A Couple of new tunes

Finally got round to recording again. Been a tad lazy these last few months, so used Christmas as a good time to start recording. Expect some more half baked ideas and musical nonsense from me at later date.

David Bowie 1947 - 2016

David Bowie 1947 - 2016

Folk Horror Revival: Field Studies Book and Music

My copy of Folk Horror Revival arrived recently and I can honestly say it is a wonderful book and a very fine read. So much is covered within the pages of the book that I really can not begin to list everything. Superbly put together it is the Brainchild of Andy Paciorek with contributions from some of the Songs from the Black Meadow travelers, Grey Malkin (of The Hare and the Moon) and Jim Peters (Melmoth the Wanderer/Septimus Keen) Available from here. Lots more info on the book at the Black Meadow Blog.

 Also worth checking out is this superb mix from Melmouth The Wanderer

Mr Palmer's Cards a Christmas Ritual

Every year for the past 9 years my friend Mr Palmer makes us a Christmas card. These cards take pride of place on this door. Every year the cards come out and are placed in the same spot on the door. We all have our favorites, and every year we inform each other which ones are our favs. We then sit around debating why certain cards are our favorites and the reason why this is. We will carry on doing this Christmas ritual until we run out of cards or the door gives up on us. This is the same Mr Palmer who wrote the wonderful notes The Walk for my present album A Rest Before the Walk.

Festive Greetings & Happy New Year you wonderful people out there

Whatever you all do. Have a very Merry Festive Break and a Happy New Year to you all.

A Few More Copies in the Ghostbox Guests Shop and Wire Magazine Review

Some more CD copies of A Rest Before the Walk are now available again in the Ghostbox Records Guests Shop. There are also a couple left on Bandcamp.

 

Also a review in the the January edition of Wire magazine

Its a Bumper Digital Discography Discount

Get all 4 Keith Seatman releases available on Bandcamp for £14. Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of A Rest Before the Walk, Around the Folly and Down Hill, Boxes Windows & Secret Hidey - Holes, and Consistently Mediocre and Daydreams  Digital Albums can still be purchased individually and CD copies still available from Bandcamp and The Ghostbox Records Guests Shop. 

Keith Seatman's science fiction landscapes explode with meekness that is undiscriminating as it is enthusiastic. Seatman is a talented sound designer, and it shines on his instrumentals. The icy disco sparkle and spare beats of I Wish I Wish I Wish over a sample of a breathless young girl lean toward something Chris & Cosey might have come up with. Once More with the Whirligig combines a folk-rhyme tongue twister chant with the kind of daddy-o cool, finger snapping hepcat pastiche of Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks soundtrack.
Wire Magazine 383 (Jan 2016)

 Who lives in that crumbling old house down the lane where no one ever leaves or enters, but whose lights you
see in winter if you walk down that way? Maybe it’s the unhinged posh sounding lady whose voice is sampled
on ‘Once More With The Whirligig’- “Never no more will we dance will we sing / In a whirligig ring to the old
woman’s tune on a bucket with a spoon / In the moonlight on Mondays”. It’s a startling, unsettling track that evokes occasionally felt uneasiness triggered by particular places or sounds, giving voice to some murky corner of our subconscious. There are plenty of standouts among the 14 tracks, but none more head-turning than the snappily titled ‘Along The Corridor 1st On The Left Room 2882’, which bottles the thrill and fear of the chase with adrenalised menace. We hear fast-paced footsteps in the dark, an old telephone endlessly ringing in some distant room and an increasing sense that our pursuer is closing in. Brilliant.
CARL GRIFFIN Electronic Sound Magazine (Dec 2015)

Keith Seatman is someone whose music I first heard in the context of my old experimental music zine, ‘WonderfulWooden Reasons’ and who’s album left me craving more. His latest, ‘A Rest Before the Walk’, is an utterly glorious selection of filmic folk and ghostly electronica that is utterly mesmerising from first to last.
Wyrd Britain (Nov 2015) 

‘A Rest Before the Walk’ is an essential listen, its tracks not only standouts on their own merits but also expertly interwoven into a coherent, effective overarching mood as a whole. Seatman has produced perhaps his best album to date and, given his earlier work is also indispensable and a must have, this is significant. Some might call this music hauntology, others electronica; what it is is a damn fine album that you need to hear.  

The Active Listener (Oct 2015) 

Around the Folly, Its sci-fi meets pagan - pastoral soundscapes fits the vibe of Giles Eyre’s spooky folly. Seatman’s odd melodies sit with industrial repetition to convey the scares of the synth laden themes and incidental scene setting pieces of early 70s through early 80s kids TV wondrously whilst at the same time creating an imagined history of this medieval building. Jim Jupp from the mighty Ghost Box contribute extra production (which is always a seal of approval) Jon Mills (Shindig Magazine issue 39 2014)

Boxes consists of 12 tracks of bubbly synths, chiming robotics and twangy guitars, recalling cheapo 50s sci-fi flicks, 60s spy movies and dusty old underwater nature docs, as filtered through an English seaside town perspective. An interesting entry into the odd genre of wibbly, weird electronica that's been nicknamed "Hauntology" Thomas Paterson (Shindig Magazine, June 2013) 

"Seatman is a kindred spirit, and this is his most evocative and personal sounding work to date."
Jim Jupp, (Ghost Box, 2013)

Detectorists

I will miss Mackenzie Crook's wonderful BBC 4 series Detectorists. For those of you that have not ever watched it, the series takes place in and around the small town of Danbury. Andy (Mackenzie Crook) and Lance (Toby Jones) are members of the DMDC (Danebury Metel Detectors Club) along with Sophie, Terry, Hugh, Russell, Louise and Varde. Over the course of the two series we witness life love betrayal greed disappointment and rejection at a wonderfully slow but never dull pace. Andy's long suffering partner Becky (Rachael Stirling) is a Teacher in a local school and is desperate to get out of Danebury and see life/the world before its all to late. All through the series Andy and Lance
are always searching/detecting for that elusive gold, that they never seem to find, and yet
always happiest when in a field detecting. A few interesting finds along the way, The Jim
fixed it for me medal, which gets rejected and put back in the ground. An enamel badge with
a strange inscription on the back which on closer inspection says Status Quo. The series is over now and I am feeling a tad ambivalent about it ending, and whether it needs a 3rd series or not. My logic here is that I just like the series the way it is, and if it ever went to a 3rd series that turned out to be not as good as the first two, then disappointment would def be the order of the day. Having said all that, I will look forward to the Christmas special on 23rd December. I must mention the lovely song The Detectorists sung by Johnny Flynn at the beginning of every episode which just sets us up for half hour of dare I say it perfect viewing. I shall be watching and enjoying Detectorists for years to come (DVD Box Set)

Electronic sound Magazine December 2015

A Review by Carl Griffin of A Rest Before the Walk from Decembers edition
of Electronic Sound CD and Digital from Bandcamp, CD from The Ghostbox Records Guests Shop

 

Wire Office Ambience

 

Very pleased to be included in The Wire Office Ambience this month.

The Wire Magazine 382

More CDs very soon (Thurs 12th). Reviews & Interview

More Cds arriving soon (Thurs Nov 12th) but if you can't wait why not go digital for your rest.
https://keithseatman.bandcamp.com/album/a-rest-before-the-walk 
https://ghostbox.greedbag.com/dept/~ghost-box-guests/
Keith Seatman is someone whose music I first heard in the context of my old experimental music zine, ‘WonderfulWooden Reasons’ and who’s album left me craving more. His latest, ‘A Rest Before the Walk’, is an utterly glorious selection of filmic folk and ghostly electronica that is utterly mesmerising from first to last.
Wyrd Britain (Nov 2015)
‘A Rest Before the Walk’ is an essential listen, its tracks not only standouts on their own merits but also expertly interwoven into a coherent, effective overarching mood as a whole. Seatman has produced perhaps his best album to date and, given his earlier work is also indispensable and a must have, this is significant. Some might call this music hauntology, others electronica; what it is is a damn fine album that you need to hear.
The Active Listener (Oct 2015) 
Admirers of the Ghost Box imprint will do well to take note that production credits, on an advisory capacity, come from Jim Jupp whilst on the sets three lightest moments – ‘broken folk’, ‘my morning ritual’ and ‘a rest before the walk’ Douglas E. Powell features applying vocal duties to such exquisite effect that on second named track something disorientating approaching Edward Ka-Spell donning youthful Peter Gabriel skins emerges while the latter mentioned woozily wanders into the fracturing shadow lands of Komeda albeit as though spirit guided by some hitherto dark twin of the Superimposers. 
The Sunday Experience (Oct 2015)
A Rest Before The Walk is a much bleaker album than Around The Folly And Downhill with a less pastoral feel and a starker, colder ’80s mood befitting the Sheffield bands or apocalyptic sci-fi and
slasher movies scores of the same time. It’s far from easy listening, but, like many of the Ghost Box releases, it washes over you like a fever dream and captivates the senses.
Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills (Shindig Issue 51 Oct 2015)
 Wyrd Daze Issue 4
Interview (some thoughts and ramblings from me)

 

Stone Tape Radio 4

I did enjoy Peter Stricklands re-imagined version of the Stone Tape Listen here.  Always loved the original ("ITS IN THE  COMPUTER") and was quite pleased with this radio adaption. The superb atmospheric Music and Sound Design was supplied by James Cargill (Broadcast) and Andrew Liles (Current 93 Nurse with Wound). John Doran from The Quietus reviews this new version in a dark cold crypt of a London Church.

Album Update 2

There are only 2 CD copies of A Rest Before the Walk available from Bandcamp. 
CD versions of the album can still be purchased from the Ghost Box Records Guests Shop.

If you would like a Digital copy of the album (or any of the others), then these can still be purchased from Bandcamp for £5.00.

Test Transmission Archive Reel 23 (2hr Post Punk)

Test Transmission Archive Reel 23 by Keith Seatman on Mixcloud

A few months back I re-read Simon Reynolds excellent book about the Post Punk years Rip it up and start again. All inspired, I decided that I was long over due in putting together a massive 2 hr Post Punk Mix. This mix is in no particular order. Some of you might point out that a few of the bands here are not really Post Punk....true maybe, in fact some of the bands here are def pre-punk, but there impact and presence was probably felt more musically in the post punk years. To wet your whistle we have music from Throbbing Gristle, Pere Ubu, Josef K, Metal Urbain, Young Marble Giants, Wall of Voodoo, Monochrome Set, PIL, Pop Group, Magazine, James Chance, The Raincoats, Wire and much much more. Anyway thats it for me mix wise this year. Time for a break. Its all been very busy what with the new album out this month and all other things, so until the next one thank you all for listening this year see you in 2016.

THE ACTIVE LISTENER: Keith Seatman - A Rest Before the Walk

THE ACTIVE LISTENER: Keith Seatman - A Rest Before the Walk: Reviewed by Grey Malkin ( The Hare & The Moon ) Hampshire’s Keith Seatman is a name that will be familiar to many from his previous...

New Album Update

The CD version  of A Rest Before the Walk has now SOLD OUT on Bandcamp. A Digital Version of the album can still be purchased from Bandcamp. If the mood takes you go digital. CDs are still available from The Ghost Box Guests Shop for the time being.
Thank you to everyone who have bought a copy of A Rest Before the Walk.

Available today from Ghost box Records Guests Shop

The new Keith Seatman album is finally here, and CD copies are available to purchase from The Ghost Box Records Guests Shop 
CD and Digital will also be available from Bandcamp on Monday 19th October.
There is for the time being only a limited number of CD copies from Ghost Box Guests shop so you might have to be swift.
The Album has so far been played a few times on 6 Music and has been reviewed by The Sunday Experience and interview in Wyrd Daze issue 4. There is also a very nice review in Shindig issue 51 which is due out very soon.
It’s far from easy listening, but it washes over you like a fever dream and captivates the senses. Jon Mojo Mills Shindig Oct 2015 Issue 51.
Those of you fancying some creeping dread psychosis purred disturbia in readiness to celebrate the season of death / rebirth will probably have to dig deep to find anything as out there, strange and eerie as Keith Seatman’s sinisterly shadow smothered ‘a rest before the walk’.  The Sunday Experience (Oct 2015)

BY OUR SELVES | Official UK Trailer - in cinemas 2nd October

Very much looking forward to seeing this. Sight and Sound Reveiw.

Wyrd Daze 4

There is an interview with me in issue 4 of Wyrd Daze. If you would like to read my ramblings and hear a track from the new album go to here and get yourself a copy.

New Album A Rest Before the Walk/The Ghost Box Guests Shop

I am very pleased to say that a limited number of CD copies of my new album A Rest Before the Walk (ksa.005) will be available to purchase from The Ghost Box Records Guests Shop in mid October. The CD and Digital download will also be available on Bandcamp at about the same time. Release date to be announced very soon.