank you. Always a pleasure to pop round to Moonbuilding Mansions.”
For more, visit robinthefog.com
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EX-EASTER ISLAND HEAD ‘Norther’ (Rocket Recordings)
It’s always a good day when there’s new work from Liverpool’s Ex-Easter Island Head and their prepared guitar shenanigans. This week they announced a new album, ‘Norther’, is heading our way on 17 May via Rocket Recordings, which seems like a natural home for the outfit.
The title track popped up this week and it’s a cracker. It sounds almost tech-housey with those funky chops at the beginning and there’s a drop. A DROP! Here’s what the band have to say about it… “Two guitars with their frets pulled off and with brass rods inserted beneath the strings create a chorusing, chiming lattice of alternately muted and unmuted strings, propelled forward by an insistent two-note motif, pulsing kick drum and sliding slabs of downtuned bass.”
Can’t wait for the album.
exeasterislandhead.bandcamp.com
Got an upcoming release? We’re all ears. Find us at moonbuildingmag@gmail.com
Words: Neil Mason
GOOD STUFF #1
RURAL TAPES ‘Contact’ (Smuggler Music)
Buckle up, lots to get through today… Rural Tapes’ people got in touch to say there’s a third album from the Norwegian producer and multi-instrumentalist Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen out today. They tell me I reviewed his self-titled debut in 2021 and thoroughly enjoyed it. Happy to report I’m enjoying ‘Contact’ too. The opening track, ‘Patchwork’, is over 11 minutes of krauty fun and games. Lots of squalling synths, a driving beat, samples galore and there’s a three-minute outro, which should always be celebrated. The record is bookended by the eight-minute closer, ‘Waves’, which comes on like a gentle lounge offering, with some found-sound narration that talks about taking a trip to Norway in a boat before building slowly, steadily to its string-soaked crescendo. Everything in between is really punchy, nothing much over three and half minutes. What’s more, it’s all analogue whether that’s synths, drums, percussion, zither, gamelan, tuba or tape recorder. ‘Opus’ sounds all on the wonk, like it’s being played down the phone, from an amusement arcade. It’s all like that. Love all the mucking around, and when it does break into a tune it’s such a treat.
GOOD STUFF #2
WHITELANDS ‘Night-bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day’ (Sonic Cathedral)
There’s shoegaze and there is SHOEGAZE. ‘Night-bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day’, the eagerly anticipate debut album from London four-piece Whitelands, is SHOEGAZE. It is a real dazzler. Music aside, what makes them leap off the page is they’re black. Of course, dreampop frontrunners AR Kane blazed that particular trail (and the band’s Rudy Tambala is onboard here, remixing ‘Setting Son’ to stunning effect). As bass player Vanessa Govinden neatly puts it, “There’s an underlying narrative that it’s OK for white men to be romantic, sensitive, emotional and make dreamy music and, by contrast, young black men should be making angry music. We’ve all grown up with these stereotypes and therefore I think people are mystified when they see Whitelands.” ‘Night-bound Eyes Are Blind To The Day’ is brilliant stuff, one of those outings that pulls the full-on retro strings while at the same time sounding thoroughly now. The album opens with the aforementioned ‘Setting Sun’, a poetically political offering dealing with the fallout from the murder of George Floyd. It comes on like early MBV and with those huge shimmering guitars proceedings are given something of a Cocteau Twins sheen. You can’t help listening to ‘Tell Me About’, featuring labelmate Dottie from Deary, and thinking her sweet tones do sound very Liz Frazer. As with all the best shoegaze, the production is huge. The crisp bass on ‘Setting Sun’ is glorious. This is thrilling stuff on every level. They’re currently on tour with Slowdive, of course they are, and they’re playing/celebrating their album release in Glasgow tonight at Barrowland if you’re in the area.
GOOD STUFF #3
HEKLA FELL ‘Hex’/‘Vex’ (Do It Thissen)
Sheffield’s Do It Thissen label dropped me a line earlier in the week to say they have an incoming lathe cut from Hekla Fell, Brighton ex-pat Daniel Flanagan who lives in the Steel City these days. “He usually creates longer pieces of music,” say the label, “but we persuaded him to produce a couple of shorter tracks to fit on either side of a seven-inch single.” So we get ‘Hex’/‘Vex’, the former is a crackly nightstalker of a track, all brooding beats and walls of sound competing for attention, while the latter is a cracker, a kind of raspy early Human League affair, the city is clearly seeping into Daniel’s bones. While it’s already listed on Discogs, it’s not on the DIT Bandcamp page yet. Keep them peeled, it’s due to land before the month is out.
doitthissenrecords.bandcamp.com / heklafell.bandcamp.com
GOOD STUFF #4
KOSMONAUT/RUFFINI ‘Disco Trance Discs’ (Ethereal Mother Tapes)
Colorado’s Patrick R Park is a man of pseudonyms. As well as plenty of releases under his own name, there’s his work as Teeth Of Glass, there’s Black Temple Pyramid as well as Kösmonaut and Ruffini. Here it’s the last two pen names that get some serious attention. ‘Disco Trance Discs’ is a six-CD set of brand-new Kösmonaut work. Well, it’s five discs of fresh Kösmonaut stuff and one Patrick R Park album called ‘Esoteric Timeless Versions’, which features two loooong tracks. It also comes with TWO digital Ruffini albums, which he helpfully explains is his “space kraut disco” project. This is a serious drop of music. Non US folk can grab the physical release from SoundOhm.
GOOD STUFF #5
CRISP WOLVES ‘We Too Are Crisp Wolves’
There’s scant information on the Bandcamp page about this rather excellent debut outing from Gothenburg’s Crisp Wolves. “Are we condemned to live in fearful times? Is this the dawn of a second dark age? Don’t despair, help might be on the way,” says the mini bio that accompanies the album. “Unlike blood-thirsty Vikings, they come with kindness and synthesisers… with snacks provided.” I’m not sure if I’m spoiling the fun, but this is the handiwork of Scott Blixen and his 10-year-old son. Scott, many of you will recall, headed up the magnificent Scott 4, one of the most underrated bands of the 90s. Bloody hell they were good. They were last spotted in 2005 as The Scott 4 Free Rock Orchestra with an album called ‘E-S-P’, which is a real showstopper. You’d think making a record with a 10-year-old would be a bit knockabout, but this is nothing of the sort. It’s kind of krauty and full of warm synths and snappy drum machines. The slow build of ‘Love Eternal’ that lets rip into a squelchy post-acid party starter is my current favourite track. This is quality father and son time. It’s yours for 56 SEK, about £4.30. Do the right thing.
Right then, how about a spin around a bunch of other releases in our round-up’s round-up. The Thievery Corporation’s Eric Hilton serves up what he calls a travelogue in the shape of ‘Sound Vagabond’ (ESL Recordings) with each of the 14 tracks inspired by a different location, real or imagined. “Some memories of the places I've been are very clear, others are distant, nostalgic echoes,” says Hilton. It’s got that Red Snapper-y jazzy groove vibe on tracks like ‘Closer’ and ‘Midnight Milan’. It’s not as fourth world-y as The Thievery Corporation could be, but it does have a nicely 60s sheen, especially on tracks like ‘Glass Visage’, ‘Endless Affair’ and ‘Poppy Fields’. You can’t beat a bit of 90s trip hop royalty.
Talking of royalty, Letitia Sadier’s ‘Rooting For Love’ (Duophonic Super 45s) is “a call to the traumatised civilians of Earth”. It’s sophisticated stuff, packed full of live instrumentation and a great sounding male/female choir. With the theme urging us to “finally evolve past our countless millennia of suffering and alienation”, it has all the drama of a musical about it. Let’s hope that’s what she’s thinking. That’d be great wouldn’t it? Fret not though, tracks like ‘Une Autre Attente’ are very much in evidence and are the kind of Stereolab swirls you pay your money for.
Rafael Toral’s ‘Spectral Evolution’ (Moikai) caught my attention. Here the Portuguese artist returns to the electric guitar after 10 years or so in his “Space Program” phase where he worked solely with homemade electronic modules. There is so much curious work, I lost a good while digging in his back catalogue. The ‘Space Elements’ series is all very interesting (do check out the ‘Moon Field’, which sounds like what The Clangers did next). There’s a piece called ‘Wave Field’ inspired by seeing Buzzcocks live in 1993 where “the venue’s acoustics were so bad that all I could hear was an amorphous roar”. Anyway, here guitar and electronics meet and ‘Spectral Evolution’ is a heck of a trip. Presented as one long piece in 12 movements, he “imbues the ambiance of jazz harmony-inspired interplay with dense electronic mass in a new expanding universe”. Oh, and Moikai is Jim O’Rourke’s dormant label, rebooted for this release, it’s first since 2001.
The latest installment in the Lifefiles series from Mortality Tables features the excellent New Orleans-based composer Elizabeth Joan Kelly. Lifefiles are field recordings, usually made by the label’s Mat Smith, and handed over to an artist to respond to recordings however they see fit. Here EJK gets three recordings made in Edinburgh in August 2021 and responds with three warm soundscapes. Knowing Mat, the recordings won’t be random. There’s always a story with this label.
Lihla’s ‘Socha’ (A Strangely Isolated Place) is the debut album from classically trained cellist, composer and storyteller Lih Qun Wong. It’s intense stuff despite how gently she combines the piano, cello, electronics and spoken word. It’s one of those records that feels like a fever dream. One for the headphones and the time to sit and just listen that’s for sure. “Music gives us a place to be lost,” says Lihla. “Washing away thought, place, time and identity. It’s in the falling into the river, the dream, that we find just who we could be.”
astrangelyisolatedplace.bandcamp.com
Based in Phoenix, Arizona, experimental/radiophonic artist Jimmy Peggie dropped us a line about his new album, ‘Book Of Erosion’. Nice connection here, he curated and co-produced the film ‘Experimental Arizona’ with Iklectik in 2020, which showed the work of 20+ artists from in and around Arizona. Anyway, I’ve had ‘Book Of Erosion’ on several times this week, just humming and pinging and whirring in the background. It’s the perfect accompaniment to the rain hammering on my windows as it has been for most of the week.
Glasgow’s Bricolage arrive with their first release of the year in the shape of Payta’s ‘Samsara’. The UK-based multi-disciplinary artist serves up a cassette where the A-side is full of “fleeting, electronica and IDM influenced sketches” while the B-side stretches its wings with two longer cuts “allowing for a more textural flow and blossoming ambient palettes to emerge”. Very nice it all is too.
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TANGERINE DREAM
There’s been a slew of pieces in the proper press about cassettes of late. It’s like these people are reading my mind. There was an article a few weeks back in Wallpaper that highlighted the “slow and steady revival” of tapes and highlighted a number of labels that just release stuff on cassette. Gasp. Revival? Like vinyl, tapes have been here all along for some us. The piece does conclude with a great list of cassette players, should you be in the market. Old and new, it includes my own weapon of choice, the Denon DRW-695 twin deck. And then The Guardian chipped in last weekend with a piece about why people are still in love with old tech. Not quite sure what the writer’s point was, think it was to do with nostalgia or something. Cuh.
Anyway, give it a few days and they’ll all be on the We Are Rewind bandwagon because when people see their latest product they are going to win the internet. Say hello to the EQ-001 headphones. Oh my word. These original Walkman tribute ’phones come with three interchangeable ear cushions in yellow, black and orange, but you already know you’re only going to use the orange. They’re Bluetooth with a 12-hour battery life making them the perfect accompaniment to We Are Rewind’s epic WE-001 portable cassette player. The headphones have three equaliser modes to tweak the sound and there’s a built-in mic for calls and voice assistants if you fancy using them with you smartphone. How much are they? £35. Bloody hell, eh? I’m going shopping. The Walkman rides again.
LEAF MOTIVE
While Moonbuilding in no way condones the taking of drugs, nope, Ellen Holland’s ‘Weed – Smoke It, Eat It, Grow it, Love It’ (Epic Ink) really caught my eye while I was chatting with the nice people at Quarto, who published the Travis Elborough book I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. They’ve also got a great book coming up called ‘Analogue: A Field Guide’, which I will be frothing about when it’s published in March. Anyway, ‘Weed – Smoke It, Eat It, Grow it, Love It’ is from one of their US imprints and it’s as good as it looks. I love the zingy illustrations and the author knows a thing or two about the mighty bud as she’s editor-in-chief of High Times magazine, a US publication with 2.9m followers on Instagram. How is it that our friends over the pond are so far ahead of us when it comes to cannabis? We talking about a country where abortion is banned in 14 states, yet their stance on weed is liberal to say the least. In the UK, while it is legalised for medical use, it’s still a Class B drug, which carries a maximum life sentence for possession with intent to supply. Bonkers. This book is aimed squarely at the US market and it’s a brilliant guide to understanding and appreciating the stuff. From a Weed 101 chapter to sections on cultivation, CBD, eating and drinking the stuff (apparently, you don’t have to just make brownies) plus buying and tasting tips (wine and weed pairings anyone?), it’s a very thorough, very readable journey of appreciation.
JUSTIFIED ANCIENTS OF MOO MOO
I’m guessing it’s early nights all round up in The Wirral, where Moolakki Club Audio Interface are raring to go with their inaugural all-day music festival for “peripheral underground and experimental electronica”. MC:LE 001 is taking place at the Bloom Building in Birkenhead from 12pm to 12am on Saturday (24 February) and features live sets from Lo-Five, Looptronica, Bone Music, Audio Obscura, Fingerwolf, VX, Mode 7, Subphotic, Gneiss and Freshpots, while special guest DJs include Dark Train’s Kate Bosworth, Dawn Reck, Metamorph and Brazz Ankh. There are still tickets, amazingly, and they are only £6. You can just rock up on the day and pay £8 on the door, but you can buy a lot of snacks for the £2 you’d save with a ticket. And £6 for 12 hours of music is quite the hourly rate. It promises to be quite a day. Don’t miss if you are in the area. Do tell them we sent you. Oh, and the night before… so TONIGHT… they’re hosting a listening party for their latest release, ‘MCPM012 Session Tapes’, the second annual compilation of artists buzzing in and around the label.
Listening party: moolakiiclubaudiointerface.bandcamp.com
Festival tickets: Skiddle.com/g/moolakiiclubai
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A MESSAGE FROM THE MOTHERSHIP
The current 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, have a listen below…
Moonbuilding Weekly is a Castles In Space publication.
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