The first broadcast of 2025.
Towards the end of last year I was sent a parcel of sounds from Colin Andrew Sheffield, the man behind the label Elevator Bath. Colin also records and releases on the label. His sounds have appeared on past broadcasts .. and they will on future ones. Active since 1998 (releasing elegant abstract music) the first release was the Colin Andrew Sheffield 7" of highly amplified machine sounds called "Side One / Side Two". The sounds Colin sent were by artists I had never come across. Susana López has been a great discovery. The two tracks played here are from the CD 'Crónica De Un Secuestro' from 2020. I think it was the 2016 album 'Flammable Materials From Foreign Lands' by Jim Haynes that made me first aware of Elevator Bath, "Electrical Speech : Nadiya" is from this album leading in to Daniela Huerta. Elevator Bath's recent release, a great 10" mini-album called "Soplo". Daniela is Mexican, Soplo translates as blow and puff. Sequences is the project of Antwerp based soundartist Neils Geybels. Again, no stranger to MuhMur Radio with his collaborative work with Cremation Lily and Isolated Existence and more recently with Angel Simitchiev (of the Amek Collective) as Waning End. "Gasping For Breath" is from the CD 'Água Viva'. These sounds take in the first hour of the broadcast. Elevator Bath artists Rick Reed and Alex Keller with Sean O' Neill are later on in the broadcast. Rick Reed is a new name to me .. he is based in Austin (Texas), like Elevator Bath and has been part of the Austin underground music scene for over 40 years ... I'll have to check my old ND Magazines to see if he appears in them ... Alex Keller is also from Austin. A soundartist, sound designer and teacher working in performance installation. To hear more or to get hold of some Elevator Bath please visit http://www.elevatorbath.com or visit the bandcamp page at : https://elevatorbath.bandcamp.com. There is also Facebook pages and Instagram pages if you are in to that type of thing ... Expect more sounds from the Elevator Bath throughout future broadcasts.
On New Years Eve 2005 Throbbing Gristle played at the Volksbühne in Berlin. The following evening they performed a live soundtrack to the Derek Jarman film "In The Shadow Of The Sun". Recordings of these events have been released by Mute Records in a glamorous box set simply called "Berlin". The box also features a DVD of the evenings, a 10" single from the final studio recordings of Throbbing Gristle along with rehearsal recordings and studio improvisations from December 2005. "Trumpet Herald" and "Convincing People" are from the Volksbühne show. The Alice Kemp piece from the compilation EP released to celebrate the Kemp/Elggren/ Lanz & Nordwall performances that took place in Gothenburg last year ... and I play it at the right speed!! There's a new Alice Kemp cassette soon to be released on the Recordings For The Summer label. http://www.recordingsforthesummer.de/RFTS.html for more information on that.
Korm Plastics Publishing have released the book "Even When It Makes No Sense" by Steve Underwood. A comprehensive history / archive of the UK noise / experimental label Broken Flag. Parts of the book have been published before in the 2010 magazine As Loud As Possible, the book features extra interviews, a full catalogue and reprints of the Broken Flag (in house) tract "Even When It Makes No Sense". Grab a copy from : https://www.kormplastics.nl/even-when-it-makes-no-sense-the-broken-flag-story/, it is essential! The Jonathon Bailey track is from the 1987 Broken Flag compilation LP "Never Say When". The broadcast ends with two pieces from Ramleh culled from their 1983 7" "Hand Of Glory". This release was the first time I came across both Ramleh and Broken Flag. The tracks played are from the 8xCD box set "Awake!" released on Harbinger Sound in 2012. (quality reasons).
Kicking off 2025 in the manner of which we wish to proceed with a piece by Frans de Waard's Modelbau project. "Ripples (Parts 1 & 2)" is on the Eindhoven based Barreuh Records label. Please visit their bandcamp page at : https://barreuhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/ripples to grab a copy. It's beautiful.
'This past summer I was working part-time as the "pool tester" for a swimming pool in my local area. The job entailed going into the buildings boiler room twice a day, working with various chemicals, testing the chlorine levels in the water and checking that all the pumps, tanks, gauges, valves and mechanical apparatus was all in good safe running order. Then at the end of the night I would be responsible for removing the mechanical cover for the swimming pool, inspecting the water, and eventually putting the cover back on .... One day tin he boiler room, I was totally struck and mesmerized by both the ambient room tone in there, as well as the sounds and noises of all the various equipment pumping away - the hissing machinery, the deep gurgling of the water/acid tanks, the chugging of the circulation pumps, the ticking of the valves, the creaking of the pipes, the humming of the fluorescent lights, etc .... Creative inspiration continued to churn away inside me while I was inspecting the swimming pool at the end of my shift. I felt that the sound of the swimming pool was both soothing and rather haunting at the same time - that soft gurgle and slushing of the water, the spillage being sucked through the drain grills, the drone of the heating system, the huge reverberations of the high-ceilinged room, the mysterious echoes and the squeal of the mechanical pool cover coming down ..... Thus the ideas for this project began. That night I took two sound recorders and a couple of contact microphones and placed them in the boiler room and the swimming pool itself. I wanted to try and capture the sound and atmosphere of these two locations when no one was around. Once captured, I collaged these recordings into a couple of abstract sound works that hopefully paint some vivid images of what it feels like to be working in this strange, lonely and sometimes creepy indoor environment'. Notes from the Fletina CD album "Serrof" on Unfathomless. Fletina can be contacted via : https://fletina.bandcamp.com.
Vertonen (aka Blake Edwards) has been producing sound work for over 25 years. His latest is the cassette album "Recovery & Return" on the German Grisaille label. Physical copies have sold out from the label but d/load options are still available : https://grisaille.bandcamp.com. December saw the release of the latest single by French industrialists Muckrackers. Limited to 37 copies only. Entitled "La Grande Fin" I hope it isn't their last .... act fast! https://muckrackers.bandcamp.com/album/la-grande-fin.
I decided to resurrect the section "On This Day" for the 2025 broadcasts. I looked at my diaries for the first three months and found some interesting releases were put out on forthcoming broadcast dates. In January1981 I went to see New Order play one of their first gigs at The Porterhouse in the East Midlands town of Retford. The support for the evening was fellow Mancunians Crispy Ambulance, a band that were new to me at the time. A couple of weeks later on January 19 1981 John Peel broadcast their first 'John Peel Session'. I taped it (of course) and played it religiously over the years .. I still have the cassette! In 2000 LTM released the session on the compilation CD "Frozen Blood (1980-82)". A few months or later I supported Crispy Ambulance. I was the drummer in Lincoln's finest proto-political-pop group Total Strangers. A friend and myself contacted Crispy Ambulance and asked them to play the Memorial Hall in our town (North Hykeham) 5 miles south of Lincoln. Memory has faded about the evening, but 15 years ago I wrote this .. https://muhmur.blogspot.com/2010/02/crispy-ambulance-in-north-hykeham.html. Also "On This Day" in 1977 Ultravox! released the 7" single "Dangerous Rhythm" c/w "My Sex". Next month I'll be spinning some Swell Maps & Birthday Party.
Chris Dreier was a founding member of German experimentalists Die Tödliche Doris in the 1980s. Tom Löhde is a sound artist from Düsseldorf. In 2023 the UK based label released their collaboration work "MK/CT". It is based on field recordings made on the River Spree. https://fangbomb.bandcamp.com for more information. Matar are Adi Newton and Michael Esposito. The piece here is from their latest LP "Archaeoacoustics".
Very sad to hear of the passing of Miguel A. Garcia. I have been a great admirer of his work for the last ten years, mainly through releases on the Geräuschmanufaktur label. R.I.P. Miguel.
Playlist :
01: Susana López : Luz Negra (Elevator Bath) 2020.
02: Susana López : Crónica De Un Secuestro (Elevator Bath) 2020.
03: Jim Haynes : Electrical Speech : Nadiya (Elevator Bath) 2016.
04: Daniela Huerta : Seqyana (Elevator Bath) 2024.
05: Sequences : Gasping For Breath (Elevator Bath) 2024.
06: Throbbing Gristle : Trumpet Herald (Mute Records) 2024.
07: Throbbing Gristle : Convincing People (Mute Records) 2024.
08: Alice Kemp : Private Masticator (iDEAL Recordings) 2024.
09: Jonathon Briley : The Hunter (Broken Flag) 1987.
10: Modelbau : Ripples (Part Two) (Barreuh Records) 2024.
11: Fletina : Late Shift (Unfathomless) 2024.
12: Vertonen : Triumphant Decay (Grisaille) 2024.
13: Vertonen : Constellations Of Collapsed Wheels (Grisaille) 2024.
14: Vertonen : Achelae.
15: Rick Reed : Space Age Radio Love Song (Elevator Bath) 2023.
16: Rick Reed : Leave A Light On For Tony (Elevator Bath) 2023.
17: Muckrackers : La Grande Fin (A) (LFA) 2024.
18: Christine K : Memory Is What We Make It (Ek Verlag) 2024.
19: Crispy Ambulance : Egypt (LTM) 2000.
20: Ultravox! : My Sex (Island Records) 1977.
21: Chris Dreier & Tim Löhne : Shieldfields (Fang Bomb) 2023.
22: Muckrackers : La Grande Fin (B) (LFA) 2024.
23: Alex Keller And Sean O' Neill : Kruos II (Elevator Bath) 2017.
24: Matar : 110Hz State The Maze Pattern (Sleepers) 2024.
25: Miguel A. Garcia/Garaz Gorostiaga/Tube Tentacles : Euli Ustel Porta (Geräuschmanufaktur) 2024.
26: Ramleh : Squassation (Harbinger Sound) 2012.
27: Ramleh : Prossneck (Harbinger Sound) 2012.
Please listen to the broadcast here (Split in to 2 parts for easier aural consumption. part 2 begins with Vertonen) :
Part One :
https://www.mixcloud.com/muhsteve/muhmur-radio-broadcast-19-01-2025-part-one/
Part Two :
https://www.mixcloud.com/muhsteve/muhmur-radio-broadcast-19-01-2025-part-two/
Thanks to Chris Booth for production and Trin for the company. Back on February 16. Same time, same channel.
No comments:
Post a Comment