Cabs, Cabs, Cabs...

Cabaret Voltaire - No Escape

There's a moment in Red Riding where the Coppers raise their glasses and say, "To The North! Where we do what we like." You realise with a shudder that they are talking not only of themselves, but of Sutcliffe and the Moors Murderers. It was as if they believed an amoral licence had been granted. The North never recovered, and neither should it.

So what of the music? This is a long way from The Hacienda and The Stone Roses. Throbbing Gristle's "Very Friendly" presented Brady and Hindley in a documentary style. No fiction could be more appalling. Meanwhile, Sheffield got analogue circuitry. Enter The Human League, Heaven 17 and Cabaret Voltaire.

"Cabaret Voltaire" is, of course, lifted from the Dada Movement. Not only did this prove that the lads had bought the odd Thames & Hudson guide, it offered a link to another bunch of young people who were trying to be creative despite horror: the Dadaists were fresh from the trenches of World War One, so they could be excused the odd costumes and sound poetry. It certainly made more sense than Verdun.

What is great about "Methodology '74/'78: Attic Tapes" is the sense of hacking out ideas through spools of tape. This is exactly like John Cale's great minimalist blowouts (Stainless Gamelan/Dream Interpretation/Sun Blindness Music) and Angus Maclise's trove of releases, strings snapping on the cimbalum and Tony Conrad drawling out notes like slow rain clouds. All three present their love of recording not the perfect take but the great, fresh idea, even if a member of the New York Fire Department turns up and tells you to stop it (that's on the Cale set. It's very funny).

There you have it. Love of the moment, love of the idea, love of tape, love of fun, love of noise, love of discovery, love of the document. Despite all, love. Didn't see that coming, did you.

Buy - Cabaret Voltaire - Methodology, The Attic Tapes, 1974-1978
Visit - Cabaret Voltaire @ Brainwashed

Mike.

Sandfingers - The Devil's Sea

Ok - just like The Chasms and The Phantom Carriage, Sandfingers required no planning. Turn up, find a riff, find a noise, use the words you have on the day, leave it alone for a while, go back when you feel like it, add bits, take bits away, release it.

A long time ago, I gave up thinking about what I wanted to do in favour of just doing something, anything. Action. I lapse every now and again and I always regret it. If we had thought about it too much, we would not have come up with Sandfingers. If we'd thought at all, The Chasms would have come nowhere close to "Occult Soul Review", and I love that track as if it were recorded by the Butthole Surfers when they were still on Alternative Tentacles. And that, Ladies & Gentlemen, is an awful lot.

As for the words, I take what I'm given by The Muse and I always say thank you. The Crowley material comes from "The Vision & The Voice", a book that is widely available on download and well worth a look if you enjoy being perplexed. Let's just say it's a very strange take on the "What I Did On My Holidays" genre. The bits I lifted were sections where he emerges from trance/ritual. The human moments are what interest me the most. I don't care if Edward Kelley raised the dead in Walton-Le -Dale, only what was going through his mind at the time and did he go for chips afterwards.

There's acres of folk in there, of course: not just "Willie - O", but flowers for the boats, a storm in the Lounge Bar, mermaids and railway lines that vanish into fiction. Just like the characters that turn up for The Chasms. Use the words you have on the day.

My scale is a tide table. High Water 1053, Height 32.2, full moon full moon.

Visit - Command to Destroy
Visit - Sandfingers at Bandcamp [free download]

Mike.

Bring Something For The Barbecue...

Hermann Nitsch - String Quartet (Sound-Walls) In The Chestnut Grove

Ok. Hermann Nitsch. You can spiel about depth psychology and atavism all you like, rolling around in intestines is not my idea of a fun night out. But I've always been a victim of my curiosity, so when I found "Das 6-Tage-Spiel Des Orgien Mysterien Theaters: 5-Tag" over on UbuWeb there was nothing else to do but bypass what I found repulsive in his work, download the whole damn thing and listen to it at volume. It took me three or four days on and off, usually walking around.

Mr Anorak kicked in immediately. "Oooh, that's really well recorded...I wonder what mics they used?". Bells, ducks, cheers, head crushing free improv blowouts, bier keller oompah, engine noises, all nice and clear.

After about three hours, I realise that I wasn't bored. A normal person would be bored. That cheered me up.

Then I started to wonder why a figure who is supposedly anti-Catholic could have much use for Gregorian Chant and dirty great big bells. What you oppose defines you as much as what you love. Possibly more.

I walked the four miles from work to home listening to the middle section. Did it a good twenty minutes faster than normal.

And at the end of it all, I feel as if my genes have been restructured, that I have in some way been physically changed.

Great art? Not a clue. Do I like it? I'm not sure I do. Effective? Yes.

Visit - Hermann Nitsch
Visit - Hermann Nitsch at UbuWeb

Mike.

Cindytalk & The Chasms vs Bristol...

I promised myself I wasn't going to gush too much while I wrote this post, I'm going to try my best anyway...

Twenty five years ago I first heard Cindytalk. They changed me.
Twenty five years later I was finally in the position to ask Cindytalk to play a gig with us.
They accepted.
Erm...
I'm a little bit happy about this.

Cindytalk have been one of the most consistent bands in my life over the last quarter of a century. I mean that on two levels. For one, they've always been there around about my stereo, never too far out of reach to be played when they're needed. And secondly they've always, without exception, released stunning records. I really don't think I can describe their releases in any other way. Simply stunning.

So this gig is going to be just a little bit special for me (and hopefully you too).
Not only are we playing with Cindytalk in one of their very rare excursions outside of London (not counting outside the UK), but there is also local band Eftus Spectun on the bill.
And if that wasn't enough towards the end of their set Cindytalk will be interacting with Blackmass Plastics [Manx born DJ living in Bristol], who will carry on after the band and finish the night off in grand style.
And all this will be taking place in one of the best locations for a gig in the UK, The Cube Cinema in Bristol.

So to recap, I'm a little bit happy about this.

Visit - Cindytalk
Visit - The Chasms
Visit - Eftus Spectun
Visit - Blackmass Plastics
Visit - Cube Cinema
Visit - Graeme Swinton - Artwork & Design

Simon
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The Path to The Chasms...

I was asked recently what were our influences and came up with the easy choices (The Fall, VU, Sonic Youth, FSA, MBV, etc) but I said I might have been listening to Coltrane all week or Echo & The Bunnymen or Jackson Browne continuously and that may have had as much influence (Mike & Simon's choices excluded). Or when we did the recording I may have been more swayed by my daughter's singing or my son's rhythms on a chair.
It's obvious we've assimilated all the guitar noise we know, thrown out nearly all of it as it won't fit in the backpack, had a swig of Makers Mark and then taken the fork in the road. Therein life makes its footprint felt.

The tangled guitar line in 'A Copse of Trees' isn't going to come from Lee Ranaldo, though the sound might. In my mind all my guitar playing is Jackson Pollack.
Look at 'The Occult Soul Review'. Which oddly enough has turned out to be a commercial track in terms of getting us into Dandelion Radio's Festive 50 at number 3. It starts with bombastic riffage of sorts and goes into teaspoon noise before the hummable bass-line drops in and the completely meandering feedback riff shifts in it's chair like ants in its pants for the whole song, and Mike tells three stories in a dropped cards sort of sequence and by the end of the song my old fashioned is finally ready to drink.

Further down the path, the obvious choice for Manx poet laureate is Mr Mike Seed.
No question.


Richard.

On Tour?

[Many thanks to Graeme Swinton for the ace artwork on our records and posters.]

Do two dates count as a tour?
Anyway, these are more than very likely going to be the only dates we play this year.

We're playing on Saturday 5th of May at The Windmill in Brixton as part of the wonderful Oddbox Weekender. For ticket information for this event please go here.
Please also note that tickets are already moving pretty quickly, so best hurry up.

And as for us playing at The Cube Cinema in Bristol on the 4th of May, we will have some very exciting news soon regarding the line-up. Also once we know the times and how much it is to get in then I'll let you know right here first.

We hope to see you in London or Bristol, or both. Come and say hi.

Visit - Oddbox Records
Visit - The Windmill, Brixton
Visit - The Cube Cinema
Visit - Evil Swinton

Simon.
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January 18th... Blackout...

A message from Kenneth Goldsmith:

"UbuWeb will blackout on Weds, January 18th for 24 hours to Protest SOPA & PIPA. If SOPA passes, you can kiss UbuWeb goodbye.
Remember, the web won't be this way forever. Don’t bookmark. Download. Download.
Download. Everything on Ubu is downloadable. Hard drives are cheap. Grab what you need. Don’t trust the cloud. Stop SOPA."

Ok - Ubuweb is the best resource of avant material anywhere, and probably of any time. At the moment I'm wandering around listening to a combination of Trevor Wishart, Scratch Orchestra, Bill Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Cornelius Cardew. And there are acres of other wonderful things, all legally downloadable, all for you to take away.

Mr Goldsmith is correct. It is a world of glorious head spinning material.

Go and get it while you can!

Visit - UbuWeb
Visit - Jacket 2

Mike.

Cool Serbia....

I think this band are going to be doing pretty well in 2012 if this first track is anything to go by.

Cool Serbia are a guitar pop band from Austin, Texas and feature Raz, Renan and Caleb. Renan used to be in Ringo Deathstarr.

Visit - Cool Serbia @ Bandcamp
Visit - Cool Serbia @ Facebook

Simon
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2011, What We Got Up To...

So I was was thinking what we'd collectively done this year and got the impression we'd had a quiet year on releases, but as it turns out, between us we've released four albums, which isn't too bad I guess. And on top of that The Chasms have recorded a session for Pete Jacksons's Dandelion Radio show, which will be released on Monday (2nd January) to download, and sometime shortly after that to buy on CD.
So all in all it's ended up quite a busy year, although we didn't play live, but we already have a couple of gigs planned for 2012. More on them closer to the time.
So anyway, here's a quick(ish) roundup of what was released in 2011...

First up was Richard's solo album...



Then we had a new album from myself (Simon) and Mike's long running (approximately 15-20 years) side project The Phantom Carriage...



We got one review for this album, it's in German, but a rough translation reads...
"the gentlemen Mike Seed & Simon Pott behind The Phantom Carriage here a masterpiece in terms of Electronica deliver that in the same league as publications by Massive Attack, Leftfield, Portishead, Aphex Twin etc.."
The Phantom Carriage - III, reviewed at Kultur [terrorismus]


Next up was the first (and only) full band release of the year...



This was our third album and just happened to be the one that got us our first proper reviews, and very good they were too...
"The greatest band to appear this century."
The Chasms - Alchemical Postcards, reviewed at Unwashed Territories
Alchemical Postcards was also rated as the second best album of the year at Unwashed Territories. Thank you Mark.
"it may very well already be too late for the Isle of Man."
The Chasms - Alchemical Postcards, reviewed at The White Noise Revisited
"BRUTALS"
The Chasms - Alchemical Postcards, reviewed at L’Apartment 18


And then came Mike in collaboration with The Language of Light which was released as part of a split 12" with Stone Breath on the flip-side, 'The Aetheric Lamp'...
Mike Seed with the Language of Light - Grendel At Long Mynd by AntiClock


This release can be bought from our good friends at AntiClock.

There have been quite a few reviews of this, here's a few snippets...
"Mike Seed and Language of Light mix drone, atmosphere and vocals to devastating effect, the opening track “Commit to Water”, getting straight into it, a rattling haze of sound offering a sonic background to the almost spoken vocals, each element drifting in and out of the mix in a cloud of atmosphere."
The Aetheric Lamp reviewed at The Terrascope
"Mike Seed's voice sounds tormented and the pieces almost like murder ballads. Much more radical, less musical, free form etc this side leaves a mighty impression on me."
The Aetheric Lamp reviewed at Vital Weekly
"Bearing in mind the darker path of Mike Seed, it seems that his take on The Ætheric Lamp is perhaps a more traditional one as there wasn’t much “light” to be found on his side of the split. If anything, it seems that the illuminating nature of his will to go on in the current world is the brightest part of his side."
The Aetheric Lamp reviewed at Heathen Harvest

So that's all the proper releases covered. The Chasms did record a track for 'Five Years' double album download to celebrate 5 years of the wonderful Dandelion Radio. The track was a slightly different mix of 'A Copse of Trees'. The download was only available throughout June and July via Unwashed Territories on Bandcamp.
The Phantom Carriage also recorded a track for The Oneirocritical Society which is a project curated by AntiClock.
The Phantom Carriage - 1st of July 1986 (Dream 1) by AntiClock



And to finish off the year we had the best news ever. The Chasms were voted into the number three spot in this years Official John Peel Festive 50 which has been hosted by Dandelion Radio since John's untimely passing. The track that made it was 'The Occult Soul Review'.

This now makes three years on the trot we've managed to get into the top 5.
So for all the people who voted for us in the Festive 50, and to all those that have downloaded or bought any of these releases and enjoyed them we hope you've had a great year.

Many thanks,

Simon
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Visit - The Chasms - Website
Visit - The Chasms - Bandcamp
Visit - Command To Destroy - Website
Visit - Command To Destroy - Facebook
Visit - Richard Quirk - Bandcamp
Visit - The Phantom Carriage - Website
Visit - The Phantom Carriage - Bandcamp
Visit - AntiClock - Website
Visit - The Official John Peel Festive 50 at Dandelion Radio

A Copse of Trees...

The dreamt landscape of The Ayres provokes a little fear
Such as that felt by dogs for their masters
Croft nearby, long gone
Reason for planting this copse of trees is unclear
Unclear
Held shot
Static camera
This allows the imagination to enter
What will occur here?
Allow the characters to enter separately please
The copse, a stage
Let them act out what this place implies

Woman, mid thirties, trouser suit, dark blue
Small case which she places carefully down, and then picks up again
Every ten steps she does this as if carrying something very heavy
Sunlight
Herself at the edge of clouds
Shadows, clean shadows, cloud shadows
Seen now from further away
Wide screen
Slow progress of her steps towards the trees
The trees barely move in the wind
The geography of the sky mapped out on the land
We reflect
Who wishes to read it?

Cut to close-up of the case covered in stickers
Hotels in France, Germany, America
Case edged in black
Camera closer still
Camera closer still
Something inside
Some history, some kind of history
A scratching noise
Scratching noise

Close up of her face
Looks directly into the camera
Descend into slow motion as she closes her eyes
Cut to darkness

The case interior
Scratch
Scratch
Scratch
Scratch

History
Why bring history here?
Last thing that happened here was a glacier
Then the copse, nothing else
This place does not encourage event other than nature, which it could not prevent
It would have done if it could have done
Why bring history here?

Rainfall
Second character emerges from the dunes
Avoids the remains of a fire
Broken bottle glass
Perhaps he is part of the rain
Sudden grey eyes, shifting
How does the rain appear?
He appears middle aged, black suit, pained
Runs a hand through the hair, overlong, un-businesslike
A tattoo on the back of the left hand
Cassiopeia, the constellation, picked out in tiny blue dots
What does he represent?
What coalesced within him
The outward signs indicate purpose
And unease
He is ours to guess upon

Cut to shot amongst trees
Sound of breath
Sighs
Low notes

Perhaps a cello
Movements at the boundary
Not the characters so far introduced
Others are here
We are not close enough to identify
Unfocused
Show the faces you have
Please show the faces you have
No, never mind

Cut to darkness
Cut to a shot of the copse
Sky altered
Darker, darker
Perhaps we have woken up something

Plane overhead, light aircraft
A distracting narrative

Another character
We see only his back
He holds a book
How long do we see him?
He holds a book
What book?
Show your face
Show your face

I can't make them
Why can't I make them?

They are not my characters
These are not my characters
These are not my characters
These are not my characters
They are not mine
They are not mine

The coalesced figures at the edge of the frame darting now
Footfall on dead ground
They are barely here
As I am barely here
As I am barely in this place

Reveal the book, the fiction
Reveal the fiction
Holds it to his face
Turns to camera

Airplane noises return
Man disappears
Book becomes transparent
Layered words drift through the frame
Reappear
Distant now
Becoming several movements obscured by text

Scene fades
A few words stay
Unfocused
Unwelcome
Unfocused
Unwelcome
Unfocused
Unwelcome
Unfocused
Unwelcome

Download From - The Chasms (Free)
Download From - Command to Destroy (Free)
Download From - The Chasms @ Bandcamp (Free)

Simon
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