Some Random Christmas thoughts and stuff

When I was growing up, we had some very chunky coloured lights on our Christmas tree.
Very much like the lights on the right side of this image.

It snowed once quite close to Christmas/or just after.
I look quite confused or bemused in this pictue. I loved that coat.

Picked this up some years ago. Love the cover and some very lovely songs on it.

Always wanted a Johnny Seven OMA for Christmas. But one year I got this...Flight Deck.

and an Airfix Pontoon bridge

A selection of the much treasured Christmas Annuals.
They are still with me and are happy living on the shelf.

A Christmas tradition to watch every year.

There are Christmas songs, and then there is Billy Childish Christmas 1979

Were you Scarred for life?

A few weeks back the Scarred for life CD was released. All (and I mean all) proceeds went to Cancer Research. It sold out almost instantly, but the good news is that more copies will be available in January 2020. I had the the priviledge of being invited to contribute a track to this mighty compilation. The idea was simple, all artists had to contribute a track that was in some way inspired by the "terrifying televisual sounds of our childhoods" The idea was concived by Kev (Soulless Party, Black Meadow) Oyston, Colin (Castles in Space) Morrison and Stephen (Scarred for Life Book) Brotherstone. My track Words from the Wireless was inspired by the 1972 ATV series Escape into Night which in turn was based on Catherine Storr's book Mariane Dreams.

There are so many artists/musicians that I like, admire and have listened to, who have contributed to this project; the list is vast and quite staggering.
A tip of the hat and a thank you to you all.

Scarred for life CD and Digi available from here.

There was a certain something about watching television in the 70s and 80s. The static crackle when you switched on your set. The faint smell of ozone as it slowly warmed up. The chunky buttons (including such flights of fancy as 'BBC3' and 'ITV2"). And, of course, the
programmes themselves. Whether it was HTV's seminal Folk Horror tinged children's classics 'Sky' or Children of the Stones, BBC1's fiercely intelligent 'adult-show-for-kids' 'The Changes' or ITV's everyday tale of alien possession, 'Chocky', the era was bursting with inventive, unforgettable and yes, terrifying shows. The only thing more memorable than the actual programmes were their theme tunes. The unique talents of Paddy Kingsland, Sidney Saget, Eric Wetherell, John Hyde and many more were responsible for the atmospheric, eerie soundscapes which formed the aural backdrop to our favourite shows. Which is where Kev Oyston (The Soulless Party) and Colin Morrison (Castles in Space) come in. They've corralled the best of today's innovative electronic musicians, and together they've created 'Scarred For Life: The Album', a collection of new music inspired by the terrifying televisual sounds of our childhoods.

All proceeds for this album will go to aid Cancer Research UK, a charity which is close to the hearts of some of our artists, one of whom is currently undergoing treatment for cancer.

Enjoy. And remember: DO have nightmares. They're good for you.

-Stephen Brotherstone & Dave Laurence, co-authors 'Scarred For Life Volume One: the 1970's'. September 2019. 

Time to Dream but Never Seen (Feb 28th 2020)

Time to Dream but never Seen.
Release Date Feb 28th 2020

 Credits
All Tracks written by
Keith Seatman
Except*
Seatman and Powell
Music
Keith Seatman
Words and Voice
Douglas E Powell 
Produced by
Keith Seatman and Jack Packer
© Keith Seatman 2019
Many Thanks to
Jim Jupp for Sleeve Notes and Audio Advice
Simon Heartfield Audio Advice
Jez Stevens for Video
Colin Morrison at Castles in Space
Nick Taylor for Artwork/Design
Antony at RedRed Paw Mastering

CiS would like to thank Spencer Robinson for
invaluable production support
Cat: CiS042

 Keith Seatman’s music is an anachronistically repurposed assemblage of sounds, melodies and technologies plundered from different time zones. Perhaps no surprise as he lives and records a stone’s throw from the jaded, yet jaunty seafront of Southsea in Portsmouth on the south coast of England. This album however is far from being a haphazard and spontaneous collage. Keith’s busy and dense soundworld is composed though a very deliberate and painstaking process. Unlikely musical and sonic juxtapositions artfully evoke a sense of place and narrative. This latest excursion is bad-trip psychedelia shot through with wistful and whimsical melodies and occasional haunted voices.
So, on Last One In for example, what could be a chirpy and exciting theme tune to a 1970s kid’s adventure series is modulated into a minor key by a sinister synth bass line and menaced by a stomping bother boy rhythm. In the opening track On to the Pier & Down to the Sea, the amusement arcade din is submerged in a watery digital swirl during. Likewise, on Tippy Toe Tippy Toe the tiddly-om-pom-pom of the pier is heard from the point of view some approaching aquatic creature or perhaps by a drowning man. This track heralds the closing section of the album which shifts focus from the seafront to its rustic precursor, the mayday fair. Something weird comes to the village in Waiting by the Window. Sounding as if late period Radiophonic Workshop (when they got hold of expensive synths) had popped back 15 years to work with their boffinish tape wielding forbears. It summons an atmosphere like a Nigel Kneale drama or one of those folk-horror inspired episodes of Dr.Who. 
Finally, the album’s title track seems to offer a chance of escape to a more rustic idyll 
with melancholy mellotron flute and mumbled nursery rhymes. But as the album 
closes it feels like a relentlessly inescapable holiday-special steam train drags us back
On to the Pier & Down to the Sea. Jim Jupp, Ghost Box Records   (extract Sleeve Notes) 

 

Test Transmission Archive Reel 38

A tad late but here is the last mix of the year. Should have put this up back in October but got sidetracked with other things. So for the end of the year for your listening pleasure there is Jodie Lowther, Johnny Flynn, Kate Tempest, Paddy Kingsland, The Utopia Strong, Gasman, Tomita, Geoff Love, Plone, Bellprover, Revbjelde, Misty Bywater and all sorts of other audio goodies (not The Goodies,but maybe next time) Have a good winter, enjoy yourselfs and keep warm.
"A simulated tree, you can sit round the tree"

Wyrd Britain: Alice Through the Looking Glass

Wyrd Britain: Alice Through the Looking Glass: In 1974 a young composer named Peter Howell joined the BBC Radiophonic Workshop where he stayed for the next 23 years composing some of ...

More info over the coming Winter months

More info over the coming Winter months
Castles in Space

Found Objects: You Will Go to the Moon By Mae & Ira Freeman

Found Objects: You Will Go to the Moon By Mae & Ira Freeman: Picked this up a few years ago. You Will Go to the Moon was part of the "I Can Read it All By Myself " Originally published in 19...

Undulating Waters 3/Woodford Halse

A project which evolved from the now defunct radio show You, the Night and the Music on Sine FM in Doncaster, Woodford Halse is now a tape label which brings you the best in electronic, psychedelic, experimental and folk sounds.
A while back I was invited by Mat Handley (You the night and the Music) to contribute a track to Undulating Waters 3. Undulating Waters is a series of Musical Cassette and Digi collections featuring new or exclusive recordings from underground artists from across the world. Musical artists included so far have been Polypores, Time Attendent, Revbjelde, Midwich Youth Club, Heartwood Institute, Grey Frequency, Field Lines Cartographer, Twelve Hour Foundation and absolutely loads more. My track on Undulating Waters 3 is called The Project Club. The superb design is by Nick Taylor (who I managed to meet at Deleware Rd + he has just done my new album artwork) and words by Paul Bareham.

Deleware Road Wiltshire (A Random Thought/Memory)

I will be attending the Deleware Road Ritual Resistance Festival this weekend. A tad excited as it will give me the chance to catch up and speak with many people. The Deleware Road is taking place in Wiltshire, just off the A360. It was as I was thinking about getting there that I had a random thought/memory. For one reason or another I have spent quite a lot of time out this way (lurking around Devizes, Avebury, Marlborough) and I remembered that one of the main images on my album A Rest Before the Walk is a photo of a Treeline on the A342 which is just along from Devizes and the A360. A few years back I was wandering along the A342 looking for interesting things to photograph and saw the tree line and realised instantly that it was going to be the main image and starting point for the artwork for A Rest Before the Walk. On the way there see if you can spot the treeline. As said I will be wandering about on the day, probably looking lost and confused.

View of Treeline from A342

Test Transmission Archive Reel 37!!!!!!!!

Here is Archive Reel 37. Something to plod along and tap your foot to over the summer. BTW I will be wandering around the Deleware Rd event on 17th Aug, if you see someone drinking to much coffee and looking a bit lost...it could be me. Final bit of info for you all is that the new album is all finished and is coming out in the New Year on Castles in Space. More on that at later date, so until then have a nice summer. tata.
Allan Grey - The Stairway To Heaven (Matter of Life and Death)
Drew Mulholland - RETURN TO THE DESOLATE SHORE
Scott Walker - Montague Terrace (In Blue)
The United States of America - Do You Follow Me
Tony Hatch - The Champions
Yvonne Baker - You Didn't Say A Word
Loose Capacitor - Theme From Robins Nest
Hopper, Kraus and Belbury Poly - The Devil and St. Dunstan
Joe Harriott John Mayer Double Quintet - Acka Raga
Marianne Faithfull - In the Night Time
PJ Harvey - The Crowded Cell
Simon Heartfield - Radial Theme
These New Puritans - Infinity Vibraphones
Steamhammer - Six Eight for Amiran
Messer Für Freu Müller - The Best Girl in the USSR
Spacemen 3 - Why Couldn't I See?
Snooze - Did I Give You Much?
Polypores - The Amateur Astronomer
Jockstrap - Hayley
Laurie Johnson - Las Vegas/Animal Magic

1969 Moonbase and More

What with it being 50 years since the Apollo Moon Landings, I thought it might be a good time to put my 1969 Space City Biscuit Tin on here. My friend Mr Palmer picked this up for me and it really is quite a lovely thing. In 1969 we were all so optimistic about space and the moon. The general assumption was that by the 1990s/end of the century we would be holidaying on the moon and there would be a rather splended Moonbase. On TV and Film we were constantly shown people living and working on the moon: Clavius Base in 2001, Moonbase Alpha in Space 1999, SHADO Moonbase in UFO (set in 1980) and even Hammer got in on the act with Moon City in Moon Zero 2 (set in 2021). Sadly of course in the real world none of this happened, even though I was convinced that it would. More on My fondness of all things 60s and 70s Spacewise can be sort out on Found Objects

 

SHADO/UFO Moonbase

Moonbase Alpha, Space 1999

Clavius Base, 2001

Moon City, Moon Zero Two

Found Objects: Finishing Line

Found Objects: Finishing Line: Monday, 2 May 2016 As far as 1970s Public info films go, The Finishing Line has to be the most overlooked and hard hitting of them a...

Found Objects: Creepy Dolls

Found Objects: Creepy Dolls: There really is not a lot I can say about these adverts. I think they speak for themselves. The words Freaky and Creepy spri...

A Super Summer CD EP Clear Out

Its time for a clear out and a tidy up. There are only 5 CD copies of The Disjointed Oddities and Other Such Things EP left. So with that in mind it is time for a Super Summer CD EP Clear Out. These last few copies are going for £2.50. So if you fancy a super summer audio bargin then bimble along to Bandcamp to grab your summer bargin.
Track five on the EP is a remix of the 2015 album track Broken Folk, the original version of Broken Folk can be heard on the album A Rest Before the Walk.
Broken Folk Spiricom Shakedown Remix is by Revbjelde who appear courtesy of Buried Treasure Records. Disjointed Oddities has been played by 6 Musics Stuart Maconie (Freak Zone) and Gideon Coe

Musically he walks a capricious, queasily disconcerting and idiosyncratic path. With his sounds balancing on the edges of radiophonic playfulness and acid folk's twisted pastoralism filtered through the dark prism of Coil-esque post-industrial decay he has assembled another collection of deliciously serpentine and indefinably nebulous psychedelia fueled by oneiric logic and arcadian phantasms.
Ian Holloway (Wyrd Britain July 2018)

A Child, the Hare and the Old Wooden Chair combines the cinematic retro-futurism of bands like Pram and Broadcast with samples and experimental sound-sculpturing. DIY psych-folk with haunted electronica, effectively juxtaposing woozy, spooky, surreal and spacey. A great set of tracks from this inventive experimental electronic artist.
Bliss aquamarine (July 2018)

The strange shuffling steam train beat, electronic whistles, creaks and a guide to etiquette at a party playing within, underline the complexities and delights of this exciting EP. The haunting beats and Cutleresque reminiscing are both haunting and strangely hilarious. Enjoy the heady hard stamping disco beats. Jump and nod your head in a frenzy of nostalgic enjoyment for a forgotten  future as the beat, sweeping synth and electro drum whoops sweep you along. musicforzombies (May 2018)

Something for 2020

New Album
Keith Seatman

Time to Dream But Never Seen
Jan/Feb 2020

Chactonbury Ring (Justin, Sharron and Belbury)

Due to my daytime employment I get the benefit of having most of the summer off (and 4 half terms) so at least once in the summer and Winter I take a walk up to the SouthDowns and onto Chactonbury Ring. The photo above was taken a couple of years ago in mid December. That day I never made it to the Ring, as the weather was so bad... and I mean really bad. The wind was vicious and the rain hurt; that was as close as I could get that day.
For those of you who might (and I mean might) not know, Chactombury Ring is situated on top of Chactonbury Hill in West Sussex. Originally it was a late Bronze Age Hill Fort. Legend has it that Chanctonbury Ring was created by The Devil and that he can be summoned by running around the clump of trees seven times anti-clockwise. If he appears he will then offer you a bowl of soup in exchange for your soul. I always take a flask of soup so I should be ok. There have been reports over the years of UFO sightings, Paranormal Activity and witchcraft. The Writer and Author Robert McFarlaine writes about a night spent at Chactonbury Ring in his book The Old Ways; were he is woken up in the night after hearing chilling cries outside his tent.
So imagine my excitement when Mr Jupp from Belbury sent me a copy of the new GhostBox release Chactonbury Rings by Justin Hopper Sharron Kraus with Belbury Poly (Release Date 21st June 2019)
A spoken word and music project by writer Justin Hopper and folk musician Sharron Kraus. It also features Ghost Box's own Belbury Poly. Based on live performances of Hopper's 2017 book The Old Weird Albion (publ. Penned in the Margins), it’s a poetical, autobiographical and psychogeographical account of his experiences at Chanctonbury Ring on the West Sussex Downs.
(Ghostbox Records)
At times reminiscent of the David Cain and Ronald Duncan’s The Seasons. This is a beautiful and perfect sounding album (All Music by Sharron Kraus except Chactonbury Rings by Jim Jupp and Slow Air by Sharron Kraus and Richard Heacock)  Sharron Kraus's voice/vocals on Wanderer are haunting and soothing while Justin Hoppers narration is composed calming and untroubled. He takes us on a wonderful spoken journey which we have to follow through from start to finish.

Test Transmission Archive Reel 36

Spring is here, and so is another mix (not really Spring related) This time round for your listening delight we have: Sexton Ming, DJ Shadow, Concretism, Wire, David Essex, Dukes of the Stratosphear, Family, The Twelve Hour Foundation, Talk Talk, Ashtoreth and Grey Malkin, Andy Partridge, Yuri Morozov and so much more lurking in the wobbly old mix.
Got to spend the next few months getting the new album ready for early 2020,
So until the next one...TATA

TV Thrillers and Chillers with the Parents

Here are a couple of 1970s evening Thrillers and Chillers. I have very fond memories of watching these with my parents. I always seemed to be drawn to the intros and the music 1st, before I
had even seen a full episode. Orsen Wells Tales of Mystery ran from 73 to 74. Each episode ran for 30 mins and was a different tale every week, introduced by... Orsen Wells. The superb intro music was by John Barry.The DVD is set for UK release in July 2019

 

Another 70s fav was the ATV anthology series Thriller. This always went out on a Saturday night at 9pm. The series ran from 73 to 79. Some epsodes were supernatural and spooky some were mysteries and basic who dunits. My personal fav is Nurse will make it better starring Diana Dors, Patrick Troughton and Ed Bishop. Again I loved the intro music, which was composed by Laurie Johnson. The series was picked up on in USA, but changes were made to some episode titles (Nurse will make it better was changed to The Devils Web and Video release Night Nurse)
USA trailer here.

A couple of fine releases for April

A couple of fine new releases have arrived round here recently.

First up is this absolute stunner from Buried Treasure Records

DREW MULHOLLAND / THREE ANTENNAS IN A QUARRY
Based on an original score by Delia Derbyshire.

Drew (Mount Vernon Arts Lab) became friends with Delia Derbyshire in the late 1990's. They spoke often about electronic sound, the arts, her time at the BBC & beyond. Delia sent him a copy of a graphic score written in the late 1960s & gave her blessings to a new interpretation. Three Antennas In A Quarry (BUTR28) is a 12 track, 10" LP of dark, ambient soundscapes based on Delia's score & is released on Buried Treasure this April. With sleeve notes by Drew Mulholland & an extremely rare image of Delia Derbyshire from the mid-1970s.  

Release Date is April 13th 2019

and is available to pre-order from
Buried Treasure Records Band Camp

Next up is
Douglas E Powell and The Rising Spirit
Overnight Low 
CD and Digi download
Release Date April 15 2019
Douglas E. Powell – Vocal, Guitars
Jason Pratt – Fiddle, Backing Vocal
Simon Murfet – Drums & Hand Percussion
Cover Art - Keith Seatman
Forward - Russell McAlpine

  

Douglas E. Powell is a UK based songwriter, lyricist and performer. A key figure on the South West UK music, he is a seasoned performer and a familiar face at summer festivals around the UK. Powell has also supported a variety of artists such as: Ben Ottewell from Gomez, Tom Hingley of the Inspiral Carpets and Peter Bruntnell. In collaboration with Keith Seatman and Belbury Poly the Broken Folk EP has been featured on 6 Music with plays from Gideon Coe and Stuart Maconie’s Freak Show. Powell has two released albums as a solo artist: The Still and West and The Iron Coast. In 2015 Powell teamed up with the Rising Spirit to produce Good Men Get Lost At Sea. Overnight Low is their second album together.
Powell has a distinctive voice somewhere along the tradition of Bert Jansch, Richard Thompson and Bill Fay. His warmth and personal approach to song writing also bring to mind the work of classic artists from in the folk tradition from David Crosby to Billy Bragg. The Broken Folk project was released by Ghost Box is and altogether different spectre, recalling John Foxx or the electronic paths sometimes travelled by Robert Wyatt.

A bit of an update

There are now only 5 CD copies of Disjointed Oddities and Other Such Things left on my Bandcamp site
The Broken Folk 10inch EP is still available from the re-vamped and new looking
Belbury Music Shop.

My last album was All Hold Hands and Off we Go in 2017 and I spent most of 2018 working on the 2 EPs and Tracks for A Year in the Country and Wyrd Kalendar

I do have plans to release another album sometime, tunes have been recorded and at present its lots of listening back and whittling the tracks down to maybe a dozen.
At present really not sure when or how it will be released.
I have recorded a track for A Year in the Country for relese later in the year.
When I do know what I am doing (do I ever ???)
I will post all info here and on Twitter