Monster Skies Mix

Here's a wonderfully woven weird gear mix of proto electronics, malformed tape music, cosmic psych and vintage voltage pop by Finders Keepers co founder and b-musicologist extraordinaire Andy Votel. The mix was recorded in Melbourne earlier this year and originally released on cassette in a micro edition of 100 copies. Many thanks to AV and JP for their kind permissions. For those seeking similar musical sustenance, you might do well to seek out a copy of the companion vinyl release on Dual Planet and Finders Keepers. Enjoy.

Monster Skies Mix

All WIll Be Set Right Mix

For those of you that missed this rather fine live event in Los Angeles last month, here's another chance to listen to Doug Shipton's live mix of curious electronics and 'weird gear' Neotantrik synth haze which he performed as part of a two day event curated by the ever expanding musical collective Neotantrik. Many thanks to Cinefamily and Mount Analog in LA for the kind permissions. ...... and for those who enjoy this curious musical missive you might want to check out the rather fine Neotantrik lp which drops this Thursday. Enjoy!

All WIll Be Set Right Mix

Suxo Plexo Muxo Mix

Few vinyl archaeologists dig deeper than Andy Votel and when he suggested A Sound Awareness host this mix I was pretty much 'dancing on the ceiling with joy'. Originally aired on Jonny Trunk's OST Show on Resonance FM in March 2013, 'Suxo Plexo Muxo' features a zoned out mix of Eastern European cinematic oddities, weird eye Giallo schlock, Parisian art house freak folk and a plethora underexposed and uncharted celluloid wonders from around the world which will send even the most avid sound collector scouring the crates for years to come.

As always, hats off to Finders Keepers and Trunk Records for the kind permissions. Artwork remixed by myself and Mr. Votel using a few of the rather fine images on display here.

Dig, delve and enjoy!

Suxo Plexo Muxo Mix

Tracklist 
from Pan Kleks - Andrzej Korzynski - (Polton Poland)
from Anna - Gainsbourg Columbier (INA France)
from Belladonna Of Sadness - Masahiko (Finders Keepers)
from Chi - Goblin (Cinevox IT)
from Phantasm - Myrow Seagrave (Verese Sarabande)
from Sitting Target - Stanley Myers (FK)
from Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders - Lubos Fiser (FK)
from La Salamander - Patrick Moraz (Evasion Ch)
from Morgiana - Lubos Fiser (FK)
from Nightmares Come At Night (The B-Music Of Soledad Miranda) - Bruno Nicolai (FK)
from Divertissements - Louk De Book (Cache Cache)
from When Love Becomes Lust - Morricone (Cerberus)
from Daisies - Jiri Sust / Jiri Slitr (FK)
from Saxana - Angelo Michajlov (FK)
from Kama Sutra - The Inner Space (Crippled Dick)
from Lilith - Bruno Spoerri (Cache Cache)
from Pan Kleks - Andrzej Korzynski (Polton Poland)
from Naturally Free - Avenue (Apla Aus) 
from Blood On Satans Claw - Marc Wilkinson (Trunk)
from The Innocents - Isla Cameron (FK)
from Qui êtes vous, Polly Maggoo? - Michel Legrand (AZ)
from The Cremator - Zdenek Liska (FK)
from Fascination - Phillippe D'Aram (FK)
from Stone - Billy Green (FK)
from Sweet Movie - Manos Hadjidakis (Sonopresse)
from Mad Monster Party - Maury Laws (Rankin Bass)
from Honest Blue Eyes - Berndt Egerbladh (CBS)
from Saxana - Angelo Michajlov (FK)
from When Love Becomes Lust - Morricone (Cerberus)
from Danger Diabolik - Morricone (Disobediente)
from S.O.S - Andrzej Korzynski (Disposable Music)
from Zwolf Im Langstrasse- Bruno Spoerri (Cacophonic)
from Man Of Marble - Andrzej Korzynski (Cache Cache)
from Snakes - Suzanne Ciani (FK)
from Holy Mountain - Frangipane Jodorowsky (Abcko)
from Outland - Jerry Goldsmith (MCA)
from Tulipan - Andrzej Korzynski (Cache Cache)
from Kiu - J Pagan (PDI)
from Varadhu Vandha - S. Janaki and Iliayaraaja (FK)
from De Sade 70 Trailer (The B-Music Of Soledad Miranda) - Bruno Nicolai (FK)
from All The Colours Of The Dark - Bruno Nicolai (FK)
from Three Nuts For Cinderella - Karel Svoboda (Supraphon Cz)
from Zwolf Im Langstrasse- Bruno Spoerri (Cacophonic)
from Hausu - Godiego (Columbia Japan)
from Jeunes Filles Impudiques - Pierre Raph (FK)
from Pastoral - JA Seazer (RCA Japan)
from Agilok & Blubbo - The Inner Space (Wax Wah)
from Takin Off - Bobo Bates (Decca)
from Nightmares Come At Night (The B-Music Of Soledad Miranda) - Bruno Nicolai (FK)
from Girls In The Sun - Stavros Xarhakos (EMI Greece)
from Senza Motivo Apparente - Morrricone (General IT)
from Cul De Sac (Matnia) -  Hank Jones & Oliver Nelson (Impulse)
from Valerie And Her Week Of Wonders - Lubos Fiser (FK)
from Mala Morska Vila - Zdenek Liska (FK)
from Anna - Gainsbourg Columbier (INA France)

Sonic Cineplex

Next weekend, an unusual film and music event entitled Sonic Cineplex will take place in the dark and cavernous railway arches underneath Glasgow.  Featuring a host of musical luminaries such as Jeff Mills and Dieter Moebuis, I'm particularly looking forward to lending an ear and eye to Andy Votel's [Finders Keepers] and Sean Canty's [Demdike Stare] film and tape hiss project Neotantrik. Oh, and if you hear a little oddball jazz and wonky electronic music echoing through the arches - that might just be me spinning an odd record or two.

Neotantrik

...... not sure if this is in the public domain yet but here's a short piece of flickering light and private press electronic tape hiss by Neotantrik [Andy Votel, Andy Rushton and Sean Canty]. Enjoy.

Anworth Kirk 2

Something wicked this way comes. Another unsolicited, dark and spectral missive drops through the Sound Awareness letterbox in the form of a new Anworth Kirk release.  Packaged in a rat chewed, hand pasted sleeve, this release is a much more caliginous and sage affair than its sister record. Like all good records, musically, it is difficult to pin down, part spirit rapping improv, part dim and eerie soundtrack, intense folk musique elides into Victorian grand parlour room Giallo schlock then dissipates in sound weaving patterns of lecture hall mesmerism. This is music of the ether, dark, nebulous and with many voices. Digital layering creates a seamless and complex atemporality, the folkloric becomes entwined with the technological present creating an utterly compelling and spellbinding new form of avant garde shadow electronica. This is a record to seek out and communicate with.

Bye Trish

I've just returned from a weekend trip across Europe which took me to Barcelona, a well loved city which evokes a great many memories from over the years. One which I remember particularly fondly, was a B-Music event where I DJ'ed alongside Dom Thomas, a younger Gaslamp Killer and Trish and Jam from our mutually favourite band Broadcast. The event was a great success and remains one of my favourite memories of spending quality time with some really exciting musical minds. A right old knees up! Sadly, in contrast, this weekends trip to the same city was interrupted early on Friday with the unfathomable news that Trish had lost her life to pneumonia a few hours earlier. My reactionary call home was met with floods of tears from my distressed wife and from this point the only place I really wanted to be was at home with Jane and the kids... and my Broadcast records.


In simple terms, I could not believe my ears when I heard the first Trish Keenan record. Today, I find it equally unbelievable that I probably won't hear the next one. There's never a correct time for birth or death, which is why the news this Friday came as such a shock for so many people and the potential personal loss of something as abstract as art and music is also, for some people, somehow hard to emotionally quantify. I've taken Broadcast for granted for most of my adult life and now I'm confused and genuinely devastated.


The release of the first Broadcast record marked an unannounced significance in my life as a quasi professional spectator. Broadcast marked my coming of age like the meeting of a special new friend. Which is exactly what it was for many people.


The faceless voice I met on record came to represent a ghostly sister or brother that I never had, sharing lonely and intimate talks about realistic car parks, believable libraries and totally plausible classrooms. At times, the voice came in the form of a lost primary school supply teacher or your seldom seen youngest auntie who then disappeared. This might explain why when I was first introduced to Trish Keenan in person by Rob Mitchell at Bowlie weekender I was utterly terrified, then, within a matter of friendly uttered syllables, was sweetly normalised. She was, of course, human, and probably more human than most of my music making friends.


I'll never forget the moment I heard Friday's inconceivable news. Amongst many other brilliant memories of the woman who I still consider to be the most important voice in modern British pop music, it's the private mementos that are the most profound. When I first heard 'Echoes Answer' I felt like somebody was telling me a deep secret. When I first heard 'Distant Call' I felt like I was finally being forgiven after some lengthy family dispute. I honestly never knew that this was possible via pop music.


Trish was far from the jamming front man, as popularised by the macho music UNdustry, who would simply throw rhyming buzzwords at a dry wall of guitars until something stuck... for Trish, not one syllable went unpondered and her wordplay was expertly interwoven using Letterist influences and hard earned poetic license.


It's becoming hard to talk about Trish in the past tense because to me she has always represented the possibilities of the future and a heightened creative process that people within pop music rarely achieve. The common limitations of human perception, patience and perseverance means it could take a life time for some people reach the Keenan degree. I won't call her superhuman, but unlike Trish, I’m not poetic enough to find a better description.


While donning the unconvincing A&R man disguise over the years I would regularly piss-off my own artists, on a label primarily influenced by Wurlitzer Jukebox, constantly and casually referring to the Broadcast benchmark like John Peels Fall tick box system.


Even with long gaps between records Broadcast's albums would never outstay their welcome, evoking unwaning poignancy until the next rewarding chapter, more like good films than pop records. Broadcast were entitled to be perfectionists because in this rare case perfection was achievable. And I adored and admired the fact that it didn't come easy.


From where I stood and waited, the rewarding painstaking process of Broadcast songs were like the work of an eastern European animator with the most assiduous of working methods, that would, for lesser pop stars prove unsustainable and out-of-synch with the whinging industry. But Broadcast were a rare example of genuine hard working fine artists who made sacrifices to communicate craft with everyday people. I've never seen eye to eye with perfectionists...but Trish has never made an imperfect record...not one blot on a 15 year old copybook.


While transcending pop whims Trish's growing passions had recently found her moving into creative writing, fiction and sound poetry. Any single piece of Broadcast's 15 year legacy is omni-relevant and as a constantly evolving and challenging voice. It's devastating to think that she had barely even begun her creative journey. She was one of the only people to persuade me to release a financially doomed spoken word record, she emailed me her own personal review of the record when it came out which made it totally worthwhile.


Without delving too deeply I feel it's important to make a small reference to Trish's own very physical song writing process which unconsciously resembled an Ester Krumbachová backdrop or something from an alternative Canadian school room. Without knowing it she was also a conceptual visual expert working and arranging her words in Sister Corita Kent's doppelganger print workshop.

A few times over the years, Trish sent me demos of new album tracks asking for a critical opinion. Naturally they ticked all the right boxes but also put all sorts of new boxes on the matrix. Personally I was flattered that she valued my taste in records although I felt totally unworthy to judge the mighty Broadcast (I felt the same way when I remixed The Booklovers in 1999 - mission impossible) I suppose I'm trying to illustrate her humble nature towards their own music. The fact that they were probably the ONLY band I've ever known to sound even better than their vintage influences is maybe something I should have told her, but she was never digging for compliments.

While trying not to gush-a-lot the music of Broadcast means the world to me. After absorbing the expanding songbook of Trish Keenan the disposable language of pop music soon reached such a high benchmark that I accidentally stopped listening to English language music out of frustration. It's a big world out there so why accept anything less than the best. Trish Keenan, for example, wouldn't.


This is why Broadcast in many ways act as a clearly annotated instruction manual to my own otherwise nonsensical record collection. Losing Trish Keenan is potentially like losing the bag of Swedish screws. But her legacy represents the glue in my misinformed musical penchants. Her varied sonic mood board of Czech cinema, random Indian and Malaysian charity shop finds, Italian library music and French sound poetry - when added to her inimitable kitchen sink optimism - proved how an open mind goes hand-in-hand with super-creative communication. Again Trish, unknowingly, wrote the rule book. For selfish reasons alone I'm absolutely heartbroken to have lost her.


The fact that she also looked like a stunning Godard extra in plimsoles and parker coat became a small immaculate detail in her beguiling and utterly enigmatic personality. I don't know if I’m quite ready to hear her voice just yet. 


Jam Cargill, is of course, and always will be, the other zen master, and my eternal respect for him is, at this moment, accompanied by all my love and strength. I hope a sense of eternal family pride will go some way to confounding your heartbreak. Whether you know it or not Broadcast are indestructible and occupy a genuinely special and private place in the hearts of a generation. A place where you are warmly welcomed. To Tim and Julian, as well as the other past members of Broadcast who I never met, my heart goes out to you - as well as the zillions of global Broadcast torch carriers who feel a huge loss of which we'll sadly never learn the true depth. It's a huge privilege for us all to have shared such a precious legacy. The wall of words will never tumble. Bye Trish.

AV

Precert

Soundtrack avant oddities abound on this new spectral collage by Anworth Kirk and Demdike Stare.

Samhain Slant Azimuth 1 by A Sound Awareness on Mixcloud

In The Darkness.....

.....coming soon, an immersive mix of spectral sounds by Anworth Kirk and Demdike Stare.

Sounds From The Kirk

Anworth Kirk

Strange things have been coming through my letterbox of late.  This morning, I received a whole batch of mail related to the blog, a recording of sub aquatic exotica by Dolphins Into The Future, a book on rubber fetish wear and a collection of films made by the artist John Latham.  Also amongst the mail, was an anonymous parcel with scant information as to the identity of the sender.  Slightly anxious that I was being stalked, I set about finding out who had sent it.  It took a while, but eventually, after a little research, I twigged who was responsible. This particular package contained a record, and a very interesting one at that.  At times, the recording sounds like a soundtrack, albeit of the vaguely oddball and twisted kind.  It's a strange mixture of spectral electronics and cunning folk musique concrete.  The disc is immersed in an ill distempered paganism with shimmering moments of intense haunting fragility. The record graphics impart very little information apart from a photograph of Anworth Kirk (a location used in the The Wicker Man film) and a page of a book (which I think relates to the Pendle witchcraft trial of 1612) which was glued onto the back of the hand stitched cover.  I found the music contained spellbinding and for those who enjoyed the recent Broadcast and Focus Group collaboration, they will find much to love about this record. As to when it's actually released, I'll keep you posted.

Anatolian Anagrams & The Saxana OST

Those wonderful people at Finders Keepers sent me two rather amazing discs of recorded music today. "Turk Jerk" consists of edited Turkish psychedelic music by the anagrammatic, genre hopping genius known as Tandy Love.  This edition is housed in a hand stitched, silk screened cover with all the titles cleverly disguised as anagrams. Upon further investigation, I also discovered the above rather nifty Turkish comic book cappery hidden inside. I recommend you seek out a copy immediately.  On a very different musical agenda is the strange and beguiling music found on the test pressing of the upcoming Czech Saxana OST. This soundtrack has it all, dark menacing orchestrations, twisted Czech pop, enchanted forest folk melodies and the odd kick ass drumbeat. Hats off to Finders Keepers once again.