We're In Heaven

Cruise Family have broken out of tape culture to go all vinyl on us... We're In Heaven it's called, released on Not Not Fun... i'm defo loving that retro 'Tron/Hitchhiker's guide' vibe to the arts, but to give you a flavour of what to expect soundwise here's a snippet from Stefan's last release Nachtbote...

Mothers Of The Third Reich

...seriously wonky in all the right ways

Collision Detection v1 - Psychological Strategy Board

Marking the second project in a series of experimental collaborations from Front and Follow. This is like a Exquisite Corpse of sound where various artists were invited to submit audio clips to a central pot which in turn was randomly re-distributed 'lucky dip' style for each subsequent group to dabble with as they saw fit... The results promise to stretch across 2012 and beyond, encompassing known label mates like Doomed Bird and the amazing Sone Institute as well as exciting additions like Kemper Norton and Isnaj Dui.

From what I'm hearing though, the series is definitely off to a flying start with Collision/Detection v1. Jonny Mugwump of Exotic Pylon fame and Time Attendant's Paul Snowdon have taken their fragments and certainly ran with them... the resulting oddness, like a perfectly glued Airfix kit of sound that melts straight into your cranium.

'The Synthetic Profile' starts on a 23 Skidoo gamelan crawl full of pulsed penance, the sliding of torpedoes through rotting jellyfish heralding wobble board textures and diaphanous equations. That vaselined nail gun, spurting 'Frankie Says' orgasms, transforming into the hum n burr of tiny dynamos sucking at the air as the fader reveals a bleeping emergence on a lung pumped inflexion...

'Enharmonic Bow' is a bouncy elastane with Coil like shears... a sliver of tune running through an old projector... falling backwards ... a haunted air, marred in digital flecks... the flirtation, queasy full of half glimpses and triggers cavorting around a centrifugal Da Vinci mechanism. Headphones are a must

The third 'Internal Workings of a Noise Intoner', is a noisier endeavour, an octave climbing blow football match of bad tubing scalectrix jivver as a flatulent wasp smashes into rubber walls... the radius of collision rebounding in the ears like false memories... The last track settles for a straight drone affair, slipping on its own horizon, besmirched in a lustre of barely audible keyboarding... opening a gateway that doesn't seem to shut... here's to the next instalment...

WwrrssddrrwwsS

wwrrssddrrwwss from the cryin' skull

Grenadilla Splinters

This is saintly dust, wheezen reeds and dripping tap drummage... ambulance ambience on the exhaust fumes of a whirring mind... absolute love and respect

Perfect TEETH

Teen-beat are re-releasing Unrest's PERFECT TEETH, no cheap jewel case shenanigans mind, but a beautifully boxed collection of six coloured 7 inch records with extra tracks. Hats off to you Marky Robinson… it looks so lush… if I wasn’t so strapped I’d grab one off you…

Really loved this album back in the day, shit that was a long time ago must be 17 years, seems like yesterday... those poppy hooks and that jangled sizzle, grabbing the focus, simple songs full of mileage. Now Imperial FFRR will always stay with me as their greatest work, but this was genius of a different kind, surfing on the right side of commercial, that Simon Le Bon production guaranteeing true earworm deployment…

A true pinnacle of achievement and so f’ing danceable in places, it showed that indie music didn’t have to be miserable to be sincere.… even if I did do plenty of mopping to stylised ampersand... Pity it marked the last big release for the band, even though it did set the template for the equally amazing Air Miami. Quality!

CTRL/V\3RR0R

Bleakhaus?

Daniel Vincent and Atay Ilgun - Fragments of Sound C40

Side one demonstrates some masterful guitar playing, deft, descriptive with plenty of colour between frets, spurring off on otherworldly twilights… Halfway through, this captivating narrative takes up a more occultist tone with creeping circles prowling a low lit amplitude… Gliding on some lovely glassy eyed synthetics, the guitar gradually letting the optimism in, the tone warming…. then finally drifting out on doubled layers, the crystallised strings caught in the falling of leaves.

In complete contrast, side two is a aquatic-lined burbling of submerged sounds … A sweeping bubble wand of multicoloured oceanics. A humming flange of dolphin rasp providing the bassline, as keystrokes give out the definition in 'close encounters' forages… Piano spans stretching, yarning, imbued in treble highlights and glittery refractions, bloating out in gaseous spirals, dimensionally diving to resurface in a shoal of piranha like metallics… The fade opens to more strung out atmospheres, celestial and drifty. A Northern Lights manatee of subtly changing hues and reverberated space. Sliding drone waves… swallowed on swollen ebbs, the outflows layering up on an enveloped heaviness that churns everything up nicely... The faint crackles of cosmos almost audible in those soft manta swirls and tentacled ear wraps… A satisfying journey’s end.

What a great first release for any label, as relaxing as it is intriguing, a delicate beauty full of raised contours, whose melodic eddies and fibrous flurries tap straight into your soothing pulse.

Broken Sounds

Stig Noise VII - Stig Noise

This is an intense blast of Mariachi punk fusion, with its Miles Davis trumpet sputters and elastically wedged guitars… I haven’t heard this much energy since the Dog Faced Hermans back in 9O's… That Stig Noise brass section is just superb here, holds the mayhem together in tasty derailment… This is a real 'lay back and enjoy the ride' release, full of crazy angles and garbled trashcan vox. There’s a slight detour into cruel, tonal abuse on Family Chainsaw but the rest of the tracks are content, dishing out the serotonin with zing grin faces… the EP signing off (far too quickly) on a Pere Ubu Sub-Beefheartian deathslide of carpet burn goodness… I recommend you grab a copy today and wreck your living room trying to dance along...