Castling Billboard for ESP at GI2012

'Golden Laughter' Castling Billboard for ESP, Eastside Projects, Birmingham 29/04/12.
Check out their blog at http://espatgi2012.tumblr.com/

RECORD STORE

An Obstacle Soup Installation for Record Store Day 

@ Monorail Records, Glasgow G1 5RB 

20th April – 7th May 2012

For World Record Store Day 2012 (21st April) and to coincide with GI (Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts), Monorail Records are hosting an exhibition curated by visual artists Chris Biddlecombe and Janie Nicoll. 

This installation is the result of a collaborative project involving the creation of twenty record cover artworks created by a wide range of Scottish artists, each of whom have a strong interest in or connection to music making; artists who have been in bands, who DJ, or who use music as a theme in their art making practice. 

Featured artists: 

Alexander Violette; Amy Marletta; Baldvin Ringsted; Brian Hartley; Chris Biddlecombe; Douglas Morland; Fiona Danskin; Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir (Rafla); Ian Smith; Jim Colquhoun; Janie Nicoll; Jason Nelson; Jim Lambie; Jonnie Wilkes; Karen Vaughan; Kevin Hutcheson; Kevin Reid; Nicola Atkinson (Nadfly); Ronnie Heeps; Ross Sinclair. 

Each artist has created their own fictional ‘artiste’s album’ in the form of a 12” double sided artwork displayed in a plastic sleeve. All will be released on the collaborative project 'label' - Obstacle Soup. 

Chris Biddlecombe and Janie Nicoll are both artists based in Glasgow who each have a history of making work in the form of site specific installations using a variety of techniques that create ambiguous dialogues with the viewer using cultural, historical or social references. 

For further information please contact: 

Chris Biddlecombe (07879 665106) chris.biddlecombe@virgin.net

Monorail Records, 12 Kings Court, Glasgow, G1 5RB

Tel. 0141 552 9458

Record Store Exhibition at Monorail Records, Kings Court, Glasgow

An Obstacle Soup installation for Record Store Day

@ Monorail Records, Glasgow

20^th April – 7^th May 2012

Artists and Band Biogs

1.   Jim Colquhoun 

Jaconelli were formed in Glasgow in 1972, in what was already the fag end of 'flower power'. The great political and cultural ferment of the sixties had run aground on a combination of bad drugs, sexism, excessive guitar solos and general stupidity, Jaconelli epitomised this trend by cleaving always to the lowest common denominator, the crass, the aesthetically bankrupt and the worst excesses of fascistic band dynamics. As musicians and as people they heralded and embraced the beginnings of a narcissistic stoner culture that engulfed a generation.

2.   Baldvin Ringsted 

Dauð Meinhof  is the fourth release by the German black metal artist Gerhard Richter. It was recorded in September 1990, but not released until May 1992.

Gerhard Richter (real name, Gerhard Richter born February 9, 1932) is a  Black Metal solo project that spans nearly 5 decades of simultaneously producing both abstract and photorealistic Black Metal.

During 1992 and 1993, Gerhard Richter recorded four albums; however, in 1994 he was convicted and imprisoned for the murder of violinist Bruce “tuned to D.E.A.D.” Nauman and the arson of several galleries.

Some of the buildings were hundreds of years old and seen as important historical landmarks. One of the first and most notable was Norway's Gagosian stave-gallery.

3.   Kevin Reid 

LONG BALL HOLDER are blistering hard acid rock doomage from singer/drummer Hamish 'Ferret' Beret and multi instrumentalist Senior Fud!  Straight out of Lumphinans, this two-piece originally signed to 'Earache Records' in the early 80's returning after nearly 30 years of retreat, alcoholism and psych wards!  “8 tracks written during this hiatus recorded here for you.  Plug in, skin up and stroke your ferret!"

4.   Fiona Danskin

Artist - cnut Album name - uden mønster (without pattern)

With 'uden mønster' (without pattern), cnut continues to develop new means of expression on an instrument not generally associated with innovation and experimentation - the accordion.

Here he moves into dubstep territory, much of the album played and sampled from just one accordion, combining deep, rumbling long-held bass chords with samples and re-samples of old 78rpm recordings of traditional accordion tunes. The crackles are cranked up high in the mix adding it's own percussion, the melody left as a ghostly nod to the accordion's roots.  Never before has 'time-stretched' had such resonance.

5.   Janie Nicoll 

HALF FOOL are a four piece girl band, who have risen sphinx-like from the ashes of Edinburgh cult post punk band, The Sparrows. Claiming to have left behind their previous psycho-delic garage sound, this revised incarnation now based in Glasgow, have produced a fresh new sound that attempts to bridge the gap between upbeat indie dance, synonymous with the early 90’s, experimental electro and progressive house claiming to straddle “an eclectic and more sophisticated” set of influences. Founding member and lead singer Janis Short has confidently stated “We are the missing link”, releasing the four track 12’ entitled “New Wave” with collaborative remixes by Kevin Shields, Andrew Weatherall and Keith McIvor (Optimo) as named compadres.

6.  Brian Hartley 

Beyond the haze of mystery, ‘polyphase’ is a moving, romantic, almost melancholy listening experience, combined with a searching sonic futurism, seeking out utterly alien and tinglingly lush harmonic colours the surreal grasp of possessed, private synth music and deliberately economical production is delivered with innate confidence and the blackest humour.

By eschewing glossy production the band cut straight to the essence, or the truth of the matter, and this is a mighty, mighty beautiful thing.

7.   Douglas Morland

Three Day Week’s eponymous debut LP is one of the lost treasures of 1973. Darling of the London Glam scene, singer Beaujolais St John formed the group in a haze of Quaaludes and champagne, writing a brace of glitter-encrusted, boot-stomp clap-a-longs that wipe the floor with The Sweet or T Rex. The big difference, however, was St John's use of Tarot Cards in lyric-writing - accurately predicting the political, economic, moral and sartorial decline that would grip the UK for the remainder of the decade. Releasing one more album (1978's pioneering electropop gem Cold Meat Platter) the band then went into terminal decline due to St John's increasingly erratic behaviour. Their last engagement before his disappearance from public life was hampered by St John's insistence on wearing a medieval physician's costume, his plague mask rendering vocals completely inaudible. Claims of sightings of St John continue to this day, both with and without the accompanying physician's protective garb.

8.   Jonnie Wilkes  

“ENOUGH LEAD TO MAKE IT HEAVY” (Various Artists)

Previously unreleased early electronic music, radiophonic material & synth jams from Eastern Europe.

9.   Ross Sinclair 

Ross & the Realifers make music out in the country. It’s sort of a fiction but not really. The Realifers don’t really exist, but Ross does. He makes music and sometimes gets other people to sing on it, especially in a different language, to make it more of a dialogue, a conversation. Sometimes the music feels like an alter ego, intuitive, emotional, going with the flow, as it comes, un-thought-out as opposed to art, which sometimes feels like a fucking job. But maybe that’s why the two go so well together. It comes from Glasgow, though it’s not made there anymore. It comes from bands, but made solo now. It doesn’t really make sense but he can’t stop doing it. Sometimes it feels like the most honest thing he does. Well, at least his children like it, that’s got to count for something, I think they are his No.1 fans, though possibly because they are currently his main audience.

But that could all change, look out for new records out soon like “I Tried to Give Up Drinking With Guitars Instead of God”

Thank you very much.

Goodnight Glasgow,

See you again next time.

10.   Kevin Hutcheson

‘New Town Blues’ alludes to being an anthology of mythic art punk groups from South Lanarkshire.

11.   Ronnie Heeps 

'Bubblehead' are an English rock band haling from the West Midlands. A four piece combo, they were one of the earliest military rock groups. Their lyrics favor national protection issues and futuristic planetary defense strategies. They are also a noted precursor to punk rock

and now are considered a link between military and civilian cultures. The critic Ralph Deeson describes their trademark sound as characterised by "that gargantuan and impenetrable pre-metal/hardcore drone, with magnificent riffs that provide an inexorable drive to destinations unknown".

12.   Hrafnhildur Halldórsdóttir (Rafla)

Juan X Jaula (1912-1992). Very little is known about this respected but largely neglected Spanish composer. All that remains is a handful of recordings of his later compositions, this 1973 recording of ‘Siléncios Encontrados’ (Found Silences) released on Obstacle Soup as a limited edition vinyl of only 150 copies, being the most well-known.

13.   Nicola Atkinson (Nadfly)

'Pet Tongues' has existed since people decided that animals were not just for guarding, farming, hunting and /or running free. It was the human desire for a bit of animal company that started this pet movement. Collected together here is the celebration of that movement. 'Pet Tongues' is now being experienced in one’s home, lap, the park or with other pet lovers. Just close your eyes and enjoy 'Pet Tongues' here without boundaries!

14.   Ian Smith 

 ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ by Monty Cantsin features much loved classics played entirely ‘on the spoons’ and recorded live at the closing gig of  The Glasgow Apollo 16^th June 1985 (supported by Paul Weller’s Style Council). Monty’s set was received with tumultuous applause, and the enthusiasm of the crowd is a key component of this historical recording. The track listing includes just one of Monty’s own cockney compositions - ‘Fanck the Police’, later revised by ‘Niggers With Attitude’ for their influential  1988 recording ‘Straight Outta Compton’, with slightly revised lyrics.

15.   Amy Marletta 

Self titled debut album (and only album?) from the Underground Pickles, re-issued after the original master tapes were discovered in someone’s garage.

Sound engineer Lonnie Dupree remembers the original recording sessions with the band:

“they were a misfit bunch, four of them as I recall, think a couple were sisters and the other were cousins or some relation. They’d have to be related to play together, don’t think no one else could have put up with that caterwauling. I didn’t know what to make of it but it seems some people like it.”

16.   Chris Biddlecombe 

It’s the many wrongs that make this record by Belgian producers Blancwash and Clare V, so right. This is a truly strange recording that for the first time in 75 years allows us to hear again the unnatural utterances of the Weeping Spinster. 

Josephine Tremlett was a semi-reclusive, backstreet ‘modern soothsayer’, who first came to public attention through the broadcasts of Ernest Bridgeman’s Night Speaker Neighbourhood in Stoke in the late 1920s.  

What Blancwash and Clare V have cleverly orchestrated here is a subversion of their usual Lowland club style by placing Josephine’s rhythmic whispers deep within a liquid score of sinuous acid lines, generous smudges of reverb and a handful of ghostly beats.

17.   Karen Vaughan 

In 1984 a bunch of disparate and somewhat unlikely souls, based in and around the county of Angus, stumbled into each other at the tech college and formed The High Common.  This was their first release, they went on to release a further six albums with the help of independent record label Round ’O’ Records.  They enjoyed cult icon status and success within in the Indie-folk scene but split up in 1991.  

18.   Alexander Violette

Untitled California are a group of sound artists and musicians who work under the direction of Steve De Silva and Mary Zodiac who met at SFAI in 1989. Their first album 10 was released on miniDV in a limited edition of 200. Their second , Static Empire, Wow, was produced by Japanese disco legend Fukushima/Fujiwara. This 12" mixed by DJ Autriche is for Mike Kelley, who committed suicide in 2011; while the B-side is an homage to the now defunct NY gay bathhouse Lapsed Alaska.

19.   Jason Nelson 

Forming in Fife in 1974, ‘Jet-black and Ginger’ oozed onto Scottish music scene with their own brand of genetically modified Mediaeval Folk Rock.  The album ‘Mince for Fingers’ took twenty two years to write and is widely regarded to be the second best of their three albums.  This esoteric concept album explored and reflected on the human condition through the deconstruction of traditional song writing paradigms.  Implementing a series of overly complicated and often pointless rules on the writing process the band effectively removed all creativity from their creative process.   Communicating exclusively with Morse code and Braille messages delivered by carrier pigeon each song on the album took an average of two years to write. 

Half way through the album the band effectively split as a result of the stress caused by the writing process.  All consequent Morse and Braille song writing communications went through the individual band member’s lawyers.   Although initially exacerbating the situation ‘The Legal Half’ as it has now become known proved a crucial turning point in the albums production and ultimate completion.  Predominantly the looming legal bill steadied the bands resolve and focused their efforts to complete the album.

20.   Jim Lambie 

Boyzilian – My Boyzilian

Boyzilian dedicate this album to the kid with the replaceable head. Boyzilian are based just around the bend.