Adventures in the Rainbow Vortex

 

Inspired by some wonderful posts in the Bagging Area & Dubhead blogs, I've been listening to a lot of music from the years 1988-1994 again. You don't have to ask me twice about that. I always like to return to this time, always a little nostalgic and wistful. The posts gave me the idea that this was a really crazy time. I'm a child of the East, but thanks to the proximity to Berlin and the right radio stations, I was always well informed and, if necessary, I spent half the night in front of the radio recording John Peel on BFBS or Monika Dietl with her acid House shows on SFB. Then the wall came down and suddenly you had access to all the wonderful records, all the fantastic books, culture overkill. And during this time, from 1989, 1990 - 1994, so many great albums were released, it seems to me that it's no wonder that this time was one of the most formative of my life. They laid the foundation for much that came after. However, I also think that the time afterwards was never as intense again.

Jon Tye is the label boss of Lo recordings, where many impressive albums have been released since 1995. Their catalog of over 50 releases includes recordings by Aphex Twin, Blur, Mike Flowers and Squarepusher to name but a few. But it was Rothko who introduced me to John Peel. Rothko are a London based mainly instrumental group. The group mainly used 3 (!) Bass Guitars and keyboards to create their soundscapes. The first album “Negative for Francis” couldn't be found in Berlin at the time, so I had to order it from WOM - world of music. When it was finally available, I was in bed with a fever of 40, but that didn't stop me from dragging myself to Berlin and picking up the album. To immediately put it on tape at home and disappear back into bed with the tape and confide my fever dreams to Rothko. This is hard to imagine today, when many things are available at the click of a button. I've lost sight of Rothko a bit in recent years, but not Jon Tye. I didn't know it back then, but in my world today, with his many projects, whether Ocean Moon, Seahawks, Captain Sunshine, MLO, he is a daily companion.

“Adventures in the Rainbow Vortex” was released in 2021 on Aural Canyon, home to many wonderful ambient gems, and is one of them itself. For a wonderful, magical New Age meditation in which the Seahawks can also be found, listen to “Energy Mosaic,” for example.

In Jon‘s own Words: 

„All the ‘Adventures' material was recorded 2017-2018 at The Centre of Sound Maker Heights Cornwall. 

I always really liked the basic tracks but I could never get the mixes sounding as I wanted them to. When I came back to the tracks in 2021 all was clear and the new mixes came together really swiftly. 

I feel that the material is very different to the ‘World of Light’ album, more visceral and multi-faceted. With ‘World of Light’ I really wanted to create a sense of peace, a safe place. 

‘Adventures’ is more about journeys that can at times be turbulent and that go beyond the everyday. There is a shamanistic intensity to some of the tracks that can induce visions and although many of these visions may be beautiful others may invoke a sense of awe and of being engulfed. 

I can’t recall which keyboards were used other than the Roland Juno 6 and Yamaha SY-77, I also played zither, xylophone and bamboo wind chimes, Dan Hillman played a Moog on some tracks and saxophone on others. The field recordings were made on the deck in Millbrook. 

I hope this album takes you places you’ve never been before and that it takes you on adventures that are enriching and empowering.“

Ocean Moon

Adventures in the Rainbow Vortex

Label: Aural Canyon

2021

file under : Ambient I New Age I Kosmische

E for Edward

 

In 1988, after a short break, Ed Ball (TV Personalities, The Boo Radleys) restarted his project - the Times - essentially as a solo project on Creation Records. Until then he had released a handful of mod pop/rock records every year since 1982. Ed Ball's band had recently broken up, Creation boss Alan McGee arranged for his own band Biff Pang Pow! as a backing band to record “Beat Torture”. Ed Ball returned the favor by participating in their fourth album “Love is forever”. But big changes were coming: acid house and the second summer of love came to England and had a huge influence on his work. E for Edward, released in 1989, was his 2nd album for Creation.

„From here, it was just a short magic bus ride to ‘E for Edward’ 1989 Times album, by which time I’d been working at Creation for about a year and was in the froth and thrall of it’s Ecstasy culture.“

If you look at his activities in the following years, the man couldn't have slept more than 2 or 3 hours a day. His output was so enormous that he could no longer and would not put his ideas on the Times albums alone. And so we got wonderful albums as Love Corporation and Sand (a project that hardly anyone knows about anymore), which I will also write about. However, dance beats were no reason for him to put down the guitar. His album as Teenage Filmstars, “Lift off/Stars…” sounded to me like a melodic version of My Bloody Valentine and “Loveless”. However, I ignored his activities as Conspiracy of Noise (a violent rock collaboration with the singer of Extreme Noise Terror) (similar to KLF vs. ENT).

„If there’s any period that has a particular resonance with me, then its ’90 to ’93. There was an unspoken “licence” that existed at Creation by Alan’s decree. Any artist could make as many records as they liked, the prerequisites being you recorded inexpensively, quickly and could guarantee 5000+ sales. It benefited the label by filling the release schedules resulting in turnover. This privilege had briefly been in the hands of two or three other notable writers. I applied for the “licence” and had it for a year on probation. It prompted one weekly music paper to describe me as “the only artist in music today who uses and abuses his label” – for the next forty-odd months I made 12 albums, variously as The Times, Teenage Filmstars and . . .“

Looking back, you can say that his Creation Records years, where he also worked under Alan McGee, were the years that were the most interesting for me personally, but when “E for Edward” came out in 1989 I didn't know anything about any of that. The Berlin Wall fell at the end of the year and there were thousands of records, books, films and other things to discover. Money was tight, the Internet had not yet been invented and people had to rely on newspapers and magazines. Sometimes it led nowhere, sometimes it was a direct hit. I can't remember exactly, but I think I discovered "E for Edward" after "Pure" (1991). So there can be no question of chronology. The album has its big hit with “Manchester” and further wonderful moments with “French Film Bleurred”, “No Love On Haight Street” & “Snow”.

„In keeping with the album’s drug-oriented title, the record closes with “Acid Angel of Ecstasy,” a character study hissed over oscillating tremolo guitar. From there, it was only a drop, trip and a thump to the Love Corporation, a nom-de-dance under which Ball released a 1990 acid-house EP.“

• Ira Robbins -

And, and so on….and….that Ed Ball is a big New Order fan should have been clear at least since the Blue Monday cover version “Lundi bleu” with its many versions. The previously unreleased “Truth Faith” appeared a few years ago on a compilation that included my 3 favorite “the Times” albums “E for Edward” (1989) “Et Dieu Créa La Femme” (1990) & “Pure” ( 1991) were re-released on CD with further additional tracks. For me, “Manchester” is basically a New Order anthem without Hooky’s bass.

„So we're sitting in the snug bar waiting for Jase the Ace 

Hooky's by the jukebox doing his splendid to entertain

Look at Tony Wilson live on Channel 4…“

And then there's the matter of the back cover.

“Technique” was New Order's Ibiza album, the last for Tony Wilson's Factory and was released one year earlier. “E for Edward” is more than a clear reference.

 Interview Passages taken from creation records. Part2 will follow. 

File under: Pop / Dance

Gabriel García Márquez

 

No post yesterday. But daily posts are hardly realistic for me.

But: for given reasons:

„Gabriel García Márquez once recalled a story that he did not publish. He dreamed of his own funeral, of course it was a wonderful celebration, all his friends had come, in mourning clothes, but in great spirits. »We all seemed happy to see each other again. And me especially.” Simply because he finally saw all his friends in life gathered together. Then the party was over, Gabo, drunk with happiness, was getting ready to accompany his friends into the night when one of them said with decisive severity: "You're the only one who can't go." Márquez adds: "It was only then that I understood , Dying means never being with your friends again." But he later threw the story in the trash because, as he writes, "I didn't manage to describe it as exuberantly as it had been in the dream."

From weekly paper „ die Zeit“

RiP Manfred.

Curupira - creatures of the woods

 

I just saw “Curupira” by Felix Blume and was very impressed (about) possible field recordings for things to come.

Félix Blume is a sound artist and sound engineer. He currently works and lives between Mexico, Brazil and France.  He has been awarded with the “soundscape” prize (2018) for his video-piece

Curupira, Creatures of the woods:

„Inhabitants of Tauary, deep in the heart of the Amazon, invite us to listen to the sounds of the jungle, the birds, and animals. However, some weird sounds appear: a creature prowling around the trees. Some have heard her, very few have ever seen her, and those who did find her never came back. She charms, she enchants – she leads people to get lost: each of them tells a story in their own way and tries to decipher her sounds.

Curupira, bicho do mato takes us in search of this being: a reflection about myths and their place in the contemporary world. It’s a sound thriller in the midst of the jungle.“

„inhabitants of Tauary, a little village in the heart of the Amazon, invite us to listen to their everyday sounds for a day. From sunrise at the forest up to a canoe ride, throughout a stormy night, from playing in the river up to a crocodile hunting… In constant dialogue with their surroundings, they imitate animal shouts (monkeys, toucans, macaws, hummingbirds) so we can listen to their singing.“

-from div. Websites-

File under: Fieldrecordings I Rainforest I Nature I Flora I Fauna I Birds

Banana Leaf Paradise

 

If you read some discogs reviews of Saphileaum's albums, one hears an almost pleading call for a vinyl release of his already quite extensive output. Previously Saphileaum Releases were only MP3 Files or recently rather pretty well done masters on cassette.

Mule Musiq and Slow Life now have insight and so brings us the still quite young 2024 already has two vinyl releases by the Georgian Andro Gogibedashvili. He has been refining his sound since 2018 more and more close to perfection. We’re listening to “Banana Leaf Paradise,” which is what this is supposed to be about 7 tracks and 36 minutes of meditative, exotic and calming groove music full of organic percussion and tropical field recordings.
As you can follow on Andro's Instagram, the good man also gives workshops for children to find their own stories, touches with sound and rhythm.
Very likeable, clearly.

But the 36 minutes are over very quickly and you find yourself in front of the player to press the repeat button, or the vinyl again to turn around.

Beautiful Artwork too, by Santi Uribe.

Saphileaum

Banana Leaf Paradise

Label: Slow Life

2024

File under: Balearic I Ambient I Breaks I Tribal I Spiritual

Say Hello

Say goodbye, say hello. What is the correct way to say hello?

Is there a way?

This blog actually only exists to finally give my two cents from time to time

to add to the wonderful blogs by Adam Swiss Turner & Khayem.

I've been following the inspiring posts on Ban Ban Ton Ton for some time now.

There have also been guest contributions from Adam Turner here again and again. That he also has a blog,

and have been doing this since 2010 (!), I only realized it a few weeks ago.

During the weeks I was recovering from a bicycle accident, I did it every day

Read this wonderful, inspiring blog and the good man has grown quite fond of me in such a short time. Or as Adam Turner himself once said about someone:

A man after my own heart.

A blog about life and music, and more. Inspiring, stimulating, and that's it,

What can make a blog so valuable.

Trying to remember and picking out music you haven't heard in ages.

And suddenly they all come back, the images from the old life.

I will never be able to write in such an inspiring, entertaining, warm-hearted way,

like these two do almost daily with their blogs.

But, one or two records, one or two valuable (for me) books,

will appear here from time to time, as a supplement to my Instagram posts.

I'm not familiar with the matter,

Errors are likely.

We will see.