New Album 2017

More info at a later date.
Until then snippets and segments can be heard here
All previous albums and reviews here

Test Transmission Archive Reel 27

Here we are with the last Test Transmission Archive Reel of 2016. I have quite a lot on at the mo trying to finish the next album which is out in 2017 so a tad busy. For your pleasure this time round we have Laurie Johnson Ultravox Current 93 Hotlegs The Rowen Amber Mill Paul Ferris Cybotron Concretism Implosion Ron Geesin Wire Broadcast The Gasman Dick Mills Listening Center Moon Duo Pye Corner Audio Cramps Nico Mark Hollis Pattern Forms and all sorts of audio oddness and shenanigans in between. So until 2017........or if/when I get round doing another mix, wrap up warm sleep tight against the old winter nights.

Folk Horror at The British Museum A Fine Day Out

 

On Sunday 16th Oct I got up very very early (5pm) and caught a coach to London. The reason for this is because I had a ticket for The Folk Horror Revival at The British Museum.

What a fine day it was indeed, despite the fact that a few days before I came down with a rather grim cold but thanks to some heavy duty cold and flu tablets and huge amount of throat lozenges I got through the day (should not have gone for drink the night before) Guest Speakers for the day were Andy Paciorek, Darren Charles, Eamon Byers, Iain Sinclair, Adam Scovell, James Riley and Gary Lachman. Also present and speaking at the Q & A was Shirley Collins. We were also very lucky to be present at the 1st Public Screening of Death and the Lady by Shirley Collins. Compare for the day was Chris Lambert (Songs from the Black Meadow)

Sadly I had to leave early to make a dash for my Coach so I missed most of the Q & A session where Jim Peters Darren Charles Andy Paciorek Sharron Kraus & Shirley Collins were joined onstage for this end session by Reece Shearsmith. I had a fine informative and wonderful day despite feeling grotty for the most of it.

Radio 4 The School is Full of Noises/John Paynter

How did tape loops, recycled everyday sounds and countless other weapons of the avant-garde find their way into school music lessons during the 1960s? That's the challenge for Ian McMillan as he sets out on the trail of one of music education's more unexpected byways.

It begins in an attic. Jonny Trunk is a collector of music's less travelled pathways, amongst them LPs of school children from the 1960s performing the most ambitious musical works imaginable. They have titles like 'Music for Cymbals', 'An Aleatory Game' and 'Don't Drink and Drive'.

So where did this all come from? Ian McMillan sets out to rediscover the creators of these musical curiosities, both the educators who conceived them and also the pupils themselves. Now in their 50s, what might the former pupils of the likes of Burnt Yates School and Hessington Primary make of those experiences from their youth?

Eventually Ian's travels take him to a dark place. A very dark place. In a cavern complex near Pateley Bridge he retreads footsteps taken by children not just for a recording project but also one of those schools documentaries we love to chuckle over at the distance of five decades. Only now can we discover what the class of '69 really thought of these ground-breaking musical adventures.

Missed this back in August, but finally caught up with it, and well worth the wait.
To hear this superb Radio 4 programme  go to here