The Sandells - In Session on Reformation

22nd February 2010

1 Cowboys don't have brollies

2 Hell in Heaven

3 The Girl from Iphigenia

4 Jewels #7

Tim Lyons - Bass, Vocals

Johann Kloos - Guitar, Vocals

Brian Benson - Drums

with

Dave Thom - Keyboard

It's not often you get the chance to listen to a band one on one, but I suppose one of the added values of being a DJ is you do get the opportunity to watch musicians at their craft close up as it were.

When Tim Lyons suggested to me that The Sandells would like to do an electric set for the Reformation show my initial reaction was - we can't do that. The studios at Salford City Radio are somewhat limited size wise, and the accepted norm is that we can do Acoustic with maybe one electric instrument. But Tim is a persistent kind of chap and after several e-mails and a visit to the station we decided to go for it.

I'm glad we did.

With Dave Thom from Calvin Party sitting in with the band on this occasion we got the chance to hear The Sandells plus keyboards - which was a bonus and perhaps suggests that a fourth instrument might be a good future direction for the band.

Starting with the epic "Cowboys don't have brollies" the band immediately create a sense of style and drive not normally seen these days. Tim's paean to recording legend Joe Meek is replete with imagery and backed with a soundtrack that Ennio Morricone would die for. The bands motorik approach to rhythm is a huge hook, and the echoes of 60s star John Leyton are their, if you are old enough to remember!

The muscular "Hell in Heaven" is pure kraut-punk - an appellation that I think the band use with some degree of mischief. There's Neu! and Can in here but also a Manchester sound which carries it past all that to something new. With a very catchy riff from Kloos and dynamic drumming from Benson here is a song which is a key part of the live set.

Next up is a bossa nova, with Brian Benson's punning title "The Girl from Iphigenia" (she is the daughter of Agamenon and Clytemnestra). This is a fantastic slower piece, starting with a simple picked riff, which builds into huge wall of phased sound from Johann Kloos's array of pedals. This band know how to write and there is clear form and structure here worth checking out.

Finally the mammoth 8 minute version of "Jewels". Starting off as a rehearsal jam some months ago this has morphed into a fantastic piece of post-rock psychedelia. Again building from a slowly descending guitar/bass figure with chittering percussion sounds into a great wall of sound leading to an echo laden close, with Dave Thom adding layers of Korg to make this a memorable closer to a memorable session.

Watch our for The Sandells they have all the ingredients to create music of great substance.

Moff Skellington - Gliding through Stone

Uterus Cottage

February 2010

01 Be the you, the best that you are

02 The queue for the brochures

03 The ghost of Peggy Mount

04 Find me on the Map that you Forgot to Bring

05 Under Flying Arches

06 Cut and Cover

07 Twistbitter

08 Catching bees by starlight

09 Onto the Wheels and Hopes

10 Magistrate

11 A Space the Shape of Home for Humble Men

12 Flimsy runs my bones

13 Inside the Laughing Wood

14 A Tense Bracken of Lard

A one off special release in aid of the Haiti earthquake this release can only be sourced direct from Moff via www.bmycharity.com/moffskellington with all proceeds going to UNICEF. Details can be sourced from Moff's My Space Page.

2010 sees Monsieur Skellington in fine fettle - he has lost none of his abstract other worldliness yet he has somehow achieved a recording that might achieve more radio, or other arcane delivery mechanisms like the I-Pod, play. Ironic that this is not an official release, but a special.

After a trilogy of opening Moff classics including the arresting "Ghost of Peggy Mount" (and if you don't know who Peggy is then get on your Wickedpiddler and find out), there is a memorable blues ramble entitled "Find me a map....etc" which feels like a breathless child trying to break through the shell of an egg to indulge in some swaggering delta like activity. The insanely catchy "Under Flying Arches" balances the Moff schema with folk idioms to create a rich confection of joyous abandon. The longest piece on the album it forms an important centre piece to the material around it.

With "Cut and Cover" however we are back into the surreal maelstrom of Moff-world, sounding not unlike something that might emerge from a Eastern European ghetto (if such things still exist) , this dense and mesmeric dance with its memorable sound-bites makes me think of "Waiting for Godot" or something else that might spin from Beckett's pen. "Twistbitter", which is of a similar ilk, is a spoken word piece with aching background sounds which morphs gently into the succulent rhythms of "Catching bees by starlight". In several instances throughout this album I am reminded of the fractured atonalities of The Residents, and at the same time the scattered rhythms of the Sun Ra Arkestra. This instrumental coalesces a range of disparate influences into a lovingly crafted whole.

Listening to Moff always leaves unanswered questions in my head - none more so than with "Onto the wheels and ropes" which makes me think of workmen breaking their backs in the hot sun delivering the industrial revolution through rural landscapes - the questions in my mind are "was this what he really means?".

A Moff album would not be complete without with one of his wonderful waltzes, and the sultry sounds of "Magistrate" describe some grotesque wandering through the mists of one Bramwell Bronte's drug induced dreams. The spring driven "A space the shape...." deals in serial repetition and suggests a direction derived from some mutated trip-hop world (heaven forfend!!) - welcome to Moff's house - take your shoes off and sit down.

The variety on the album is outstanding, eschewing the usual voice manipulation in the most part, the harem sounds of "Flimsy Runs in My Bones" for example offers a variety of musical backgrounds that enhance the rich lyrical dexterity herein.

The last two tracks on the album are compelling closers - the spoken word of "Laughing Wood" a tasty aperitif to the stunning "A tense Bracken of Lard".

As with "Gravy on a plate of food" its immediate temporal predecessor I am once again wordless in my admiration of this unique artist.

Moff Skellington - The Corrosive Norm

Invisible Girl

14th February 2010

1 Flesh Owned Joy

2 The Company of Sparrows

3 Under the Parish Lantern

4 Tom Brown's Schooldays

5 Trafalgar Ledges

6 Cage of Laughless Feathers

7 Wyndham's Marina

8 Supercigs

9 Old Men dressed as babies

10 Gracie-Doll Effect

11 My House

12 Epinephrine

13 The End of the World

14 Arndale Warden

15 There's nothing like a nice sitdown

The earliest of the Eddodi cycle and in context perhaps the most "experimental" of the suite of Moff Skellington albums. However that's context, and not to say that this is not as listenable in its own unique and refreshing way,as the others. There are perhaps more reference points, well clearer ones at any rate, to folk and blues idioms here, whereas the others evoke some of Moff's listening to other artists. None more so than "Under the Parish Lantern", with its wailing blues harmonica for example.

The opener "Flesh Owned Joy" is a rolling instrumental dominated by the squeeze box and chittering percussive sounds, and sets the scene somewhere in the smoke filled back room of the "Lemur and Hippopotamus" in the distant rural hillocks of Yorkshire. An alien swanee whistle sound gives it away as Moff territory as a mutant blues emerges.

The musical theme continues with the beautiful "Company of Sparrows". The tempo is taken up a pace with the insistent "Tom Brown's Schooldays" which focuses on people with "tallow legs", this morphs into pure psychedelia towards the end leaving this listener wanting more.

There is perhaps more of an introspective, or indeed contemplative, look at life here. I for one would love to meet the "vile pearly gobshite with the scrotum chin". Moff's strength here is his use of language to convey perhaps mundane matters to another place where more thought is given to the stuff of life.

"Cage of Lifeless Feathers" another instrumental, deals in repetition, and grunting/clattering noises, as a harmonica picks out a simple refrain, and evokes a feeling of apprehension tinged with hope - the last 60 seconds or so a unique convulsion of sounds and rhythms. "Wyndham's Marina" is a lurching march - one can imagine large farm yard animals slowly moving in time to this mesmeric rhythm. Chittering insect sounds dance with marimba like tones.

Matters get a tad surreal with the multi-layered voices of "Supercigs", dub echoes and distant whistles, and the reflective "Old Men dressed as babies" continues the Skellington schema of observation and commentary in a doleful tone. This is furthered with a maddening waltz called "Gracie-Doll Effort" which appears to continue the theme of older people. It is here that Moff most closely resembles the work of Don Van Vliet.

"My House" goes somewhere else completely with its distressed harp and guitar sounds, and multilayered and filtered voices. A simple rock rhythm kicks off the dark edges of "Epinephrine" as vocodered vocals take Moff up and down a couple of octaves suggesting what is to come on "Gravy on a plate of food", the rhythm is soon lost to a bubbling passage of disjointed percussive sounds as voices form a soup of aural pleasure.

The mad walking bass of "The End of the World" is a light relief after the proceeding - one cannot help but smile at the joyous levity of this arrangement. The skipping "Arndale Warden" seems to suffer from the vocals perhaps being mixed too low at the start - however it picks up towards the end and the odd couplet of "Daffodills Nil - Antibiotics Five" needs some careful listening.

Matters conclude with the wonderful "There's nothing like a nice sit-down" perhaps the most radio friendly of the pieces.

Of all the Moff albums this is the one that requires the most attention as there a great deal of detail within.

Highly recommended.

Moff Skellington - Blue House & Titty Bottle

Invisiblegirl

14th February 2010

01 Grind the Piggy Wigs Bones

02 Belly Ache One

03 The Longing to Be Elsewhere

04 Belly Ache Two

05 Are you a Wolf

06 The Money Apple

07 Belly Ache Three

08 Nine Miles Back

09 Fiasco Artiste

10 Belly Ache Four

11 Ball of Gas

12 Spider Mites

13 Thank you Dr Beady

14 Voicemail

15 Belly Ache Five

One of the five albums making up the Eddodi Collection viz 2007's The Corrosive Norm, 2008's Sperm Jingle Harvest, and 2009's Gravy on a plate of Food, together with this release from the same year.

Once again Moff presents a parallel universe somewhere in the north of England where folk motifs mingle with found sounds, filtered voices, and synthesized noises to create a unique aural presentation of continued wonderment.

Uniquely on this occasion a series of shorter pieces labled "Belly Ache" and numbered One to Five, provide short interludes to the main pieces.

There is unique and honest material here. The mutant blues of a "Are you a Wolf" with its wailing harmonica, and insistent rhythm is simply marvellous and far too short. The music platform for the lyrically wonderful "The Money Apple" echoes early Cabaret Voltaire in some sort of strange partnership with Tom Waits.

It is Moff's broad Yorkshire brogue, however, that most evokes a simpler time, and although comparisons are difficult perhaps the work is similar to a Mervyn Peake construct where life is much more basic and pleasant.

The repetition of "Nine Miles Back" has a fascinating Eastern European feel, and the glitchy sounds that precede the rhythmically complex "Fiasco Artiste" are compelling, and remind me of the early work that Mark E.Smith placed before us in the protean days of The Fall. In a world where "billy-cocks wither" and "adrenaline dithers" one can only sit in wonderment at the amount of material that Mr Skellington can produce. All different and all uniquely Moff in its delivery.

The last few songs on the album are some of the best work that have emerged from Moff's fertile mind in this wonderful collection of albums. "Ball of Gas" is uniquely strange with its wailing (alto?) saxophone, chittering percussion, swanee whistle (a fine instrument), and multi-layered vocals. The stand out track of the album for me though is the superb "Spider Mites" - lyrically rich - with a sort of folk-dub aesthetic. "Thank you Dr Beady" is just completely and totally out there in Moff world with no real comparisons available. "Voicemail" is a mad canter which has an insistent post punk feel to it - Pere Ubu perhaps?

This material wipes the floor with most contemporary so called "out there" music. When so much of what I listen to sounds derivative and the same its such a great pleasure to sit and listen to something so compellingly unique.

If you want to escape to altogether more interesting places then you can do so with ease with this marvellous album.