Tag Archives: 6 music

PSYCH HOUR

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MUGSTAR MAN’S OUT-THERE RADIO HOUR

Should have done a quickie post about this sooner, because there aren’t many days until it expires, but if you’re seeking a 60-minute psych-out curated by an insider – and who isn’t? – check this Freak Zone Playlist on 6 Music.

Aired in connection with the Liverpool International Festival of Psychedelia last month, it features Jason Stoll – Mugstar bassist, God Unknown Records label dude – as your soft-spoken guide through the anything-goes.

Many high points here, especially Mesange’s ethereal low frequency – a Sunn O))) undercurrent to Zep’s In the Light spook – and Here Lies Man’s max fuzz Afrobeat, but the most audacious slab is Sly & the Family Drone/Dead Neanderthals. Destined not to be stuck on repeat in the car for the Aldi family shop, Sly/Dead hammer out a confrontational 10 minutes of doomed saxophony.

The psych playlist expires by October 28, go check it.

Stretching the Festival of Psychedelia theme a bit more, a link to Julie’s Haircut turned up in an email the other week – they also played the festival, and you can hear why. Whispered moto-shimmer with sax of a very different order to Sly/Dead, you might fancy picking them up for a psych expedition.

AND…Ritual Union music event this Saturday in Oxford. Bo Ningen, Ulrika Spacek and Flamingods are among the bands at this 4-stage Cowley Road special, let’s hope the whole thing rocks enough on the day/night. See you down there.

 

 

Julian Cope on 6 Music

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ARCH DRUDE IN FOR IGGY POP

We’ve had some stellar radio stand-ins on 6 Music for Jarvis Cocker of late, and this week we get the Arch Drude packing the Iggy Confidential slot on Friday 22nd, 7pm, for two hours of psychedelia – a must-listen, surely. Who knows what qualifies as psychedelic in Cope’s hefty book – I mean, Sleep’s Dopesmoker DEFINITELY, though that ain’t gonna make it onto a two-hour Friday night trip – but we may well get sunburned freak outs, acid fry-ups and sunnO)))shine daydreams cocktailed with the likes of Roky Erikson, Sky Saxon, Can, early Floyd and prime Love.

Floyd and Love have gotta be a cert for the playlist surely, because they’ve inspired and named Cope’s location-free festival that’s happening Right Now, every day this month, wherever YOU are:

SydArthur Festival

Buddhist appropriation entirely intended, SydArthur is a tribute to tenyearsgone Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee who passed away just 28 days apart in July/August 2006.

As ever, Cope needs little encouragement to evoke the Cosmic Order, the ancients, the gnostics and the sha-manics in rock n roll, and so the SydArthur Festival – a festival of the mind, of the head – is now a Thing on Head Heritage. Check the calendar and note that JC’s broadcast is George Clinton’s birthday. Parliafunkadelic on the playlist?

Line all of this up next to Uncut magazine’s fine fine fine Arthur Lee/Love feature last month and you can’t help but fire the Love revival machine so an in-through-the-side-door review may be on its way v soon.

Tune in Friday, turn it ON.

(br)Exit music

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REWIND JUNE: ENDUM BLUES + ROLLINS ON AIR

Revolution blues? No way is this a revolution, despite some claims. No, it’s the referendum blues and we got a nasty, nauseous dose, but surely no such shitefest a title as Referendum Blues actually exists in song form so we might as well just stumble On the Beach, shakey and shaken, for a ditch-weary Revolution Blues by that man Young: sinister and unsettling, yet musically pure-as.

And while we’re rejecting faux claims, what about the Far-Age call for a brexit independence day? Independence from what, a consensual union that we signed up for? Fuckwit. There was an independence day this week though, and it’s an obvious thing to do but sometimes you gotta be obvious to banish the loony tunes and KEEP SANE… leap to the Superunknown and take in that low-end 4th of July chug. Soundgarden, yes. Music always wins.

Anyway… we need (a) soul to lift sunken spirits. But who?

HENRY ROLLINS, ON UK RADIO. Sitting in for Jarvis Cocker on the 6 Music Sunday Service for four weeks, he’s as pure an example of a music obsessive as you’re likely to hear and he’s got the tunes to back it up. Guerilla Toss, Ngozi Family, Soccer Team… who are these bands? And why do they all sound like they could be your new favourites??? Of course, Rollins has his inside-the-biz stories, but he also knows when he knows nothing, and it’s that counterbalance, that utter helplessness in the face of mind-blowing music, that make for some vital radio listening. You might still be able to catch a couple of episodes on the iplayer.

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Rollins tracklist: old school iplayer

Right, time to get outta this short late unravelled-by-brexit Rewind. Could have said a few words about a new Melvins album, Three Men and a Baby – as satisfyingly warped-heavy as only Melvins know how – but, as of last week, it’s not the new Melvins album any more, is it? Basses Loaded just came out. Looks like Melvins will figure pretty heavily in the next few weeks.

’til next time!

 

New noise One Three One

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REWIND MARCH: Urthona soundtracking, Mike Patton Freakzone and MegaDave’s thirteen faves 

Very late round-up of some March bitz so let’s just GET – ON – WITH – IT. Without shouting, sorry.

After waiting like a dum-dum for the Urthona out-of-stock message to vanish on the Arch Drude’s Head Heritage Merchandiser page, I shook off my Total Bell head and went a-virtual hunting for Urthona Plays Atlantis?, another soundtrack to Julian Cope’s One Three One novel: yep, I went to the Source – Urthona’s own campband site. And guess what? Said CD is very-much-there, very-much-in-stock…pretty obvious when you think about, but I didn’t. Anyway, released back in January, this 37-minute two-tracker is livewire drone sculpting writ large, as you’d expect from Urthona’s self-styled heavy rural-ism. Bruxo is windswept soothing with semi-ambient sunburst, while Reppu is barbed and howling, a bringer of the sinister ’til it blows itself out on Pagey violinbow moans to kiss the mellow once again. Top-o’-the-moors stuff. If you know Urthona then no great changes (good, we like it that way), and if One Three One’s epic Vesuvio floated your whatsit last year, be sure to check Atlantis? right here. And – stock arrival alert (finally) – here.

Mike Patton John Kaada 

Kaada Patton are back! Not with More Romances from Johnny and Mikey, but the scarier sounding Bacteria Cult. They were interviewed – no, they spoke to each other and it was broadcast as an interview – on Stuart Maconie’s Freakzone at the weekend, and while the set-up sounds as natural as plastic, you gotta tune in, right? MIKE PATTON, on the wireless! ‘Interview’ is here, around 44 minutes in, and if you stick around in the F-zone there’s a new Enslaved track aired. Stick around even longer and there’s a Saturday night delve into Patton’s Many Many Bands on the Freakier Zone, April 10th. A fine excuse to visit that sprawling Patton back catalogue again.

Daveus Mustaineus Quietus

Of course, he’s not quiet – he knows not how – but this feature in Quietus was a pretty cool read: Mustaine and 13 of his fave formative albums. Words spoken like a fan, and man-of-the-year Bowie and classic Zep in the mix as well.

’til next time!

Supernormal freakzone metal

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REWIND JULY: BOUNDLESS WIRELESS

No gigs attended in July but there’s been a noisier-than-usual Freak Zone bent this past few weeks on 6Music – Sabbath AND Boris as featured albums, no less – so this Rewind is nothing more than a shameless bit of pass-it-on.

A LA CARTER ROCK

Daniel P Carter from the Radio 1 Rock Show turned up on the Freakier Zone with a half hour’s worth of grade-A heaviness the other week. It’s no longer on iplayer but here’s what he brung in:

Horseback – Mithras. Floyd-at-Pompeii meets Arbouretum heavy meets BLACK FCKN METAL …. yep, a jarring combo.

Fucked Up – Year of the Hare (excerpt). Piano wonk, noise stabs and post-hardcore stretched over 20 minutes. Ace. EP out this month.

Myrkur – the woman who is… well, who really knows? But this track, whatever it’s called (didn’t catch that bit), sweeps from black metal ferocity to folkish ambience pretty seamlessly, a real double-header. Pitchfork have been sniffy, citing PR machinations and identity scams (she’s a Chanel model. Is she?), but Terrorizer mag – surely more credible for this kind of thing – have put Myrkur on the front cover. Debut album M out this month.

Chelsea Wolfe – she was on the Freak Zone last week, her new record Abyss was Phil Alexander’s featured album on Planet Rock this week, and one hit of that luscious Nadja/Type O guitar-wall density starts to tell you why. Abyss is out this month.

So it’s hats off to Carter for bringing the noise to the Zone ( Steve Von Till got aired as well), and if this is the kind of stuff that appears in the last hour of his rock show – and he said it does – then I’ll be tempted for an end-of-show snoop. Not been to Radio 1 since John Peel died and Mary Anne Hobbs gave it up. 

SUPERNORMAL OXON QUAKER

But Maconie’s guitar excursions don’t stop with Carter, Sabbath or Boris because this coming weekend, he talks to the organisers of Supernormal festival in Oxfordshire. Never been to it meself, and I won’t be going this time either but that’s my loss – a loss that’s a bit bigger for having just encountered two of the bands, Father Murphy and Ghold. Especially Ghold: Om rhythms, Melvins obtuse. Sounds like a Beehoover/Big Business drum-bass gig, but I’ve only heard one track (Pursed) and not dug any deeper yet so what do I know? Bugger all. Bet they loosen a few fillings at Braziers Park though.

Right then, that’s it for now. Plenty of names to check, and we didn’t even mention the last of the Zep reissues …

’til next time!

Drudes, freaks and wolves

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The Arch Drude is back in the news – the book news. Fiction news, to be exact, coz he’s only gone and put out his new (and first) novel, One Three One, on Faber and Faber. He nipped in to Stuart Maconie’s Freakzone for a wee chat about it so go check the July 6th episode for a short interview and snatches of music from Neon Sardinia and Dayglo Maradona, just two of the book’s fictional-bands-real-music backstory.

And as if an interview wasn’t enough reason to tune in, check these amplifier-friendly arteests on that same show’s playlist:

  • Jex Thoth
  • Poino
  • Yes (new single!)
  • Brain Donor (a righteous My Pagan Ass, no less)
  • The Safety Fire (right-now prog)

Anything else to report and reveal from this surge of rock radio activity?

Only the promise of a Freakzone interview with Southern Lord’s WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM on Sunday

AND a 30-minute Cope mix on the Freakier Zone on Saturday.

Who needs the World Cup???