Mushrooms and Moonboots

Here’s another piece that didn’t see the light of day in its intended slot. Gary ‘Moonboot’ Masters, of Magic Mushroom Band fame, self-published his autobiography last year through Amazon’s print-on-demand programme and came up with a highly entertaining and vivid memoir that many blog readers would no doubt relish – and many, including myself, will delight in reading about characters from the free festival scene who they themselves have encountered over the years! Again, I’ve resisted the temptation of adding to the original review, hence it remains at the standard 200-words beloved of most music press print magazines.

A self-published memoir could so easily go wrong that it’s difficult to approach without a sense of caution even though we love that Masters, of free festival favourites Magic Mushroom Band, is keeping the DIY ethic alive with this autobiography (corporate Amazon aside, naturally). At the outset, his highly colloquial writing style makes that caution seem well-placed. Where was the sharpened editorial pencil? But yet...

There’s method here. These are coarse and fruity recollections that wander through his formative years in Acton, his enthusiasm for Pink Fairies, Gong and Motörhead, and on to the festival scene and MMB, with his personality stamping itself on one wacky happening after another, ducking and diving and making things happen through sheer will. He brings the 70s and 80s head movement to life so brightly that you can smell patchouli and it doesn’t matter that the rules of grammar and spelling are eschewed because it has life to it.

Sometimes that life is tragic – it’s not unexpected that there are self-inflicted casualties along the way given the environment and characters that Masters relays, but what’s great is that it’s also a story about living it out of the back of a van or on-site at Stonehenge and creating something out of almost nothing.

Paul Roland - Interview

Here’s a piece I wrote a few years back for a particular destination; things changed, people moved-on and the feature didn’t end-up being used. These things happen and that is part of the freelancer’s lot – but its been sitting on my hard drive hoping to find another home and it seems a shame not to let it out into the open. It’s an interview on Paul Roland’s early work and the labels upon which it appeared. I thought about going back to the source interview and expanding it – and would do if anyone visiting sees this piece and wants it for a print or electronic publication, but for now, here it is in its original submitted form.

Spread across numerous labels, including such highly collectable imprints as Bam Caruso and Imaginary, and with Robyn Hitchcock, Andy Ellison and Nick Saloman amongst his esteemed collaborators, British psych-pop guru Paul Roland’s back catalogue is an eclectic mix of psychedelic, goth, folk-rock and baroque styles, worthy of re-evaluation. Thirty years ago, as a nineteen-year-old, he dug deep and financed one side of a double A-side single, ‘Oscar Automobile’, setting out on his singular path, creating inventive and wide-ranging music that took its central vibe from psychedelia and its themes from writers like Wells, Verne and Lovecraft.

Since releasing his first LP, Werewolf of London, Roland has enjoyed creative peaks and endured fallow periods. In 1997 he walked away from the music business completely and was unheard from as a musician for the next seven years, but he’s re-emerged with very strong new albums on the Italian label, Black Widow (Pavane, Re-animator) and Germany’s Syborg Records (Nevermore), whilst his 1980s albums have also been refurbished on Syborg.

Most fans would take Werewolf of London as your starting-point, but tell us about ‘Oscar Automobile’, which pre-dates Werewolf...

Oh, dear! My initial influence was Marc Bolan; I was totally immersed in his work, particularly Tyrannosaurus Rex, Electric Warrior and The Slider. My original songs were very Bolanesque. I did that single with fellow Bolan fan, John Danielz, who’s now leader of the T-rextasy tribute band. Releasing our own single was a very practical thing to do; we shared the costs, his song was on one side, and mine was on the other. We got no airplay, but we sold them all.

What name was this under?

This was as Weird Strings. John later released another single, ‘Criminal Cage’, using the Weird Strings name, but I’m not on that. I saw a copy on E-bay recently for £40 where the listing suggested I played on the record – I definitely didn’t!

Was there a follow-up to ‘Oscar Automobile’?

We went to do a second single, but John’s track didn’t work out so I took over the session. That was ‘Public Enemy’, released under the name Midnight Rags. John Peel played it a couple of times, which was encouraging. In those days, if you released your own record, Rough Trade would take a hundred, Bonaparte Records in Croydon... these guys were used to selling indie stuff.

What was the turning point?

I went to Geoff Travis at Rough Trade and played ’Oscar’ to him. He said it wasn’t the sort of thing he could put on his label, but that I’d have no trouble selling a thousand. That was the moment when I knew that I could write sings. If he’d have just said, “Oh, you can’t sing” or “this is rubbish,” I might not have continued.

So you went from those singles to your first Midnight Rags LP, Werewolf of London?

Some of the tracks worked wonderfully, ‘Blades of Battenburg’ and ‘Lon Chaney’, but my preoccupation with Bolan, and with horror movies, showed my immaturity. I had good quality musicians, the songs were interesting, the lyrics intriguing and the voice was unusual, so I came across as someone with his own vision even if the record was uneven and self-indulgent. But there was enough good stuff to make some headway.

Leading to your first ‘proper’ label?

I’d written a Marc Bolan biography, so one paper did a feature with me as the author of the Bolan book but also as an artist inspired by him. Tom Hibert, of New Music News, recommended Armageddon Records, managed by Richard Bishop, which had The Soft Boys and Knox of The Vibrators in their roster. Richard was unconvinced, he thought Werewolf... was a bit patchy, but I told him I was going to re-record a few songs and substitute others for better ones I’d written since. He heard the new material and agreed to put it out.

How long did that relationship last?

Richard got in touch with an off-shoot of RCA; they’d heard ‘Blades of Battenburg’ and wanted to put it out as a single, but they couldn’t get the mix right. Then Nems Records came along and bought me out of the Armageddon contract, reimbursed Richard for his investment in pressing the album and destroyed them.

 

Did any leak out?

The first version of the album was on the studio’s own label, that’s with a black and white cover and they pressed a thousand. The Armageddon release is the one with the colour cover, and I think Richard sold a few hundred. I guess he’d pressed about three thousand of those and shipped Nems the unsold copies. Nems didn’t come up with the promised advance, so I left them.

What’s the most unlikely label you’ve been associated with?

After Werewolf... I recorded an unreleased Bolan song with Andy Ellison, of John’s Children and Radio Stars, and Knox of The Vibrators; I wanted to put that out under the group name Beau Brummel. Rocket Records, Elton John’s company, offered to release it but then they discovered it was an unreleased Bolan song and they needed to get it into the lawyers. Because it hadn’t been ‘published’ it couldn’t be covered, so they dropped it.

Was it eventually released?

Yes, it was ‘Hot George’. I put it out, as Beau Brummel, on my own label, Moonlight Records. But I was floundering and for three years I didn’t write any music. I’d tried a second Midnight Rags album but the songs weren’t properly developed.

What happened to those songs?

Some got used on my first ‘proper’ album, but others just gathered dust until I reissued the Werewolf album and included them as extras. Someone started a website to campaign for the album to be reissued, so there was interest in it. Some people think it’s a seminal album of the Goth period.

What was your first single under your own name?

That was ‘Dr. Strange’, which Andy Ellison co-produced and sang on. I’d finally found my style, a general fantasy theme with a psych-pop edge to it. I released that on Aristocrat Records, but even completists seem unaware that it also came out on the Irish label Scoff. I’d been in Dublin on holiday and done interviews there with Hot Press and RTE radio and so got some attention.

Your most obscure collectable?

That would be ‘The Cars That Ate New York’, which was pressed just before the Armageddon deal in 1980; Richard Bishop persuaded me to have them all melted-down to clear the slate for Werewolf..., but I’d already posted out a couple of dozen promos. If anyone’s tracked a copy down, they’ve done better than I have!

You moved on to associations with some highly collectable labels...

Around 1985 I went back to Armageddon, then called Aftermath, with some of the aborted Midnight Rags album, songs like ‘Captain Blood’, ‘Puppet Master’, and ‘Cairo’. I added some new songs and released a mini-album, Burnt Orchids. Then I attracted the attention of Alan Duffy, who was to form Imaginary Records, but then had a tape-only label called Acid Tapes and issued a cassette of Burnt Orchids and Werewolf of London tracks. It was a wonderful time; he’d ring me up and tell me about American magazines that wanted to review it or interview me. So when he started Imaginary and asked me to contribute to his Syd Barrett covers project, I was happy to. Later he did other tribute projects, but I didn’t want to get a name for covering other peoples’ songs.

 

Then you were on Bam Caruso for Danse Macbre?

That was a label I was very keen to be on, and happy to be in their stable. That album was half finished when I arrived at Bam Caruso, and they provided a studio and a producer, which I didn’t really need but that was the package and I accepted it on the understanding I’d have final approval of the mixes. But when I’d finished the recordings they put some terrible plastic-sounding keyboard sounds on it, and when I objected they refused to honour the agreement.

By this time you’d started to get deals with European labels...

Well, fanzine editors in different countries introduced me to labels that they liked, so I was on New Rose in France, Pastell in Germany, Diva in Italy, and Di Di Music in Greece. Suddenly I was recording an album and four different labels were issuing it.

Since your music is very English in its settings, what do you attribute European interest to?

There was a 60s revival, for want of a better expression. When I went on tour in ’86, I noticed the fans were dressing in Carnaby Street clothes, or if you went to somebody’s house there’d be posters up of Barbarella or The Avengers; I think they saw me as this ‘60s creature come to life, this Adam Adamant character with the cloak and the top hat. I asked the guy at Bam Caruso, ‘How long do you think this ‘60s revival will last?’ He looked blankly at me because, to him, it was his entire world and always had been.

You recorded A Cabinet Of Curiosities for New Rose...

I didn’t want them to just put out another compilation, so I wrote a new mini-album with lots of strings and harpsichords. I wrote any crazy idea that came into my head, so it was quite whimsical. Things like ‘Wyndham Hill’, about an Edwardian flying machine. I remembered nick nicely, who did the ‘Hilly Fields’ single a few years before, I wasn’t thinking about it as a Beatles pastiche, I liked the strings on it and its pastoral psychedelia, so he came and sang on seven tracks.

Are there any contributions to other musicians’ work that collectors might not know about?

I sang on Knox’s Plutonium Express album, just one track, ‘Love Is Burning’. I also produced an album, Reds, by an Italian band called The Gang, which came out on Sony. I’ve had a lot of people guesting on my own albums. When I was on Armageddon, Richard Bishop sent Knox and Robyn Hitchcock to play on the second Midnight Rags album. Richard had suggested I call Robyn, but not to be intimidated because he’d always answer the phone by saying, “Pieces of Eight, Pieces of Eight,” like a parrot! Robyn played backward lead guitar on a track called ‘Madelaine’, but he just played this one note that was buzzing like a demented bee, so I got my regular guitarist to play a conventional backward lead over the top.

It seems like there are a lot of different versions of your vinyl for the dedicated collector to track down?

I’d assumed that if I was offered a release by a label in France, or Italy, or Greece that those albums’ distribution would stay within those countries. I was a bit naive, I didn’t realise that UK fans, for instance, would feel obliged to buy those editions. I thought that by authorising a release to a small label in, say, Germany, I’d be reaching a new audience... which I did as well, but it adds to the confusion that is my discography.

Tell us about some of the varied editions of your catalogue?

The first 1,000 copies of the German compilation House Of Dark Shadows, on Pastell, came with a bonus single. The first 500 copies of Confessions Of An Opium Eater, which Di Di Music released in Greece, had a free radio sessions 7”, whereas the second and third pressings were on coloured vinyl but without the EP. There’s another coloured vinyl, a German single called ‘At The Edge Of The World’, released in 1989 on Bouncing. New Rose added a free 7” EP with initial copies of A Cabinet Of Curiosities and Happy Families. I included my reading of one of my short horror stories with a 1986 12” EP, Death Or Glory, and that’s never been otherwise released. I wanted to make every record special, really.

You’ve not had the collecting bug yourself then!

As a Bolan fan I used to collect radio sessions and live versions of songs, but I never felt obliged to buy the US edition on Blue Thumb of an early Tyrannosaurus Rex record if it was the same as the UK release. Now I realise some people want to have everything their favourite artist has put out.

What’s the most special disc that you’ve owned?

I had a management deal with David Enthoven and June Bolan. One day June brought in a box containing Marc’s handwritten lyrics and other personal items and produced a one-sided acetate of his first recording, ‘Gloria – The Road I’m On’, a demo cut when he was about sixteen, under the name Toby Tyler. It was Marc’s own copy, and June gave it to me. I’d played Marc’s acoustic guitar in his parent’s flat once, but this was something tangible to treasure, which of course I did! But I later sold it to a Bolan fan who wanted to release it, and that paid for the recording of A Cabinet Of Curiosities. Another copy was sold much later for £4,000, but for me it wasn’t about the money, it was a magical rite. I wanted the acetate that June gave me to be transformed into my own album, in a way. I’m sure Marc would have understood the symbolism, even if collectors think me barmy!

The latest reissues you see as being ‘definitive’ editions, but that includes tweaking them a bit?

I’ve always viewed with suspicion any artist that revisits their older recordings and tampers with them, though I once heard Bryan Ferry say that he wished he could re-record his entire back-catalogue. I understand what he meant, because you’re always seeking perfection; I’ve a good number of tracks that I recorded in the way that I envisaged them and I’d never tamper with them. But there are others which from necessity were imperfect because I was on a low budget. For instance, in the early years I might book a studio that wasn’t well-prepared to record the drums, so later on I’d re-record the tracks and use them as radio sessions. Then I’d have those alternative recordings to substitute for the originals when I had the opportunity to reissue an album.

How about out-takes, live recordings and the like?

I’m the sort of artist who needs to know that his music is going to be heard. I’m doing it for myself but I have to know that somebody is going to be enjoying it. I always had limited studio time, so I had to record just what I was going to release. I don’t maintain a live archive; I’m not precious about it in that way. When I play live I’m there to meet the people who like my music, I don’t need to hear the songs again, I’ve already recorded them.

You own the rights to your back catalogue?

I paid for the musicians and the studios, so I owned the tapes and just licensed them, which meant that I was always free to give tracks to whoever wanted them. I saw that as a positive thing. But you talk about the vinyl being collectable, there’s crazy prices on Amazon for some of the CDs! My ‘regular’ albums are up there for £75 or more. That’s another reason for doing the reissues. It’s about collecting everything together and getting it to a definitive state.

Finally, is it true that you destroyed your master tapes when you temporarily left the business in 1997?

Well, it does prevent me tampering with old recordings!

Stuff Happens…

Yes, okay, I know the true expression is a little cruder, but stuff does happen and get in the way of regular blogging, so here’s a quick posting with a few bits and pieces that have appeared or are of interest since the latest round of erratic blogging or extended downtime on this one.

Firstly, I’m sure everyone who visits this website is aware and sadden by the loss of founding recording Hawkwind member Huw Lloyd Langton back in December. I’d been up in London that week, attending a launch for my old mate Paul Cornell’s London Falling novel and from there had spent a couple of days in town which included a highly enjoyable lunch and interview with Flicknife’s Frenchy Gloder – by the time I’d got back into town that evening, I was in receipt of a text from Frenchy advising the sad news. Subsequently I was privileged to write Huw’s obituary in The Independent newspaper which appeared in the paper on Wednesday 12th December – alongside a wonderful photography of Huw from the mid-80s by Oz Hardwick – and which can still be found on-line here.

On a much happier Hawkwind note, Easy Action’s CD release of their Cambridge January 1972 concert that appeared a couple of years back as Leave No Star Unturned has now made it onto vinyl release through Dirtier Records. I don’t actually see this one on their website, but I can confirm that I’ve received copies of both the standard black vinyl and its blue vinyl compatriot so this long-awaited LP release has now arrived and it is available to order online at the Easy Action website here. It’s a double album, heavy vinyl, in gatefold sleeve and has the notes that I wrote for the CD release printed across the inner gatefold – my first time in print on a vinyl release, which makes me very happy indeed – I’m thrilled to have been associated with this one.

People have asked about Festivalized, the free festivals book that I’ve co-written with Bridget Wishart. We’ve not heard from the original publisher in at least eighteen months so we are now in the position of having to reassess the best way to get this book published. A few different options have been thought about and we’ll update as soon as a decision is made. I’m also currently working on a Kindle release of my book on The Waterboys – Strange Boat – which I’ve done some correcting and updating on and hope to make available over the summer. Various options also exist on a new release of Hawkwind – Sonic Assassins and I need to give some thought as to the best way to proceed with a potential new edition of that book.

I’ve been fairly quiet in the print magazines recently, but should pop-up in Record Collector with review pieces on Easy Action’s wonderful box-set appraisal of Nikki Sudden, The Boy From Nowhere Who Fell Out of the Sky, 4Zero's release of the new Earthling Society album, and a new reissue of Twink’s Think Pink album on Sunbeam Records among other things.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with something not involving me at all but which I spotted over the weekend and know readers of this blog will enjoy, a blog entitled Servante of Darkness who have a great interview with Bridget Wishart. Enjoy!

Bevis Frond – After You (and more…)

 

When Nick Saloman released the most recent Bevis Frond album, The Leaving of London, back in October 2011, it’s fair to say that there came an almost audible sigh of relief from his many admirers. Bevis Frond had been silent since releasing 2004’s Hit Squad and it seemed to many as though Saloman’s pop psychedelia had run its course and that he’d slunk into musical retirement. I talked to him for R2 magazine when The Leaving of London surfaced, and filed a 5-Star review in the same publication and he explained those gaps years.

“A number of things all conspired. I’d been putting out an album year and touring in Europe with the occasional gig in the states and here and there, all going on quite nicely – it was nothing significant but I been doing a tour in about 2004 and when I got home, put my guitars up in my music room and I said to my wife, Jan, “that’s it, I’ve had enough. I don’t want to do this anymore. I’m bored, I’m doing the same old thing over and over again and not enjoying.” I thought the music still sounded good and people were coming along and enjoying what I was doing but I wasn’t enjoying it and I felt that if I continued putting out albums and going on tour it was going to suffer because of it. I thought I’d give it a break for a while – I’d been doing it for fifteen years without ever having a proper record deal so having to do the business side of it myself. I thought I’d take a break for a year, recharge the batteries, write some songs, and it seem to kind of last… longer than I’d anticipated. Every time I thought about doing something I’d think, “Oh God, I can’t be bothered.” At the same time stuff was going on; my mum was dying of cancer and I was the only kid so I had to see her everyday, watch her fade out, and she’d brought me up on her own, and that doesn’t make you feel too creative. Then she died, and that coincided with Jan retiring from teaching and we thought we’d move; I’d lived in London all my life and thought if I didn’t move now I never would, so we upped sticks and moved down to Hastings and all that kind of took priority. So I got settled down in Hastings, started writing some songs and got something of a buzz back again. Booked up a couple of weeks in a studio to lay down a new album and see what it was like. I really didn’t know if I’d left it too long and people would turn around and go, “Who’s he?” The music business had changed so much in the seven years I’d been away that there might not have been any market for it anyhow. But as it happens it seems to have been a fantastically smart strategy!”

The Leaving of London wasn’t just a justifiably acclaimed ‘return to form’, lauded across magazines, newspapers, and on-line postings, but it seems to have been a catalyst for a continuing re-engagement with the music world and with Nick’s own creativity and desire to make music. There’s a new, double, album that’s just been issued – and which I’ll post about in due course – and a number of smaller projects that have seen the light of day in recent months on various labels. So while the purpose of this blog was initially to review just one of those happenings, it’s an opportunity to round-up two or three bits and pieces that have arrived carrying or including the Bevis Frond name.

‘After You’ is the A-side of a split 7” single released by Adam Goldman and available through TotallyPunk.com here. Goldman professes himself as a long-time Frond/Saloman admirer and it’s clear that the opportunity to release a previously unissued Bevis Frond track is something of a delight to him. It packs a fair amount into a quite moving, thoughtful and melancholic number that’s also a mood piece of loss and longings with bitter undertones in Saloman’s idiosyncratic vocals set across a hazy psychedelic soundtrack.

Equally as appealing is the enchanting B-side, provided by thebrotheregg, who haven’t got onto my radar previously but who released an album, Snowflake and Fingerprint Machine, on Saloman and Adrian Shaw’s (now defunct I believe) Woronzow label. They’re on this 7” with a song curiously entitled ‘Murky Up The Lagoon’, again a lazily drifting slice of psychedelia and one with an easy-going charm to it. I love the idea of these ‘split’ singles (this one comes with a download code as well), the pairing of something that is going to have a collector’s appeal because of its lead performance helping to bring something to the surface that perhaps would otherwise gather less attention on its own. A smashing pairing then, enhanced further by the evocative cover art of Chuck Bloom.

I’ve always thought of Nick Saloman in a similar vein to Paul Roland, who I’ve also reviewed extensively on this blog and in R2 and Record Collector. Though their subject matter is rather different, they both inhabit that strain of English psych-pop of catchy melodies that leave you wondering why such great songwriters aren’t ones who are covered extensively by others or achieving the recognition beyond the confines of their chosen genre simply because of the charm and elegancy and accessibility of the songs they compose. My friends at Fruits De Mer recently put the two of them together on the same EP – separate tracks – along with another who falls into the same field, Nick Nicely, and Anton Barbeau, whose other FDM vinyl I reviewed last autumn here. The resulting EP was The League of Psychedelic Gentlemen, which got released back in December and which I’m afraid to say will now take you to the collector’s market to source, since FDM are showing its 1,000 print run as being sold out. 

Just as sold out now, is FDM’s The White EP, a covers tribute to The Beatles’ White Album, where the Frond contributed a spunky interpretation of ‘Glass Onion’; I’ll not dwell too much on either of these releases given that I’m late to the party on this one – more blog downtime unfortunately which I’m working to rectify across the next few months by both catching up with a plethora of unanswered emails and posting up some previously written material that perhaps didn’t make its intended destination. And, of course, to write-up the new Frond album.

This entry, then, to highlight particularly the TotallyPunk 7”; looks a great package, certainly has a couple of smashing tracks and comes very much as a recommendation from this blog.

TotallyPunk.com

Bevis Frond @ Bandcamp

Pre-Med – Einstein’s Day Off

Back again after a length hiatus I’m afraid… me, not Pre-Med! Although, to be fair, we’ve also not heard as much from Danny Faulkner’s band as we’d have liked since Medication Time burst onto the space-rock scene back in 2006. It does make his occasional forays into studio releases – I see that various line-ups of the band have appeared at a number of festivals over recent times – that bit more special for being, not rationed as I’d guess there would be much more if time and finances allow, but that bit more special for their scarcity nonetheless.

That early offering, arriving in 2006 just as Alan Davey was making his second and final departure from Hawkwind and instead popping up here, and on his own Human On The Outside release, really did point to a pretty exciting new vision of 21st Century space-rock made by musicians inspired by Hawkwind but not in thrall to them; taking where they’d flown as a starting point and acknowledging their purpose and value but wanting to do something more, something fresh and of the moment. That’s where I heard Medication Time as being and why I found it exciting. Looking back, it’s a record that I play less now and when I do revisit it I pick out the moments rather than allowing it full steam ahead - ‘Inner Doors’ was the highest point and it’s still a fantastic piece of work. But it’s still an opening salvo to relish – it’s just that it got overtaken by the band’s second LP, The Truth About Us, just as a good starting point should give way to a more polished and definitive view of where that creativeness was leading.

The Truth About Us was spot-on, a massive step forward and a really thrilling extension of what Faulkner had started on with Medication Time – not off on a difficult second album tangent but very much a chance to hit the heights by developing what he already had. The cover of ‘The Demented Man’ is a particular moment to cherish – just like Dave Brock’s own revisiting of this long lost classic was at Hawkeaster by all accounts – but The Truth About Us burns brightly right across its silver disc.

Pre-Med’s latest album, Einstein’s Day Off, is light years better again.

If The Truth About Us was spot-on, then Einstein’s Day Off absolutely hammers a nail through it – dead centre, true and sharp. If Medication Time was about updating space-rock to the 21st Century then Einstein’s Day Off is the total crystallisation of that idea. It’s got plenty of nods to the past, plenty of references to Hawkwind in particular – and again as I’ve noted before about Pre-Med, they inhabit the ground where Hawkwind and Killing Joke collide. Not just because Faulkner’s vocals – and I have said this previously – are reminiscent of Jaz Coleman’s when Coleman really wants to sing and not growl (so the Coleman of Night Time or of Brighter Than A Thousand Suns) but because a conflagration of Hawkwind and Killing Joke makes complete sense, when you think about it. ‘War Dance’ might be the anti-thesis of the peace-and-love Hawkwind ethos but a collision of their styles is a no-brainer.

Let’s talk about a band then that takes those sort of musical touchstones and fashions something of their own from them. This time out Pre-Med are Faulkner, Davey, Phil Oates on guitar, sometime previous collaborator and Xenon Codex / Chronicle Of The Black Sword era Hawk drummer Dan Thompson, and Steve Leigh providing keyboards and synthesisers. They could be the same today, they could be a completely different line-up; it seems shifting and undefined.

I don’t know that it’s an album that reveals in scientific decay and destruction or if its a record that has both a delight in and a sharp mistrust of science and scientific advancement. Certainly on the title track there’s a despairing reflection with its narrator’s despondency : “all the hopes I had to help mankind / perverted science blew away / the magic formula that I designed / only brings death it’s such a shame.” In the end, though, lyrically its a record that declaims a hard science fiction outlook: “Pollinating technologically / Tomorrow’s embryos alive”, “build ourselves another universe / Man made machine deceiving time.” There’s more – it mixes technological certainties and uncertainties – hits environmental messages and wide-vista panoramas in its grand designs.

Musically it does reflect on Hawkwind in places: ‘Cern’ has something of ‘Time We Left This World Today’ in its chops and perhaps more noticeably, ‘Biosphere’ takes the weightless floating listlessness of ‘Chronoglide Skyway’ and blows lyrical melancholic descriptiveness into it as well – it captures and describes a loneliness and hopelessness coupled with a fated acceptance of a solitary drift out into the ether that is quite, quite beautiful. On the other hand, ‘Einstein’s Day Off’ is an all-out rocker that explodes out of one of those synthesiser washes – wordy and expansive and driving and acutely contemporary. It’s all about Thompson’s drumming – so much more developed than when perhaps he was pushed into the limelight with Hawkwind a little too early – Davey’s roving bass lines and the moralistic tones set by Faulkner’s strident vocals… and a stunning guitar break from Phil Oates that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Hawkwind album at Huw Lloyd Langton’s peak.

So those are a couple of real peaks but in truth this is a hugely consistent record – one that I’d suggest will continue to be a ‘play right through’ LP in the years to come and not a dabble with highlights (even though I was so astonished by the consecutive exceptional exceptions of ‘Einstein’s Day Off’ and ‘Biosphere’ that I had these two tracks on repeat as I was getting to grips with the entire record). But ‘Cern’ is a wall-of-sound powerhouse, ‘The Stargazer’s Apprentice’ (with a reminiscent riff of ‘Sword of the East’ just for moment or two) is possibly the track where my Hawkwind / Killing Joke infusion really explains what I mean in dynamic fashion and is another highpoint… and there’s more.

Looking back, if we’ve only received three Pre-Med albums since they first fired off those opening salvos at us, and that’s one just over every three years, then what Faulkner has really had is room to breathe and develop his particular vision, to hone it into a particular and specific style. In a way, I hate that I’ve written a review that consistently comes back to comparing with what has gone before and the bands that may – or indeed may not – have from their output helped define and fashion what he’s wanted to achieve. But he’s hit some pinnacles in what is going on in space-rock at the moment and he’s taken the time to develop what he wants to commit to record and that surely is what has allowed him to release three distinctive records that each have built on the previous ones and improved in quality and value each time.

Pre-Med Official Website

Pre-Med Facebook Group

Erica Nockalls - Imminent Room

Once again, something that isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a space-rock record but one that fits the overarching themes that I’ve been writing about on here since it’s a work that is eclectic, vividly imaginative, distinctive, challenging and with character – and one that I’ve been looking forward to hearing and writing about for some considerable time. Mind you, slip this disc into the player and sit back awaiting the melodically discordant opening bars of its first track, ‘Manikin’, and we could almost be thinking that we are in what this blog considers its traditional stomping ground!

Erica Nockalls, as I’m sure many followers here will know, is violinist in The Wonder Stuff (I’ve just received a copy of their new record, Oh No It’s The Wonder Stuff and will be writing about that here or elsewhere in due course), plays as a one half of the TWS ‘downtime’ acoustic duo Miles Hunt & Erica Nockalls, and performs as a session musician with many notable ensembles. She’s mostly recently – outside of TWS commitments – toured in the UK and Europe with Fink.

Imminent Room is an album that is full of personality and honesty. Its personality is that of a seeker, looking for meanings and endeavouring – successfully beyond argument – to define meaning in creativity and to express that creativity in different ways, but in ways that are distinct from the artist’s regular work and which satisfy a need to produce something that stands alone, distinctive, from other music. So I might want to, at one point for example, draw a Kate Bush comparison, or other comparisons in other places, but as a body of work this marvellous record has such a unique and heartfelt voice that it’s one of those times where to draw any analogies is disingenuous. “I’ll have my day one, one day”, Erica sings on ‘Day One, One Day’, and notes its subject as “not being able to stop”, and it means something to the listener searching for that chance to start from zero and redefine. (Erica asked on a Facebook status post the other day, “What advice would you give your younger self?” and among the replies I’d noted “Don’t get stuck in the day job” but in truth we’re all looking for another Day One no matter who we are or how satisfied with what we’ve achieved in life).

If that’s its personality, then its honesty must surely be about relationships, since it reads to me that the whole album is preoccupied with them. ‘It’s Killer, Darling’ seems to offer a juxtaposition to the notion in ‘Day One, One Day’, noting how “We’re happy in our droves, happy with our hoards”; ‘Cut Them Out’ bemoans a situation where “our relationship is radio silent”, while ‘I Am Me, This Is Now’ robustly states how “I was like this when you met me / I’ll be like this when you leave” ... are we really that immutable ... do we “dance our merry little dance and be on our way” as ‘It’s Killer, Darling’ claims? ‘Goodbye Spider’, with its subject header of ‘release’ seems to think so as well, but actually each relationship interconnects into the creativity and vision of the artist and perhaps what we’re presented with is a travelogue that explains the complexity of the individual through life experiences.

So if the lyrics are part of the complexity of this record, the same really is true of the music which switches between programmed, full-band, rock and classically-tinged compositions that have brittle and febrile textures to them that really complement and describe the emotions and frustrations that Nockalls writes about. There are guest appearances from Miles Hunt and Wayne Hussey among others but this is still properly a solo album that could only be by one specific person and couldn’t possibly be the vision of anyone else. If, as she suggests in the liner notes, was looking to place into the musical void, something that “sonically, lyrically and viscerally pleases” and that was something that she felt was missing from the colour palette of music being currently written and played, then I’d hope Erica will continue to come back to this achievement and recognise that in Imminent Room she has produced something of heart and stature, and of lasting value.

Erica Nockalls Website

Sun Dial - Mind Control

I pondered starting this review with a picture of yours truly wearing his Sun Dial T-Shirt, generously sent over by the band when I reviewed their Processed For DNA – Anthology 1990 – 2010 album in Record Collector a couple of years back. Hmm, it’s the time of New Year Resolutions so perhaps we’ll wait for the slimmer version of Ian Abrahams before blogging that particular image. Or, indeed, not at all.

That compilation album, which I described as being “Dense and dirty, laden with fuzz and majestic in the sweep of leader Gary Ramon’s ambitious vision”, I heard as ranging from “the delicate acoustics of Pumpkinhead, augmented with the violin of Current 93’s Joolie Wood, to the haunting Plains Of Nazca and on to the abrasive grind of Ghost Machine” and considered “this selection is attention-grabbing mission statement for the forthcoming reissues.” It seemed like a really good starting-point for a regeneration of Ramon’s work, with an eponymous new album following quickly on behind it and a programme of back catalogue reissues scheduled through Cherry Red. At the same time, Shindig! ran an excellent interview and profile and it seemed like things were really getting going again following an extended on-off hiatus period really from 2003’s Zen For Sale onwards.

I don’t know what happened with the reissues; perhaps they did indeed surface but off of my radar or perhaps they died. Looking at Cherry Red’s website, I see that they are indeed listing editions of Reflecter , Other Way Out, and Return Journey that were issued as part of that reissue sequence, though it seems to have come to a halt thereafter. That seems a huge shame, if indeed that is the full extent of Cherry Red’s involvement with pulling Sun Dial’s history together,  as there is clearly a swathe of material stemming from releases on myriad independent labels – LPs, EPs and Singles – that would benefit from being drawn together in a cohesive catalogue.

What has now arrived is an impressive new LP – Mind Control – that comes in heavy-duty 180 gram vinyl encased in a gatefold sleeve and with a bonus poster included as well. And when I say ‘impressive’, I don’t simply mean the loving care with which this new work is presented, I’m waxing lyrical about the music that’s pressed upon it as well.

“Mountain of fire and miracles / selling salvation for your soul”, Ramon intones on the sparse opener, ‘Mountain of Fire & Miracles’, predicated on the bass of ‘Scorpio’ and the economical drumming of Conrad Farmer with Ramon’s punctuated guitar riffs colouring the space in-between; moody and introspective, digging deep into the psyche but with stark Kraut minimalism and with the lyrics suggested as being ‘death space rock’. It sets the tone and tells the listener that this is a very different Sun Dial than we’ve heard before, particularly if compared to the band that recorded 2010’s punk-infused Sun Dial, and that’s reflected as we delve deeper into the tracks. ‘Radiation’, for example, is an esoteric and Eastern-inspired instrumental piece, full of mystery and atmosphere and, despite the title, possessing a vista of wide landscapes and a sense of liberty. ‘Burned in’ is a snapshot, still with some Eastern background rhythm and gentle keys but emerging out of static, fuzz and clicks and sort of Eno-esque in a way.

This all gets picked up and accentuated in the lovely ‘Last Rays of the Sun’, a ruminative travel-scape that flickers and then brightly burns with luminosity and vibrance where you feel that if you were really being bathed in the Sun’s dying embers then it would be a warm and peaceful moment of no regrets, and comforting in a languid and peaceful way, a perfect way to see out the universe and slip away. It’s a simply beautiful composition.

‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’ is an intriguing cover of the Bryan Ferry / Roxy Music number, not least because it starts out as though it’s a quiet and slowed down interpretation of Hawkwind’s ‘Assault & Battery’, it has a resonance of that song which is quite curious... so that it almost seems that the Hawklords notion of Hawkwind playing Roxy Music is reversed and inverted so that we have Sun Dial channelling Hawkwind into Roxy Music... a strange thought – though perhaps not so strange in reflection – but one that absolutely works to perfection.

Pick of the album: You know, I’d love it to be that wild take on ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’ but as I write this I’m playing on repeat ‘Last Rays of the Sun’ and luxuriating in its psychedelic drift. Just lovely.

Alan Davey's Eclectic Devils - Live At SRS 2011

I’ve often thought that one of the downsides of solo albums by musicians who are more commonly thought of as band members is often the lack of opportunity to hear those songs and that music played in a live environment, since it can be the case that such LPs are distinct from the musician’s more regular line of work, side projects or muses that satisfy a specific creative urge or are in and of themselves standalone pieces that might be there to explore at a tangent ideas that don’t fit into the usual format that any particular artist is usually to be found working. It might be that the sheer logistical and financial challenge of touring a solo record is out of reach or that the timescales simply do not allow it to happen.

Regular visitors will, again, recall that I’m a huge fan of Alan Davey’s work, whether in Hawkwind, with his former outfit Bedouin or in his more recently revived ‘original’ band Gunslinger – and of his solo albums, and as such this live album, recorded at the 2011 Sonic Rock Solstice festival is a really delight because it does touch upon songs that for one reason or another it seemed unlikely would get an airing in public, but here they are in a put-together for that occasion band that included then Gunslinger guitarist Louis Davey and drummer Cat Bothwell, along with Jus Forrest and James Hodkinson... Eclectic Devils all, no doubt!

I’m not clear whether the nine tracks included here encompass the full set played at SRS last year – anyone who knows, please leave a comment – but this release has been mooted ever since and is very much worth the wait, culling songs as it does from several elements of Davey’s career, including Hawkwind and solo album numbers. I’d guess in part it serves, for some songs, as a shout-out as to how Davey envisages the original versions should have sounded; ‘Greenback Massacre’ in particular. Some are reinvented for his collaborators strengths here, in this instance then the brooding and tribal ‘Wings’ is both majestic and plaintive at the same time, and ‘Sword of the East’, for want of a better expression, simply kicks ass as never before, a pounding and extremely heavy take that blows away other occasions where Davey has picked up and reworked this one. In the same way, ‘World of Fear’, from the album Human On The Outside, and ‘Angel Down’ from Eclectic Devils, are dense, grinding blasts that exude strength and menace. Play fucking loud is the underlying message here – turn that dial right up.

Back to that thing of songs from solo albums not getting the airing in public that we’d hope for; I’d love to see this sort of thing becoming part of Alan Davey’s regular work. Much as I like everything that’s been selected for this gig, I’d have wanted to pick ‘Sunray’, or ‘Encounter’, or ‘Delusions of Ganja’. I’d have hoped to see on the set-list ‘The Call’, ‘or ‘Chasing The Dragon’. Others will have their own wish-list for sure, so I mention those tracks to highlight strength in-depth (and doubtless the difficultly that was had in selecting the songs that did make the list) and just to note a few that I’d like to hear in this format. No matter that those numbers didn’t make it this time around, let’s hope that the summer festivals of 2013 might also reverberate to Davey’s songcraft and that neglected classics can cut through the British summer evenings again.

Pick of the album: My heart says ‘Sword of the East’, which has been one of my all-time favourite Hawkwind tracks since The Xenon Codex and which is really done justice here, but the slow build into ‘Pre-Med’, with Bothwell’s precision sharp militaristic drumming bursts leading into the song’s heavy riffing and extended relentlessness is just pure, driving, space-rock at its best.

Alan Davey Website

Machines Learning – Pendragon’s Lullaby

I’ve been alerted to this six track EP by Machine Learning’s guitarist/vocalist Paul Balmer, one third of the band’s line-up alongside bassist Bradley Botbyl and drummer Mario Quintero. Can’t tell you much more about them, but they tag themselves as akin to Smashing Pumpkins (with justice), shoegaze and space-rock among other things, and as San Diego so I’m guessing that’s where these folks hail from. What they play is a glorious mess of noise and melody, all fuzz and distortion playing across something sweeter. Remember when Jim Reid claimed that he didn’t realise that the Jesus & Mary Chain were making so much distortion and that he thought he was singing like a bird? (Yeah, right). Well, that’s something of what happens with Machines Learning.

The contrast is in the switch from the noise-fest of ‘Bulletproof Tiger’ and ‘Punching The Rabbit’, frantic conflagrations of sonic attacks meshing themselves over Balmer’s vocals, and the cleaner sound of the title track with Bobyl’s determined, dominant, bass lines as it switches from its rough-hewn but un-fuzzed origins into another tightly played melodic cacophony that Billy Corgan himself might have been proud of. ‘satAMcoffee’ delves, probes, even deeper into gritty denseness while Quintero gets particularly punchy on ‘010710’, another one that sharply blends its dual characteristics of grunge with melodic underbelly and, again that Pumpkins analogy, sits square into Machina/The Machines Of God territory, which makes it exciting and very worthwhile in my book.

‘This Destroyed Me’, plays it all out with a pensive, haunting and melancholic mood-swing that lingers in the mind and adds substance and atmosphere to what’s gone before it. Very Smart Stuff.

Machines Learning @ Bandcamp

Oresund Space Collective – Give Your Brain A Rest From The Matrix

Regular blog followers will undoubtedly know the score with Oresund Space Collective who are a revolving group of space-rock musicians from, variously, Denmark, Sweden and America, with Scott Heller taking a pivotal role and this time out including Steve Hayes among the musicians involved. Scott gets over to the UK on a semi-regular basis for the same concerts as I'm always aiming to attend and very rarely actually make so though we've corresponded across the ether I've never actually met him – though we were in the same bar at a gig in Oxfordshire a few years back and didn't realise it. I'm looking forward to catching up with him some place, some time, but in the meanwhile there's always his great CDs to look forward to and the latest batch brought this new OSC recording and one that Scott's had a hand in recording and mixing by Danish 'space psychedelic krautrock band' Troldmand – Live At Loppen – which I'll write-up over the next few days.

OSC's Give Your Brain A Rest From The Matrix notes itself as being a call-out to people to disconnect from the smart phone Internet generation and kick back with relaxing sounds instead. Seems sound advice to me and this collection of four extended improvisations is exactly what the doctor ordered to slip out of the pressures and demands of the modern workplace and society and get lost in some psychedelic travelogues that takes us to Eastern, Far Eastern and Interstellar head spaces.

These are tracks cut back in September 2010, during the sessions that also conjured up their Entering Into The Space Country and Phaze Your Fears albums, albeit with modestly different line-ups contributing to the free-flowing jamming that is the OSC modus operandi. As always, there's a looseness to the playing on these tracks that allows the various players to follow their muses around a central theme or idea, or just a particular tone, and it's that sense of aural exploration and freeness to take a tangent or a deviation from the starting point that creates such a meditative luminance to their work. The title track has an Eastern flavour to it in principle but it that flows in and out of what they're playing so that it's a texture without being an overpowering 'flavour' to the music. On first hearing it I pegged it into having something of It Is The Business Of The Future To Be Dangerous about it and yet when I sit down to write about it with it running through my computer speakers I hear it differently and wonder where that notion derived from – and then it's shifting sands and perhaps that notion on another listen in another context on a different day would resurface.

I think that's what's so captivating and interesting about the OSC works that I've heard over the last few years, that spirit of improvisation and following where the music leads somehow becomes imbued into the pressing of the music onto physical format so that it's spirit shifts and moves on each listening – maybe because the music wanders so much from its inception to its close. 'Mainstream Is The New Acid' suggests track two, a light and spacious dream world that seems to float out of the speakers, melodic and hallucinogenic and the absolute encapsulation of that notion of freeing ourselves from the always-on demands of today. 'Step Into The Other World' is, for more, Far Eastern, Oriental, mysterious and ancient, civilized but of a different civilization and yet my kids, perhaps more properly now that I hear it again – that sense always of taking different things from the music on different listens – picture it as being Indian in its Eastern vibe; pictures painted musically. A lovely piece.

'Cerebral Massage' plays this one out, a more lively and innovative piece that bubbles up with freshness and vitality. Heavier than what has come before with some sharp and robust drumming propelling the musicians along in the most space-rock track in this set. A very smart collection in total that I see for European customers to the OSC website is priced at only €10 (I assume this the album that Scott notes on the OSC website as having been produced by the pressing company as CD-R instead of glass master CD and reduced in price by the band accordingly). It's a bloody bargain and restricted to 500 copies so please get in early and get your head out of the social networking matrix for an hour in the company of some great sounds.

Oresund Space Collective Website

Oresund Space Collective @ Bandcamp